The House with Blue Shutters (23 page)

Because they came over the plain, along the Cahors road, they passed by Aucordier’s first. It was the day for the May flowers,
there was to be a dance that night. Oriane remembered that clearly, she remembered that she had been sitting on her stool
in the yard sewing a bunch of silk violets to her old dress, the dress she had worn for Mademoiselle Lafage’s wedding. She
listened to William playing as she unpicked the flowers from the bodice, thinking they would look better, perhaps, sprigged
on to the shoulder. Laurent had brought them for her from Monguèriac, the day he took Alice to the market, and she hadn’t
the heart to tell him that artificial flowers made her sad since they reminded her of her mother’s terrible Sunday hat. There
had been a feather on that hat, too, that flapped viciously over her mother’s face as she shook William by the shoulders.

‘Look at you!’ her mother had hissed. ‘Look at you!’ They had been to Mass, and William had been startled by the
vehemence of the singing, he shrieked and gibbered, his ears grubby, his face shiny with spit. Oriane had dragged him kicking
down the aisle and tried to calm him, but later their mother beat at him with her fists in the square, for everyone to see.

Still, Laurent had meant kindly, and when they got married she said to herself, she would have real flowers, orange blossom
like Mademoiselle Lafage.

William was playing, she remembered that, he was playing as she sewed, the tune of the May-horn. She sang along to the music,
‘Lou coucou! Lou coucou!’ Before the dance they would go around the village with the others, singing before each home and
collecting two or three eggs for the May omelette. William stopped abruptly and turned his head up towards the plain. He brought
the violin over to her, carrying it preciously as he always did, then he was gone, running, out of the yard, chasing a noise.
Like a hunting dog, she thought, wondering what the sound was that acted on him like scent, too distant and subtle for her
to catch. But he was back in a moment, tugging at her, and she had to push him away in case he spoiled her dress with rosin.
‘Lo monde,’ he was crowing, ‘lo monde.’

‘What people, William, where?’ She was half laughing, incredible that she had not known, but how could she know? She followed
him with the dress in her hand to the corner of the barn, and looked where he pointed along the road.

‘Come on, William, come on now.’ He was too big for her to pull him, too excited by what he had seen. Her voice was wrong,
she was helpless to communicate her urgency. Desperately, she cuffed him over the brow, as she had never
done, and put aside the ache it gave her to see his face collapse in shock as something she would have to mind later, there
was no time now. Cathérine’s words were in her head, she had to hide him. Pushing him in front of her, his hands over his
ears, head bowed, she forced them both into the barn and pulled the big door tight. William had begun to sob, she slapped
him again and the surprise of it calmed her so her hands obeyed and fastened the twine on the inside of the door.

‘Get the ladder, hurry!’

He stared at her, smeary-faced. She felt very cold, she was shaking, but she brought her fingers to her lips, ‘Shhh!’ Like
a game, it had to be like a game. ‘Get the ladder,’ she whispered, pointing. When they were up, she began to drag it towards
her, rung over rung, feeling the muscles in her abdomen clench with strain, until he understood and took the weight behind
her as it rose. The noise was there now, vibrating in the earth beneath them. ‘Lay it down, good boy, William.’ He was still
whimpering. ‘
Lou rescondat
,’ she murmured, ‘so we have to be quiet, see?’ Hide and seek. Creeping forward to the window, lying down under the sill.
She wished it was winter, so the hay would be in. Below, her dress lay where she had dropped it, a dead woman with a corsage
of violets, weakly bright in the dust. William crawled up next to her, under her arm. ‘Shh!’ he said dramatically, sounding
pleased. He would forget where she remembered, he had never needed to forgive. The noise was real now, engines and the crunch
of boots, but surely her heart was louder, they would hear her heart. Her skin was drenched and clammy, she felt sick.

First there was a huge tank, like a picture in the newspapers
at the café, snub and clumsy-looking as it rolled over the white road, but it moved shockingly fast, smoothly, as though it
had thousands of tiny wheels. A fat little tower stuck up from the top and a man was visible to the waist, wearing a black
jacket and a cap with silver braid around it. The tank was so high that Oriane could have reached down and plucked it from
his head. There was silver too on his left shoulder, he looked straight ahead. On the side of the tower was the head of a
black cat, snarling. Then came three cars covered close with plated metal, and another tank, then a beautiful open car, like
the Marquis’s, with a driver in front and two men sitting behind. They had silver braid on their shoulders, and the lapels
of their jackets had pink piping, a strange, ludic note in their frightening appearance.

Oriane could hear a rat rustling in the roof above her and gripped William hard, her palm clamped around his jaw.

‘Please, please be good now. We don’t want them to find us, do we?’ Now there were columns of men in peaked caps, four abreast,
buttoned into heavy grey coats with green collars even though it was warm, with black fabric showing at the neck. Some wore
high boots like heavy riding boots, others had shorter, softer-looking ones with laces. William drummed his feet in time with
the boots, one two three four one two three four, they filled the road and it seemed as though the barn was vibrating with
their feet. Then three lorries with green canvas sides, puffing thick fumes, then more men, a third tank. They were so close.
Some of them seemed to try to look into the yard as they came by, though only their eyes were moving. Beneath their boots,
her dress showed its flowers sadly, then it was pressed grey and merged with the road.

When they had passed, everything looked just the same. Two of the hens scuttled across the yard, chuckling, and began to scratch
in the long grass by the barn wall. Slowly, Oriane sat up, stretching her cramped arms, and released the catch of the window,
cautiously stretched her head outside to look down the road. ‘Listen, William, listen. Have they gone?’ He shuffled up on
his knees, breathing softly, and shook his head. So they lay there in the shadow and listened to the church clock strike the
quarter hours in the valley. Oriane was very thirsty, the dust was clogged in her throat and her eyes stung, but it seemed
stupid to move until something happened. Her body felt heavy, she had a perverse desire to sleep. An hour passed, the bells
chimed once for a quarter past nine. It seemed as though nothing was moving, even the wind in the poplars was muffled with
anticipation. Craning out of the little window, Oriane could see the road until it dropped down, then the meadows of Murblanc
and the
étable
, the chateau hill rising behind, the tower just visible above the trees, which were still lacy, not dense with summer leaves.
William was distracted, playing a jumping game in the squares of sunlight opened by the missing tiles of the roof, hopping
from one to another with his arms stretched out like a dancer. When she turned back to the valley, there was a flag flying
from the chateau, a red flag with a white circle and a hooked black cross, limp but fluttering a little, determined. They
had not been passing through.

As the bells chimed towards the afternoon it felt foolish, eventually, to stay in the loft. Oriane heated the soup for William
and left him to drink it while she stood in the doorway with a glass of that morning’s cold coffee and stared
down the road. She was sure that Laurent would come and tell her what to do, but until then she was reluctant even to leave
the yard. She went upstairs for a jersey of William’s and fitted the wool through the darning needle, then sat back on her
stool. William had retrieved his violin and was playing again, there seemed no point in stopping him, in trying to explain
that they would not be going to the village tonight after all, and that there would be no dancing. It was extraordinary that
just hours ago she had been here, pinning flowers on her dress, and that the music that was now so thin and sad had seemed
gay. But it was cruel to prevent him after she had struck at him this morning, so he played on. Beneath the sound, the valley
was still so quiet that she was sure it could be heard in Castroux. It was dreadful, surely, just to sit here?

Oriane hated the look on William’s face when he saw her in the kitchen doorway. He started, his shoulders rising as he ducked
his chin to his chest, ready to shield himself.

‘Have you eaten your soup?’ He nodded. ‘Good boy. Shall you go a walk for me?’ She felt shabby to make him go alone, but to
leave the house empty did not feel safe. When he came back, she explained, it would be nearly time to walk to the village.
He set off up to the plain with a slice of bread on which she had dolloped a big spoon of strawberry compote. It was too easy
to please William, to hurt him and then take away his fear with sweets or games. He was more quickly mollified than a screaming
child, but she preferred to treat him as though he were reasonable, as though he understood things. If she practised the delusion
hard enough it might allow him a small and unharmed place in the world. She watched his progress up the white road, his head
twisting this
way and that with his comical ears sticking out like cabbage leaves, and was full of a painful love for him, for that loneliness
that she thought he ought to feel and which was hers alone. When his figure was gone, she put away the dishes and wiped the
crumbs from the table, then swept the floor as she had done that morning. There was the noise of an engine outside, so she
crossed quickly to the yard, expecting Laurent and an explanation.

Four of them were getting down from a square, open-topped car. For a second she thought of grabbing the poker, a knife, or
simply running, but her limbs had the heavy quality of a dream and she remained still, though her body was as vividly alive
as a hare before the dogs. One of them came towards her. He was tall, taller than any of the men in the village, in a black
tunic open at the neck to show a grey shirt and black tie. There were knots of silver in his lapels and an emblem above the
bib of the black peaked cap, which he removed. His hair was the colour of new corn, short and bristling. He waited a few steps
away, as though expecting her to speak. So they had come already.

‘Good morning, Mademoiselle. Might I ask if your father is at home?’ His voice was almost French, clear and polite. Oriane
twisted her hands in her dress until the moment grew too long and she stammered out that she was alone, that she lived alone,
except for her brother.

‘He’s at work,’ she added stupidly.

The other three wore helmets, rounded with short brims. They stood by the car and watched.

‘I’m sorry to intrude, Mademoiselle,’ went on the man with the cap, ‘but we need to look over the buildings here.’

‘The buildings?’

‘Yes.’

He said it with such calm and perfect authority that it did not occur to Oriane to question him, to find out why, let alone
to refuse or ask for justification. Her first feeling was simple relief. The man said something to one of the others. It was
the first time Oriane heard German. The rhythm of it was strange, tripled like the jigs William played. It didn’t sound terrifying,
it was almost funny. The helmet stepped forward with a notebook and pencil.

‘Your name?

‘Oriane Aucordier.’

‘Your papers?’

‘I have to fetch them. They’re inside.’ He nodded his head slowly, as though she could take her time. She brought out the
identification cards and the ration books that had lain untouched in the drawer of the
buffet
for three years. The man looked at them so slowly that she felt guilty, certain there was something wrong and that they would
take her away.

‘How old is your brother, William Aucordier?’

‘Seventeen.’

‘Has he a paper of exemption?’

It would be wrong, she was certain, to tell the truth, which was that she did not understand. But was the truth about William
any better? They would take him to prison.

‘The paper that excuses him from serving in the Army, if he’s here?’ When they had gone to the
Mairie
for the cards no one had mentioned any such thing, but William was old enough now, she had to speak, to decide just this
instant which was worse to admit to.

‘No, sir. He’s feeble minded. Simple. But he’s very good, he doesn’t do any harm, he’s never been in trouble.’

‘But you said he was at work.’

‘Yes, he scares birds you know, to help. Up in the fields.’ Oriane made to gesture with her arm towards the plain, but it
hung like a broken wing at her side. Already she had been forced to lie, and the helmeted man was scribbling down the translation
as the other spoke it. William would go to a horrible prison, he would be beaten and starved and it would be her fault for
telling the truth. A hot wash of thin vomit rose in her throat, she gulped, shuddering, stretching her eyes wide to keep tears
from coming.

‘May we look inside?’

‘Inside?’ He must think she was some country throwback, not quite finished.

‘Yes, Mademoiselle,’ patiently, with no sign in his voice that she seemed a cretin to him, ‘that’s why we’re here. Just to
see the buildings.’

‘Of course.’ She held the door for him as formally as if he were the priest, and the others followed, removing their helmets
as they stepped over the threshold. They walked through the rooms, the kitchen and scullery downstairs, the four bedrooms,
lifting the hatch to the low, dusty attic where the rats scuttled at night. Then Oriane was to show them the barn, the ladder
to the loft, the chicken house, the vegetable garden, and all the time the man asked questions in his formal, correct French.
How many goats had she? What work did she do? When had her mother died? Oriane blushed as they opened the door to the privy,
though it was whitewashed and the seat scrubbed smooth. One of them picked a sprig of
rosemary at the door and rubbed it against his fingers until the man with the cap frowned at him and he dropped it. She still
did not know the purpose of the inspection, yet her fear receded and she answered confidently, hoping that the man would see
from her tone that she was respectable and had nothing to hide. Later she learned that they were doing the same all over Castroux,
poking sticks up chimneys and peering into larders, rattling at windows that had been painted shut for generations.