The Silent Hours (13 page)

TRISTAN

Samuel is late for school. He comes running in, panting apologies to Mademoiselle Rochard who, after a pause, waves her hand and tells him to sit down. Normally Mademoiselle Rochard is very strict about being on time: ‘Time waits for no man,’ she often says. No one really knows what it means but no one wants to find out. She says nothing to Samuel and he just takes his place at the front and pours ink into the well as Mademoiselle Rochard continues to speak. She has a big bump now, and when she talks she often rests her hands on it.

There are whispers and everyone is looking at Samuel. All I can see is the back of Samuel’s head: no mystery there – his brown hair is uncombed, his jacket a little tight across his shoulders. Aside from a few marks on it – Maman would be appalled if I allowed my jacket to become that dirty – I don’t see anything special at all.

We are going over some Geography and we have a test on the capitals of the world at the end of the week. I am quite confident about it as I know a lot of capitals, like Moscow for Russia and London for England. Mademoiselle Rochard is pointing to the map on the wall, her back to the class for long periods as she points to the various capitals we have been learning about. It is clear that only a few of us are still with her as she pauses over Rio de Janeiro, sighs and looks around.

‘Concentrate, please.’

Usually this is enough to have everyone poker-straight in their chairs, eyes following her every move. But not today. Aside from myself and Hugues Martin, a goody-goody who spends most of the time waving his arm in the air, everyone is still staring at Samuel.

He is glowing; his ears are bright red. He is squirming in his seat; he looks like Grand-père looked when he got the illness that Maman said made it uncomfortable for him to sit still. Then I see it. When his arm goes to dip his fountain pen into the well, a flash of yellow. A symbol, a sort of star, is stitched onto his clothes. It isn’t part of the school uniform and it seems an odd thing to do, to sew it onto your arm, when no one else has one.

Mademoiselle Rochard has her back to the class again and is writing on the board. What will she do when she notices?

No wonder everyone is whispering. She can’t have seen it when he arrived, although it seems so obvious now that I look at it. As it isn’t school uniform he is bound to be in trouble. You can’t just sew things onto your uniform without any kind of punishment. He’ll probably be sent to Monsieur Garande. I almost feel sorry for him.

Mademoiselle Rochard carries on the lesson but I can’t help sneaking a look over at Samuel any chance I get. I want to see the moment Mademoiselle Rochard notices.

Samuel shifts in his chair at one point and is looking out of the window of the classroom. He looks a little like the white mice I’ve seen at my friend Paul’s house in Paris – all pale face and red eyes. André gives him a smile, and a gesture with his head to the front and Mademoiselle Rochard.

Samuel seems to come out of his daze, turns back to the front.

‘Excellent answer, Samuel,’ comes the clear, sweet voice of Mademoiselle Rochard moments later. My head whips over to him once more and, sure enough, there is Mademoiselle Rochard leaning over his work, right above the symbol.

I scowl, no longer sorry for him at all. I hope Monsieur Garande is in a bad mood. Perhaps Mademoiselle Rochard is going to take it up with him at the end of lesson. Staring at the hands of the clock, it seems to take for ever – I swear, sometimes the hands go slower when I look at them. I get my South American capitals confused, earn a sigh from Mademoiselle Rochard, and add it to the list of reasons I don’t like Samuel.

The lesson ends without a word. Mademoiselle Rochard simply leaves the classroom. No one has time to say or do anything as Monsieur Pincet sweeps straight in and sets up for his lesson. He has a big box of something with him so there is silence as he sets it down on the table, everyone trying to get the first glimpse of whatever is inside. We can make out some peculiar noises coming from it, and everything else goes right out of my mind.

We have the most brilliantly disgusting Biology lesson, pinning a frog out, all open, to look at his insides. It all looks like glistening pink worms. Monsieur Pincet shows us how to pull bits out and examine them to learn more about the frog’s entrails and how they eat things. Their organs are so small, Monsieur Pincet says, that my heart is at least ten times bigger, and I have some organs in me that a frog doesn’t have at all.

In break there is no avoiding the talk about ‘the star’ and lots of the pupils whisper about it. Samuel has taken himself off to the corner of the playground alone. Even André isn’t there, kicking a football with him. Apparently, there are two other pupils with the same symbol stitched to their clothes. One, a boy from somewhere near the border of Germany, refused to wear his jacket to lessons, and one boy in the year below me thumped another boy for pointing at it in break.

‘
Juden
.’ I roll the word over in my mouth. I think I have heard the word before but I’m not sure what it means. If Samuel is a ‘
Juden
’ though, I imagine I won’t much like them anyway.

‘What’s a
Juden
?’ I ask.

Papa’s eyes widen and Maman calls for Eléonore to start clearing the plates. Eléonore takes her time leaving the room, slowly dragging one foot after another, looking back at us before finally exiting.

I repeat my question. ‘What’s a
Juden
?’

‘Tristan,’ Maman snaps.

‘What?’

Papa rests his hand over hers, smoothes his moustache as he thinks. ‘A
Jew
’ – Papa clears his throat, turns to look at me – ‘is a person of the Jewish faith. That is to say, they are not Christians but follow a different religion.’

‘What religion?’

‘The Jewish religion.’

‘How is that religion different from the Christian religion?’ I ask.

‘There are a lot of theological differences between the two but I suppose, in essence, they are still waiting for the Messiah.’

I look at Papa blankly, unsure what ‘theological’ means and struggling to remember exactly who the Messiah is. I think he is a bit like the Lamb of God but I might be muddling things.

‘That is to say that they don’t believe Jesus Christ was God’s only son sent to take our sins away.’

‘I see,’ I say. I don’t. ‘So, why do they wear badges?’

‘So we know who they are,’ he replies.

‘Oh.’

I sit in silence, not sure what to ask next.

‘Why do you ask?’ Papa asks.

‘There is a
Juden
boy at school.’

My father speaks in a low voice, ‘I know.’

‘David …’ Maman fiddles with her napkin and closes her mouth again.

I’m still not absolutely clear on what a
Juden
or a Jew is, but think if Samuel is one then that makes him different from us as I know we believe that Jesus Christ was God’s son because we always have to pray to him.

Maman has been looking at Papa a lot during our talk and now Papa is staring at me.

‘We know about these things Tristan, and you are not to be frightened,’ he says.

Mother turns her head sharply. ‘Darling!’

Papa waves a hand at her. ‘I don’t want him to worry. We should not have allowed it to go on this long. They must go. All of them. They are not welcome.’

I don’t understand and I don’t want to ask anything more and want to go and play now; it all seems complicated. Thanking Maman for dinner, I ask to get down from the table. She mumbles something that sounds like a yes and I hop down and out of the room, listening to their voices as I start up the stairs.

If it is all about religion, what is Samuel doing stitching stars onto his clothes? I know Grand-mère always wore a cross around her neck to show she was a Christian but I don’t really think that’s the same thing. Although maybe Samuel just wants everyone to know, although I don’t think the school will allow us to start wearing funny little symbols everywhere; it would look rather bizarre if we all turned up with little moons and planets and pictures of the sun on our arm.

Typical Samuel to show off like that.

At bedtime I’ve forgotten it all. Maman kisses me good night and reaches across to close the curtains. Before she draws them I look up. All over the sleeping village are hundreds of little stars in the sky squinting down, wishing me a restful sleep.

ISABELLE

Dear Paul,

You must hold on, Paul. Life in the Stalag does sound bleak but you will be out of there soon and perhaps back on a farm. You won’t be sent to a factory – why would they waste a man like you pulling levers? I hope it is safe for you wherever you go.

It’s all got so grey these days, hasn’t it? There are so many whispers people are afraid of their neighbour now, and so quick to point fingers. It’s just all going on so long isn’t it, and people get bored and want the end. I hadn’t noticed some of it before, but now it chills my skin hearing people be so cruel.

Claudette now works for the family up in the big house and she has taken to following the mistress of it around the village like a particularly irritatingpet. She tells me things about them as if to impress – her fancy talk of Paris and politics, it is quite pathetic. Monsieur Soules, an odious man with a ridiculous moustache, is friendly with the mayor of Limoges so I think he thinks he owns the village now. He can be seen striding down the street to the garage opposite, pestering for a motorcar apparently, as he runs about a dozen banks all overFrance. He looks so out of place here, his suits sharp at the edges and her in expensive furs looking like a queen, descending on the shop. He would seemridiculous but he changes people, Paul – smiles to sneers, they’re gripped by him. I have seen firsthand how cruel he can be. And yet their son is in my class, not grand or unpleasant at all, simply another boy with shorts and freckled knees. He makes me laugh.

Why can’t we all remain like children and not see any of the ugliness? I don’t want to get fired up about these people. I just want to spend the days after the warin the sunshine, under a parasol eating truffles on a picnic rug, then fish for ourdinner next to the bridge as insects hum in clouds around our heads and butterfliesskitter past. The men will be working the patchwork of fields as far as the eye can see and we’ll drink warm cider as the sun sets on another day.

Hold on, darling brother – it will be that way again soon, I am sure of it.

Isabelle

ADELINE

1952, St Cecilia nunnery, south-west France

‘Ah, madame!’The doctor seems happier today, walking tall. I nod a greeting at him and his face crinkles into a smile. ‘We meet again,’ he announces, as if we are at a cocktail party about to sup champagne and discuss the weather, rather than in a nunnery waiting for him to stare at my tonsils.

He pulls up the stool from the corner of the room and sits at my bedside, pausing to look at me briefly before plunging into his suitcase to find his tools. He sits back up, smooths his brown hair. It seems to have more flecks of grey these days. He has grey hairs in his eyebrows too.

Perhaps my searching look embarrasses him, as he brings his little torch up to my face with a nervous cough. ‘Right, open wide, madame.’

He makes a cursory effort to look into my throat. Within seconds he switches the little light off and announces there is no change.

I’m not sure he knows what he is looking for any more.

He leans over to put the torch back in the bag and returns to his seated position, smoothing his hair once more as the effort of leaning down has obviously been enough to make him believe he must. He shifts a little on the narrow stool. He is a man who needs a chair: his legs poke out at awkward angles as he tries to balance.

‘I’ve been thinking about your case recently and discussed it with a colleague. Obviously, we are all keen to help.’ He waves his hand so that I could infer that he is including the nuns in this. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence when Sister Marguerite walks by, putting her face up to the grille at the door to peer into the room. ‘And, well, I thought it might do you good to undergo a sort of therapy … more than these check-ups, a way of sorting through some er … psychological barriers you might have put up.’ My face obviously changes, as he quickly goes on: ‘My wife says that I wasn’t really made for therapy. Probably right. She normally is, but don’t tell her.’ He barks either at his own joke, or the uncomfortable realization that I can’t. ‘And I thought I could perhaps ask someone in to aid you in this way. We know that obviously you can’t communicate verbally and we know you write notes and things to the nuns—?’ I nod slowly. ‘And, well, we thought perhaps a solution might be to write things down, about … before,’ he suggests. ‘Anything – any thoughts or stories or memories, anything about the time when you could talk perhaps? Or now? Any time that strikes you as important.’

I reach out and put a hand on his arm. He flinches, only briefly; it is the first time that I have touched him, but it’s enough to make me blush and draw back my hand.

‘A good idea then?’ he asks.

I think back to that afternoon by the fire, Marguerite’s pleading for me to try, her warning that I was to be moved on. Will they really send me away?

He holds a finger up in sudden thought, as if he had just come up with a new invention. ‘Oh, wait, I forgot.’ He dives back into his leather briefcase, and there is a clash of metals as he searches for what he is looking for. Triumphantly, he locates the object and stretches up again, not waiting to smooth his hair before saying, ‘I thought perhaps you could use this – my wife has a similar one, painting of Renoir on the front that I’ve never liked, couple in a boat … this is a Monet, same sort of artist but I prefer this one. Looks like they’re having a good day out.’That laugh again.

He is holding out a bound notebook with a miniature print of a painting of a woman and a child walking through a field of poppies, the scene rather dream-like.

‘Going to give it a go?’ he asks, pushing the notebook a little towards me.

I stare at the child in the picture. The doctor coughs.

Nodding slowly at him I agree to his request. I reach out and take the notebook.

‘So pleased, so pleased.’

I run a hand over the notebook’s surface and start to think of what I might write. A book specifically for my thoughts, not the rushed notes I leave on scraps. A memory nudges.

We are at the annual village fair. Paul is eight and Isabelle still has that gap where her front tooth should be. She is on Vincent’s shoulders, holding on to his neck, his big hands trapping her legs and making her squeal when he lifts her to put her down. It is summer, below us little sections of the river sparkle in the sunshine, trickling over stones and pebbles, making a steady course downstream. Everywhere we look people are descending on the
chateau
: on foot, on the back of carts. There is little Claudette Dubois, all teeth and solemn eyes, hanging off her mother’s hand.

Madame Thomas greets the villagers outside the
chateau
. One hand holding her cigarette, the other playing with a long string of pearls that drip from her neck. Isabelle stops to stare at her, chin raised, eyes wide.

Madame Thomas ruffles her hair, mumbles something, a puff of smoke tickles my throat. Isabelle’s laugh, quick, light.

Colourful tents, the tinny noise of a slow-moving carousel, the painted horses moving up and down in time, merge with the chattering laughter of the village. There is a man selling crêpes, the smell mingling with the scent of freshly mown grass and rain. Isabelle pulls on my arm, desperate to explore. I watch as Paul and she are swept up in a cloud of other children.

I move between crowds of familiar faces – many farmers from the fields have taken a rare day out of their work to throw their children up into the air and onto their shoulders, instead of hay bales. Monsieur Renard is surrounded by a dozen nieces and nephews, all clamouring for his attention, the chance to go on another ride, a chance to show him what they have spotted in the corner: a colourful float, flowers hanging off every surface; the strongman, his muscles glistening as he preens and poses; some men wearing large papier-mâché heads, parading about as caricatures.

Madame Garande waves me over to a corner of the sloping field, away from the commotion. She stands by an old-fashioned tent, swathes of velvet over the flaps to enter, tassels in rich oranges and reds hanging from the top, flapping at her ample bosom with a fan. An old woman stands in the shadows of the entrance and Madame Garande bustles towards me. ‘Go on, Adeline, I insist – this woman here can tell your fortune.’ She passes a handful of coins to the woman. ‘Your turn, truly she seems to know everything. I’ve paid for you.’ Before I can protest she has pushed me inside. ‘Go on.’

The sunlight is obliterated as I move to follow the old woman, the canvas giving off a smell I can’t place, a musty stench of straw, people and damp. A pot of incense fails to cover the stink. The flaps close behind me and the only light comes from a lantern on a table at the back of the tent. The woman points to a chair covered in brightly embroidered cushions, tiny mirrors sewn into their surface, and sits on a stool opposite. The gloom weighs on me, the distant noises of people moving around outside, the whistle of the breeze, all muted by the tent.

The woman smiles at me, wide enough to reveal black fillings, and tells me her name is Madame Mystique. Her skin falls from her face like ripples on the river, her hands wrinkled and covered in liver spots. She observes me for a while and I shift under her gaze. She seems ancient in many ways and yet she gives off a youthful energy and vigour.

‘Hold out your hand.’

Her voice is strong and her eyes are wide and alert. I slowly hold out my arm, palm upturned, and shiver as she touches my fingers with hers, tracing a finger with a yellowed nail across my palm, following a line.

‘Strange,’ she says.

I retract my arm, hold my right palm in my left, bringing it to my chest protectively. ‘Strange?’

She points to the ring finger of my left hand. ‘You’re married,’ she comments.

I nod, not impressed with her grasp of the unknown quite yet.

‘You are religious.’ It is a statement not a question. The cross around my neck another giveaway. I nod. I am a Catholic. I believe in God. Doesn’t everyone?

‘There is a church. It’s …’ Silence. The air is thick with heat and incense and I strain to focus. I lean forward a fraction. A look passes across the old woman’s face. My eyes flit to the entrance of the tent.

Madame Mystique appears to be talking to herself. ‘So many.’

The dusty heat of the canvas, the stale smell and the urge to get back out into the open air with my family grips me. The chair topples over in my haste to leave.

The old woman doesn’t respond, staring at something I cannot see. She is mad, or this is part of her act. I want nothing to do with it any more. I reach the entrance to the tent and pull back the velvet.

‘Wait, my dear madame, please …’ She is walking towards me, skirting the fallen chair and, with no warning, embraces me.

She is shaking. I push her off and back out of the tent, turning towards the familiar shouts and sounds of the village at play, the sun beaming at me from overhead, the breeze lifting my hair. Tripping on the uneven ground I set off back up the field. I imagine her watching from the entrance of the tent; my neck burns.

When I reach Vincent he picks me up by my waist and kisses me on the cheek. I feel foolish for my reaction to an old woman’s tricks. The sun plunges behind the only cloud in the sky. I can’t see my children.