Suite Francaise Part 22

Let them go where they want; as for me, I'll do as I please. I want to be free. I'm not asking for superficial freedom, the freedom to travel, to leave this house (even though that would be unimaginably blissful). I'd rather feel free inside-to choose my own path, never to waver, not to follow the swarm. I hate this community spirit they go on and on about. The Germans, the French, the Gaullists, they all agree on one thing: you have to love, think, live with other people, as part of a state, a country, a political party. Oh, my G.o.d! I don't want to! I'm just a poor useless woman; I don't know anything but I want to be free! Slaves, she continued thinking. We're becoming slaves; the war scatters us in all directions, takes away everything we own, s.n.a.t.c.hes the bread from out of our mouths; let me at least retain the right to decide my own destiny, to laugh at it, defy it, escape it if I can. A slave? Better to be a slave than a dog who thinks he's free as he trots along behind his master. She listened to the sound of men and horses pa.s.sing by. They don't even realise they're slaves, she said to herself, and I, I would be just like them if a sense of pity, solidarity, the "spirit of the hive" forced me to refuse to be happy.

This friendship between herself and the German, this dark secret, an entire universe hidden in the heart of the hostile house, my G.o.d, how sweet it was. Finally she felt she was a human being, proud and free. She wouldn't allow anyone to intrude into her personal world. No one. It's no one's business. Let everyone else fight one another, hate one another. Even if his father and mine fought in the past. Even if he himself took my husband prisoner . . . (an idea that obsessed her unhappy mother-in-law) what difference would it make? We're friends. Friends? She walked through the dim entrance hall and went up to the mirror on the chest of drawers that was framed in black wood; she looked at her dark eyes and trembling lips and smiled. "Friends? He loves me," she whispered. She brought her lips to the mirror and gently kissed her reflection. "Yes, he loves you. You don't owe anything to the husband who betrayed you, deserted you . . . But he's a prisoner of war! Your husband is a prisoner of war and you let a German get close to you, take his place? Well, yes. So what? The one who's gone, the prisoner of war, the husband, I never loved him. I hope he never comes back. I hope he dies!

"But wait . . . think . . ." she continued, leaning her forehead against the mirror. She felt as if she were talking to a part of herself she hadn't known existed until then, who'd been invisible and whom she was seeing now for the first time, a woman with brown eyes, thin, trembling lips, burning cheeks, who was her but not entirely her. "But wait, think . . . be logical . . . listen to the voice of reason . . . you're a sensible woman . . . you're French . . . where will all this lead? He's a soldier, he's married, he'll go away; where will it lead? Will it be anything more than a moment of fleeting happiness? Not even happiness, just pleasure? Do you even know what that is?" She was fascinated by her reflection in the mirror; it both pleased her and frightened her.

She heard the cook's footsteps in the pantry near the entrance hall; she jumped back in terror and started walking aimlessly through the house. My G.o.d, what an enormous empty house! Her mother-in-law, as she had vowed, no longer left her room; her meals were taken up to her. But even though she wasn't there, Lucile could still sense her. This house was a reflection of her, the truest part of her being, just as the truest part of Lucile was the slender young woman (in love, courageous, happy, in despair) who had just been smiling at herself in the mirror with the black frame. (She had disappeared; all that was left of Lucile Angellier was a lifeless ghost, a woman who wandered aimlessly through the rooms, who leaned her face against the windows, who automatically tidied all the useless, ugly objects that decorated the mantelpiece.) What a day! The air was heavy, the sky grey. The blossoming lime trees had been battered by gusts of cold wind. A room, a house of my very own, thought Lucile, a perfect room, almost bare, a beautiful lamp . . . If only I could close these shutters and put on the lights to block out this awful weather. Marthe would ask if I were ill; she'd go and tell my mother-in-law, who would come and open the curtains and turn off the lights because of the cost of electricity. I can't play the piano: it would be seen as an insult to my absent husband. I'd happily go for a walk in the woods in spite of the rain, but everyone would know about it. "Lucile Angellier's gone mad," they'd all say. That's enough to have a woman locked up around here.

She laughed as she recalled a young girl she'd heard about whose parents had shut her up in a nursing home because she would slip away and run down to the lake whenever there was a full moon. The lake, the night . . . The lake beneath this torrential rain. Oh, anywhere far away! Somewhere else. These horses, these men, these poor resigned people, hunched over in the rain . . . She tore herself away from the window. "I'm nothing like them," she told herself, yet she felt bound to them by invisible chains.

She went into Bruno's bedroom. Several times she had slipped quietly into his room in the evening, her heart pounding. He would be propped up on his bed, fully dressed, reading or writing, the metallic blond of his hair glistening beneath the lamp. On an armchair in the corner of the room would be his heavy belt with the motto Gott mit uns Gott mit uns engraved on the buckle, a black revolver, his cap and almond-green greatcoat; he would take the coat and put it over Lucile's legs because the nights were cold since the week before with its endless storms. engraved on the buckle, a black revolver, his cap and almond-green greatcoat; he would take the coat and put it over Lucile's legs because the nights were cold since the week before with its endless storms.

They were alone-they felt they were alone-in the great sleeping house. Not a word of their true feelings was spoken; they didn't kiss. There was simply silence. Silence followed by feverish, pa.s.sionate conversations about their own countries, their families, music, books . . . They felt a strange happiness, an urgent need to reveal their hearts to each other-the urgency of lovers, which is already a gift, the very first one, the gift of the soul before the body surrenders. "Know me, look at me. This is who I am. This is how I have lived, this is what I have loved. And you? What about you, my darling?" But up until now, not a single word of love. What was the point? Words are pointless when your voices falter, when your mouths are trembling, amid such long silences. Slowly, gently, Lucile touched the books on the table. The Gothic lettering looked so bizarre, so ugly. The Germans, the Germans . . . A Frenchman wouldn't have let me leave with no gesture of love other than kissing my hand and the hem of my dress . . .

She smiled, shrugging her shoulders slightly; she knew it was neither shyness nor coldness, but that profound, determined German patience-the patience of a wild animal waiting for its hypnotised prey to let itself be taken. "During the war," Bruno had said, "we spent a number of nights lying in wait in the Moeuvre forest. Waiting is erotic . . ." She had laughed at the word. It seemed less amusing now. What did she do now but wait? She waited for him. She wandered through these lifeless rooms. Another two hours, three hours. Then dinner alone. Then the sound of the key locking her mother-in-law's door. Then Marthe crossing the garden with a lantern to close the gate. Then more waiting, feverish and strange . . . and finally the sound of his horse neighing on the road, the clanking of weapons, orders given to the groom who walks away with the horse. The sound of spurs on the doorstep. Then the night, the stormy night, with its great gusts of wind in the lime trees and the thunder rumbling in the distance. She would tell him. Oh, she was no hypocrite, she would tell him in clear, simple French-that the prey he so desired was his. "And then what? Then what?" she murmured; a mischievous, bold, sensual smile suddenly transformed her expression, just as the reflection of a flame illuminating a face can alter it. Lit up by fire, the softest features can look demonic; they can both repel and attract. She walked quietly out of the room.

18.

Someone was knocking at the kitchen door; they knocked shyly, softly; you could hardly hear it through the driving rain. Some kids wanting to get out of the storm, thought the cook. She looked out and saw Madeleine Sabarie standing on the doorstep, holding a dripping-wet umbrella. Marthe looked at her for a moment, astonished; people from the farms hardly ever came into the village except on Sundays for High Ma.s.s.

"What's going on? Come inside, quickly. Is everything all right at home?"

"No, something terrible's happened," Madeleine whispered. "I need to speak to Madame right away."

"Lord Jesus! Something terrible? Do you want to speak to Madame Angellier or Madame Lucile?"

Madeleine hesitated. "Madame Lucile. But be quiet . . . I don't want that awful German to know I'm here."

"The officer? He's away at the requisitioning of the horses. Sit down by the fire; you're soaking wet. I'll go and get Madame."

Lucile was alone, finishing her dinner. She had a book open on the tablecloth in front of her. "Poor dear!" Marthe said to herself in a moment of sudden lucidity. "Is this the kind of life she should have? No husband for two years . . . And as for Madeleine . . . What terrible thing could have happened? Something to do with the Germans, that's for sure."

She told Lucile that someone was asking for her.

"Madeleine Sabarie, Madame. Something terrible's happened to her . . . She doesn't want anyone to see her."

"Show her in here. Is the German . . . Lieutenant von Falk home yet?"

"No, Madame. I'll hear his horse when he comes back. I'll warn you."

"Yes, good. Go on now."

Lucile waited, her heart pounding. Madeleine Sabarie entered the room, deathly pale and out of breath. The modesty and caution innate to country folk battled against her emotional turmoil. She shook Lucile's hand, mumbled "I'm not disturbing you, am I?" and "How are you?" as was the custom, then said very quietly, making a terrible effort to hold back her tears (because you just didn't cry in front of anyone, unless it was at someone's deathbed; the rest of the time you had to control yourself, to hide your pain-and indeed your pleasure-from others), "Oh, Madame Lucile! What should I do? I've come to ask your advice because we're . . . we're finished. The Germans came to arrest Benoit this morning."

"But why?" Lucile exclaimed.

"They said it was because he had a hunting rifle hidden away. Like everyone else, as you can imagine. But they didn't search anywhere else, just our place. Benoit said, 'Go ahead and look.' They did look and they found it. It was hidden in the hay in the cowshed. Our German, the one living with us, the interpreter, he was in the room when the men from Headquarters came back in with the gun and ordered my husband to go with them. 'Wait a minute,' Benoit said. 'That isn't my gun. It must be someone who lives around here who hid it so they could denounce me. Give it to me and I'll prove it to you.' He was talking so naturally that the men weren't suspicious. My Benoit takes the gun, pretends to be examining it and suddenly . . . Oh, Madame Lucile, the two bullets fired almost at the same time. One killed Bonnet and the other Bubi, the big Alsatian that was with him."

"I see," murmured Lucile, "I see."

"Then he jumps out of the window and runs off, the Germans right behind. But he knows the place better than them, as you can imagine. They haven't found him yet. The storm was so bad they couldn't see two steps in front of them, thank goodness. Bonnet's laid out on my bed, where they put him. If they find Benoit, they'll shoot him. He might have been shot for hiding a gun, but if that was all he'd done we could have hoped he'd get off. Now, well we know what to expect, don't we?"

"But why did he kill Bonnet?"

"He must be the one who denounced him, Madame Lucile. He lives with us. He could have found the gun. These Germans, they're all traitors. And that one . . . was chasing after me, you see . . . and my husband knew it. Maybe he wanted to punish him, maybe he said to himself, 'Might as well . . . then he won't be here to play up to my wife when I'm not around.' Maybe . . . And he really hated them, Madame Lucile. He was longing to kill one of them."

"They've been looking for him all day long, you say? You're absolutely sure they haven't found him yet?"

"I'm sure," said Madeleine after a moment's silence.

"Have you seen him?"

"Yes. This is life or death, Madame Lucile. You . . . you won't say a word?"

"Oh, Madeleine . . ."

"All right, then. He's hiding at Louise's place, our neighbour whose husband is a prisoner of war."

"They're going to turn the village upside down, they're going to look everywhere."

"Thank goodness they were requisitioning the horses today. All the officers are away. The soldiers are waiting for orders. Tomorrow they'll start the search. But Madame Lucile, farms have plenty of hiding places. They've had escaped prisoners right there under their noses plenty of times. Louise will hide him good, but it's just, well, it's her kids: the kids play with the Germans, they aren't afraid of them, and they talk, they're too little to understand. 'I know the chance I'm taking,' Louise told me. 'I'm doing it willingly for your husband, just like you would do it for mine, but nonetheless, it would be better to find another house where he could hide until he can get away from here.' They'll be watching all the roads now, won't they. But the Germans won't be here for ever. What we need is a big house where there aren't any children."

"Here?" Lucile said, staring at her.

"Here, yes, I thought . . ."

"You do know that a German officer lives here?"

"They're everywhere. But the officer hardly ever comes out of his room, does he? And I've heard . . . forgive me, Madame Lucile, I've heard he's in love with you and that you can do whatever you like. I'm not offending you, am I? They're men like the rest, I know, and they get bored. So if you said to him, 'I don't want your soldiers upsetting everything in the house. It's ridiculous. You know very well I'm not hiding anyone. First of all, I'd be too scared to . . .' Things that women can say . . . And in this house that's so big, so empty, it would be easy to find a hiding place, some little corner. And then there's a chance he'd be saved, the only chance. You might say that if you get caught, you risk going to prison, perhaps even being killed. With these brutes it's possible. But if we French don't help one another, who will? Louise, she has kids, she does, and she wasn't scared. You're all alone."

"I'm not afraid," Lucile said slowly.

She thought about it. The danger for Benoit would be the same whether he was in her house or anywhere else. What about the danger for her? What's my life worth anyway? she thought with unintentional despair. Really, it had no importance. She suddenly thought of those days in June 1940 (two years, only two years ago). Then, too, amid the chaos, the danger, she hadn't thought about herself. She had let herself be carried along by a fast-flowing river.

"There's my mother-in-law," she murmured, "but she doesn't leave her room any more. She wouldn't see anything. And there's Marthe."

"Marthe's family, Madame. She's my husband's cousin. There's no danger there. We trust our family. But where could he hide?"

"I was thinking maybe the blue bedroom near the attic, the old playroom that has a kind of alcove . . . But then, but then, my poor Madeleine, you mustn't have any illusions. If fate is against us they'll find him here as well as anywhere, but if it's G.o.d's will, he'll escape. After all, German soldiers have been killed in France before and they've not always found the ones who did it. We must do everything we can to hide him . . . and . . . just hope, don't you think?"

"Yes, Madame, hope . . ." said Madeleine and the tears she could no longer hold back flowed slowly down her cheeks.

Lucile put her arms round Madeleine and hugged her. "Go and get him. Go through the Maie woods. It's still raining. No one will be out. Listen to me, trust no one, German or French. I'll wait for you at the little garden door. I'll go and warn Marthe."

"Thank you, Madame," Madeleine stammered.

"Go quickly. Hurry."

Madeleine opened the door without making a sound and slipped out into the deserted wet garden where tears seemed to drip from the trees. An hour later Lucile let Benoit in through the little green door that opened on to the Maie woods. The storm was over but an angry wind continued to rage.

19.

From her room, Madame Angellier could hear the local policeman shouting in front of the town hall: "Public Announcement by Order of German Headquarters . . ." Worried faces appeared at all the windows. "What is it now?" everyone thought with fear and hatred. Their fear of the Germans was so great that even when German Headquarters ordered the local police to instruct the villagers to destroy rats or have their children vaccinated, they wouldn't relax until long after the final drum roll had ceased and they had asked the educated people in the village-the pharmacist, the notary or the police chief-to repeat what had just been announced.

"Is that all? Are you sure that's all? They're not taking anything else away from us?"

They gradually calmed down.

"Oh, good," they said, "good, that's fine then! But I wonder why it's their business . . ."

This would have made everything all right if they hadn't added, "They're our our rats and rats and our our children. What right have they got to destroy our rats and vaccinate our children? What's it to them?" children. What right have they got to destroy our rats and vaccinate our children? What's it to them?"

The Germans present in the square took it upon themselves to explain the orders.

"We must have everyone in good health now, French and German."

The villagers quickly conceded, with an air of feigned submission ("Oh, they smile like slaves," thought the elder Madame Angellier): "Of course . . . Good idea . . . It's in everybody's best interest . . . We understand."

And each one of them then went home, threw the rat poison in the fire and hurried to the doctor to ask him not to vaccinate their child because he was "just getting over the mumps," or he wasn't strong enough because they didn't have enough food. Others said straight out, "We'd rather there were one or two sick kids: maybe it'll get rid of the Fritz." Alone in the square, the Germans looked around them benevolently and thought that, little by little, the ice was breaking between conquered and conqueror.

On this particular day, however, none of the Germans was smiling or talking to the local people. They stood very straight, a hard stare on their pale faces. The policeman had just played a final drum roll. He was a rather handsome man from the Midi, always happy to be surrounded by women; he was obviously enjoying the importance of what he was about to say. He put his drumsticks under his arm and, with the grace and skill of a magician, he began to read. His attractive, rich, masculine voice echoed in the silence:

A member of the German army has been murdered: an officer of the Wehrmacht Wehrmacht was killed in a cowardly way by one Benoit Sabarie, residing at . . . in the district of Bussy. was killed in a cowardly way by one Benoit Sabarie, residing at . . . in the district of Bussy. The criminal succeeded in escaping. Any person guilty of providing him with shelter, aid or protection, or who knows his whereabouts, is required to report this information to German Headquarters within forty-eight hours, or will otherwise incur the same punishment as the murderer, that is: The criminal succeeded in escaping. Any person guilty of providing him with shelter, aid or protection, or who knows his whereabouts, is required to report this information to German Headquarters within forty-eight hours, or will otherwise incur the same punishment as the murderer, that is:

IMMEDIATE EXECUTION BY FIRING SQUAD.

Madame Angellier had opened the window slightly. When the policeman had gone, she leaned out and looked into the village square. People were whispering, in shock. Only the day before they had been discussing the requisitioning of the horses; this new disaster added to the previous one led to a sort of disbelief in the slow minds of the country folk: "Benoit? Benoit did that? It isn't possible!" The secret had been well kept: the villagers were largely ignorant of what happened in the countryside, on the large, jealously guarded farms.

As for the Germans, well, they were better informed. They now understood what the commotion was about, why there had been whistles in the night, and why, the evening before, they had been forbidden to go out after eight o'clock: "They must have been moving the body and they didn't want us to see." In the cafes, the Germans talked quietly among themselves. They too had the impression it was all horrible, unreal. For three months they had lived alongside these Frenchmen; they had mixed with them; they had done them no harm; they had even managed, thanks to their consideration and good behaviour, to establish a humane relationship with them. Now, the act of one madman made them doubt everything. Yet it wasn't so much the crime that affected them as the solidarity, the complicity they could sense all around them (in the end, for a man to elude an entire regiment hot on his heels meant that everyone must be helping him, hiding him, feeding him; unless, of course, he was hiding in the woods-but the soldiers had spent the entire night searching them). "So, if a Frenchman kills me tomorrow," each soldier was thinking, "me they welcome in their house, they welcome in their house, me me they smile at, who has a place at their dinner table and is allowed to sit their children on my knee . . . there won't be a single person who'll feel sorry and speak up for me, and everyone will do their best to hide the murderer!" These peaceful country folk with their impa.s.sive faces, these women who smiled at them, who had chatted to them yesterday but today walked by embarra.s.sed, avoiding their eye, they were nothing but a group of enemies. They could hardly believe it; they were such nice people . . . Lacombe, the shoemaker, who had offered a bottle of white wine to the Germans the week before because his daughter had just received her high school diploma and he didn't know how else to express his joy; Georges, the miller, a veteran of the last war, who had said, "Peace as soon as possible and everyone in his own country. That's all we Frenchmen want"; the young women, always eager to laugh, to sing, to share a secret kiss, were they now and for ever to be enemies? they smile at, who has a place at their dinner table and is allowed to sit their children on my knee . . . there won't be a single person who'll feel sorry and speak up for me, and everyone will do their best to hide the murderer!" These peaceful country folk with their impa.s.sive faces, these women who smiled at them, who had chatted to them yesterday but today walked by embarra.s.sed, avoiding their eye, they were nothing but a group of enemies. They could hardly believe it; they were such nice people . . . Lacombe, the shoemaker, who had offered a bottle of white wine to the Germans the week before because his daughter had just received her high school diploma and he didn't know how else to express his joy; Georges, the miller, a veteran of the last war, who had said, "Peace as soon as possible and everyone in his own country. That's all we Frenchmen want"; the young women, always eager to laugh, to sing, to share a secret kiss, were they now and for ever to be enemies?

The Frenchmen, meanwhile, were wondering, "That w.i.l.l.y who asked permission to kiss my kid, saying he had one the same age in Bavaria, that Fritz who helped me take care of my sick husband, that Erwald who thinks France is such a beautiful country, and that other one I saw standing in front of the portrait of my father who was killed in 1915 . . . if tomorrow he was given the order, he'd arrest me, he'd kill me with his own hands without thinking twice? War . . . yes, everyone knows what war is like. But occupation is more terrible in a way, because people get used to one another. We tell ourselves, 'They're just like us, after all,' but they're not at all the same. We're two different species, irreconcilable, enemies forever."

Madame Angellier knew them so well, these country people, that she felt she could look at their faces and read their minds. She sn.i.g.g.e.red. She hadn't been taken in, not her! She hadn't let herself be bought. For everyone in the village of Bussy had a price, just like in the rest of France. The Germans gave money to some of them (the wine merchants who charged soldiers of the Wehrmacht Wehrmacht a hundred francs for a bottle of Chablis, the farmers who got five francs each for their eggs), to others (the young people, the women) they gave pleasure. The villagers were no longer bored since the Germans arrived. Finally they had someone to talk to. G.o.d, even her own daughter-in-law . . . She half closed her eyes and raised her white, translucent hand to cover her lowered eyelids, as if she were trying not to look at a naked body. Yes, the Germans thought they could buy tolerance and forgetfulness that way. And they had. a hundred francs for a bottle of Chablis, the farmers who got five francs each for their eggs), to others (the young people, the women) they gave pleasure. The villagers were no longer bored since the Germans arrived. Finally they had someone to talk to. G.o.d, even her own daughter-in-law . . . She half closed her eyes and raised her white, translucent hand to cover her lowered eyelids, as if she were trying not to look at a naked body. Yes, the Germans thought they could buy tolerance and forgetfulness that way. And they had.

Bitterly, Madame Angellier made a mental inventory of all the important people in the town. All of them had yielded, all of them had let themselves be seduced: the Montmorts . . . they entertained the Germans in their own home; she'd heard that the Germans were organising a celebration in the Viscount's grounds, by the lake. Madame de Montmort told everyone who would listen that she was outraged, that she would close all the windows so she couldn't hear the music or see the sparklers beneath the trees. But when Lieutenant von Falk and Bonnet, the interpreter, had gone to see her about borrowing chairs, bowls and tablecloths, she'd spent nearly two hours with them. Madame Angellier had heard this from the cook who'd heard it from the groundsman. These aristocrats were part foreigner themselves, after all, if you looked closely enough. Wasn't it true that through their veins ran the foreign blood of Bavaria, Prussia (abomination!) and the Rhineland? Aristocrats intermarried without a thought for national boundaries. But, come to think of it, the upper middle cla.s.ses weren't much better. People whispered the names of collaborators (and their names were broadcast loudly on English radio every night): the Maltetes of Lyon, the Pericands of Paris, the Corbin Bank . . . and others as well . . .

Madame Angellier came to feel that she was a race apart-staunch, as implacable as a fortress. Alas, it was the only fortress that remained standing in France, but nothing could bring it down, for its bastions were made, not of stone, not of flesh, not of blood, but of those most intangible and invincible things in the world: love and hate.

She walked quickly and silently up and down the room. "There's no point in closing my eyes," she murmured. "Lucile is ready to fall into the arms of that German." There was nothing she could do about it. Men had weapons; they knew how to fight. All she could do was spy on them, watch them, listen to them . . . keep her ears open for the sound of footsteps, a sigh in the silence of the night. So that these things, at least, would be neither forgiven nor forgotten, so that when Gaston got back . . . She quivered with intense joy. G.o.d, how she despised Lucile! When everyone was finally asleep in the house, the old woman did what she called "her rounds." Nothing escaped her. She counted the cigarette stubs in the ashtrays that had traces of lipstick on them; she silently picked up a crumpled, perfumed handkerchief, a flower, an open book. She often heard the piano or the German's low, soft voice as he hummed, stressing some musical phrase.

The piano . . . How could anyone like music? Every note seemed to grate on her exposed nerves and made her groan. She preferred the long conversations that she could just about hear by leaning out of the window above the library window they left open on those beautiful summer evenings. She even preferred the silences that fell between them or Lucile's laughter (laughter . . . when her husband was a prisoner of war! Shameless hussy, b.i.t.c.h, heathen!). Anything was better than music, for music alone can abolish differences of language or culture between two people and evoke something indestructible within them. Madame Angellier sometimes walked up to the German's room. She listened to his breathing, his mild smoker's cough. She crossed the hall where the officer's large green cape hung beneath the stuffed stag's head and slipped some sprigs of heather into his pocket. People said it brought bad luck; she didn't actually believe it herself, but it was worth a try . . .

For a few days now, two to be exact, the atmosphere in the house had seemed even more ominous. The piano was silent. Madame Angellier had heard Lucile and the cook whispering to each other for a long time. (Is she now betraying me as well?) The church bells began to ring. (Ah, the funeral of the murdered officer . . .) There were the armed soldiers, the casket, the wreaths of red flowers . . . The church had been requisitioned. No Frenchman was allowed in. They could hear a choir of excellent voices singing a religious hymn; it was coming from the Chapel of the Virgin. That winter the children had broken a pane of gla.s.s during catechism cla.s.s and it hadn't been replaced. The hymn rose up through this ancient little window set above the altar of the Virgin and obscured by the great branches of the lime tree in the village square. How happily the birds were singing! Now and again, their shrill voices almost drowned out the German hymn. Madame Angellier didn't know the name or age of the dead man. All German Headquarters had said was "an officer of the Wehrmacht Wehrmacht." That was enough. He must have been young. They were all young. "Well, it's all over for you now. What can you do? That's war." His mother will eventually understand that, Madame Angellier murmured, nervously fiddling with her black necklace; it was made of jet and ebony, and she'd started wearing it when her husband had died.

She sat motionless until evening, as if riveted to the spot, watching everyone who crossed the street. In the evening . . . not a single sound. "I haven't heard even the faintest creak from the third step," thought Madame Angellier, "the one I hear when Lucile leaves her room and goes out into the garden. The silent, oiled doors are her accomplices, but that faithful old step speaks to me. No, there's not a sound. Are they together already? Maybe they're meeting later?"

The night pa.s.sed. Madame Angellier was overcome with burning curiosity. She slipped out of her bedroom and placed her ear against the officer's door. Nothing. Not a single sound. If she hadn't heard a man's voice somewhere in the house earlier that evening, she might have thought he hadn't come back yet. But nothing got past her. Any man in the house who wasn't her son was an insult to her. There was a smell of foreign tobacco; she went pale and raised her hands to her forehead, like a woman who thinks she's about to faint. Where is he, the German? Closer than usual since the smoke is coming in through the open window. Is he going through the house? Perhaps he's leaving soon and knows it, so he's choosing the furniture he'll take: his share of the spoils. Didn't the Prussians steal the grandfather clocks in 1870? Today's soldiers won't have changed that much. She imagined his sacrilegious hands rifling through the attic, the larder and the wine cellar.

Thinking about it, it was the wine cellar that worried Madame Angellier most. She never drank wine; she recalled having had a sip of champagne for Gaston's First Communion and at her wedding. But wine was somehow part of their heritage and, as such, was sacred, like everything destined to continue after we die. That Chateau-d'Yquem, that . . . she'd been given those wines by her husband to pa.s.s on to her son. They had buried the best bottles in the sand, but that German . . . Who could tell? Instructed by Lucile perhaps . . . Let's go and see . . . Here's the wine cellar with its door and iron locks, like a fortress. Here's the hiding place only she knows about by a cross marked on the wall. No, everything seems in order here as well. Nevertheless, Madame Angellier's heart is pounding furiously. It is clear that Lucile has just been down to the cellar; her perfume lingers in the air. Following its scent, Madame Angellier goes back upstairs, through the kitchen, the dining room and, finally, on the staircase comes face to face with Lucile carrying a plate, a gla.s.s and an empty wine bottle. So that's why she went down into the wine cellar and the larder, where Madame Angellier had thought she heard footsteps.

"A romantic little supper?" said Madame Angellier in a voice as low and stinging as a whip.

"I beg you, please be quiet. If you knew . . ."

"And with a German! Under my own roof! In your husband's house, you miserable . . ."

"Be quiet, won't you! Can't you see the German isn't back yet? He'll be here any minute. Let me go and tidy up. In the meantime, you go upstairs, open the door to the old playroom and see who's in there . . . Then, after you've seen, meet me in the dining room. I was wrong, very wrong to act without telling you; I had no right to put your life in danger . . ."

"You've hidden that farmer here . . . the one accused of the murder?"

At that very moment they heard the regiment. There was the hoa.r.s.e shout of orders being given and immediately afterwards the sound of the German officer coming up the steps to the house. His walk was unmistakable. No Frenchman could produce that hammering of boots, that rattling of spurs. It was a walk that could only belong to a proud conqueror, striding over the enemy's cobblestones, joyfully trampling the defeated land.

Madame Angellier opened the door to her own room, pushed Lucile inside, followed her in and turned the key. She took the plate and gla.s.s from Lucile, rinsed them in her dressing-room washstand, carefully dried them and put away the bottle after checking the label. Table wine? Yes, well done! She's prepared to be shot for hiding a man who killed a German, thought Lucile, but she wouldn't be happy to give him a good bottle of Burgundy. Thank goodness it was dark in the cellar and I was lucky enough to take a bottle of red wine worth only three francs. She remained silent, waiting with intense curiosity to hear what Madame Angellier would say. She couldn't have kept the presence of a stranger hidden from her much longer: this old woman could see through walls.

Finally, Madame Angellier spoke. "Did you think I would hand that man over to the Germans?" she asked. Her pinched nostrils were trembling; her eyes sparkled. She seemed happy, elated, almost mad, like a former actress who is once again playing the role she starred in long ago and whose nuances and gestures are second nature to her. "Has he been here long?"

"Three days."

"Why didn't you say anything to me?"

Lucile didn't reply.

"You're mad to have hidden him in the blue room. He should stay in here. Since all my meals are brought to me upstairs, there is no risk of anyone challenging you: you have your excuse. He can sleep on the sofa in the dressing room."

"But think about it, Mother! If he's found in our house the risk is terrible. I can take all the blame, say that you didn't know what I was doing, which is actually the truth, but if he's in your room . . ."

Madame Angellier shrugged her shoulders. "Tell me everything," she said, with an eagerness in her voice that Lucile hadn't heard for a long time. "Tell me exactly how it all happened. All I know is what the police said. Whom did he kill? Was it just one German? Did he wound any others? Was it at least a high-ranking officer . . . ?"

She's in her element, thought Lucile. She's so eager to do her duty in the call to arms . . . Mothers and women in love: both ferocious females. I'm not a mother and I'm not in love (Bruno? No. I mustn't think of Bruno now, I mustn't . . .), so I can't see things in the same way. I'm more detached, colder, calmer, more civilised, I still believe that. And also . . . I can't imagine that all three of us are really risking our lives. It seems so melodramatic, so extreme. Yet Bonnet is dead, killed by a farmer whom some would treat as a criminal and others as a hero. And what about me? I have to choose. I've already chosen . . . in spite of myself. And I thought I was free . . .