GAUL
PLAINS OF CARSAC
JULY AD 342
Arinius went to take his leave of the two soldiers on the night watch. A father and son, they had become friends during his time in Carcaso. They told him of their wandering lives, spent in fortified towns and garrisons. Marching from one side of the crumbling empire to another. He told them of his God, shared stories of mercy and grace and transformation. As they clasped hands one last time, the father gave him a pair of leather sandals for the journey south and warned him to be careful.
Arinius returned to his lodgings. He did not wish to leave, but he felt the broad hand of time at his back. He wrapped his arms around his thin frame, feeling the familiar crackle of the Codex against his skin, then settled his debt with the innkeeper and left.
The long journey from Lugdunum to the furthest reaches of Gaul had aged him. Every stone, every twist of the path, had left its mark on his bones, on the surface of his skin. But his time in the fortified town had restored his health. The blisters on his feet had healed and the cough that had plagued him since the salt lakes of the flat lands of Narbonensis, if no better, was at least no worse. More often than not, he slept through the night, no longer woken by fever or the sweating that left his bed drenched.
‘Pater noster, qui es in caelis,’ Arinius said, murmuring the comforting words of the Lord’s Prayer as he waited for the gates to be opened. ‘Hallowèd be Thy name.’
His fingers wrapped around his mother’s brooch. She was the wisest, kindest person he had ever known. Arinius knew she would have understood his mission, would have been proud of his fortitude. He felt her beside him, encouraging him on.
‘Et dimitte nobis debita nostra,’ he recited. ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.’
Arinius pulled his cloak around him and walked reluctantly through the streets that he had come to call home. He knew it was unlikely he would ever pass this way again. In the silence of the morning, for an instant he heard the voice of God speaking to him. A whispering, a sibilance on the wind. It was, he felt, a moment of grace. A sign.
‘Amen,’ he whispered. ‘So be it.’
He joined the crowds at the main gates. The sound of the wooden bars being removed, the creak of the metal hinges as the night watch pulled open the heavy gates and opened the castellum to the world once more. The movement and surge of men’s feet shuffling forward.
Ahead on the plains of Carsac, the Atax glinted brightly in the early morning sunlight. Arinius prayed that God would give him strength, would guide him safely to the mountains that divided Gaul from Hispania.
Step by step towards the mountains of Pyrène.
CARCASSONNE
JULY 1942
The sun was rising over the fortified city of Carcassonne. Filigree rays pierced the clouds and dappled the stone face of the Narbonnaise towers, catching the shards of red tile in the Roman section of the walls and painting the Cité amber and bronze in the shimmering light of dawn.
The river was still in the hazy morning air. On the far side of the Aude, the shops and offices of the Bastide were beginning to stir. The house in rue du Palais was still sleeping. Marianne and Marieta were in their own beds, Lucie was curled up under the pink day blanket on the settee and Suzanne was asleep in the armchair, her arms crossed and her head resting on her chest. Wine and the adrenalin of the previous day – and the sense that it would be better not to be out on the streets – had kept the women there together.
Sandrine and Raoul were sitting on the terrace at the rear of the house, where they had been all night. Close together, her cardigan and his jacket serving as bedclothes, his head upon her shoulder. They had dozed a little, resting arm to arm. Mostly, they had talked. Shared fragments of autobiography, their stories. Occasionally touching each other’s hands, arms, the lightest of movements before a shy retreat, a dance every bit as complex as the skimming of the swifts over the surface of the river and up, higher and higher, into the sky.
Sandrine glanced at Raoul’s sleeping head, then back out over the garden once more. It was the same sun that had greeted her on Monday and on Tuesday, but it rose now on a different world. Everything had changed, for both the better and the worse, revealing a world at once more perfect and more treacherous. The blue of midday, the white heat haze of the early afternoon, the shifting of light and the purple dusk, setting the shadows to flight. Sandrine had felt she lived lifetimes in the space of the past two days.
Raoul stirred and sat up, stretched.
‘Good morning.’ She smiled at him.
He rubbed his eyes, turned and looked straight at her. ‘Sandrine.’
‘I wish I had coffee to offer you, but . . .’
‘I know.’
‘We have tea?’
‘Thank you.’
Sandrine got up and ran into the house, resenting the time it took the kettle to reach the boil on the stove. She returned a few minutes later with a tray, a metal teapot and two cups. ‘I found some biscuits. They don’t look too bad.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Early still.’
He took a mouthful of tea. ‘This is the time of day I always like best,’ he said. ‘After I was demobbed, I lived down on the coast near Perpignan. We helped refugees, escapees, over the mountains up to the border. We left at three or four o’clock in the morning, when it was still dark, and used to get back to Banyuls-sur-Mer just as the sun was rising. The relief at not being caught, every time . . .’
‘I like this time of day too,’ she said. ‘No one about.’
Raoul put his cup down between his feet and took one of the cigarettes Suzanne had given him from his pocket. ‘It was generous of her to give me these,’ he said, inhaling deeply. ‘How come she has tobacco?’
‘She claims her father’s ration, I think. He doesn’t smoke.’
Sandrine took another mouthful of her tea. Thick with sugar, hot, after their long night of talking it tasted wonderful.
‘Why did you go to Banyuls in 1940, rather than coming back to Carcassonne?’
‘Bruno.’
Sandrine frowned. ‘But by then, wasn’t he . . .’
Raoul nodded. ‘Yes, he was killed two years before that. I’d been in Banyuls before, before the war broke out. I used to get these letters from Bruno, telling me what was going on. He was fighting for what he believed in, putting his life on the line. I wanted to be like him. Do you see?’
‘Yes.’ Sandrine nodded, knowing that if she’d been asked the same question a few days ago, she might have given a different answer.
‘So I threw in my studies and went to join him, December 1938. I knew there was a crossing point south of Banyuls-sur-Mer, on the coast, so I headed there. I went straight to a down-at-heel bar on the water-front, where I’d been told a guide would meet me and take me over the Pyrenees. I had fifty francs to pay for my passage, all the money I had in the world.’ He flicked the end of the cigarette down on to the paving stones. ‘I waited and waited, but the guide never came. Not that day, nor the day after. I heard nothing, got no explanation other than these things happened.’ He stopped, his eyes fixed on a distant point in the garden. ‘A week later, I heard that a unit of French and British Republican sympathisers had been ambushed, their route betrayed by their own side. Bruno was one of them. Their bodies were doused in petrol and set alight.’
Sandrine took his hand.
‘Photographs of the massacre were circulated as a warning and the names published,’ he said quietly. ‘I was in shock. I was eighteen, on my own, a long way from home. I drank all night and all the following day and into the next night, stumbling from bar to bar, until the money I’d got together to pay the passeur was spent. Christmas found me on the jetty at Banyuls contemplating the black winter sea.’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘I stood there for hours. The cold penetrated right down to my bones, but I barely noticed. Trying to be brave enough.’
Sandrine squeezed his fingers, encouraging him to keep going.
‘I wish I could say it was the thought of my mother, God even, anything. But, truthfully, I lacked the courage to jump.’
‘Perhaps it takes more courage not to,’ Sandrine said, pushing away the image of a world in which they had never met. ‘Harder to keep going.’
‘Perhaps.’ He gave a fleeting smile. ‘In the end, I think it was the idea that someone should pay for what had happened to Bruno. Revenge, I suppose. So I walked back to the bar and the proprietor’s wife took pity on me. Gave me coffee and rolls and a few francs to tide me over until I got back to Carcassonne. I didn’t want to come back, but I knew my mother would take Bruno’s death badly – he was always her favourite – and I thought I owed it to her to tell her myself, face to face.’
‘Did you mind that? It didn’t make you jealous of him?’
Raoul put his head on one side. ‘Not at all. I looked up to him too. Our father died when I was three – I have no memories of him at all. Bruno was the man of the house, he looked after us both. We relied on him.’ He sighed. ‘He was always so certain, so clear about right and wrong, whereas things never seemed so black and white to me. Not then, at any rate.’
Sandrine smiled, but didn’t say anything. She didn’t want him to stop talking.
‘I always intended to go back to Banyuls,’ he continued. ‘Stupid, but I felt close to Bruno there.’ He shook his head. ‘Then of course war broke out and I was called up. Caserne d’Iéna.’ He sighed. ‘Sunday the third of September. It was so hot that day.’
Sandrine nodded. ‘Yes. Marianne and I went to see Papa off. We stood out on the parade ground for hours with the sun beating down on the back of our necks. Then, after all the buses had gone, we went to Place Carnot to listen to the news from L’Indépendant being broadcast over the loudspeakers. About how the Maginot Line would keep France safe. I believed it. It didn’t occur to me that Papa would . . .’
She broke off.
‘You miss him a great deal,’ he said softly, turning her hand over in his and kissing her palm.
She sighed. ‘Not all the time, but then something will happen and I’ll think to myself that I must tell him, then I remember.’
They sat in silence for a moment, until Sandrine released her hand and took another sip of her tea. ‘What happened to you then?’
‘We sat in barracks for what seemed like months. What I remember most about the drôle de guerre is the boredom. Being confined to quarters, the daily drill and pointless kit and weapon inspections. We spent most of our time playing football and cards. The farmers in my unit were more worried about the harvest and their crops than German bullets.’
‘It was the topic of conversation here too. That autumn, everyone joined in with the vendanges. Even the Spanish refugees from the camps at Couiza and Bram were allowed out to help.’
‘When finally we were sent north, we found ourselves in this strange deserted land. Walking through the villages, all evacuated, desolate, abandoned to the animals. Cows and pigs and goats wandering through deserted streets. Everyone had gone, been sent away. The only sound was the distant wail of sirens, the sound of the Stukas in the sky.’
They both fell silent, the ghosts of their past close to them in the early morning light. There was so much more Sandrine wanted to hear and to tell him, but she could feel the intimacy of the dawn was already melting away. The sky was turning from white to the glorious blue of summer. The outlines of the trees and rooftops beyond the garden were stronger, clearer.
The easy atmosphere between them changed. There was no more time for reminiscence and stories.
Beyond the walls of the garden, the bells of Saint-Michel began to ring for six o’clock.
Raoul sighed. ‘I have to go.’
‘I know.’
He didn’t move.
‘Wait a minute,’ she said, jumping up. ‘There’s something I want you to have.’
She vanished into the house, reappearing a few minutes later with a brown trilby and a light summer jacket.
‘Your father’s?’
She nodded. ‘He wouldn’t mind,’ she said, helping him into the jacket. ‘There. It’s a good fit.’
He touched her cheek with his hand. ‘If you’re sure.’ He sighed again. ‘This is it, then.’
‘Yes.’
‘Say goodbye to Lucie and Suzanne. And thank your sister for me.’ Raoul grinned. ‘Does it often end up like that here? Everybody getting tight then sleeping it off in the salon?’
Sandrine smiled back. ‘No. Last night was unusual. Lucie only stayed because Max was spending the evening with his sister, so she was at a loose end. As for Suzanne, she’s a law unto herself.’
‘I like her. Straightforward. You could rely on her.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, remembering how Suzanne had come to her rescue with Monsieur Fournier. ‘Lucie’s fun, though.’
‘Yes, she seems nice.’ His face clouded over, as if he was struggling to find the right words.
‘What is it?’ she said quickly.
‘It’s . . .’ Raoul paused. ‘Get Marianne to talk to you.’
Sandrine laughed. ‘We’re always talking, what do you mean? We never stop.’ Then she looked at his expression and saw he was serious. The smile slipped from her face. ‘Talk to me about what?’
Raoul took her hand. ‘Just talk to her.’
Behind them, a rattle of pans in the kitchen.
‘Someone’s already up,’ he said. ‘I must go.’
‘It’s only Marieta.’
‘Even so.’
Sandrine stood on tiptoe to straighten his collar, then stepped back again.
‘Where will you go?’ she said quietly. ‘Back to Banyuls?’
‘Maybe. Anywhere, as far away from Carcassonne and Laval as I can manage.’
‘Until it’s blown over.’
Raoul sighed. ‘It’s not going to blow over,’ he said. ‘There’s a murder charge against me. That won’t go away.’
Sandrine didn’t know for sure what she was going to say until she’d said it, and the moment the words were out of her mouth she knew Marianne would be furious. But she didn’t care.
‘If you’re stuck or need somewhere to stay in an emergency, you could go to our house in Coustaussa.’
‘No,’ he objected immediately, as she’d known he would. ‘No question of it. You’ve done more than enough already. I’ve put you at risk simply by being here. I’m not going to do it again.’
Sandrine continued as if he’d not spoken. ‘The house is standing empty. It’s out of the way. People mind their own business in the valley.’
‘No,’ he said forcefully.
‘Once you’re in Coustaussa, coming from Couiza, head through the village towards the back road towards Cassaignes. It’s a stone house, three steps up to the front door, yellow paintwork. Everyone knows it. Wooden sign outside – CITADELLE – though it came down in the storms a couple of years ago and I’m not sure it was ever put back up. There’s a key under the geranium pot on the terrace at the back.’
‘Sandrine, enough,’ he said, putting his hands on her shoulders.
‘Just consider it.’
He placed a kiss on her forehead, then drew her close against him. Sandrine threw her arms around his waist, holding on tight as if her life depended on it.
‘You’re shivering,’ he said.
‘I’m cold, don’t know why,’ she whispered.
They stood there for a short while, greedy for even a few seconds more. Bound together, not speaking, just feeling the beat of one another’s heart through the thin cotton of their clothes.
Then he took her chin in his hand and tilted her face to his and slowly, sweetly, began to kiss her. She felt heat rushing through her, desire lightening every artery and vein and muscle, every tiny nerve ending.
Then, the unremitting and unwelcome sound of Saint-Michel striking the quarter. Raoul stepped back.
‘I don’t want you to go,’ she said.
‘I don’t want to go,’ he said, though he was trying to smile. ‘Whatever happens in the days, weeks ahead, the time I’ve spent with—’
Sandrine couldn’t bear it. ‘Don’t,’ she said quickly, with a catch in her voice. ‘Please, don’t say anything more. Don’t.’
He nodded, understanding. The stolen seconds stretched into minutes. Finally, Sandrine dropped his hand.
‘Go,’ she said, amazed her voice sounded so steady, so determined, when she felt she was breaking into a thousand pieces.
‘You’ll be all right?’ he asked.
Sandrine nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She watched as he swung his rucksack on to his shoulder, adjusted the straps over the borrowed jacket, straightened the hat.
‘This is it then.’
‘Remember,’ she said, ‘through the village. The last house.’
She painted a smile on her face and Raoul did the same, though she could see he was struggling too.
Then he was walking away. Down the steps and across the garden and out through the gate, away from her and into the Bastide.
For a moment, Sandrine stood motionless, still feeling the echo of his hands on her skin. Then, dizzy with desire and the lack of sleep, she sat back on the bench, put her head in her hands and wept.