The Avignon Quintet (109 page)

“But first I must see what state the inside of the place is in,” she cried, for she was still hesitating, and taking the key from his pocket he said, “Come. Enter. All is as you left it. It is perfectly habitable.”

It was strange to step into the dark kitchen with its ceiling-high cupboards and scoured white table marked by the cutting knives of past cooks, among whom she could now number herself. She ran a finger along the white mantelpiece and saw that it gathered no dust; who continued to clean and tidy here now? His conversation supplied the answer – it was his wife. But leaping over all these considerations he asked impulsively, “And the boys? How are the boys?” She was caught unawares, and felt all of a sudden assailed by shyness. “Well,” she said. “Very well.” He insisted, “And Sam?” She realised with a sudden shock that Sam was still, for him, alive on this earth – it gave a strangely relative colour to the fact of his death. She went on to volunteer the fact that he was in Egypt with his friend Aubrey, on active service. She was suddenly swept away by the luxury of having him, her husband, restored to her in this factitious way. She positively drank up his impulsive “Bravo” and squeeze of her hand. The echo of Sam went on repeating itself in the empty room, the empty house; she could talk freely about him because he was still alive! The psychologist in her reproved this weakness, but the lover rejoiced; just to talk about him as if he lived helped her surmount the agony of deprivation which she had been forced to bottle up by her false professional pride. Moreover this was the signal for which she had been waiting. She would stay on in Tu Duc with the shadowy mythical Sam, sole possessor of the truth of his death, so to speak, until her sorrow and hunger were worn out; she would work through the rich vein of his death and Blanford’s incapacitation – the horrible accident which had encapsulated itself inside the greater and more wounding accident of the world at war.

“I am coming back here to stay,” she said, and when they were back at the car she repeated this in a more excited tone to Nancy Quiminal who nodded brightly and said she saw no reason why not. There was just enough of the old furniture to make it livable; the rain droned and drizzled on the glass roof of the verandah with its coloured panes. The old analytic sofa stood there, silent, passive, patient as an ideal analyst. She sat down upon it for a moment in passing and heard the twang of a spring. “In dreams begin responsibilities,” she quoted to herself; it was a dream with which she would have to deal – a past Sam and a future Sam, transformed and assimilated, and all bound up with the memory of a dead child. It was terribly rich and painful still, this material; but also fecund as only sorrow can be. She would live it all out here on this hillside with its good memories and bad. The wife of Blaise now appeared and added her cries of surprise and welcome – and incredulity at the thought that Constance might come back once more to live at Tu Duc. They promised to have it all ship-shape within days; Quiminal said that her sister’s vacated house was full of linen and cutlery and furniture. “I must get permission first,” said Constance, “and see the Prince off. He will be angry with me when I tell him.” After lingering goodbyes the car bore them back towards the town, Constance craning to catch diminishing glimpses of her “chateau” amid the green screen of woods. They were silent on the way back, completely silent. It remained for the Prince to be voluble, to argue with her; but arguments only strengthened her resolve. “The loneliness
alone,”
he said. “What on earth will you do there alone? No telephone, no radio, winter, snow, curfew … My goodness, Constance,
soyons raisonnables!”

“I am staying,” she said, taking his hands in her own strong ones. “When you go I’ll move up there; I feel the need, don’t you see?”

“Just like a woman!” he said, for he was in a real huff. “Come,” she said, “you knew it was a possibility when we set out. You yourself suggested it indeed. That is why I packed my affairs in the two suitcases which you are going to send me with the first courier.” He made a growling noise and cleared his throat. She pressed his small hands and went on, “I will arrange the whole matter, residence, transport, and so on. The farmer and his wife will look after me. I’m two minutes from town with a duty car.”

They parted sadly to go to bed, and next morning when she came down he had disappeared. A car had called for him before first light, and he had taken his affairs with him, leaving her a brief and angry note. “I’m taking my things as I may decide to return to Geneva direct. If you wish to stay I can do nothing. I will send on your things.
Please
arrange to come back
frequently
for consultations at least with Affad.”

She felt suddenly bereft, abandoned, and consequently sad; she had counted upon him coming back to give her his support until she was settled in. Now … But from other quarters the news was better. The mayor had won the right to have a Red Cross duty car at his disposal with a uniformed driver, though it would have to fly a swastika. And the deaf officer came one day to announce that a villa further up the road from Tu Duc had been earmarked as a strongpoint. This meant that there would be frequent patrols in the vicinity and that Constance could use the duty car to be fetched each day and lifted home each night. This was a great convenience, and they marvelled at their luck. Everything was turning out well – save for the disapproval of the Prince. Nor did she know whether he would come back this way – or had her insubordination driven him away for good?

“I don’t care,” she said. “I think we have the General to thank for all this. I hope there won’t be any strings attached to it.” There did not seem to be, for the General himself did not manifest; he was making his own personal arrangements to move, for at last a suitable villa had been found as a residence for him; at last he could vacate the mess which so weighed on his nerves. He did not so much as deign to mark the event by a dinner or an announcement – he simply disappeared one day with his batman and the half dozen or so valises which housed his affairs. He had inherited Lord Banquo’s old residence, where he would have the ministrations of batman, cook, A.D.C., and a signals officer who functioned as a shorthand-typist. His responsibilities had grown, his command had become more “critical” in the professional phrase. All this coincided with the first battle definitely lost in Russia and several small but sharp reverses in the Middle East. The plot was thickening, the wind of victory was blowing less strongly. He was glad now that he had left the old mess, for these factors would certainly have caused constraint. Something was changing, had changed; the old cocksureness was no longer there. But the anonymity of his swift departure from the mess had angered the susceptible Fischer who celebrated the occasion in his own way by giving a beer party at which he himself became hopelessly drunk. They felt a sense of release, like schoolboys when the master has left. They sang songs and ended the evening by shooting at candles, having set up a branch upon the mantelpiece, before the tall mirror which gave back their reflections as they stood to aim; the heavy slugs made a satisfactory crunch as they buried themselves in the glass or in the wall. Hardly anyone hit a candle-flame – the object of the game. They were so drunk. But they laughed immoderately, and in the intervals shouted out songs and war-cries. When his pistol was empty Fischer sat exhaustedly in a chair, leaning against the wall, and said to his nearest companion, “You know what I like? Hostages! When you stop a bus or workmen’s train. You see their faces and you say: ‘I want you, and you, and you’.” He set his face to imitate himself in ruthless mood. A pause. “I say: ‘Get down.’” He allowed the command to sink in and then continued. “They say, ‘Who, me? I’ve done nothing. I’ve done nothing, why me?’ And I say, ‘I know what you’ve done. You get down and quick.’” He swept up his pistol to support the commanding tone. Then his face crashed, disintegrated into a smile which became a guffaw, expanding into a paroxysm of loud laughter as he slapped his knee and repeated, for his own private delectation, the phrase: “Who, me? I’ve done nothing.’’ He would never forget the look on their faces when they said the words. And he went on laughing in a maudlin delight. The party wound its way to a slow ending, past midnight. A young Waffen officer decided to imitate the Russians by breaking empty glasses in the fireplace. They were invited to imitate him but few did; the gesture left them very thoughtful. The thought that it might be ill-timed, however, did not affect Fischer who loyally disposed of two beer tankards in this fashion before somebody took his arm and cajoled him back to his normal sober sense. He looked haggard and ghastly when at last the party broke up to go to bed. It was their farewell to Von Esslin with his excruciating aristocratic ways, with the reserve that froze. Naturally his name was not mentioned, though the fact was tacitly accepted by them. Only Smirgel the intellectual had remained quiet, had taken no very active share in the proceedings, contenting himself with a quiet smile from time to time to show that he did not disapprove.

But to be alone suddenly is another matter, alone in a town which in its new guise was no longer the sun-golden, leisurely town she had known. The winter wind, the whirling leaves, the seething river below the ramparts all went to make up a revised image against which she now had only the fact of her loneliness to place. It was true it was desired and willed and self-induced – nor would she ever have repudiated it for she felt it to be necessary. Yet with the departure of Prince Hassad a twilight fell, a winter twilight populated by Germans, and the bitter world of shortage and curfew which they had brought with them; a world of ration-card and movement-order which slowed down the course of everyday affairs and made all of them apathetic and ill-tempered, cold and underfed as they were. And supplies were short, or had to be hoarded if they were not simply appropriated by the Germans. Here she knew how to use both force and tact – and her knowledge of German helped her in her numerous altercations with supplies officers or small functionaries trying to curry favour with the German authorities. For a while she even managed to invoke Pétain and plead for a shallow margin of independence, but the image of the old Marshal had tarnished so rapidly in the light of the forced deportation of Jews and the drive for manual workers for the German war-industry that it conveyed little force; already public disgust with his antics and malpractices had become marked, and the present discontent was soon to be followed by despair as it finally dawned upon people that their boasted independence was completely hollow. Yet in a sense the resulting shame only made them hate the English more for having refused to do as they had done. Above all,
they
should not be encouraged to create incidents here in the “free zone” for which they might all suffer – for the German reprisals were swift and not too selective. Nor did it take much to annoy them. In one random machine-gunning they could, and often did, account for a whole village. The posters with their rusty blood-coloured texts proclaimed the fact quite clearly: “The German High Command will extend no clemency to
franc-tireurs
. They will be punished ruthlessly.”

The day she chose to move was a Sunday, and she had invited Nancy Quiminal to come and help her make the changeover. If she had any fears or imaginings about a life in Tu Duc which might be one of loneliness and privation they were rapidly dispelled by the warmth of her welcome, by the evident relief of Blaise the carter and his family, not forgetting the three children he had fathered. The whole house had been scoured from top to bottom; a fire of vine snippings blazed warmly in the narrow hearth, its flames twinkling among the copperware hanging on the wall – they had left behind a serviceable
batterie de cuisine
for some future visits unspecified. Cutlery, table linen, sheets and blankets – all had been reverently locked away by the good man’s wife, only to be revived now for Constance who was astonished by the transformation. There was even a drum of paraffin in the outhouse with which to fill the small lamps with their warm gleam. She felt quite tremulous as she sat at the scoured kitchen table and watched the fire blaze up and felt the heat turn her pale cheeks to rose. Stray thoughts of Sam did not help her composure and though Quiminal felt the temper of her emotion – she pressed her fingers – she could not guess the reason behind the mood. It was the secret poignance of Sam’s invisible presence – he had once polished the little lamps with pieces of newspaper and carefully stacked them in the cupboard against a future summer – they all had believed obstinately in
that
. Blaise had found a hidden bottle of wine at a good degree of alcohol and they were each given a small beakerful to toast the “success of the house”. It was so marvellous – the leaping fire, the smell of food already cooking (a
ragoût)
on the old-fashioned range with its coal bullets, the chatter of the children … all this was a good augury for her stay, Constance felt. She would live and work in the kitchen, would use the big barn-like pantry as a dressing-room while at the same time keeping on her own bedroom – the one shared with Sam, because it turned its back to the north wind. In fine weather she could emerge on to a kind of verandah conservatory which, though water-tight, was so smothered in rose creepers that it filtered the light and one felt almost as if at the bottom of a pool. Here the old sofa lay at anchor, waiting for happier days.

They had brought modest rations with them – some rice and vegetables, some coffee and cheese. She had persuaded Nancy Quiminal to stay the night after much cajoling, and now the wife of Blaise delightedly made up the bed in Blanford’s old room. “It’s almost like being on holiday!” cried the girl. “One simply doesn’t feel the Boche up here – and yet we are only a few kilometres from the town.”

It was true, the Germans had hardly shown their faces in this small hamlet; the fact had enabled Blaise to make his dispositions for winter as he had always done, behaving as if there was no war, no Germans, no shortages. In Tubain he had done what he had always done at the end of the year; he had bought two geese, a couple of piglets, and half a dozen chicks. His backyard gave out upon pure forest. It was easy to dissimulate and disperse these modest purchases in such a way as not to excite the cupidity of any passing patrols. In an old Provençal chest he had hoarded up some flour, rice, tea, and a collection of dried herbs for medicinal
teas – tisanes
, so beloved by the French as a defence and counterbalance to a too rich cuisine. He made his own wine every year in a modest enough quantity but at the expense of the neighbouring vineyards where, after the harvest, a free-for-all is permitted to make a clean sweep of inferior grapes which the harvesters have rejected or missed. This is called
grapiller
, and everyone of modest means goes a-graping after harvest and with what he gathers makes his own home-made brew. So Blaise. His wine was of good colour – like a good Frenchman he held his glass up to the light before drinking it off: and it had “nose”, just the very faintest wraith of a trace of earth-coolth, cellar-warmth, odourlessness of human hands which have plucked the fruit, redolence of the magma of decades from the great vine-presses …
presence
. All this romance and folklore seemed immortally true and real in the warmth of the leaping fire and the rosy light of the lamps, lit well before their time to lighten the dark kitchen. The wife of Blaise was called Colette, and she was a proud and robust woman from the Protestant sector of the Cevennes, slow to kindle “like holm-oak” as the saying went, “but once alight, burning forever”. She had long since adopted Constance, and was genuinely thrilled to think that she might spend the dreaded winter ahead with them in Tu Duc. This vivacity and sympathy was not withdrawn from Nancy Quiminal either, for it was almost impossible to resist her good looks, sincerity and forth-rightness. They found themselves bringing the “latest news” from Avignon to this couple for all the world as if they lived a hundred miles away; but it was sombre news of punishments and arrests – and in some cases gratuitous brutalities for which, illogically enough, they had been ill-prepared. Sights they had not been prepared for: like civilians hanging on the branches of a plane tree opposite the Papal city. Or in another part of the town a dog and a youth hanging from a first floor balcony. There were stories attached to all these bloody incidents and Nancy Quiminal told them in her low melodious voice. A pained silence followed, while the gaze of Colette, with all its dark intensity, passed from face to face, as if questioning them as to the meaning of such events. “You will not be afraid here?” she said at last to Constance, and seemed reassured when she shook her head. “Much less than in town I can assure you.” There was, indeed, no curfew here and no patrols, which sometimes took a pot-shot in the direction of a forbidden light during the obligatory blackout. Nevertheless like true peasants the family turned in early, but not before Blaise had crept down to the cellar and tuned in his ancient radio to listen to London for news of the war. This was very dangerous and might one day have dire consequences, but he could not resist this one link with the outer world; it made their Crusoe-like existence up here, perched over the village of Tubain, tolerable. “One thing,” said Colette. “There is a good deal of movement on the road after dark. If someone knocks don’t open. It’s safer. Many people are escaping to the hills, to avoid forced labour, you see. From the end of this road, they turn aside into the forest and gain the hills like that. This is the last point. They pass at night, sometimes one hears them talking. Once I saw cigarettes in the dark. But I always lock fast and so far nobody has tapped at our door.”