We negotiate. Me, I don’t want to waste money, but time is essential and the request a little unusual. ‘I’ll pay you in Swiss francs, which you can readily exchange on the black bourse for American dollars.’
‘Get in.’
I’ve hit the right nerve. He won’t say another thing. In silence, I’ll close my eyes and talk to Michèle and Simone, to Tommy especially and to the others. I’ll say, Hey, mes amis, I’m finally going home.
From Milly-la-Fôret, the road runs east into the forest, winding a little past some hills and valleys where the aqueducts are quite clearly seen below and to the left. We climb a little more, reach the hill called the “mountain,” la montagne, and finally turn towards Arbonne. Then it’s east again and on to Fontainebleau. Every tree and hill and rock and valley bears a name, for the French pride themselves in calling each part of their wilderness something apt and lovingly descriptive. It was the winter of 1940 when I made this same journey with Tommy, dusk already, just as now, but then there was snow, and among the trees I knew there would be no other sound but its soft falling. A hush that was and still is so beautiful.
Tommy was at the wheel. Two months it had taken us to leave England. The British-my God, they could be stubborn. The Winter War in Finland was the excuse. The Russians and the Finns, the Nazis waiting.
Through the long tunnel of the forest, the road ran beneath branches to which the snow clung, and that, too, was beautiful, but there were ruts in the road, those of the woodcutters’ wagons. I searched, I hunted for something more to still the aching in my heart, for we’d hardly spoken.
‘Stop! Stop here.’
‘Jésus merde alors, madame, are you crazy,’ exclaims the taxi driver. ‘There’s nothing here.’
‘There is! Please just do as I’ve asked.’
He swings the taxi round and leaves me at the side of the road with a flute of the lips and a kiss of three upraised fingers.
I wait until he’s out of sight, then let the forest come back to me, the scent of it, the autumn feel that is now almost winter-in late November 1945 not January 1940, though, as it was when Tommy said, ‘Lily, please don’t do this. Let me come with you.’
I had shook my head. Snowflakes melted as they hit the windscreen. ‘For us, it’s over. I have to be with my children.’
‘Your husband mightn’t let you stay.’
‘Even though it’s a fake, he wants the tiara back, and the rest of that box of his father’s mistress. This he has agreed to in exchange for my returning it.’
Tommy knew that to say he was sorry was senseless, but he did try to say something and I should have let him finish. ‘Lily, that tiara … Jules might …’
‘Hurt me? Why should he, please, if it’s worthless and I’m bringing it back?’
‘Anger. Pride. Talk-I can give you lots of reasons. Fear for one. Fear of what I might now do.’
‘The police, the Sûreté?’ I said, reaching for the door handle. ‘He doesn’t know what you do, so why should he think you’d be interested in that thing or that you even know of it? He never once blamed you for having stolen it from him, only me.’
As I walked away, I knew he was watching. At first, I refused to turn to look back at him, but then I did, to see him raise an open hand, a last gesture, a final farewell.
The tall iron gates have ice-cold spikes like bars! I clutch them. I stand here looking off towards the house I once called a château. The lawns are all overgrown, the grasses tangled. Some of the shutters have been closed but are splintered-smashed! One swings and bangs in the wind. What glass there is reflects the autumn shadows of the late afternoon.
The pockmarks of bullets are sprayed across the coral pink of those stuccoed walls. Grenades have exploded.
I bow my head, cling to those bars, and try to shut out all that has happened since, try not to think of anything but that day, but it’s impossible, for over and over again the belt falls on my naked back as, through bruised and battered lips, I yell, ‘I know nothing!’ Choking, vomiting, I cry out again and am knocked to the floor.
They have shaved my head and all the rest, but finally some sense returns and I hear myself saying, ‘Lily … Lily, what is this?’ and angrily wipe the tears away. ‘Idiote, try to get a hold of yourself. Ignore the DANGER: DÉFENCE D’ENTRER PAR ORDRE of that signboard. Get back to the 22 January 1940 at four on that afternoon: sixteen hundred hours, damn you!’
Smoke curled from the chimneys then, but mostly it was from that of my kitchen. My suitcase was of leather, not cardboard as now. My steps were uncertain, just as now, the wrought-iron gate stiff with the frost, though, not rust. It wouldn’t close behind me then and it doesn’t want to now.
I didn’t go to the front door. I went round the back to my courtyard with its orange-red walls of brick and stood looking out through the orchard, already deep in its winter. Each tree was so beautiful, I felt I could reach out to touch the bark and be as one with it. I desperately needed friends.
Marcel was waiting for me. A line of his washing hung above the stove. Some woollen socks, two shirts, a smock, a pair of trousers, and one of underpants. A dishcloth was grey.
‘Well, Lily, so you’re back at last.’
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Me?’ He dug three fingers under the dirty red neckerchief and tugged. ‘I’m simply looking after this place in your absence.’
‘Where are the children?’
‘Must you bristle like a wounded sow? They’re with Georges and that wife of his, at least they will be when Jean-Guy gets home from school. Jules has made his peace with those two, but since he’s told them you’ll be back, they’ve been keeping to themselves.’
And in a huff, no doubt. ‘Is he very angry?’
Marcel coughed-wheezed in terribly and hawked up such a wad he had to chew it before spitting into the firebox. ‘Jules,’ he muttered, savouring the moment. ‘If you mean about that bit of paste you lifted and the rest of those things, then ah, oui, oui, bien sûr.’
Yet he had let me come back. I pulled off my gloves and dropped them into a chair. ‘And the rest?’ I asked. ‘That other business?’
‘Your ass.’ Marcel savoured that, too, and went on, ‘Me, I wouldn’t know since that little sister of yours still wraps the warmth of her lovely chatte about his bitte whenever she feels the need or he does. They dine out most nights, of course, and yes, I think she might be putting on a bit of weight.’
Was there cruelty now? ‘What, exactly, do you mean?’
The buttons of his flies were undone. He looked at them, then up at me before pulling in his stomach and going to work.
‘Is she pregnant, damn it?’ I stamped a foot.
No one could shrug like Marcel. The gesture said so many things like, Merde, why should I care?
‘I think so. Yes … yes, she has that look about her. Like a croissant that has been stuffed with almond paste but before it’s been shoved into the oven.’
Two months … three. Jules wouldn’t have cared about Nini. To have fathered children by us both would have been a tale to tell all others, if only to save face, knowing, of course, what they’d all be saying about him behind his back.
‘I’d better go and get the children.’
Marcel tossed his head, arching those bushy black eyebrows of his as he gestured expansively and said, ‘Why tempt the fates? Why not give them a little surprise and save yourself a lot of grief? Let’s have some coffee. Let’s try not to hate each other. I think you need a friend, and as for myself, I’m perfectly willing to let bygones be bygones.’
‘What the hell is it that you really want?’