Page 49 of The French Wife

When she woke the next morning, Amélie could hear the rumble of the truck pulling out of the barn. She glanced at her alarm clock: it was only six o’clock. Bruno, Raoul and the others must be setting off for Toulouse. She felt a little better after a good night’s sleep, but her throat ached, and when she looked in the bathroom mirror, she saw the marks of Bruno’s fingers on her neck as well as the blossoming bruise on her cheekbone. She dressed quickly in a polo-necked sweater for work which she knew wouldn’t look out of place in the cold weather, dabbed powder on her cheek and went downstairs, where, to her surprise, Ivy was sitting at the table eating bread and drinking ersatz coffee.

‘How are you?’ Amélie asked, pouring herself some coffee from the pot on the counter.

‘A lot better, thanks,’ Ivy said. ‘The cuts on my arm and leg seem to be healing well and my headache has completely gone. I feel fine, actually.’

‘That’s good to know,’ Amélie said, cutting herself a slice of bread from the loaf on the table.

‘Raoul is very pleased with you, madame,’ Ivy said with a smile. ‘He says you’ve given him some more information about German troop movements.’

‘Yes, this time they’ll be coming by train,’ Amélie replied, spreading butter on her bread, feeling a ripple of unease.

‘He’s already talking about a mission to blow up the track near Lézignan,’ Ivy said.

Amélie paused, her slice of bread halfway to her mouth. She’d known this was coming, but it was so soon after the other one and the thought of what it would entail made her stomach churn with nerves.

‘Don’t worry, you won’t be needed for this one,’ Ivy said. Amélie realised she must have seen the doubt on her face. ‘Raoul doesn’t want to risk you getting injured or captured. You’re far more useful to us working at the mairie.’

Amélie let out a quiet sigh of relief and bit into her bread. ‘But what about you?’ she asked.

‘I’ll be going on the mission with the others, of course. I can’t wait – it’s what I came here for.’

Amélie smiled at the girl. She looked so young and innocent, her bright eyes shining with idealistic enthusiasm.

‘You could have stayed at home in England where it’s safe,’ Amélie said. ‘What brought you here?’

Ivy sighed. ‘It’s not that safe there, actually. There are bombing raids all the time. But I know what you mean. Anyway, I couldn’t just sit by and do nothing. I studied languages at university and volunteered to be sent here. My life at home is… well, it’s stifling, to be frank. I couldn’t wait to get away and do something useful.’

Amélie reached out a hand and squeezed Ivy’s. ‘You’re very brave,’ she said. ‘We’re grateful to have you.’

That day at work passed in a blur. Amélie was still reeling from the trauma of the ambush and from Bruno’s assault the night before. In no mood for conversation, she kept her head down and got on with her tasks. She was a little relieved to hear, through eavesdropping on a conversation between Monsieur Colbert and Monsieur Gilles, that the SS had decided not to take any hostages in St Marie in revenge for the attacks on the convoy.

‘They have arrested ten men in Narbonne,’ Gilles told Colbert. ‘Known members of the Resistance or communists. None of them innocent civilians.’

Amélie kept typing, her hands shaking at the knowledge that Resistance members had been arrested. This could so easily have been any of the men at the farm, or even Amélie herself. It was wrong to be too happy that no one in St Marie had been caught; people were still suffering as a result of the ambush.

Still confused and embarrassed by their conversation the day before, she avoided any contact with Hauptmann Bauer, hurrying past his door without even looking through the window. Monsieur Colbert had kept her busy with planning permits to type up as well as a long set of council-meeting minutes; the content refreshingly mundane.

At lunchtime, she hurried out of the building, keeping her head down. The square was full of tanks and soldiers as usual. She realised she’d been desensitised to their presence; it no longer shocked her to see them there. There was also the usual gaggle of off-duty soldiers hanging round the fountain, smoking and chatting. She was about to look away when she caught sight of Étienne amongst them again and her heart sank. Whatever did he want with the Germans? He clearly hadn’t taken any notice of anything she’d said to him. She sighed in frustration and walked on. She wasn’t about to approach him in the midst of a crowd of German soldiers and, besides, if he saw her bruise he would start asking awkward questions again. No, she would have to wait for another opportunity to tackle him about it.

Huddling into her coat against the bitter cold, she hurried round to the boulangerie, joined the queue as usual and shuffled forward. Madame and Monsieur Lalouche had been looking more and more troubled lately, and Amélie had been meaning to ask them what was wrong, but there were always too many people around. Today she was last in the queue, so when the woman in front of her had left with her purchases and the door had closed behind her, Amélie approached the counter.

‘How are you, madame?’ she asked.

Madame Lalouche shook her head and looked around furtively. ‘Not good,’ she said. ‘A policeman came round this morning and told us we must report to the town hall with our identity papers before next Monday.’

‘Why is that?’ Amélie asked in alarm, thinking instantly of the news from other regions of roundups of Jews, of them being herded into internment camps, of being shipped off on trains to Poland.

Madame Lalouche shrugged. ‘Because we are Jewish, of course. They say they need a register of every Jewish person living in the area for the Germans.’

Amélie resisted the urge to ask why. They all knew why. This was the work of the SS, who were implementing the Nazi policy of harassment and exclusion of the Jews that had been taking place in Germany for years and in France since 1940. Ever since German troops had marched into St Marie, it had only been a matter of time before they would start enforcing those anti-Jewish laws. She thought of Glock with his hard, cold eyes, his fanatical views. She knew it was him who had insisted on creating this register, and Gilles and his men had just gone along with it without question.

‘I’m so sorry, madame,’ she said. ‘If there’s anything I can do…’

‘What can you do?’ Monsieur Lalouche chipped in, his eyes full of pain. ‘What can anyone do against those zealots?’

‘We were thinking of going abroad,’ Madame Lalouche said, in a low voice. ‘Buying a passage to Switzerland or even America if we could get visas. We have some savings, but these things take time to arrange.’

‘If they just want you to register,’ Amélie said, ‘perhaps that’s all they’re going to do… at least for the time being.’