Page 26 of The French Wife

‘Hello,’ she called. ‘Hello? Is anyone there?’

She stood at the corner of the buildings and peered along the length of the herbergerie. The track that led behind the buildings was overgrown, almost obscured with weeds, but it was clear there was nothing there. She was quite sure she’d seen something; she couldn’t have been imagining it.

She strode purposefully along the back of the herbergerie to the next barn along. This one didn’t have a wooden door on the front, instead, it had a large arched entrance. She guessed it had probably been built like that to enable carts and other horse-drawn vehicles to drive in and out unimpeded. She walked under the arch into the barn and stood in the middle. Shafts of sunlight filtered in through gaps in the roof tiles. Some birds were flapping and squawking in the rafters, and looking up, Emma saw they’d built their nest under the eaves – perhaps they had young in there.

‘Hello? Is there anyone in here?’ she asked in English, then repeated, self-consciously in French.

There was no answer.

She couldn’t see the whole of the ground floor from where she was standing. In one corner a pile of old grape-crushing machinery stood rusting, beside it the rotting remnants of wine barrels. At the far end the barn was divided by planks of wood into stalls; presumably horses had once been stabled in there. She was about to investigate them, when she heard a sound from the far corner of one; something metal clattered to the floor.

Chills went through Emma as she realised she wasn’t alone.

She walked slowly to the stall where the sound had come from and entered through a gap in the fencing. It was a lot darker inside the stall than in the main part of the barn, and at first Emma didn’t notice the man cowering in the shadows. But by the time he moved slightly, her eyes had adjusted to the gloom. Surprised, she froze, feeling ripples of fear. But after a few seconds, she realised there was nothing to be afraid of.

The man standing in the corner of the stall was very old, with wispy grey hair, a pale, heavily lined face and terrified eyes. He wore an old grey overcoat, despite the warmth of the summer evening, and shabby, scuffed boots. A metal bucket had fallen over in front of him, spilling a puddle of water over the brick floor. Behind him, against the wall, was an antiquated-looking tap that was dripping. The old man’s lips quivered and he stared at Emma, his eyes fixed to her face, as if in disbelief.

‘Amélie?’ he said at last. ‘Amélie. Is that you?’

TEN

AMÉLIE

November 1942

The day after the three workers were released from the cells, Amélie went down to the kitchen just after dawn to find Bruno having an intense discussion over breakfast with the new Resistance leader, Raoul, who’d arrived very late the night before. Amélie had hardly spoken to the man. She’d been surprised because he appeared very young for such a senior role. He had curly black hair, dark stubble and looked as though he’d been living rough for some time; he’d barely smiled when she’d given him a glass of wine and a bowl of rabbit stew. He’d eaten hungrily, then Bruno had shown him through to the herbergerie to sleep.

Not wanting to disturb the men, she quickly gulped down some coffee and ate a crust of bread, then left them to their secret discussion and set off on her bicycle down the cinder track.

She was early for work that morning. When she arrived at the mairie, she left her bicycle in the rear yard as usual, entered the building through the back door and ran up the stairs to the first floor. She’d been intending to drop in to see Hauptmann Bauer on her way into work; she wanted to thank him for releasing their workers. But as she reached the landing, she heard raised voices coming from inside Bauer’s office. She decided she would try to speak to him later. As she passed the door, she caught sight of the young SS man, Glock, through the window. He had his back to the door and was standing in front of Hauptmann Bauer’s desk, shouting at Bauer, who was leaning back in his chair and staring up at Glock with ill-concealed hostility. Amélie ducked her head and moved away quickly. She didn’t understand a word of German, but she had a dreadful feeling the argument was about Bauer’s decision to free the men from the cells.

When they’d arrived back at the farm the previous evening, Marcel and Tomasz had explained that two of the other men had been released at the same time as them. They were all told they must regularise their identity papers within a month and, in the meantime, they were to report to the police station every Monday morning at nine o’clock. If they failed to do so, or if they were unable to obtain the correct paperwork from the prefecture at Toulouse, they would be immediately taken into custody again.

‘I will take you up to Toulouse in the farm truck, don’t you worry,’ Bruno had said genially, slapping Tomasz and Marcel on the back, happy to have his workers back in the fold.

But later, when he and Amélie were upstairs getting ready for bed, he’d said to her with a leering smile, ‘I guess you fluttered your eyelashes at those Germans to get those men released, didn’t you?’

She’d sighed. She’d known this conversation was inevitable. ‘Of course not, Bruno. I simply argued their case. It was me who suggested they should be given time to regularise their papers.’

He’d pinched her cheek between his thumb and forefinger and brought his face close to hers. ‘You’re cleverer than you look, Amélie Benoît. But I hope you’re telling me the truth. If I find out otherwise, I will not be happy, believe you me.’

‘Why would I lie to you, Bruno?’ she’d asked.

He hadn’t answered the question, just grunted and got into bed and was soon asleep, snoring loudly.

But Amélie lay awake, thinking about the dangerous path she was treading; living on this farm where Resistance leaders were welcomed and sheltered, free to come and go, to plan their missions, store their belongings, while by day she was working for the Germans. She wondered how long it would be before her opposing worlds collided in some way.

She walked quickly away from Hauptmann Bauer’s office and entered the larger room where the mayor and the commissaire of police were already at work. Saying bonjour to both men, she made her way to her desk and sat down, wondering what her next task would be.

‘One of the German officers left something on your desk for you to type up,’ Monsieur Colbert said, nodding towards an official-looking file that was sitting beside her typewriter.

Amélie sat down and opened the file. In it were several pages of neat, handwritten notes. They were all in German.

She looked up. ‘I don’t understand any of this,’ she said, mystified.

‘I don’t think you need to understand it,’ Colbert said. ‘They just want it typed up for their records.’

The handwriting was clear and bold, she could see it wouldn’t be difficult for her to copy. On the other hand, it would take far longer than copy-typing French text because she would have to double-check every individual letter. She picked up one of the pages and peered at the heading. Across the top were written the words Streng Geheim. She read them out, followed by the heading on the next line.