Charlotte Gray (19 page)

Andre reached out his hand and felt the man take it; some order returned to his existence.

"What's happened? Where's my mother?"

The young man did not answer; he looked afraid. Andre, seeing that something had happened which was beyond the power even of a friendly adult to explain, and seeing that it had happened to his parents, began to sob.

"What is it? Where is she? Where is she?"

The waiting room of the hotel de ville was filled with bewildered people, some sitting on the benches along the wall, some crowding up to the desk behind which a short-tempered clerk was trying to answer their questions.

Their inquiries were to do with obtaining permits or papers within the mayor's gift permission to leave building waste in a disused quarry, access to food coupons, the right to travel. The room had the smell of bodies confined for too long. Julien Levade held Andre's hand tightly as he forced his way to the front of the crowd. Resistance to him initially came in the form of looks and closed ranks; then, when it was clear he was paying no attention, women began to remonstrate with him.

Julien, who was a reasonable man, explained to them that a boy had lost his parents, that his errand was more urgent than theirs.

"I apologise, Madame, please excuse me. It's not for me, you understand, it's for the child. See how upset he is."

They looked. Andre had never been in the hotel de ville before; its vaulted hall, its marble stairs and now its room of bewildering officialdom had frightened him. He held more tightly to the hand of the strange man, hoping he would find a thread of order that would restore things to their proper place. The man seemed to think that the clerk would know where his mother was and Andre had no reason to think otherwise. Perhaps she was somewhere behind the counter, in a room at the back of the building. Since she was so powerful and had alone explained the world to him, he could not imagine how she might allow anything bad to happen to herself.

"I don't care what the matter is, you can't just push your way to the front."

"That's right. We've all got problems. You wait your turn like everyone else." Julien elbowed the woman to one side and leaned across the counter. He took the clerk by the arm and pulled him forwards.

"This child was sitting in the street outside his house. On the front door they've painted a Star of David and his parents have disappeared.

What's going on?"

The clerk tried to pull himself out of Julien's grip. The forms he had been handling fluttered to the floor.

"Let go of me! What do you think you're doing? Let go!"

"You heard what I said." Julien released Andre's hand so he could hold on more tightly to the clerk.

"Tell me what's going on. I heard rumours this morning. Extra trains at the station and things like that."

The clerk was visibly indignant at having both wrists in a stranger's angry grip and anxious to resettle his half-dislodged glasses.

"Let go of me. I don't know anything about it. It's nothing to do with the hotel de ville. You'd better go and speak to the police."

Julien pulled the clerk a little closer. Very quietly, he said, "You do know something, don't you?" Then he pushed him away, as though the feel of the other man's flesh had become repugnant, reached down again for Andre's hand and pushed his way back through the reproachful crowd.

Julien and Andre walked through the streets of Lavaurette. It was now late afternoon and the tables outside the Cafe du Commerce were starting to fill up. Despite the hot weather, the customers were properly dressed, the men in collar and tie, the women in dresses with handbags and polished shoes. Older men and women were making their way back from the baker's shop with their evening bread beneath their arm or poking out from shopping bags. From some of the houses that Julien and Andre passed the smell of dinner was starting to drift through open windows: not the rich meat-heavy smell of two years ago, but still passably aromatic with combinations of food saved, or extemporised from hidden stores. The church bell in the Place de 1'Eglise was striking six emphatically, a few seconds late, as it had done for a hundred and sixty years.

Andre's panic now precluded thought as he ran and stumbled alongside the striding Julien. The gendarmerie was on the other side of Lavaurette, across a gravelled forecourt, near to a shaded area where the men played boules. Julien pushed open the double doors and pulled Andre across the hall into an anteroom where a heavy ceiling fan was stirring the clotted air.

He rang a bell on the desk and they heard the sound, further back in the building, of a door grinding open.

A gendarme appeared, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his uniform, as though interrupted in an early evening snack. He shook hands with Julien, who knew him from his frequent rounds in Lavaurette: Bernard, an amiable enough man, who gave the appearance of being bored by his work.

"I'm trying to find out what's happened to this boy's parents." Bernard looked over the counter to where Andre stood, holding the fabric of Julien's trouser leg.

"What's his name?"

"Duguay. They live in the next street to mine."

Bernard's gaze flickered; then he looked down. He coughed and picked up some papers from the ledge below the counter.

' I think. let me see ... yes ... Duguay, Duguay, Duguay ... just a minute ... Yes, here we are." His finger came to rest on a typed list.

"Well?" said Julien.

"What's happened to them?"

"Oh well, I don't really know. It's nothing to do with the gendarmerie, you understand. Some sort of order from the Government as far as I know."

"Yes, but what happened?"

Bernard looked unhappy "I ... I think ... Listen, do you want to come into the office for a moment, leave the boy here?"

Julien looked down at Andre's hopeless face. To be left for a moment in an anteroom was not the worst problem he was now confronting. He nodded and followed Bernard through a glass door.

"I won't be a minute, Andre."

Andre sat on a rush-seated chair against the wall and swung his legs. He had stopped crying, but his mouth was filled with a peculiar taste. He felt extraordinarily aware of himself: of his breathing, his skin, the room about him. The seconds would not pass: it was as though time had stalled and had somehow wrapped itself around him with this dry flavour of abandonment. Bernard lit a cigarette in the office.

"It's nothing to do with us," he said, pulling an ashtray out from beneath some papers on the desk.

He sat down at his chair and indicated a seat on the other side.

Julien shook his head and stayed standing.

"Just tell me."

"We had a visit from the Vichy police. Those bastards, I hate them. Don't get me wrong, I like the Marshal. I respect him. But those men.. Anyway, this officer comes along and shows his papers and says he's got a list of people in the region."

"Jews?"

Bernard nodded.

"Well, Lavaurette, you know as well as I do what it's like. No one's been or come since the war, really. Immigrants, I mean.

It's not like Paris or Clermont. I didn't know the Duguays were ... I'm sure I've seen them in church. Anyway, there was a train coming up from the south, Montauban, Agen or somewhere. A special train and they had to be on it. That's what we were told."

"A special train?"

Bernard flinched at the sound of Julien's voice; there was an incredulous, unforgiving edge to it. He looked up at him, but could not hold his gaze. Julien said, "So then what happened? They came and took them?" Bernard swallowed.

"You probably heard what happened in Paris last month. There was a huge round-up there and they took them to some sports stadium. They had to put it off a bit because they suddenly realised it was the thirteenth, you know, the day before July the fourteenth and they thought it wouldn't be ... wouldn't be ..."

"Festive?"

Bernard coughed. Julien could see the sweat beginning to dampen his shirt collar where it dug into his neck. The cigarette had left a single strand of tobacco on his lower lip.

Bernard looked up at him and his eyes were pleading.

"I'm just a gendarme, I do what I'm told, I don't mean any harm. I just go about the town and try to help. I just ' " You did it yourself, didn't you?

"What?"

"You arrested them yourself, didn't you?"

Bernard's eyes went back to the desk. He rested his chin in his cupped hands and sighed. The breath came out jerkily.

"If it hadn't been me, they would have got someone else to do it. That family was going on the train one way or another, that's what you have to understand." Bernard stood up. He seemed to be rallying: he met Julien's eye again.

"Anyway, I don't have to explain to you. I've told you what I know because. well, because I know you. Because you asked. But if you think anyone in Lavaurette is going to blame me for obeying orders, you're mad. This is a law-abiding town. We respect the Government and we do what we're told.

That's the only way forward."

"Where's the train taking them then?"

"That I don't know. There are a number of refugee camps where ' " The Duguays are not refugees. They're French. They live here."

Bernard shrugged.

"Well, that's where they'll take them. It's just until the end of the war. Apparently she's a foreigner, and they haven't been here long. All these people pouring in from abroad, they have to be sorted out. I'm sure they'll be all right."

"Didn't the documents show where the train was going?"

"I dare say they did, but I didn't see them. I was just told to deliver the family to the station." Bernard looked down.

"Then they were angry because I only brought the parents."

"Why didn't you take the children?"

"I couldn't find them. The little one you've got, he must have been out in the fields. The other one, I ... I couldn't find."

"But he's only three or four. I've seen him often with his mother. She wouldn't have left him on his own,"

"I couldn't find him. That's all I'm saying. We weren't given enough time. I wasn't given the train time until this morning."

"Not like the gendarmerie to be so slipshod." Bernard said nothing. He took another cigarette from the packet, poked the loose tobacco in with his finger and thumped the little tube on the side of his desk. He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead before lighting the cigarette.

He offered the packet to Julien who shook his head.

"I wonder where he is," said Julien.

"The little one. Jacob, I think his name is.

"It's a mystery. Probably with a neighbour or something. Now, hadn't you better go and look after the other boy? They'll be back, you know."

"Aren't you going to arrest him? I'm sure they'd put on another train for him."

"You're a difficult bastard, aren't you? Can't you see, I'm trying to help you? As far as I'm concerned, both boys have vanished. Now for God's sake take him away."

"Tell me where the other one is. Tell me where the other one is and I'll never mention your part in this to anyone. This whole interview will be forgotten." Bernard's tongue ran out over his lips and this time he found the shred of tobacco. He pulled it back with his front teeth and worked it to the front of his tongue, from which he picked it with his finger and thumb.

"She was sobbing. The mother, she was clinging on to me. She wrapped herself round my feet so I couldn't move." Bernard turned his back on Julien and looked out of the window. He pushed it open, and from outside came the sandy thud and metal click of boules; they heard deep, laughing male voices, then the peaceful sound of glasses and a bottle of past is jangling on a tin tray that the waiter was bringing from the cafe.

"I was worried we were going to be late for the train. The father was weeping too. They begged me. I didn't know what to do. I shouldn't be in these situations ... It was terrible." Bernard's voice began to shake.

He turned back from the window. He had gone scarlet in the face and his fists were clenched by the side of his uniform.

"They took the child to the door of the cellar. He was screaming. The mother was hysterical. She was lying on the floor. In the end the father had to drag her off. He pushed the child inside and locked the door. I ... I had to let them do it. Then I got them out and took them by the back streets. We didn't use the avenue. I shouldn't have done it. I'm in trouble now."

Bernard was shaking. He rubbed the back of his sleeve across his purple cheek, where a tear had run.

Julien said, "You're not in trouble. I'll take care of it. Where's the key?" Bernard put his hand into his pocket and silently withdrew a rusted iron key, which he handed to Julien. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Julien, who had remained pale and apparently impassive, looked at him and put his head interrogatively to one side.

Bernard's confusion of feeling resolved itself into fearful anger.

"It's not my fault. I didn't want to do any of this. Don't look at me like that. I have a wife and family, too, you know. They're my first priority, they're the ones I have to think of before anyone else, before any Jews or anyone. You're not married, are you? Well, you wouldn't understand. If this gets out I'm finished. Do you promise me? Do you give me your absolute word?"

"Yes." Julien laid his hand on Bernard's arm.

"I give you my word. I'll say nothing of what's passed between us. In return, when they ask you about the children, you just stick to your story. They weren't there, and you don't know where they are. All right?" Bernard nodded. Julien held out his hand and Bernard took it. As Julien was opening the door to leave, Bernard said, "Why are you so interested in these children? Why have you taken it on yourself?"