In This Hospitable Land (14 page)

By the time the family reached the church at the end of the street, turned around, and started back again, Geneviève was incensed and Denise’s strength had begun to falter. Then they heard disquieting news from people conversing heatedly on the sidewalks. The bad tidings were confirmed by a radio playing in the sole café.

Back in the attic the mercifully oblivious children raced to Louis and Rose to share their excitement about visiting town. But Denise and Geneviève took their husbands aside to tell them Mussolini’s Italy had declared war on France.

Events swiftly followed Il Duce’s announcement though his forces never actually deployed against the French. On Tuesday, June 11, Paris was declared an open city and the principals of the French government fled for Tours. Much of what remained of the population left amidst a pounding of the outskirts by the Luftwaffe. General Weygand ordered French forces to retreat. Three days later the Nazis captured Paris. The government left for Bordeaux.

Yet the Sauverins’ lives improved slightly. Denise and Geneviève persisted in taking the children into town and one day the most talkative woman in the village—a short, squat housewife in her fifties distinguished by a thick, red gash of lipstick—made the first friendly overture. Soon other housewives became more friendly.

“Can you imagine?” Denise told André one night as they rested abed in each other’s arms. “Madame de Montfort told everyone she couldn’t take in refugees because we’re relatives living here for free! When Nichette got wind of it she was good enough to deny it. The villagers don’t hold the ex-governor in high esteem. When they learned we actually pay a very high price they said, ‘That’s not right!’ and began treating us as if we’ve lived here all our lives.”

On Monday the seventeenth André and Alex decided to experience the family’s newfound popularity by joining the now-routine stroll to Bédouès. The weather was so agreeable the family extended the walk all the way to Florac. Along the path the brothers debated the implications of that morning’s news. Prime Minister Reynaud had resigned and Marshal Pétain had been asked to form a new government. Would the old war hero rally his fellow countrymen to fight on to victory despite the long odds or was Pétain being positioned to sue for peace?

The Sauverins stopped to rest at Florac’s central fountain. There was a sudden eruption of voices mingled together with a thin cry from across the way in a bustling café. Some patrons raced out. The rest sat stunned, silent.

The proprietor turned up the radio to so great a volume the fateful fearsome words could be heard over the pooling of water and the peals of laughter from the children’s especially energetic game of tag: “France surrenders!”

The adult Sauverins looked at one another in horror and confusion. The war had lasted little more than five weeks.

“Can this really be happening?” Alex asked incredulously. “Did we abandon Belgium only to be trapped in another vanquished country?”

Alex spent much of the next melancholy day in the Buick listening to the BBC as if to an oracle. Churchill had made a great brave speech to the House of Commons insisting that the British would “defend their island home and fight on until the curse of Hitler is removed.” French General Charles de Gaulle, having fled to London immediately upon the installation of Pétain, broadcast an appeal to French soldiers to keep fighting despite anything their discredited, subjugated government said or did.

This was cold comfort in Bédouès. The Sauverins now had no choice but to stay where they were and endure whatever the new circumstances brought.

André declared the time had come to find land to cultivate to grow food. It was the only positive step they could take.

Denise agreed enthusiastically. “That way we’ll have fresher, better food to eat than we can buy. We’ll save money too and prove we really care about Bédouès.”

The brothers set off at once to see the mayor.

Lucien Mauriac ran the small shop where André and Alex had purchased lime for whitewash on their first day at the château and almost everything else since. Lucien was thoughtful enough always to put aside a newspaper for Alex so that he could get it even late in the day.

He reacted cautiously when the Sauverins revealed their present mission. A middle-aged man with a full head of hair that curled over his ears and neck and large hands with fingers roughened from sorting the stock and constantly cleaning the premises with strong soap, Lucien looked over the two brothers as if seeing and appraising them for the first time. Dressed as always in rough work clothes and the blue duster he wore in the store, he eyed the brothers’ usual dark suits, clothes locals would only wear for church, weddings, and funerals. They were not typical farming outfits.

“So yours wasn’t just idle curiosity,” Lucien said to André and gently asked, “Are you sure you can handle farmwork even in a small way? I’d guess you haven’t done any before.”

“We don’t have much choice,” André explained.

“If we don’t learn now,” Alex added, “I bet we’ll end up hungry.”

The mayor peered at them as if trying to divine their souls. Then he slapped his meaty hands onto the counter. “I have a little land that might get you started. Hasn’t been worked for some years but it’s good earth.”

No cash changed hands. Instead the mayor and the Sauverins agreed to the region’s traditional arrangement: he provided the land and they would give him half their crop.

“I can give you some seeds to get you started.” Lucien put several packets onto the counter—tomatoes, squash, lettuce, pepper, beans, melons—and smiled warmly.

“We may need these,” Alex said, buying two spades, a hoe, and a heavy rake.

In the bright clear morning the whole family headed down the lane toward their new plot of land on the edge of town, near the spot where the hill began to rise toward the mountain beyond. The field was a badly overgrown, unpromising mess.

“I don’t understand,” winded Louis said perplexedly. “How will you ever get it tilled?”

Just then Lucien appeared, rolling along the narrow path from the village on a small tractor with a big plow attached to the rear. The mothers sheltered their nervous children as the tractor growled and its plow bit into the grasses and weeds, turning over rich earth.

With the land properly prepared, the Sauverin brothers loosened their ties. Without removing them or their suit jackets they commenced this new phase of their lives.

They started with carrots, which hadn’t been grown in Bédouès in memory. But Lucien had extolled their simplicity, so why not try?

André applied his studies of when to plant various crops, the soil type and fertilizer each preferred, and how to store them after harvesting. He kept meticulous records in his notebook, making a line drawing of the plot’s layout and keeping charts of the plantings, including the beans he and Alex soon added to the carrots, and pea seeds André bought in Florac. In Florac’s more numerous stores André had also found and acquired a small supply of chemical fertilizers to supplement the natural fertilizers from stabled and penned animals.

It was warm and sometimes stifling in the valley, particularly since the brothers persisted in wearing their wool suit jackets and ties. André tended to take short breaks to analyze operations but Alex soldiered on ceaselessly, overcoming obstacles with physical aggression, pouring into the job his many frustrations—including that of working in dirt, which offended his fastidious nature.

Yet Alex wished he could do this all himself. He was proud of his older brother and hated to see him “reduced” to working with his hands.

“You’ve met Einstein,” he said. “Talked with Einstein.”

“Yes,” André replied. “And he’s a man like any other.”

“Not like any other.”

“Perhaps with a bit more imagination. But remember Einstein produced his major advances through ‘thought experiments.’ He says his needs are simple: paper and pencil and time. Well I’ve got plenty of time here, not to mention my notebook and pen. Why shouldn’t I do some of my own best thinking while we labor together in this field?”