Le Temps des Cerises (44 page)

The first time she heard the cry she dismissed it simply as the whine of a bullet, maybe a man in distress. The second time she wasn't so sure and listened intently. There it was again, like the cry of a baby (she knew enough about babies' cries, having looked after Jacques for so long when her mother died) and it was coming from somewhere in front of the barricade. She understood then immediately what had happened – the woman had been carrying a baby, not a firebomb. There was a baby out there, alone and terrified. Had nobody else heard it? Dropping her gun she scrambled over sandbags and crates to peer through a gap in the barricade; but to her dismay she could see nothing through the heavy wall of smoke. Alphonse, crouching down to reload, asked her what she was playing at, throwing her gun away like that but she shushed him by putting a finger to her lips. The wail came again, indignant, imperious, enraged; and she smiled through her tears, thinking of Jacques, though this, she felt quite sure, was a little baby girl. The cry was so imperious it had to be a girl!

She nodded at Alphonse's astonished expression. A baby! Yes! In the middle of a battlefield. Unbelievable but true. It wasn't a firebomb after all.

His eyes registered dim comprehension then fear and he deftly reloaded her gun as well as his own before shoving it back into her hands. He didn't say anything, didn't try to dissuade her, as she had half expected. Not that it would have made any difference if he had. She had made up her mind in any case – whatever he said, whatever he did. You didn't leave a baby alone in a battlefield for heaven's sake! But she needn't have worried. He understood entirely, understood her need to prove herself, understood about Jacques, about Laurie, understood about everything. Without words. His eyes were bluer than ever as he stared at her, as blue as the sky still was presumably above the smoke, so blue she could float across them in a balloon. She felt as if she'd stared at those eyes for an eternity though it couldn't have been more than a minute. A lifetime of possibilities crammed into a minute. Then his face broke into that wide, impetuous grin.

‘You look like a little mouse,' he teased, ‘but you have the heart of a lion, Miss Eveline.'

‘Laurie would be pleased,' she half groaned, struggling with the strap of her gun. Laurie. That was another thing to make up for. She prayed he was safe, well, out of harm's way.

Alphonse helped her adjust the strap then covered her hands in his own. ‘He's very brave too,' he said and she wondered if it was guilt that made his voice break the way it did, that made his rough, workmanlike fingers tremble against hers. ‘He can admit to being afraid which takes more courage than anything else.' He suddenly delved in his pocket, brought something out and placed it in the palm of her hand, though she knew what it was even before she saw the flash of red, felt the smooth, shiny surface. It was her mother's ruby brooch, the one she'd given him for Buzenval, suddenly, on impulse, thinking later that she really should have given it to Laurie. It was warm and strangely comforting in her hand. How many times had she hidden it in the toe of her shoe lest her father find it and pawn it for drink? She'd given it to Alphonse to keep him safe. Now it was her turn. Her turn to keep safe. His fingers still trembled as he hitched the rifle over her shoulders, placed the strap carefully, gently against her neck, as gentle as a caress.

‘Don't forget...' his voice faltered. ‘Don't forget to keep low, stay low, and when you've got her…'

He knew too. Knew it was a little girl, like the one they might still have when it was over, afterwards when the war was over, when everything had ended they could all begin again. She, Alphonse, Laurie.

‘Whatever you do don't look back. When you've got her head for home and don't look back. Remember, Evie, don't look back.'

She nodded, slipping the brooch into her pocket and scrambling over the sandbags. There was no time to waste, no time for goodbyes. The old man was on his haunches, about to reload, and the woman who'd lost her sons to Prussia, still calm and dignified, was firing with a deadly aim. There were bodies, too, already, which Eveline realised with horror she would have to crawl over to reach the end of the barricade. She shuddered, suddenly nauseous, and stared white faced up at Alphonse.

‘Do your best,' he said quietly, his eyes like a hand held out to her and Eveline thought,
I shall never say goodbye to him
.
Whatever happens I shall never say goodbye to him.
Then he shooed her away, flapping his arms at her as if she were a small bird; and she turned, dropping to her hands and knees, and began her journey into the line of fire.

The old man was scraping about in the dirt, looking for ammunition. ‘I ain't never seen an angel,' he groaned in distress. ‘What d'you think they look like?'

‘What?' Alphonse's eyes were unblinking as he watched Eveline's progress.

‘An angel? What d'you think they look like?'

She was nearly halfway there. After a slight hesitation she had negotiated the first body, a boy not much older than Jacques with a hole in his face where an eye should have been. Alphonse let out a faint exhalation of breath and his eyes were very proud as he turned towards the old man. ‘As ugly as you!' he retorted, throwing him half of his own ammunition. Then he sprang into action, dragging another crate on top of his makeshift platform and grabbing the red flag somebody had stuck in an upturned flower pot in the middle of the barricade. His eyes still followed Eveline's progress. There she was at the edge at last, about to make the turn. He slowly climbed onto the platform, holding the flag with both hands. The whole of his torso was now exposed to enemy fire. He stood for a moment, his eyes still on Eveline whose small form was just visible in front of the barricade like a shadow separating itself out from its owner. Alphonse's beautiful sculpted lips parted a little as he formed the word goodbye, then he wrenched his eyes away to face the Versaillais. He began waving the red flag wildly from side to side, his body swaying precariously with the movement.

‘
JE SUIS LÀ!
' he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘
C'EST MOI!
'

Bernadine was hovering somewhere between life and death. She was back in her dear little garden on the warm sweet-woodruff bench with Agnes, plump and glistening, the Mother Superior fretting in her room over novels, fancy notelets, bottles of anisette… quite the theologian, he had said, her own small item of confiscated property and she had blushed, oh she had blushed deep – and time having hibernated for so long started ticking again with the snowdrops and primroses, the ancient-bellied singing toads who each struck a different note at sunset, the stained-glass panes of crocus and marigold. Only here could she praise him! The night they had lain in incense of lavender, the ha-ha overgrown with brambles, the brambles all mixed up with stars, the night the very flowers had held their breath, the moon played peek a boo with the dark and the dark closed its eyes and counted to five…

Squeezing her eyes shut tight, Eveline felt her way through the smoke. She was aware that Alphonse was risking his life for her – doing something stupid, noble, heroic – and the thought both horrified her and urged her on at the same time. She tried to blot out everything else but the thought that he was risking his life for her. Tried to blot out the noise of the guns, her feelings of terror, the stones that dug into her palms and knees, the smoke that singed at her eyeballs. She screwed them up even harder, the better, strangely, to hear (it was an advantage certainly. If you wanted to look on the bright side then that was it) and trained her mind on the wail that came intermittently through the smoke, no longer imperious sounding but terrified and alone. She wondered if the baby was injured, stuck, trapped beneath the woman's weight. The cry came again, a little to her left and she launched herself in the direction of the sound, ignoring the pain that shot through her knee. The earth seemed to tremble beneath her as if the armies were about to stampede. She was sobbing freely now, sobbing suddenly for her mother, her father, for Jacques, for her own role as little mother, for the lives that were being snuffed out as easily as candles; and the hot tears coursing down her cheeks stung almost as much as the smoke.

‘Please let me be in time,' she begged, lurching forward on her side, her face scraping along the road. It was almost a relief to feel her face scrap­ing along the road. A boot came off and she abandoned it, tore the other one off to join it. The wail came again, gouging at her heart, and she didn't even know how she felt (having always thought she resented the role) until the cry burst out of her: ‘Please give me another chance to be a mother!'

‘Are you the nun from St Joseph's?' someone had said and she had blushed, oh she had blushed deep red she had blushed so much for it was true. She was. She had been. Someone had penetrated her disguise!

‘You're fine, the baby's fine,' someone had said and whisked her away in a bloodstained apron, out of sight, out of mind. Except she wasn't. Ever. She was alive still, now, somewhere in the city. And Monsieur Lafayette...

Bernadine frantically opened her eyes and the stonecutter's daughter stared down at her with Ernest's grave, unmistakable smile.

‘The baby's trapped a little, if we could just move your arm.' The stonecutter's daughter bent over her with Ernest's tall willowy grace. Could it be he after all these years? Could it be she? His beautiful hands undoing the strap. She remembered those hands, the night they had lain in incense of lavender, the night the very stars had held their breath… Could this be paradise? Could this be death? Her own red curls brushing against her cheek as the stonecutter's daughter lifted the papoose. Curls she had been proud of once before the Sister barber got her hands on them.
All for Jesus!
They had shrieked hysterically, the lot of them – the redheads, blondes, brunettes. Free from the weight of hair, the soul a little more exposed to the air. Had she been so near for all these years? The stonecutter's daughter on her very doorstep?

‘I've got her now, she's perfectly safe. You don't have to worry any more.' Was this the shining illumination she had saved herself up for. This moment. Right now. As she looked upon her daughter's face. Desolate, yes, and sweet. A place to confess, to dream, to repent. There were so many things she wanted to say: were you happy as a child, did you wear the colour pink? Do you sew and cook, pass the time with walks and books? There was so little time to choose the right words. If they could make a difference.

‘Wear your very best dress,' she gasped at last, reaching out her own hands to the beautiful hands and face, her eyes suddenly fierce and alive like a light that glows brighter just before it dies, ‘every day of the week. Promise me that. Tell Aggie...' But she had nothing left. Her father was peering at her over his ormolu clock as if to say where has the time gone, and her own clock set at just before midnight. There was barely enough time to escape her own life...

In the still, quiet heart of battle, Eveline laid the nun's head ever so gently down, scraping a soft surface on the rough and broken road, releasing her hand at the very last moment. She left the eyes wide open, gazing in wonderment at the world out of a strange, instinctive feeling that the nun still needed them to find her way home. She was not unlike her mother, pale and peaceful in the morgue, the life all gone out of her. She had recognised the nun immediately with that sad, beautiful, neglected face of hers – the face of a madonna – and wondered at her story. How a nun had ended up with a baby, the world all topsy-turvy. Had she been running for safety, running into the unknown? Not that it mattered any more.

The baby was sleeping now, exhausted by the ordeal, her black curls wet with sweat against her forehead, thumb stuck into the wide red mouth. Eveline stood carefully, clasping her to her chest. Should she run and risk her own life or crawl and risk Alphonse's even more than she had done already? It wasn't a difficult choice. She ran. She ran barefoot over the rough and broken road. She ran and she never felt any pain for Bernadine was running beside her, Bernadine was running too.
She would be late for Lauds if she didn't get a move on! Her Sisters were there already, lifting their hearts up altogether for the Deo Gratias. She slipped in beside them and her heart flew to join them. Their voices rose as one, raising the roof, thanking the Lord, and the guns baritoned in the distance an Almighty welcome.
Eveline ran as if she had wings, as if wings carried her.

At a safe distance from the barricade she turned and looked back despite what Alphonse had said. She almost wished she hadn't. She could see his figure, small and vulnerable beside the woman who'd lost her sons to Prussia and the old man – they looked like a little family defending their home. She willed him to turn one last time in recognition, love, even farewell. The merest hint of a sign would do. Her mind said his name over and over and it seemed so loud in her own head that she thought he must be able to hear it, must be able to feel it. She stood straining her eyes, clasping Aggie to her chest and the wind buffeted at her face and body. It was almost a relief to feel the wind buffeting at her body, blowing dirt and dust in her face. She thought suddenly that he turned and smiled that crazy, intoxicating, impetuous smile of his but she couldn't be sure. It was perhaps a trick of the light, his smile after all a flash of light. In the end she turned away – it took all her strength and courage to force herself away – and left him there to fight alone which he did, long after the woman had been reunited with her sons and the old man beheld the face of an angel and from the look on his own found it beautiful. He fought on, the last revolutionary on the Rue Ramponneau until his ammunition had gone. Then he turned with an almost contemptuous slowness, threw down his gun and walked away. Nobody fired though Lapin was practically doing the can-can so eager was he to bring him down. Provost stayed his hand. You didn't get the
légion d'honneur
shooting a man in the back, even a revolutionary.