After the door had shut, Sandrine lay back on her pillows. What did she want? A steady and workaday arrangement, like Marianne seemed content with? Or the absolute and single-minded devotion Lucie had for Max? Or the loyalty her father had felt for their mother, spending his life mourning a wife who had died eighteen years before?
Sandrine felt a shimmering anticipation under the surface of her skin. It was absurd. Minutes, less than minutes, moments. She hadn’t even seen his face. She knew nothing about him. In her half-waking state, her thoughts tumbled one over the other, racing, falling, soaring as she tried to re-create him. The sound of his voice, the sweet smell of sandalwood on his skin, the touch of his lips on her mouth.
Breathing life back into her.
‡
Codex IV
‡
GAUL
CARCASO
JULY AD 342
Arinius climbed the ladder to the top of the wall between the towers. Over the past days, the limitanei on the first watch of the day had become used to the company of this silent young monk. They nodded a greeting and continued their patrol.
He looked north, over the plain, to the river Atax, shimmering silver in the first light. Then he turned to the south. On clear mornings, before the burning heat of the sun fell over the town in a white haze, the peaks of the distant mountains were visible. Somewhere, someone was singing. A woman’s voice, an old song about exile, about the endless sands of the deserts. About being far from home.
Arinius had become used to the different languages, the various smells of food and wine, the mixture of peoples who made their homes in Carcaso. He no longer heard the murmurings of the Liturgy of the Hours in his mind, but rather the whispering of the wind across the plains, the call of linnets and sparrows. The baleful howl of wolves in the hills at night.
From time to time, he unswaddled his precious cargo and stared at the beauty of the Coptic letters on the papyrus. He read Latin, but none of the other ancient languages. He wished he knew what the words meant, why they were considered so dangerous. But the letters, the pattern of them, the shape, imprinted themselves on his eyes and, through his eyes, on his soul. He feared them and revered them in equal measure.
Arinius felt God spoke to him through every line. His growing grief that Christianity had turned on itself had faded. His sorrow that, after the years of persecution by Rome, the new Church should have adopted the same weapons of oppression and judgement and martyrdom, this too had faded.
Here, in the frontier settlement of Carcaso, he felt at peace, even though the streets were not always tranquil. Arguments flared up easily out of nowhere, weapons drawn, then just as quickly sheathed. It felt like home and it saddened him that he had to leave. Even though his health had improved, the racking cough that tore through his thin frame and made his ribs ache was a constant reminder of how the illness still crouched within him. He did not believe he would live to make old bones.
Arinius was not afraid to die, though he feared the journey itself might kill him. All he could hope was God might grant him the time to ensure that the Codex was safe. In the future, in better times, he prayed, the holy words would be found and read, honoured and understood. Spoken as he had heard them spoken in the stone silence of the community in Lugdunum.
Arinius stood for a while longer, looking south towards the mountains, wondering what lay ahead.
‡
Chapter 22
CARCASSONNE
JULY 1942
The man known as Leo Coursan knelt at the screen in the confessional in the cathédrale Saint-Michel, aware of the presence of the priest behind the grille.
‘O God,’ he continued, ‘I am sorry for having offended you and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell. But most of all because I have offended you, my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of your grace, to confess my sins, to do penance and to amend my life. Amen.’
His hand went to the silver crucifix pinned to his left lapel. He had been obliged not to wear so visible a sign of his faith over the past few months and had felt naked without it. He had been forced to take on another name, another man’s characteristics, and he had played his part well. Finally, this morning, he could return to himself once again.
The cathedral was deserted at this time of day. The only sounds were the song of the birds in the lime trees lining the boulevard Barbès. The plaster figures of St Bernard and St Benoît listened to him in contemplative silence.
‘I have dissembled and lied for the purpose of bringing the enemies of the Church into plain view. I have consorted with those who deny God. I have neglected my spiritual salvation.’ He paused. ‘I am sorry for these and all the sins of my past life.’
His confession seemed to hang like mist in the air. The silence from behind the screen was deafening, so palpable that he almost felt he could reach out and touch it. Then, an intake of breath and the priest began to speak. A low, steady collection of vowels and syllables, intoned so very many times before, though he could hear the fear in the man’s voice.
The words of absolution and forgiveness washed over him as white sound. He felt a lightness in his limbs, coursing through his veins, a sense of grace and of peace and the deep and certain knowledge that today he was doing God’s work.
‘Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.’
He could hear the relief in the priest’s voice as he came to the end of the ritual.
‘For His mercy endures for ever,’ Coursan gave the response.
He made the sign of the cross, then stood up. He ran his hand over his newly cut hair, straightened his jacket and his trousers, then leant forward and whispered through the grille.
‘Remain where you are for five minutes. Then leave and lock the cathedral behind you. Allow no one access today.’
‘I cannot possibly—’
He smacked the wire mesh with his hand. The sound was loud, discordant, violent in the confined confessional. He felt the priest flinch behind the wire.
‘Do it,’ he said in a cold, level voice. ‘You will thank me for this, Father. I give you my word.’
He pulled back the curtain, feeling the dust and imprint of ages in the thick material. Left, right, left, the heels of his shoes clipping loudly on the stone floor. He stopped, turned back to the altar, towards the rising sun, and made the sign of the cross with the holy water from the bénitier. Then he pulled open the heavy wooden door and rejoined the world.
For an instant, he paused and looked out over the Garden of Remembrance. To the stone plaques of the war memorial commemorating the men of Carcassonne who’d given their lives in the Grande Guerre. He regretted the damage that would be done in this honoured place, but it was unavoidable.
He put his hands to his face, relishing the feel of smooth, clean skin, after the weeks of not shaving properly. It was Leo Coursan, partisan, Occitan freedom fighter, who had entered the cathedral. A borrowed identity, stolen from a murdered man. It was Leo Authié, member of the Deuxième Bureau and servant of God, who left it and walked out into the early morning sun.
Chapter 23
Raoul woke with a jolt. He had slept badly, his dreams haunted by Antoine and the girl, the sense of being too late. Always too late, failing to prevent some catastrophe or another. Arriving to find her dead in the water. His brother’s tortured face shifting into Antoine’s features. Antoine’s silver chain in the girl’s fingers. Coursan and César sitting at separate tables in a bar.
His hand shot out to his bedside table, checking the antique glass bottle was still there, lying wrapped in the handkerchief, then he slumped back against the headboard. He could see there was something inside the bottle, but had resisted the temptation last night to try to get it out. It was so fragile, he didn’t want to damage whatever Antoine had hidden inside. He’d see what César thought.
Raoul lit his last cigarette, smoking it to the very end, then got up, washed and wen
t into the kitchen. His mother was already there, standing at the window. Her blank eyes looked blindly out over the narrow street to the canal. Her thin arms were wrapped tight around her waist, as if she feared that if she let go she would shatter into pieces. In the sink, the tap was running into a china bowl filled with turnips.
For a moment, Raoul thought he saw her lips begin to form a smile or try to shape a greeting or acknowledge his presence, but she didn’t. He kissed her on the cheek, then leant over and turned the tap off.
‘I have to go out,’ he said. ‘Will you be all right?’
‘Is he here yet?’
‘No, there’s no one, Maman.’
‘Not Bruno?’
Raoul felt his heart contract, though he’d not expected anything else. It was the same every day. His once vivacious and kind mother had vanished when he’d told her Bruno had been killed. At first she hadn’t believed it. Then, slowly and remorselessly, her world had begun to unravel, a little more every day, every week, every month.
Four years ago.
‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘Only us.’
Now she rarely spoke, never seemed to notice anything. A neighbour came in each day to keep an eye and to do a little shopping, but Raoul didn’t know if she even noticed. If she even knew a war had been fought and lost.
‘Don’t stay indoors all day,’ he said. ‘Go out, get some air.’
Raoul left the apartment and ran down the stairs, two at a time. On the Quai Riquet, he exhaled deeply, breathing out the sadness that choked his lungs, and let the sun and the soft morning air bring life back into his cheeks.
By seven thirty, he was sitting in the Café Saillan. The oldest café in Carcassonne, it was opposite Les Halles and only a few minutes’ walk from boulevard Barbès, where the demonstrators were to gather. The air was thick with tobacco smoke and the grey faces of men come off the night shift. Hard-boiled eggs sat in a glass jar on the bar, as they always had, though these days they were china, not real.
Raoul found a table facing the door and ordered a panaché, not able to stomach the ersatz coffee on offer. He was queasy with nerves as it was. He scanned the room, wondering how many of the men in here were going to the demonstration. How many of them even knew what was about to happen. It was extraordinary how a day of such significance could look the same as any other, smell the same. Men in the tabac, women already queuing outside the boulangerie, the épicerie, a few standing in line outside the closed door of the haberdasher.
He raised his hand as he saw César appear in the doorway carrying a holdall. He looked drawn and there were bags under his eyes.
‘No Gaston or Robert?’ César asked, sitting down.
Raoul shook his head. ‘Not yet. I waited for you at the Terminus last night, later at the Continental, in case you went back to the print shop. I didn’t see you.’
César’s eyes sparked. ‘Did you find Antoine then?’
Raoul shook his head. ‘No. I went to the apartment straight after I left you. The concierge said she heard someone early yesterday morning, but didn’t actually see him. What about you?’
César sighed. ‘No luck either. Antoine didn’t turn up at work yesterday. I tried his usual bars, but no one admitted to seeing him since last Friday.’
Raoul paused, then produced the white cotton handkerchief from his pocket with the bottle wrapped inside.
‘I don’t know if it’s important, but I found this in Antoine’s flat. It was hidden in the cistern.’
César frowned. ‘In the cistern?’
Raoul nodded. ‘That’s why I took it. Antoine had gone to a lot of trouble to conceal it. I thought it might be important.’ He looked across the table at César. ‘It doesn’t mean anything to you? He never mentioned he was looking after something for someone?’
César shook his head.
‘There’s something inside, a piece of paper maybe. I’ve been thinking we should try to get it out.’
‘The bottle looks valuable,’ César said doubtfully. ‘It might break.’
‘That’s what worries me. On the other hand, if what’s inside might—’
He broke off. César’s eyes had sharpened, his face settling into a scowl. Raoul turned round to see Sylvère Laval walking towards them, followed by the Bonnets. Quickly, he slipped the handkerchief and the bottle off the table and back into his pocket.
‘Got the leaflets?’ Gaston said when they drew level.
‘For Christ’s sake, Bonnet,’ snapped César, ‘don’t broadcast it.’
‘It’s been all over the radio as it is,’ Gaston said, but he lit a cigarette and shut up.
The group sat in silence. Laval watched the street. Gaston twisted a spent match round and round between his finger and thumb. Robert was tearing tiny shreds of paper from the corner of a copy of L’Éclair, another Vichyist newspaper.
Anticipation crawled over Raoul’s skin like pins and needles. He wanted to get on with it. Seven forty-five, seven fifty-five. The hands of the clock above the counter ground slowly on, counting down the minutes to eight o’clock.
Finally Laval stood up. ‘Time to go.’
Chapter 24
Sandrine looked at the drift of clothes heaped along the back of the Chinese silk settee, the discarded shoes on the floor by the bamboo plant stand. She had slept well for once – no nightmares – and she was full of anticipation.
‘Darling, are you ready?’ Marianne called up the stairs.
‘Almost . . .’
She settled on a green dress with a white belt and buttons, which she thought made her look older. She paused for a moment to look at her reflection. The bruise on the side of her head was the colour of the sea at Narbonne in July, blue and green and purple, but the cut barely showed. She applied a little face powder, ran a comb through her hair, then began to search for a suitable pair of shoes.
‘Sandrine!’
‘J’arrive,’ she shouted back. ‘I’m coming . . .’
She buckled her shoes, then threw open the door and charged out on to the landing. The catch bounced in the latch and a funnel of warm air rushed into the room. It lifted the papers, her notes written in the police station and left abandoned on the tallboy, and sent them fluttering like a drift of autumn leaves. Sandrine picked them up and dropped them on the bed, then rushed back out.
The front door was open and Marianne was already waiting in the street. Marieta was hovering at the foot of the stairs.
‘You stay with your sister,’ she said. ‘Don’t do anything silly.’
‘I won’t, I won’t,’ Sandrine said, trying to get past her.
‘And don’t go getting yourself arrested again.’
Sandrine pulled a face. ‘I wasn’t arrested yesterday.’
‘The first sign of trouble, you come home. Do you hear me?’
Sandrine grinned. ‘And you put your feet up, do you hear me? You look all in.’
Then before Marieta could make any more fuss, Sandrine slipped past her and down the steps to the pavement.
‘I’m sorry. Marieta was fussing, though I think she’s proud of us actually.’ She jerked her head. ‘Which is more than can be said for that old witch next door.’
Marianne followed Sandrine’s gaze to see their next-door neighbour, Madame Fournier, peering out from behind a voile curtain.
‘She’s an awful woman,’ she said. ‘Take no notice.’
The rue du Palais was quiet. But as soon as the girls reached the boulevard Maréchal Pétain, it was clear many Carcassonnais had heard the illicit broadcast or been told of it. Everywhere, people.
‘Where are we meeting Lucie?’ Sandrine said, raising her voice to make herself heard over the noise of the crowd.
‘At the junction with rue Voltaire.’
Despite the serious purpose of the rally, there was something of a carnival atmosphere. Women in summer dresses, bare arms and flowered skirts, the clip of heels on the pavements. Men in their Sunday best, hats perched on the back of their hea
ds, children carried on shoulders. As well as placards, there were flags – the red, white and blue of the murdered Republic, but also the scarlet and gold of the Languedoc. The colours of Viscount Trencavel. Some men had bottles of beer, women carried trays of cake or bread, biscuits, bonbons, each willing to share their meagre rations with those around them. For today, at least.
Sandrine felt a tap on the arm. She turned to see one of the teachers from the Lycée, a quiet and rather serious woman who taught the première. She had an idea she was married to a doctor.
‘Madame Giraud, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.’
The woman held up her hand. ‘Aujourd’hui, appelez-moi Jeanne,’ she replied.
Seeing her out of school, Sandrine realised Madame Giraud wasn’t actually much older than Marianne.
‘All right,’ she smiled. ‘Jeanne.’
‘It’s good to see you here, Sandrine.’
The crowd was continuing to build. Many people carried banners, words printed in block letters: ICI FRANCE, ICI LONDRES, VIVE LA RÉSISTANCE, VIVRE LIBRE OU MOURIR.
‘Live free or die,’ Sandrine said, reading a placard carried by a veteran. She smiled at him. The medals pinned to his black jacket rattled as he leant forward and clasped her arm.
‘I fought at Verdun, mademoiselle,’ he said. ‘But not for Vichy. Not for Berlin.’ He waved at the people all round him. ‘Today at least, today Carcassonne shows her true face.’ He put his hand up and touched her cheek. ‘It is up to you now. Old men should be put out to grass. Leave it to the young.’
‘We’ll do our best,’ she said, oddly moved by the exchange.
At that moment, the marchers began to move off. The old man nodded to her, then raised his placard and, with his eyes fixed straight ahead, walked on.
Sandrine and Marianne turned the corner into boulevard Barbès, where the crowds were even denser, more tightly packed. Chalk marks had been drawn on the road. Slogans and symbols, the Cross of Lorraine and the Occitan cross, the letters FFL – for les Forces Françaises Libres – and the letter H for Honneur. White marks of defiance on the grey tarmac. Men outnumbered the women here, men with dark jumping eyes and thin shoulders, scanning the crowd. And lining the route along the pavements Sandrine saw a line of police, guns cradled in their arms. Watching, all the time watching. She stole a glance at her sister and saw Marianne had noticed too.