Le Temps des Cerises (35 page)

She tilted forward, ignoring the pain in her neck, and took a few drops of valerian tincture from the bedside table to calm her nerves and soothe her head. (She was always getting headaches these days. She thought it was probably to do with the baby – the endless crying, chaos, sleepless nights.) Then, taking up her bible she read from Deuteronomy for a while as the light came in through the small high window. A verse she came across kept sticking in her mind, troubling her a little though she couldn't think why.

These forty years the lord thy God has been with thee, thou hast lacked nothing.

Her mind kept going over and over it and in the end she decided it was too late to read and besides, her eyes were tired and straining over the thin, fine print. She tucked the bible under her pillow and gazed instead at the light coming in through the window, streaming in with the limpid gaiety of spring (where everything dead came alive again, where time that had hibernated through the winter months started ticking again with the clean, white snowdrops), creating shadows on the walls of bars and trees, illuminating the carmine engraving on the walnut tallboy… the Immaculate Conception… she marvelled to think the fruits of sin had ever slept in the bottom drawer amidst shoe polish and laces – she couldn't stuff her in there now if she tried, the baby had grown so enormous under her very nose! A thought struck her then and she smiled with pleasure. She would have to buy clothes for her soon: dresses and petticoats, ribbons and slippers, a well-soled pair of boots for the winter, a woollen cloak and scarf; a bonnet and cotton frock for the summer.

It was fun to think of the things she would have to buy or make for the baby. Books, toys, games, clothes. It was like going back to one's own childhood when everything was simple and innocent, when the world was a big wide place to explore without the slightest sense of fear, without the slightest hesitation… it wouldn't be so bad away from the convent, Bernadine told herself. She needn't be afraid. What was she leaving behind after all? Bare walls, a rugless floor, a life of sin and compromise and denial, of smuggled joys and delights like silver-wrapped chocolates in Lent, a life of preparing for salvation, for some shining illumination. Well, she hadn't been blinded by it yet and she hadn't been saved yet. Of rationing herself in the belief presumably that one day she would run out; of giving herself away in bits and pieces here and there like the body of Christ to be swallowed down with a glass of wine by some dreadful fellow in a pork pie hat; of saving herself up to spend presumably in the hereafter. Well, what was the point of that? It was like keeping your best dress in the wardrobe for a party you might never be invited to. It was all very well thinking what a whale of a time you were going to have when you got beyond the pearly gates with the angels, the archangels and all the company of heaven but what if you never got there? Then what? Better to wear your best dress every day of the week so if the Lord stole in like a thief in the night, like the bogeyman himself, you were ready and waiting for him. No need to change, powder your nose, drag a comb through your hair. Just a seamless transition from one party to the next. And if he never came to call it didn't matter anyway because you were having your very own ball right here on earth.

From now on she would have her very own ball right here on earth, out there in the sunshine and the flowers.

It was going to be a glorious day. She could tell by the light coming in through the window that it was going to be a glorious day. Fresh and clear with a bright blue sky, one or two white scudding clouds. The sort of day you could smell wild violets in the air, thickets of lavender and juniper bushes. She leapt off the bed as softly as she could and stood for a moment in the path of the sun as it forged its way in through the bars on the window. Even at this hour it warmed her skin; in the heat of the day it would be burning hot. She dug out her old umbrella from the bottom of the tallboy, a pair of sturdy shoes and one or two essentials for herself and the baby; and she assembled the little collection on the worktable. Then she gathered together the sewing kit that Aggie had left in a heap: scraps of wool and coloured threads, needles, thimbles, pastepot and darning egg, and packed it all up in her horsehair basket, checking to see if she could lift it singlehanded for in the other arm she would be carrying the baby. Yes, it was fine, heavy but manageable. All she had to do now was ask the Mother Superior for a reference and the safety box that contained the locket and ring her father had given her as well as the clothes she had entered the convent in – not that she would fit them now of course after nearly twenty years and a baby in between.

She saw herself every step of the way in her imagination: saying her farewells in the dear little garden (as the nuns padded softly off to Lauds) to Agnes and her own lost daughter for now she must put them both to rest for good. She must squash all thoughts of her own lost daughter for the sake of little Aggie. She must step into a new life, shed the past like an old skin, like a butterfly did. She saw herself entering the Mont de Piété and exchanging the ring her father had given her for a few gold coins, just enough for her fare to Rhône, mind. Any more than that would be unwise. And she saw herself boarding the train, taking a seat in a corner by the window so that she could watch the countryside slipping by at a rate of knots as the train flew on into the future, through cities and hamlets, villages and towns…

Goodbye
, she whispered, blinking in the sunshine that bathed the cell in bright golden light, the cell that had been her home for nearly twenty years. Tears suddenly shone in her eyes.
Goodbye.

Chapter twenty-eight

Laurie almost jumped out of his skin at the sound of the tocsin. He sat upright in bed, listening to the church bells pealing, the drums and bugles thumping and blaring, the voices shouting ‘Aux armes, aux armes… to the barricades, the barricades'.

So the city had been breached then, the defences broken through by an enraged and avenging army and this was to be the final confrontation. He tried to drive all thoughts from his mind for he knew that once he started thinking he was done for. Once he started thinking he wouldn't be able to move. Just act, just act, he told himself curtly, getting out of bed and slowly and with much deliberation cleaning his teeth and washing his face from the little carafe on the table. He dressed carefully in his military uniform, preparing himself for battle bit by bit, even picking out a new handkerchief and putting it in his pocket, spitting on his boots to bring up a good shine. He found that if he concentrated on the detail of what he was doing he could keep the fear at bay. He cut himself a slice of chicken pie, feeling he oughtn't to go out on an empty stomach, and munched it standing up, unable to sit still for a moment. Better for the digestion in any case, he decided, catching sight of himself in the gilt-framed mirror, his jaws working mechanically on the pie, the expression in his eyes calm and detached. He knew that look of old. It was the mask he put on sometimes to face the world and it meant he was churning up inside. It reminded him of a poem he'd read once that began:
The stone cold faces are the ones that are feeling
…. Nine times out of ten it was true. The more impassive the face the more extreme the disguise.

The bells of Saint Jacques rang out sonorous and clear through the early morning, summoning people, so it seemed, to a frenzied church service, and then suddenly stopped mid chime as if the ringers had been peremptorily shot or simply run out of breath. Laurie paused, mouth full of chicken, waiting for the bells to resume and when they did not he stuck his head out of the window. Nothing seemed changed. The square-topped belfry still stood in the distance like the castle piece in a chess set, the fields about it blackened and deserted though one or two clumps of foliage had sprung up recently in the wasteland. He dropped the remains of his pie crust for the birds and Mister 50 then pulled his head back in. The drums and bugles were still blaring and thumping away, it was only the church bells that seemed to have given up the ghost. How strange! It was as if...

Just act, just act, he reminded himself sharply, taking a swig of water and swilling his mouth out. He mustn't start thinking at this juncture. Once he started thinking there was no way back. No way forward and no way back. Picking up his gun he left the room quietly without a second glance, taking himself by surprise so to speak, and marched down the stairs
to meet his fate
. The concierge had done a disappearing trick already – the cubicle of glass was quite empty apart from the leather chair, brown beer bottle and the keys all higgledy-piggledy in a cardboard box. He'd made a very poor show of keeping the place tidy, Laurie thought a little bitterly, noticing that the cubicle of glass was covered in a pattern of frosted stars. Why had he never noticed that before? It was a small trivial thing perhaps but he felt that he should have noticed it before now, having lived in the building these past two years.

It just showed. It just showed how subjective reality was. You could go through life seeing only what you wanted to see. He hadn't wanted to see the star-patterned glass before because he'd wanted to see the concierge and now the concierge wasn't there at all he'd wanted to see the star-patterned glass. It was a question of emphasis. A question of detail. And if everyone saw a different detail then it inevitably followed that everyone saw a slightly different world. There were as many different worlds, in effect, as there were people.

He didn't know if it was a wonderful thought or an appalling one but it amused him to think he'd been concentrating on the detail to stop himself thinking – how ironic was that – and he stepped outside with an unusually cheerful demeanour. The smell hit his nostrils almost immediately – a mix of smoke, gunshot and burning varnish – and he covered his face with the handkerchief for a moment, taking in short raggedy little breaths to get himself used to it. The smell hadn't penetrated his rooms, that was for sure, so he deduced it was coming on
a north-westerly breeze from across the Seine which tallied, in any case, with the sound of gunfire. The drums and bugles could be heard in the opposite direction, moving away behind the Rue d'Enfer, warning each street, each arrondissement in turn.

He congratulated himself on his observational skills and decided to head towards the Place de la Concorde. If he hadn't joined up with a fighting party by then at least he would get some news for ever since the Prussian war people had gathered at the Place de la Concorde for a daily news bulletin. He had no intention of trying to find his old company – if it still existed – but he wanted to know if a concerted attempt was being made to defend the city.

He stepped smartly up the street, intrigued by the women scuttling home from market, their bags laden down with provisions. Everyone had heard the tocsin, everyone was diving for cover or making ready for an attack. Shutters were going up on the windows of the squat little houses, causing an almighty din of hammering, mothers were hustling their children in from play and it was strange to see them being shooed in like hens on such a beautiful May morning. It didn't seem fair to Laurie that the children of Paris were still in danger and he smiled at a little boy who was hanging on to the railings to watch him pass until his mother came after him with the broom.

‘I'd make a run for it if I was you,' she called out to Laurie in a tight voice, ‘while you've got the chance.' And Laurie bowed and half smiled an acknowledgement. He had no intention of making a run for it as she put it though his heart beat a little faster at her words and he prayed suddenly for the courage of Alphonse, of anybody but himself. He should like to make his mother proud. An image of her delicate, vulnerable face swum into his head and he imagined himself coming home a little battle scarred and world weary, full of tales to tell, a manuscript of poems tucked into a sack on his back (a little like the sack Alphonse always wore). He always imagined himself coming home a little battle scarred and world weary or setting off at the train station on some daring adventure as only sons and elder brothers were duty bound to do.

His first test came around the very next corner – a pair of boots were sticking out of the fountain on the Rue du Temple and Laurie, fearing someone had slipped in whilst taking a drink of water, rushed over to help them. The water was streaked with blood and the man was half submerged, his head propped up against the central statue. Laurie clambered in, trying to get leverage under the man's shoulders but he was hindered somewhat by the waterlogged clothing and the body kept slipping out of his grasp. In fits and starts he dragged him to the side where, taking the man by the collar, he managed to heave him over the edge until he lay outstretched at the foot of the fountain. He was quite obviously dead and Laurie, panting and soaked to the skin, stood staring at the corpse in dismay. Whoever could have done such a thing and for what purpose? He was old, a civilian, quite obviously unarmed. Had he been shot at the fountain taking a drink of water? Or dumped there afterwards? Laurie glanced suspiciously up at the brown squat houses but nothing looked back apart from opaque shutters. There was an eeriness about the whole scene that made him want to leave in a hurry. Retrieving the cap he'd spotted by the side of the fountain he placed it gently by the man's feet and walked away, anxiously fighting the urge to look back over his shoulder. His thoughts flew unbidden to Tessier and he tried to distract himself by counting the trees that were budding or in bloom along the street. There was a cherry tree, a chestnut tree, a copper beech. Amazing to see how they were recovering after the onslaught of the siege when almost every living thing had been cut down to burn. It lifted his spirits a little to think that even the trees were fighting back.