فصل 35

35

1917

I was unloaded some time after dawn. I dont know how long we had been on the road fever had invaded me so my days and my dreams had become jumbled and I could no longer be sure whether I still existed, or whether, like a spectre, I flitted in and out of some other reality. When I closed my eyes, I saw my sister pulling up the blinds of the bar window, turning to me with a smile, the sun illuminating her hair. I saw Mimi laughing. I saw Édouard, his face, his hands, heard his voice in my ear, soft and intimate. I would reach out to touch him, but he would vanish, and I would wake on the floor of the truck, my eyes level with a soldiers boots, my head thumping painfully as we passed over every rut in the road.

I saw Liliane.

Her body was out there, somewhere on the Hannover road, where they had tossed it, cursing, as if she were a sandbag. I had spent the hours since speckled with her blood and worse. My clothes were coloured with it. I tasted it on my lips. It lay congealed and sticky on the floor from which I no longer had the energy to raise myself. I no longer felt the lice that ate me. I was numb. I felt no more alive than Lilianes corpse.

I knew then that I would die there, and in truth I no longer cared.

My whole body glowed with pain my skin prickling with fever, my joints aching, my head thick. The canvas flap at the rear was lifted and the back opened. A guard ordered me out. I could barely move, but he pulled at my arm, as one would a recalcitrant child. My body was so light that I almost flew across the back of the truck.

The morning was hung with mist, and through it I could see a barbed-wire fence, the vast gates. Above them, it said STRÖHEN. I knew what it was.

Another guard motioned at me to stay where I was, and walked over to a sentry box. There was a discussion, and one of them leaned out and looked at me. Beyond the gates I could see row upon row of long factory sheds. It was a bleak, featureless place with an air of misery and futility that was almost palpable. A watchtower with a crows nest stood at each corner, to prevent escape. They neednt have worried.

Do you know how it feels to resign yourself to your fate? It is almost welcome. There was to be no more pain, no more fear, no more longing. It is the death of hope that comes as the greatest relief. Soon, I could hold Édouard to me. We would be joined in the next life, because I knew surely that if God was good He would not be so cruel as to deprive us of this consolation.

I became dimly aware of a fierce discussion in the sentry box. A man emerged and demanded my papers. I was so weak it took me three attempts to pull them from my pocket. He motioned to me to hold up my identity card. As I was crawling with lice, he did not want to touch me.

He ticked something on his list and barked in German to the guard holding me. They had a short conversation. It faded in and out and I was no longer sure whether it was them lowering their voices or my mind betraying me. I was as mild and obedient as a lamb now a thing, ready to go where they instructed me. I no longer wished to think. I no longer wished to imagine what new horrors lay ahead. I heard Lilianes voice and knew distantly that while I lived I should still be afraid You have no idea what they will do to us. But somehow I could not rouse myself to fear. If the guard had not been beside me, holding my arm, I might just have dropped to the ground.

The gates opened to let a vehicle out, and closed again. I drifted in and out of time. My eyes closed and I had a brief vision of sitting in a café in Paris, my head tilted back, feeling the sun on my face. My husband was seated beside me, his roar of laughter filling my ears, his huge hand reaching for mine on the table.

Oh, Édouard, I wept silently, as I shivered in the chill dawn air. I pray you escaped this pain. I pray it was easy for you.

I was pulled forward again. Someone was shouting at me. I stumbled on my skirts, somehow still clutching my bag. The gates opened again and I was shoved roughly forwards into the camp. As I reached the second sentry post, the guard stopped me again.

Just put me in the shed. Just let me lie down.

I was so tired. I saw Lilianes hand, the precise, premeditated way she had lifted the gun to the side of her head. Her eyes, locked on mine in the last seconds of her life. They were limitless black holes, windows on an abyss. She feels nothing now, I told myself, and some still functioning part of me acknowledged that what I felt was envy.

As I put my card back into my pocket my hand brushed against the jagged edge of the glass fragment, and I felt a flicker of recognition. I could bring that point up to my throat. I knew the vein, just how much pressure to apply. I remembered how the pig had buckled in St Péronne one brisk swipe and his eyes had closed in what seemed like a quiet ecstasy. I stood there and let the thought solidify in my head. I could do it before they even realized what I had done. I could free myself.

You have no idea what they will do to us.

My fingers closed. And then I heard it.

Sophie.

And then I knew that release was coming. I let the shard fall from my fingers. So this was it, the sweet voice of my husband leading me home. I almost smiled then, so great was my relief. I swayed a little as I let it echo through me.

Sophie.

A German hand spun me round and pushed me back towards the gate. Confused, I stumbled and glanced behind me. And then I saw the guard coming through the mist. In front of him was a tall, stooped man, clutching a bundle to his stomach. I squinted, aware there was something familiar about him. But the light was behind him and I could not see.

Sophie.

I tried to focus, and suddenly the world grew still, everything silent around me. The Germans were mute, the engines stopped, the trees themselves ceased whispering. And I could see that the prisoner was limping towards me, his silhouette strange, his shoulders skin and bone, but his stride determined, as if a magnet were pulling him to me. And I began to tremble convulsively, as if my body knew before I did. Édouard? My voice emerged as a croak. I could not believe it. I dared not believe it.

Edouard?

And he was shuffling, half running towards me now, the guard quickening his stride behind him. And I stood frozen, still afraid that this was some terrible trick, that I would wake and find myself in the back of the truck, a boot beside my head. Please, God, You could not be so cruel.

And he stopped, a few feet from me. So thin, his face haggard, his beautiful hair shaven, scars upon his face. But, oh, God, his face. His face. My Édouard. It was too much. My face tilted heavenwards, my bag fell from my hands, and I sank towards the ground. And as I did, I felt his arms close around me.

Sophie. My Sophie. What have they done to you?

Édith Béthune leans back in her wheelchair in the silent courtroom. A clerk brings her some water, and she nods her thanks. Even the reporters have stopped writing they sit there, pens stilled, mouths half open.

We knew nothing of what had happened to her. I believed her dead. A new information network sprang up several months after my mother was taken away, and we received news that she was among a number of people to have died in the camps. Hélène cried for a week at the news.

And then one morning I happened to come down in the dawn, ready to start preparing for the day – I helped Hélène in the kitchen – and I saw a letter, pushed under the door of Le Coq Rouge. I was about to pick it up, but Hélène was behind me and snatched it away first.

You didnt see this, she said, and I was shocked, because she had never been so sharp with me before. Her face had gone completely white. Do you hear me? You didnt see this, Édith. You are not to tell anyone. Not even Aurélien. Especially not Aurélien.

I nodded, but I refused to move. I wanted to know what was in it. Hélènes hands shook when she opened the letter. She stood against the bar, her face illuminated by the morning light, and her hands trembled so hard I was not sure how she could possibly read the words. And then she drooped, her hand pressed to her mouth, and she began to sob softly. Oh, thank God, oh, thank God.

They were in Switzerland. They had false identity cards, given in lieu of services to the German state, and were taken to a forest near the Swiss border. Sophie was so sick by then that Édouard had carried her the last fifteen miles to the checkpoint. They were informed by the guard who drove them that they were not to contact anybody in France, or risk exposure of those who had helped them. The letter was signed Marie Leville.

She looked around her at the court.

They remained in Switzerland. We knew that she could never return to St Péronne, so high was feeling about the German occupation. If she had turned up, questions would have been asked. And, of course, by then I had grasped who had helped them escape together.

Who was this, Madame?

She purses her lips, as if even now it costs her to say it. Kommandant Friedrich Hencken.

Forgive me, says the judge. It is an extraordinary tale. But I dont understand how this relates to the loss of the painting.

Édith Béthune composes herself. Hélène did not show me the letter, but I knew it preoccupied her. She was jumpy when Aurélien was near, although he spent barely any time at Le Coq Rouge after Sophie left. It was as if he could not bear to be there. But then two days later, when he had gone out, and as the little ones slept in the next room, she called me into her bedroom. Édith, I need you to do something for me.

She was seated on the floor, Sophies portrait supported by one hand. She stared at the letter in her hand, as if checking something, shook her head slightly, and then, with chalk, she inscribed several words on the back. She sat back on her heels, as if confirming that she had got it right. She wrapped it carefully in a blanket and handed it over to me. Herr Kommandant is shooting in the woods this afternoon. I need you to take this to him.

Never. I hated that man with a passion. He had been responsible for the loss of my mother.

Do as I say. I need you to take this to Herr Kommandant.

No. I was not afraid of him then – he had already done the worst thing imaginable to me – but I would not spend a moment in his company.

Hélène stared at me, and I think she could see how serious I was. She pulled me to her, and I have never seen her look more determined. Édith, the Kommandant is to have this painting. You and I may wish him dead, but we must observe … she hesitated … Sophies wishes.

You take it.

I cannot. If I do the town will talk, and we cannot risk my own name being destroyed as my sisters was. Besides, Aurélien will guess something is going on. And he must not know the truth. Nobody must know, for her safety and ours. Will you do it?

I had no choice. That afternoon, when Hélène gave me the signal, I took the painting under my arm and I walked down the alleyway, through the wasteland and to the woods. It was heavy and the frame dug into my underarm. He was there with another officer. The sight of them with their guns in their hands made my knees knock with fear. When he saw me, he ordered the other man away. I walked through the trees slowly, my feet cold on the icy forest floor. He looked a little unsettled as I approached, and I remember thinking, Good. I hope I unsettle you for ever.

Did you wish to speak with me? he said.

I didnt want to hand it over. I didnt want him to have a single thing. He had already taken the two most precious things in my life. I hated that man. And I think that was when I got the idea. Aunt Hélène says Im to give this to you.

He took the picture from me, and unwrapped it. He glanced at it, uncertain, and then he turned it over. When he saw what was written on the back, something strange happened to his face. It softened, just for a moment, and his pale blue eyes appeared moist, as if he would cry with gladness.

Danke, he said softly. Dankeschön.

He turned it over to gaze upon Sophies face, then reversed it again, reading the words to himself. Danke, he said softly, to her or me, I wasnt sure.

I couldnt bear to see his happiness, his utter relief, when he had ruined any chance of happiness for me. I hated that man more than anyone. He had destroyed everything. And I heard my voice, clear as a bell in the still air. Sophie died, I said. She died after we received her instruction to give you the painting. She died of the Spanish flu in the camps.

He actually jolted with shock. What?

I dont know where it came from. I spoke fluently, without fear of what might result. She died. Because of being taken away. Just after she sent the message to give this to you.

Are you sure? His voice cracked. I mean there may have been reports –

Quite sure. I should probably not have told you. Its a secret.

I stood there, my heart like a stone, and I watched him staring at the painting, his face actually ageing, physically sagging with grief, before me.

I hope you like the painting, I said, and then I walked slowly back through the woods towards Le Coq Rouge. I dont believe I was ever afraid of anything again.

Herr Kommandant spent another nine months in our town. But he never came to Le Coq Rouge again. I felt it like a victory.

The courtroom is silent. The reporters are gazing at Édith Béthune. It is as if history has suddenly come to life here, in this small chamber. The judges voice, this time, is gentle.

Madame. Could you tell us what was written on the back of the painting? It appears to be quite a salient point in this matter. Can you remember it clearly?

Édith Béthune looks around her at the packed benches. Oh, yes. I remember it very clearly. I remember it because I couldnt work out what it meant. It said, in chalk Pour Herr Kommandant, qui comprendra pas pris, mais donné. She pauses. To Herr Kommandant, who will understand not taken, but given.