Charlotte smiled. ‘What about the clothes in the window? Are they for sale? How much for the dress? A whole pig?’
‘At least. Made into ham, into chops and black puddings. One could begin with the belly roasted in sea-salt, or the liver fried with onions in butter and olive oil.’
Charlotte eventually persuaded him to accept some of her G Section bank notes in return for two pairs of silk drawers and the woollen dress. He made them all into a parcel and tied it with string, carefully knotting and snipping, as though he knew it might be all the work he had that day.
The winter sun was still bright when Charlotte stepped out of the shop and began walking. She had plenty of time before taking the two o’clock train and intended to look at the cathedral, but was sidetracked by the noise of a crowd. She followed the sound into a square she recognised as the one obliquely visible from her bedroom when she had spent that first night in Limoges. A man with a megaphone was standing on the steps of a monument and addressing about three hundred people, many of whom carried placards and flags.
Charlotte moved to the edge of the crowd, from which she sensed a surprising degree of animation.
The word ‘assassins’ was used frequently by the speaker and was angrily echoed by the crowd. It took Charlotte some time before she understood that the object of this term and the focus of the crowd’s hatred were the men of the RAF. She was startled at the passion they evoked. Their bombing raids over France had killed hundreds of civilians, according to the speaker, and all of the deaths were quite unnecessary. ‘They say they’re destroying German installations and French factories that supply the German war effort, but that’s a lie. The English have always been our enemies and the Monster Churchill is prolonging the war for his own selfish ends! This is war for Wall Street, war for the City of London, war for the Israelites!’
The name of Churchill was greeted by a wide range of expletives from the throaty crowd, the most common of which was ‘Jew’. A couple of drums started up a regular beat, though the people could not decide whether the chant should be ‘RAF-Assassins’ or ‘Churchill, de Gaulle – Jew!’: the first had a good hammering rhythm, but the latter had a catchy, iambic quality. Charlotte looked at some of the banners and placards being waved and saw the usual demonic faces of ringleted, black-coated figures, depicted in the act of thieving, hoarding and plotting in connivance with the British, Russians and Americans. One had a photograph of a Lancaster bomber imaginatively decked out with stars of David.
Poor Gregory, Charlotte thought as she moved quietly away from the square. She glanced back once over her shoulder at the crowd, whose breath was making angry statues in the freezing air.
By five o’clock she was back in Lavaurette. Pauline Bobotte told her that Monsieur Levade was busy, so she left some packages of food she had brought for dinner at the desk and made her way slowly towards the public baths. The thought of the drop that evening had chased away the bitterness she felt at watching the demonstration: the people who would hold the torches in the field did not see things in that way; nor did Antoinette, patiently tapping out her messages in the drizzly hills of Ussel.
The public baths had been installed eight years earlier by a socialist mayor anxious that Lavaurette should move with the times. They had become popular during the fuel shortages, though even now they were disdained by the town’s élite who preferred to wash in cold water or not at all than to mingle with the shopkeepers and the proletariat.
In the tiled vestibule Charlotte was given a ticket and a towel by an old woman stationed in a glass-fronted box. On the opposite wall was a giant framed photograph of Marshal Pétain, looking down indulgently on his clean people; beneath it, to the words Work, Family, Fatherland, a local signwriter had neatly added: Hygiene.
Although it was only a few minutes after six, the baths were already almost full. A long, concrete-floored space had eight tubs on either side, and was divided down the middle by wooden benches with attached rails at head height on which were hooks for clothes and towels. Charlotte could taste on her tongue the steam that rose up against the cold air and made it difficult to see if there was room for her. She walked along the duckboards until she came to a free place, where she put her parcel on the bench and began to undress.
As she quickly slipped Dominique’s brassière over her shoulders and ran it down her arms, she found herself addressed by a naked Mlle Cariteau, who was about to climb into the bath next to her. Charlotte was unsure of the etiquette and found herself blushing, unseen, in the steam. Sylvie Cariteau was making conversation in the positive and factual manner she favoured in the post office and Charlotte did her best to respond in the same style.
Sylvie Cariteau turned away and walked round her bath to feel the temperature of the water. Charlotte watched the departure of her strong back and solid haunches with relief as she quickly finished undressing and climbed into the high-sided bath. On her other side was Madame Galliot from the ironmongery, though without her glasses and with her hair let down her back it was a moment before Charlotte recognised her. Naked, she seemed younger and less formidable. She walked up beside Charlotte’s bath and leaned over to take one of the bars of soap that were perched on the taps. As she did so, Charlotte’s eye took in Madame Galliot’s torso and the huge lower expanse of black hair which looked for a moment like the giant sporran of some fabulously virile clan. Charlotte lowered her head and splashed water into her face.
Above the thunder of water on porcelain and the swishing waves of women mixing hot and cold inside their tubs, there were shouted conversations and splashing. Charlotte could make out Pauline Bobotte’s plump, shiny body with its pointed breasts and roll of fat around the middle that no privations appeared to have threatened. As she vigorously dried herself, the flesh of her buttocks wobbled like that of a woman in a Rubens painting, and Charlotte wondered if this was what men liked. Would Gregory like it? He would certainly enjoy being here, she thought, though he would have noted sadly the absence of Madame Galliot’s daughter. Perhaps Irène was too proud to take her clothes off in front of other people.
Cakes of soap, so severely rationed outside, were in abundance here; they smelt of something harsh and chemical, but there were plenty of the palm-sized pink bricks. Charlotte washed with luxurious pleasure in the deep water, replenished from the unlimited supply, and when there was no reason to prolong her immersion, she reluctantly stood up and turned towards the central bench.
She had lost weight in the months she had been in France, though to her irritation it had gone from her hands, her feet, her cheeks, places from which she had no need to lose it. She was aware that above each hip-bone there was still a little surplus flesh and that a slight roundness persisted in her belly, even though the ribs above were protuberant. As she stood by the bench and raised her leg to dry her thighs and her knees with their fine bones, Charlotte found that she was staring at Pauline Benoit, naked except for her cherry lipstick and a ribbon in her hair, or rather that Pauline was staring at her, and in particular at her groin. Charlotte followed the other woman’s eyes to the thin, inverted plume of golden hair that her raised leg only half concealed; then she looked back at Pauline, saw her eyes now on her face and on the dark, cropped coiffure. She understood what had intrigued Pauline. After almost five months in France, it was the first evidence of a mistake by G Section.
When she had put on the new dress, she took the rest of her clothes out to the washroom that adjoined the baths, where she towelled her hair vigorously and tried to arrange it in the mirror. Sylvie Cariteau combed her black bob and smiled her candid smile at Charlotte.
‘Will you come and have a glass at my house after dinner with Monsieur Levade?’
‘Thank you.’
‘To wish you good luck.’
In the vestibule, Charlotte wrapped her coat about her, put on her scarf and handed in the sopping towel. It was not far to Julien’s apartment, and for the first time ever, unless Pauline Benoit was going to run naked across
the Place de l’Eglise, she would reach the staircase unchallenged.
‘My God, Danièle, you look wonderful,’ said Julien when Charlotte stepped into his apartment. ‘You remember César, don’t you?’
The head boy of the lycée stood up and held out his big hand to be shaken, apparently not daring to offer his cheek; Charlotte kissed him anyway and accepted the glass Julien held out to her.
‘We’re expecting a couple more for dinner,’ said Julien. ‘Lepidus is bringing some pâté and Antony is supposed to have a pear tart. Don’t ask how they manage it.’
‘What am I drinking?’ said Charlotte.
‘It’s an alcohol made from apples, a sort of local calvados. Madame Benoit gave it to me. It’s a little rough, I’m afraid, but I haven’t been able to get much wine. I like your dress. Was that from the shop Pauline told you about?’
‘Yes. It makes me look a bit like my mother, but it was the best they could do. Is everything all right for tonight?’
‘Yes, there was confirmation on the BBC. It’s not till midnight, but I want us to be there by half past ten. We’ll meet the others there. We’ve got a new man in to replace Auguste.’
‘Good,’ said Charlotte. ‘Don’t tell me his name. Caligula?’
‘This is a serious business, Madame. As a matter of fact it’s Tiberius.’
‘I knew it was only a matter of time before you reached the perverts.’
‘That’s enough. César, amuse Danièle, please, while I finish making dinner. I have a little surprise for you.’
The prospect of action seemed to have restored Julien’s old humour and Charlotte heard him singing as he clattered about in the kitchen. Antony and Lepidus arrived together, bringing their promised contributions, which they laid on the table before helping themselves eagerly to Madame Benoit’s apple spirit. Antony was a plump man with thick-rimmed glasses whom Charlotte recognised, though she did not say so, as the local optician. Lepidus, the third member of the peculiar triumvirate, was well into his seventies, red-faced, and with a hand that shook so badly that he had to steady it with the other when he clasped his brimming glass. A minute or so later his eyes were still watering, but his hand was calm.
Julien’s surprise turned out to be a brace of rabbits he had shot in the grounds of the Domaine that morning. He had prepared them in a sauce whose main ingredient was mustard, referred to on its packet by the new régime as ‘condiment’. He had put some of the rice with the offal to make a stuffing and served some macaroni on the side in place of potatoes, or ‘feculents’ as the ration-masters called them. There was also a small heap of something orange which even in their extreme hunger Julien’s guests treated cautiously.
‘They call it “rutabaga”,’ Julien explained to Antony, who had lifted a forkful up to his spectacles for closer examination. ‘I think it’s something they normally give to cattle. The commissars of Vichy have strongly recommended it to their loyal, hungry people.’
‘Hmm,’ said Antony, inspecting the blob on the end of his fork. ‘I don’t suppose it features very often on the menus at the Hôtel du Parc.’
‘I dare say not,’ said Julien.
Even César, with the appetite of three men, managed only a little of the curious vegetable. Charlotte, who recognised it as swede, wanted to tell them that where she came from it was considered a delicacy when accompanying the haggis; but as Danièle she could only shrug and share their puzzled revulsion. Julien poured wine into glasses that were always empty and pushed affirmatively towards his bottle. Watching Lepidus’s lip hook avidly over the rim of his glass and suck, Charlotte wondered to what extent political idealism was his motive in risking his life on a freezing winter’s night.
Reaching the agreed drop zone was no longer the simple matter it had been before the advent of the Germans. They left the house separately, at a quarter to ten in order to beat the curfew, and were instructed by Julien to make their own way to the farm, without lights on their bicycles. ‘You can come with me, Danièle,’ he said. ‘We’ll bring up the rear.’
As Charlotte free-wheeled down the Place de l’Eglise, the wind whistling through the insubstantial fabric of Dominique’s overcoat, she was aware both of how much she had drunk and of the fact that, whatever the amount, it was less than half that consumed by any of the others. She followed Julien to Madame Cariteau’s house on the main road.
‘We’ve got half an hour,’ said Julien, rapping on the glass of the back door.
Sylvie Cariteau, her hair shiny from the effects of the pink carbolic soap, let them into the kitchen where she had set out six glasses on the cleared and scrubbed table. In answer to her daughter’s call, Madame Cariteau appeared at the door to the main part of the house with André and Jacob.
‘I don’t know what all this is about,’ the old woman muttered, ‘and I don’t think I want to know, I’m a loyal citizen. Sylvie doesn’t tell me anything.’
‘We should have a song. A song from each of us,’ said Sylvie Cariteau, and sat down at the piano. ‘Who’ll go first?’
‘Madame, Madame, you go,’ said André, looking up at Charlotte.
‘I think you have an admirer,’ said Mlle Cariteau.
The only song Charlotte could think of was ‘Alouette’, which she sang, with some help with the words from Sylvie and André. Julien drained another glass before starting up an old folk song about a man who was jealous of his wife but was cuckolded all the same. Madame Cariteau’s clucking disapproval was drowned by a chorus full of ‘la-la-las’ with which the boys were able to join in.
Madame Cariteau walked over to the piano and folded her arms across her chest. She launched herself precipitately into something that her daughter was not expecting, and there were some family words before they agreed to start again.
Madame Cariteau’s voice, once it had found the right key, turned out to be surprisingly clear and firm; no trace of self-consciousness blurred the high notes of the traditional song she had chosen. Looking at the old woman’s stout, worn body, Charlotte was amazed by the youthful purity that had been preserved intact within it; it was like watching a clear stream erupt from dark, decaying undergrowth. The chorus went: ‘But then I was young and the leaves were green/Now the corn is cut and the little boat sailed away.’ It was a song of the most self-admiring sentimentality about the different ages of a man’s life. One of the verses began: ‘One day the young men came back from the war, the corn was high and our sweethearts were waiting . . .’, and there was a silence in the Cariteaus’ kitchen as though the music had exceeded the sum of its modest parts. Charlotte could not help thinking of Madame Cariteau’s husband and of all the men who did not come back for Sylvie. She found tears filling her eyes and was appalled both by the feeling and by her lack of musical taste.
Julien called out a virile ‘bravo’ to break the mood and brought Jacob forward to the piano. He sang a tune he had learned at school, though his shyness made it difficult to understand. It was something about ‘To the right, to the left, please take my hand, and come and dance, and . . .’, but after two or three attempts the words seemed to peter out at this point.
Sylvie Cariteau sang a canon by Bach, her voice oddly coarser than her old mother’s. Finally, André sang all the many verses of the story of a little ship that had never sailed and set off on a long voyage. The chorus involved Julien conducting with the empty wine bottle: ‘Sailors sail upon the waves!’ It went down so well with the boys that they had to go through it again.
On the final note, Julien embraced both women warmly, kissed the boys, took Charlotte by the elbow and out into the night. They were ten minutes up the road before Charlotte had caught her breath.
In the farmhouse they met the other members of the group, standing round beneath the lanterns hung from the beam of the kitchen, smacking their upper arms with their gloved hands, drinking from coffee cups and enamel mugs they filled from an unlabelled bottle on the table. Charlotte watched in disbelief as César, Lepidus and Antony helped
themselves again. One of the other men produced a dry sausage, which he cut into lengths and handed round. A youngish man with curly hair and a beard took a pistol from his jacket, emptied the bullets into his hand, twirled round the empty chamber, held it up to the lantern, checked the sights and carefully reloaded it. Most of the others had firearms of some kind. Charlotte knotted her headscarf more tightly under her chin and smiled at César as she declined his offer of a sunflower-leaf cigarette. The men muttered and growled at each other as they shrugged, lit cigarettes and occasionally punched one another on the shoulder.
On the bare table Julien placed two cups to show the location of the farm building and of a barn the other side of the drop zone. Then he drew tracks in the wood with his finger to show the plane’s path and the line that the men’s torches must make. It was a large bomber, he didn’t know what make, but it would be heaving out sixteen containers into the void. It was dangerous to be underneath because of the weight of what was coming down, so no one was to move a pace from his designated spot.
‘Listen,’ said one of the men, slightly less agricultural-looking than the others, ‘my brother-in-law was in the air force and I know a thing or two about flying. The chances of a bomber finding that little clearing and being able to drop on the lights you’ve described – it’s hopeless.’
Julien smiled tolerantly. ‘They’ve done it before.’
‘Just on co-ordinates and a couple of torches, you don’t think—’
‘If you don’t want to take part, you can leave now. Go on.’
The man shrugged and puffed for a moment, but stood his ground. ‘It’s all right. I’ll stay.’
‘Good.’ Julien turned to a small man who looked from his torn clothes and bedraggled appearance as though he had spent several nights in the woods. He had an unwashed smell that reminded Charlotte of a beggar who had once lurched at her from a doorway in Glasgow, but Julien seemed to defer to his knowledge of the terrain, and particularly of a wood they needed to cross. He told them he had heard the second BBC bulletin and that the drop had been confirmed; they would meet four more volunteers at an agreed clearing in the woods.