With their espadrilles drying on the terrace, Guy and Rose lay naked in the sun, their bodies dusted with sand. Guy grabbed a handful of sweet, moist tamarisk flowers, pressed them to his cheek and smiled. He explained to Rose why she shouldn’t be so foolish as to go back to Paris with him.
‘We’ll be apart ten days, two weeks at the most. Firmin,’ (that was the name of the other engineer at the factory) ‘Firmin gets back from his holiday on the 23rd and will take over from me. Think of the cost of two journeys.’
She found him annoyingly logical. Nevertheless, she felt it was a point of honour not to let him see how disappointed she was. Reluctantly, she let him leave.
Right up until the last moment, neither Guy nor Rose believed there would be a war. The year before, war had seemed possible. They had been separated; they had been miserable; the world could be coming to an end. But now that everything was going well, that they were living together, they were husband and wife, they expected everything around them to be as peaceful and loving as it was within them. The news that Guy was being called up again was the worst thing they could imagine.
‘Once more, because of their dirty war, you’re going to miss out on your holiday, my beloved …’ wrote Rose.
In Wimereux the Hardelots invited the Hardelot-Demestres from Saint-Elme to come to dinner. Over dessert, they all agreed: it was impossible that there would be a war this year — the Germans had no train carriages left. Everything would calm down again but mobilisation was unavoidable. There had already been two rounds of conscription. Once again the shops in Paris were closing; they lowered the iron shutters, tearing down notices that said ‘Closed due to holidays’ and replacing them with new ones that read ‘Closed due to mobilisation’. One sceptic had even written ‘annual mobilisation’.
At the seaside the weather had been overcast and unsettled, but now it was beautiful. The sun glistened on the little white notices (every day new ones appeared on the gilded walls of the town hall); the conscripts were being called up one after another. The tanned faces of the women grew furrowed with anguish beneath their creams and make-up. Villas were closed up. Spanish children with large dark eyes ruled alone on the burning beach and streets. All the French were leaving. They hastily packed their damp swimming costumes and sandy sandals into their suitcases, and the women shed tears into the folds of organdie dresses they had carefully set aside to wear on September evenings.
During the long, calm, beautiful evenings, as crickets chirped in the gardens and the moon shone brightly on the old sea wall, Rose and her friends (whose husbands were also young and had been called up) sat in the living room of the villa, waiting to hear the latest news on the radio. The atmosphere of anxiety and apprehension was becoming more and more stifling. The nervous women pretended to be sewing or knitting, but their trembling fingers tore the wool, dropped the needles. Nevertheless, each of them found causes for hope in something they’d read in the newspaper, in the radio presenter’s voice, in the letter they’d received the day before. All their absent husbands seemed to have passed the word on; they wrote the same thing. ‘Things will die down again. Nothing will happen here. Just stay calm, my darling.’
The women dared not disobey, even though they knew they were being lied to, that the men wanted them to stay far away from the danger in Paris. Life was no longer normal; it was nightmarish, a series of grotesque, deformed images. The Spanish cook brought a salad of mixed peppers to the table and burst into tears. She was married to a Frenchman; it was war, he was leaving. Eagerly, they turned the dial on the radio and heard gypsy love songs from Budapest. Beneath the moonlight, cats miaowed, ran across the rooftops, played on the shiny white gravel. The sweet scent of flowers wafted in through the open windows. The sea was cool, soothing, innocent. The women looked over at the empty wicker chairs on the terrace, where, a week before, the men they loved had been smoking, laughing, reading the paper. They thought of the large bed beneath the mosquito net. Under the cushions on the settee, they found a lost cigarette, a bit of warm sand, and felt they were already widows.
At the beginning of a catastrophe one thinks of others. No one wanted to worry or upset anyone else. They lowered their voices, tried to sound calm. They talked about meaningless things: the weather, their morning swim, their clothes. Then, after a moment’s silence, one of them would feign indifference and ask, ‘By the way, what did Guy tell you this morning?’
And Rose, eyes lowered, her voice choking with despair, read out the letter that she knew by heart.
‘I am convinced that everything will be all right again. Every day I meet people who have the most up-to-date information; they all agree with me. It will end as it did last September, because, basically, no one wants war. In any case, don’t come back here; that would be silly.’
The women clung on to his words: ‘Every day I meet people who have the most up-to-date information …’ They imagined what they looked like, these serious, solemn men who knew everything, who could predict everything, even the most secret thoughts of their leaders, who had looked deep into their hearts and dreams, and were confident there would be no war. They had to believe them. Yet the news grew worse from hour to hour. It seemed as if the very air they breathed was gradually becoming thinner and thinner. They were suffocating from a feeling of anxiety that was both deadly and cruel.
In the small sitting room the women didn’t speak; the clock slowly ticked. On the radio, a waltz was cut short, as if it had suddenly dropped down into an abyss. A moment of silence … their hearts seemed to stop beating. Rose was playing with her brand-new wedding ring, holding it in her hands, stroking it, studying it; then came the presenter’s voice: ‘Here is a broadcast from French radio …’ The programme ended. ‘Well, nothing new,’ murmured a voice. Someone else said, ‘No … still nothing.’ Rose suddenly stood up, threw a coat over her light dress and went down to the beach. Through the damp night, a semicircle of lights shimmered around the bay. In front of the terrace of a café a group of people stood motionless in the darkness, waiting for the next radio broadcast.
It was the same every day until the order came for general mobilisation. A little girl shouted out from her garden, ‘Mama, can you hear the bells? Is it a holiday?’ Women wept openly on the streets.
The men were calm, some of them laughed. ‘So! It was inevitable. Here we go again,’ they said, shrugging their shoulders.
Rose, who had tried in vain to telephone Paris, came back from the post office dry-eyed, pale, trembling, and looking ten years older. ‘I’m leaving tonight,’ she said. ‘I should get there just in time. He’s not going until the day after tomorrow.’
Already everything had changed so dramatically that this twenty-four-hour delay felt like a blessing.
Twenty-four hours … So much could happen in twenty-four hours, so many kisses, so many tears, such bitter, intense pleasures.
Rose was on the last ‘civilian’ train. There weren’t many women. The mobilised soldiers were heading for their units. Men slept in the corridors, sat perched on packing cases; farmers drank wine in silence, wiped clean the windows with their sleeves and looked out at the farms and little railway stations. Bourgeois and worker spoke to each other, gesticulating energetically. You could catch certain words: ‘Hitler … Italy … England … Munich …’ The farmers either said nothing or spoke quietly among themselves about everyday life, the life they still clung to, the life they would keep with them, hold on to throughout war, or captivity, until the day they died, as if it were the very flesh that covered their bones. ‘… The cow … the potatoes … the fruit … we got a lot this year, a lot …’ They passed trees laden with peaches. ‘Ain’t it awful to see ’em all go to waste,’ they said, ‘but the women will see to them …’
A frail man with worried eyes kept saying over and over again, ‘They called me up. I’m going, but I’m too old to be a soldier. I was in the other one, from 1914 to 1919, in the Dardanelles …’ The other one … the other war … Peop
le said these words in a stunned tone of voice: it was a new phrase. Another war … Twice in one lifetime, it was too much. But everyone was bowed beneath the same destiny, and courage was born out of their communal ordeal.
‘Are you going to Paris?’ an old woman asked Rose. ‘Is it true we’re going to be bombed? Aren’t you afraid?’
She shook her head, ‘no’. The past and the present were strangely and sadly confused in her mind. There was no distinct break: the hopes, habits, feelings, desires of the past clung to her like a bleeding limb that is being amputated, but whose nerves, flesh, muscles remain painfully attached to the body. She looked up at the clear, beautiful sky. ‘When he gets his holiday it will be hot,’ she thought, then, ‘But no … he’s going away … We’re at war.’ When she opened her handbag and took out a bit of bread and some fruit she’d brought, for she hadn’t had lunch and was starving, she found a sample of printed silk. She had ordered a dress to be sent to her, but now she might never wear it, he might never see it.
‘Why are you going to Paris?’ the old woman asked with curiosity.
‘I want to see my husband,’ she replied.
‘Well, I’m going to get my sheets,’ said the old woman. ‘What if the house is bombed, just think of it. Sheets that belonged to my mother.’
Everyone who could remember the other war was talking about it. ‘It won’t be the same, this time. We’re strong now … we have cannons and planes.’
When the train stopped at the stations, people leaned out of the windows; they looked at the soldiers guarding the tracks with curiosity; the moonlight lit up their helmets and belts, making them shine, and the barrels of their rifles gleamed with a bluish light. Convoys of women and children fleeing Paris headed for the centre of France. The train started off again. In the starlit skies, people looked for the first planes.
Rose slept for a few hours. When she woke up it was daybreak. Some horses were walking through a village.
‘They’re requisitioning them,’ someone said.
Like a millstone constantly in motion, the idea of war crushed their hearts. At every moment you could see it, you could breathe it; war was present in every action, every word, every thought. At the station in Paris the trains were besieged by mobs of people, children were passed through the windows of the packed compartments. By contrast, the streets were calm. But nowhere could the soul find a moment’s respite; everything evoked the same thought: ‘We’re at war … war … war …’
Passers-by held gas masks in their hands, but apart from that, nothing had changed. Flowers were sold on the street corners. Housewives bought cherries. Children ran about. At the door of her house Rose stopped, her heart pounding; she looked up for a moment at the window of her bedroom on the third floor. She was suddenly worried that Guy might scold her for coming back. Slowly she climbed the stairs; the lift wasn’t working. She rang the bell. She could hear Guy’s footsteps on the bare floor. She closed her eyes so she could hear him more clearly, so the sound was engraved in her mind, never to be forgotten. She imagined that she would throw herself into his arms, hold him close and cry out, ‘Don’t go! I don’t want you to go. I want to keep you with me.’ But war was already hardening everyone’s soul. So when the door opened she smiled at him and said softly, ‘It’s me. Don’t be angry.’
Then she took off her hat and asked, ‘Is it really war this time?’
He looked at her in silence.
It really was war.
25
The men had gone. There had been no shouting, no singing, no flowers. Their children had gone. All alone, the women did their women’s chores. They organised the house; they put the summer clothes in trunks up in the attic. Rose, Agnès and Colette were working together. Agnès and Colette had come back from Wimereux a few hours before Guy left. They didn’t cry. The war was already trying to create its own legend. It was understood that the women had to prove themselves worthy of the soldiers through their calmness, their courage, their blind confidence that fate would smile on them. For Agnès it was easier; she had played this role before. For four years she had lowered her head, waited, fought back her tears in silence, smiled at young and old; she had hoped. But for the younger women it was all much harder. Stubborn, anxious, passionate, they had believed until now that it was easy to control their destiny. Rose had felt proud of her strength and youth: running away from home, refusing to obey her mother, marrying the man she chose. And here she was, defeated, having lost everything. She felt hopeless rage, a blinding bitterness that encompassed the entire universe. Alone in her room, she shook her fist at the blue sky. How high and luminous it was, this summer sky. Pigeons cooed on the balcony. Evening came slowly, so slowly. Like blind fish drifting through transparent water, the silver barrage balloons floated up into the green-gold air. Agnès was taping on to the windows the strips of paper that people hoped would provide some protection from the falling bombs. Rose was lying on her unmade metal bed, biting into the pillow to muffle her sobs.
Colette went into her sister-in-law’s room. ‘Come on, my dear Rose, don’t stay in here. Come on …’
Rose looked at her and shook her head. ‘How I envy you. How lucky you are. You don’t have anyone out there!’
‘But there’s Guy …’
‘Oh, a brother, what’s a brother? It’s sad, of course, and I know you love him. But Colette, if you only knew how I …’
In a sudden movement that made Colette blush and seemed almost improper, Rose struck her bare breasts with her fists. ‘I feel as if my heart is being torn out,’ she said more quietly.
Colette threw herself down on to her knees beside the bed. ‘There isn’t only Guy,’ she said, holding Rose’s hand and pressing it to her cheek, ‘there’s someone else …’
Rose wasn’t listening. Only one love counted for her: her own. Gradually, she calmed down. She didn’t want to hurt Colette’s feelings. ‘Someone else?’ she asked apathetically.
Colette whispered a name. ‘You don’t know him,’ she added. ‘I met him last winter. We met at Wimereux. In that godforsaken place, it was inevitable, you can see that; we were always together … But it would have remained just a friendship, a deep friendship, if it hadn’t been for those last few days … those last few hours … And so, he said … he said …’ She lowered her eyes, toyed nervously with a little gold bracelet she was wearing. ‘He said … “I can’t live without you …” and we got engaged,’ she concluded, her voice trembling.
She waited for Rose to reply.
‘Congratulations, darling,’ said Rose automatically, all the while thinking, ‘Why is she talking about engagement and love? How can she possibly understand? Only Guy and I know, only we really know.’
But she gave Colette a light kiss on the cheek. ‘I’m very happy for you,’ she said.
‘But he’s gone,’ said Colette softly. ‘He’ll come back, I’m sure of that, he’ll come back. Intuition, you know … it’s usually right, isn’t it?’ she asked with burning, naïve hope. ‘Do you believe in premonitions? You know, when I first saw him last year, I felt as if someone were clutching my heart, tightly and softly, both at the same time, I can’t explain it, like when you’re holding a bird in your hand and you don’t want it to get away but you don’t want to hurt it either … you know? Oh, I’m being ridiculous, but I swear to you I felt and understood that he was the one, he and he alone.’ She said the words quietly: ‘He … he …’ Then she fell silent, covering her eyes with her hand.
‘What if I’m wrong, in spite of everything, what if he doesn’t come back, if he dies without having had me as his wife … Oh, I would have liked to … just once, just once … At least I’d have that.’
‘No, don’t say that. You don’t know what you’re saying. You mustn’t speak of such things, you have no idea what you’ve lost.’
Colette stood up, went over to the window and looked out at the empty street.
‘Have you spoken to your parents?’ asked Rose.
&n
bsp; ‘No,’ replied Colette without turning round.
‘Why not?’
‘I daren’t. Not now. Oh, they won’t be unhappy. But … already Mama suspects and seems to be asking, “What can she see in him?” I don’t want to talk to her about it yet. With you, it’s different. You understand.’
‘Yes,’ said Rose wearily. She stood up, put on her coat. ‘Come on. Let’s go out. It smells of mothballs in here. It’s dark and depressing. Come on.’
They left and wandered about aimlessly. It was hot outside. They were carrying their gas masks and felt ridiculous. Rose automatically studied all the women who passed and thought, ‘She has someone out there. But that one doesn’t.’
It was in their eyes, on their faces, in their vaguely absent expression; they looked as if only their female bodies remained while their souls were far away, following a train full of men, or a truck as it travelled down a road. Two young girls ran by, laughing. Behind them were an elderly couple.
‘Suzanne! Charlotte!’ their mother called out. ‘Behave yourselves now. Don’t be so insensitive.’
‘But we don’t have anyone going. Don’t make us stop laughing.’
Rose went white and stopped.
‘Let’s go home,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s too hot. I don’t feel well.’
All the Parisians were saying they would be bombed that very night. They waited, without real fear, but with curious fascination, as a bird waits for a snake to appear. You can’t run away, but the danger seems too unbelievable. You can’t understand it; you can’t imagine it. ‘Whatever happens, happens,’ everyone said.
That night, for the first time, they heard the sirens, that sound of rushing air that seems to rise up from the horizon, hurry towards you, growl like a storm, then moan, cry, whimper: ‘All I can do is warn you. Escape! Death approaches. You are helpless. Run!’ That night, almost everyone went down into the cellars. It was the first time. People laughed, showed off, felt pride in their hearts to be soldiers like the others. Ah, no one could say that the country was divided in two any more, as it was in 1914, with some who died and the others who profited from their deaths: everyone was equal, everyone was fighting, they were all risking their lives.