Page 36 of The French Wife

‘I’ll talk to your father,’ she said.

‘What?’ Étienne said with a bitter laugh. ‘And tell him to stop drinking all the money away? Why would he listen to you? He doesn’t listen to anyone and he’s not going to stop drinking. He never will.’

Amélie gripped the handlebars of her bicycle, knowing he was right, wondering what else to suggest.

‘And anyway,’ Étienne continued, his tone hardening, ‘who are you to tell me not to speak to the enemy. You work for the Germans now, don’t you?’

She had no reply to this accusation. Although she had no choice but to continue to work at the mairie, perhaps it didn’t appear that way to some people in the town. A prickle of unease went through her. Did her neighbours regard her as a traitor?

She thought back to lunchtime when she’d sat next to Hauptmann Bauer on a public bench and chatted away with him. It was a quiet spot, no houses overlooked that section of the river, but it was quite possible someone could have walked past on the road and spotted her. She needed to be more careful, but also Étienne was correct, she had no right to lecture him.

‘It’s not quite that simple, Étienne,’ she said. ‘I don’t have a choice but to carry on working for them. But you do. You don’t have to hang around with the soldiers in the market square.’

Once again he shrugged. ‘The Boche are the only ones with money around here.’

‘Well, just think about how it looks,’ she said. ‘I have to go now. I’ll see you up at the farm sometime.’ As she cycled away into the gathering dusk and the evening mist rising from the river, she could feel the boy’s eyes on her back as she disappeared round a bend in the road. She hoped Étienne would think about her words. With his brooding, obsessive temperament and strange manner, he already had trouble making friends. Fraternising openly with German soldiers could only make that worse.

Back at the farm, Bruno was nowhere to be seen. She assumed he was still in the olive groves, hurrying to get the day’s harvest in before darkness fell. In the kitchen, Amélie brewed herself a cup of black tea, had a few sips to quench her thirst, then, taking the copies of Hauptmann Bauer’s letters from her bag, tiptoed through to the herbergerie, hoping Bruno wouldn’t come in and discover her there.

The ground floor of the herbergerie was deserted, so she went up the creaking stairs and looked around for Raoul on the upper floor, but there was nobody there either. Perhaps he was out collecting olives with the others? It was possible. Bruno liked to get as much work out of anyone staying on the farm as he could.

Disappointed, Amélie returned to the kitchen and went to the larder to start preparing supper. She collected potatoes, turnips and carrots in a metal bowl. As she brought the vegetables back into the kitchen, Bruno came in through the opposite door.

‘I didn’t expect you home so early,’ he said gruffly.

‘There wasn’t much work on this afternoon,’ she replied.

He grunted and went to the larder to fetch some beer. Then he slumped down at the table with the bottle and his usual glass. Amélie took the vegetables to the sink and began to scrub the earth off their skins.

‘Did you get any information from the Krauts today?’ he asked her.

She was tempted to lie and tell him she’d found nothing, simply because of the way he’d treated her the day before when she’d spoken to Raoul, but she decided to tell him the truth. After all, the cause was more important than their petty squabbles.

‘I typed out two letters to German command in Paris. They’re in German so I don’t understand them but I’ve brought them home anyway. Do you know where Raoul is?’

Bruno shifted in his chair. ‘You’ve been trying to find him already, haven’t you?’

She hesitated. What was the use of lying? ‘Yes, I have,’ she said after a pause. ‘But I don’t see why it matters that much to you.’

‘Because I told you to give that information straight to me,’ he said, raising his voice. ‘Why do you go out of your way to disobey me? You seem to take pleasure in it.’

‘I don’t need to obey you, Bruno,’ she said quietly, focusing on scrubbing at a stubborn bit of mud from the skin of a turnip.

‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,’ he said with a note of triumph. ‘You said it… in the marriage service before God and in front of everyone in St Marie. You promised to obey me.’

‘But the law has changed since then. Wives don’t promise to obey their husbands anymore.’

‘But you did, Amélie Benoît, so I don’t understand why you can’t bring yourself to do it. It’s really not that hard.’

Amélie didn’t reply, just carried on scrubbing.

After a while, Bruno said, ‘So are you going to give them to me then? The letters.’

‘They’re in German, Bruno. You wouldn’t understand them any more than I do. When will Raoul be back?’

Bruno shrugged. ‘No idea. And you’re wrong there. I do understand a bit of German. Are they in your handbag? I’ll get them.’

‘They’re hidden,’ she said, turning away from the sink and drying her hands on a towel. ‘I’ll get them for you.’