Raoul woke with a jolt. He had slept badly, his dreams haunted by Antoine and the girl, the sense of being too late. Always too late, failing to prevent some catastrophe or another. Arriving to find her dead in the water. His brother’s tortured face shifting into Antoine’s features. Antoine’s silver chain in the girl’s fingers. Coursan and César sitting at separate tables in a bar.
His hand shot out to his bedside table, checking the antique glass bottle was still there, lying wrapped in the handkerchief, then he slumped back against the headboard. He could see there was something inside the bottle, but had resisted the temptation last night to try to get it out. It was so fragile, he didn’t want to damage whatever Antoine had hidden inside. He’d see what César thought.
Raoul lit his last cigarette, smoking it to the very end, then got up, washed and went into the kitchen. His mother was already there, standing at the window. Her blank eyes looked blindly out over the narrow street to the canal. Her thin arms were wrapped tight around her waist, as if she feared that if she let go she would shatter into pieces. In the sink, the tap was running into a china bowl filled with turnips.
For a moment, Raoul thought he saw her lips begin to form a smile or try to shape a greeting or acknowledge his presence, but she didn’t. He kissed her on the cheek, then leant over and turned the tap off.
‘I have to go out,’ he said. ‘Will you be all right?’
‘Is he here yet?’
‘No, there’s no one, Maman.’
‘Not Bruno?’
Raoul felt his heart contract, though he’d not expected anything else. It was the same every day. His once vivacious and kind mother had vanished when he’d told her Bruno had been killed. At first she hadn’t believed it. Then, slowly and remorselessly, her world had begun to unravel, a little more every day, every week, every month.
Four years ago.
‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘Only us.’
Now she rarely spoke, never seemed to notice anything. A neighbour came in each day to keep an eye and to do a little shopping, but Raoul didn’t know if she even noticed. If she even knew a war had been fought and lost.
‘Don’t stay indoors all day,’ he said. ‘Go out, get some air.’
Raoul left the apartment and ran down the stairs, two at a time. On the Quai Riquet, he exhaled deeply, breathing out the sadness that choked his lungs, and let the sun and the soft morning air bring life back into his cheeks.
By seven thirty, he was sitting in the Café Saillan. The oldest café in Carcassonne, it was opposite Les Halles and only a few minutes’ walk from boulevard Barbès, where the demonstrators were to gather. The air was thick with tobacco smoke and the grey faces of men come off the night shift. Hard-boiled eggs sat in a glass jar on the bar, as they always had, though these days they were china, not real.
Raoul found a table facing the door and ordered a panaché, not able to stomach the ersatz coffee on offer. He was queasy with nerves as it was. He scanned the room, wondering how many of the men in here were going to the demonstration. How many of them even knew what was about to happen. It was extraordinary how a day of such significance could look the same as any other, smell the same. Men in the tabac, women already queuing outside the boulangerie, the épicerie, a few standing in line outside the closed door of the haberdasher.
He raised his hand as he saw César appear in the doorway carrying a holdall. He looked drawn and there were bags under his eyes.
‘No Gaston or Robert?’ César asked, sitting down.
Raoul shook his head. ‘Not yet. I waited for you at the Terminus last night, later at the Continental, in case you went back to the print shop. I didn’t see you.’
César’s eyes sparked. ‘Did you find Antoine then?’
Raoul shook his head. ‘No. I went to the apartment straight after I left you. The concierge said she heard someone early yesterday morning, but didn’t actually see him. What about you?’
César sighed. ‘No luck either. Antoine didn’t turn up at work yesterday. I tried his usual bars, but no one admitted to seeing him since last Friday.’
Raoul paused, then produced the white cotton handkerchief from his pocket with the bottle wrapped inside.
‘I don’t know if it’s important, but I found this in Antoine’s flat. It was hidden in the cistern.’
César frowned. ‘In the cistern?’
Raoul nodded. ‘That’s why I took it. Antoine had gone to a lot of trouble to conceal it. I thought it might be important.’ He looked across the table at César. ‘It doesn’t mean anything to you? He never mentioned he was looking after something for someone?’
César shook his head.
‘There’s something inside, a piece of paper maybe. I’ve been thinking we should try to get it out.’
‘The bottle looks valuable,’ César said doubtfully. ‘It might break.’
‘That’s what worries me. On the other hand, if what’s inside might—’
He broke off. César’s eyes had sharpened, his face settling into a scowl. Raoul turned round to see Sylvère Laval walking towards them, followed by the Bonnets. Quickly, he slipped the handkerchief and the bottle off the table and back into his pocket.
‘Got the leaflets?’ Gaston said when they drew level.
‘For Christ’s sake, Bonnet,’ snapped César, ‘don’t broadcast it.’
‘It’s been all over the radio as it is,’ Gaston said, but he lit a cigarette and shut up.
The group sat in silence. Laval watched the street. Gaston twisted a spent match round and round between his finger and thumb. Robert was tearing tiny shreds of paper from the corner of a copy of L’Éclair, another Vichyist newspaper.
Anticipation crawled over Raoul’s skin like pins and needles. He wanted to get on with it. Seven forty-five, seven fifty-five. The hands of the clock above the counter ground slowly on, counting down the minutes to eight o’clock.
Finally Laval stood up. ‘Time to go.’
Sandrine looked at the drift of clothes heaped along the back of the Chinese silk settee, the discarded shoes on the floor by the bamboo plant stand. She had slept well for once – no nightmares – and she was full of anticipation.
‘Darling, are you ready?’ Marianne called up the stairs.
‘Almost . . .’
She settled on a green dress with a white belt and buttons, which she thought made her look older. She paused for a moment to look at her reflection. The bruise on the side of her head was the colour of the sea at Narbonne in July, blue and green and purple, but the cut barely showed. She applied a little face powder, ran a comb through her hair, then began to search for a suitable pair of shoes.
‘Sandrine!’
‘J’arrive,’ she shouted back. ‘I’m coming . . .’
She buckled her shoes, then threw open the door and charged out on to the landing. The catch bounced in the latch and a funnel of warm air rushed into the room. It lifted the papers, her notes written in the police station and left abandoned on the tallboy, and sent them fluttering like a drift of autumn leaves. Sandrine picked them up and dropped them on the bed, then rushed back out.
The front door was open and Marianne was already waiting in the street. Marieta was hovering at the foot of the stairs.
‘You stay with your sister,’ she said. ‘Don’t do anything silly.’
‘I won’t, I won’t,’ Sandrine said, trying to get past her.
‘And don’t go getting yourself arrested again.’
Sandrine pulled a face. ‘I wasn’t arrested yesterday.’
‘The first sign of trouble, you come home. Do you hear me?’
Sandrine grinned. ‘And you put your feet up, do you hear me? You look all in.’
Then before Marieta could make any more fuss, Sandrine slipped past her and down the steps to the pavement.
‘I’m sorry. Marieta was fussing, though I think she’s proud of us actually.’ She jerked her head. ‘Which is more than can be said for that old witch next door.’
Marianne followed Sandrine’s gaze to see their next-door neighbour, Madame Fournier, peering out from behind a voile curtain.
‘She’s an awful woman,’ she said. ‘Take no notice.’
The rue du Palais was quiet. But as soon as the girls reached the boulevard Maréchal Pétain, it was clear many Carcassonnais had heard the illicit broadcast or been told of it. Everywhere, people.
‘Where are we meeting Lucie?’ Sandrine said, raising her voice to make herself heard over the noise of the crowd.
‘At the junction with rue Voltaire.’
Despite the serious purpose of the rally, there was something of a carnival atmosphere. Women in summer dresses, bare arms and flowered skirts, the clip of heels on the pavements. Men in their Sunday best, hats perched on the back of their heads, children carried on shoulders. As well as placards, there were flags – the red, white and blue of the murdered Republic, but also the scarlet and gold of the Languedoc. The colours of Viscount Trencavel. Some men had bottles of beer, women carried trays of cake or bread, biscuits, bonbons, each willing to share their meagre rations with those around them. For today, at least.
Sandrine felt a tap on the arm. She turned to see one of the teachers from the Lycée, a quiet and rather serious woman who taught the première. She had an idea she was married to a doctor.
‘Madame Giraud, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.’
The woman held up her hand. ‘Aujourd’hui, appelez-moi Jeanne,’ she replied.
Seeing her out of school, Sandrine realised Madame Giraud wasn’t actually much older than Marianne.
‘All right,’ she smiled. ‘Jeanne.’
‘It’s good to see you here, Sandrine.’
The crowd was continuing to build. Many people carried banners, words printed in block letters: ICI FRANCE, ICI LONDRES, VIVE LA RÉSISTANCE, VIVRE LIBRE OU MOURIR.
‘Live free or die,’ Sandrine said, reading a placard carried by a veteran. She smiled at him. The medals pinned to his black jacket rattled as he leant forward and clasped her arm.
‘I fought at Verdun, mademoiselle,’ he said. ‘But not for Vichy. Not for Berlin.’ He waved at the people all round him. ‘Today at least, today Carcassonne shows her true face.’ He put his hand up and touched her cheek. ‘It is up to you now. Old men should be put out to grass. Leave it to the young.’
‘We’ll do our best,’ she said, oddly moved by the exchange.
At that moment, the marchers began to move off. The old man nodded to her, then raised his placard and, with his eyes fixed straight ahead, walked on.
Sandrine and Marianne turned the corner into boulevard Barbès, where the crowds were even denser, more tightly packed. Chalk marks had been drawn on the road. Slogans and symbols, the Cross of Lorraine and the Occitan cross, the letters FFL – for les Forces Françaises Libres – and the letter H for Honneur. White marks of defiance on the grey tarmac. Men outnumbered the women here, men with dark jumping eyes and thin shoulders, scanning the crowd. And lining the route along the pavements Sandrine saw a line of police, guns cradled in their arms. Watching, all the time watching. She stole a glance at her sister and saw Marianne had noticed too.
Swarms of children were running up and down the paths below the old city walls of the Bastide. Two little girls of seven or eight were playing cache-cache, until the mother of one of them appeared, smacked the child on the back of her legs and dragged her away. The march shuffled past the Jardin des Tilleuls, where the Foire aux Vins was held each November. On a normal day, she thought, the old veteran might be sitting with his comrades beneath the trees in his dark suit and beret. Today the benches were empty.
On the far side of the road, Sandrine caught sight of Max and Lucie, standing with Max’s sister, Liesl. She had pale skin and wide brown eyes and wore her black hair long to the shoulder, not waved or pinned up.
‘Liesl’s rather beautiful, isn’t she?’ Sandrine said to Marianne.
‘Very.’
Lucie was wearing the same dress she’d had on at the river. She looked bright and eye-catching, as if she was going to a fair. She waved and they pushed through the sea of people to join them. Lucie kissed them both. Max, formal as always in a sombre black suit, lifted his hat. Liesl gave a quick smile but said nothing.
Then Sandrine noticed Marianne’s friend, Suzanne Peyre, Thierry’s cousin. At nearly six foot tall and with cropped hair, she was very distinctive, towering head and shoulders above everyone else.
‘There’s Suzanne over there,’ she said.
Sandrine tried to move forward, but she found her way blocked by Monsieur Fournier, their unpleasant next-door neighbour’s equally unpleasant brother. Sandrine disliked him, not least because he always stood too close. She wondered why he’d come. He made no secret of his support for Pétain, and his outspoken opinions about ‘the Jew conspiracy’, as he called it, were well known.
‘Mademoiselle Vidal,’ he said.
‘Monsieur Fournier.’
‘I’m surprised your sister allowed you to come.’
Sandrine forced herself to smile. ‘You’re here, Monsieur Fournier.’
‘What would your father have said?’ he said, taking a step closer. Sandrine tried to move back, but the crowds were too dense and they were being pressed together in the crush. She could feel his sour breath, ripe with tobacco, on her cheek. ‘Then again, he was another Jew lover, wasn’t he?’ he said. ‘Like Ménard’s girl over there.’
Sandrine was shocked by the blatancy of it all. Her mind went blank. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say to defend either her father or Lucie.
‘Problem?’
Somehow Suzanne had picked her way through the crowd and was now standing between her and Fournier.
‘Not really,’ Sandrine said.
‘My friend doesn’t want to talk to you,’ Suzanne said, turning to him, ‘so if you don’t mind?’
‘I’ll talk to whoever I like, éspèce de gouine.’
Fournier’s hand flashed out to grab Suzanne’s elbow, but she batted it away and put her own hand up to warn him not to touch her again.
‘Let’s go,’ she said, taking Sandrine’s arm. ‘Bad smell around here.’
‘Sale pute,’ Fournier hissed.
As Suzanne steered her back through the crowd, Sandrine couldn’t help herself turning round. Fournier was still looking after them with hate-filled eyes.
‘Don’t let him get to you,’ Suzanne said. ‘Not worth it.’
‘No. No, I won’t,’ she said, but she felt shaken all the same.
Some cafés were closed, but most on this section of boulevard Barbès had put out flags and bunting and banners. The Café du Nord was packed, people spilling out from the pavements into the road. The reason soon became clear. A display board was offering, at the price of only one franc, a special cocktail, ‘la blanquette des Forces Françaises Libres’. There were huddles of men standing around high bar tables set out on the street. Even though it was only just after eight o’clock in the morning, demand was already outstripping supply.
The house band from the Hôtel Terminus had set up on the terrace. The sheets of music, held in place by wooden pegs on the music stands, fluttered in the Tramontana breeze. Trumpet, horn, euphonium, brass glinting in the early sunshine, banjo, clarinet and drum, the accordionists apart from the others. The men wore black button-up uniforms and képi caps with their insignia on the brow.
Sandrine noticed an army of journalists and newspapermen camped on the opposite side of the street. Photographers with cameras and tripods jostled one another to get the best spot – first-floor balconies, the narrow perch of a wall. A reporter from La Dépêche was stopping people, asking why they had come, while a colleague snapped away.
‘Hey, girl with the white belt. Over here!’
Sandrine turned round, in time to be caught as the flash went off. Quickly she dropped her head and hurried to catch up with Suzanne.
‘Be in tomorrow’s paper,’ the journalist called after her.
‘We wondered where you had got to,’ said Marianne.
‘A photographer just took my picture.’
‘Sandrine!’
‘It’s all right, he didn’t get a proper shot. Although what’s the point in coming if we’re not prepared to be seen?’ She looked around. ‘They can hardly arrest all of us, there must be three thousand people here.’ She took a deep breath. ‘In fact, I’ve a good mind to go back and give him my name.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Marianne said. ‘No.’
Then someone started to shout. They all looked up. Sandrine felt nerves fluttering in the pit of her stomach and she reached for Marianne’s hand. For a moment there was no response, then a quick squeeze and their fingers intertwined.
‘They’re here,’ Marianne said. ‘Someone’s about to speak.’