Chapter Four
At first, Mathilde found it hard to adjust to life in Provence.
The Bouchons’ apartment was smaller than the one she and Jacques shared in Paris, and three people were living there already – even if one of them was a child.
She did her best to give the couple space and tried to earn her keep by looking after little Louis and cooking the supper as often as Renée would let her.
At least her ration book helped supplement the weekly meals, and she could take over shopping for the meagre supplies the family was allowed.
As had been the case in Paris, fresh bread was no longer allowed to be sold and crusty baguettes were a distant memory; replaced by gritty loaves that tasted like sawdust, resisted the knife, and had to last all week.
One couldn’t buy proper coffee anywhere; cream had disappeared from the dairy; only children, the sick and elderly could drink fresh milk.
Renée’s pregnancy was soon confirmed by the doctor and her rations were increased, but even so, they were all hungry.
‘Because the Boche are bleeding us dry,’ Pierre told Mathilde on her first evening.
‘Everything we produce is going straight to Germany, or the swine eat it here. Sausage, cheese, butter, wine, olive oil – straight down their greedy throats. The Nazis are in fine fettle, thanks to us. They steal money and houses from the Jews and food from everyone else.’
Renée laid a warning hand on his arm. ‘Calm down. You know there’s no point getting worked up over things beyond our control, and you’ll get into trouble if anyone hears you talking like that.’
And how bitter that winter was! Even in the south, the ground glittered with frost each morning, frozen pipes cracked and the distant peaks of Mont Ventoux were covered with snow.
‘Wait till the mistral blows,’ Renée said, referring to the fearsome wind that rushed down from the north. ‘Then you’ll know what it is to be cold.’
Mathilde’s heart ached for Jacques. However difficult conditions were in Avignon, she knew they were worse further north: even less food, and Nazis everywhere.
On her first sortie into the town, she’d been expecting to bump into squadrons of the hated grey-green uniforms around every corner, her ears straining to catch the shouts of German voices and stamp of hobnailed boots.
The streets were quiet, though. Only the odd motor car or pony and trap drove past as women like herself, muffled against the cold with baskets over their arms, queued outside shops for whatever was available.
She wondered how her husband would be managing without her.
Maybe he would pay the concierge of their apartment block to do his shopping, or a neighbour might help.
Young Sylvie, the daughter of the family who lived upstairs, had a crush on Jacques and was always offering to run errands for him; she would be delighted to step in.
They’d been spending more time together in the shop before she left and he’d started to call her by her nickname: Zizi.
The ancient walled city was even more beautiful than Mathilde remembered; especially poignant given the threat to its existence, even here in the unoccupied zone.
‘We must trust Marshal Pétain to keep us safe,’ Renée said.
‘Once Great Britain has fallen, the war will be over and life can carry on. Yes, the Nazis will be in control but that might not be so bad.’
‘It’s plain wrong, though, what they’re doing,’ Mathilde said. ‘Why should Hitler be allowed to take over the world and tell the rest of us how to think?’
Renée sighed. ‘I don’t know. Will it make much difference to people like us whether the high-ups are German or French? I’ve told Pierre it’s not worth sacrificing his life for.’
War was what terrified her, above anything else: her father had been killed in the Great War and her brother was currently a prisoner of war in Germany.
She was haunted by the fear that her husband – or even one day far in the future, her precious Louis and unborn child – might be sent to their deaths on some distant front line.
Mathilde had tried to find out from Pierre whether he was planning any reprisals against the Germans, as Renée had requested, but she’d got precisely nowhere.
‘I’ll leave taking on Hitler for another day,’ was all he’d say.
He was usually exhausted at the end of the day, tramping upstairs from the garage to wash in the kitchen sink.
French civilian drivers were no longer allowed gasoline, so he was busy replacing their fuel tanks with gazogène cylinders, powered by gas or burning charcoal.
Gazogène cars were dirty, unreliable and required a lot of servicing, and Pierre was rushed off his feet.
Mathilde offered to help chase up payments and order supplies, and he accepted willingly – although she soon got the impression he regretted this decision.
Men who were not his usual customers often came to see him about matters that clearly had nothing to do with vehicles; Pierre would take them into his tiny office where they’d huddle together, talking in hushed voices.
They had no need to worry on Mathilde’s account, because they spoke in the Provencal dialect, which she couldn’t understand.
Pierre was curt with her after these visits, as if to make it clear she’d better not refer to them.
It was sad to realise she and her cousin were no longer close, that he didn’t trust her enough to involve her in his plans.
One evening when Renée had gone to bed early and Pierre was unusually relaxed, thanks to a bottle of wine from a grateful customer, Mathilde asked, ‘What do you think’s going to happen to our country? Is there a chance we’ll ever get rid of the Germans?’
Pierre took out a pack of cigarettes and offered her one, which she refused; women were no longer allowed tobacco rations and she was trying to kick the habit.
‘We have to believe so,’ he answered eventually.
‘If Britain can hold firm for a while longer, it’ll buy us time to regroup and organise some effective resistance.
De Gaulle seems to be rallying the troops from London so at least there’s one general left who isn’t Hitler’s lapdog, even if he’s no longer in the country.
Of course, what we really need is for America to enter the war, but that may never happen.
’ He blew out a column of smoke and added, ‘I can tell you one thing: I’ll never accept a Nazi marching in here and giving me orders. ’
‘Renée’s worried about you,’ Mathilde told him.
‘I know,’ he replied. ‘But I can’t change the way I feel; somebody has to stand up for what’s right. She doesn’t understand that I’m doing this for our family. What kind of life are my children going to have, growing up under Hitler’s regime?’
‘I couldn’t agree with you more.’ Mathilde leaned forward, finally abandoning her allegiance to Renée. ‘Can’t I help? I could run errands or take messages, maybe?’ She had bought a bicycle by then and was getting to know the area.
Pierre shook his head. ‘It’s too dangerous.
Renée would never forgive me if I put you in danger – and neither would Jacques.
The Vichy police are working hand in glove with the Nazis and their spies are everywhere, so we need to be careful.
Besides, you stick out like a sore thumb around here, with your Parisian accent and city clothes. ’
Mathilde sighed with impatience. ‘I have to do something.’ She’d tried to content herself with shopping, cooking and cleaning but by now she was half mad with boredom and pent-up energy.
Pierre regarded her thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps you should find another job, one that might interest you more than my unpaid invoices.’ And get you out from under my feet was the unspoken implication. ‘You know the winemaker, Alphonse Piquemal?’
Mathilde nodded. Monsieur Piquemal was one of Pierre’s regular customers: a portly, jovial man in a beret, with a luxuriant grey moustache and a network of spidery veins across his ruddy cheeks.
‘Well, he’s looking for an assistant,’ Pierre went on. ‘I reckon he’d snap you up, with your qualifications.’
‘But I don’t know anything about wine,’ Mathilde said.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Pierre replied. ‘He’d train you.
There’s only one snag: his manager, Emile Rambert.
The man still owes me money from a bill he refuses to pay and he won’t make life easy for you.
But Piquemal is decent and he’d be your boss.
Might be worth talking to him and see how the two of you get on? ’
So a couple of days later, Mathilde cycled ten kilometres to the vineyard on the outskirts of town, to find out what the job entailed.
Madame Piquemal showed her through to the winery, where Piquemal was unhooking wine bottles filled with a pale pink liquid from a slowly rotating machine and taking them to another device, which sealed them with a cork.
‘Bottling my rosé,’ he shouted. ‘Could you give me a hand? My manager’s off sick. I won’t have to keep stopping the machine if there’s two of us, and then we can get down to business.’
So Mathilde set to work, finding a rhythm as she screwed empty bottles into their sockets for Piquemal to remove and cork.
He moved around the room with the ease of long practice, beret pulled low on his forehead and a cigarette jammed in the corner of his mouth.
Half an hour later, all the bottles but one were filled, corked and stowed on racks in the cellar next door.
Piquemal took Mathilde through to his tasting room and pulled out a chair for her at the scrubbed pine table.
‘Do you know how rosé is made?’ he asked, pouring them each a glass from the final bottle. ‘Similar blend of grapes to red wine, but we only let the skins stay in contact with the juice for a few hours, so the colour’s paler and the fruit comes through. Tell me what you think.’