The House with Blue Shutters (28 page)

Laurent felt out of breath, but not relieved. He had done what JC had asked, but in doing it he saw now, he had begun something
that would not stop, and that made him want to draw the bobbled wool curtains closed.

‘And this, this “
shanghaillage
”?’

‘He doesn’t know exactly. He said soon.’

‘And did my son give you any more instructions?’

‘No. He had to go, he said you would know what to do.’ Larivière was turning JC’s letter in his hand, there was no gladness
in his face, and Laurent pitied him his wife waiting eagerly in the kitchen, pitied the single scrawled sheet.

‘You see what he’s done, don’t you, Nadl?’ Larivière spat out angrily. ‘He’s left us no choice. Do you see that?’

Laurent did see, and yet did not feel tricked, or trapped, though he had begun to be afraid. Oddly, he felt happy. He realized
that he had been waiting for something without knowing really that he was waiting. JC had known that he, Laurent would understand,
that he could look with clear eyes, easy even, and imperative because of what they both knew. So he had not forgotten.

Georges Tinville debated between the two sheets of
La Dépêche
his wife had retrieved from the coal scuttle. He had reprimanded her that morning for lining the cat’s box from the pile
of newspapers. Minette had given birth to two tabby kittens on the portrait of Monsieur Henriot, the new Minister of Information.
Georges suspected that grey tom he had seen hanging around on the quay. It was going to be a bright day, the sun was already
striking off the Lot through the bedroom window, causing the looking glass to glare as he strapped on his leather belt. Georges
enjoyed wearing his uniform. He fastened his black tie carefully over the khaki shirt and smoothed down his trousers under
his stomach. His dark blue jacket was neatly pressed on the bed, next to the holster. That was a shame now, but one couldn’t
expect everything with times as they were, and appearances were what mattered. He considered November 1940, ‘
Toulouse a fait au Maréchal Pétain l’Accueil le Plus Enthousiaste
’ and June 1942, ‘
Le Maréchal est Acclamé avec un Ferveur et un Enthousiasme Indescriptibles
’. He
settled on the later piece, as being less significant a date and rolled it tightly, working the paper into the holster until
it was satisfyingly full. With the belt in place it didn’t look too bad, nothing like what he’d handled in 1916, but still.

They would be two hours or more in the truck from Cahors to the village, and Georges opened his lunch packet before they had
passed under the viaduct. Sausage, wonderful really, but the smell alerted the others and Georges had reluctantly to offer
his greased paper until there was hardly a decent bite left. Selfishness, that was the problem. It was just a matter of making
them see that, these
réfractaires
, that with a bit of cooperation things would be better for everyone. It came down to patriotism in the end. Georges saw himself
putting a firm hand on one of these young men’s shoulders, explaining that he understood his reluctance to leave, but that
it would work out better if they all did their bit. There would be no need for strong arming. They were peasants, after all,
probably had barely left their little village, it was natural they should be apprehensive, but duty was duty. The sausage
was a bit oily, and as the truck began to climb along the twining roads above the town Georges felt queer. He stared hard
at the white stones beside the wheels as they bumped along, shoulders rod-straight, setting an example.

It was after eleven when they reached the division camp on the plain. Georges gulped gratefully at the cold air, saluted the
sentry smartly and asked for
Obersturmführer
Hummel, who was waiting as arranged with the map and the list. The first checkpoint was a big farmhouse on a rise above the
Landine river. It looked a prosperous sort of place, Georges wouldn’t have minded betting there was a cow or two with
no certificate, but he had his orders. They were not to raise an alarm. Two women came out at the sound of the truck, mother
and daughter, they looked like, plain as brass nails both.

‘
Milice
,’ said Georges, and saw that their papers were in order.

‘Does Laurent Nadl live here?’

The older of the two women answered,’Yes, with his father and grandfather. They’re both over sixty. Then there’s me and Cathérine.’

‘I need to see him.’

‘Well, you’d best come in then, Monsieur. He’s having a bad day with his leg.’

Georges could see that they lived in the one room, like all country people, though the house was a good size. Nadl was lying
on a truckle bed in the corner of the kitchen, his good leg stretched out and the stump discreetly covered with a blanket.
He wore a muffler and a thick jersey despite the heat from the range. A crutch was propped against the table.

‘Your exemption paper?’

‘I’m sorry, you’ll have to ask my mother to fetch it. I’m bad today.’

‘Where?’ asked Georges, when he had seen the second category classification.

‘Verdun.’

Georges leaned forward and shook his hand.

‘Vive Pétain.’ They looked into one another’s eyes for a moment.

‘Vive Pétain.’

As they drove away, Georges explained to the others, ‘Verdun, that means something, that does. He’s a hero, that man.’ He
ran his finger ponderously over the map, to where the bakery was marked in the village square.

In the kitchen at Murblanc, Yves Contier whipped off the blanket and fumbled frantically at his left leg, strapped tight beneath
him and tucked into a pillowcase.

‘Christ, I’ve had my big toe in my bollocks for hours.’

‘Shh,’ hissed Cathérine, though she was laughing, ‘you’ll have to stick it back in a minute. They might come back this way.’

The village wasn’t much to speak of. A scrappy square with a few chestnut trees, Vionne’s
boucherie
with a home-made sign in the window reminding the housewives to bring their coupons, the café with the usual row of old has-beens
on the bench outside. The
boulangerie
, Georges noted with approval, had a large photograph of the Maréchal above the counter.

‘
Milice
,’ he said importantly to the skinny girl who watched over three
flûtes
and a quartet of deflated-looking brioche. ‘We need to see Hilaire Charrot and Jean Charrot.’

‘My father’s at the mill,’ she replied. ‘He’s there every day now, since Jean left.’

‘Jean is your brother? Jean Charrot?’

She rubbed a dusty hand over her face. ‘Yes. It’s been hard without him.’

‘I’m sorry, Mademoiselle, but we have our duty to do.’ He flicked his head authoritatively towards the raffia curtain that
separated the shop from the family kitchen.

‘Search it.’

While the other three went through, he stared at the girl, who returned his gaze incuriously with bright, curranty eyes.
Georges had recovered from the effects of the sausage and the sharp air had made him feel peckish. He eyed the brioche.

‘Would you care to try one, sir? Of course, they’re not what they were, since we can’t get the butter, but you’re very welcome.’

‘Don’t mind if I do.’

When his colleagues returned, rather floury about the jackets, Georges saw that Thierry was looking disapprovingly at a few
crumbs, which had somehow become lodged in the shirt crease above his belly. He straightened his shoulders and looked stern.
‘Well?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Where’s this mill then?’

The girl came out from behind the counter, popping up a wooden hatch, and pointed through the doorway. ‘Down to the river
and then right back on yourself along the bank, past the old barn. You can’t miss it, though it’s a bit of a walk.’

‘There’s no road?’

‘No sir. Father uses the wagon to get along, but you’ll have a hard time of it with your lorry. The ruts are something terrible
with the rain we’ve had, and now all frozen up. It’s best to walk.’

Georges thought he might send the others and wait behind, but the matter of the crumb had already undermined him. Several
miles on rough, icy ground was more than he could bear to think of.

‘Come on then, where’s your brother? We’re serious, you know. The
Milice
doesn’t have time to play games.’

‘I told you sir, he’s not here. He went off with his friends Marcel Vionne, and Nic Dubois oh, months ago now. To
Toulouse they said. They were going together to look for work in the factories, but we’ve not heard a thing. Nor Betty next
door at the café neither.’

‘You can tell your father we’ll be back, and he’d better be here with his papers. If he’s a miller it should be in order.
Good day.’

Georges marched out, letting the door slam. The bell tinkled shrilly, and the girl kept her face towards the ground. Georges
struck his pencil through three of the names on his list and made a question mark against the miller. Thierry rolled his eyes.

Madame Teulière had wheeled Bernard Vionne outside, despite the cold. They’d had a time of it lifting poor Jean-Marc into
the attic. Madame Teuliere had said why couldn’t Bernard hide in the attic for that matter, but Laurent’s plan was that some
of the
refractaires
had to be recognized as other people, if they all just vanished it would be too suspicious. They had to make a distraction.
Bernard sat upright in the chair, his ears stretched in opposite directions like a snail’s eyes, one for the sound of a truck
and one up the stairs, anticipating the first of his old friend’s cries that would have him on the train to Germany. His fingers
were wound tightly together beneath the rug that covered his knees. There were four of them climbing down, three younger and
the one in charge, a great wineskin of a fellow with a huge swag of belly juddering above his belt. Reluctantly, Bernard closed
his eyes and let his head loll down to his shoulder. He could hear Madame Teulière speaking to them, smell a cigarette. He
pushed his breath deliberately through his nostrils, feeling it warm in the three day’s growth on his upper lip. A hand touched
his shoulder.

‘Jean-Marc,’ Madame Teulière said softly.

He opened his eyes, taking care not to focus on her face, but keeping them fixed in the middle distance.

‘Can he understand me then?’ asked the fat one.

‘He seems to, sometimes. We hope so.’

‘Jean-Marc Teulière!’ bellowed in his ear so that involuntarily, Bernard jumped. ‘He heard that all right.’

‘Oh, you shouldn’t frighten him. You’ll set him off!’

The cold was digging at Bernard’s neck like a knuckle grinding into his sinew. How was it possible they could not hear his
heart? He gripped the handles of the chair, forcing his weight into his stomach, controlling the desire to jump and run. He
tried to keep his eyes soft and wandering vaguely over the faces of the waiting men. Madame Teulière was whispering Jean-Marc’s
story, the nightmares, the useless flailing limbs. As she spoke, Bernard caught the sound of a wail beginning from the house,
hatefully familiar, the snuffling gulps of a grown man preparing to scream like a child. He sensed that Jean-Marc’s mother
heard it too, for she raised her voice determinedly and stroked the blanket, patting, soothing. The fat man’s blunder was
his salvation then. As the first cry swelled from the house, he opened his mouth and roared, adding an upward kick of his
leg for good measure. The men jumped back, shocked, and Bernard screamed with all his strength, drowning the sound of Jean-Marc’s
echoing sob, joining swiftly with his mother’s shrill complaints.

‘You see, you see what you’ve done. I said he’d go off! Shame on you!’

As he screamed, it seemed to go dark before his eyes. A scent came to him, a scent he thought he had forgotten, but
which now swelled to a vile stench in his nostrils. That smell of livid, peeling flesh, the smell of Laurent’s leg, skewed
across Bernard’s body in the trench, Laurent’s face in still, astonished agony somehow too far away from the limb that weighed
on Bernard like a live thing, creeping over him. He rolled in the stifling mud, trying to breathe, and sucked in a gobbet
of warm flesh. He screamed and screamed, until he felt Madame Teulière’s hands on his shoulders, shaking at him.

‘You can stop now. Stop! They’re gone. Stop it.’

Bernard could not breathe, could not pant out the smell from his lungs. He floundered and gasped until he subsided, sobbing,
into Madame Teulière’s surprised arms.

‘It’s funny,’ said Thierry as they bumped down the track, ‘I could have sworn there were two of them, just then.’

Eric laughed, ‘Watch it, you’re going gaga too! Aaagh,’ he cried, waving his arms, ‘the gas, the gas! It’s coming for me!’

Georges thought he ought to reprimand them, but he was beginning to feel slightly defeated. The next hour was spent searching
fruitlessly and infuriatingly for Contier and Vionne. It was as much as they could do to get any of the Castroux people to
admit to knowing them, most of their questions were met with a shrug and a muttered ‘
sais pas
’ which was as near as most of them seemed to get to speaking French at all.

The bell was ringing as they arrived at the schoolhouse. A dozen or so children were filing out, stooping to step into their
clogs at the door, the bigger girls helping the little ones with jackets and mufflers tied across the breast like miniature
bandoliers. Georges guessed that several of them would have a bitter walk home, long kilometres across the fields. Odd that
he felt a stab of fear as they stepped down into the schoolroom, a forgotten anxiety returning to him even before his body
gratefully registered the warmth of the fat iron stove. Behind his back, his hands washed themselves, the pressure reconjuring
the burning tenderness of palms red-stripped from the cane. The feeling heightened when the figure bending to rearrange some
books in a cupboard resolved itself as a priest, a tall narrow man with greying hair brushed aristocratically back from his
temples. Georges saluted and the priest came forward, smiling pleasantly.