"Come along now, I'll start," said the Viscountess sweetly. "I have an idea: we could send a letter written by one of the children here in the next package. A letter that in simple, touching words would reveal their hearts and express their sorrowful, patriotic feelings. Just think," the Viscountess continued in an impassioned voice, "just think of the joy a poor abandoned soldier will feel when he reads those words, when he can almost touch, in a way, the very soul of his country; their words will remind him of the men, the women, the children, the trees, the houses of his dear little home, and as the poet said, loving our home makes us love our country even more. But most of all, my children, let your hearts speak. Do not aim for stylistic effect: forget your letter-writing skills and speak from the heart. Ah, the heart," said the Viscountess, half closing her eyes, "nothing beautiful, nothing great is accomplished without heart. You could put a little flower from the fields in your letter, a daisy or a primrose… I don't think that would be breaking any rules. Do you like that idea?" the Viscountess asked, tilting her head slightly and smiling graciously. "Come, now, I've talked enough. It's your turn."
The notary's wife, a woman with hard features and a slight moustache, said sharply, "It's not that we don't want to spoil our dear prisoners. But what can we poor villagers do? We have nothing. We don't have enormous estates like you, Viscountess, or big farms like the country folk. We can barely feed ourselves. My daughter just gave birth and can't even get any milk for her baby. Eggs cost two francs each, if you can find any."
"Are you saying we farmers are running a black market?" asked Cécile Sabarie who was in the audience. When she got angry, her neck swelled up like a turkey and her face went purplish-red.
"I'm not saying that, but…"
"Ladies, ladies," the Viscountess said softly, and she thought despondently, "Well, there you have it, there's nothing to be done, they feel nothing, they understand nothing, they have base souls. What am I thinking? Souls? They're nothing more than stomachs with the gift of speech."
"It's hurtful to hear you say that," Cécile continued, "it's hurtful to see you with your houses and having everything you want and then to hear you cry poverty. Come on, everyone knows you villagers have everything. You hear me? Everything! You think we don't know you're getting all the meat? You buy up all the coupons. Everybody knows it. You pay a hundred for each meat coupon. If you've got money, you want for nothing, that's for sure, while we poor people…"
"Well of course we have to have meat, Madame," said the notary's wife haughtily, anxiously wondering if she'd been spotted coming out of the butcher's with a leg of lamb the day before (the second one that week). "We don't have pigs we can kill! We don't have hams in our kitchens, tubs of lard and cured sausages we'd rather see eaten by worms than give them to the miserable people in the village."
"Ladies, ladies," the Viscountess implored. "Think of France, elevate your hearts. Control yourselves. Silence these hurtful remarks. Think of our situation. We are ruined, defeated… We have only one consolation: our dear Maréchal. And all you can talk about is eggs, milk, pigs! How important is food? Really, ladies, this is all so vulgar! We have so many other things to worry about. What is really important in the end? Helping each other a little, a little tolerance. Let us unite just as the soldiers in the last war did in the trenches, just as, I am sure, our dear prisoners of war are doing in their camps, behind their barbed-wire fences."
It was strange. They had barely been listening to her until now. Her imploring had been like a priest's sermon you hear without understanding. But the image of a German prisoner-of-war camp, with men herded behind barbed wire, touched them. Every one of these large, heavy women had someone they loved in one of those camps; they were working for him; they were saving for him; they were putting money aside for his return, so he could say, "You really took care of everything; you're a good wife." Each woman pictured her absent man, just hers; each woman imagined in her own way the place he was held captive; one thought of a pine forest, another of a cold room, yet another of fortress-like walls, but each of them ended up imagining miles of barbed wire surrounding their men and isolating them from the rest of the world. The farmers' wives and villagers alike felt their eyes fill with tears.
"I'll bring you something," one of them said.
"Me too," said another with a sigh. "I'll manage to find a bit of something."
"I'll see what I can do," promised the notary's wife.
Madame de Montmort hurried to write down their promises. Every one of the women stood up, went over to the President and whispered something in her ear, because now they were all deeply moved and touched; they truly wanted to give, not only to their sons and husbands, but to strangers, to children on Welfare. However, they didn't trust each other; they didn't want to seem richer than they were; they feared being denounced. There wasn't a single household that didn't hide its provisions; mothers and daughters spied on each other, denounced each other; housewives closed their kitchen doors at mealtimes so they wouldn't be betrayed by the smell of lard sizzling in the pot, or the piece of prohibited meat, or the cake made with illegal flour. Madame de Montmort wrote down:
Madame Bracelet, farmer's wife in Les Roaches, two sausages, a pot of honey, a jar of potted meat… Madame Joseph, from the Rouet estate, two potted guinea fowl, some salted butter, chocolate, coffee, sugar…
"I can count on you, can't I, ladies?" the Viscountess said again.
But the farmers' wives just stared at her, astonished: they never went back on their word. They said goodbye to the Viscountess, holding out their red hands that were chafed by the harsh winter, by caring for animals, by doing the washing. She shook each hand reluctantly; touching them was physically distasteful to her. But she made the effort to overcome this feeling so contrary to Christian charity and, in the spirit of mortification, forced herself to kiss the children who accompanied their mothers; they were all fat and pink, overfed and with dirty faces, like little pigs.
At last the room was empty. The teacher had taken the girls out; the farmers' wives were gone. The Viscountess sighed, not from tiredness but from disgust. How base and ugly people were! "You have to go to so much trouble to instil a glimmer of love into these sad souls…" she said to herself out loud, but as her spiritual adviser had suggested, she offered up her day's tiredness and work to God.
8
"And what do the French think, Monsieur, of the outcome of the war?" Bonnet asked.
The women looked at each other, scandalised. It just wasn't done. You simply didn't talk to a German about the war-not about this one, or the other one, or about Maréchal Pétain, or about Mers-el-Kébir, or about how France had been split in two, or about the occupying forces, or about anything that mattered.
There was only one possible attitude: an affectation of cold indifference, the tone of voice Benoît used as he raised his glass, full to the brim with red wine: "They don't give a damn, Monsieur."
It was evening. The setting sun, clear and crisp, was a sign there would be a frost that night, but that the next day would undoubtedly be magnificent. Bonnet had spent all day in the village and was on his way to bed. But before going up, he had lingered downstairs-out of politeness, natural kindness, the desire to be well regarded or perhaps simply the wish to warm himself a moment by the fire. Dinner was almost over; Benoît was alone at the table; the women had already got up and were tidying the room, doing the dishes.
The German looked at the big useless bed with curiosity. "No one sleeps here, do they? It isn't used for anything? How odd."
"Sometimes it's used," said Madeleine, thinking of Jean-Marie.
She thought no one would guess, but Benoît frowned; every allusion to what had happened that past summer pierced straight through his heart like an arrow, but it was his business, no one else's. He looked reproachfully at Cécile, who had started to snigger.