Chapter 53
FIFTY-THREE
LUCY
Lucy had gone back to Sébastien’s cottage with her father, and everyone else seemed relaxed in the sunshine.
But all she could picture was the bomb poking out of the rockery.
If it went off, all those books that Mémé had so carefully chosen for the shop she’d left behind would go up in flames.
The building would have to be torn down.
And all those stories that still needed to be told – in the notebook, in the memory box – would be lost.
The thought of all those books burning to ash reminded Lucy of the old newspaper she’d found under the shop counter, reporting the book-burning in Cordeval.
It’d been mentioned briefly in the notebook that Mémé and Beatrice had put together, but Lucy was curious, and wondered if Beatrice remembered anything else.
Beatrice was sitting on a bench by Sébastien’s front door, and Lucy slipped into the empty space beside her.
‘Bea, there’s something I’ve been wondering about… the bonfires of books, back during the war,’ Lucy began. ‘I know there was one in Rouen, then Clarenville, and finally right in Cordeval. It’s hard to imagine something so barbaric. What was it like to see it?’
‘It was like hell,’ Beatrice said, closing her eyes for a moment. ‘Lauterborn was a lunatic, to light up the coast like that during the blackout. I don’t think Goring was very impressed by it. They might as well have painted a target on our heads. Nobody was surprised when the sirens went off.’
‘You must’ve been so frightened,’ Lucy said. ‘And to see one of the Nazi top brass in Cordeval must’ve been thoroughly unnerving as well.’
Lucy’s mind was taken away from her own anxiety as Beatrice swept her up in her recollections.
She almost felt as if she was there, in the crowd forced into the square; she could see the silhouettes of books as they were hurled into the flames and she could smell the smoke.
She could almost feel herself in the crush of panicked people as the sirens sounded.
But as she thought of the bombers flying overhead, she abruptly returned from the past. There was a bomb behind her shop, and it might still be live.
Lucy started biting her thumbnail like she used to when she was worrying as a child. She’d seen bomb disposal teams on the news before, and pictured the figures in their huge, padded outfits creeping through the garden towards the bomb.
Lucy looked up at her father, who was standing nearby talking to Sébastien. ‘I don’t know how much longer I can wait,’ she told Philip. ‘Do you think the police would mind if I went back? I could rescue the memory box and the notebook. I just can’t bear the thought of it all going up in smoke.’
‘They won’t let you back,’ Philip pointed out. ‘They’ve cordoned off the roads. Don’t worry, I’m sure they know what they’re doing.’
‘But what if the bomb goes off, Dad?’ Lucy said, fretfully.
‘I’ll never forgive myself – all the time that Mémé and Beatrice spent putting everything together; I haven’t had time to show you any of it yet.
It could all just be lost, and we’ll never know what Mémé wanted to tell us.
’ She thought of Margot and Esther, she pictured Theo hiding the lullaby inside the piano.
She thought of Daniel, who’d sacrificed being with his wife and their daughter for the sake of the nation. She wanted to know their stories.
And then she had an idea.
‘The tunnels.’ She brushed her hands together with purpose. ‘You said they’ve cordoned off the roads, so we could go back through the tunnels instead!’
Philip shook his head. ‘Lucy, no,’ he warned. He looked at Sébastian for support, but Sébastian had bent his head to listen to Beatrice. She was holding her grandson’s hand and whispering urgently.
‘Gran wants her photo albums,’ he said, earning a roll of Philip’s eyes. ‘Come on, Philip, you know what grans are like. As if you would’ve argued with Arielle!’
‘He tried that once in 1973,’ Beatrice teased. ‘Never again!’ Then she shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’m going to get my albums, Lucy. I’ll collect your box on the way. If the bomb goes bang, I’ve lived a lovely life.’
Lucy couldn’t let a woman in her nineties go through the tunnels and risk a bomb for her.
‘I’ll go, Beatrice, you don’t need to come too,’ she said.
She tried to sound brave and unconcerned as she turned to Philip and Sébastien.
‘Margot and Esther and everyone faced far more dangerous things than a rusty old bomb. And besides, the tunnels are carved into the rock. They survived D-Day! I’ll be fine. ’
‘Nobody’s going—’ Philip began, but Beatrice immediately cut him off.
‘I am,’ she said flatly.
It was Sébastien who said, ‘I’ll go and get your albums, Gran; Lucy, I’ll get your box as well.’ He held up his hand to quash any further dissent. ‘I’ll be twenty minutes. Keep everyone entertained!’
‘I’ll come with you, Sébastien,’ Lucy said, determined. ‘Beatrice, stay here. We won’t be long. You’ve risked your life in those tunnels too often in the past, and it’s our turn now.’
Lucy tried to smile as she followed Sébastien into the cellar.
She didn’t want anyone to realise how unnerved she was, but she had to do something to rescue all those stories.
She thought of Margot hiding in this very cellar, peering out from the trapdoor.
They’d gone through hell, and she wasn’t going to let their memories be destroyed.
They went into the tunnel. There were steps that went down inside the cliff towards the lower part of the village, and Lucy watched the beams of their torches catch the uneven walls through the darkness. The waves sighed in the distance and her heart rushed in her chest.
All those decades which had passed since the war seemed to telescope down and, when Lucy heard an echo of their footsteps, for a moment – ridiculous as it was – she wondered if they were going to meet an SS search party coming the other way.
Cobwebs brushed against her face and made her gasp in alarm. The darkness was so thick, it was as if they could reach out and touch it.
‘I keep thinking of them down here with the Nazis patrolling,’ Sébastien said. ‘It’s— they were so brave. I can’t imagine it.’
Lucy swallowed. Sébastien had been thinking exactly the same thing as her. Despite her anxiety, she smiled. ‘It’s so claustrophobic down here. And there’s nowhere to run to if you came face to face with the Nazis. You’d—’
Lucy’s words were stolen from her mouth. A terrific roar burst through the tunnel, echoing again and again off the walls in the tight space. It was so loud that she lost her footing, and she clung onto Sébastien.
She knew what it was at once and she couldn’t hold back the sobs that had risen in her throat as she pressed her face to Sébastien’s chest.
The bomb, that had lain in wait all these years in a quiet back garden, had torn itself apart in a massive explosion. Had it destroyed the bookshop too?