Wild Lavender (61 page)

The following day I returned to the post office to send more letters. ‘There is something for you,’ said the postmistress. ‘It looks official.’

Official
, I thought, alarm bells ringing in my head. That was not good. What I was hoping for was a handwritten letter from Roger telling me that he was all right. I opened the envelope and saw it was an article that Madame Goux had cut out from
Le Figaro
. Camille Casal had been found guilty of collaboration. Her punishment was to be banned from performing in France for five years. I remembered her hard face staring back at me the day I went to Fresnes prison. She was not going to suffer for her collaboration the way I had for my resistance.

‘Is it good news?’ the postmistress asked.

I shook my head. ‘It is no news,’ I said. ‘No news at all.’

A few weeks later I received another letter from Madame Goux, informing me that the Red Cross had not been able to locate Roger. But she had heard from Odette. She and Petite Simone had reached South America and were waiting for passage to Australia, where they had been accepted as refugees. There was no word yet of Monsieur Etienne or Joseph. Madame Goux asked after my family and Madame Ibert, and I realised that she didn’t know. I had not told anybody in Paris.

I walked through the autumn fields, relieved to have heard news about Odette and Petite Simone but still worried about the others. Australia? The irony was not lost on me.

‘A lavender farm? Like those in France?’

‘Very much so.’

I tried to imagine Roger’s country as he had described it. I saw a rugged coastline and centuries-old wilderness, a place untouched by the bitterness of war. With no news from Roger, and more revelations of atrocities appearing in the newspapers every day, the grim possibility that he, Monsieur Etienne and Joseph were dead gripped my heart. I had lost my family, why not them too?

By the time I reached the farmhouse, a mistral was blowing. I built a fire in the kitchen but it wasn’t enough to keep me warm. What would I do here during the winter? I thought of all the people around the world who were trying to trace their loved ones. If I returned to Paris, I could help the Red Cross with their searches. Maybe André and I could put together whatever was left of our fortunes to help war orphans?

Then another possibility came to me: maybe I should go to Australia. With my family dead, and the hope of Roger being found alive growing dimmer every day, what was there to keep me in France? I could not imagine myself singing or acting in films again, unless to entertain wounded soldiers or people in refugee camps. Perhaps I could make a new life in a new country with Odette and Petite Simone. But no sooner had my heart lifted with the idea than it crashed again. Trying to begin a new life was too painful. It was easier to stay here, in my cocoon.

The mistral howled louder. I emptied the contents of my travel bag on the floor, searching for another sweater. Something rattled on the flagstones. I saw the pouch my mother had given me with the rabbit bone inside.
You will need it. I can’t watch over you for ever.

You should have kept it for yourself, Maman, I thought.

I picked up the pouch and opened the drawstring. The bone was light in my hand. My mother hadn’t told me what part of the animal it came from but I guessed from the shape that it was the leg. Something caught my eye. I moved to the lamp and held the bone up to it. Etched along the side were words written in a shaky, unformed hand.
I squinted to read them:
A ma fille bien aimée pour qu’enfin brille sa lumière.
For my beloved daughter who shines her light at last.

I stared at the words, knowing that my mother had written them. But how? When had my mother learned to write? Or had she known how to all along?

Tears pricked my eyes at the memory of the woman who had always been a mystery to me, and now would be for ever so. The dead took their secrets with them.
For my beloved daughter who shines her light at last.
At least I could be sure of one thing: how much my mother had loved me.

After the fire went out, I huddled under my blankets, gazing at the moonlit sky through the hole in the ceiling. Sometime in the early hours of the morning the wind died down. I woke up, the moon shining on my face. I lifted myself out of bed, drawn to the light, and wrapped my blankets around my shoulders.

I shuffled into the kitchen and saw that the outside door had come loose on its hinges. It yawned open into the yard. The trees were magical in the silvery light. An owl sounded in the woods. I walked out into the courtyard with the floating lightness of a dreamer. The air was fresh and sparked with electricity against my skin. A shadow dropped like a curtain as a cloud passed over the face of the moon.

I turned towards the road and started. There were shapes moving in the spot where I had seen the gypsies dance so many years before. At first I couldn’t make out what they were and squinted like a near blind woman into the blackness. Then the cloud passed over and the moon shone again and I saw them: the silhouettes of two men and four women, the eldest of whom leaned on a stick. One of the women stood in front of the others, her scarlet dress billowing around her and her hair flying over her shoulders like a flag on the mast of a ship. She raised her hand towards me.

I wasn’t frightened but my breathing quickened. Tears blurred my eyes. Maman?

My feet pressed the ground with longing and desire. I wanted to run to her, to be enfolded in her arms. I wanted to be where she was, not alone in the moonlight. But gravity held onto my body and my feet would not move. Another cloud passed over the moon and I sensed something shift in the atmosphere. The others inched forward, their faces stars shining in the darkness. I looked at each of them in turn. Aunt Yvette and Bernard with their angelic blondeness; Minot’s smile; Madame Ibert’s graceful eyes; Madame Meyer’s plump cheeks. I understood why they had come as clearly as if they had told me. They wanted to say goodbye.

I turned to my mother. She spoke to me without moving her lips:
Nothing is wasted, Simone. The love we give never dies. It only changes form.

I caught a glimpse of Kira gazing at me with her vivid eyes and felt myself slipping back into the unconsciousness of sleep. Before I plunged into the darkness I heard my mother whisper:
Never be afraid to keep giving love.
The words landed on my aching heart as softly as a kiss.

‘
Simone, the lavender is waiting for you!
’

I opened my eyes. The sun was streaming through the hole in the roof, filling the room with light. I stared at the blue sky, waiting for the dull pain that was always in my heart to seize me. But it did not come. Instead, a different sensation flooded me. I wondered how it was that I could feel these flickers of joy lighting up my soul when there was nothing worth living for.

The wind had dissipated and the air felt cool and fresh. I breathed in; there was a smell of damp and pine, the smell of autumn in Provence. I listened to a bird singing in a nearby tree, trying to work out what it was. Then another sound, like a murmur, started up. I sat bolt upright,
straining my ears. The faint hum of a motorcar echoed in the air. Was it the motor truck bound for Sault? The sound became louder. I glanced around the room, looking for my dress. There were clothes hanging out of the dresser I had salvaged from one of the bedrooms, but nothing I could wear. Where was my dress? I spotted it hanging on the back of the door, where I had put it the night before. I tugged it on over my head and slipped on my shoes before running out of the house.

I still couldn’t see the car, but I was certain it was heading for the farm. Then it appeared through the grove of trees. A dusty Citroën with the grille missing. Who is it? I wondered. Most of the cars in the village used charcoal gas for fuel, but this one was running on petrol. The car pulled to a stop in the yard. I couldn’t see the driver through the glare of the glass. The door opened and André stepped out.

‘André!’ My heart melted at the sight of him. He has heard, I thought. He has heard and my dear friend has come to comfort me. André called my name back in greeting but said nothing more. He stepped around the front of the car and opened the passenger door. One leg stretched out, then another. A walking stick followed. Everything slowed down. André reached forward to help a man in an RAF uniform out of the car.

‘Roger?’ I whispered.

They both turned to me. I stared at the man in the RAF uniform, trying to find traces of my lover in the gaunt-looking figure. His head was shaved and there was a jagged scar above his left ear. No, it wasn’t Roger. It was another Allied serviceman, a friend of Roger’s perhaps, who had come to deliver bad news to me personally.

The man placed his stick in his right hand and limped up the rise. André stayed by the car. I could tell by the set of the airman’s jaw that walking caused him pain. I should have moved forward to make it easier for him, but I was frozen to the spot. I feared I would not be able to bear the news he was bringing me.

The messenger looked up at me. ‘Where are all the animals?’ he asked. ‘I was expecting you to have set up your own zoo by now.’

His face broke into a smile and then I saw beyond the ravages of war. The flickers of joy I had felt in my soul that morning burst into flame.

‘Roger!’

I ran towards him, my feet barely touching the earth, and threw my arms around his waist. Roger pressed me to his chest and leaned down to kiss me. His lips were tender, warm,
alive
. I kissed him and kissed him as if he were the last breath of oxygen on earth. Tears ran down my cheeks and mingled with our kisses. The tears tasted of possibilities, and the return of love and laughter.

We parted for a moment, our gazes locking in an embrace of their own. I should have asked what had happened to him, how he had escaped from the camp, but I could not find the words. All I knew was that he had died, and that I had died, and now we were back among the living. We had been given another chance.

A motor started and I turned in time to see André wave at me through the window of the Citroën. His smile was gentle and his eyes bid me farewell. I thought my heart was going to burst. I watched him turn the car around and disappear down the road.

‘André is the one who gave us this chance,’ I said. ‘He brought you back for me.’

‘He’s as tenacious as you,’ Roger said. ‘He searched every hospital until he found me.’

I closed my eyes, overcome by the sensation of flying. Green hills and forests loomed up ahead of me. Waves broke on the pristine white sands of wilderness beaches. I felt like an explorer coming upon a mystical land. It was beautiful, as if my soul had been set free from earthly restraints and I could see the past, present and future. There was pain and sadness and terror, but most of all there was goodness and love.

‘I think I am hallucinating,’ I said, opening my eyes. ‘I am seeing Tasmania.’

Roger laughed and slipped his arm around my waist.

I gazed into his smiling face and found myself smiling too. We walked together towards the remains of the farmhouse. Whatever else I had to face, I would not face it alone. My Australian had returned. Just as he had promised.