There were five of these windows upstairs, and together with their open shutters, they occupied very nearly the whole of the wall. Above them, there were two gabled windows in the attic. Four chimneys marked the ends of the main part of the house. On the west side, however, the wing was a storey-and-a-half. Recessed, too, from the main wall, it had its own door and a window upstairs but with curved lintels of cut stone, not fanlights. Here, too, there was a chimney on the outer wall.
It was an imposing house. Stolidly French and looking of wealth, but smelling of mould and decay.
There was no question that it would soon need a new coat of paint, and I decided then that I had better do it myself. The lane led through the grass off to my left, only to swing round in front of the house. Roses grew beneath the windows, some white, some pink, masses of daisies, too …
I remembered that house as I’d first seen it. A château-ah, oui, oui. Even in the heat and stillness of that afternoon, I had to admit that it was very beautiful.
Crossing the road and the small pasture beyond, I entered the woods and began to climb, but at a place where some trees had been felled, I again looked back.
The Château de St-Germain sat in a clearing, nestled in a cup of land and surrounded by woods. To my right, to the east, the road continued towards Fontainebleau some seven kilometres away. From there, one of the main roads ran northwest to Barbizon and Chailly-en-Bière. It was deliciously wild, yet not wild at all. In fact, if one thought about it, Fontainebleau was only about sixty-five kilometres to the south-southeast of Paris, not far from the junction of the Loing and the Seine. The trains were good, so it wasn’t that much of a journey. The trains … there I go again. Yet it could be isolated, too. Listening to the whistles, the engines, and the rumbling of the wheels made me lie awake at night thinking of the city and wondering about my husband.
The slope ahead of me grew increasingly steep. The warm scent of beeches and oaks, of rotting leaves and humus gone dry with the summer’s heat, came from all about me. Soon, however, the forest closed around me, and I could no longer see the château.
Now I was on my own and, shutting my eyes for a moment, pausing to lean against a tree and remember my first visit here, but all I can hear now is the sound of their footsteps in the leaves, that awful crisp, dry crackling and then … why then, the ragged sound of gunfire.
Rising straight above me, a grey stone tower broke through the edge of the trees. It was Norman perhaps, though no one knew of its origins. Built so long ago, its circular walls and tumbled blocks remained a local mystery.
Patiently, I picked my way over the stones, always climbing. From time to time, I would reach a ledge and stand there breathing hard and listening to the silence, remembering again until suddenly I was running to the tower. Then, suddenly, I was at the edge of the cliff. While the tower rose behind me, the land fell abruptly to stunted scrub, bracken, patches of barren sandy soil and copses of mature trees.
Hunted over by kings, a private preserve of the wealthy from the Middle Ages right through to the Revolution and to Napoléon himself, the Forêt de Fontainebleau was very wild in places like this. Oak, beech, ash, birch, and poplar spread into the distance with scattered clusters of pine and clearings where they had all been felled.
There were deer, wild boar, rabbits in plenty, and foxes to be sure. There were birds, too, partridges, pheasants, and doves-the pigeons. And nearly always when I went there in the autumn and winter, I would hear the hunting horns and think of the days when hounds were fed the still warm stag and the king and his retinue dined on other things.
There was always the chance a person might find something. Perhaps a louis d’or, perhaps the jewelled handle of a dirk or buckle of a shoe. When a place has been hunted over by kings, all sorts of things can be left behind, even trip wires and grenades.
There might be brigands, too, of course. Far to the north, much nearer to Barbizon and the farm of my mother, there were gullies and caverns in which fortunes might once have been hidden. Who knows? It was just a thought, had been so then.
I gave a shrug. I filled my lungs and sighed. Every time I came here, I remembered that first time. Jules had brought me to the tower when I had come from Paris to meet his father. The tall stone walls had kept the sun out and drawn their shade. Scattered about the floor were large blocks of stone that had fallen from the battlements, but in the centre of the floor he had levered several into place as an altar, a boyhood thing. He hadn’t chosen one of the rooms in which to make love.
We had made love there, though, but that had been a long, long time ago, and Tommy … why Tommy had used the tower, too, but for purposes of his own.
That night, I listened to the wireless in the library, and they told me that at five a.m. that morning, 1 September 1939, Germany had invaded Poland. What I had feared had come to pass, and I felt alone as never before.
In the morning, I took the children to the farm to stay with mother and went on to Paris, unannounced. On the eve of war, so many had fled the city, the inbound trains had been empty. One could walk down the rue Mouffetard, as I just had, and see so few people the experience was frightening. Nothing, though, like the Exodus that came in June 1940 and a day or two ahead of the blitzkrieg. Through the morning’s haze, opalescent and diffuse, the cupola of the Panthéon rose ethereally, lifting itself up from the narrow, walled-in street to touch the sky. The Fifth Arrondissement, the Latin Quarter, was the habitat of students. Tenements; small, cheap hotels; bistros; cafés; bars; street hawkers; taxi drivers; maisons de tolérance, maisons de passe, and putains who often challenged passing men in hopes of a little cash.
My sister was a sewer rat. Janine knew the worst of places. Water dripped constantly from the faucet. The gunk-plugged sink in the washroom at the far end of the corridor trapped its puddle before slowly drinking it in. Chipped enamel gave rust stains. Crinkly hairs were everywhere, some brown, some peroxide-blonde, others black. All transient.
The stench of a clogged bidet was overpowering, that from the toilet in its own little closet next door, revolting. There wasn’t a bathtub anywhere-merde, no! Such things weren’t necessary.
Transfixed, I listened to the water, the building, the courtyard, and the street. Why did I feel so threatened? Not by Jules and Janine, but by something else. The city. Whistles in the night. The rushing tramp of hobnailed boots. Shouts in German, cries in French.
There is no other sound like that of boots. Compressed, shut in, the windows crowd. Shutters are closed or open. Shades are drawn, but there are no balconies, and I’m running and cry out once, for I’ve stumbled and fallen. Scrambling up, I race along the street. I’ve torn my stockings-my only pair! My knees are bleeding. I’ve scraped my hand …
But I’m here, well before all that, in the washroom on the sixth floor of that ramshackle tenement. Can you imagine what it must have been like to run up those stairs, to hear their boots on the stones, their shouts, their whistles, and the dogs?
I was pregnant, damn it. Pregnant!
Forgive me-that came much later. The tenement had a narrow courtyard that opened on to the rue Mouffetard. The door to that courtyard was set in a high, wooden wall. Bolts held it shut. Garbage tins and refuse were everywhere on that second day. Cats, dogs, children with runny noses-the poor, they didn’t leave the city like others, but why had they to look at me like that? Their expressions revealed not just suspicion, but also a wariness that was tempered with fear. Yes, fear.