In This Hospitable Land (55 page)

Inspired, the pastor spoke a fervent sermon on the long-enduring painfully tested faith of the Protestants of the Lozère. Though he couched his message in strictly religious and historical terms, the good citizens of Vialas needed no key to decode his true subject. Obviously it wasn’t the ancient Romans who oppressed his people now or even the French Catholics of comparatively more recent times. The oppressors of the present were the Nazis who had insinuated themselves into his parishioners’ own homes, bringing the threat and reality of arrest, torture, brutality, and death—a hateful and ignorant disregard of commonly held truths and the revealed word of a just God.

Irene listened, sang, and gained courage and strength. Filled with this worshipful congregation’s festive, determined spirit, she knew she would hide and protect the Sauverins no matter what.

Reentering the town square she saw the machine gun manned, loaded, and pointing straight at the mayor’s office window. Unintimidated, she strode straight ahead.

Then she saw a German patrol come around the corner of the temple. Turning in the opposite direction, she felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to run back inside. But she knew that would be a mistake.

Hastening down one strange corner after another, she finally found her way. Reaching the outskirts of town she was startled to realize she was still wearing her lovely embroidered white blouse. It would get soiled as she hiked back to Le Salson, but she decided not to change it even though the stone walls bordering the path hid her from view. The blouse had become a talisman. Superstitiously she believed it gave her direct access to the inspiration with which this visit to Vialas had rewarded her despite the fearsome dispiriting things she had seen.

The higher up the mountain she rose, the more easily she breathed. But she looked over her shoulder reflexively every now and again because each time she saw no one following she felt relieved of an overpowering presence.

At last her fears drifted off and faded away like the last shadowy images of a very bad dream.

In late afternoon Irene marched down the path to her home. How familiar and inspiriting the very gravel beneath her feet felt.

But when she opened her door she realized she was exhausted. Still, everything was all right. There before her, Denise peeled smoked chestnuts and Ernestine stirred broth.

“Oh,” Denise exclaimed. “You’re back!”

“Thank God,” Ernestine sighed.

Denise rushed to wrap her arms around Irene. Ernestine kissed her daughter warmly on each cheek. And before Irene could sit, little Cristian ran to her, stumbling over an invisible obstacle and crashing against her knees.

“Did you miss your Tata?” she teased, hugging him too tightly for him to answer. Then she told her mother and Denise about her journey and the Germans taking up residence in Vialas.

“Since when?” Denise asked, shocked. “And for how long?”

“Do they mean to stay?” Ernestine inquired fearfully. “Will they come farther?”

Even if Irene could have answered she would have held her tongue, for Ida and Christel appeared at the foot of the stairs and she wanted to spare the little ones news they did not need to know.

Denise slept badly that night, tormented by terrible dreams of the Nazis capturing André and Alex. When she awoke she didn’t feel right. Ordinarily she had a positive attitude and outlook. But not today. Oh, she fully understood how unlikely it was that any enemies would come all the way to Le Salson to hunt down a few Sauverins. But the Germans were already so close…

Lying abed listening to the Bastides start the fire, eat breakfast, and head out to tend to the animals, she couldn’t stop thinking about her eldest daughter. Late the previous fall Irene had suggested they could pretend Ida was her cousin from the city so she could go to school in the little village of Vimbouches at the base of the mountain opposite Le Salson. It was an hour’s walk through the woods and across a stream on a two-log bridge, but Ida loved to learn and would brave any difficulty to do so—even an arduous round-trip journey in wooden shoes.

But this morning Denise decided to keep Ida home. She wouldn’t tell the real reason: semi-irrational fear. Instead she would claim she wanted to put aside responsibilities for once and spend some special time with her children.

The morning went well. Denise and the children had great fun playing hide-and-seek and tag and telling each other stories. The children were in such good humor they didn’t even mind when their mother had to take a break to prepare the midday meal.

Looking out the kitchen window while stirring the pot, Denise watched the goats and sheep scrambling about a small pasture penned in by a rough rail fence. She also saw Tata Irene and Mamé—as they had all taken to calling Ernestine at her insistence—loosening the garden dirt in preparation for mixing in the winter’s accumulation of manure.

Soon they were all eating, if not enjoying, bajana. But the silence in which this soup was usually consumed was broken by a persistent scrambling sound outside. It got louder and louder, closer and closer. Someone was running up the path.

“Hurry! Hurry!” a hoarse voice cried out.

Irene, turning pale, raised her large self laboriously out of her seat to look out the window. Denise got up too to peer over Irene’s shoulder.

Both were surprised and alarmed to see Léon Guin not only because he hadn’t come to Le Salson since the Sauverins’ arrival but because his appearance made his hurry plain. The hair he never much bothered with stood straight up on his head. As he puffed, panted, and hobbled his way to the house, his face was flushed, his eyes were popped open wide, and his coat was on lopsided since he had buttoned the buttons in the wrong holes. In fact he made such a spectacle, neighbors in the only two inhabited houses close by stepped out to see what could possibly be happening.

“The Germans are coming!” Léon huffed and rasped as Irene opened her door.

“But they’re in Vialas,” the big woman protested in both confusion and denial.

“No, they’ve left Vialas,” Léon said, “and they’re coming here.” He turned and pointed up to the Route des Crêtes. “They’re already there.” Then he swung his arm around in a half-circle as if to indicate that they might come into Le Salson from any direction.

“But why?” Irene demanded.

Crankily Léon told her he had no idea why the Germans did anything. But now they were doing this, and André and Alex had asked him to warn them.

“So you’ve seen André?” Denise asked at Irene’s shoulder, perplexed. She hadn’t seen André for a long while but had assumed he was staying in one of the Resistance camps.

“Seen him?” Léon retorted. “He and Alex are staying with me only to help with the planting.”

“Then why didn’t they come for us themselves?”

“Please, Madame Sauverin, don’t ask so many questions. There’s very little time and—believe me—André and Alex have more immediate concerns.”

“What do they want us to do?” Denise asked, deliberately becoming focused and purposeful.

“Hide, of course,” Léon shouted. “Scatter.”

He pointed down into the valley and then more slowly up the other side toward Vimbouches. No vehicle could cross from here to there because there was only a well-worn footpath through the woods.

“Get Cristian into his coat please,” Denise requested of Irene. “It’s still a little cold out.”

“And will only get colder after the sun goes down,” Irene agreed.

“I’ll take care of the girls,” Denise said.

“I’ll put some food into a sack,” Ernestine offered.

“I’ll keep moving,” Léon growled. “You’re not the only ones I’ve got to warn.”

“Go on then,” Ernestine growled back. “And thank you.”

As Denise helped her girls into their heavy socks, wooden shoes, and coats, Christel quailed. “I don’t want to see Germans! We don’t
like
the Germans, do we, Maman?”

“We don’t like
these
Germans.”

“Will we be gone long?” the little girl asked.

“Let’s hope not,” Denise said, hurrying into her own heavy coat and wooden shoes. “Now button up. And tie your sweaters around your waists.”

“Will we stay out after dark?” Ida asked as they went downstairs.

“Possibly,” Denise replied.

“Probably,” Irene said, brushing by with Cristian in her arms. The boy was all bundled up and wriggling frantically to free himself from his heavy outerwear.

“But we never stay out after dark,” Ida mewed uncharacteristically.

“Be a brave girl now,” her mother pleaded.

“Let’s go,” Ernestine demanded, opening the door and hurrying everyone out.

The women and children marched down the garden terraces toward the bottom of the valley with child-length strides because Cristian insisted on walking. Other local residents preceded them on the single path across the rock ledges. All moved a little more quickly when the path, again primarily dirt instead of stone, angled across the fields. They slowed once more when entering the woods, the stream burbling just beyond. Rocks and pebbles tumbled and crashed, washed along by water plunging and coursing over and around all obstacles in its way.

“Try to keep pace,” Irene said from the lead.

“I can’t,” little Christel whined. “I have a stone in my shoe.”

“We need to keep moving,” her mother said gently.

“It’s okay for us to rest a minute,” Ernestine called from the rear.

Irene sighed. “At least we’re hidden by these trees.”

Everyone except Christel leaned against a low stone wall built to hold back the soil on the uphill side of the path. The little girl sat carefully on a small flat rock, pulled off her wooden shoe, and, after feeling all around, held up the offending stone with a great grin of success.

“Let’s go,” Ernestine said, straightening up, “while there’s still sun to light our way.”

“Follow me, everybody,” Ida cried out excitedly. “Christel, hold my hand.”

The energetic children dashed away laughing delightedly. Denise picked up Cristian, now too tired to resist.

On the other side of the stream, the path wound up gently between trees, rock walls, and open fields dotted with chestnut trees. The modest slope was a relief but everyone mounting it was fully exposed to any watching eyes on the far side of the valley.

When Vimbouches hove into view above them, daylight was fading. In the steadily increasing gloom, small groups gathered in the village cemetery. Two dozen people crouched on raised mounds of earth or perched on some of the gravestones toppled over through the years. Trees that had grown up around the stone wall helped hide them all.

The graveyard hummed with a low steady murmur. Tata Irene and Mamé greeted their neighbors, mostly women and children. A few elderly gentlemen sat silently, lost in thought.

The Sauverin children were respectfully quiet. Even Cristian didn’t make a fuss, having fallen asleep in his mother’s arms.

As the sun dipped still lower behind the encompassing mountains, dusk bathed the ancient graveyard in misty shades of gray. The temperature dropped. Shadows stretched and blended into dark hollows. Only the highest mountaintops continued to glow with a pale light, silhouetted against the early evening sky.

Venus appeared on the horizon. Leaning against the old stone wall and marveling at the splendors of the heavens above, Denise noticed other adults looking nervously over the wall. Following their eyes she saw lights blazing above Le Salson on the Route des Crêtes—the headlights of a line of halted German trucks. Then searchlights surged, circling the fields, wooded copses, and rock outcroppings of the valley, casting harsh, disturbing shadows.

Denise ducked down, heart pounding painfully. The abrupt falling motion roused Cristian, who began to wail. Denise clapped a hand over his mouth loosely enough for him to breathe but the boy was startled into silence and stared at his mother with wide, shocked eyes. She rocked him soothingly.

“Maman, what are those people doing?” Christel asked, appearing and speaking as if out of nowhere, standing on tiptoe and staring over the wall. “What are all those lights?”

Without thought Denise grabbed her hand and yanked her down with unintended force. The poor girl landed on the ground with a thump and cried out in pain but Denise suspected her pride had been hurt more than her rear.