The Silent Hours (14 page)

PAUL

Dear Isabelle,

It is much better out on the farm. The work is hard but it’s good to feel the limbs burning, feel my muscles screaming when I haul things up. The guards here are more relaxed, willing to share a cigarette and turning a blind eye to our ball games. It’s outdoor work unless we are working in the kitchen, the stoves operate about six hours a day and we go in groups to prepare potatoes, boil cabbage. Potatoes for 150 men. Rémi and I found a pigeon newly dead, plucked it and cooked it. The smell took me straight back to our kitchen and Maman standing over the gas, burning off the last, small feathers from a chicken. We dined well that day and then Rémi went and threw it all back up in the field that afternoon.

The air raids happen in the daytime sometimes but they are heading to thecity – the poor lads back in the factories. You can look up and make out the bombs dropping like pebbles, glinting in the sunshine as they fall. Then you hear the bangs, a curl of smoke in the distance and the imagination does the rest. They are worse atnight, humming overhead, making your toes curl in, your back stiffen. It’s a hopeless feeling and sometimes I want to sit up and roar through the building, hammeringon my chest and feeling like a man in charge of his own destiny. Instead, I makemy way to the shelter where we are told to sit up not lie down, and the next dayI’m resting on my spade, exhausted.

The guards let us near the fences and the German boys come near and stare in at us as if we are zoo exhibits. We ask them their names. They smile shyly and run away. They don’t look any different to French boys, really.

Perhaps I can bear it, if I can stay here, if this can last, perhaps I can survive it all. A man escaped from the farm last week. I’ve heard they are still searching for him. He slept in one of the outbuildings, they found a bed of straw in amongst all the machinery. They haven’t found anything else.

The sky and fields here look less than at home but I am safe, which I know will please Maman. I think of you all often,

Paul

SEBASTIEN

She is early.

Descending the stairs as the bell to the flat rings I find my parents milling around the archway to the living room. My mother gives me a warm smile. She is wearing a green patterned cotton dress that Father bought her for a birthday years ago. She is wringing her hands as we hear their footsteps approaching the apartment and when the doorbell rings again she hurries out to go and receive them. Father gives me a grim smile and readies himself.

I take a deep breath, plastering a welcoming expression on my face whilst trying to steady the nerves that are biting at me. Father pats me on the back once. ‘Let’s not jump on them as they arrive,’ he suggests, pointing to the living room. I nod and follow him in.

Isabelle arrives in a whirlwind, the energy in the room instantly responding to her presence, whipped up, electric, all eyes focused on her as she shakes hands with my parents, comments on the scent of the flowers to my mother and smiles at my father as if she has known him for years.

Her father, Vincent, seems automatically relieved to see a small library of books in the room, and the chance to engage Father on the tome he can see lying on the little table by the armchair. They fall into an easy conversation about literature as my mother quietly gets on with pouring our drinks. Isabelle’s mother has not come and Vincent makes her excuses: no one could cover the shop. This is entirely plausible, but a look passes between our two guests and Father.

As Mother pours and Father talks, I am left to face Isabelle. She is dressed in a cornflower-blue dress, her cheeks a little flushed. My breath leaves my body in a rush; it hits me that she is here because I am going to ask her to marry me. Once this meeting is over and done with and we have gone through the formalities, I can ask.

Mother thrusts a cup at me. It feels impossibly small in my hands. Isabelle nods towards our fathers, her eyes mischievous. I can’t help but grin at her. The liquid slops over the edge.

We spend the next half an hour skirting around some mundane subjects: the tram ride to Limoges, the on-off weather we’ve been having, the effect on the harvest and the shortage of workers. Isabelle chips in, laughing easily with her father, seeming so confident and bright.

How am I ever going to get this woman to agree to marry me?

Isabelle looks up at my mother and says, ‘Sebastien tells me you are an excellent pianist, and I imagine he is, too.’

‘I am a plonking amateur, but my mother is wonderful.’

‘Wonderful,’ agrees Father, his eyes warming as they turn to pay her the compliment.

My mother is blushing now. ‘They exaggerate,’ she mumbles, looking at the table, trying to find something to do that might require her attention.

‘Perhaps,’ Isabelle ventures, ‘you might play us something at a later date.’

A pause, as if the whole room has breathed in and is waiting for the response. Isabelle’s daring has stunned everybody into silence.

Mother tries to recover quickly. ‘I’d love to,’ she states and gets up quickly. ‘I must boil more water.’

I watch her leave the room, then glance at Father, who doesn’t meet my eye. Isabelle shrinks a little into herself, the earlier bravado forgotten as she sips her tea.

Mother returns and we talk about music a little more: the opera that my parents love, while Isabelle talks about the new jazz phenomenon sweeping America. I glance again at my father worrying that he might disapprove. His expression is unfathomable as he listens, hands clasped together as if in prayer.

A little while later, as they get ready to leave, I catch Isabelle’s hand in the hallway as my parents fuss over Vincent’s coat and she meets my eye.

Hearing the street door to the flats closing downstairs, I flop onto the sofa and wait for the barrage of talk in the aftermath of the meeting. Instead, there is silence. My mother begins to load the tray with the paraphernalia from the table, scraping the crumbs from one plate onto another in careful movements, catching the eye of Father as she does so.

I await Father’s verdict. He likes her: I saw the appraising look when she talked, and I want him to say it out loud so that I can revel in the sound. Instead, he opens his paper and my mother leaves the room, a backwards glance at the doorway, and then gone.

‘Father?’ He continues to read, his eyes frozen in one place. ‘You didn’t like her?’

More silence and then he sighs and closes the paper, folding it in half as I continue to look at him. With a snap of his wrist he flicks imaginary dirt from his shoulder.

‘She is very pleasant.’

My shoulders relax and I am keen to start a list of the many reasons why Isabelle Rochard is frankly perfect. Father is staring at his hands and I nod at his statement eagerly, trying to rouse a few more words on the subject from him.

‘She is good company, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, good company.’

‘She is amusing.’

‘Yes.’

‘But not silly,’ I qualify.

‘No, I think not.’

‘She is well read, too,’ I tack on, knowing this might help him expand further. ‘Her father is friendly, is he not?’

‘Very.’

I pat the top of the sofa, smoothing the delicate wool rug that hangs from the back of it, worn away in places by numerous heads that have rested on it.

‘But …’ Father starts.

I suck in my breath.

‘You see we …’

My grip tears a tiny hole in the rug.

‘Sebastien, it is impossible.’

‘What is impossible?’

‘All of it,’ he cries, his arms wide. ‘Life has changed,
your
life has changed.’

‘Not this again.’

‘“Not this, not this. ”What do you know of “this” – you are like a small child with both hands to the side of his face and his eyes closed! It would be unfair to bring her into all this!’

A surge of anger, that I would put Isabelle at any risk, makes my words harsher than I intend. ‘What do you know of it all? Really, Father? What do you really know?’

‘You cannot ignore the current situation, Sebastien. You cannot bury your head in the sand.’

‘Things haven’t changed that much,’ I continue.

‘You’re a fool if you think that. Everything has changed. Whose name is the bank in now, you think they’d let me keep it? What are the stars we’re meant to wear on our clothing? Changes are happening every day and we can’t just carry on as usual and pretend that we don’t have to make plans.’

‘I
am
making plans.’

‘No.’ Father shakes his head. ‘As a family – we have to make plans together. Isabelle cannot be part of this.’

‘Part of what?’

‘Your mother and I have discussed this and we are leaving, Sebastien – we are making arrangements to go to England, to stay with the Macharts, who have established themselves there. We can’t leave you here, we won’t leave you here. And you can’t ask her to come. It wouldn’t be fair. Perhaps when this is over we can see, but for now, I’m sorry my boy, it isn’t going to happen.’

We’re leaving?
I drop my head into my hands as his words sink in. ‘England,’ I repeat.

‘England.’

I look at his face, search his eyes for the lie in his words, but can find nothing.

‘What do we know about England?’ I ask.

‘We know that they’re not being over-run by Nazis, and,’ he adds, ‘we know we have friends there.’

‘We have friends here.’

Father sighs.

‘I won’t come,’ I say. ‘We’re not even in the occupied zone.’

‘Which is why we need to leave now,’ he urges, ‘while we still can.’

‘We could go later, once we know how this all works out. We don’t know what might happen. We don’t know this won’t all end tomorrow.’ Father sits in silence as I continue. ‘We could work somewhere else, we could set up another business, or work through somebody or …’ I run out of steam entirely.

‘I’m sorry Sebastien, but it is settled. We should have told you sooner. We have just received a letter from the Macharts in England.’

‘Father, I can’t! I can’t leave.’

‘You must.’

‘I love her,’ I announce, too wound up to worry that I sound melodramatic.

He gets up from his seat and comes over to sit next to me on the sofa. ‘If you love her, then you can wait for her.’

I change tack. ‘We don’t need to go to England. We could move further south – a quiet village perhaps, sit it out. Or we could …’

‘Enough.’A gentle voice but enough to make me fall silent. ‘It will be the same everywhere.’ He sighs. ‘We can’t stay here any more.’

Mother appears in the little archway. A look passes between them. I know then that they are serious, and I don’t want to stay and listen to any more. Seizing my coat, I push past my mother and slam the apartment door behind me so that I block out her voice pleading with me to stay.

I run down the stairs to the street, not knowing where I am headed but knowing I have to get out. Two men, a little way off in the street, talk to a stranger, pointing towards our apartment. Even in the dark I can just make out a thin moustache on the taller man. The little group don’t see me leaving.

A brief thought flickers and is gone.

TRISTAN

The Villiers stayed last night. The table was all covered in wine bottles this morning and Claudette kept sucking on her teeth when she tidied them away for breakfast. The air smelt like the window needed opening and my baguette tasted funny.

It is sunny today and I want to play
boules
. Monsieur Villiers lent us an old set when he arrived last night. He said they belonged to his son. He said this in a sad voice, like when Papa talks about his brother who died in the FirstWar, so I think that his son is away fighting somewhere, or is dead, but I didn’t dare ask, we just promised to take very good care of the
boules
.

This morning, though, Maman announces that we will all be going on an outing and Papa says he is coming too. Apparently there is a man who has a goat farm nearby and we are going to visit him. The farmer has a goat who is as big as him and Papa says that apparently he can make the goat look like he is dancing with him as he can stand on two feet. I practically fall off my stool to run upstairs and get ready.

Maman has left her stockings and heels off today and she looks so funny in thick boots, like Madame Villiers often wears. A scarf is knotted in her hair and she is wearing a baggy coat too. I like her new costumes, like someone else’s Maman who lives in the country. I give her a big squidgy hug as we wait for Eléonore to put on her shoes. She laughs at me and I am so happy with the whole day.

We all leave the house, being quiet as we pass Monsieur Villiers, who fell asleep in the hammock after breakfast. Madame Villiers, though, goes straight over to him, reaches out a hand and tips him right off it. He rolls straight off, landing smack-down flat in a muddy patch, his eyes open, a yell, no time to work out what has happened. Papa lets out a low chuckle and helps him up. He has dirt on his bristly chin.

We go away from the village, straight through the back of a farm and into a field behind. I don’t often walk this way with Dimitri or Luc. In the distance is a forest of trees and Madame Villiers points out some different species, which Maman finds interesting; Monsieur Villiers and Papa talk about crop cycles and the harvest then, and I switch off.

As I swat at the long grass with my hand I look up and notice a thin trail of smoke just over the trees ahead. Before I can point it out Dimitri nudges me, pointing to a massive oak tree nearby with very low branches – a perfect tree to climb. I nod at him, reading his mind. Somewhere for our next trip out.

We loop around the edge of the field until we reach a gap in the hedge. Papa helps Maman and Eléonore down but Madame Villiers pushes his hand away with a ‘Psch’ which makes Dimitri and me smile at each other again. We scamper off ahead, away from the adult talk, and tag Luc, who can’t possibly keep up.

Along the lane Madame Villiers points out all the blackberry bushes. The whole lane is full of them and she says we can pick them later and she will show Maman how to make a pie. She says they make your tongue go purple and Luc doesn’t believe her. My mouth starts watering as she describes the taste. I will pick so many so we can have a lot of pies. As I’m thinking about how many I will need, Papa has pointed to something. It’s the wispy trail of smoke coming out of the trees, and he asks Monsieur Villiers who lives in the forest.

Madame Villiers’ head snaps right up and she is rude and cuts Papa off and says, ‘No one.’

Monsieur Villiers’ mouth is half-open and he looks like a letterbox. He shuts it again. Papa raises one eyebrow and there is a pause and I wonder who does live in the forest as the smoke must be from a chimney, but maybe it is a bonfire, and I wonder why Madame Villiers is so cross.

We hear Madame Villiers whispering to her husband: ‘We’ve talked about this,’ she says.

‘But – now he is here, some of us can do something about them. They all live in there, everyone knows. Who knows how many.’

‘They’re people too, remember,’ she says, sort of through her teeth.

‘Barely,’he scoffs, and that makes Madame Villiers give him one of her looks, where she gets all red in the face and you know she wants to say more.

They are talking about the house with the smoke – Madame Villiers keeps looking back at it.

Dimitri gives me a funny look and then leans over and whispers to me, ‘They must be spies, living out there. That’s why it’s a secret.’

Of course! We’ve learnt a lot about spies at school, how if some people sell secrets to the Nazis then they come and take you in the night and you are just not seen again. And no one knows who the spies are because they could look just like you or me.

And now they are living in the forest.

If the spies were caught then the war would be over and we could all go back to how things were and we could go back to Paris.
Why would Madame Villiers not want them found, though?
I wonder. Unless – my eyes widen – she is a spy too.

I whisper to Dimitri, ‘We should do something.’

And he nods solemnly back at me.