Chapter One #2
‘You must have just missed him.’ Mathilde shrugged. ‘Maybe he had to get home in a hurry, but you can’t be too careful these days, can you?’ She smiled at the guard again and sat down.
‘We must all be vigilant in these difficult times,’ said the priest, passing over his documents.
The guard glared at them both and took an excruciatingly long time with the priest’s papers before he left them all in peace and went off to interrogate the next compartment.
‘Thank you,’ SJ said to the priest – in English! What was she thinking? Mathilde’s stomach lurched and the other adult passengers exchanged glances. Alarm? Suspicion? Concern? It was hard to tell.
But the policeman sat back in his seat. ‘Live and let live – that’s my motto. I’m off duty, anyway. Going south to bury my mother, God rest her soul.’
‘At least she’s gone to a better place,’ sighed the mother, reaching into her basket for a half baguette. She tore off a chunk for her children and waved around the rest. ‘Casse cro?te, anyone?’
At last the train lurched into motion again and on they went, across the border into the unoccupied zone.
Madame SJ could have stayed on the train until it reached Marseille, but apparently there had been a security crackdown in the city, and it had been decided she should get off at Avignon with Mathilde and continue her journey to the port by boat, down the Rh?ne and along the coast. From there, she would find passage to Gibraltar and eventually, home to England.
Her escape had been arranged with the help of Mathilde’s friend and colleague at the museum, Béatrice Lemoine, who had contacts in the south.
Although Mathilde didn’t know the precise details of the plan – it was safer that way – and there wasn’t much she could do to help, she kept the Englishwoman in sight until their documents had been checked for the hundredth time and they’d passed through the turnstile into the main station concourse.
Madame SJ stood for a moment, gazing around, until a porter wearing a beret and smoking a pipe came forward to meet her.
They had a brief conversation before she handed him her suitcase and turned back, searching the crowd.
Spotting Mathilde, she smiled briefly and placed her hand on her heart.
Mathilde knew what the gesture meant: she and Jacques had hidden SJ in their apartment for several days and, later, in a secret storeroom at the back of the bookshop.
They had risked their lives to save hers: a debt that could never be repaid, only accepted with love and gratitude.
‘God speed,’ Mathilde wished the Englishwoman silently, then picked up her suitcase and prepared to take the first steps into her new life.
She’d met her cousin’s wife only once, eight years ago at the wedding, and was worried she wouldn’t recognise her after all that time.
But then a young woman touched her arm and there was Renée, unmistakably, holding a small child by the hand.
They embraced before Mathilde held Renée at arm’s length to look at her.
The same calm, smooth face, though a little thinner now, and dark shadows beneath her eyes.
She had always looked like a Madonna, Mathilde thought, and now she had a son to complete the picture.
‘Thank you for having me,’ she said, and kissed Renée again.
‘It’s so kind of you.’ She hadn’t been able to explain much in her telegram but Pierre had quickly wired back to say she was welcome to stay with them as long as she wanted, and she knew he would have asked his wife’s opinion first. Renée had played a crucial part in the invitation.
‘Of course,’ Renée replied. ‘Come, you’ve had a long journey. We’ll go home and you can tell me everything.’
‘And you must be Louis.’ Mathilde bent to chuck the little boy under the chin. He stared solemnly back at her with the same clear blue eyes as his mother. ‘Thank you for sharing your home with me.’
They took a bus that skirted the ramparts of the old town, golden in the setting sun. ‘So beautiful,’ Mathilde murmured, ‘and so . . . safe.’ There wasn’t a swastika in sight.
She felt a pang of guilt, imagining Jacques settling down for his first evening alone.
Was Werner Schmidt sniffing around already?
Jacques was clever and thoughtful, with an almost child-like sweetness that made him irresistible; she had known as soon as they’d met that here was the man with whom she would spend the rest of her life.
He told her she was beautiful but he loved her mostly for her spirit and her intellect: qualities most other men seemed to find threatening.
Although she was often frustrated by his caution, he was the safe harbour that allowed her to travel through the world.
How would they cope apart? Well, they would have to do their best. There was no alternative: she had to leave Paris and Jacques had to stay behind, and perhaps this separation would help them each develop something of the other’s strengths.
Soon they had reached the bus stop nearest to Pierre’s garage.
He came out to meet them as they walked from the bus stop, the sleeves of his overalls rolled up and his arms covered in grease to the elbow.
‘Welcome,’ he called to Mathilde. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll save the hugs for later.
’ And he chased Louis with his oily black hands, making the little boy shriek with laughter.
Mathilde’s spirits rose. Pierre was always so cheerful and positive, and she hadn’t spent nearly as much time with him as she’d have liked since they were adults.
She was an only child, and summer holidays in Provence with her cousin and his two sisters were the highlight of her year.
Monsieur Bouchon was a tenant farmer with olive trees and a vineyard on his land, so there were always chickens running around the yard, dogs to walk and kittens to play with.
She could remember helping to pick the grapes one year when harvest came early: the sun beating down from a bright blue sky and her back aching as she inched along the green tunnels, bent double, filling her basket with sweet, juicy clusters of fruit.
Friends and neighbours worked hard together and in the evenings there were communal suppers on long trestle tables outside in the velvety dark.
Madame Bouchon would cook a huge vat of cassoulet or rabbit braised in red wine, with plenty of bread to dunk in the juices, and they would all drink last year’s wine (watered down for the children) and discuss whether the next vintage would be better or worse.
Five years later, the idyll ended. Monsieur Bouchon died suddenly of a heart attack and his wife suffered a massive stroke the following spring.
Pierre’s older sister married an Italian and went to live in Tuscany, while the younger one fell in love with a French Canadian and moved with him to Quebec.
The family was scattered, with only Pierre remaining in France.
He’d always been more interested in machinery than farming, so he trained as a mechanic and eventually opened a garage with his parents’ inheritance.
He, Renée and Louis lived in the small two-bedroom apartment above the workshop.
‘You’ll be sharing a room with Louis, if that’s all right,’ Renée said as she led the way upstairs.
‘Of course,’ Mathilde replied. ‘But I can sleep in the kitchen, if that’s easier.’
The room was low-ceilinged, with just enough space for a child’s truckle bed, a mattress on the floor beside it, and a bowl and jug on top of a chest of drawers. Yet it was warm and cosy, and Mathilde felt immediately at home.
‘Don’t think of me as a guest,’ she told Renée. ‘I want to help, not be a burden. Let me cook for you in the evenings, or look after Louis – just tell me what would be most useful. You look tired, chérie.’
Renée sank down on the edge of the bed. ‘I am, a little.’ She smiled ruefully up at Mathilde and said quietly, so that Louis playing in the next room wouldn’t hear, ‘The truth is, I’m expecting again. It’s early days so don’t say anything – I haven’t even told Pierre yet.’
Mathilde sat beside her. ‘That’s wonderful news! And such perfect timing, now I’m here to take care of you.’
Renée twisted her fingers together. ‘Is it, though? Oh, Matti, I’m so worried about Pierre.
Of course he can’t admit to being a Communist now the Party’s banned, but he’s still meeting his old comrades regularly and they’re planning something, I’m certain.
The police called round the other day. He told me it was just a routine paperwork check but he went out that night and didn’t come home till the morning.
How can I bring another child into the world with all this going on? ’
Mathilde took Renée’s hands in hers. ‘Try not to fret. Once the baby comes, everything else will fall into place.’
Renée wasn’t listening. ‘Maybe he’ll talk to you. You’ve always been close. Can you find out what he’s up to and persuade him not to do anything stupid?’
‘Well, I can try,’ Mathilde replied. ‘But you know what Pierre’s like once he gets an idea in his head.’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’ Renée sighed, then squeezed Mathilde’s hands briefly. ‘That’s enough about me. How is Jacques, and how are things in Paris? Can you say why you had to leave in such a hurry?’
‘Jacques is fine,’ Mathilde replied, ‘but his mother is ill and business isn’t so good in the shop.
Paris is . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Well, Paris breaks my heart. There are swastika banners everywhere and signs in that ugly Gothic script over all the café awnings, and squads of Nazis marching about in their great boots, singing delightful songs about murdering Jews.’ She stopped.
‘I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear all this.
I had to leave because . . .’ she hesitated, not wanting to alarm Renée ‘. . . because Paris at the moment isn’t the best place for anyone with outspoken views.
So when I was given the chance of a pass, I had to accept it, and quickly.
Thank you, dear Renée and Pierre, for taking me in; it won’t be for ever, I promise. ’
By now Mathilde had managed to conquer her worst fears about Jacques’ death, telling herself she was letting her imagination run riot.
Yet all the same, she had no idea what the future held: how long Jacques’ mother would live, and whether he could ever bear to leave his beloved bookshop and wangle a pass to the south.
Maybe this separation would show him he could live without her.
Well, in that case she would just have to return to Paris to be with him and try to stay out of trouble.
She watched Pierre and Renée over supper that night, noting every glance and gesture that showed how in tune they were with each other, and how deep was the happiness to be found in their little family.
Pierre’s face lit up as Louis climbed on to his lap, and when Renée passed him a plate of food, he took her hand for a moment and pressed it against his cheek.
Surely he wouldn’t put his loved ones in danger?
But she knew only too well the call to arms that she herself had answered, the burning sense of injustice that compelled them both to act, no matter how great the risk.
She was not the right person to talk her cousin out of resisting the occupation; her blood ran hot and high, too, and she would far rather have been out with him on a night-time mission than helping Renée with Louis at home.