Obedience (18 page)

Bernard, peeling a pile of onions in the kitchen, caught the panicked screech through the open window that looked down the long drive, but she thought for a moment that it was the squabble of cats. She paused, leaning forwards to look past the drooping willows at the well and pushing the point of her knife into the wooden worktop, but God was instantly upon her, scolding her for her neglectfulness and she resumed her work, slicing steadily through the onions, her eyes washed clear. She did not look up again, and the noise ended abruptly. The long slow ring of bells that followed, hanging in the valley, swelling, caught its stately rhythm in Bernard's head, but she hardly noticed it.

It was only when Father Raymond came later, joining
them in the refectory for supper, that she realized what it was she had heard. The priest sat at the furthest end of the long table from her, alongside Mother Catherine, his head low over his wide bowl of soup. For most of the meal Bernard paid no attention to him, finishing her own food quickly and rubbing at the dry skin that peeled from her fingers. He spoke solemnly and with hardly a pause – she could tell that from the constant burr of his voice, in duet with God's, and from the way the nuns at that end of the table leant towards him, not eating. But she could not catch his words and she did not, for a long while, associate his visit with anything out of the ordinary. She gathered the plates as she always did and took them through to stack them by the sink. Beyond the kitchen window the dark was falling quickly.

‘Is that not so, Sister Bernard?' the priest asked her as she came back through.

She paused by the table and blinked at him. Mother Catherine, more used to Bernard's apparent idiocy, took it upon herself to explain, speaking slowly.

‘The girl from the village. Madame Roux – Severine. She was a good woman. Kind. That is what Father is asking you, Sister.'

Bernard did not understand. There was something in the quiet of the room that was new, she sensed that, and the faces around her were tearful.

‘She came to see you, Sister. Regularly, I think. She was very persistent.'

Mother Catherine did not expect a response from Bernard. She turned and smiled at Father Raymond, shaking her head slightly.

‘You wouldn't have thought it of her – getting involved,' she said to him, marvelling. ‘A girl like that. You wouldn't have thought she was capable.'

The priest smiled back. He spoke to Bernard.

‘It is a shock, Sister, for us all,' he said. ‘We are not accustomed to this kind of thing. The war has upset us… upset our way of doing things. People have done foolish things. Your friend – she did a foolish thing.' He looked along the table. ‘But I, too, have found it hard, most hard. I have prayed.'

Bernard went back to her place. There was bread to be passed around, and a plate of sunken cheese, the smell of it sour. Bernard poured water into her glass but the clink of the jug was too loud and she let her veil slip forwards, hiding her face. When the priest stood to leave she was surprised by the bustle.

‘Shall we pray together, Sisters, for those poor souls who were lost today, here amongst us?'

The priest stood at the end of the table and looked along the lines of them, fierce almost, as if there was some blame there. Most of the nuns bowed their heads, but Bernard had her head high now and she stared at the priest, her eyes wide and her mouth open, the realization of what had been said suddenly coming upon her in a way she could not resist.

‘For the people of this parish…' the priest began.

‘Severine!'

The name burst from Bernard in a despairing wail, and as Father Raymond paused, all the nuns turned to look at her. She saw the mourning repeated over and over in each of their framed faces and she understood what she had done.

Mother Catherine nodded towards Bernard. ‘Comfort her, Sister,' she said briskly, and one of the nuns alongside Bernard reached towards her and pulled her from the table. The priest began his prayer over again, his voice steady, and Bernard felt an arm through hers, leading her from the refectory.

They passed the long corridor windows. The flat dark had already closed around the convent but Bernard stopped nonetheless, pressing close to the glass, peering out, as if she might see something of her friend's body, torn and contorted, punctured by bullets. But there was only her own reflection, docile and unsurprising, and the other nun tugged on her arm again, leading her away.

Bernard was alone in the kitchen, skinning rabbits. One by one she slit the brownish fur across the stomach and pulled it back, easing out the legs and finally peeling the skin away from the head and the glassy eyes. It came off over the ears in a single piece, and each time she could not help stroking it, newly amazed at its softness. She stacked the skins to one side and butchered the meat, cleaving through the joints and separating the hearts and livers into a tin dish. Finally she put the heads and feet to stew. Then she washed her hands carefully in a bowl and took off her shoes, tucking them under the flap of fabric that was pinned under the sink to hide the slop buckets. Her habit came almost to the floor, and with her feet still covered in thick dark stockings, it was not obvious that she was not wearing shoes. But it made her footsteps soundless and sent the thrill of trespass sparking through her.

She moved more quickly and stealthily than she had ever done before, padding up the wide steps to the dormitory corridor and sliding along towards her cell. She was not allowed here during the day and she kept to the shadows where she could, though the grip of them discomforted her. God was so shocked by her boldness that He spluttered incoherently; she was surprised by the feebleness of His objections.

In a small worn sack she had stolen several days before, Bernard packed some underwear. She had no outdoor clothes that did not belong to the convent, but she had a cardigan of her own and some old skirts that she wore under her habit on cold days. She packed these, too. There was the fleeting half-thought that when she went away with the soldier, she might have new things, but this was too strange an idea, and she put it aside. She did not think of anything.

She moved around her small cell gathering things and when she had finished she wedged the sack under her habit, securing it as best she could with the belt. In the kitchen she put her shoes back on and picked up a trug, rolling her sleeves to the elbow. She went outside and knelt in the patch of lettuce. She picked the leaves carefully, pulling off small slugs and filling the trug. On her way back, it was with only the slightest of odd movements that she cut away from the open ground and down towards the convent gate, putting the lettuce in the shade as she tugged the sack from its hiding place and shoved it hard into the summer hedge. She did not look behind or around. And as she made her way back towards the kitchen she blessed herself, offering vague thanks. But the words were slack
in her head, splayed by the overwhelming exhilaration of having broken the rules.

Bernard volunteered to go into the village to collect some young plants, late leeks that would soon need planting for an autumn harvest. But there was no sign of the soldier, nor of any of the Germans. She walked as slowly as she could; she stopped now and again to resettle the basket on her arm or to flick an imaginary fly from her habit. She rejected the shortcut through the cemetery in favour of the wider, longer path along the stream. She stood and watched the languid pull of the water against the weeds. God grumbled at her for dawdling. But still there was no one. The village was closed down, the shops dark and the house shutters pulled tight, the paths deserted. The shock of the executions seemed to be echoing still, the sound of gunshot ricocheting against the stone.

Bernard went slowly past houses she knew. Her own house, the place where she had been born, was small and obviously deserted now, its roof rotten and sinking. Ivy had begun to grow up over the front wall, its roots already pulling wide the joints in the stone, and Bernard pulled a piece of it away, dislodging dust. A plum tree was just visible behind the house, laden with fruit. It occurred to her that the harvest was hers, and all of a sudden she longed for the feel of the warm plums in her hand. But she could not find her way through. The press of her footsteps in the long grass seemed like a trespass; God was alarmed. She turned quickly back to the street.

She was at the bend behind the church when she heard a quiet whistle. It came again, moments afterwards, odd
and squeaky, distinctive, but it took her a while to see where he was, pressed tight in the entrance to one of the grain stores. She stumbled. And before she had steadied herself he had started on ahead, cutting quickly through the maze of paths that twisted between the close-packed houses and gardens. She could not keep up with him. But he whistled more loudly now, taking up a tune she did not know, and she followed the music, sometimes taking paths parallel to where he must be, sometimes turning back on herself, befuddled rather than purposely devious.

They ended up together at the house on the edge of the village where the soldier was billeted, a blank-faced building with blistered shutters. He pushed the door and went in first. She stepped in behind him and the door closed, cutting out the stream of light. She stood very still. He pulled the broad chair closer to the fireplace and took off his shoes, placing them together under the table. There was no fire, only the unswept ashes piled high, but nonetheless when he sat down, the soldier stretched his legs towards the grate. Bernard was surprised by how dainty his feet looked, even in their shapeless socks. He turned to her and smiled, patting his knee in invitation.

She began to be aware of things in the dim room, another, smaller chair in a far corner, utensils pinned to the wall, a besom propped upright. She put her basket on the edge of the table without moving her feet.

‘Come on.'

She had to go to him. He spread his arms to draw her in.

‘Come on, Sister Bernard,' he said.

She perched on his lap, trying to hold up her weight, wrapping her arm around the back of the chair to support herself. His bony knees were not comfortable.

He fingered the cross round Bernard's neck and muttered something to himself in German. Bernard shifted. She waited for him to begin. Normally he was ready for her, eager. But this morning there was just the reticent press of his penis against her thigh and the idle twist of his fingers on the buttons of her habit. She believed, for many years afterwards, that this languid slowness was evidence of his growing affection.

She was going to tell him about the conversation with Mother Catherine, about the packed bag and the way she had been feeling. But she did not have the chance.

‘May I?' he asked before she could speak. He looked at her with a flick of the head but she did not know what he intended. Then he slipped the wimple back from her forehead and let her veil drop to the floor. Bernard yelped. She pulled up both her arms to try to cover her head, placing her right palm flat against the top of her skull and letting her weight fall for the first time full upon his knees so that he gave a small puff. The nakedness of her head, and the indecency of him knowing the full bodily weight of her, made Bernard's cheeks flame.

He laughed.

‘I wanted to see,' he said, trying to peel her hands from her scalp.

He seemed to like her thin brown hair. He ran it through his fingers quickly, tangling it. Bernard thought about the smell of her hair on his hands. She heard the clock strike outside and then, a few moments later, a tinny echo from the back room of the house.

‘We should be quick. They'll ask me why I've been so long.'

‘Tell them you have been collaborating,' he said, still smiling.

The word was new to her, and strange, because of his quaint accent and the playful way he looked at her as he spoke. It was the longest word she had ever heard him speak in French.

His smile had gone and his fingers were slower now in her hair. She waited, thinking he was trying to organize his words but he did not immediately speak again.

‘We had to shoot them,' he said at last, his accent murky. ‘We had to take them and line them up – even the boy, even after… everything, after promising him it would be all right. We had to shoot them. They danced, you know – when the bullets went into them they danced.'

He pushed her from his knee and stood.

‘I wish you hadn't told me,' he said.

The flap of his trousers was partly unbuttoned. His shirt hung loose at one side and Bernard noticed a streak of ash along one of his dark socks.

There was a sudden forlorn solemnity about it. Bernard wanted him to draw her down onto his knee again but he was stiff, still waiting for something from her. He could not be still. He paced along the length of the wide fireplace, looking sometimes at her and sometimes at the floor, his face drawn tight. When he stopped and turned to her, he tried to smile again.

‘Will you pray with me, Sister?' he said.

She could not imagine it. He took her hand. She thrust the other deep into her pocket, clasping it around the string of umbilical cord that lay there.

The door clicked, a stream of light flashed across the floor and some kind of celebratory greeting was thrown in German from the threshold. The soldier let go of Bernard's hand. The light dulled again. Then Bernard saw the commandant striding towards them, his arm raised, his boots kicking up the dry sawdust from the floor.

The soldier was stepping away from the fireplace as the commandant's hand slapped across his shoulders. He lurched forwards, his feet insecurely planted. He was suddenly sharp and angular. He steadied himself with a hand against the wall but then he remembered his unbuttoned flies and hurriedly bent to fasten them. The commandant laughed. The soldier laughed back, his teeth showing. They exchanged a series of short phrases in German, but they did not look at each other as they spoke. They looked at Bernard.

Bernard tried to find her veil, but it was hard to pick out on the dark floor in the half-light. She bent low, almost kneeling, trying to feel for it with her hands. Then she heard the commandant laugh and when she looked up he was holding her veil aloft like a flag.