‘Raoul!’ Sandrine cried out, her heart suddenly racing. ‘Raoul?’
For a moment she was neither asleep nor awake, as if some part of her had been left behind in the dream. She was floating, looking down at herself from a great height, like the stone gargoyles, dragons, lions that leered at passers-by from the cathédrale Saint-Michel. A sensation of slipping out of time, falling from one dimension into another through white, endless space.
‘Has he come for us?’ Lucie murmured.
Sandrine smiled at the sound of Lucie’s voice. She had been quiet for so long.
‘Not yet,’ she replied. ‘Soon.’
The flies were worse now. The room was airless, the sun ferocious, and the heat and the smell of blood caught in Sandrine’s throat. She turned her head to the right and could see, through the high windows, a patch of sky so blue and clear and endless. It seemed wrong, she thought, that there should be such beauty in the world on a day like this.
She rolled her head to the other side. Lucie was very pale, barely breathing. Sandrine could see her thin chest, beneath her broderie anglaise blouse, rising and falling faintly. Sandrine smiled a little. Lucie had always said she’d get married in that shirt. Smart, she said, but not too much.
A sudden memory of Lucie waltzing around the salon in Coustaussa, holding Jean-Jacques in her arms. Liesl was there, taking photographs as always. Marieta was grumbling the baby would get overexcited and never go down. Marianne was smiling and clapping her hands, Suzanne, with a wry expression, watching Marianne more than the baby. Had Monsieur Baillard been there? Sandrine frowned, she couldn’t remember. Had Raoul?
The gentle past faded once more. The pain was constant now, as if her insides were being turned inside out. She could feel the infection moving under her skin, hot and angry and swollen. As for her hands, she couldn’t feel them at all any longer.
But now she was aware of a weight on her chest that she couldn’t identify, a despair. As if the air had all been sucked out of her lungs.
She would have liked a child, a daughter. She and Raoul, a little girl, with her father’s lopsided smile and his passion. They could have called her Sophie, perhaps, to remind them of how life once had been. Sandrine shook her head. No, she would have a name for the future, not for the past.
‘Vida,’ she whispered to herself. The Occitan word for life. She thought Raoul would like it.
‘Are you still there?’ Lucie whispered.
Even though her voice was faint, Sandrine jumped at the sound.
‘I’m here.’
‘What time is it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘It’s not night?’
‘No, it’s daytime. The sun is still high.’
Overhead, Sandrine heard the sound of an aeroplane. Why could she hear a plane? Hadn’t they all gone now? Hadn’t they?
‘I don’t think anyone’s coming,’ Lucie said, a heartbeat later.
‘Raoul will have found out where we’ve been taken,’ Sandrine said quickly. ‘Marianne, too. They’ll work it out and they’ll come. You’ll see.’
‘If we’re patient . . .’ Lucie spoke so softly now that, despite the silence of the room, Sandrine could barely hear her.
‘That’s right.’
‘But it’s not night?’
‘No.’
‘The thing is, kid, I can’t see anything. Everything’s dark.’
Sandrine felt tears spring to her eyes. ‘It must be the shadows of the trees.’
‘Ah . . . that’s good then,’ Lucie said. ‘I think I can hear the wind blowing through the trees, it must be that.’
‘That’s right,’ Sandrine said, trying not to cry.
Motes of dust danced in the slatted sunlight coming in through the windows high up in the tiny room. Like dancers, Sandrine thought, spinning silver in the white haze.
‘Thanks, kid,’ Lucie said softly, too softly now.
Sandrine heard Lucie’s breathing falter and knew she was dying. Knew there was nothing she could do. The bullet shifting beneath Lucie’s skin in the cartilage and bone of her shattered knee, the muscles and skin screaming around the entry wound. The infection setting in.
Sandrine knew her pain would pass soon too. Feared it would pass. And she was wondering now – after everything that had happened, the blackness that had engulfed them – if France could ever recover. If there could be forgiveness. If all those thousands, millions who had died would all be honoured and remembered. If their deaths would count for something, mean something. Their names on a wall, on a street sign, in the history books. Sandrine tried to bring each face to mind, one by one, like the names on the marble wall in the Place de l’Armistice.
She smiled and felt her mind drifting free. She didn’t believe in God – could not believe in a God that allowed such things to happen – but, at the same time, the seductive thought that her father might be somewhere, waiting for her, brought a smile to her parched lips. He would have liked Raoul, if ever they had met. Would have been proud to have him as a son-in-law.
She knew Liesl would care for Jean-Jacques like her own son until Max came back. With Marieta’s help, of course. Suzanne and Marianne would be there too. She wondered what Max would tell J-J about his mother. The diaries that Lucie had painstakingly kept would help. About how brave Lucie was, how she fought every moment of her life to keep him safe.
And Raoul, would he talk about her?
Sandrine looked down at her ripped clothes, at the tartan socks rescued from the house on the rue du Palais, threadbare and through at the heel now.
‘Really something,’ she murmured, remembering Lucie’s words on the day they’d first met.
She wanted more than anything to reach out and hold Lucie’s hand, though she didn’t seem frightened. All Sandrine could do was turn her head and watch. Lucie’s features seemed to be changing, shifting. She looked suddenly young, all the worry lines falling away from her eyes, the corners of her mouth. A girl with the world at her feet.
‘They’ll be here soon,’ Sandrine said.
Lucie didn’t answer. Sandrine wasn’t sure she was breathing any more.
Sandrine was floating in and out of consciousness, not tethered any more to the tattered, beautiful world. Not any more. She hoped it would be quick. And that, when it was all over, they would come to Baudrigues and find them. Know who they were. Remember their names.
‘Not much longer now,’ she whispered, finally allowing the tears to come. ‘Raoul will be here soon.’
She heard the sound of boots in the corridor outside, leather heels on the black and white tiles, then a key turning in the lock. A German soldier in a grey uniform, or was it green, coming towards them. Something in his hands, two hand grenades, and Sandrine realised they meant to leave no evidence. Nothing at all.
He leant forward to force one into Lucie’s mouth.
‘Leave her,’ she said quickly. ‘She’s gone. There’s no need.’
The soldier hesitated.
‘Please,’ Sandrine repeated, in a whisper this time.
The young man took a step back, then another, towards the open door. She thought she saw pity in his eyes, shame even. He paused on the threshold and put one of the grenades carefully down on the floor, then he shut the door and ran. The sound of his boots echoing in the distance.
The room seemed to be vibrating beneath her. Outside in the park there was a wave of explosions, glass shattering, wood ripping through the gardens. Fireworks, firecrackers, a sequence of snapping, cracking, bursting. Then, a single all-encompassing blast and Sandrine realised they were blowing up the entire munitions store.
‘Raoul,’ she whispered. ‘Raoul.’
The grenade came to rest against her leg. Now, she saw that the soldier had pulled the pin after all. There was to be no reprieve.
‘Mon còr,’ she said. The only words that mattered any more.