The Beekeeper's Promise (Page 39)

Again, Eliane paused, as if considering hard, keeping her expression a blank, trying not to show that his words had unnerved her. Unbidden, a memory of Stéphanie walking past her stall after talking to the miliciens that day flashed into her mind, but she immediately dismissed it: right now, she couldn’t afford to be distracted by the man’s veiled suggestion that someone had denounced her.

She met the man’s eyes with her own steady, grey gaze. ‘Why no, monsieur. I have fewer and fewer visitors to the stall these days and they are all people I’ve known for years. Apart from Oberleutnant Farber, of course.’ She turned to look straight at him and smiled very slightly. ‘He is one of my best customers.’

The officers shifted in their seats to look at the oberleutnant and, surprised at having become so suddenly the centre of attention, the translator dropped his gaze, studying the patterns on the Aubusson carpet beneath his well-polished boots.

The taller Gestapo officer said something in German to the general and his black-coated colleague, in a sneeringly insinuating tone that made them guffaw with laughter. Oberleutnant Farber’s face flushed scarlet and he tugged nervously at his shirt collar. Then he looked up at his superiors and shrugged, giving a rueful smile and spreading his hands, as if to say, Well, what can one do?

The weaselly-looking officer stared at Eliane, giving her a long, appraising look, which made her feel sick with fear and hatred. ‘I see,’ he said, at last. ‘Well, we are clearly wasting our time here, aren’t we, oberleutnant?’

Oberleutnant Farber shrugged again. ‘I believe so.’ He carefully avoided meeting Eliane’s eye.

‘Very well. In that case, you may go back to your duties, ladies. After all, the general’s dinner must not be delayed.’ He fixed Eliane with his beady eyes again, as if assessing potential prey. ‘But, a word of warning, mademoiselle. No matter who your friends may or may not be, we are watching you.’

The two Gestapo officers then stood and put their black caps back on, clicking their heels and saluting the general with a brisk ‘Heil Hitler!’

As she and Madame Boin hurried back to the kitchen, Eliane heard the car’s engine start up and pull away from the château, and only then did she feel able to breathe again.

‘That Oberleutnant Farber is a strange one,’ commented Madame Boin, stirring the blanquette as it simmered on the stove. ‘Thanks to him we were let off very lightly that time.’

Eliane nodded. ‘He isn’t like the others, that’s true. But is he strange, or merely human?’

Madame Boin paused, putting her hands on her hips, and gave Eliane a shrewd glance, her eyebrows raised. She pursed her lips and shook her head.

The sudden thought that Madame Boin might be suspecting her of a real liaison with the officer made Eliane’s stomach lurch and an expression of horror flashed across her face.

‘Madame, you surely don’t believe that I have a relationship with that man on any terms other than the most superficial of friendships, which is all that could ever be possible between enemies?’

Madame Boin smiled and shook her head again. ‘Not for one moment, Eliane. I know you. I know what you are prepared to do to protect the people you love – just as I know what you would never be prepared to do. I see your courage and your integrity every day. I’m just surprised at myself, forgetting what it’s like to be civilised. Perhaps you’re right. This blasted war has gone on for so long that we’ve forgotten what it is to be human. If there were more men like Oberleutnant Farber and Monsieur le Comte in this world, maybe there’d be no more wars.’

Reassured, Eliane tied her apron around her waist again and resumed peeling the potatoes for dinner. But then she remembered the look in the Gestapo officer’s eyes and the spiteful edge to his voice as he’d said that they were watching her. Did he mean that they’d seen her walk around the garden walls? Had they seen her pacing repeatedly backwards and forwards yesterday, issuing the warning to the Maquis that Jacques Lemaître had been discovered and should be intercepted before he returned to his apartment above the bakery in Coulliac? And who was the ‘concerned citizen’ he had mentioned, who had reported Eliane to them? Was it Stéphanie?

At the thought, her hands trembled and the knife slipped, slicing into her thumb. The water in her bowl turned red – the colour of the silk scarf; the colour of danger – before she was able to staunch the bleeding with the hem of her apron.

Abi: 2017

The coat of arms of the Comtes de Bellevue is still there, above the fireplace in the drawing room. As I polish the inlaid oval table that sits at the opposite end of the room, I imagine Eliane and Madame Boin standing there before the Gestapo. What a formidable pair they were, the elderly cook and the slight young girl, facing down the forces of evil together.

In Sara’s telling of the story, she said that Eliane had thought about the network of people secretly collaborating to get messages through. Something occurs to me as I finish rubbing off the excess beeswax from the table’s surface, which glows with the patina of age. Mireille had disappeared back to Paris and then seemed to have had very little communication with her family, other than the occasional, standardised thirteen-line postcard that was the only correspondence allowed in occupied France. But Sara had said that, when Mireille left the mill, she’d mentioned something about perhaps being able to help other people like Esther and Blanche. For some reason, Eliane’s own thoughts about the covert network have made me think of this.

I tuck my duster into my bucket of cleaning things and hurry back to find Sara in the kitchen. She’s just prepared our morning coffee and is setting a cafetière and mugs out on the kitchen table. Karen joins us, setting down her bucket, and Jean-Marc wanders in from the garden. He wipes his feet on the mat by the door and then washes his hands at the sink before pulling up a chair in the space beside mine, removing the cap he wears outside and setting it on the table beside him. I pass him a mug of coffee and he smiles his thanks.

As I pour milk into my cup, I ask Sara about Mireille and she nods as she passes round a plate of biscuits. ‘Mireille played her own, very active role back in Paris. The apartment above the atelier where she worked, sewing couture for those who could still afford it – and there were still all sorts who could, even during the war years – was used as a safe house. Mireille was a passeuse – one of a group of people who helped others escape. Some probably would have been sent through this way from there, moving from one safe house to the next along secret routes that led to the Pyrenees and then through Spain to Portugal. From Lisbon, it was possible to get a passage to America and to safety. Oh yes . . .’ She grins at me. ‘Mireille played her part, alright. But that’s probably another story in its own right.’

Karen downs the last of her coffee and stands up, brushing a few biscuit crumbs from her hands, ready to get back to work.

‘So, Sara,’ she says. ‘When are you going to take Abi to meet them?’

My jaw drops and my coffee cup is frozen in mid-air as I realise what she’s just said. Until very recently, Eliane’s story has felt like ancient history and I’d assumed that the Martin sisters would be dead by now, if they’d managed to survive the war.

‘Eliane’s alive?’ I ask. ‘Mireille too?’

Sara nods. ‘Yup. They’re both well into their nineties now – in fact, I reckon Mireille must be turning a hundred next year. And Eliane can’t be far behind; she’s only a couple of years younger.’

‘And Yves?’ I ask, eagerly.

Sara shakes her head. ‘I’m afraid not. Yves had a stroke a few years back and he lived for only a few months after that. But his sisters are still going strong. If you like, I’ll see if we can arrange to go over and have tea with them soon.’

I beam. ‘I’d love that!’

Sara and Karen leave to resume their duties and Jean-Marc gets to his feet, settling his cap back on his head. Then he looks at me and hesitates, as if plucking up the courage to say something. I meet his gaze, raising my eyebrows questioningly.

‘You know, Abi, you look completely different when you smile,’ he observes shyly. ‘You really should do it more often.’

Eliane: 1943

It was the eve of Toussaint and overnight the first frost of autumn had encrusted every twig, every seed head and every blade of grass in a powdering of silver. But now the late-October sunshine was starting to perform its magical disappearing act, drawing the mist from the river and erasing the sparkling chill of the frost, as it cast its spell across the dark land.

Eliane went to open up the chicken shed, accompanied by Blanche, who loved to watch the rooster strut out, stretching his wings with his air of pompous self-importance and announcing that the day could now begin. Then, in a flurry of feathers and cacophonous clucking, the hens tumbled out after him, immediately beginning to scratch in the dust for insects.

Eliane held the basket as Blanche searched the straw-lined nesting boxes in the shed for eggs. The supply was already dwindling noticeably with the change of seasons, and the hens were scrawny these days, having to survive on what they could scavenge in the grass along the riverbank now that there was no longer the plentiful supply of grain that they’d been accustomed to before the war. Their feathers were scrappy and dull and they bickered irritably over the smallest ants and grubs, trying to snatch them from their neighbours and make off with them. Eliane sighed and thought, Just like people. It was easier to be neighbourly when food was plentiful and you were plump and contented; these days it was a case of merely surviving and that seemed to bring out the worst, whether you were a chicken or a human being. By and large, the villagers of Coulliac had stuck together. But, as the Gestapo and the Milice tightened their grip in an attempt to control the increasingly frequent acts of sabotage by the maquisards, accusations and denunciations were becoming more commonplace. Under the sustained stresses of the war, the bonds of the community were beginning to fracture.