COUSTAUSSA
Liesl glanced back over her shoulder. Early in the morning, she had taken food up to the Maquis in the garrigue, then come down into Couiza. The man was still standing in the doorway, smoking a cigarette. No reason to think he was watching her. To think he was watching anyone. But there was something about him that set alarm bells ringing. Liesl didn’t think she’d seen him before. Or had she? Dark suit, a little too smart for this small, out-of-the-way town. He wasn’t local, certainly.
She lifted the blue and white check cloth in her basket to make sure she had nothing incriminating. There was a handkerchief full of cherries, a late crop. Yves Rousset had given them to her, half for Marieta and half for his mother. Liesl had promised to deliver them herself. She was out of film, so hadn’t brought her camera with her. She had her carte d’identité and her ration book.
Feigning indifference, she looked again. The man was still there, still smoking. Out of place in his dark suit and hat, staring in her direction. Straight away she adopted the usual procedures when they thought they were being followed. She went into the épicerie, though she had no coupons, then came out and went into the tabac. It was under new management now, the previous owner, a notorious local informer, having been found dead in the river six weeks before. A reprisal killing. Liesl didn’t know who’d done it. Not ‘Citadel’, nor anyone from the Couiza Maquis either. That wasn’t how they operated.
She chatted for a while and bought a sheet of one-franc stamps. When she emerged into the sunshine, she crossed the square and went into the post office. Its wide double door wasn’t visible from across the road. If the man was following her, he’d have to move.
She spent ten minutes queuing inside, pretended to have left the letter she wished to post at home and came out again. The Tramontana was starting to blow, sending the dust swirling up and around. She glanced again towards the doorway and, this time, saw nothing.
The man had gone.
Liesl let out her breath, hoping it was just a false alarm. She, Geneviève and Eloise saw shadows everywhere. It was hard to distinguish real threat from their overheated imaginations.
She paused a moment, allowing her heart to steady, then headed to the Grand Café Guilhem, where she was due to meet Geneviève. Liesl knew she was late, but she was still within their agreed time frame. As she walked, with her long, elegant strides, someone wolf-whistled. She turned and a rather sweet-looking man grinned at her. Liesl didn’t acknowledge him, but she did smile slightly as she walked past. No sense in making a fuss.
In two years, Liesl had grown from a solemn, quiet girl into a tall, graceful and self-possessed young woman. She was very slim, but it enhanced her beauty rather than diminishing it and she was much admired. She could have had her pick of the few young men left in Couiza, if she’d wanted. Only a few close friends knew how much time she and Yves Rousset spent in one another’s company. It was harder now, but they contrived to meet when they could. Like this morning. She smiled at the memory.
Liesl sat at their usual table on the terrace, the one with the best view of both the bridge and the road. She caught sight of her reflection in the glass window and wondered, as she often did, if Max would even recognise her now. It had been so long since they’d seen one another.
No one in Coustaussa or Couiza had ever challenged the story that Liesl was a cousin of the Vidals from Paris. So many of the old mountain families were distantly related – Sandrine and Marianne were cousins of the Saint-Loup girls, several times removed. Liesl had rarely been asked to produce her papers and, when she had, there’d been no trouble. The false documents Suzanne had obtained for her continued to pass muster. But the need to keep her true background secret meant Liesl rarely got news about her brother. What few scraps of information they did receive came from the waitress in the Café de la Paix in Le Vernet village, who telephoned Sandrine in Carcassonne, who then relayed the news back to Coustaussa via Raoul. As for her nephew, little Jean-Jacques, Liesl hadn’t seen him for over a year.
The waiter came to take her order. ‘S’il vous plaît? ’
Liesl looked in her purse and discovered it was all but empty.
‘Actually, I’m expecting a friend,’ she said. ‘We’ll order when she gets here.’
‘Un café . . .’
‘No, really, I’m happy to wait.’
‘. . . on the house,’ he said.
‘Oh.’ Liesl looked up at him. ‘That’s very kind,’ she said quietly. ‘Then, yes please.’
She checked the road, wondering where Geneviève had got to, then glanced at her watch. It was unlike her to be late, despite the difficulties in getting from one place to another. She had gone to Limoux yesterday to hand over a film to Raoul for Sandrine, but Liesl had expected her back before now.
The waiter brought the ersatz coffee and she sipped it as slowly as she could, making it last for as long as possible. She looked at her watch again, tapping the glass in case it was losing time. The hands continued to move steadily round. Liesl felt a flurry of nerves in her stomach. The meeting place might have been discovered, someone might have talked. The rule was that if a contact was more than half an hour late, you left. You took no risks. The fact that the contact was Geneviève – her closest friend – made no difference.
Time was up.
Liesl smoothed down her dress, picked up her basket and walked quickly down the steps to the road. She looked towards Limoux, the direction she’d expect Geneviève to be coming from, willing her to be there. The road was empty.
She collected her bicycle, put her basket on the front, then began to cycle towards home. It was only as she passed the boulangerie on the corner that she saw him again. The same man. She pedalled faster, not wanting to run the risk of him stepping out in front of her. He did nothing, though he made no attempt to hide the fact that he was looking at her. And as she cycled east on the road towards Coustaussa, Liesl felt his eyes drilling into her back.
Liesl took a roundabout route, doubling back in case the man had somehow managed to follow her in a car or by motorbike. By the time she walked into the kitchen in Coustaussa, she was hot and worn out.
She handed the cherries to Marieta. ‘The rest are for Madame Rousset,’ she said. ‘I’ll take them over to her as soon as I’ve got my strength back.’
‘What happened?’ said Marieta, looking at her flushed face.
‘I was followed,’ Liesl said, pouring herself a glass of water and sitting down at the kitchen table. ‘At least, I think so. Didn’t want to take the risk.’
Marieta’s eyes sharpened, though her voice didn’t change.
‘Followed, you say,’ she said, putting the cherries into a colander. ‘Where?’
‘In Couiza. Not before.’
‘When?’
‘About an hour ago. I was due to meet Geneviève in the café, but she didn’t arrive. I was late, so it’s possible I missed her. In the end I decided it was better to come home.’ She met Marieta’s gaze. ‘Just in case.’
Marieta nodded. ‘Perhaps Madomaisèla Geneviève went straight down to Tarascon?’
Liesl looked up. ‘Why would she change her plans when we’d arranged to meet?’
Marieta frowned. ‘An old friend of Na Saint-Loup passed away at the weekend. It was a natural death and Pierre was old, but even so. Geneviève would wish to be there to comfort her mother, I’m sure of it.’
The explanation gave Liesl some comfort. It made sense and Geneviève was usually so reliable.
‘Yes, I can see she would want to be there.’
‘No reason to think anything else,’ Marieta said sternly. ‘No sense worrying yourself to a thread.’
Liesl sighed. ‘No.’
Marieta held Liesl’s glance for a moment, then pointed to the empty glass bottle on the draining board. ‘Could you pass me that?’
Liesl got up and handed it to her, then sat down again. She watched as Marieta ladled the cherries into the narrow neck, pushing them down with the handle of a wooden spoon.
‘What are you doing?’
‘What I can,’ Marieta said quietly. She took a small bottle of cognac from the table in front of her and started to drizzle the brandy on top of the cherries. ‘Making a kind of Guignolet. It is Monsieur Baillard’s particular favourite drink.’
‘But . . .’ Liesl began, then stopped. She had been about to ask what the point was in making Monsieur Baillard’s favourite drink, but knew better than to say the thought out loud. ‘Where did you get the brandy?’ she asked instead.
‘Madomaisèla Geneviève was given it.’
Liesl smiled. ‘They all adore her.’
‘She has a good nature,’ Marieta said.
Liesl hid her smile, perfectly certain that it wasn’t Geneviève’s good nature the maquisards appreciated so much as her face and her figure. Unlike everyone else, she had kept her perfect hour-glass curves and looked as healthy and pretty as ever.
Marieta drained the half-litre of cognac. ‘When Monsieur Baillard comes back,’ she said, with a slight tremor in her voice, ‘I want to welcome him home properly.’
‘Yes,’ Liesl said. Her heart went out to the old woman. She knew Marieta missed Sandrine and Marianne. Little Jean-Jacques too; the house had seemed so quiet when he’d gone. But she forgot that Marieta missed her old friend most of all. ‘Yes, of course you do. He’ll be so delighted.’
For a moment, silence fell between them. The only sound was the knocking of the spoon against the glass. Liesl watched as Marieta put the flat blue metal cap on the bottle, twisted it shut and turned the bottle over and back several times, like an egg-timer. Then she walked slowly to the larder and put the Guignolet inside on the shelf.
‘There,’ Marieta said, ‘perfect in a week or two. At least, good enough.’
She lowered herself on to a chair with a sigh, poking wisps of grey hair back into the bun at the nape of her neck. ‘So, you said you were followed. Is there any particular reason, madomaisèla, why such a thing should have happened today?’
‘What do you mean?’
Marieta fixed her with a look. ‘You know quite well what I mean.’
Liesl met her gaze. Marieta was perfectly aware that the girls delivered food and weapons to the men. But she also knew that they carried out small acts of sabotage or disruption, and that Liesl took great risks to photograph the atrocities committed by the Milice and the occupying forces, when she could get the film.
‘No. I paid a visit to the hills, that’s all.’
‘There is nothing particular being planned?’
Liesl wasn’t sure what Geneviève would want her to say. The fact was, there was something being planned, but as the guerrilla war between the maquisards and the Gestapo grew more vicious, no one was safe. They told Marieta what was happening only in general terms, therefore, hoping it might keep her safer.
‘No,’ she replied, though she couldn’t meet Marieta’s gaze. ‘Si es atal es atal,’ she rushed on, quoting one of the housekeeper’s well-worn phrases back at her. She found a smile, trying to persuade herself that everything would be all right. ‘What will be will be,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that what you’re always telling me?’
Marieta didn’t return the smile. ‘Even if there is nothing planned,’ she said in a sombre tone, ‘it would be wise not to go down into the town for the time being. Your friends can manage for a day or two without you, do you hear me?’
Liesl stared. Marieta never made a fuss, never overreacted. That she was taking this seriously upset her more than any scolding would have done.
‘Wait until Geneviève and Eloise come back,’ Marieta said, ‘then we’ll see, è?’