Page 40 of The French Wife

Raoul, Bruno and Henri were sitting at the kitchen table eating bread and drinking the coffee substitute Amélie had started making recently from roasted chicory root. They were poring over some maps and papers that were spread out on the table. Glancing at them as she passed, Amélie noticed the maps showed the roads and contours of the outskirts of Narbonne. Her stomach churned. The men must be planning an attack on one of the German troop movements listed in the paper she’d given Raoul.

‘How is Ivy?’ Henri asked Amélie, an anxious look in his eyes.

‘In a bit of pain,’ Amélie said. ‘I’ve given her more of the morphine and told her she needs to rest, but she said she wants to talk to you both.’

‘We’re going to have to move her down to the cellar,’ Bruno interrupted before Henri could respond. ‘It’s far too much of a risk to have her staying in the house. It’s bad enough having Raoul here. That’s already one more person than the Germans think live here. You and the girl will both have to sleep in the cellar,’ he told Henri.

‘Of course, whatever is best,’ Henri said with a shrug. ‘I’ll go talk to her now.’

‘I’ll come up in a moment,’ Raoul said. ‘I’ll just tidy up here.’

Henri got up and left while Raoul folded the maps and put them into a leather bag.

‘Those will have to go in the cellar with the radio when we’ve finished with them,’ he said. ‘The Germans are obviously onto us if they picked up the transmission. I won’t be able to transmit again for a few days in case they’re still monitoring. Did they say anything more about that when they searched the place?’ he asked Amélie.

She thought back to the raid the previous evening. It seemed a long time ago now, although waves of disgust coursed through her every time she thought about Glock’s hands on her face.

‘Not really, but another officer arrived separately with some news. They all went into a huddle to discuss it. It seemed urgent, and soon after that, they all left.’

‘They’d probably heard the plane going over and realised it was a drop,’ Raoul said. ‘We need to be extra vigilant over the next few days, they could easily raid the farm again.’

‘Of course,’ Bruno said. ‘We know that.’

‘I’ll go up and see Ivy,’ Raoul said. ‘Get her ready to move down to the cellar.’

‘Right,’ Bruno replied. ‘I’ll ask the men to knock up some camp beds. We’ve got some spare wood in one of the barns. And we also have some canvas and an old tarpaulin.’

Amélie made some toast and hard-boiled eggs for Ivy’s breakfast and put the plate on a tray with a mug of coffee. She was about to take it up to her when Henri and Raoul appeared in the doorway.

‘She’s in a bit of a state,’ Raoul said. ‘Worse than I thought. We need to get her down to the cellar straight away, in case there’s another raid.’

‘It’s very cold down there,’ Amélie said. ‘I’ll get her some warm clothes and blankets. In the meantime, you’ll need to move the shelves we put across the doorway.’

The next hour or so was spent making sure Ivy had eaten, was dressed in some of Amélie’s warm clothes and, finally, once a makeshift cot bed was ready, the men carried her gently down to the cellar. Amélie brought her blankets and pillows, then put on her own overcoat against the cold, went down and sat beside Ivy until she’d fallen asleep.

When she went upstairs again, Bruno and the other two were once again poring over maps at the table, deep in discussion. Sensing they’d prefer to be alone, Amélie wandered outside and fed the chickens, who clucked and pecked around her feet. It was a crisp, sunny morning with a clear blue sky, ice sparkling on the roofs of the barns. She felt the need to get away from the house and put some space between herself and everything that was happening there. It felt as though events were spiralling out of her control; everything had escalated so quickly. In a matter of days, since the Germans had occupied the free zone, their home had gone from providing occasional assistance to the local Resistance network, sheltering the odd member in the herbergerie and Bruno providing men for low-key operations to becoming the unofficial Resistance headquarters overnight, sheltering agents who’d been air-dropped from London.

Deep down, she was proud of the contribution they were making, but the thought of the danger they were putting themselves in sent terror rippling through her all the same, especially since she was working in such proximity to the Germans in the mairie. Last night’s raid by Glock and the soldiers had showed her just how vigilant everyone at the farm needed to be.

She recoiled yet again at the memory of Glock’s hands on her face, his stone-cold eyes drilling into hers. It had felt as if he could see into her mind. She was acutely aware of what he might be capable of, and of the fact that he didn’t trust her. She was walking a dangerous tightrope.

She strode on, lost in thought, moving deeper and deeper into the forest without really noticing where she was going. After a while, she realised she was following an old forester’s path from her father’s time. The path began to climb and soon she had reached the rocky ridge from which she could see across the hills for miles, and down to the river beyond the treetops in the valley below. She remembered the old forester’s hut was almost directly beneath her and that there was a steep path winding down the hillside that would lead her to it. As she had when she’d passed the old cabin the other morning on the cinder road, she had the sudden urge to go there, to remember more carefree days and reconnect with her old life, before Bruno and the war, and all the complications and dangers they had brought with them.

Amélie was used to these paths; she’d known them intimately as a child, and she knew the path down to the cabin was slippery and steep. So she took her time descending, grabbing onto branches and steadying herself on the tree trunks. Soon she was down at the level of the river, and then it was only a few steps along the bank to the cabin. She stood in front of the cornflower-blue door, which her father had painted when he knew she and her friends used to go there to play, remembering those carefree summer days when they would fish from the rocks in the river and bring food to barbecue over the fire.

The door wasn’t locked – nobody ever came to the cabin, and few even knew of its existence – so she pushed it open and went inside. It smelled of damp and mould, but also faintly of soot. There was still a pile of ashes in the fireplace. The old couch and little oak table her father had given her remained and despite the fact that nobody had been in there for over ten years, the place wasn’t in bad shape. True, there was ivy growing through a gap between the roof and the top of the wall, a damp patch on the chimney breast, and the windows were filthy, but all those things could easily be dealt with.

Amélie sank heavily on the couch and put her face in her hands. She sat there for a long time and, gradually, a feeling of peace and serenity stole over her. At last she had found somewhere she could come to be at peace, to get away from Bruno and all the anxieties of her work, the war and the farm. She would clean up the place and bring some cushions and throws, then she would light a fire in the grate to dry the air. It would be her secret refuge. She could bring a book here whenever she had some spare time and wanted to be alone for a few hours, to gain some perspective on everything that was happening, and to simply relax.

She returned to the farm by crossing the river on the stepping stones and walking up the cinder track she normally took to work. When she went into the kitchen, the men were still seated around the table. Bruno looked up and glared at her.

‘Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you.’

‘I just went for a walk. Why? Has something happened?’

‘I just checked on Ivy and she’s running a fever,’ Raoul said. ‘I’ve given her more of the morphine, but there is only one dose left. Lili is watching over her now.’

‘I’ll go down and bathe her, try to bring her temperature down,’ Amélie said.