The Silent Hours (12 page)

PAUL

Dear Isabelle,

Are all my letters getting through, I wonder? I write to you in the hope they are, I love receiving your news. I am glad you have found a kind man, you deserve someone warm and I promise I won’t tease. It is a brief glimpse at some colour when a lot of my world is grey.

The weeks and months are dragging on and sometimes I find it hard notto despair. The mood is wild and chaos reigns in the Stalag, where officers surrounded by mounds of paper shout one thing, then another in their nonsensical language. All the while we wait on bunks and cots playing endless games of cards until we are shunted to our next Kommando to work for them.

I wish I had some joke or story for you, but it seems at the moment that there is nothing but waiting. We seem to have told each other everything there is to know, and sometimes a little bit of what we didn’t. It is like a family, I suppose. Nerves arebeing stretched and rumours are always circulating. It is the inaction that brings iton – tempers shortening and at times I crave the quiet of the River Glane. I hope you wander down there often, sit on the bridge and drop a line into the water. I think it is one of life’s simple pleasures and it makes my heart ache at times to be back there.

Some of the lads here go off to lectures and seem to forget there are fences at all. I don’t want to sit through lectures or read books, I want to pound the earthand wrestle with the others. Here we can remember that we are men and when I take the head of a friend and rub at his hair I feel the blood pumping through my arms and legs and I don’t feel so utterly useless.

In some ways I will be relieved to start the next lot of work – hope the Kommando is outdoors. Some of the lads are being sent to nearby farms, othersto the factories or mines. They say life can be easier out there and I want to bedoing something. Farm work will seem wrong somehow, when the fields around Oradour are to be neglected, but I don’t want to be stuck on a production line. Rémi is nervous about the work, he is about half my size and knows nothingabout farming, only paper. He joined an amateur dramatics group in the campand is playing a woman. He isn’t built for farm work and has bitten his nails right down and asks me constant questions about crops and all sorts. I’ve been tellinghim about the work we do in the village – what will you all do for another harvesttime with no men, I wonder?

Please keep writing, dear Isabelle. Your letters take me out of all of this,

Paul

ADELINE

1952, St Cecilia nunnery, south-west France

We’re in the forest, you and I. The woods I visited as a child. The trees are so tall. We are near the top, where everything thickens and the light fights its way through the cracks around the leaves leaving shadows speckled on the soil under our feet. Vincent and Paul are behind us at a distance but we have decided to set off down a path. We duck under branches, get tangled in cobwebs and walk ahead, talking, forgetting our way. It is so good to hear your voice.

You suddenly draw up short, your breathing laboured. I almost knock into you as I come to a halt.

He is there. A large shadow of an animal, a huge body hunched over strong legs covered in matted fur. His slanted yellow eyes are watching us closely. A wolf.

He lunges at me. My breaths are hard and fast but I’m frozen to the ground. You jump in the way.

‘Run, Maman, run!’ you cry, batting at the wolf with a branch.

The jaws snap and you are grabbed. I can only watch as his jaws close around your jumper, trapping you. You are still trying to swipe at him with the branch. He is too strong though, and drags you by your collar to the ground.

‘Run, run, run, run, run.’ So urgent. That’s all you’re saying, all I’m hearing.

I turn and I run as fast as I can. Branches scratch and tear at my face and clothes as I head back down the path. It gets lighter; I can see the forms of Vincent and Paul as if we were never gone. They are not worried. Vincent asks what is wrong.

I’m crying and I can’t get the words out right but I know I have to be quick. ‘It’s Isabelle, Isabelle’s been taken by a wolf. We have to help her. I have to go back!’

Vincent looks at me calmly. ‘Adeline, there is no one there. Don’t upset yourself.’

‘No. Isabelle, she’s there, and the wolf has her!’ I’m repeating. Why doesn’t he understand? I tug on his arm but he is still.

He cocks his head to one side. ‘Come on, Adeline. There’s no one there and we are going home now.’

‘No, you can’t, the wolf, Isabelle, the wolf, he’s …’

‘There is no one there.’

‘He’s got Isabelle,’ I scream, imploring them to turn around to come with me, to save you.

My words merge into whimpers and I’m bundled down the path away from the forest. Paul and Vincent are taking me home. The woods fade into the distance. I leave you there with the wolf. And somehow, as the journey goes on, I unfurl, my breathing steadies and soon I forget. I walk with them both, enjoying the sun on my skin.

When I’m home I say to Vincent, ‘You were right. There was no one there.’

I open my eyes and stare straight ahead. The moon is bright outside and bluish fingers of light creep through the window, making long patterns on the bedspread; as the minutes tick by, they slowly move up towards my neck as if to strangle me. The nunnery is sleeping, breathing in and out, at peace. There is a slight rustle from the courtyard and then, far away in the distance, an animal cries.

Sister Marguerite has lit a fire and we are both sitting in two chairs by the hearth. The snapping of twigs and the gush of the flames as they are drawn up the chimney are the only sounds in the room.

I am darning, carefully pushing the thread through the holes and tightening the gaps between the wool. It is mundane work that I often do, but I feel grateful to be giving something to the life in the nunnery.

Sister Marguerite has her Bible in her lap but her eyes seem unable to focus on her reading. She takes the poker, prods the coals a little needlessly and the fire glows red. ‘So, what are we going to do today?’ she asks, looking up at me. ‘I would suggest a walk but it’s been raining so hard Sister Bernadette says we might have to start building a second ark.’ She smiles feebly at the joke and returns to pushing and prodding the wood about, pieces breaking off and falling into the glowing mass with a hiss. ‘We could read a little, or we could work on a new tapestry. You could help me pick out colours again – I have nearly finished the last scene.’

Normally Sister Marguerite continues in this way, answering her own questions out loud and maintaining the pretence that I have contributed in some way. She will chime, ‘Right, well, we will begin a new reading from the New Testament,’ or ‘I will mend these cushion covers and you can rest a little.’Today, however, she does not answer her own questions: she simply looks at me expectantly, waiting for my response.

I continue to darn and allow her to make up her mind.

‘What do you think?’ she persists.

My hand wavers a little before I plunge the thread into the material. It is a bold red, the red of Isabelle’s favourite jumper; the red of fresh blood.

‘Sister Constance thinks you are being wilful.’ She says this quietly.

The thread knots itself and I rest the material on my lap, looking down at it as she goes on.

‘Why do you not speak? Why do you choose this silence?’ she continues.

We stare at each other. I can see her doubting, see her incomprehension. She has spent endless days sitting with me, weeks, months, years, in fact, and still I say nothing. Her frustration is obvious, but there is something else in her expression.

Sister Marguerite stands up quickly, brushing her arm across her face. ‘They will tell you soon. They have a place. Sister Constance has spoken to the doctor. He isn’t sure you’re ready but she is making arrangements. If you stay this way, refuse to attend services, refuse to speak, to try, then …’ She chokes and runs out of the room, leaving me in front of the fire that still dances gaily in the gloom.

SEBASTIEN

‘Mother,’ I call out. ‘I’m home.’

Shutting the apartment door I smile to myself, my mood light, another afternoon with Isabelle like a warm, secret stone resting in my stomach. I know the habit of calling out irritates Mother, wishing me to arrive like a gentlemen, greet her at the door in a calm and poised manner. I move through the entrance hall to the sitting room. Mother wouldn’t reply but will most likely be reading or knitting in her armchair in the yellow room, readying herself to admonish me.

The long mullioned window she sits next to throws enough light around the room to make her little side lamp obsolete, even as the day fades. I will catch her as she turns the page of her book. She cannot read without maximum animation, gasping when she is surprised, chuckling a little at unexpected moments. She adores books, consumes stories, has always spoken of her delight in novels and memoirs, diaries. She pretends to like non-fiction the best but I know she would rather sink her teeth into something far more frivolous.

She used to read to me until I told her I’d grown too old for the habit. I regretted it for weeks afterwards. I would whisper the familiar words under the bedclothes, remembering the feeling of being huddled next to her with our favourite books, the heavy blankets tucked right up around us as she brought those tales to life. I would fall asleep listening to her and dream of journeys to far-off lands: the scented air of Arabia, the heat, the spices in the air, the dust and bustle of the market or trekking across a snowy landscape, a world of white, the sting of the wind, hair whipped up. My dreams were a hundred times more colourful than our simple life in the city, in the little three-bedroomed flat we kept above the main road stretching through Limoges.

Today she is not reading; she is perched awkwardly on the edge of the sofa pouring hot water over herbs into our finest china cups from a silver cafetière with a spout shaped like an eagle, left to her by the imperious Grand-mère a couple of years before. She has dusted down a spindly old tiered cake stand and is offering a guest a selection: miniature éclairs, little triangular sandwiches, the scones she bakes, so delicate they can be popped into the mouth in one go – a move that will cause her to raise an eyebrow and chastise me later. She must have used every ration ticket she had, or called in a favour.

‘You remembered our guests,’ she motions, the smallest frown touching her face because it is clear I have not.

The guests are a youngish girl, perhaps nineteen or twenty, looking awkward holding a china cup, and her elderly chaperone. They both turn to look at me as I enter, and I am struck by the sudden urge to turn on my heel and flee, get away from that room and the absolute knowledge that this poor girl has been invited here in a desperate attempt by my mother to ensure I settle down, and fast. The older woman, with an expression on her face as if she has just consumed a lemon, is sitting, thin lips smeared with grease, dabbing at her face and eyeing me from her vantage spot on Father’s favourite armchair.

I nod a clumsy acknowledgement to the girl, who is introduced as Anne by my mother, and nod my head at one Madame Feigl, the disgruntled other party.

Mother is obviously keen to leave us alone as she instantly rises to fetch more water, practically tripping over going past me with a jug that is almost filled to the brim, calling to Madame Feigl to come and look at the print she bought at a gallery before the war, which hangs in the kitchen.

Madame Feigl dutifully follows, a sallow glower at me as she passes.

I walk slowly across the room, aware I might smell of dust, books, sweat – flashes from an afternoon in the library with Isabelle making me more awkward. Standing with an elbow up on the mantelpiece, I realize I will need to start some kind of conversation with Anne. Catching my flustered expression in the cloudy mirror above the mantelpiece I notice I need a haircut. Anne sips her
café au lait
and looks up at me, shyly, through long, thick lashes. She is pretty, with glossy dark hair, flushed pink cheeks and a friendly, rounded face.

I smile at her, feeling a little silly in my fireside pose. ‘So, Mother hasn’t told me how she knows your family.’

Madame Feigl is back, clearly unmoved by Mother’s print – she doesn’t seem like a woman who is moved by much, and dives in. ‘Your mother and I play bridge together.’

Anne smiles and nods along, nibbling at an éclair.

‘Ah.’

This conversation is dragged out as long as I can manage. I have never been one for small talk, am much more comfortable around the old scrubbed pine table in the kitchen, or in the café with a few friends. With no sisters, I have struggled to find much to say to women; until Isabelle, they seemed completely foreign to me. I grope for my bridge jargon, and try a little harder to engage them both, so that Mother gives me an eager expression on her return. I am feeling generous and disarm her completely by giving her a smile, taking the water jug from her, and offering Madame Feigl a top-up while complimenting her on a rather startling brooch of a tiger. She readjusts the little stripy ornament on her ample bosom and gives me a glare as if to accuse me of being interested in the latter.

Mother suggests a game of whist and I am paired with Anne. The palaver of bringing out the card table with its faded felt top, the removal of the tea things, allows me to chat freely with her. She is obviously a literary enthusiast and, for the first time that afternoon, lights up as our talk turns to books.

Anne is a perceptive card player and we beat the older couple easily. I find myself grinning straight at her on our final round, a look of sweet triumph on her face. After the game, Madame Feigl bustles her out in front of her, airily kissing Mother on the cheek and sending her regards to Father who is, I imagine, probably hiding in the bank rather than putting himself in her line of fire.

They leave, and Mother turns and says, ‘I shall invite her again.’

She looks confidently at me, at my reaction, and is confused when I answer quickly, ‘I am sorry Mother, but I’d rather not.’

‘Why not? You two seemed to get on so well.’

My face flushes as I realize I must admit to the reason. I cannot continue to deceive my parents. The declaration must be made formal, for Isabelle’s sake. Since that afternoon in Oradour I have been waiting for a good moment, trying and failing and more days pass. I picture her in the dusty light of the library earlier, her hand flicking the pages of a book, her eyes holding me. This will have to be the good moment.

Mother looks hurt, and I open my mouth to try and explain.