Citadel (50 page)
‘Let myself?’ he echoed.
Baillard gave a soft smile. ‘There is always a choice,’ he said quietly. ‘You have chosen to try to live again, have you not?’
Raoul looked at him, trying to understand how the old man could see inside him so well.
‘Just keep her safe,’ he said. ‘Please.’
‘
Si es atal es atal
,’ he said. ‘
A bientôt
, Sénher Pelletier.’
Raoul watched as Baillard walked away down the hillside, waiting until he was out of sight. Then, with a cold fist of dread in his chest, he turned and climbed up into the woods above the cave to find somewhere to keep watch. All the time, Monsieur Baillard’s parting comment going round in his head like the half-remembered verse of a song.
The words gave him no comfort. He tried to reassure himself. At the moment, at least, Sandrine was with Marianne and Marieta and the others in Coustaussa. It was Saturday now, so four days until she was to go to Tarascon to put Monsieur Baillard’s plan into action.
‘What will be will be,’ he repeated.
LE VERNET
L
ucie looked out of place, pretty in powder and paint. She was wearing a tailored blue and white dress and jacket, with high-heeled blue shoes and matching handbag. She looked as if she should be listening to the Terminus Band at Païchérou. Sandrine felt shabby by comparison, in a flowered summer dress and sandals, her hair held off her face with a white ribbon.
The journey was long and frustrating. They drove south from Couiza to Quillan, then cross-country to Foix – where they left the car in a lock-up garage belonging to an old friend of Marieta’s – before boarding a train that stopped and started. There was no one checking papers, but there was no published timetable either, and they spent much of the morning travelling very short distances from branch line to branch line.
The closer they got to their destination, the more Sandrine perceived a heaviness, a brooding malevolence in the countryside around them, like a slumbering animal resting somewhere out of sight. Finally the train stopped. Sandrine saw the modest station house, a dull whitewash, and read the name
LE VERNET
on the side. Conifers and birch lined the road leading from the station into the village.
Lucie stood up. She looked purposeful, though Sandrine could see the strain in the lines around her eyes and the corners of her mouth.
‘Here we are,’ she said in a bright voice.
They disembarked into the flattening heat of midday. There was a pleasant breeze coming down from the mountains and the air was fragrant, fresh, which struck a false note. It seemed wrong, Sandrine thought, that the village should be beautiful and tranquil, given what she knew was hidden within the folds of the hills ahead.
A few other passengers got off too. Some were local, dressed in heavy mountain skirts with shawls knotted at the waist. An old man held a dead goose upside down, its glassy eyes seeming to fix on Sandrine. There were two men in black suits, lawyers Sandrine thought, or perhaps members of the military administration. They seemed to know where they were going.
Sandrine looked at the carriages that had been added at Foix. They were being uncoupled by the guard, but no one was getting out. Then she saw the blacked-out windows and realised there were prisoners inside. Remembering the bleeding faces and shackled hands of the men as they were forced into the carriages at Carcassonne, she glanced at Lucie. She looked anxious but hopeful, and the sight of her hardened Sandrine’s resolve. Whatever they achieved today, at least they were doing something. Something had to be better than nothing.
On the outskirts of the village, the man with the goose disappeared towards a series of modest houses and cottage gardens. The two countrywomen took a road to the right, which appeared to lead to a park a little further along the banks of the river Ariège.
The girls followed the lawyers. Sandrine overheard fragments of conversation, like morsels of bread dropped on the path. Something about a fire that had broken out in the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris, destroying works by Picasso and Dalí.
‘All reappropriated,’ one of the men said. ‘Jewish art.’
Above the red roofs of the houses, the spire of a church was visible. Sandrine assumed that was the centre of the village.
‘We need to ask someone,’ she said. ‘No sense just wandering about.’
‘What about there?’ Lucie said, pointing at a café with a cheerful yellow and white awning.
It was gloomy inside the café. Three or four old men were standing at the bar, elbows propped on the zinc, drinking Pastis. There was a scattering of damp stubs of cigarettes already smoked on the bare earth floor at their feet. They looked up as Sandrine and Lucie walked in. One of them said something under his breath and the others laughed.
‘How about here?’ said Sandrine, choosing a table with a view of the street and as far away from the bar as possible. ‘This should do us all right.’
They sat in silence, Lucie holding her handbag neatly on her lap. Her joie de vivre had deserted her. Sandrine put her parcel on the stool beside her.
The waitress, with a mass of black hair and eyes the colour of coal, came out from behind the bar.
‘Señoritas, what can I get you?’
‘Do you have any wine?’ Sandrine asked.
‘Red only.’
‘That’s fine. Lucie, is that all right for you?’
‘Anything,’ she said. She stood up. ‘Is there a bathroom?’
The girl pointed to a door at the back of the café. ‘Across the courtyard, second door on the right.’
Lucie stood up and left.
‘Your friend got someone in there?’ the waitress said sympathetically.
‘In the camp?’ Sandrine looked at her in surprise. ‘How did you know?’
‘I’ve never seen you here before and your friend is all dressed up. That’s how they usually look.’
Sandrine glanced towards the door, checking Lucie was out of earshot, then back to the waitress.
‘We were hoping to see him.’
The girl raised her eyebrows. ‘You’ll be lucky, unless you have friends in the administration there. Or you have a pass to visit.’
Sandrine shook her head. ‘No.’ She looked at the girl. ‘You know how things work up there?’
She nodded. ‘I’ve been here five years.’
‘You’ve seen some changes.’
‘My grandfather remembers the camp being built in the summer of 1918. It was just barracks for French colonial troops. Then it was used for German and Austrian prisoners of war. When they’d all gone, it was empty for a bit, then it became a reception camp for International Brigade prisoners, fleeing Franco’s forces. That’s when I arrived, in 1938.’
‘And stayed.’
‘Family,’ she said, then shrugged. ‘They’ve been building new huts in all the sections over the past few months to house more and more prisoners. Even though they’re shipping the Jewish prisoners out as fast as they bring them in.’
‘Where are they being sent?’
‘Camps in the East, they say. Poland, Germany. Vichy is cooperating with Hitler to hand over all foreign Jews captured in the region.’
‘And if someone’s French?’
‘Technically, it’s only foreigners,’ said the girl, dropping her voice, ‘but everyone knows that Vichy has quotas to fill. It’s more of a transit camp.’
The girl stopped dead, clearly seeing the expression on Sandrine’s face.
‘Your friend is Jewish?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry, I should have thought before I rattled on.’
‘Better we know what the situation is,’ Sandrine said.
‘After the Armistice, everyone expected the Germans to take over the camp, but they didn’t. It’s still run by “our” police, though conditions are appalling. At least, conditions are bad in Section A and Section B – where the ordinary criminals are held – but in C section . . .’ She shrugged. ‘Even if you could get inside, I’m not sure it would do your friend much good to see it.’
‘Do you think there’s any chance we’ll be able to deliver a parcel in person?’
‘No, not unless you’ve got the right piece of paper from the authorities.’
‘Can we do that from here?’
‘Not a chance. It takes months. The Préfecture in Toulouse say it’s a matter for the Sûreté Nationale, the Sûreté claim it’s a matter for the military authorities, and they send you back to the Préfecture. Occasionally, someone fetches up at the Mairie here, hoping to try their luck.’
‘Are they successful?’
The waitress pulled a face. ‘Occasionally. The camp is under the jurisdiction of the Deuxième Bureau. Before the Armistice, it was at least possible to apply for a permit to visit. Now, it’s closed to everyone except military personnel, occasionally though, someone from the Red Cross gets in to see a particular prisoner or another.’
‘My friend has sent a letter but not heard anything back. She doesn’t know if it’s even been delivered.’
‘Technically there’s a delivery twice a week, parcels less frequently.’ The waitress shrugged. ‘It rather depends who’s on duty. Some are decent enough. Others take what they fancy and don’t pass mail on.’
Lucie emerged from the back of the café.
‘Anyway, I’ll get your order,’ the waitress said.
Lucie still looked pale, but there was a glint of determination in her blue eyes.
‘That’s more like it, nothing like a little war paint.’ She shrugged off her cropped jacket and sat down on the nearest stool, one leg crossed over the other.
Sandrine gave her an edited version of what the waitress had told her. Lucie sat jiggling her leg up and down. Sandrine felt the gaze of the men at the bar, disapproval visible in the stiff line of their shoulders.
‘Not used to female company,’ she said when the waitress returned.
‘Take no notice,’ the girl said. ‘It’s the closest any of them has been to a woman for quite some time, if you get my drift.’
She crooked her little finger. Sandrine laughed.
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Lucie, in a brittle voice. ‘Will you help us?’
‘Lucie,’ Sandrine said quickly.
‘It’s all right,’ the waitress replied, putting their drinks on the table. ‘If you give it to one of the guards, it’s possible the letter will get through.’
She rubbed her fingers together.
‘We have money,’ Lucie said, immediately rummaging in her bag.
‘I don’t know all of them, but there’s a sous-lieutenant who’s got a thing for blondes.’
‘Do you think it’s worth a try?’ Sandrine said.
‘Frankly?’
‘Yes, be honest.’
‘Not really. But you don’t have much of a choice, do you? You’ll not find anyone prepared to go up there.’
Lucie interrupted. ‘How do we get there?’
‘Walk,’ she said. ‘It’s not far. They just might accept a letter at the guardhouse if the pair of you turn up.’
Lucie stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray and stood up. ‘I think it’s worth a try. We’ve come all this way.’
Sandrine stood up too. She had promised Marianne not to go further than the village, but she kept thinking of herself in the same position. If it had been Raoul in there and she was so close, she would do everything to get to see him.
The waitress stood in the doorway and pointed, giving them directions up a woodland track.
‘Well, obviously you can’t miss it.’
Lucie picked up the parcel from the stool, hooked her handbag over her shoulder, then looked down at her blue high heels.
‘I should have thought there might be walking,’ she said.
Sandrine laughed. The waitress grinned, plunged her hand into her apron pocket and fished out her order pad and pencil.
‘This is our telephone number here,’ she said, scribbling a note and handing the scrap of paper to Sandrine. ‘If you’re back this way, let me know.’
‘Café de la Paix,’ she read.
‘I know, my father-in-law’s idea. Renamed it in 1918, when he came home from the Front.’
Sandrine smiled. ‘Thank you. How much do we owe you?’
‘On the house.’
‘I can’t accept that.’
‘Next time, then you can pay. Good luck,
compañeras
,’ she said.
I
t was lunchtime, so everything was quiet, no one about. From time to time, Sandrine picked up the sound of a car engine or lorry in the distance. The sound of the bells of the church in the square ringing one o’clock. For ten minutes or so they followed the track through the woods. Birdsong, robin and thrush, the occasional scurry of rabbits through the hard, dry undergrowth and the last of the fallen leaves.
Sandrine stopped. ‘Did you hear that?’
A harsh shouting, someone giving orders. Sandrine walked to the end of the track where it joined the road.
‘
Dépechez-vous, vite. Allez
.’
Some way ahead was a wide column of men, old and young, all carrying suitcases, blankets over their shoulders, brown cardboard boxes and old leather briefcases.
‘
Poussez-vous
,’ shouted one of the armed guards bringing up the rear.
‘The prisoners from the train,’ Sandrine said.
Lucie came up and stood beside her. As they watched, Sandrine saw an elderly, stooped man, near the back of the line, drop his luggage. He stopped, clearly struggling. The guard shouted. The old man raised his hand, asking for patience, for a few seconds of rest. The guard shouted again. Sandrine watched in disbelief as he drew back his arm and struck the old man across the face with a leather crop.
The
vieux
cried out, fell to his knees and began to sob. The desperate sound of it cut through Sandrine. She started forward.
‘There’s nothing you can do, kid,’ Lucie said quietly. ‘Don’t get involved.’
The guard raised his crop again. This time, a young man with black hair and a pale, drawn face stepped forward. Putting himself between the guard and his victim, he took the force of the blow on his own shoulders. Sandrine saw him flinch as pain reverberated through him, but he stayed on his feet. Then, without a word, he helped the old man up, picked up the battered suitcase and encouraged him to carry on along the dusty road.
Sandrine had a lump in her throat, at the pointless and deliberate humiliation of an old, defenceless man.
