The Beekeeper's Promise (Page 17)
From the lamp beside my bed, a circle of golden light pools on the floorboards, which exhale their faint scent of beeswax, letting it mingle with the fragrant posy of lavender and white roses that I brought back with me from the château today. Jean-Marc had appeared with it just as I was leaving. He offered it to me with a shy smile. ‘I thought a few flowers might cheer up your room down there,’ he said, with a nod of his head towards the valley below. He’d been at the mill house earlier, helping Thomas put up some plasterboard in what was going to be the new kitchen.
As I gaze around my bedroom, I can picture Mireille lying in her single bed at one end of the room, with Eliane and Lisette trying to comfort her after the ordeal of her journey home from Paris when the war broke out in earnest.
Sara had told me that, in her traumatised state, Mireille had lost the ability to cry.
I did, too, eventually. But in the early days of my marriage, I cried a great deal: a river of silver tears.
After the first year, I grew to know the pattern of Zac’s behaviour as surely as I knew the London weather. I could watch the clouds from behind the vast sheet of wall-to-ceiling glass in Zac’s loft apartment in the docklands – (it never felt like our apartment, always his) – as they gathered over the Thames beyond the cityscape of tower blocks, sweeping towards us from the west, just as I could sense the change in atmosphere between us, see his anger building, towering over me like a dark storm cloud, threatening. Waiting . . . Then breaking.
Like that first Christmas we spent together. I was determined to make it all perfect, playing at home-making as I’d always longed to do. Together, we drew up a list of the people we would send cards to. They were mostly Zac’s friends and family, but I added a few of my own friends as well as the families I’d worked for. Together, we chose the cards, although Zac told me that the ones I preferred were either too mawkish or naff and so we settled on a selection of tasteful images painted by Old Masters. He left me to write them, and I took such a pride in including a little personal message in each and in signing them from the two of us. Each time I wrote our names, it was a public affirmation that we were officially a couple now.
Zac came in just as I was writing the last few to add to the pile of neatly addressed envelopes that I would take to the post office tomorrow, so that they’d reach their destinations in good time for Christmas. He came to look over my shoulder. ‘Love from Abi and Zac,’ I wrote and then I turned to kiss him. But his face had grown blank, the non-expression that I’d begun to recognise as the precursor to something much worse.
He reached over me, and I remember I’d automatically flinched as his hand came down. But he didn’t touch me then; he just leaned forward and picked up the card I’d been writing, a frown creasing his forehead.
‘How many have you done like this?’ he asked, the anger already making his voice sound as cold as the winter rain that ran in runnels down the windows, blurring the city lights beyond like tears.
‘Like what, Zac? I don’t understand . . .’
‘Like this.’ He drew his finger over our names, making the ink smudge slightly where it hadn’t quite dried. ‘“Abi and Zac”.’
I’d glanced at him, wondering if it was a trick question, but he was shaking with rage now. Quickly, I dropped my gaze to the patterned rug beneath the glass-topped coffee table, fixing my attention on its grey, geometric design as if the logic of it could keep me safe.
He picked up the pile of envelopes and began ripping them open, wrenching out the cards to read them and then throwing each one on to the floor as he spat the words, ‘“Abi and Zac” . . . “Abi and Zac” . . .’
He grabbed my arm then and pulled me to my feet. ‘You never, ever put your name before mine.’ He hissed the words into my face and I had to resist the urge to wipe the droplets of spit from my skin, knowing that would make him even angrier. ‘You stupid girl. What a waste of my money. Now we’re going to have to buy a whole load more cards and you’re going to write them again, this time with our names in the right order.’
A and Z. I hadn’t even thought about it, I’d just written our names like that because it sounded right in my head. I should have thought. Stupid girl.
The rain beat on the glass and the lights were blurred against the backdrop of the cloud-darkened sky.
The bruises on my arms were like storm clouds too, purple and black beneath the sleeves of my shirt. But eventually I knew they would fade to the sickly yellow of a London sunset and then they could be disguised with a bit of concealer. The dark, angry clouds would go and Zac’s eyes would be as clear as a blue summer sky again and he would hold me and say that he loved me, that the anger was my fault, again, but that he forgave me. And I would try to relax, to let my clenched fists uncurl, but I was always tense, waiting . . .
I grew more and more isolated, shut in behind the glass of those vast windows in that oh-so-desirable London apartment, cut off from the world outside.
Eliane: 1940
The notice, with its stark black swastika emblazoned top and centre, was posted outside the mairie in Coulliac and word passed quickly from neighbour to neighbour throughout the community.
By order of the new administration, all inhabitants of the commune of Coulliac are to present themselves at the mairie for the purposes of registration of the population and the issuing of identity cards, which are to be carried at all times. Henceforth, anyone found not to be in possession of the necessary documentation will be arrested and may be deported.
It was shocking to see the signature of the mayor – their elected representative – at the bottom of the notice. Many people grumbled that he had so readily capitulated to the demands of the invaders, but those who had access to a wireless or newspaper pointed out that it was now official policy, adopted throughout the occupied zone. What choice did he have? What choice did any of them have, for that matter?
The Martin family arrived after breakfast the next morning to find that a long queue already wound around the small square at the heart of the village, and they took their places at the end of it. Local people continued to arrive at a far faster rate than those leaving the mairie, and the place quickly filled. Ordinarily such a gathering, for a market or a fête, would have had a lighthearted atmosphere; a cacophony of laughter and neighbourly chatter would have reverberated from the walls of the shops that lined the square and bounced off the balconies and shuttered windows overhead. But today the crowd was subdued and ill at ease. People addressed one another quietly, if at all, muttering greetings and asking one another in hushed tones what this could all be about. The atmosphere of occupation was oppressive. Most of those standing in the queue kept their eyes fixed on the ground in order not to have to look at the red, white and black flag that had replaced the French tricolour on the mairie’s flagpole, and so that they wouldn’t catch the eye of either of the German soldiers who stood on each side of the entrance with guns slung over their shoulders.
As they shuffled slowly forwards, Eliane recognised Stéphanie in the line just ahead of them. She smiled when Stéphanie looked around and noticed her, and was rewarded with a cool nod of acknowledgement in return. And then Eliane caught sight of Francine, who had just emerged from the mairie. She held her new ID card in her hand. She was reading it as she came down the steps, with a bemused expression on her face. As she passed, her attention still fixed on the document, Eliane reached out and tugged at her sleeve. Francine’s features relaxed into a smile at the sight of her friend, and she embraced Eliane warmly.
‘What is it like in there?’ Eliane asked softly.
‘Strange,’ Francine quietly replied. ‘There are more soldiers, with guns, who are supervising the mayor and his secretary. There are forms to fill in, asking all sorts of questions – who you are, where you’re from, who your parents are and your grandparents, your address, your date of birth and your religion. And then this is what they give you.’ She held out her card for Eliane to see.
‘What does that mean?’ Eliane pointed to the large letter ‘J’ that had been stamped across Francine’s ID card.
‘I wasn’t sure at first. I noticed not everyone had a letter stamped on theirs, so I asked the mayor’s secretary on the way out. She says they’ve been instructed to stamp the cards of anyone who’s Jewish.’
‘But why?’
Francine shook her head, still keeping her voice low. ‘I’m not exactly sure. But I certainly don’t think it’s a good sign.’ She paused and turned to Lisette, who was holding Blanche. ‘Is this the baby you told me about? Comme elle est mignonne!’ She moved closer to embrace the older woman; and as she did so, Eliane noticed that Francine whispered something in Lisette’s ear.
Raising her voice a little, so that all those queuing nearby could hear what she said, Francine exclaimed, ‘How sad that your husband’s cousin and his wife were killed in the bombing, Madame Martin. But it’s lucky that you were able to take their baby in. I can’t think of a better household in which she should grow up. I’m sure your cousin would have been relieved to know his daughter is with members of the family.’