Suite Francaise (32 page)

At last the room was empty. The teacher had taken the girls out; the farmers’ wives were gone. The Viscountess sighed, not from tiredness but from disgust. How base and ugly people were! “You have to go to so much trouble to instil a glimmer of love into these sad souls . . .” she said to herself out loud, but as her spiritual adviser had suggested, she offered up her day’s tiredness and work to God.

8

“And what do the French think, Monsieur, of the outcome of the war?” Bonnet asked.

The women looked at each other, scandalised. It just wasn’t done. You simply didn’t talk to a German about the war—not about this one, or the other one, or about Maréchal Pétain, or about Mers-el-Kébir, or about how France had been split in two, or about the occupying forces, or about anything that mattered.

There was only one possible attitude: an affectation of cold indifference, the tone of voice Benoît used as he raised his glass, full to the brim with red wine: “They don’t give a damn, Monsieur.”

It was evening. The setting sun, clear and crisp, was a sign there would be a frost that night, but that the next day would undoubtedly be magnificent. Bonnet had spent all day in the village and was on his way to bed. But before going up, he had lingered downstairs—out of politeness, natural kindness, the desire to be well regarded or perhaps simply the wish to warm himself a moment by the fire. Dinner was almost over; Benoît was alone at the table; the women had already got up and were tidying the room, doing the dishes.

The German looked at the big useless bed with curiosity. “No one sleeps here, do they? It isn’t used for anything? How odd.”

“Sometimes it’s used,” said Madeleine, thinking of Jean-Marie.

She thought no one would guess, but Benoît frowned; every allusion to what had happened that past summer pierced straight through his heart like an arrow, but it was his business, no one else’s. He looked reproachfully at Cécile, who had started to snigger.

“Sometimes it can be useful,” he replied with excessive politeness. “You never know . . . If something bad happened to you, for example (not that I’d want it to). Around here, we lay out our dead on beds like this.”

Bonnet looked at him, amused, with the same scornful pity you feel when a wild animal grinds its teeth behind the bars of its cage. “Fortunately,” he thought, “this man will be busy working and won’t be around too often . . . and the women are more approachable.” He smiled. “In wartime, none of us wants to die in a bed.”

Madeleine, meanwhile, had gone out into the garden; she came back with some flowers to decorate the mantelpiece. They were the first lilacs of the season, as white as snow, with greenish tips. At the top of each stem the clusters of flowers were still in bud, but further down they opened out into perfumed blooms.

Bonnet lowered his pale face deep inside the bouquet. “How divine . . . and how well you know how to arrange flowers.”

For a second they stood silently, side by side. Benoît thought that she (his wife, his Madeleine) always seemed comfortable when it came to doing lady’s work—when she chose flowers, polished her nails, wore her hair differently from the other women in the area, when she spoke to strangers, held a book . . . “People shouldn’t take in foster-children, you never know where they come from,” he said to himself. Once more that painful thought . . . When he said, “You don’t know where they come from,” what he imagined, what he was afraid of, wasn’t that Madeleine might come from a family of alcoholics or thieves, but from the middle classes; perhaps it was
that
which made her sigh and say, “Oh, it’s so boring in the countryside,” or “I want to have pretty things, I do,” and it was
that
which made her feel some vague bond with strangers, with the enemy, so long as he happened to be a gentleman with fine clothes and clean hands.

He pushed his chair back angrily and went outside. It was time to get the animals in. He stayed in the warm darkness of the stables for a long time. A cow had given birth the day before. She tenderly licked her little calf with its big head, its thin trembling legs. Another cow was breathing quietly in the corner. He listened to her calm, deep breaths. From where he was, he could see the open door of the house; a shape appeared on the doorstep. Someone was worried because he hadn’t come back, they were looking for him. His mother or Madeleine? His mother, no doubt . . . Just his mother, sadly . . . He wouldn’t move from here until the German had gone upstairs. He’d see his light go on. Sure, electricity didn’t cost
him
anything. He was right; after a few moments a light shone through the window. At the same time the shadowy figure who’d been looking for him left the doorstep and ran lightly towards him. He felt his heart soften, as if some invisible hand had suddenly lifted the burden that had weighed so heavily on his chest for so long that he felt crushed by it.

“That you, Benoît?”

“Yes, I’m over here.”

“What are you doing? I was scared.”

“Scared? Of what? You’re crazy.”

“I don’t know. Come in.”

“Wait. Wait a little.”

He pulled her towards him. She struggled and pretended to laugh, but he could sense, by a kind of stiffening throughout her body, that she didn’t really want to laugh, that she didn’t find it funny, that she didn’t like being thrown down in the hay and cool straw, she didn’t like it . . . No! She didn’t like him . . . She got no pleasure from him.

He said very quietly, in a low voice, “Is there nothing you like?”

“There is . . . But not here, not like this, Benoît. I’m embarrassed.”

“Why? You think the cows might see you?” he said harshly. “Fine, go on, get out.”

She let out the despondent little moan that made him want to cry and kill her at the same time.

“The way you talk to me! Sometimes, I think you’re cross with me. For what? It’s Cécile who’s . . .”

He put his hand over her mouth; she quickly pulled away and continued, “She’s the one who’s getting you all worked up.”

“No one’s getting me worked up. I don’t need other people’s eyes to see, do I? All I know is whenever I come near you it’s always ‘Wait. Not now. Not tonight, the baby’s worn me out.’ Who are you waiting for?” he roared suddenly. “Who are you saving yourself for? Well? Well?”

“Let go of me!” she cried as he grabbed hold of her. “Let go of me! You’re hurting me.”

He pushed her away so violently that she hit her head on the low door frame. They looked at each other for a moment in silence. He picked up a rake and angrily stabbed at the hay.

“You’re wrong,” Madeleine said finally, then whispered tenderly, “Benoît . . . Poor dear Benoît . . . You’re wrong to think such things. Come on, I’m your wife; if I seem cold, sometimes, it’s because the baby wears me out. That’s all.”

“Let’s get out of here,” he said suddenly. “Let’s go up to bed.”

They went into the dark empty house. There was a little light left in the sky and at the tops of the trees. Everything else—the earth, the house, the meadows—was plunged into cool darkness. They undressed and got into bed. That night he didn’t try to take her. They lay awake, motionless, listening to the German’s breathing above their heads, the creaking of his bed. In the darkness, Madeleine reached for her husband’s hand and squeezed it tightly. “Benoît!”

“What?”

“Benoît, I just remembered. You have to hide your shotgun. Did you read the posters in town?”

“Yes,” he said sarcastically. “
Verboten
.
Verboten
. Death. That’s all they know how to say, the bastards.”

“Where are you going to hide it?”

“Forget it. It’s fine where it is.”

“Benoît, don’t be stubborn! It’s serious. You know how many people have been shot for not turning in their weapons.”

“You want me to give them my gun? Only chickens do that! I’m not scared of them. You want to know how I got away last summer? I killed two of them. They didn’t know what hit them! And I’ll kill some more,” he said furiously, shaking his fist in the dark at the German upstairs.

“I’m not saying you should hand it in, just hide it, bury it . . . There are plenty of good hiding places.”

“Can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve got to have it to hand. You think I’m going to let the foxes near us—or all the other stinking beasts? The château grounds are crawling with them. The Viscount, he’s a real coward. He’s shaking in his boots. He couldn’t kill a thing. Now there’s one who’s handed in his gun to the Commandant, and with a nice little salute to boot: ‘You’re very welcome, Messieurs, I’m truly honoured . . .’ It’s lucky me and my friends go up to his grounds at night. Otherwise the whole area would be overrun.”

“Don’t they hear the gunshots?”

“Of course not! It’s enormous, almost a forest.”

“Do you go there often?” said Madeleine, curious. “I didn’t know.”

“There’s lots of things you don’t know, my girl. We go looking for his young tomato plants and beetroot, fruit, anything he’s not taking to market. The Viscount . . .” He paused for a moment, plunged in thought, then added, “The Viscount, he’s one of the worst . . .”

For generations the Sabaries had been tenants of the Montmorts. For generations they had hated one another. The Sabaries said the Montmorts were mean to the poor, haughty, shifty; the Montmorts accused their tenants of having a “bad attitude.” They whispered these words as they shrugged their shoulders and raised their eyes to heaven; it was an expression that meant far more than even the Montmorts thought. The Sabaries’ way of perceiving poverty, wealth, peace, war, freedom, property, was not in itself less logical than the Montmorts’, but it was as contrary to theirs as fire is to water. Now there was even more to complain about. The way the Viscount saw it, Benoît had been a soldier in 1940 and, in the end, it was the soldiers’ lack of discipline, their lack of patriotism, their “bad attitude” that had been responsible for the defeat. Benoît, on the other hand, saw in Montmort one of those dashing officers in their tan boots who during those June days had headed towards the Spanish border in their expensive cars, with their wives and suitcases. Then had come “Collaboration” . . .

“He licks the Germans’ boots,” Benoît said darkly.

“Be careful,” said Madeleine. “You say what you think too much. And don’t be rude to that German up there . . .”

“If he starts chasing after you, I’ll . . .”

“You’re crazy!”

“I have eyes.”

“Are you going to be jealous of him too?” Madeleine exclaimed.

She regretted it as soon as she had said it: she shouldn’t have given substance to her jealous husband’s imagination. But after all, what was the use of keeping quiet about something they both knew.

“They’re both the same to me,” Benoît replied.

These well-groomed, clean-cut men with their quick, witty way of talking—the girls are drawn to them, in spite of themselves, because they’re flattered to be sought after by gentlemen . . . that’s what he means, thought Madeleine. If only he knew! Knew she’d loved Jean-Marie from the first moment, the very first moment she saw him lying on that stretcher, exhausted, covered in mud, in his bloody uniform! Loved. Yes. Lying in the dark, deep in that secret part of her heart, she repeated to herself over and over again, “I loved him. There it is. I still love him. I can’t help it.”

At dawn, the husky crow of the cock pierced the silence and put an end to their sleepless night. They both got up. She went to make the coffee, he to tend the animals.

9

Lucile Angellier sat in the shade of the cherry trees with a book and some embroidery. It was the only corner of the garden where trees and plants were left to grow untended, for these cherry trees bore little fruit.

But it was blossom time. Against a sky of pure and relentless blue—that deep but lustrous Sèvres blue seen on certain precious pieces of porcelain—floated branches that appeared to be covered in snow. The breath of wind that moved them was still chilly on this day in May; the flowers gently resisted, curling up with a kind of trembling grace and turning their pale stamens towards the ground. The sun shone through them, revealing a pattern of interlacing, delicate blue veins, visible through the opaque petals; this added something alive to the flower’s fragility, to its ethereal quality, something almost human, in the way that human can mean frailty and endurance both at the same time. The wind could ruffle these ravishing creations but it couldn’t destroy them, or even crush them; they swayed there, dreamily; they seemed ready to fall but held fast to their slim strong branches—branches that had something silvery about them, like the trunk itself, which grew tall and straight, sleek and slender, tinged with greys and purples. Between the clusters of white flowers were long thin leaves; in the shade they looked a delicate green, covered in silvery down; in the sunlight they seemed pink.

The garden ran alongside a narrow road, a country lane dotted with little cottages. This was where the Germans had set up their ammunitions store. A guard marched up and down, beneath a red sign that said in large letters:

VERBOTEN

and further down, in small writing, in French:

KEEP OUT UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH

The soldiers whistled as they groomed their horses and the horses ate the green shoots of the young trees. In the gardens bordering the road, men calmly went about their work. In shirtsleeves, corduroy trousers and straw hats, they tilled, pruned, watered, sowed, planted. Sometimes a German soldier would push open the gate of one of these little gardens to ask for a match to light his pipe, or for a fresh egg, or a glass of beer. The gardener would give him what he wanted; then, leaning on his spade and lost in thought, watch him walk away before turning back to his work with a shrug of the shoulders that was no doubt a reaction to a world of thoughts, so numerous, so deep, so serious and strange that it was impossible to express them in words.

Lucile began to embroider, but soon set down her work. The cherry blossom above her head was attracting wasps and bees; they were coming and going, darting about, diving into the centre of the flowers and drinking greedily, heads down and bodies trembling with a sort of spasmodic delight, while a great golden bumblebee, seemingly mocking these agile workers, swayed in the soft breeze as if on a hammock, barely moving and filling the air with its peaceful golden hum.