Page 79 of The French Wife

Suzette Vernay shook her head. ‘I found out later that Maman and Papa had perished in Auschwitz,’ she said, tears in her eyes. ‘I can’t describe the anger and grief I felt when I heard the news but I wanted to honour their memory by carrying on what they’d started. I had very little, but I managed to borrow some money. I began to bake bread and pastries, and to sell what I’d baked in the shop. I wanted to think Maman and Papa would have been proud of me for doing that.’

‘I’m sure they would,’ Emma said. Then after a short silence she asked, ‘I don’t suppose you know anything about what happened to Hans Bauer, do you?’

‘Ah! I knew there was something I was meant to tell you. My granddaughter told me to let you know she’d been in contact again with a couple of galleries in Munich since you’d last seen her. They had some of his pre-war paintings in their collection. Apparently, the owners were able to do some digging about Bauer. They discovered he’d been posted to the Russian front in late May 1943 and had died there in combat shortly afterwards.’

‘Poor Hans,’ Emma said. ‘Perhaps he was sent there as a punishment for having a relationship with a Frenchwoman. How very sad.’

‘It is sad,’ Madame Vernay said. ‘I’m sure he was a good man. He certainly did what he could for the workers at the farm, but he couldn’t stop the excesses of the SS.’

They both fell silent and reflected for a while. Emma noticed the birds twittering in the trees outside the window, the occasional car crawling past on the boulevard and the chatter of customers at the café opposite.

‘Now I know why Étienne still comes to the farm,’ Emma said quietly. ‘I’ve seen him there a few times carrying a bucket of water.’

‘It’s for the plants.’ Suzette smiled. ‘We planted some bushes in the mouth of the cave for Amélie. Étienne likes to go up there and water them in the summer. Rock roses, lavender and flowering broom. I haven’t been up there for years, my knees won’t let me climb that far anymore, but Étienne is still fit and healthy.’

‘I wonder if he’d show me where the cave is,’ Emma said on an impulse. ‘I’d love to see it.’

‘I’m sure he would,’ Suzette said. ‘I’ll talk to him and ask him. He’s very confused nowadays, but I’m one of the few people he trusts.’

The next morning, Emma was in the kitchen eating breakfast, still mulling over Suzette Vernay’s incredible story, when there was a knock at the front door. She looked up, surprised. She hadn’t heard Gaston’s truck and, in any case, he normally let himself into the house without knocking. Feeling slightly apprehensive, she went to the door and opened it a crack. Étienne Moreau stood on the step, blinking in the morning sunlight, dressed as always in a shabby shirt and trousers and scuffed boots. In one hand he held an iron pail of water.

‘I’ve come to show you up the mountain,’ he muttered without meeting her gaze. ‘Suzette Lalouche sent me.’

‘Of course. Thank you for coming,’ Emma said. ‘I’ll just get my boots on.’

She left the front door unlocked for Gaston and followed Étienne into the woods, surprised at how quickly the old man could move, despite carrying the bucket which clanked at every step and slopped water down his leg as he walked. He had a scurrying, crab-like gait, but he covered the ground at amazing speed. Emma struggled to keep up with him and was soon sweating in the heat of the summer morning.

She followed him between the trees in the direction she’d taken before, pushing between the bushes and the undergrowth, her clothes snagging on brambles and gorse. When they’d been walking for ten minutes or so, Étienne took a path on the right which wound up the hill. Emma recognised it as the one she’d followed when she’d been looking for the forester’s cabin.

Now they were climbing, she struggled even more to keep up with Étienne. He climbed deftly, pushing his way up through the maquis, hauling the bucket as he went, occasionally stopping and waiting for her to catch up, which she did, puffing and panting to catch her breath.

They soon reached the ridge Emma remembered. The stunning view of the valley and the mountains beyond was spread out beneath them, the town of St Marie in the distance. And nestled beside the river below, the crumbling roof of the forester’s cabin. She knew now without a doubt that this was where Amélie and Hans used to meet during the war. She’d known there was something special about the place, despite its derelict condition. The knowledge made her even more determined to restore it once the work on the house was finished.

‘This way,’ Étienne said, nodding in the opposite direction to the one she’d expected.

He set off through the bushes and, as she followed, Amélie saw there was a narrow, well-worn trail through the bushes along the front of the ridge. It wound along above a precipice, with dizzying views of the river hundreds of metres below, which Emma tried not to look at, instead concentrating on Étienne’s back and on keeping up with him.

They rounded a bend in the trail, and he turned and waited for her. ‘It is here,’ he said gruffly, waving towards a rocky outcrop.

As they got closer, Emma realised there was a gaping opening in the granite rock and that around its entrance was the planted broom, lavender and rose bushes, all blooming in the sunshine.

Étienne stood aside and let her move between the bushes and into the cave. It was warm inside, even warmer than in the forest. She looked down and on a square stone laid on the earth floor in the middle of the cave was a huge bunch of wildflowers in a vase, their delicate scent perfuming the confined space.

‘It’s Amélie,’ Étienne said.

Instinctively, Emma knelt in front of the stone and put both hands flat on the warm earth beside it. She looked up at Étienne. ‘Thank you. It’s beautiful here,’ she said, and it was true. Here, in this quiet place high on the mountainside, where Amélie Garnier had been laid to rest, Emma was suddenly filled with a powerful and overwhelming sense of peace and wellbeing.

Gaston was working in the living room when she got back to the house, sanding the floorboards. He got to his feet and embraced her.

‘You’ve been crying,’ he said, standing back and looking at her with concern.

‘I’ve had an emotional morning,’ she said, smiling ruefully.

‘I wondered where you were,’ he said. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Étienne Moreau guided me up the mountain to Amélie’s grave,’ she said. ‘Come and have a coffee. I’ve got so much to tell you.’

He put his tools away and followed her through to the kitchen, where she brewed coffee while he sat at the table, watching her with loving eyes. She put the cups on the table and sat down opposite him, and then she told him everything Suzette Vernay had told her about the Garniers the day before; about what had happened at Le Châtaignier during the war, about the gunfight between the Resistance and the SS, and about Amélie’s tragic death.