Darkest Longings (86 page)

then I could not get into the chateau. Your servants are all

gone, no doubt, because of the war, and your doors are very

well secured - but the Alligator is not so easily defeated, and

at last I found a window that would let me in…’ She smiled,

but it was a weak, half-hearted smile, and when the woman

looked up at Francois, Claudine could see that her eyes

were full of grief and pain. ‘I could not telephone, you see, monsieur? The woman went on. ‘Such news has to be given in person.’

‘Who is this?’ Claudine said quietly to Francois. She saw

that his face was dark with anxiety.

‘This is Madame Beatrice Baptiste,’ Francois said.

‘Elise’s “nursemaid”, formerly known to the Secret Service

as the Alligator. Beatrice, this is my wife, Claudine.’

Claudine took Beatrice’s hand and led her over to the

sofa. ‘Haven’t we any brandy left, Francois?’ she said.

‘Madame Baptiste has come a long way, and…’

‘Oh, monsieur, madame,’ said Beatrice, looking from one

to the other and unable to contain her distress any longer. ‘I

am so sorry. I am so sorry to be the bearer of such tidings,

but I have to tell you. Elise is dead, monsieur! Elise Pascale is

dead.’

There was a long and terrible silence, until at last Francois said heavily, ‘Tell us how it happened.’

Garnering herself together, Beatrice began to tell them.

Watching her, Claudine could see how deeply Elise’s death

had affected her; there was no doubt that Beatrice had loved

and cared for her, and as she listened to the tragic story

Claudine’s heart was full of pity for them both.

‘It was at a cafe in Montbazon, Monsieur,’ Beatrice said,

addressing herself chiefly to Francois. ‘A cafe that the

Germans frequented - that Blomberg, and others. I did not

like to take her there, monsieur, but the soldiers had not

come to the house since she got worse, and she missed them so much. So I took her to the cafe …”

‘She had got worse?’ Francois said sharply.

‘Yes, monsieur, there had been more convulsions, and the

soldiers witnessed one of them. She was definitely

deteriorating. I sometimes wondered, you know, if she was

deliberately withdrawing into a shell of madness, unable to

face her life the way it was, her inadequacies, her disfigured

body - her insatiable hunger for you, monsieur. Perhaps it

was the only way she could mask the horror of all she had

lost. There were still moments of lucidity, you know, when

she would speak rationally and her eyes would reflect all the

pain she felt inside, but they were becoming fewer and

fewer.’

Beatrice paused. ‘You know what she said to me only the

night before, monsieur? She said, “I want to die, Beatrice.

Please let me die. Let me go to a place where I can be rid of

this torment. There’s nothing anyone can do to help me

now, not even Francois. I know he tries, but it hurts him to

see me, as much as it hurts me.” It was truly pitiful, monsieur. “Only God has the answer for me now,” she said. “Let me go to Him. Please Beatrice, help me to go to him.” ‘

She stopped to wipe away her tears, and they were all

quiet then, feeling Elise’s tragedy strike at their hearts - the

tragedy of her life, and of her death.

At last Beatrice continued. ‘Blomberg was there at the

cafe and two of his officers. They were not really interested

in Elise, monsieur. She batted her eyelids at them, tried to

whisper in their ears, but they shoved her away so that she

almost fell from her chair. She just laughed, you know, as if

it was some kind of joke. She seemed so lost sometimes, monsieur, so uncertain, so lonely …’

Again, Beatrice was overcome, and Claudine’s heart

swelled with pity for her.

‘Then,’ Beatrice said, ‘Blomberg started talking about

you, madame.’ She looked at Claudine. ‘Forgive me, madame, but he said such dreadful things. About how he had whipped you, and …’ she looked at Francois unsure

whether to continue.

‘It’s all right,’ Claudine said quietly. ‘Go on.’

‘Elise loved what Blomberg was saying. She bounced in

her chair, and applauded and wanted to hear more, and of

course the Germans roared with laughter at that, and Elise

laughed too.

‘Anyway,’ Beatrice went on, ‘after about an hour, I went

to the lavatory, and when I came out, Jean, the proprietor,

was waiting for me in the corridor. I had noticed at the

beginning that he didn’t give us our usual welcome, monsieur. He is a man of few words, and slow-witted, but usually he was eager to serve us and cold with the Germans,

and today it was the other way round. And when I came out

of the lavatory he was there in the corridor, and he said,

“You must get Elise out of here now!” “Why, what is it,

Jean?” I asked. He was ashen-faced and trembling. “Madame” he said, “it is the Resistance. They are coming here! You must get Elise away, immediately, but you must

not alert the Bodies…”

‘Well, monsieur, as you can imagine I started back to our

table at once. But even before I could reach it, the firing had

started, monsieur. Even before I could reach it…’

Claudine and Francois waited, imagining only too easily the horrific scene inside the cafe, the deafening noise as machine-gun bullets drove into walls and tables, the

screams, the blood, the splintered glass …

Beatrice’s mouth was trembling, so that she could hardly

get the words out. ‘When it was over,’ she said carefully, ‘I

got up off the floor and looked for Elise. She was not hard to

find, monsieur. She was lying on the floor, beside

Blomberg’s table. She was covered in blood, there was no

doubt that she was dead. And the bodies of Blomberg and

his friends were sagging over her in their chairs, monsieur, like … like …’ She shivered, ‘Like puppets. Grisly, abandoned puppets.’

She looked up at them, and now the tears were coursing

shamelessly down her cheeks. ‘It was terrible. I made the sign

of the cross over her, monsieur. And you know, I cannot help

thinking that maybe it is better this way. Maybe now God will

take away the pain and the torment and give her peace. And I

shall pray every day,’ she said, in a voice so quiet now that it

was almost inaudible, ‘that He loves her enough to forgive her.

Do you think he will, monsieur? Do you think he will?’

Francois did his best to comfort her and much later that

night, after they had made up a bed for Beatrice in the west

wing, he and Claudine sat together on the sofa in their

sitting-room.

‘I was thinking,’ Claudine said, as Francois stroked her

hair. ‘I know that in your own way you cared a great deal for

Elise, so perhaps she should be buried at Lorvoire, in a

family plot. I think she would have liked that.’

‘Claudine,’ he said gruffly, ‘I love you so much that I…’

But his voice was too full of emotion to continue.

The next day, a message came through from Bertrand. He

could arrange passage to England, from Nantes, for three.

Within the next couple of days they were to expect a

messenger who would tell them where to rendezvous for the

trip across country.

They decided that the passengers would be Claudine,

Louis and Solange. Celine was under no threat from the

Germans, and Beavis said that, of all of them, he was the one

best equipped with the knowledge and experience to enable

him to get out of France on his own. Francois would not go;

Claudine had known that from the beginning. But he had

promised her that he would go into hiding as soon as she left, and she had to be content with that.

They had another piece of news that day, too. Though

Francois had not seen them at Camp Ruchard, they heard

that Gertrude Reinberg and her two children had been

arrested. They had been hiding out in the deserted chateau

of Montvisse, and Florence Jallais had betrayed them to the

Gestapo.

That night, knowing that it might be their last night

together, Claudine’s heart felt close to breaking, and when

Francois made love to her there was a tenderness and

passion in it that they had never known before. Afterwards,

they lay silently together, holding one another close; there

were no words to say what they felt - their bodies had

spoken for them.

Just before noon three days later without knocking, Corinne

burst into Claudine’s sitting-room. ‘Madame, the messenger

has come!’

‘The messenger? From Bertrand? Where is he?’

‘He could not stay, madame. He came over the bridge,

and he has already gone back again into the forest. But he

says the rendezvous with Bertrand’s guide is in the big barn

opposite the chateau of RignyUsse. The barn is deserted

now, and you and Louis are to go there as soon as you can.

Madame Solange is to follow before nightfall — you are to go

separately, you understand, so that you do not arouse

suspicion.’

Claudine nodded, her thoughts in a whirl. She would go

on Solange’s bike, that would be the easiest thing, with

Louis in the passenger-box.

‘Corinne,’ she said, ‘do you think Solange can ride my

bicycle?’

‘What? Oh yes,’ Corinne said, rapidly realizing how her

mind was working. ‘Yes, I’m sure she can.’

‘Good. Then we must hurry. There’s no time to lose.’

Half an hour later, having said an emotional farewell to

Tante Celine, Beavis and Corinne, Claudine helped a

delighted Louis into the passenger-box of Solange’s

bicycle, and began to pedal off down the drive. All she could

think of was when, dear God, when, would she see Francois

again?

She was already out of sight by the time Lucien let

himself into the chateau.

Claudine was looking at her son. His child’s body was

dwarfed by the powerful arm holding him from shoulder to

groin, and his face was frighteningly pale, making his eyes

seem wider and blacker than ever. The long lashes were

beaded with tears and his chin wobbled with the effort of

holding them back. His hair needed cutting, she thought,

noticing the way his curls fell haphazardly over his forehead,

and really she should wipe his nose. Then a fat tear dropped

onto his cheek, and it was as though a terrible fist of fear had

smashed through the irrelevance of her thoughts, forcing

her once again to confront the horrifying reality of what was

happening to them. She closed her eyes, unable to bear the

gun pointing at his delicate little face a moment longer.

She was sitting on a cold, dusty floor, propped against two

bales of hay, her face dazzled by the brilliant streams of

sunlight coming through the arch at the front of the barn.

She was within reaching distance of Louis, but she dared

not hold her arms out to him again. The last time she’d done

it he had been hit across the face.

Panic swelled, then subsided, then swelled again in her

chest. She shifted her feet in the scattered strands of hay,

and tightened the clench of her hands, willing herself to

keep calm. She could feel Armand watching her, but she

couldn’t bring herself to look back. The lying, the deceit,

the treachery, the murders, the mutilations were all there,

like phantoms dancing a macabre, malefic dance in the

space between them. She could still hardly believe it. When

she had first come into the barn with Louis and seen him, it

was a moment of such incredulous horror that she almost

fainted. The Germans had deceived them, and her instincts

had been right all the time. It was Armand. Halunke was

Armand.

Finally she forced her eyes to meet his. He was crammed

up against a corner of the barn, facing the arch. His face was

unshaven, his eyes bloodshot and ringed with shadow. He

stared back, and after a while a curl of malicious amusement

started to hover about his lips. Her skin prickled. It was a

stranger looking out of a familiar face.

‘Why?’ she breathed at last. ‘Just tell me why?’

He laughed, an arid, mirthless sound, and his eyes

glittered as he swept them over her body, then back to her

face. ‘You think it’s because of you, don’t you?’ he sneered.

‘You think it’s because I still want you.’

‘No. No, I don’t, but

‘The arrogance!’ he spat, covering her words with his

own. ‘The conceit! You thought you could use me, didn’t

you, thought you could satiate the lust for your pig of a

husband on me - the poor, peasant vigneron. The man who

had lost his wife and son, who needed someone to love,

someone to heal his wounds -I was easy prey for a woman

like you, that’s what you thought, didn’t you? He didn’t love

you, and you thought to make him jealous by turning to me.

But it didn’t work, did it? He didn’t care, and you, you could

never get him out of your mind.’

He laughed, nastily. ‘But it’s not you, Claudine, you

aren’t the reason I’m making him suffer. You and your son

here are merely the instruments with which I can inflict the

greatest torture of all. What a pity for your sake that he fell in