There were four major streets, forming the shape of a cross within the walls, with other smaller roads connecting different quadrants of the town. Most of the buildings were tiled rather than the bush and thatch still common in the villages of the south. A small central square, a covered forum, was packed with merchants selling spices and herbs, geese and rabbits in wooden cages, wine, woollen tunics and strips of leather to patch broken sandals and belt fastenings. There was hammering from the forge, where a blacksmith worked on a scrawny bay mare.
Arinius saw many different skin colours and different ways of dressing. Some men wore beards, others had bare faces. Higher-born women with braided hair, jewelled and adorned, the daughters and wives of the Roman garrison commanders and men. Others walked freely with their heads uncovered in the older style, pale woollen tunics worn beneath hooded cloaks. It was hard to say who were natives, the original inhabitants of the land, and who the outsiders.
A fit of coughing caught Arinius by surprise. He doubled over, pressing his hand against his chest until the attack had passed, struggling to get his breath. He looked at his palm, saw spots of blood, and a wave of panic washed through him. He had to keep the illness at bay until the Codex was safe. That was all that mattered. Not his life, only that he fulfilled his mission.
He walked slowly on. He needed to rest. Arinius found a tavern opposite the residence of the garrison commander, an imposing two-storey house with red guttered tegulae forming the roof. Outside, the paved street was littered with clay pots, some broken, meat bones, and figs split and oozing rotting purple flesh, but inside the tavern was clean and it offered board and lodging at a reasonable price.
The formalities observed, Arinius drank two cups of wine, ate a handful of almonds and some hard white goat’s cheese with honey. Afterwards he lay down on the hard wooden bed. He unpinned his mother’s brooch, took off his cloak and used it as a blanket. Then, using his leather bag as a pillow, he folded his hands across his chest and, pressing the Codex close against his skin, Arinius slept.
‡
Chapter 7
CARCASSONNE
JULY 1942
‘She’s coming round.’
A different voice this time. Another man, formal, educated, northern, not a local accent. Not the boy who had whispered to her, not the boy who had kissed her. The memory faded away. The real world returned, cold and hard and colourless.
‘Mademoiselle,’ the Parisian said. ‘Do you know what happened to you? Can you tell us your name?’
Sandrine was aware of the sharp grass, that she was cold and damp. She tried to sit up, but pain exploded at the base of her skull. She attempted to lift her arm, but she had no strength. The muscles and bones could not be made to work.
Then a woman’s voice, sing-song high. ‘Actually, I think I know who she is.’
Sandrine managed to open her eyes. A pretty girl in her early twenties, with blue eyes, ultra-thin brows and blonde waved hair, the colour of corn, curled off her face. She was wearing an orange and red summer print dress, with big white buttons and trim on the collar and sleeves.
‘Aren’t you Marianne Vidal’s sister?’ the girl said.
She nodded, setting her head spinning again.
‘Sandrine,’ she managed to reply. Her name felt thick in her mouth, like wet cloth.
‘Sandrine, that’s it. On the tip of my tongue. Thought I recognised you. I’m Lucie, Lucie Ménard. We met once, at the Café Continental I think it was, a while back. We were going on somewhere, can’t quite remember where.’
Sandrine recalled the evening well. Marianne had been on the terrace and waved her over to meet her friends. Lucie had stood out. She looked like an American movie star. Mad about anything to do with Hollywood, according to Marianne.
‘You were going to a jazz concert at the Terminus.’
Lucie’s face lit up. ‘How about you remembering that!’ She put her arm around Sandrine’s shoulders. ‘You look like you took one heck of a knock. How are you feeling?’
‘Giddy.’ Sandrine put her hand to her head. Something was stinging, raw. Her fingers came away sticky, red. ‘What happened?’
‘We were hoping you could tell us,’ Lucie said.
Sandrine frowned. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘Did you come off your cycle and hit your head?’
‘There are tracks down by the water,’ the man said.
‘Although they’re a little too wide for a cycle,’ Lucie said. ‘More like a motorbike.’
‘No,’ Sandrine said slowly, struggling to remember. ‘No, there was somebody here. He pulled me out of the water.’
‘We didn’t see anyone,’ said Lucie, turning to her companion. ‘Did we?’
‘No.’
Lucie smiled. ‘Sorry, forgot to do the honours. Sandrine, this is my friend Max. Max Blum, Sandrine Vidal.’
‘Mademoiselle Vidal,’ he said formally.
Sandrine took a proper look at the man standing beside Lucie. Tall and slim, slightly stooped as if he spent his life trying to conceal his height. He wore heavy black-framed glasses, a dark suit and sober tie. With black hair just visible beneath the rim of his hat, he looked rather like a bird of prey.
‘Lucky the river’s shallow at this point,’ Lucie continued, ‘given you pitched head first into the water.’
Sandrine looked down at her clothes. Tartan skirt, burgundy jumper, blouse, everything was soaking wet. Dry mud on her feet and ankles. Had she gone into the water? To get the jacket, yes. She had waded in, but only up to her knees. Why was she so wet?
Then she remembered. ‘There was someone in the river. A man. He was drowning, at least that’s what I thought. I pulled him out. There, by the willow, and . . .’ She opened her hand, but there was nothing there now. ‘There was a necklace, a chain, in the pocket of the jacket.’
Finally the shock hit her. She felt a rush of heat, then a sour, bilious taste in her throat. Sandrine flung herself forward, doubled over on the grass on her hands and knees and was sick.
She retched until there was nothing left inside her, then sat back on the grass, her arms and hands resting on her knees. She felt hollow, utterly spent, chilled to the bone despite the warmth of the sun on her face.
‘You’ll feel better now,’ Lucie said sympathetically, looking rather green herself.
Sandrine nodded, knowing she would have felt embarrassed if she didn’t feel so wretched.
‘Any sign of the jacket?’ Lucie called to Max, who had discreetly wandered away.
‘Not yet.’
‘It was caught in the reeds beneath the marsh willow.’ Sandrine pointed. ‘Down there.’
‘I’ll keep looking,’ he said.
‘I dragged him to the bank,’ Sandrine continued. ‘He was lying there.’
Lucie’s eyebrows went up. ‘Hang on, didn’t you say he pulled you out of the water?’
‘No, that was afterwards. Someone else,’ Sandrine said, realising what a muddle it all sounded. ‘Someone else hit me.’
‘You’re telling me you were attacked?’ Lucie said doubtfully.
‘Yes.’
‘Who by?’
‘I don’t know.’
Lucie was frowning. ‘Someone attacked you, then ran off, leaving you to be pulled out of the water by somebody else? Two different men.’
‘Yes,’ said Sandrine, though sounding less sure.
‘And this second man, he ran off too?’
‘Because he heard the car,’ Sandrine said. ‘I heard it too, the engine. Or the motorbike.’ She stopped, suddenly not sure of the order in which things had happened. ‘No, a car.’ She looked up at Lucie. ‘Your car, he heard you coming and—’
‘Why would he bolt unless he’d done something wrong?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s what happened, I’m not making it up.’
Lucie smiled. ‘Hey, kid, it’s not that I think you’re making it up, but you did bash your head pretty b
adly. Bound to be muddled.’
Max came back. ‘There’s nothing there. I looked all around and in the water. No jacket, nothing resembling the piece of jewellery you described.’ He paused. ‘No . . . person.’
‘But he must be there. He was hurt, badly hurt. Unconscious, maybe . . . He wasn’t capable of going anywhere.’
Sandrine looked at them. Max’s hawk-like face was thoughtful, calm. Lucie was concerned and sympathetic. But it was clear that neither of them believed her.
‘I’m not making it up,’ she said again. ‘He was unconscious, he half woke up, but then someone else came . . .’
Lucie stood up and straightened her dress. ‘Come on, we should take you home,’ she said. ‘Get you out of those wet clothes.’
Sandrine was sure she hadn’t imagined it, she couldn’t have. Her aching muscles were testament to that. She looked over to the glade and the willow tree. She hesitated. Had somebody hit her? She had thought so, was sure of it. But was it possible she had slipped? Her fingers stole to her lips. Sandalwood, gentle, his breath soft on her skin where he’d kissed her. She hadn’t imagined that.
Lucie’s voice cut into her reflections. ‘Sandrine?’
She blinked. ‘I’m sorry . . . I didn’t hear.’
‘I said, if we take you home, will there be someone to look after you? Patch you up?’
Sandrine nodded, sending her head spinning again. ‘Marieta, our housekeeper.’
Lucie held out her hand and helped Sandrine to her feet. ‘In which case, let’s get going.’ She retrieved Sandrine’s things from the edge of the water. ‘I like your socks, by the way. Unusual. Really something.’
‘Thanks.’ She managed a smile. ‘My father brought them back for me from Scotland. Just before he was called up. Then, of course . . .’
Lucie’s pretty face clouded over. ‘Yes, I’m sorry. I heard he didn’t make it back.’
‘No.’ There wasn’t anything else she could say. ‘What about you?’
‘My father’s in a POW camp,’ Lucie said in a tight voice, ‘though we’re expecting him to be released any day.’
‘That’s good news.’
‘My mother says she’ll be pleased to have him back,’ she said sharply. ‘So far as I’m concerned, the Germans are welcome to him.’
Sandrine looked at her in surprise. She waited for Lucie to say more, but she didn’t.
‘Marianne’s fiancé’s in a camp in Germany,’ Sandrine said to fill the silence.
‘Thierry, yes.’
‘You know him?’
Lucie’s smile came back. ‘It was me who introduced them.’
‘I don’t know him awfully well. His cousin, Suzanne, is a friend of Marianne’s, but she hadn’t been seeing him long when Thierry was called up. He seems nice.’
‘He is nice.’
‘Marianne got one of those grey cards last October, saying he’d been captured. She’s not heard anything since then.’
‘That’s tough.’
Max caught the end of the conversation. ‘What’s tough?’
‘Not knowing what the future holds,’ Lucie said, looking up at him.
‘You worry too much, Lulu,’ he said softly, touching her cheek.
They climbed into the car. Lucie started the engine and they drove up the hill towards the rue du cimetière Saint-Michel. Sandrine closed her eyes, but immediately vivid images of the events of the morning rushed into her mind – distorted, distressing, confusing – and her lids snapped open again. She tried not to think of the man’s face, the desperate touch of his fingers on her arm, the rattling in his throat. What had happened to him? Where was he? Was he still alive?
A shudder went down her spine.
‘You all right, kid?’ said Lucie, glancing sideways at her.
‘A little bit cold.’
‘That’s the shock kicking in.’
Sandrine forced herself to focus on what she could see through the window of the car. Ordinary, everyday sights. A cat sunning itself on a wall, its black tail twitching back and forth against the white paint like a windscreen wiper. Two terracotta pots, like amphorae, standing either side of a door painted the colour of a bishop’s robe. A man’s hat lying at the side of the road in the rue du 24 Février.
As they turned into rue du Manège, Sandrine remembered why the name Blum was familiar. There was a Liesl Blum in the class beneath her at school. Max’s sister perhaps, or his cousin? A quiet, studious girl, much older than her years, Liesl had been one of several students to arrive in Carcassonne after Paris fell. Now she was one of only two or three Jewish pupils left in the school. Anyone who had the money to get out, to America or to England, had gone.
Lucie turned left into boulevard Barbès. She and Max were discussing the car, a blue Peugeot 202. Lucie was animated, her eyes bright. She seemed to know a lot. Sandrine remembered that the Ménard family owned one of the biggest garages in town.
She leant her head against the glass, trying to decide what to do. Round and around went her thoughts, like wool unravelling from a skein. Unrelated fragments, but creating a pattern of connections all the same. And all the time those strange words echoing in her mind. So vivid, so clear, even though she didn’t understand what they meant.
Chapter 8
Raoul didn’t stop running until he reached the montée Saint-Michel. Then he slowed to a fast walk, up the steep hill and over into the rue du 24 Février. Only when he drew level with the entrance to the cemetery did he pause. He doubled over, trying to catch his breath in the heat.
‘Damn,’ he muttered. ‘Damn.’
An elderly woman, stooping to fill a watering can inside the gate, looked at him with disapproval.
‘Pardon,’ he apologised.
Raoul waited until she was out of sight, then leant back against the wall in the shade. It had all happened so fast. One minute he was walking along the river, thinking about tomorrow. Then he’d come around the corner and seen the girl half in, half out of the water. Tried to help. Given her the kiss of life. Then the relief of realising she was all right, and he’d kissed her again. He didn’t know what had got into him.
‘Damn,’ he repeated.
When he’d heard the car, his instinct for self-preservation had kicked in. Three years of war and defeat, trusting no one, meant he couldn’t hang around and see who it was. That was asking to be caught. These days, apart from doctors and a handful of civil servants, almost nobody but police and members of the administration ran private cars.
Even so, Raoul felt shabby for leaving the girl. He ran his fingers over his hair, realising he’d dropped his hat somewhere en route. It wasn’t a great loss, but even so. He looked down. The bottoms of his trousers were wet, but the material was dark and it didn’t show.
He pulled the chain from his pocket. The girl had been holding it. A simple silver chain, but Antoine never took it off. Could they have been together? Arranged to meet? She didn’t look like a courier, but then of course that was the point.
He looked at his watch. He’d got time for a drink. He needed a drink. Raoul headed for the Place des Armes. There was nowhere to sit at the Café Lapasset – he needed somewhere where he could see what was going on around him – but he found a table at the Grand Café des Négociants with a good view of the square and the Portail des Jacobins on the opposite side of the road. He ordered a glass of red wine and took a cigarette from a crumpled packet, knowing he’d get through his ration before the end of the week if he wasn’t careful. A trail of white smoke twisted up into the chattering, jackdaw air.
Raoul borrowed a copy of La Dépêche from a man on the next table. A Vichyist publication these days, it was the same stale mix of international and domestic politics, propaganda most of it. Arrests in Narbonne – ten partisans printing and distributing anti-Vichy tracts, of whom four had been shot dead by French police officers. Flash floods in Tarascon, preparations for the Fête de l’ne at the end of the month in Quillan, taking place for the first time sin
ce 1939. A few shreds of loose paper in the middle where ration coupons had been torn out. Weather reports for the beaches at Gruissan and La Nouvelle.
The man got up to leave. Raoul went to give the newspaper back, but he shook his head.
‘Keep it. Not worth the paper it’s printed on.’
‘You’re right about that,’ Raoul said.
His eye was caught by an article about Maréchal Pétain. The hero of the battle of Verdun – and for two years head of the French government in exile in Vichy – Pétain was still a popular figure in the zone non-occupée. To traditionalists, he was a symbol of fortitude and honour, the embodiment of old-fashioned, Catholic French values. They’d even renamed the boulevard Jean-Jaurès after him, though the signs kept being defaced. Supporters of Vichy claimed the ‘voie de la collaboration’, as Pétain christened his relationship with the Nazis, was part of a longer-term strategy: that the Maréchal had a plan to save France, if only they were patient. Those like Raoul, who would not accept the status quo and supported Général de Gaulle and his Free French forces, were considered troublemakers.
The article was about how although Jews in the occupied zone were now being forced to wear yellow stars, as in all other conquered territories, Vichy had stepped back from implementing the policy in the zone libre. ‘Proof’ of the government’s principled behaviour, the editorial claimed.
Raoul tossed the paper down in disgust, his fingers stained black by the ink. The naïvety of it turned his stomach. Each new edict, each new compromise made him ashamed to be French. Like many men of the South, he was sickened by the wholesale arrests of communists, many of whom he’d fought alongside in 1940, of the internment of those who opposed Vichy and of Jews no longer considered French. Little by little, France was being absorbed into the Greater Reich. Raoul despised what was happening and despised those who, by design or by neglect, were letting it happen. Sins of omission, sins of commission; the same result in the end.