Page 52 of The French Wife

‘What will happen now the SS have a register of Jews in the area?’

‘I really don’t know. I haven’t heard any discussions about it, but judging from what has happened in other places, they may start arresting them, taking them to internment camps.’

Amélie gasped and a shiver of horror went down her spine. She had known it must be a possibility, but hearing it from Bauer’s own lips made it all the more real.

Distractedly, she took another sip of wine and felt it warm her stomach and spread a feeling of heaviness through her body. She wanted to ask him if he would tell her if he did hear anything, but she didn’t dare do that. Although he had expressed disaffection with the Nazis, he was still a Wehrmacht officer. She wasn’t sure she could trust him with the knowledge that she worked for the Resistance.

He leaned towards her then, took both her hands in his and looked into her eyes. ‘I have to tell you that at home in Bavaria, my parents are sheltering a Jewish family in their attic. They were friends before the war, and when the roundups came, they asked for my father’s help.’

‘That’s very brave of your parents,’ she replied, holding his gaze.

‘They are brave. They are prepared to risk everything for what they believe in. I worry for them every day, but I respect what they are doing.’ He took a sip of his wine, then took her hands again. ‘Did you think about what we talked about yesterday?’ he asked. ‘About leaving the farm?’

‘I can’t leave,’ she said quickly. ‘Look, I’m alright, really. There is no need for you to worry about me.’

‘But I do worry,’ he said. ‘You know, you can always ask me for help. Anytime.’

She bowed her head, looking away, touched by his concern. ‘I’m afraid I need to go now. I have to prepare supper for the workers at the farm.’

‘Would you like me to take you back in the staff car?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, thank you. That’s not a good idea. I can cycle – it’s not far and I’m used to it.’

‘Let me walk you back to the mairie then,’ he replied, getting to his feet. ‘I’ll help you on with your coat.’

They walked back side by side through the misty streets, their arms touching. Amélie would have liked to slip her arm through his, but stopped herself. Who knew who might be peeping through their closed shutters? Just walking beside a German officer was to risk vilification from her neighbours.

When they reached the market square, they walked down the side alley to the yard at the back of the building where Amélie’s bicycle was stored.

‘Thank you for showing me your painting,’ she said, looking up into his eyes. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Thank you for coming,’ he said. ‘I hope you will come again… and, by the way,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘if I hear any developments about the register we were discussing, I will tell you as soon as I hear.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, filled with relief but at the same time anxiety. Did this mean he knew, or had guessed about her Resistance activities?

She looked up at him, her eyes full of gratitude, and the next second his lips were on hers and he was kissing her sweetly, tenderly, passionately too. She returned the kiss and moved closer to him, feeling the warmth and strength of his body against hers.

When, finally, they broke apart he said, ‘Goodnight, Amélie.’

‘Goodnight, Hans,’ she whispered, and she stood beside her bicycle and watched him walk away, her heart hammering, the taste of his lips lingering on hers and the heat of his embrace still warming her body.

EIGHTEEN

EMMA

Emma stood at the far end of the graveyard behind the abbaye in St Marie, staring down at Bruno Garnier’s grave. It was in a lonely spot, nestled directly under the craggy rocks that soared up from the back of the graveyard, and it stood beside two rather elaborate graves with imposing headstones. They were engraved with the names Jean-François Garnier, who had died in 1932, and Marie Garnier, who’d passed away in 1924. From the dates, and remembering the deed she’d found in the cadastral records in the mairie, Emma realised that Marie and Jean-François must have been Bruno’s parents. They would also have been previous inhabitants of Le Châtaignier, she supposed. Further along the back wall of the cemetery stood the gravestones of several other members of the Garnier clan, dating back a couple of hundred years. But, as Madame Brodin had told her, no memorial or headstone to Amélie Garnier was anywhere to be seen.

The graveyard was deserted. Although it was the middle of the day, there was no one else about. The workmen had finished and there was a newly constructed wall along the section where there had been a rockfall.

Emma was feeling a little emotional. On her walk through the town, she’d called in at a florist’s and bought a couple of bunches of sweet-smelling lavender. When she’d entered the graveyard, she’d knelt beside Sophie Marchand’s grave and placed one of the lavender bouquets beside the bowl of lush white roses that was already there. She’d read Sophie’s headstone again, with a lump in her throat. It had so much more meaning now she knew Sophie had been Gaston’s wife. She’d recalled the anguished look in his eyes when he’d told her about his loss, the deep empathy she’d felt for him, and how she’d suppressed the urge to reach over the table to take his hand.

The summer sun was high in the sky and the air still and stifling, but that didn’t stop the shivers going through Emma as she read Bruno Garnier’s black granite headstone.

Bruno François Garnier, Born 5 September 1900, died 10 February 1944, a hero of the French Resistance ‘pour que vive la France’

‘So France can live.’

Emma thought about the wartime guns stored in the cellar at Le Châtaignier, the old maps and plans she and Gaston had found there. And here was further proof of what had happened at the farm during the war: Bruno Garnier had been a hero of the Resistance.