Suite Francaise (41 page)

She rushed into the bedroom, woke Amaury up and told him what had happened. “So this is what it’s come to!” she concluded. “They can come and challenge me, steal from me, insult me in my own home. Well, let them. Do you think the insults of a farmer are going to affect me? But he’s a dangerous man. He’ll stop at nothing. I’m sure that if I hadn’t had the presence of mind to keep quiet, if I’d called for the Germans who were passing by on the road, he would have been capable of attacking them or even . . .”

She let out a little cry and went deathly pale.

“He had a knife. I saw the light reflected off the blade, I’m sure of it. Can you imagine what might have happened? A German murdered, at night, in our grounds? Go and prove you’re not involved, Amaury. It’s your duty. You must do something. That man bragged about hunting in the grounds all winter so he must have a gun at home. A gun! Even though the Germans have said over and over again that they won’t stand for it. If he’s still got one at home, he must definitely be planning something terrible, an attack of some kind. Do you realise what that means? In the next town a German soldier was killed and all the important people in the town (the Mayor first) were taken as hostages until they found out who had done it. And in a little village eleven kilometres from there a young boy of sixteen got drunk and threw a punch at a guard who was trying to arrest him for being out after curfew. The boy was shot, but there’s worse! Nothing would have happened if he’d obeyed the rules, but they considered the Mayor responsible for his constituents and he was almost executed as well.”

“A pocket knife,” Amaury grumbled, but she wasn’t listening. “I’m beginning to think,” he said, getting dressed, his hands shaking (it was nearly eight o’clock), “I’m beginning to think I shouldn’t have agreed to be Mayor.”

“You’re going to make a formal complaint at the police station, I hope?”

“At the police station? You’re mad! We’ll have the whole place against us. You know that to these people taking what we’ve refused to sell them doesn’t count as stealing. They see it as a joke. They’d make our life miserable. No, I’ll go to German Headquarters right now. I’ll ask them to keep the matter quiet, which they will certainly do, for they’re discreet and they’ll understand the situation. They’ll look around at the Sabaries’ place and will, no doubt, find a gun.”

“Are you sure they’ll find something? People like that . . .”

“People like that think they’re very clever, but I know where they hide things. They brag about it in the bars, after they’ve had a few drinks. It’s either in the loft, the cellar or the pigsty. They’ll arrest that Benoît, but I’ll make the Germans promise not to punish him too severely. He’ll get away with a few months in prison. We’ll be rid of him for a while and afterwards, I bet you anything, he’ll watch his step. The Germans know how to bring people into line. What’s wrong with them?” exclaimed the Viscount, who was now half dressed, his shirt-tails flapping round his bare thighs. “What kind of people are they? Why can’t they leave well enough alone? What are they being asked to do? To keep quiet, to leave everyone in peace. But no! They have to grumble, quibble, show off. And just how is that going to get them anywhere, I ask you? We were defeated, weren’t we? All we have to do is keep a low profile. You’d think they were doing it on purpose just to annoy me. I had succeeded, after a great deal of effort, in getting along with the Germans. There’s not a single one of them living in the château, remember. That was a great favour. And what about the whole region? I’m doing everything I can for it . . . I’m losing sleep over it . . . The Germans are behaving politely to everyone. They salute the women, they stroke the children. They pay cash. But, no! That’s not enough! What else do they want? That they give us back Alsace and Lorraine? That they agree to our becoming a Republic with Leon Blum as President? What do they want? What?”

“Don’t upset yourself, Amaury. Look at me, see how calm I am. Just do your duty without hoping for any reward other than from heaven. Believe me, God can see into our hearts.”

“I know, I know, but it’s hard all the same.” The Viscount sighed bitterly.

And without stopping for breakfast (he had such a lump in his throat, he told his wife, that he couldn’t have swallowed a crumb), he left and, in the utmost secrecy, requested an audience at German Headquarters.

17

The German army had ordered a requisitioning of horses. The going price for a mare was in the region of 60,000 or 70,000 francs; the Germans were paying (promising to pay) half that amount. It was nearly harvest time and the farmers bitterly asked the Mayor how they were supposed to manage.

“With our bare hands, eh? But we’re warning you, if we aren’t allowed to work, it’s the towns that’ll starve to death.”

“But my good fellows,
I
can’t do anything about it,” muttered the Mayor.

In fact, the farmers knew very well that he was powerless; it was simply that they secretly held a grudge against him. “
He
’ll be all right, he’ll get by, they won’t touch a single one of his cursed horses.” Nothing was going right. A storm had been raging since the night before. The gardens were soaked with rain; hail had wreaked havoc in the fields.

That morning, when Bruno left the Angelliers’ house to ride to the neighbouring town where the requisitioning was to take place, he looked out over a desolate landscape, lashed by the rainstorm. The great lime trees lining the wide road had been violently battered; they creaked and groaned like masts on a ship. Bruno, however, experienced a feeling of joy as he galloped along; this pure, biting, cold air reminded him of eastern Prussia. Oh, when would he again see those plains, that pale-green grass, those marshes, the extraordinary beauty of the skies in spring—the late spring of northern countries—those amber skies, pearly clouds, reeds, rushes, sparse clumps of silver birch . . . ? When would he again hunt for heron and curlew? Along the way he came across horses and their riders from all the hamlets, villages and estates in the area heading for town. They’re good animals, he thought, but badly cared for. The French—and all civilians actually—understood nothing about horses.

He stopped for a moment to let them pass. They were zigzagging by in small groups. Bruno studied the animals closely; he was trying to work out which ones would be suitable for war. Most of them would be sent to Germany to work the fields, but some of them would have to carry heavy loads in the African desert or the hop fields of Kent. God alone knew where the wind of war would carry them. Bruno remembered how the horses had neighed in terror as Rouen burned. It was raining now. The farmers walked with their heads down, only looking up when they saw this motionless cavalryman with his green cape thrown over his shoulders. For a moment their eyes would meet. They’re so slow, Bruno thought, look how clumsy they are. They’ll get there two hours late and when are we supposed to have lunch? We’ll have to see to the horses first.

“Well, go on, then, get a move on,” he muttered, impatiently hitting the back of his boots with his riding crop, restraining himself so he didn’t start shouting out orders as he did during manoeuvres. Some old people walked past him, children and even women; everyone from the same village stayed together. Then there would be a gap. Only the swirling wind filled the space, the silence. Taking advantage of one of these lulls, Bruno broke into a gallop and headed for the town, leaving the patient procession behind.

The farmers were silent: they had taken all the young men; they had taken the bread, the wheat, the flour and the potatoes; they had taken the petrol and the cars, and now the horses. What would they take tomorrow? Some of them had started out at midnight. They walked with their heads down, stooped over, faces impassive. Even though they’d told the Mayor they’d had enough, that they wouldn’t do another thing, they knew very well the work had to be finished, the harvest taken in. They had to eat. “It’s strange to think we used to be so happy,” they thought. “Germans . . . bunch of bastards . . . You have to be fair, though. It’s war. Still, for God’s sake, how long will it go on? How long?” muttered the farmers as they looked at the stormy sky.

Men and horses had passed by Lucile’s window all day long. She covered her ears so she wouldn’t hear them any more. She didn’t want to know anything any more. She’d had enough of these warlike scenes, these depressing sights. She was deeply disturbed by them; they broke her heart; they prevented her from being happy. Happy, my God! So there’s a war, she said to herself, so there are prisoners, widows, misery, hunger, the occupation. So what? I’m not doing anything wrong. He’s a most respectful friend. The books, the music, our long conversations, our walks in the Maie woods . . . What makes them shameful is the idea of the war, this universal evil. But he’s no more at fault than I am. It’s not our fault. Just leave us in peace . . . leave us alone! Sometimes she even frightened and surprised herself at feeling such rebellion in her heart—against her husband, her mother-in-law, public opinion, this “spirit of the hive” Bruno talked about. That evil, grumbling swarm serving some unknown end. She hated it.

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 God! 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, snatches 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 passing 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 God, 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 God, 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.