Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Pierre Moreau
‘What is your name?’ Pierre asked the woman as they walked back to the Rue de Paris.
‘Mirela. And this is my daughter, Geneviève.’
Pierre unlocked the basement door at the gable of the bakery and once they were inside, shut it firmly after him.
His shoulders slumped and air refilled his lungs.
What was he to do now? He couldn’t think.
The consequences of sheltering prisoners were known well enough.
He went to the sink, took down some glasses and filled them with water before handing them to Mirela and her daughter.
‘Thank you, Monsieur, for what you have done for us,’ she said, before gulping down the entire glass and handing it back to him. She turned back towards the door, as though ready to flee.
‘What will you do? Where will you go?’ he asked.
‘North,’ she said. ‘Perhaps we can get a boat from there…’
Geneviève rubbed her eyes and whimpered. She looked weary to her bones.
‘The child is tired,’ he said. ‘Here…’ He pulled a bench out from the wall and placed an empty flour sack upon it. ‘Let her rest. I will get you something to eat.’
He took some of the remaining apples from a crate at the back of the basement.
They were bruised and over-ripe, but they were all he could get.
With a knife, he cut off the browning soft spots and sliced the apples into pieces, then put them on a plate with some madeleines.
The child, who had up to this point clung to her mother like a barnacle on a rock, gave Pierre and the plate a wary look.
‘Please,’ he said, reaching towards her. She looked to her mother who gave her a reassuring smile and with the speed of a pickpocket, she took a madeleine and munched it happily.
Pierre smiled. He didn’t have much experience with children, but this little girl, her large brown eyes that suggested a quick, lively intelligence... Well. He was quite taken with her.
‘You’ll never make it to the coast,’ he said, getting up to prepare some coffee, which was really just roasted acorns and chicory root. ‘I think you know that.’ He set some water to boil on the stove.
‘I have no choice,’ Mirela said.
Pierre looked at them both, nibbling on the small plate of food.
They had barely survived up to now. And he felt sure their survival rested in his hands.
Sending them out onto the street now was a certain death sentence.
This war had already stolen so much from him, he wasn’t going to let it steal his humanity as well.
Even if it meant dying for it, it was the only thing worth living for.
‘You can stay here.’ The words seemed to echo around the walls. It was a life-and-death decision. He was afraid of what would come, but equally, he felt as though he were living up to the nature of his soul, his highest good.
Mirela looked up at him with confusion in her eyes that turned a moment later to some kind of recognition.
‘I cannot offer you anything,’ she replied, after a time. ‘I won’t do that.’
The kettle began to whistle and, with a cloth wrapped around the handle, he took it off the boil, then turned to look at her, forgetting about the coffee.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
‘I love my husband, whether he is alive or dead.’
Suddenly, it dawned on him. She assumed this would be an arrangement of some sort. That he, being a bachelor, would take advantage of her vulnerable situation.
‘No, you misunderstand. I am no threat to you, Mirela. I…’ The words died on his lips. How could he say out loud the very thing he had kept secret for years. ‘I do not see you in that way.’
She stared into his earnest eyes and tried to listen to him with her heart and not her ears.
‘Do you understand what I am saying? I cannot love a woman.’
It was as though an electric charge or a current had been switched off. The tension that had been tying her body in a tight knot released and with that, the tears began to flow.
‘Maman?’ The little girl looked cautiously at her mother.
‘I think Maman would like some more madeleines,’ Pierre said gently. ‘Shall we make some together?’
And that was how Pierre Moreau found himself with a family he had never asked for or dared hope for.
They decided on a story that, while unusual, could convince the locals.
Pierre told everyone that Mirela was his wife.
Yes, it was sudden, but in wartime, people did strange things, no?
Yes, he would make a great father to the child.
Of course, they came from a small village in the country, you wouldn’t know it.
And that was how they carried on, as an unexpected but happy family.
Mirela took on her role as dutiful housewife and Geneviève spent every day by Pierre’s side, learning how to bake.
Before long, their lives began to resemble something approaching normality, but more than that – joy.