The Silent Hours (17 page)

ISABELLE

Darling Paul, .

He is a Jew. And this means something in this horrible new world. Such anabsurd thing, I have seen things with my own eyes that make me shiver. I’ve hidden so much from Maman.

She’s terrified of doing anything that will jeopardize you out there and please, don’t think I would want that either. But I’m scared of people’s fear, what it makes them do, and I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to live in fear. But I have jeopardized things, and maybe I have done things that will endanger you.

I’d do anything to keep you safe – don’t think that I wouldn’t.

There is a place out in the forest, it’s the worst-kept secret in Vichy. Paul, a Jewish family are living there, having moved south to be safe. Their boy attends the school. He’s a tiny thing and so quiet, seems much older than his eleven years. My heart breaks when I look at him, his shirt dirty at the collar. His mother comes quickly at the end of the day, then they go, Monsieur Garande muttering at his back. A man like Monsieur Garande, soft as anything under all the bluster, looking like that at him. Imagine – a little boy. I worry for them, hear things. They saythere are others there now too.

I haven’t heard from you in weeks, are you still at the factory? Are you getting my letters? I can’t send this, filled with secrets, everything seems to be a secret now.

Come home to me, come home and remind me that people are good.

Isabelle

PAUL

Four of us will be going: Rémi has come round to the idea, and two brothers, farmhands in their life before the war, have joined. They’re all thick shoulders and arms, big guts. The older, Maurice, a dimple in his chin, reminds me of Father. He has the same slow rumble of a laugh. The younger, Laurent, skinnier and darker, would follow him anywhere.

Rémi has approached the task in typically fastidious fashion, dismantling his chair to make a sledge for our belongings and bartering with prisoners for the things we might need. I think I thought I could just punch my way out, but then what? Rémi has planned it, an earnest look, one finger on the dusty floor as he charts our moves. The brothers have arranged to pay the guard on the gate, a man with a weakness for beer and a certain brothel in the town, who can be trusted to be asleep, or on patrol elsewhere: we have the timings. It feels real and, as the day approaches, my whole body fizzes with anticipation.

We are getting out, returning home, rejoining the war.

The evening has been spent in twitchy silence, barely daring to look at each other, as if the guards might be able to translate the slight widening of our eyes, the knowing nod, the small raise of an eyebrow. We are heading to a nearby farm building and from there south as quickly as we can.

The night is thick with expectation, muggy and close. I lie on top of my bedclothes staring at the uneven lumps of the ceiling, one hand resting under my head. Rémi sits on his cot, foot tapping, eyes now flicking to the door as if he expects a guard to appear as a black silhouette, light behind him, hands on hips and discover us. Footsteps on the wooden floorboards, a distant sound of keys, has his eyes darting to the door, him starting to his feet.

When the whole bunk-room is breathing evenly, the only sounds outside the odd hoot, a rustle, it is time. I get up, stripping the sheet from my bed in one slick movement. Rémi’s has caught and he tugs at it, his thin arms pale in the darkness. I touch his arm and take the sheet from him; he gives me a weak smile, fear shining in the whites of his eyes.

Silently pushing the bed against the wall to get to the window, I barely need to touch the rotten window lock before it disintegrates in my hand. The brothers have joined us in silence, rising from their beds without a noise, their faces set, identical expressions on their faces. Standing on the bed, we place the makeshift sledge on the ledge, a knotted bed sheet acting as a rope, and gradually lower it inch by inch, listening for sounds outside, feeling the slow bump, bump of the sledge against the stone outside. Pausing to peek out over the edge I am shocked by the blackness of the night, barely making out the white of the sheet only a couple of metres below.

I help hoist Rémi up to the ledge. He balances, my hand on the small of his back, his legs dangling down as he looks at the ground below, then back at me. I nod at him. His Adam’s apple bobs once, twice, before he makes the leap. My stomach plummets with him as his close-cropped auburn head disappears. A small cry as both feet hit the dirt, followed by a whispered
ça va
.

The youngest brother goes next: we haul him up and watch him disappear too. I don’t need to help Maurice: he lifts his body onto the ledge in one fluid movement, hunching to get out of the window that now seems so tiny against his bulk.

Palms sweaty, I follow them, hauling myself up onto the ledge, my arms noticeably weaker – how easy I would have found the same move a couple of years before.

Rémi has skirted the side of the building and is now moving out into the courtyard, a scuff of stones as he gingerly makes his way across. Lifting my leg onto the ledge, pausing to strain and listen, I make out his figure in the patchy dark, his outline barely there, one skinny arm pulling the sledge to the gate beyond, a thin segment of moon not enough to give him away. The night air is still and rain falls like a gentle mist.

Turning back I pick up my bag and look over the room: our beds, hastily stripped of the sheets, now just ghostly lumps; the door, an uneven crack showing the faintest light beyond which a guard might be sitting, slumped, head in hand on the night shift. Can it really be over?

I go to jump, Rémi now a hundred yards away. As I do, a light suddenly fires up from the fence to my right. Then another. And Rémi is lit up in the middle of the courtyard holding the knotted sheet of the sledge in one slack hand as a third torch finds him. Frozen, I can only watch as whistles blow and he looks left and right as the guards descend on him in a rush of frenzied shouts. They
knew
, they knew we were going!

As the brothers make a dash for it across the courtyard shots ring out; I hear shouts – Rémi’s voice – and as I look over the ledge again I see two bodies, half in light, half in shadow, legs crooked, heads bent, dark stains collecting around them.

I feel all the air leave my lungs as I duck back down. A torch sweeps towards me, a foot above and below me, the moving light flashing past the square of window and highlighting the long cracks in the plaster of the ceiling, scars in a bluish light. I lean my forehead against the wall, waiting for a moment, and then look over again. Rémi is being taken away by a guard, the cone of light from the torch on the ground in front of them. The guards have brought stretchers for the other two, so still.

I
persuaded him, this boy who wanted to go back to work, make paper, who played women in plays and laughed like a twelve-year-old with no cares in the world; this boy, who hadn’t wanted to leave; this boy, who in this moment is so much braver than I. He is marched away, not even throwing a look over his shoulder at me, his chair sledge a grey silhouette left out in the dark.

TRISTAN

‘Do you think we’ll have to fight in the war?’ Dimitri asks.

‘We’re too young,’ I say.

‘Not now, silly. I mean when we’re older.’

I shrug, not really sure.

‘I suppose we’ll have to,’ states Dimitri glumly.

‘I wouldn’t mind.’

‘Really?’

‘I’d show those Germans a thing or two,’ I say confidently.

‘I’m not sure I’d be very good in a war,’ Dimitri says quietly.

‘Of course you wouldn’t – you’d always be stopping to read your book.’

‘No, I wouldn’t!’

‘Or looking for your glasses.’ I giggle.

‘Eléonore can’t fight. She’s a girl.’

‘She’d still be more useful than you.’

Dimitri looks solemn again. ‘She would, wouldn’t she?’

I pat him on the back. ‘That’s not your fault, D. She’d be better than most people in the war – probably bore the enemy to death by showing them her dolls.’ I roll my eyes. ‘I’m starving, come on.’

Papa has been on the telephone nearly all morning to a man who works for him back in Paris. I can see the top of his head if I lean over the banisters. He is speaking in a low, serious voice, like the voice he used when he told us all the war had come to France, and the voice he used when he told us we would have to leave Paris. We move down the stairs as quietly as we can so as not to disturb him. He can be angry when we get in the way of work. We can hear Luc in his bedroom making aeroplane noises and bangs when he crashes them on the floor.

Papa is finally off the phone and I signal to Dimitri to follow me. I want to hear the news. I wonder if we will return to Paris. It seems like another world ago that we were there. We live here now.

We creep as silently as we can down the stairs, both trying to place our feet in places that might not give us away. We freeze when Eléonore walks right past us on the landing above – she is bound to give us away, but fortunately she’s too busy hurrying to check her hair in the little mirror in the corridor, so she doesn’t see us.

I can hear the voices of all the adults in the kitchen. Madame Villiers is round here gossiping and slurping her favourite peppermint tea. I can picture her nodding furiously as they all swap news. There are gasps at something Papa has said which only makes Dimitri and me more determined to find a suitable spot for listening.

We move to either side of the kitchen door. I bend a knee to the floor and try and peer through the keyhole. All I can make out is the dusty black inside the lock and a tiny light beyond, but the voices are clearer and I remain still and listen. Dimitri is sitting cross-legged, his back to the door, one ear up against the wood.

‘He says people are eating their pets,’ Papa says. ‘Dogs are just roaming the city as no one can feed them. The prefect of Paris has had to issue health warnings against eating stewed cat.’

‘Dreadful.’

Dimitri’s eyes are out on stalks; I poke my tongue out in disgust.

‘Hours apparently, just for bread, or milk, or whatever the women can get their hands on,’ Papa continues.

‘Terrible,’ Maman says. ‘A friend wrote and told me that she had heard that someone had actually died in one of the queues.’

‘You can’t consider returning yet,’ said Monsieur Villiers.

Dimitri and I look at each other.

‘But the bank, the business …’

‘David, there
is
no business in these times,’ Monsieur Villiers says. ‘It’s enough that we all just keep our heads down. It will get better.’

‘I blame the bloody
Maquis
, Communists and Jews bleeding us from the inside, slowing things up, making it impossible for a quick resolution.’

‘I won’t disagree with you there, my friend,’ came Monsieur Villiers’ voice.

‘They’re too soft – we need to pull together in these times. These people aren’t with us, we need to act.’

‘Enough talk of politics,’ says Maman, her light, nervous laugh seeping under the door.

Madame Villiers doesn’t sound like she is laughing. ‘I agree. Enough.’

There is a long silence and I start to feel uncomfortable from the cold of the stones underneath me. I gesture to Dimitri with my head and he nods.

‘Well, things can’t carry on too long in this way, that’s all I’ll say.’

‘We’re some of the lucky ones, David,’ says Maman.

That is the last thing I hear her say before Dimitri and I turn to go back upstairs.

I explode into our bedroom. ‘We’ve got to find a way.’

Dimitri has followed me in. ‘What’s a Communist?’

I don’t know the answer so I ignore him.

‘We’ve got to find a way to end the war,’ I repeat.

Dimitri is nodding.

‘But how?’

I walk back and forward in front of the window, my hands behind my back so that I look like Papa does when he is thinking in his study.

I stop, making Dimitri jump. ‘The spies,’ I say. ‘We know where they are and if Papa knew, they’d be found out and then they’d stop telling the Germans everything and we’d win the war.’

It is decided. Tonight, after dinner, we will tell Papa about the house in the forest. He probably doesn’t realize that’s where they are hiding but we could lead him there, or he could call the police and then everything could go back to normal again and no one in Paris would have to eat their cat and Dimitri won’t have to be a soldier because all the naughty people will be found out and the war will end.

I make Dimitri knock on the door and stand just behind him. He rubs his hands on his trousers before he does it and I nudge him in the back.

‘Stop it,’ he whispers quickly.

‘Go on.’

‘I am.’

‘Now.’

He reaches out, hand in a tight fist, and knocks quickly on the door.

I hear Papa’s voice inside saying, ‘Come in.’

I nudge Dimitri again.

He turns the brass doorknob and pushes the door open. It’s heavy and sticks a bit so he has to do it with two hands.

We shuffle inside the room.

Papa is sitting at the big desk that he had in Paris. It turned up on one of the carts a few weeks ago, after he told us that this was going to be our new home. It took four men to lift it. His study looks almost the same as in Paris: a lot of his books are here and he has the same armchair, which has leather arm rests and a back that comes up to over his head, with the same cushions too. The only real difference is there is no big mirror over the fireplace; instead, a painting of lots of swirls and drops of pinkish paint. Eléonore thinks it’s very good but I think it wouldn’t be hard to do, lots of twirling about with the paintbrush.

He’s turned in his chair. ‘What is it, boys?’

I think he’s working as he has lots of papers out on his desk and even some in a semi-circle on the rug. He’s wearing his glasses that look like they have been cut in half too, so I know he is busy.

I nudge Dimitri in the back again.

‘We needed to talk to you,’ he says.

I nod behind him.

‘Well, then.’ He doesn’t get up.

I rub the back of my ankle with my shoe, focus on Dimitri’s hair.

‘We needed to tell you about the spies,’ Dimitri says.

I breathe out like I have been holding all my breath in for ages.

Papa’s face changes, he gets a couple of wrinkles between his eyebrows. He takes off his glasses and pushes himself up from his chair.

We both take a step back automatically.

‘Don’t be worried, boys. Sit down, sit down. What do you mean, spies?’ he asks, pointing to the sofa. We edge towards it and perch half-on as he stands by his desk. I can’t make out his expression any more as the sun in the window behind him is shining all around him; he’s just a big, man-shaped shadow.

‘We know where they are,’ I pipe up. ‘They live in the forest. We’ve seen them,’ I say, only stretching the truth a little, as we definitely saw something in the forest.

‘
Seen
them?’ Papa says, his voice sounding serious.

‘Well, their house.’

‘Where in the forest?’

‘By the swing.’

‘The tree with the swing,’ Dimitri adds.

I nod.

Papa pauses and turns his back to us, shuffling papers on his desk before turning back around.

‘Just there?’ he asks.

I think it is a funny question.

We both nod.

He looks at us both for a long time.

‘No other house?’

We shake our heads.

Papa puts two fingers to his lips, taps. ‘I know.’

Dimitri and I look at each other.

‘You must promise me not to go there again,’ he says. ‘These people are not friends of ours.’

We both nod at him, heads moving up and down at the same time.

‘Good. They will be dealt with – they all will be.’

I wonder how many of them there are. I look at Dimitri.

‘Now if that is all, I have work to do,’ Papa says. He turns to sit back down.

‘They need to be caught,’ I blurt, sure that this is not how this should go. Papa doesn’t seem to be taking it that seriously, and we need to end the war.

Papa looks at me. ‘I agree. It is in hand. We have started already. Thank you for telling me, boys. Keep it to yourselves now, please, and don’t go back there.’

He sits back down at his desk and I think we are meant to go. I look at Dimitri, who pushes his glasses up his nose and then shrugs. We get off the sofa and move back to the door.

It didn’t feel quite like I thought it would, but Father seems to know what to do.

As I walk up the stairs I hear Father picking up the telephone to somebody. I think I hear him say, ‘We need to drive them out of the forest!’ but I can’t be sure and then Dimitri wants to be pirates and I forget everything else.