Page 58 of The French Wife

She crossed the courtyard and went up the steep stone steps, while Madame Brodin watched her, shading her eyes against the sunlight.

The door was stiff, but responded to a push, then Emma was inside the studio. After the bright sunshine in the courtyard, it took a few minutes for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. The studio had a vaulted roof lined with uneven, ancient beams which were grey with cobwebs. The floor was grimy with dust. It must have been used as some sort of storeroom because the only pieces of furniture in it were broken chairs stacked up in one corner beside an old cupboard missing a door.

She walked to the other end of the room where a dustsheet covered a bulky piece of furniture set against the wall. Her heart sped up as she pulled off the sheet and picked up the first painting from a pile stacked on the old dresser. It was a watercolour, only half finished, but the rest was sketched out in charcoal. It was clearly of the town of St Marie, drawn from the hill behind, its maze of tiny streets nestling in the cradle of the rocky valley, the river snaking between the buildings, the abbaye rising from its banks on one side and beyond that the cemetery. It was as good as the others she’d seen of Hans Bauer, and in a similar style.

She set the landscape aside and reached for the other one. She had to turn it over and when she finally had it facing her and the right way up, she stood back and examined it.

Even in the semi-gloom of the studio it made her gasp. The painting was complete but for the background and was a life-sized portrait of the head and shoulders of a woman with dark hair; a woman with a beautifully sculpted face, creamy skin, dark brows and full, brown eyes. The artist had captured her expression exactly. That expression of sadness and longing that Emma had witnessed before and which had pulled at her heart strings. She didn’t need to reach for the photograph in her bag to know that this was a portrait of Amélie Garnier.

NINETEEN

AMÉLIE

December 1942–January 1943

In the weeks that followed the ambush on the troop convoy, Raoul and the other members of the Resistance at the farm carried out three further attacks on the Germans. They were joined by members of other nearby partisan groups, who supplied them with explosives dropped by British agents. The attacks were all on troop trains; the details of their journeys came from the information Amélie had given Raoul.

On the night of the first mission, after the group had set off in the farm truck, Amélie sat in the kitchen anxiously, waiting for them to return. Most of the men from the herbergerie had gone along with Raoul, Henri and Ivy, and the place felt empty and desolate without them.

Raoul had asked Bruno to drive them to the railway, but he had refused.

‘I’m prepared to do a lot for you, but it wouldn’t be good for you if I took risks,’ he’d said gruffly. ‘If I get caught or worse, you’d have to shut down the local network. You need me to stay here and mind the farm. You can take the truck, I don’t mind about that. But make sure you disguise the number plates.’

‘Alright, I understand,’ Raoul had said. ‘I can drive.’ Before they set off, they painted over a couple of the numbers on the plates of the truck, as Bruno had asked.

Amélie sat at the kitchen table with a pile of mending she’d been meaning to do for a long time and waited for the sound of the truck returning. Bruno sat at the other end of the table chain smoking, listening to Radio London. Amélie caught the odd word, but most of the broadcast went above her head and she didn’t want to engage her husband in conversation by asking him about the news.

Her mind went over and over all the worst-case scenarios. She now knew most of the résistants well and thought of them as her friends. She went hot and cold imagining them being shot or captured, killed or injured, bundled into a German truck and driven away to prison by SS troops.

She envisaged them parking in a remote spot beside the main railway track near Lézignan, where it ran through a forest. They would scramble up an embankment to the track, set charges on the rails, then wait out of sight until they heard the troop train approaching. One of them would push the plunger as it approached and the track would explode and buckle under the train – if everything went to plan. She imagined the roar of the explosion, smoke and debris billowing from the track, train wheels and bodies flying everywhere, flames engulfing the wreckage and the partisans running away from the scene.

Amélie bit her nail down to the quick thinking about it. What if something went wrong and the device didn’t explode? They could be caught. If that had happened, the next engine she would hear would be that of an SS armoured car, not the old familiar farm truck.

It was almost midnight and she was dozing off over her sewing when the unmistakable rumble of the truck jolted her awake. Doors slammed, she heard people talking, footsteps on the stones and the front door opening. The résistants burst into the room in a blast of cold air, their faces proud and exultant.

‘We did it!’ Ivy announced and ran to Amélie, kissing her soundly on both cheeks.

Relief surged through Amélie and she hugged Ivy to her, then busied herself making drinks and serving up soup for everyone.

They carried out two similar missions within the next couple of weeks. German soldiers were killed and injured on each occasion, and severe disruption was caused to the German plans to ensure the southern zone was fully supplied with German troops. After each mission the group returned triumphant to the farm, buoyed by their success, toasting it with Bruno’s brandy or pastis. Although Amélie celebrated with them, she couldn’t help but feel the familiar stab of guilt each time she was the cause of young men losing their lives.

Despite her remorse, she continued to type up things the German officers gave her, to hide copies in her bag and bring them home for Raoul to read. Both he and the Resistance were continually grateful to her for supplying them with such a steady source of information.

‘You know, your wife is a real godsend to the cause,’ Raoul once said to Bruno at supper.

Bruno simply glowered into his soup, jealous and angry at Amélie’s popularity with the group.

Christmas and New Year came and went. Bruno was given a pair of geese from a neighbouring farmer in exchange for some bottles of wine. Amélie roasted them on the range on Christmas Day with the help of Ivy, who seemed as at home in the kitchen as she was brandishing a gun or throwing a grenade. She was fully recovered by that time and seemed to be relishing life on the farm.

Amélie visited Hans at his studio a couple more times over those weeks. He often asked her to visit, almost every day in fact, but it was difficult for her to find an excuse to be late home. But if she knew Bruno would be out, she would go along with Hans to his studio after work. She would admire his latest painting and have a drink with him. She relished those moments, but was constantly aware of the time and could never stay long. Each time she left him to cycle home they would kiss, just like the first time, and she would ride back to the farm up the cinder track, a warm glow spreading through her body just thinking about his lips on hers.

One day he gave her a painting. It was a miniature version of his watercolour of the medieval bridge. He’d already framed it.

‘Oh, Hans,’ she’d said. ‘How very kind of you. But I won’t know where to hang it. How will I explain it at home?’

‘I’m sure you will think of something,’ he said. ‘I will paint more for you. Each time I finish a painting, I will make a small one for you to remember it by.’

He wrapped it carefully in tissue paper, and she put it in the basket of her bicycle and took it home.