Page 65 of The French Wife

When the kettle boiled, Amélie left Suzette sitting at the table and went to make tea, but the whole time she was racking her brains, trying to think of somewhere safe the girl could sleep. She briefly considered her hideout in the woods, but discounted it quickly. It was far too close to the road. If the Germans decided to enter the property via the cinder track, they would see it straight away. No, she’d have to think of something else.

She thought about the barns; as well as the herbergerie there was a huge barn where they used to keep horses, and where Bruno now stored his truck, tractor and farm machinery. There was nowhere in there to hide, but there was another barn where the pigs and cows were housed during the winter months. Above it was a hayloft with a door leading to the outside, and a ladder down to the ground on the far wall. She thought about it for a while, and it didn’t take her long to realise that the hayloft was Suzette’s best hope. It was warm in there, even in winter due to the proximity of the animals, and there was an escape route in case of a raid. And Amélie had also thought of a place Suzette could run to, if that were to happen.

She made tea in a large teapot, put it in the middle of the table and set out cups for everyone. Naomi poured the tea and passed the cups round. Amélie sat down at the table and took a sip of the warm liquid, savouring the earthy taste, and smiled at Suzette.

‘It will be alright,’ she said. ‘I’ve thought of something. Please don’t worry.’

Later that day she showed Suzette up to the hay barn. They entered through the main doors and walked past the stalls of pigs and cattle, who eyed them with curiosity as they passed. They climbed up a wide wooden ladder in the centre of the barn and emerged in the hayloft above. A corner behind the bales of hay had been partitioned off.

‘I’m sorry you have to sleep here, but in a way, Bruno is right. If there’s a raid, the Germans will look in the house first. Here you’ll be the first to see and hear them coming and you’ll be able to climb down the ladder on the other side and run into the forest. I’ll show you where you can go and hide if the worst happens. Alright?’ She looked anxiously at Suzette, hoping she wouldn’t object to the arrangements.

To Amélie’s relief, the girl smiled for the first time that day.

‘Thank you, Madame Garnier,’ she said. ‘Thank you for taking me in and for looking after me. I don’t mind sleeping here at all – it’s far better than with ten other people in a stuffy cellar.’

Amélie relaxed and put her arms around Suzette, pulling her into a hug. ‘I’m glad you feel that way. Later we’ll bring a mattress and blankets up here for you and make the place cosy. It’s always quite warm in here anyway due to the animals being underneath.’

They stood in silence for a few moments and listened to the lowing of the cows and the snuffling of the pigs beneath them, both smiling at the sound.

‘Now,’ Amélie said, ‘let me show you where you need to go to if the Germans do turn up.’ She opened the door at the back of the barn, below which was a wooden ladder. ‘We’ll go down this way to get some practice,’ she said, turning to face the barn and putting her foot on the top rung of the ladder.

She climbed down to the bottom and Suzette climbed after her. Once they were both on the ground, Amélie led the girl across the track and into the trees, then along the old, familiar path through the forest that she’d known since girlhood. They walked in silence, their breath freezing in clouds on the air, the only sound the occasional chirp of a bird and the cracking of twigs under their feet. They carried on walking, and as the path started to rise towards the ridge, Amélie began to breathe more heavily as she climbed. She turned to check on Suzette and was glad to see the girl just behind her, barely breaking into a sweat.

‘Not far now,’ she said.

When they reached the ridge, the top of the hill was shrouded in mist, so it was impossible to see the river from there and there was no view of the town or the distant hills either.

‘This is where you will need to turn off the path, so try to remember this place,’ she told Suzette. ‘On a clear day you can see the river down there and the hills for miles around. You can even see the edge of St Marie down the valley. Now, we need to follow the path along for about five hundred metres and we’ll be there.’

Amélie set off along the ridge with Suzette close behind. She hadn’t been here since she was a teenager. In those days she would explore the hills with her friends, but once her father had done up the forester’s cabin for her, they spent most of their time beside the river and rarely came up the mountain. Now, the tiny path through the broom and gorse that wound between the granite rocks was barely visible. Amélie pushed her way through the bushes, holding them aside for Suzette to follow. It seemed a long way, further than she remembered, and at one point she wondered if she was heading in the wrong direction. But then, she rounded a bend and there it was. The great opening in the rockface; the hidden cave where she and her friends used to play hide and seek.

‘It’s here,’ she said, moving forward to stand in the mouth of the cave. ‘It doesn’t look much from the outside, but it goes deep inside the mountain.’ She turned to Suzette, whose face had gone pale.

‘You want me to hide in there?’ she asked.

‘Only if the Germans come during the night. If they come during the day, you can hide in the cellar with the others. It might never happen, of course,’ Amélie said. ‘But if it does, you don’t have to go right inside, you can hide somewhere near the mouth – there are plenty of crevices. The soldiers are unlikely to come up here, the paths are so overgrown. They’ll never find this place.’

Suzette was silent and Amélie tried to reassure her. ‘Please don’t worry, Suzette. I’ll give you a torch so you won’t need to be in the dark. And with luck, you might never have to come here at all.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Suzette said. ‘And thank you, madame. I’d prefer to hide in this cave than be arrested by the Germans.’

Amélie kissed her on both cheeks. ‘Brave girl! Now, shall we go back?’

And so began a new routine for the occupants of Le Châtaignier. Raoul, Henri and Ivy would sleep down in the cellar each night, crammed in alongside the two Jewish families, and during the day they would spend most of their time in the house or in the herbergerie, while keeping an ear out for the sound of vehicles on the track. The three of them continued to do target practice each day and to plan and carry out sabotage missions on the basis of information Amélie supplied them with from the mairie, but nothing as daring or dangerous as the attack on the troop convoy or on the train. Sometimes they would cut communication wires, at other times they would throw grenades at passing German vehicles. Each time they returned from a mission in one piece, Amélie allowed herself a moment of relief. She was growing fond of all of them, especially the English girl.

A few days after Suzette had arrived at Le Châtaignier, Raoul brought the false ID papers for the Jewish families. Straight after that, Bruno set the two men to work each morning thinning out the forest, while his other men carried on working elsewhere on the land maintaining hedges, fences and drainage ditches. Sometimes Henri and Raoul would be pulled in to help too.

‘Isn’t it dangerous for Samuel and Gabriel to be out during the daytime?’ Amélie asked. ‘What if there’s a surprise raid?’

‘They’ve all got their false papers now,’ Bruno snarled. ‘They have to take their chances. We’re not a charity, Amélie, and they need to earn their keep.’

Amélie was unhappy that he was putting the men at risk, but he would not change his mind, no matter what she said, so she had no choice but to accept the situation. In the meantime, Suzette’s false papers hadn’t yet arrived, so her position at the farm was even more precarious than the rest. But she seemed to have settled down in the hayloft, and appeared each morning in the kitchen for breakfast, ready to do whatever housework or cooking she was asked to. She was efficient and hard-working, and even Bruno moaned less about her presence than Amélie had expected.

The day after Suzette had arrived at the farm, Amélie had gone back to work at the mairie as usual. Monsieur Colbert had peered at her curiously when she appeared.

‘Are you quite alright, Madame Garnier?’ he’d asked as she crossed the room to hang her hat and coat on the stand. ‘Only, Hauptmann Bauer said you were feeling sick yesterday. I sincerely hope it isn’t anything infectious?’

‘No, no, Monsieur Colbert, you don’t need to worry. It was something I’d eaten – some meat we’d kept too long that had gone off. I’m better now.’