‘My God.’
‘I said, “What do you mean?” He still had this big smile, as though he had done something clever and was taking me into his confidence. He thought for a moment and said “Mmm”. He was trying to find a subtle way of saying something. Then he said, “Let’s just say I always know where to look if I need a telegram sending after hours.”’
‘Oh my God, those poor boys.’
Julien nodded. ‘I said, “I don’t know what you mean.” I had to say that. He just kept on smiling. Then he said something like, “The numbers in the camps are disappointing, so the police have been scouring the fields and villages. Lavaurette’s a small place and two people’s enough for the quota.” Then he said, “For the time being.”’
Julien breathed deeply and struggled to take control of himself. He said softly, ‘We’d better go and talk about this.’
He stood up and turned to the German soldier, ‘We’re going to sleep now. Bed.’ He made a gesture of sleep with folded hands.
The German nodded and pointed at each of them in turn. He raised one finger, then two, then made a circle with his arms.
‘Yes, together,’ said Julien, putting his arm round Charlotte.
The soldier looked relieved at the prospect of guarding one room only.
‘Come,’ said Julien, beckoning with his hand. ‘I’ll show you.’
They went up the stairs and along the musty passageway, past Levade’s studio, with the German’s footsteps ringing out behind them.
Julien stopped outside one of the many vacant bedrooms and twisted the handle in the door. The room was large but bare, with pale grey panelling and one solid wardrobe with dark iron hinges. The German went over to the windows and looked out; he opened the catch, pushed apart the two heavy sections of framed glass and ran his hand along the sills outside as though looking for a ladder or perhaps a concealed machine gun.
He nodded affirmatively, went over to a chair in the corner and sat down.
‘No,’ said Julien. ‘You. Outside.’ He pointed.
The man shook his head and lifted his rifle a few degrees.
Julien said, ‘Man. Woman. Last night together.’
The soldier looked blank. ‘Can you speak German, Dominique?’
‘No.’ She looked at the German. ‘Italiano?’
He shook his head, distrustfully.
‘I don’t want to speak in English, it might make him suspicious,’ she whispered in Julien’s ear. ‘But I could tell you the English words and you could ask. Say, “Do you speak English?”’
Julien repeated the words slowly and some small light of comprehension came into the German’s eyes.
Charlotte whispered, ‘Say, “Man, woman.” Point to the bed.’
Julien said the words and raised an eyebrow expressively as he pointed.
The German angrily shook his head.
‘Please, please,’ said Charlotte, again in German, holding her hands together and giving the man her most supplicant, flirtatious smile.
He was unimpressed.
‘It doesn’t really matter,’ said Julien. ‘We’ll just have to talk in front of him. He doesn’t understand anyway.’
For a long time Julien sat staring at the bed, running his finger over the faded pattern on the cover; then he lifted his head and looked into Charlotte’s expectant eyes. ‘I think my father will be pleased to die. I think he has no fear of it.’
Julien’s voice sounded unsure.
‘You made the right choice,’ said Charlotte.
‘He’s unhappy. He hates what he calls his sensual urges. He’s lost the ability to paint good pictures. His faith will make it easier for him.’
Charlotte stroked his hand. ‘I’m sure you did the right thing, I’m sure you did. It must have been awful for you, but—’
‘I felt like Judas. I’m glad I couldn’t see the expression in his eyes.’
‘I think he understood,’ Charlotte said. ‘When I said goodbye and gave him your love I really think he understood.’
She did not believe what she was saying, and she could not bear the thought that Levade might be taken to his death believing that his son had betrayed him. She said, ‘He must have guessed that you had a motive. He knew how much you loved him.’
‘Did you tell him anything?’
‘I didn’t know what to say. Why didn’t you call out to him and explain?’
‘Then the Germans would have known about the boys.’
‘Don’t you think they know anyway?’
‘No. I’m sure it’s just Benech. He wants his own power. For the time being. I don’t think the German officer was really interested, I think he just wants to get back to his unit. He’s only here because of the railway junction. I don’t think he’s even interested in me. Otherwise he wouldn’t have left me behind with this old fool.’ He did not look at the guard.
‘I thought he was just waiting for the documents.’
‘He could have taken me if he wanted. I said I was a Jew. He could have told the police to take me in for not having my card stamped with the word Jew.’
Charlotte looked down and found she was still holding Julien’s hand. ‘And what are you going to do?’
‘Insist they take me. Otherwise Benech will tell them about André and Jacob.’
‘They wouldn’t really,’ said Charlotte. ‘They couldn’t. Not in cold blood. Two little boys. They—’
‘We’ve gone past that point,’ said Julien. ‘They’ll do anything. This is going to get worse. I have a dreadful feeling that it’s all just beginning. Everything till now has been manoeuvring. Now all hell’s going to break open.’
Charlotte was thinking of Levade, alone in the police cell. He had lost hope in his country and in his art; despite what she had told Julien, she thought Levade also believed that Julien had betrayed him. What else could he have thought? His attitude at the end when he embraced Charlotte in the hall was not of understanding, but of resignation: all this, his fatalistic expression seemed to say, and my son, too . . . But somehow she would get word to him; no one could be left alone in such ruins.
‘Listen, Julien,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and warn Sylvie Cariteau to get the boys moved somewhere safe, and you see if you can escape.’
‘How?’
‘You said he was just an old fool. You can think of something. Perhaps he’ll fall asleep.’
Julien thought for a long time. ‘I don’t want to risk it. I couldn’t bear the thought of them taking André and Jacob.’
Charlotte said, ‘I think you’re wrong. You’re important, Julien. You could carry on your work. If it’s going to get worse, as you say, then you must be here to fight. I can get the boys out of Sylvie’s house.’
Julien shook his head. ‘It’s too dangerous. I’m not going to be responsible for the death of the children. I’d rather die myself. This is exactly the problem I was talking about downstairs. Suppose I escaped, suppose they took the boys and then they caught me, too? If you don’t base your actions on what is right, then you have nothing left to fall back on if the practicalities fail.’
‘I love those boys, Julien. I’ll do anything to help them. But for you to give yourself up is a futile gesture. A fine one, perhaps, but quite futile. If you stay free you can save the lives of many more people.’
‘I must kill Benech.’
‘What?’
‘That’s the only solution. He’s the only one who knows. It’s the one thing that would help and also somehow be right.’
Charlotte thought for a moment. ‘All right.’ If it meant Julien would try to escape then she was in favour of anything. ‘And then what?’
‘Then I’ll have to leave Lavaurette. I’ll go and join a network somewhere. Pretty soon there’ll be proper groups of fighters, I’m sure.’
‘Good,’ said Charlotte. ‘Good, that’s right. And I’ll make sure the boys are moved anyway, just to be on the safe side, just in case Benech has told Pichon.’ She paused. ‘And you’re
not worried about killing a man?’
Julien shook his head. ‘Not any more. Not that man. It’s a war now. If you fight in a war you take the risk of being killed.’
There was a pause as they both inspected the new plan, neither of them quite able to believe that they had come to an agreement.
Julien said, ‘The important thing is to move the boys quickly, so if anything goes wrong they’re already out of Sylvie’s house. So you must get there now. I’ll deal with Benech later in the day. Then you must go to the monastery. You know where it is, the one I’m working on?’
Charlotte nodded. She felt a small metal object being pressed into her hand.
‘That’s a spare key to the temporary fence, on the building site,’ said Julien. ‘Then in the morning, go straight away to the wireless operator.’ He put his lips to her ear and whispered a name and address. ‘The operator will find a safe house for you till the plane comes. But you mustn’t stay a second in Lavaurette. Do you understand? For God’s sake go now.’ He was squeezing her hand.
‘Yes, I promise. But in return I want you to keep in touch with Sylvie. See if there are messages from me. Do you promise?’
‘The post office is under German control now. Since they came into the Free Zone.’
‘Sylvie will find a way. Promise me you’ll be in touch with her.’
In Charlotte’s mind there was already the outline of a plan for not going home. She had not finished yet.
Julien looked at her quizzically. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But don’t do anything stupid. Don’t try and find him, will you? Just go home.’
‘You’re hurting my hand,’ said Charlotte. ‘Now how do I get out of here?’
Julien shrugged. ‘Ask to go to the bathroom. Say it’s urgent.’
Charlotte smiled. ‘I don’t know the German for bathroom. I’m not going to mime it.’
‘If I ask he’ll tell me to do it out of the window. It has to be you.’
‘He’ll tell me to do it in the washstand. Don’t look now, but there’s even a chamber pot underneath.’
‘I have an idea,’ said Julien. ‘Do you remember what I said about man, woman, last night together?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s what we must do.’
‘In front of this man?’
‘He’ll have to stop it in some way.’
‘But . . . Julien. Then, then . . .’ The objection that came to Charlotte’s lips surprised her. ‘Then I must say goodbye now. Before we . . . begin.’
Julien nodded. Whenever he had talked to Charlotte about love or about his desire for her, he had always been smiling, and now his face was grave. It seemed quite wrong to her, to begin in this way, without his laughter or cajoling.
‘I don’t want to say goodbye.’
‘Nor do I, Dominique. We’ve been friends, haven’t we?’
‘We’ve been friends.’ She nodded, biting her lip.
‘It’s a good thing to be. But I’m not your lover.’
‘No.’
‘I know about him. You must wait for him.’
‘I will wait for him.’ It was clear. There was no doubt in her mind. ‘But you, Julien, I’ve never had a friend like this. I don’t want to say goodbye to you now.’
She was gripping his hand very hard on the bed.
‘Don’t look at me with those eyes, Dominique.’
‘I’m frightened, Julien.’
‘You’ll be all right. As long as you don’t delay. If something goes wrong, get in touch with Sylvie Cariteau.’
‘I’m not frightened for me. It’s for you.’
She pictured Julien slipping off in the night to kill Benech, then vanishing somewhere into the hills. There were not yet enough people for him to join, no proper network; he would be tracked down and shot. She could not bear to think of him hunted and afraid because it was not in his nature to be like that; she wanted him to be in his office, bantering with one of his Paulines, pouring out wine while he spoke into the telephone.
‘I’ll be all right.’ His solemn face at last broke open in a narrow smile. He leaned forward to kiss Charlotte on the lips.
She had seldom felt less lustful, but in the interests of André and Jacob she forced herself to dissimulate a passionate response. She stroked Julien’s hair, she murmured as he kissed her cheek.
She lay back on the bed and circled Julien’s neck with her arms. She felt his hand run up her leg and begin to lift her dress. There was still no sound from the German.
Julien was whispering, ‘I don’t know what more I can do. He doesn’t seem to have noticed.’
‘Just hold me,’ she whispered back hotly in his ear.
‘It’s not enough. Make more noise.’
Charlotte closed her eyes and felt the bed rock in the way she remembered from the night in Julien’s apartment. She tried to sigh passionately, but her breath caught in her throat. His hands again lifted the skirt of her dress and began to pull at her underclothes. She could not go on with this much longer. Of all her mixed feelings, the one that was rising to the surface was the shame of being watched.
She felt Julien lower himself on top of her, then she heard at last a sound she would never have thought welcome, a coarsely uttered German order. Julien made no movement, but continued to manoeuvre himself on top of her. Charlotte, still with her eyes closed, heard the German voice a second time, nearer, and felt Julien’s body being pushed sideways.
Julien rolled to the side of the bed and pulled Charlotte up with him. As she desperately pushed down her dress, he persisted in his passionate embraces, pulling at the buttons on her back, lowering his head to her breast, compelling the German to force Charlotte away. He pushed her strongly back against the door and shouted at Julien who was half undressed.
‘Run!’ screamed Julien, but Charlotte stood for a moment, her hair disarrayed, her clothes rucked and caught, unable quite to let go.
As the German turned to look at her, Julien threw his arms round the man’s neck and wrestled him towards the window. ‘Go!’ he screamed over his shoulder, and Charlotte turned, twisted the handle of the door and plunged out into the cold, dark corridor.
She ran past Levade’s studio to the top of the stairs, caught the banister and, half-tripping, slithered down the wooden steps. In the hallway she thought of going for her coat, but the frantic urgency of Julien’s voice was still in her ear.
She heaved open the double doors of the Domaine and went down into the winter’s night. She ran to the barn where her bicycle was kept. Thinking it better to be in darkness, she did not attach the dynamo, but pedalled off beneath the arch of the pigeonnier, then, panting, swung the bike into the long drive, where she lowered her head against the freezing drizzle of the night and strained her eyes to see the potholes and the grassy verge beneath the rows of darkened plane trees.
8
PETER GREGORY WAS in a deplorable state by the time Pascale had undressed him and put him to bed in her apartment above the harbour in Marseille. He had a high temperature as a result of the infection in his leg and he was exhausted by exertion and from lack of food. Pascale called a doctor, who drained the wound and said there was nothing more he could do; the activities of the previous days had made things worse and he could only recommend rest.
At the height of his fever Gregory called out, and Pascale came to him.
She sat by the bed and held his hand. ‘Hold on to me,’ he breathily begged her.
When the delirium took him from her again, she ran from the room and soaked cloths to press on his forehead. At last, his face scarlet and dripping, his hair plastered to his head, he subsided into sleep.
Pascale, under her real name of Nancy Brogan, had been married to a French industrialist, for whom she had forsaken her Pennsylvania home and her job with a news magazine to move into a house in Lyon. He had died of a heart attack, leaving Nancy a widow at the age of thirty-nine, three years before. She shuttled back and forth between her friends, most of whom w
ere in New York, and her new home in Lyon. Her old college classmates told her she was crazy not to come back; one of them even secured her an offer of a job with a publisher. Yet she felt drawn back to her husband’s country, and when a visiting Englishman tentatively suggested she might be of help to him, the decision to stay was easy.
She liked washing and tending her passive patient. It brought back some childish satisfaction, a feeling of control. She felt that her own life was at a critical stage, and that caring for this man might help. She felt no older in herself than she had done on the day of her graduation from Vassar; she had discovered that ageing and what they called ‘maturity’ were myths, that all the years did was disqualify you from various pleasures, one by one.
As Gregory grew better, he began to talk to her about his life. Unable to look after himself, he depended on Nancy, and from such dependence a sense of trust grew naturally. Physically, he prospered. She gathered from his stories how active he had been in planes, in playing golf and other games; she saw an underlying health begin to reassert itself as the infection retreated from his leg and he felt the benefits of her care. Yet she sensed exhaustion in him too: a spiritual fatigue that was unrelated to anything the doctor diagnosed.
He told Nancy about a woman he loved. He told her he felt unworthy of her, so much so that he wouldn’t even say her name. He was not sure that she would want to see him if he managed to get back. He had not appreciated her at first, had not seen how much he loved her until it was too late, and now he cursed himself for his stupidity.
For all his passion when he spoke of this absent person, Nancy found that she straightened her wavy brown hair before she went into his room; she wore a little red lipstick. After all, she was young.
She tried to make a place for him outside the cares of war and the fatal ties of human obligation. She brought him food she conjured with American dollars from the blackest market of the port; she brought him half bottles of Burgundy she had had dispatched from the replete cellars of her husband’s old house; she brought luxury to her unreal world.