Chapter Thirty-Four
Mathilde stayed at the chateau for another week, helping Odile and Ernestine restore some kind of order to the house.
She’d had some vague idea of getting to know her daughter again, but Esmé remained an enigma.
She was a quiet, thoughtful child, busy with her own concerns: wandering about with a rag doll named Poupette, building towers out of toy bricks or playing with a grey lump of dough.
Mathilde didn’t feel like her mother: Esmé ran to Odile when she hurt herself, and wanted Odile to kiss her goodnight; her bed was still beside Odile and Georges’, though Georges seemed to have disappeared.
Mathilde accepted this state of affairs, and in fact wondered whether she even deserved to have a daughter.
What if Esmé could sense some inner darkness in her mother, which naturally made her shrink away?
Mathilde had no wellspring of maternal tenderness in her heart, only rage and grief.
She had seen and done terrible things, and been changed by them.
She worked mechanically, without looking ahead, until she realised that her wedding anniversary was only days away.
Paris had been liberated by then, though the journey would be dangerous: the roads clogged with fleeing Germans and chaotic shootouts liable to happen at any moment.
It would be too risky to take Esmé with her, and anyway, how could she uproot her child?
She saw Odile’s love for Esmé in her every gesture, and the fear in her eyes when she noticed Mathilde watching.
After they had put Esmé to bed one night, Mathilde sat down with Odile in the kitchen. ‘I’ve never properly thanked you for everything you’ve done for my child,’ she began.
‘You don’t have to,’ Odile replied. ‘It’s always been a pleasure, and the countess helped too, God rest her soul. I’m sorry I was a little brusque that time you came to see her when the Boche were here. It wasn’t long after Irène had died and I wasn’t myself. Esmé’s your daughter; I know that.’
‘I’m not sure she does, though,’ Mathilde said.
‘What’s that meant to mean?’ Odile sounded half angry, half afraid.
‘You’ve been her mother for the past year and a half. You have a home, and a job, and a husband—’
‘Not at the moment,’ Odile muttered, but Mathilde pressed on.
‘All the things I can’t give her. There’s so much work still to be done, Odile: the Boche hiding out all over the place, and the Milice covering their tracks. And I need to go back to Paris and find out what’s happened to my husband.’
‘So what are you trying to say?’ Odile asked. ‘Spit it out.’
Mathilde took a deep breath. ‘Would you be prepared to carry on looking after Esmé for a little while?’
‘No,’ Odile replied flatly. ‘It’s all or nothing. You can’t keep breezing in and out of her life like this. She took a long time to settle after the last time you left, and it’s not fair on any of us.’
She was right, of course; Mathilde had to face up to the reality of the situation. ‘Will you take care of her, then, for good?’ she asked.
‘I will,’ Odile replied. ‘But you realise what we’re agreeing, don’t you? You can come and see the girl but her home will always be with me.’
Mathilde nodded. She left early the next morning without saying goodbye; parting with Esmé was agony enough in itself.
The cruelty Mathilde had witnessed so far in the war was nothing compared to the brutality shown by the German troops as they retreated through France, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake: hundreds of destroyed villages with their inhabitants raped, shot or hanged from lamp posts.
Perhaps they were taking revenge for the humiliation of defeat, a humiliation the French had had to live with for years, or perhaps they were so brutalised that they enjoyed death and torture by now.
Mathilde heard tell of a priest who’d been crucified on the door of his church, of women and children herded into barns and churches that were set on fire.
She carried a gun with her and didn’t hesitate to show or use it whenever she felt threatened; she was alone now and, having survived this long, had no intention of falling victim to some drunken partisan or desperate collaborator.
The Boche were on the run but no one seemed in control and the country was wild and lawless. Anything could happen.
An atmosphere of celebration still hung over Paris, a couple of weeks after it had been liberated.
People sang and shouted in the streets, burned the few remaining swastika banners, drank till midnight in the cafés because there was no curfew.
They wanted revenge, too. Mathilde saw women paraded through the streets with their heads shaved, jeered and spat upon for sleeping with the enemy.
Although the city was shabby and dirty, with bullet holes pockmarking many of the buildings, it seemed to have escaped any major damage.
Mathilde went straight to Jacques’ bookshop in the little square near Parc Monceau, but it was shuttered and forlorn; a new name had been pasted by the bell to their apartment above, and a different concierge sat in the foyer.
If she had met any of their old neighbours, what would they have said to each other?
She was a stranger now, even to herself.
The next evening, their wedding anniversary, she went to sit on the steps of Sacré-C?ur and wait for Jacques.
In her heart of hearts, she knew he wouldn’t come, but it was peaceful to have this time by herself, thinking about him.
If by some miracle he were still alive, he’d be thinking of her, too, and perhaps if she concentrated hard enough, they might be able to communicate.
She conjured up an image of his beloved, handsome face, alight with kindness and intelligence.
The thought of him suffering was not to be borne; she prayed that if he’d been killed, his death had been quick and painless.
At least Pierre hadn’t had to suffer torture, and neither had that young man lying on the cobblestones she’d been persuaded was Jacques.
She remembered their wedding day five years before, when they’d emerged so happy and hopeful from the church to hear their country was at war.
How could it be that millions of people in France and Great Britain and Germany – the whole of Europe, in fact, and Africa, India and Japan, and actually all across the world – had allowed their lives to be destroyed by one man, Adolf Hitler?
What if everyone had simply refused to fight?
Yet they had all been caught up in the collective madness and by the time they realised what was happening, it had been too late.
Great Britain, America and the Soviets were winning now, thank God, but the slaughter was still continuing and there would be thousands more pointless deaths before it finally ended.
She laid her head on her arms and tried to imagine Jacques beside her, his arm around her shoulders, his gentle voice telling her not to despair.
Yet it was Yves who came to mind, and Pierre, Stefan, Sanglier, Doctor Pailleau and so many others, urging her to take revenge.
Often when she was tired or provoked in some way, her hand would stray to the knife she always carried, or the handle of her pistol, if it happened to be strapped to her waist. What would Jacques think of the person she’d become?
Mathilde left Paris the following day. Without any clear idea where to go, she headed back to Avignon, where she would at least be in reach of Esmé should anything awful happen but far enough away to avoid the risk of seeing her accidentally.
She called at the Piquemals’ one day to see whether they’d survived the war, and if so, to apologise for taking the motorbike without permission.
As much as she had changed, Monsieur Piquemal was unrecognisable: gaunt now, with shaking hands and an uncertain tread.
It took him a little while to realise who she was, but then his expression changed and something of the man she remembered came back.
They sat in the garden with Madame Piquemal, drinking rosé as the sun sank behind Mont Blanc and talking about as much of the war as they could bear to recall; whoever was speaking often had to stop and change the subject.
Emile Rambert was no longer there, Mathilde was glad to hear.
He’d joined the Milice and been killed during a shootout with the Maquis.
The vineyard had gone to rack and ruin, Piquemal sighed.
He couldn’t manage the vines alone and was too depressed even to look at them through the window.
‘Do you think I might stay here and work for a while?’ Mathilde asked. ‘You wouldn’t have to pay me, I’d only ask for board and lodging.’
She had to repeat her request, Piquemal not seeming able to take it in. ‘I couldn’t expect that of you,’ he said. ‘A workman is worthy of his hire – or her hire – but we have no money, I’m afraid.’
Eventually she managed to persuade him that he was doing her a favour, not the other way around.
She needed time outdoors in the fresh air to occupy her hands, exhaust her body and quieten the voices in her head.
Day by day, she could restore a little order to the land and the winery, looking ahead to the harvest in years to come.
Early the next spring, Monsieur Piquemal walked the parcel beside her, though she could tell his heart wasn’t in it.
‘I’ve decided to sell the land,’ he told her one scorching summer’s day. ‘A younger man needs to take it into the future. But I shall certainly recommend you as vineyard manager and you’re welcome to stay in our house for as long as you like, my dear. You’ve been such a blessing in our lives.’