Peach (15 page)

It was a warm, clear evening at the Hostellerie la Rose du Cap. The last few fluffy pink clouds drifted towards the darkening horizon and the rustle and squeak of tiny night-flying bats blended with the crackle of the cicadas and the slow smooth rush of the sea. Peach walked from the villa to the hotel, through the cooling green gardens, sniffing the night-blooming stocks and the syringa blossoms and the tiny white starry flowers whose name she could never remember but which were her favourite. She had pinned up her heavy tawny hair on top of her head but she still felt hot. It was in weather like this that she had an urge to take the scissors and cut the whole lot off. She remembered her mother telling her the story of how, as a girl, she had done just that—and how upset her grandmother d’Aureville had been. Peach thought that maybe Leonie wouldn’t be so very upset, but what if the war ended suddenly and Amelie were there and she looked so different with short hair that her mother didn’t recognise her? It was Peach’s recurring worry that she might have grown and changed so much that her parents
wouldn’t recognise her, that they might not even
like
her now she was growing up. On good days she laughed and told herself she was being stupid, but on the bad days she cried. It was then that Leonie would hold her close and tell her how proud Amelie and Gerard would be of her, proud that she had beaten the polio, proud that she had thrown away her calliper and exercised with weights until she walked with only the slightest limp, and one day that too would disappear. She was just like everyone else now, thought Peach, with the child’s ever-present fear of being different. And now she was helping France.

Peach could remember how surprised she had been when she had followed the new kitten down the steps to the hotel’s cellar and heard the radio. And it wasn’t Radio Paris playing Wagner and spouting German propaganda, it was speaking English! Then she heard other English voices—right there, in their cellar! The two men looked just like truck drivers and she thought maybe they were delivering champagne, but then they smiled at her and said, “Well, hello love, who are you then?” It was their turn to be surprised when she’d answered them in English.

“I’m Peach, of course.”

“Of course you are,” they’d laughed. Then she explained that she lived at the villa and that Leonie was her grandmother, and Lais and Leonore her half-sisters.

Lais had been furious—not with Peach, but with whoever it was who’d been careless enough to leave the door open. But then Lais had to let Peach in on the big secret, and she had her
swear
never to tell it to
anyone
—whatever happened. Peach had felt a bit frightened when Lais had told her that their own lives, as well as many others, would depend on keeping the secret. She wished she had never gone down the cellar after the kitten, but she couldn’t just have let Ziggie get lost, could she? She was
her
kitten.

Later it had become exciting. Lais, wearing a worried frown, asked her solemnly whether she thought she could carry a message for her. “A very secret message,” she said. “I wouldn’t ask you, but I’m sure that creepy Captain Kruger is having me watched and it would be too obvious if Grand-mère went suddenly into Monte Carlo. Leonore can’t go because she has to be at the hotel as the Italian generals are arriving today for the conference, and Kruger won’t let her out of his sight; he’s driving her crazy, demanding this and ordering that. It’s desperately urgent.”

Peach only half understood what she was doing but she had sensed Lais’s anxiety as she watched her fold the tiny piece of paper into her pencil-box, tucking it safely into her brown schoolbag, and waving her goodbye on the bus. Peach joined the little crocodile of blue-smocked schoolgirls walking sedately through the streets of Monte Carlo to school. The box with its secret sat on her desk all day and her eyes were drawn to it time and time again, but Lais had warned her to tell no one and especially to speak to no one in the street. When the bell signalled that school was over, she quickly slid the piece of paper from the box into her smock. It felt as though it were burning a hole in her pocket—like the weekly allowance Leonie gave her which she liked to squander on ice cream.

He was waiting on the corner. A short man, rather fat and with a moustache, wearing the jacket of a croupier at the casino. The screw of paper slipped from her hand to the pavement as she strolled by, pausing a few seconds later to pull up her sock and peek back at him. He was already walking away, hands in his pockets, whistling. The piece of paper was gone! Thrilled by the success of her secret mission Peach skipped the rest of the way down the hill to the bus, proud that she had done well for Lais, proud of her work for
France, proud of her strong legs that could skip. At the age of seven she was a member of the Resistance.

Leonore was waiting for her in the big pantry behind the hotel kitchens, busily checking supplies. Leonore always looked so calm, despite Captain Kruger’s constant badgering and Kommandant von Steinholz’s demands. There was just that constant tiny worried frown between her brows to show the strain. The sisters were so unalike that sometimes Peach wondered how they could possibly be twins. They were almost identical, yet they looked
different
. Leonore’s calm expression, her cool deliberateness when confronted with a problem, were in complete contrast to Lais’s vivid face and impetuous personality—Lais had always “leaped before she looked”. And, of course, Leonore pulled back her blonde hair severely and wore only rose colour lipstick and sometimes she’d forget she had her spectacles pushed up on top of her head and think she’d lost them. Even her skin was different, paler than Lais’s, who was always out in the sun, and Leonore always wore simple tailored dresses. Leonore was very pretty in a
gentle
sort of way, decided Peach. But Lais was flamboyant, and beautiful.

“Peach! I didn’t hear you come in.” Leonore glanced round to make sure that the doors were shut. Fishing a small box from behind a stack of jars of jams and honey, she pushed it to the bottom of Peach’s schoolbag, covering it with her books.

“There’s only one man in the cellars,” she whispered, “and he’s leaving tonight. These are his rations for the journey and his instructions. Make sure he burns them after he’s read them, Peach. It’s very important.”

Peach nodded.

“It’s impossible for me to go because Kruger is on the alert. He’s making life
very
difficult at the moment,” she
added with a sigh. Her worried frown deepened. “Are you sure you’ll be all right, Peach?”

“Of course,” said Peach confidently. “No one cares about
me
, Leonore. Old Kruger barely knows I exist.” Planting a quick kiss on Leonore’s cheek, she slid through the door and into the garden.

As Peach turned the corner of the hotel, Captain Kruger emerged from the shadows by the parking lot, his boots crunching on the gravel. She felt the hot sweat of panic on her spine. Her eyes wide with alarm, she clutched the schoolbag closer. Did he know? Was he coming to arrest her?
To arrest all of them?
Suddenly she boiled with anger. She felt about Volker Kruger the way she had about her hated calliper. He was a
merde
thing. Tossing back her head, she began to skip down the path towards him, swinging her bag, humming to herself.

“
Guten Tag
, Fräulein Peach.” Volker Kruger straddled the path in front of her, forcing her to halt.

“
Bonsoir
, M’sieur.” Peach lifted her eyes reluctantly from his gleaming, oversize boots to his face. Volker Kruger had the short stocky legs of a peasant, tapering upwards to a narrow chest. His head was shaped like a lightbulb and his eyes were bulging green marbles. His stubbly hair was dark and dead looking with a sprinkling of white flaky dandruff, and he had a habit of standing legs apart, elbows akimbo, fists clenched at his hips in the small man’s arrogant pose.

“And where have
you
been?” he asked, staring at her schoolbag. “Shouldn’t you be home preparing your schoolwork for tomorrow?”

Peach shifted anxiously from foot to foot. “I’m on my way, M’sieur,” she said dodging past him, almost tripping over his enormous feet. Resisting the terrible urge to run, she skipped down the path, away from him. “
Bonsoir
, M’sieur,” she called sweetly.

Kruger caught a snatch of the song she was singing as she disappeared along the path, something in English—“She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes,” carolled Peach gaily. Baffled, Kruger walked back to the big pink hotel.

Lais sat at her usual stool at the bar of the Hostellerie la Rose du Cap, sipping champagne, surrounded by a group of admiring officers. She looked wonderful, thought Leonore, wending her way through the usual pre-dinner cocktail bar crush to her sister’s side. Lais had a golden tan and her hair was bleached even blonder by the sun. She wore a diaphanous amethyst dress that Leonore recognised as coming from Leonie’s storage closets, and which must be at least thirty years old, but Lais managed to make it look chic and fashionable. Tossing back her long hair, Lais waved a hand to the barman for more champagne cocktails, calling to the pianist at his white piano to play louder so that she could hear him over the buzz of conversation and laughter.

From the corner of her eye, Leonore noticed Kruger, standing stiffly by the piano, a drink clutched in his hand, his eyes fastened on Lais. Kruger’s jaw hung slackly and his tongue flickered across his wet open mouth. Leonore had never seen such naked desire in a man’s face and she felt sick with apprehension as she pushed her way through to her sister. Forcing herself to be calm, she sat down next to Lais. Bending closer she whispered in Lais’s ear, “Peach is doing her homework.”

Lais lifted her glass in a mock toast and smiled at her sister. “Time for one more before dinner,” she called to the officers. “And then who’s going to the casino in Monte Carlo afterwards?”

Leonore watched Kruger watching Lais. His stillness was that of an animal sizing up its prey, waiting for the perfect
moment to make its move. The crowd in the bar began to thin out as they drifted towards the dining room and she heard Lais fending off demands for her company, making easy excuses, promising maybe later, as the young officers turned away reluctantly. Slamming his glass down on the white grand piano so that the beer slopped over its sides, Kruger marched stiffly from the room.

“Lais, please take care,” said Leonore urgently, “Kruger is crazy. And he’s jealous.”

“Jealous? Of what?” Lais gazed at Kruger’s retreating back contemptuously. “That disgusting little man knows I would never even look at him.”

“Haven’t you noticed the way he looks at you?
He wants you
, Lais!”

“He’s nothing,” said Lais, “just a small cog in a big wheel.”

“He’s unpredictable and he’s dangerous,” replied Leonore, but Lais just laughed.

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” sighed Leonore. “I’m off to check my kitchens now.”

“A woman’s work is never done,” Lais called after her mockingly. Fatigue swept over her as it did every night about this time when she’d played out her role as the darling of the High Command, ex-mistress of Karl von Bruhel, the de Courmont who knew which side her bread was buttered and who played along with the winners. But a steady stream of escapees and refugees, hidden in the delivery trucks, had already flowed along the champagne funnel from Épernay. And by keeping her ears and eyes open for gossip in the bar, Lais was able to come up with occasional scraps of valuable information. The memory of Karl still lurked in the back of her mind, coiled like a cobra, waiting to spring at her when she was alone, and leaving her vulnerable and shaken, but that was a face she never showed the world. She stared
wearily into her drink. The champagne cocktail was part of her performance as Lais the gay charmer, von Bruhel’s exmistress—and no one’s lover.

“Lais? Do you remember me? We met in Paris.”

Lais looked up, straight into the gold-flecked hazel eyes of Major Ferdi von Schönberg.

Volker Kruger inspected himself in the long mirror of the suite he inhabited at the Hostellerie, puffing out his chest and tightening his polished brown leather belt an extra notch. Clicking his heels together smartly he bowed to his image. The fact that he came only half-way up the mirror’s height went unnoticed. What he saw was an officer of the Third Reich in a smart, freshly pressed uniform and gleaming high leather boots, the peaked cap denoting his rank planted squarely on his narrow head.
Power
was reflected back at him from that mirror, cancelling the pinched face that spoke of decades of deprivation and a slovenly family who spent what money they earned picking potatoes or helping bring in a harvest on cigarettes and beer.

Volker’s mother had been a big, fat woman partial to a plate of coarse regional sausages doused in hot mustard and a brimming tankard of rich dark beer. She had a harsh guttural voice and an even harsher hand that she used frequently on her only son, whose puniness was a constant source of annoyance to her. Volker took after his father, a
wiry little man, half the size of his wife and completely under her thumb. Until he’d had enough beer. Helmut Kruger’s randiness “under the influence” was a source of much amusement to his wife, who tolerated his crude amorous advances the way she did a fly crawling over her body, flicking him off when he was done with a dismissive, “Little men, little pricks.”