The Beekeeper's Promise

‘Did you really just drink coffee with those Germans with that piece of paper in your pocket?’ Madame Boin asked in disbelief.

‘Actually, I drank lemon-balm tea, as you will recall. But yes. So, if like me you decide to heed the call of General de Gaulle, then I’m asking you to consider staying at your posts here. I know it will involve some distasteful duties – not least, providing meals for the enemy soldiers under our roof. But it may also give us useful insights into their plans and activities; we may be in a position to help save our fatherland and free it from German oppression.’

Madame Boin looked from Eliane to the count and back again. Her laugh was unexpected and startled Eliane. ‘We make quite an unlikely secret force, the three of us! If you’ll pardon my saying so, m’sieur,’ she added hastily, remembering her manners.

The count smiled. ‘And that, my dear Madame Boin, is precisely why we just might be an effective one. Who is going to suspect the three of us up here at the château?’

The cook nodded slowly, considering this.

‘I’m not asking you to make a decision right here and now,’ said Monsieur le Comte. ‘Our world has turned upside down this morning, so take your time to consider what I’ve said. However . . .’ He raised a finger in warning. ‘I intend to do what I can, come what may. So I would ask you not to discuss this with others, even with your families. We live in treacherous times and war puts many unforeseen pressures on everyone it touches. If the Germans realise that my motivation for welcoming them into my home in such a civil manner is not, in fact, capitulation to their New Order – rather the opposite, indeed – then I am under no illusions as to what the repercussions will most certainly be.’

Madame Boin threw down her dishcloth. ‘I don’t need time to consider,’ she declared stoutly. ‘You are going to need looking after, m’sieur. More than ever in a house full of Germans. I’ll stay.’

Eliane hesitated, remembering Madame Boin’s words from earlier: ‘The best way to get through whatever lies ahead is to carry on as normal.’ Would that be possible now that there would be German soldiers living at Château Bellevue? A sudden vision of Mireille limping up the road towards her with the baby in her arms – and the thought of what the Germans had done to Blanche’s mother – made her catch her breath. She thought of Mathieu, of whom there had been no word for more than a fortnight now; was he stranded in the unoccupied zone, unable to reach her? Or had he decided to stay with his father and brother now? Had he tried to contact her, as she had him? Had her letters reached him? How – and when – could they be together again? Her longing for him was lodged in her chest, a sickening ache, the contraction of loss that constricted her breath and made her heart feel as if it were closing in on itself. How could this have happened? How could someone, somewhere, decide one day to draw a line on a map that would keep them apart like this? That same line had cut like a scalpel blade through communities and families, severing France in two.

She realised, then, that of course it wasn’t possible to carry on as normal. The world was no longer ‘normal’. It was time to fight for the things that mattered. They were living with the enemy; it was time to do what she could to resist.

Abi: 2017

The night air is as thick and heavy as a blanket. I lie under the drapery of my mosquito net with the windows and shutters thrown wide open, in the hope that if there’s any breath of a breeze it will be tempted in.

From up the hill, the faint, throbbing beat of dance music from the barn fades out and falls silent as the latest wedding party draws to a close. I’m getting used to the routine now, although each event takes on its own personality within the framework that Sara and Thomas have established. I’m getting my confidence back a little too. While Karen’s broken wrist was mending, I took on some extra duties to help out and did some of the front-of-house work for a change. I’ll admit, I was so anxious beforehand at the thought of being in a crowded space that I was nearly sick, but Jean-Marc was there helping out too, working behind the bar, and it was good to see his reassuring smile whenever I hurried past, and to know that Sara and Thomas were around as well, of course. And then the guests were all so friendly and were having so much fun that it was impossible not to relax and enjoy the party along with them.

Most weddings are happy ones, I suppose. Perhaps I was just unlucky.

As I toss and turn in the stifling darkness of the attic room, I think about the choices that Eliane and her family had to make. Madame Boin had said the best approach would be to try to keep going as normal, to try to ignore the war. But that sounded pretty impossible to me. I know some people collaborated with the Germans. Some probably did it because they believed in what the Germans were fighting for; but most were probably terrified, faced with impossible choices, resorting to collaboration as a means of self-preservation.

And then others chose the path of resistance.

I ponder what Sara has told me about Eliane. She was clearly such a peace-loving, gentle character and, like her mother, Lisette, she believed in saving lives, bringing new life into the world and tending those who were old and sick, like Monsieur le Comte. But she chose resistance without hesitation when the choice was presented to her.

I feel ashamed that I resisted only at the end. It took me years to find the strength, because I quickly became entangled in Zac’s web of control. Systematically, he dismantled my sense of identity, which had perhaps never been very strong in the first place. It was easy for me to become isolated in my glass-paned tower overlooking the river; easier to stay inside rather than stepping out to explore my new neighbourhood; easier to give excuses to my few friends than to endure another evening of Zac’s rudeness and coldness towards them, sensing the subtle shift in his mood which I knew boded badly for me when we returned home.

After a while, we socialised only with his friends. I tried seeing my friends on my own a few times, but when I returned to the apartment Zac would inevitably have spent the evening drinking alone. And when he was drunk, things were even worse for me. So it became safer, ironically, to let go of the friends who might have helped me escape from my marriage if they’d known what was going on. I’d become trapped in Zac’s web now, and escape became impossible.

I tried to convince myself that the times when he was loving and solicitous were what mattered and that the storms of his temper were mere clouds passing across the blue sky of our life together. And anyway, everyone has arguments and hiccups in their relationships, don’t they? Do they? I didn’t know. There was no one I could ask, no friends I could casually compare notes with to try to work out where the boundaries lay for ‘normal’ people.

I knew by then that I wasn’t ‘normal’, because Zac told me so, repeatedly. ‘If I’d realised how damaged you are, I’d never have married you,’ he remarked coldly one day, finding me curled on my side on the bed, weeping silent tears. ‘Perhaps my mother was right.’

But then, too, he’d present me with gifts to try to make me feel better (or was it to try to salve his own guilty conscience?). He bought me an expensive new phone. I was delighted when he gave it to me, producing it at the dinner table one evening. But then he’d taken it from my hands and insisted on setting it up for me. ‘And look here,’ he’d said, flicking screens and pressing buttons, ‘you can turn this on –’ he clicked the icon marked ‘Share My Location’ – ‘and I’ll be able to track exactly where you are on my own phone. That way, I’ll be able to picture where you are and what you’re doing when we’re apart during the day.’ I suppose I should have felt flattered, that he wanted to stay so close to me.

He said all the right words, but why did they always seem to mean something else?

He’d buy clothes for me to wear, too – nothing like my usual style: tailored dresses, straight skirts, silk blouses. Expensive clothes, for which I ought to have felt grateful but which constrained me and made me feel like someone I wasn’t.

I missed my jeans and the sticky-fingered hugs of the children I’d looked after and one evening I plucked up the courage to suggest that I might look for a job again – nothing full-time, of course, as keeping the apartment clean (Zac had high standards) and cooking his dinner took up so much of each day – just, perhaps, a few hours every morning for a frazzled working mother in need of help.

Zac’s eyes grew dark, then, and I steeled myself against his anger, shrinking back against the cushions of the sofa where we were sitting. He was always able to do that with his gaze – to fix me to the spot when he focused it on me that way. He looked at me for a few moments and it was hard to read his expression. I glanced away, trying not to let the beam of his attention make me freeze, focusing instead on the twinkling lights of the city pooled beneath the single, blinking light of a plane as it made its way along the in-bound flight path towards its destination. He put a hand on my arm and I flinched again.

‘Oh, Abi,’ he sighed. His voice was soft, despairing. ‘I’ve tried to give you everything you wanted. Most women would be delighted not to have to worry about going out to work. This apartment, everything we have, I’ve worked so hard for it. And this is how you thank me? By wanting to go and look after other people’s children? What about my needs? What about having a baby of our own?’