In This Hospitable Land (21 page)

“Is that a delicate situation,” André asked, drawn to and concerned for this young man who reminded him of his very best students in Brussels, “living in the same place as your girlfriend?”

“What? Oh! Fela’s not my girlfriend! I don’t have a girlfriend! She’s my comrade! And tomorrow we’re both going into
Les Chantiers de la Jeunesse.
I may have managed to escape the call-up for Germany but…”

“Les Chantiers de la Jeunesse?”

“‘Building sites for the young’—Pétain’s latest brainstorm. It’s supposed to get unemployed youth out of the cities and into the countryside—to thin dead trees out of the forests and hack out paths and lanes. Mornings anyway. Afternoons we’re supposed to have ‘educational opportunities.’
Moral
education they call it—an investigation of the ethics and legacy of France—but I think it’s all about indoctrination. And they want to keep an eye on us, keep us out of trouble. Keep us from
making
trouble. Ah well. I’ll enjoy the fresh air.”

By then the two men’s glasses had been drained and their cigarettes had gone out. Much as André enjoyed Max’s company and his stimulating perspective, he realized it would be rude to remain apart from the others any longer, especially now that he knew it was only a matter of hours before Max and his mother would be separated for some time to come.

With the evening at an end André reflected on how remarkable the Maurels were and how much he would miss them even though they had just met. He was especially touched when Suzanne said good night and embraced him with tears in her eyes.

“We will see you soon,” she assured him, smiling through her tears—or was she reassuring herself? “After all, now we are officially neighbors!”

“Yes,” André said, happy at the prospect. “Soleyrols isn’t all that far from your summer house, is it? We must have you to dinner as soon as we settle in.”

“And you must visit La Planche. Of course if you ever find yourselves in Alès I know Charles and Françoise would enjoy meeting you as much as we have.”

As the others drifted out of the dining room, André lingered for a final word with Max.

“I just wanted to tell you what a pleasure this has been,” André told him. “I trust we will meet again before too much time has passed. And I’d love to meet your friend Fela.”

“And she will look forward to meeting you,” added Max. They shook hands as the evening ended.

While Louis napped in the back bedroom, Rose sat in the large front room of the house across from the café, looking out the window, waiting for the bus. The previous week the bus driver had delivered the news of La Font to Alex and returned with a message on a plain sheet of paper, written in the same tiny elegant penmanship Alex used to mark his ratings on the backs of collectable stamps:
We will soon start sending bags of carrots, beets, and whatever else we can still harvest.

When Alex’s shipment finally arrived the last Thursday of September, it was not a disappointment. In addition to the large sacks of carrots and beets he had promised specifically and which the bus driver was kind enough to lug out and set beside Louis and Rose’s front door, there were two chickens and two rabbits in four separate cardboard boxes.

Chickens! Rabbits! Rose wondered what Alex knew about acquiring or raising them. Would André know what to do with them?

Distracted by these concerns, Rose forgot that André wanted another message delivered to Alex until the bus driver was climbing back into his conveyance. Racing to reach him before he drove off she called out, “Please! When you see Alex could you tell him André hopes he’ll find and buy a cast-iron wood-burning stove in Bédouès or maybe Florac that he can send along with you?”

“How on earth will we get it onto the bus?” the driver asked incredulously.

“Dismantle it,” Rose replied, having been prepared by her eldest. “André is certain you can manage it.”

Friday was Ida’s sixth birthday. Denise saved the newly arrived carrots and beets—which had taken André several difficult trips to haul up the hill—for that night’s dinner. Throughout the day Ida had had the great pleasure of chasing the chickens and petting the rabbits.

The biggest treat was the small birthday cake Madame Brignand was thoughtful and kind enough to bake and bring uphill with her teenaged daughters, Alice and Yvette—the young women who worked in the café. They were unusually pleasant young people, always smiling if not laughing, bubbling with energy and enthusiasm, remarkably close in age, temperament and thought, each repeating the other’s words almost before they had all come out.

Though the cake was nowhere near as good as those remembered from Brussels, Ida was happy to have it. And having the family’s first social visitors at La Font helped make her birthday seem special indeed. If only her aunt, uncle, and cousins could have been there.

Unfortunately in addition to the cake, Albertine delivered the news that Germany, Italy, and Japan had signed a mutual defense pact.

Outraged and despairing, André—who immediately recalled that Max Maurel had predicted this—declared, “This is a day that will be remembered for its treachery.”

“Hush,” Rose said. “Is that how you want Ida to remember her sixth birthday?”

Ida looked up perplexed. “What’s ‘treachery’?”

As the days and weeks went by, André became anxious for his brother’s helping hands. In addition to the harvesting of apples and chestnuts that would have to begin soon, there was much work to do to winterize the farmland. They had all the old farm equipment necessary but it was very primitive and in need of thorough mending. Yet they would need those tools because the ground was stony and difficult to work.

The primitivism of the place extended to the interior of the farmhouse. The house was often cold despite the great fire they struggled to keep ablaze in the fireplace. Though never before a complainer, Denise complained the straw-filled beds had no springs for support and the straw retained the cold. “It’s fortunate we brought all our own sheets and blankets from Le Coq,” mused Denise to Andre. “It does make the archaic beds a little more accommodating.”

The kitchen was filled with rustic, often ancient items: earthenware pots and big, black, iron cauldrons, old jam jars, glasses and crude china that would likely make Geneviève yearn for her beloved Limoges. Denise hoped her sister would be mollified by the heavy silverware from Belgium marked on every handle with the “SF” monogram that brought the Sauverin and Freedman families to mind, and by the Sauverins’ large heirloom tablecloth embroidered with an ornate letter “F.”

The window curtains which Denise had made were a nice touch. But there was nothing to be done about the plumbing. And everyone had to be careful to dump their “business” below and away from the stream so as not to contaminate the single source of water.

The longer Alex and his family delayed the happier with La Font they would be. Certainly they would be pleased with the wood-burning stove which Alex had purchased and with the bus driver’s help dismantled into three pieces. When it arrived in Soleyrols, André was fortunate that the other principal in the café, Albertine’s husband Louis, owned a horse-drawn cart which he volunteered for the demanding task of getting the large, heavy pieces uphill.

Once the pieces had been maneuvered into the kitchen, André succeeded in reassembling the stove himself. The great iron top was an enormous help in cooking and a water compartment to one side was large enough for three jerry cans of water. This most welcome additional source of warmth made heating up water to fill the tub at least once a week, for washing clothes and cleansing bodies, much more feasible and efficient.

Alex had chosen well. The stove grew hot swiftly, its fire starting quickly with dried sticks from the bush of broom or heather even the children could help gather.

Without doubt maintaining a sufficient supply of firewood for the fireplace and woodstove would be a big ongoing—and necessary—project. Already in October Soleyrols was dauntingly cold. The Sauverins could only imagine how much more bitter the weather would be when the long winter set in.