Wolfsangel (19 page)

33

Early on Christmas Eve afternoon, Ghislaine, Miette and I pushed our way onto the train crammed with people not only in the compartments, but also in the corridors and between cars. Even in the toilets.

Hordes of them were traipsing out to the countryside, even more so at Christmas time, to buy black market food from the farmers; commodities that were so scant in Lyon.

We sat on our bags in the corridor as the train rattled out of town, towards Lucie. I was glad I was small, as I observed the man scrunched up beside me, his tall frame bent almost in half, someone else’s head resting on his feet.

Exhausted from the past arduous days at Montluc Infirmary, and the nightmare images of Patrick, Olivier, Félicité and the Wolfs that visited my restless nights on Jacqueline’s sofa bed, I closed my eyes and laid my head against the grimy wall. I’d barely had a moment to think of seeing Martin again, and I patted the spot where the angel necklace usually lay and let him meander about my mind. What would I say to him?

I missed you.
No, too ordinary.

I love you.
Pfft
, that’s what everyone says. I would more likely ask him about Ravensbrück, and what the hell went on there.

Remorse surged through me again. I should not be dreaming of Martin; I should be thinking of the Wolf family and my sister, and Patrick and Olivier freezing on some isolated mountainside, living in constant fear of Boche bullets.

It seemed that when my mind lingered on Martin, the guilt wracked me, but if I pushed him aside and let my loved ones take over, those same barbs of self-reproach still stung me, as if I didn’t love Martin Diehl completely, utterly. Like two distinct parts of my brain were constantly in motion, continually colliding. And it made me giddy.

My eyes flicked open when a passenger stepped on my coat as he clambered over me.

He held up a hand. ‘
Pardon
, mademoiselle.’

I waved away his apology, and looked at the people around me. By Ghislaine’s side, a child slept, stretched over his mother’s lap, his head lolling from side to side with the movement of the train. A man stared at me with a wide, absent look. I gave him a quick nod, and he nodded back. In the dim light, they all had the look of cadavers, as they kept a wary eye on their luggage.

I closed my eyes again, trying to snatch a few minutes of sleep, but the noise of the train’s whistle at every stop was unbearable, the rattling, squeaking coach grating on my nerves. At each track joint, the
clack-clack
of the wheels let out a bang. I was hungry, stiff and beyond fatigue, but sleep still eluded me.

The trip became more unbearable when the police started examining everyone’s papers. I could hear them in the corridor, just beyond our carriage. ‘Papers, please. Papers, please.’

Eyes opened. People shifted position and I could almost smell the collective fear rising from the suffocating air.

The man who’d nodded earlier leaned across to the woman beside Ghislaine who was holding the child. He tapped her on the shoulder.

‘Madame, please can I hold the child?’

Everyone looked at the woman, who hesitated for a moment, then handed the sleeping child over to the man. Nobody said a word.

‘My boy’s only just dropped off to sleep,’ the man said, as the police asked for his papers. ‘Maybe you could finish checking this carriage while I wake him gently, then I can get my papers out to show you.’

The two policemen loomed over him, saying nothing. In the end one of them said, ‘All right,’ and they moved on, clambering over the bags and people sitting on the floor.

They eventually reached the end of the carriage, finished checking the papers and turned back to the man holding the child. He still hadn’t woken the small boy, but was waving his wallet at them at arm’s length.

The policemen hesitated at the coupling between the cars. The first one mumbled something to the other, who shrugged his shoulders. They both walked on to the next carriage.

In our crowded compartment, shoulders relaxed and a few quick smiles passed between strangers.

‘God bless you, madame,’ the man said, handing the woman back her child. They would probably never speak again; would never exchange names or know a thing about each other but that small human gesture marked the greatest sense of closeness. Another tiny victory in our collective fight against the hated occupier.

The train reached Lucie-sur-Vionne and I stepped out into an almost arctic cold with Ghislaine and Miette.

The Monts du Lyonnais, the fields and trees, had vanished beneath the slate grey sky, and the countryside had become an endless white mass, save for a few crows wheeling above us.

As we walked towards la place de l’Eglise
a slant of sun eased through the cloud cover, painting the cobblestones in a yellow hue. Beside the church, the thin trunks of the lime trees stood tall –– spectral sentinels guarding the Great War monument and its withered wreaths.

I caught the scent of wood smoke and heard the boom of the hunters’ guns followed by the short, expectant barking of hounds which broke the frigid silence descending from the hills.

Village housewives hurried about, clutching shopping baskets and whatever version of bread Yvon Monbeau had managed to conjure up. Hunched against the cold, they gripped coat fronts and the mittened hands of their children as they scuttled to the warmth of their homes.

From his woodcarving shop, old Monsieur Thimmonier lifted his arm in a wave.

‘Merry Christmas!’ we called in unison.

‘Be a darn sight merrier if those Boche were gone,’ he said, flinging an arm at the group of soldiers marching towards their barracks in Ecole de Filles Jeanne d’Arc. I spotted Karl Gottlob and Fritz Frankenheimer amongst them, but not Martin, and acknowledged I’d come to yearn for the briefest furtive glimpse of him between our meetings.

They’d all left on leave at the same time so I was certain he too, would be back in Lucie. I skipped a few trepid steps at the thought of seeing him again.

‘Merry Christmas to you all,’ Simon Laforge said, as he strode out of the chemist. ‘Looks like we’ll have a lot of snow this year,’ he said with a glance at the sky.

‘As every year,’ Ghislaine said, with a smile.

Amandine and Séverine rushed from Monsieur Dubois’ carpenter shop to greet their older sister. ‘Did you bring us presents?’ Amandine said, throwing her arms around Miette.

Little Séverine frowned. ‘She doesn’t bring the presents, silly, that’s
Père Noël
’s job.’

We all smiled, but I wondered if Father Christmas would have much at all for the children of France that year.

‘Girls!’ Miette’s mother called. ‘Come back inside, you’ll catch your deaths without your coats.’

‘Have a nice Christmas,’ I said to Miette.

‘See you the day after tomorrow.’ Miette kissed our cheeks and disappeared inside with her family.

It seemed nothing had changed in Lucie. Everyone was waiting –– waiting for the rations to be lifted, for the Germans to leave, for the prisoners to come home, and for the war to end.

Although I had almost lost hope of hearing from Papa and Félicité, Ghislaine and I called into the post office.

‘Well, well, I wondered where you two and Juliette Dubois had disappeared.’ Denise said, eyeing us as if we were errant children. ‘And before you ask, there’s no mail for either of you,’ she added with a smug look.

‘We’re doing nursing work for the Red Cross,’ I said.

The post office was no longer heated and Denise sat with a camel-hair coat wrapped around her ample body.

‘
Oh là, là
fancy coat,’ Ghislaine said. ‘Incredible what clothes’ coupons can buy, isn’t it, Céleste?’

Denise sniffed and looked down her nose at us. ‘It was a present from a … from a friend.’

‘The friend who wears a green uniform?’ Ghislaine said.

Denise clutched the coat lapels as if we were about to leap over the desk and tear it from her. ‘It’s none of your business who my friends are.’

‘We should go,’ I said, anxious as always when conversation lurked near the subject of German soldiers.

‘Well, Merry Christmas, Denise,’ Ghislaine said, with a cheeky wink. ‘Or should that be
Fröhe Weihnachten
?
’

Denise glared at us and turned to her next customer.

‘I hope your father’s feeling better,’ I said as Ghislaine and I stood before the still-closed butcher’s shop.

‘I don’t think my father will ever feel better,’ she said. ‘Anyway, you have a nice Christmas.’

My friend disappeared inside and I hurried across to Au Cochon Tué, and into the toilet. I almost bounced with the thrill, as I retrieved the paper stuffed behind the cistern.

Meet me Christmas Eve afternoon if you can.

***

I took the muddied track through the great flattened landscape to Uncle Claude’s farm. Trees dotted the fields like snowmen, the leafless limbs sagging at odd angles under their snowy weights. Sheets of ice plastered the fields and I recalled when Patrick, Olivier and I would break off pieces of ice and marvel, with a child’s wonder, at the fossilised blades of brown grass.

The sweet aroma of Uncle Claude’s pipe hit me as he opened the door, and the shouts and squeals of Justin, Gervais, Paulette and Anne-Sophie, as they bounded about the household clutter.

Uncle Claude immediately frowned, his face creasing like a sun-dried apricot.

I laid a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t worry, Olivier is safe, and well.’

The farmer’s wide shoulders relaxed. ‘Thank God. I’ll send word to his parents. They worry so, being far away across the channel.’

He stepped aside and gestured me in. ‘Are you coming inside? The kids would love to see you.’

From the scoops of laughter and the rough-and-tumble din, it seemed Olivier’s cousins were having a good enough time without seeing me. Besides, I was anxious to get to the riverbank.

‘I can’t stay today,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to let you know they’d sent a message; that they’re safe and in good health. They’re sorry they can’t be home for Christmas. Maybe next year.’

Uncle Claude nodded. ‘Let’s hope this war is over by then. I don’t know what’ll become of us if it goes on much longer. I’ve had the Boche here only today, the two who always march around together –– skinny mean-looking one, and the fat one. Seems somebody told them about me slaughtering a couple of pigs and flogging the meat on the black market.’ He sighed. ‘But what choice do we farmers have? My equipment is wearing out and I can only replace it with expensive black market parts. I can only get fodder too on the black market, and you can imagine the prices! It’s no wonder I have to engage in a touch of illegal activity myself.’ He puffed on his pipe. ‘Anyway, they say they’ll denounce me to the authorities if I don’t sell my meat to them, so
they
can make the profit. And I’m not the only one, Céleste,’ he said, jabbing the pipe at me. ‘It seems someone here in Lucie is informing on many villagers. They’ve got a profitable business going, getting information then blackmailing the people for money, or goods, to send home to their families. Why only the other day they raided the Au Cochon Tué cellar.’

‘They didn’t find our ––?’

He shook his head. ‘The pigs were so happy when they found Robert’s illegal wine, they never bothered looking for another secret partition in his cellar.’

‘Thank God, but poor Monsieur Perrault, what happened to him?’

‘Oh not gaol, or a fine, or anything like that,’ Claude said. ‘No, like myself, and our dear butcher, Robert’s got to sell all the wine to those two thugs now. It’s
them
who’ll be making the forty-franc resale profit.’

Uncle Claude waved the pipe about. ‘If I get my hands on the filthy collabo who’s feeding them information I’ll thread him through my wheat-cutter.’

***

The wind was about the woods, savage spots of sleet stabbing my face. I paused at the cross with its little heart engraved into the stone, commemorating the children who’d drowned in the Vionne. I felt the familiar jabs of grief for those lost children.

What if they’d not drowned, those young ancestors of mine, and had lived long enough to have children of their own? Everything would be different. I, Céleste Roussel, might not be here today. It struck me then how filled with our own importance we all were; as if we really mattered, when our fragile lives –– our lifelines –– hinged on nothing more than the whim of a river current.

I slithered down the slippery verge and followed the track through the willow trees. Swathed in scraps of ice, the water struggled across the boulders. I never ventured to the river in winter and it seemed odd without the noise of crickets and honeybees, not even the snap of crows’ wings or the rustle of foraging squirrels.

Martin wasn’t at our special place, but I was early. It was too cold to sit on our rock, so I paced about, stamping my feet to keep the blood flowing.

A robin redbreast settled on a branch and began preening itself. I closed my eyes and made the traditional wish for the first sighting of a winter robin. Seconds later the bird spread its wings and flew away –– a drop of blood on cotton wool. I hoped wherever he went he’d keep my wish close to his scarlet breast.