The Caves of Périgord (43 page)

“And you say that was the unit my father was in?” asked Clothilde quietly.

“No, not the Spaniards. They had all come from the war in Spain, where Marat had also served. Marat was a kind of commissar, a political rather than military chief, and there were several FTP bands under his orders. Marat even had some escaped Russian prisoners of war serving under him. He was supposed to have learned to speak Russian in Moscow. Your father was in a group led by Hercule, around Terrasson.”

Clothilde looked at her mother. “There’s some new information come up about my father, which is very worrying,” she said. Her mother sat very still, then looked across at her husband. Lydia held her breath.

“What do you mean?” her mother asked, her hand straying to her throat. “What information?”

“A German war diary from the Brehmer Division. It mentions my father as a
collabo
—a collaborator with the Germans.”

“You mean about his being forced to give information to stop your mother being hauled off to a concentration camp?” said the old man, gently. His wife bent at the waist and gave a hard, dry sob, as if about to retch. He reached across and put his hand on her shoulder. “Your mother told me about it the night I asked her to marry me. I told her it showed how much he loved her. I’d have done the same, Clothilde. I’d do the same for your mother now. The evil was the Germans, using a pregnant woman in that way. Using love in that way. They were beasts, Clothilde. Unspeakable beasts. Remember Oradour. Your mother and father did what they must to save your life, Clothilde.”

Her mother sat up and looked at Clothilde, stricken, as Clothilde put the palms of her hands flat against her face and her eyes. Lydia felt incapable of movement, but this awful tableau had to be broken. She reached over and rested her hand on the back of Clothilde’s neck, and the Frenchwoman put her hands down and reached her arms out to her mother. Lydia quietly let herself out of the courtyard and leaned against the gray stone wall, looking down the sloping street to the grassy bank with its picnickers and pizza stall and the confluence of the two rivers beyond it. The meeting of the Dordogne and the Vézère, as lovely a place as any in France, and the valleys that said more about the ancient history and glorious achievement of humankind than any other spot on earth. And just as much about the evil that humans could wreak upon each other. Those older humans had been more civilized than those of this century, Lydia thought. But perhaps only because they left so little trace of anything but their achievements. It took a different kind of civilization to leave records of its wickedness.

“So in the end, they were saved by love,” Lydia told Manners after dinner that evening. “Clothilde’s stepfather was right. The Germans had used and abused the love of Clothilde’s parents for their wicked ends. And that dear, wise man, her stepfather, showed us all this evening that love was the only redemption. The love Clothilde’s parents had for her. The love he had for Clothilde’s mother, even after she told him of what she had been forced to do. And finally, the love of Clothilde for her mother.”

“So in the end, love does conquer all,” said Manners pensively. They were dining alone at a simple restaurant that overlooked the Vézère. “It’s a very moving story, Lydia, and you tell it marvelously well. I feel almost as though I had been there, but in a way I’m glad I wasn’t. Clothilde seems such a formidable woman, it must have been a shock to see her in such a raw moment.”

“It’s not something that we often see, in peacetime.” She gestured vaguely at the river, the placid calm of it all. “It’s a shock to learn what happened here, in these picturesque villages, within living memory.”

“It was a shock in Northern Ireland, to see all that hatred taking place in streets that had Woolworth’s and Barclays Banks and familiar British cars,” he said. “It was that kind of furniture, the streetscapes, the advertisements, the sound of the BBC, that made you think you were at home when you weren’t. Horror amid the familiar and normal things is the worst horror of all.”

He paused and filled her glass. “And I must confess that there were times, when I was called out to see what had happened to one of my patrols in Ulster that had been blown up by a land mine, or saw one of my men shot down by a sniper in Bosnia when he was trying to keep the peace, when I felt that blind, terrible fury that probably consumed the Germans here. It needed all my training, all the codes of decency and discipline that a professional army tries to live by, to stop myself from reacting like a beast, like some SS thug.”

Lydia looked at him solemnly, feeling that she had just been privileged to hear a very rare and private confession, and she admired him for it. This was not a man who would ever want to admit that his self-discipline had ever come close to bending. It was not something she would ever care to admit herself. Normally, their reticence was something she liked in the English, and she felt touched that he had chosen to break it with her. She nodded in sympathy.

“As often as not, that barbarism is what they’re trying to provoke you into doing.

Vengeance is self-defeating.” He learned back and took a photocopy from his jacket pocket. “Let me tell you what I mean.”

“Listen to this. It’s from Horst’s research file, a message from the commander of the Das Reich division, General Heinz Lammerding, to his commander at 58th Corps. He sent it from quite near here on June tenth, the day he had initially been expected by the British and Americans
to arrive with his tanks in Normandy. I’ll translate it as I go. ‘The region Souillac-Figeac-Limoges and Clermont-Ferrand is in the control of tenacious and well-armed bands, totally in the hands of terrorists. German outposts and garrisons are cut off and in many cases besieged, often reduced to a single company of effectives, and French government forces have been totally paralyzed by the terrorists. The paralysis of the German positions is absolutely scandalous. Without a brutal and determined repression, the situation in this region will become a threat whose scale has not yet been comprehended. A new Communist state is being born here, a state that governs without opposition and that coordinates its attacks. The task of eliminating this danger must be transferred to locally based divisions. In their fifth year of war, the armored divisions are too good for that.’ General Lammerding sent that message just a few hours before his men burned Oradour.”

“He certainly delivered his brutal and determined repression. And he actually said that his armored divisions were too good for such a job?” Lydia inquired. “Good God.”

“Yes, he did. And he was right. It wasn’t their business to go round chasing guerrillas or burning women and children in churches. Their job was to get to Normandy and throw the Allies back into the sea. So here you have an experienced general, knowing what he should do, and then through anger or vengeance or sheer frustration, he fails to do it. General Lammerding wastes time and energy. His tanks don’t leave Périgueux until June fifteenth, eight days after he was first ordered to Normandy. Some of his units don’t get there until June thirtieth. One of the best military formations in Europe arrives piecemeal, and is thrown into the battle in dribs and drabs, patching a hole here, filling a gap there, instead of being used to punch a single armored fist into the invasion forces. It was a military disaster for the Germans.”

“And thus it was a military victory for the Resistance of the Dordogne,” said Lydia.

“Yes. Although won at monstrous cost.”

“It’s odd,” said Lydia, as the bill came and Manners paid. “We came here expecting to concentrate on the history of seventeen thousand years ago, and we have been caught up, consumed I suppose, by what happened just a few decades ago. And it’s all connected. The one leads to the other. This same river where men died stopping German tanks was the same river where ancient artists drank and fished. They even used the same caves.”

“And we still have our own cave to find,” said Manners. “Come on, I’ll walk you along this lovely riverbank as the sun sets.” She looked at him thoughtfully. She’d enjoy a walk, but there was something in his tone that alerted her. Twilight, riverbank, romantic setting. Brace yourself, my girl, she told herself. I do believe the man is girding himself to make a move.

“You’re determined to go on?” Lydia asked, taking his arm as they strolled down the steps by the bridge and onto an embankment that ran along the river’s edge. “You don’t want to give up now Malrand has advertised his reward.”

“No, not even with his security man snooping round to keep an eye on us. I want to finish this. How about you?”

“There was a moment when I wanted to go back to London, when I thought it was all too depressing,” she said frankly, enjoying the easy way their steps fell into rhythm. “But then seeing Clothilde with her mother this evening—I suppose I realized that matters must be resolved. It doesn’t do to duck them.”

“I’m glad you’re going to stay,” he said, squeezing her arm and placing his hand on hers. “Most of the fun would go out of this without you, Lydia.”

“Fun?” she said, startled. Where on earth did he think this conversation was going?

“I haven’t enjoyed the company of a woman so much as far back as I can remember,” he said soberly. His voice sounded almost gruff.

Aha, thought Lydia, biting back a smile. The tongue-tied but decent
Englishman is finally building up with grim fortitude to what seems to him to be a romantic declaration. She could feel his tension under her arm. He was looking firmly, even sternly ahead to the bend in the river. Should she help him, tease him, or remain silent? She couldn’t resist the tease and said lightly, “You seemed to spend most of your day enjoying the company of Horst.”

“Oh, he’s all right,” said Manners. “I wish it had been you, though.” He stopped, turned, and put his hands on her shoulders. “You are witty and interesting and lively, which are all qualities I prize highly. And I think you are kind. You were marvelous in looking after Clothilde.”

She felt her lips quiver as the smile began to break through. Would this man ever get to the point?

“You are marvelous altogether,” he said. Not quite stammering, Lydia noted. She had better stop this cool, detached observation of his—what would the appropriate military term be?—his deployment. She didn’t want to frighten the poor man off, and she hoped that she was looking suitably encouraging. Or at least not forbidding.

“You’re also very beautiful,” he said, and kissed her, hesitantly at first, as if he were out of practice, and then with growing enthusiasm.

Well, about time, thought Lydia, and kissed him back. She enjoyed the feel of his arms about her, and the bulk of his chest. She felt his hands come up to her face to cup her cheeks and he kissed her again, lingeringly. Mmmm, she said, or perhaps she only thought it. His beard was a little rough, but not abrasive, and his hair short enough for her hand to feel the smooth skin of his neck as her arms rose up his strong, broad back and he kissed her again warmly. She pressed against him, feeling agreeably conscious of her breasts. This, she thought, amid the gathering dusk, was decidedly pleasant, kissing in public like a teenager, and not caring who saw. He was a handsome and interesting man, and she did indeed feel rather beautiful and distinctly romantic. And she was content for this pleasure to continue to its logical conclusion. More than content, she thought. Distinctly eager.

“Manners,” she said as he broke off and beamed down at her with a rather endearing foolishness on his face. “Dear Manners. Don’t you think it’s time you took me to bed?”

Clothilde came onto the hotel terrace, looked at Lydia stretching contentedly like a cat in the sun, and glanced at Manners eating his morning croissant. Sipping her coffee, Lydia felt Clothilde’s amused gaze, and stared innocently back. Clothilde gave a distinct wink, sat down to join them, and said, “I was telephoned at home by the London Embassy late last night. They had a message that the ransom is accepted. Your father’s cave painting is being returned later today.”

“Jolly good,” said Manners. “I’ve had a message as well, from Malrand. It was dropped off at the hotel here first thing this morning.”