Ignorance (25 page)

On the one hand, you should tell the truth. On the other hand, not declaring everything was a way to fight back against the Boches. I didn’t know which was right, so I kept my mouth shut. Adeline scrabbled in her basket, held out half a savoy cabbage, a shrivelled onion, a black-spotted cauliflower: can’t do any better than this. The
patron
says we can’t go on giving away food for free. We haven’t got enough for ourselves as it is.

I felt very upset. My own family was turning against me. I said: but your duty of charity! Adeline stared at the floor. Come off it. He can’t give you what he hasn’t got. I said: you mean he’s found people who’ll pay for it.

My insides were squeezing together. That my brother should send me such a message! Family was family, even if we didn’t always see eye to eye.

I said: how can you do this? Times are so hard for us.

She knew perfectly well I’d never want to fall out with my brother. He was falling out with me first. It was his fault. I was almost in tears.

Adeline practically spat at me. Times are hard for us too. The
patron
said to tell you he’s sorry, but there it is.

I could hardly get my voice out. He’s turned very mean. And I know who’s behind it!

As kids, my brother and I had been thick as thieves. We ran about together all day long. When we played priests, we took turns saying Mass and handing out Holy Communion. For hosts we’d use daisies or dandelions. We were the two mischiefs. Always getting into trouble. So when one got beaten, the other did too. He and I, as the two eldest, had to keep an eye on the younger ones, and so we looked after each other as well. At night we slept next to each other in the big bed full of children.

My poor mother had so much work to do. She needed us to keep out of her way. If we got under her feet she’d bawl at us. My brother answered her back, then ducked. He was so bold! He wouldn’t take anyone bossing him. He couldn’t stand the nun who taught us our catechism. Why? Because she was dried-up and ugly. Walking home from church one day he said to me: I’d like to get hold of one of her saggy old tits, pull it right out then let it go – ping! I pretended not to hear and ran ahead shrieking we’d be late, we wouldn’t half catch it.

Later on, when I entered, my brother said: good riddance!
Les bonnes soeurs
, he used to say with a nasty smile, spitting on the ground: there’s many outside the convent just as good as that lot inside.

I didn’t like nuns much, either, when I was a girl. They weren’t like us. Sharp-eyed, always on the lookout. Going on about holy poverty but always asking for money for this or that, not realising we had none to give. Behind their backs my parents would roll their eyes. That didn’t stop me from being bundled off to the convent as soon as I was old enough. One less to feed. Twelve children. Too many girls: get rid of one of them. They chose me. I heard their night whispers: best to let her go, she’s so plain, no chance of her catching a husband, poor thing. My brother said: you fool! I answered: no choice, have I?

He wouldn’t say goodbye, he was out mending a fence when I left, and that was a right blow to the heart. I offered it up for the holy souls but I still missed him.

In fact the life wasn’t too bad. Enough to eat, a cubicle to sleep in all to myself, curtains you could draw right round your bed. Cold and narrow it felt at first, lonely, but the nuns explained: it meant being respected. The Good Lord gave me a helping hand when I needed it. I had no trouble with kitchen work, none with keeping the children in order. You just had to be very firm, let them know who was boss.

Best were our feast days. In May we made lily-of-the-valley posies for the Virgin, dressed her in garlands of white lilac, and took her round the garden on a bier. We sang Ave Maria and then the prettiest child crowned her. For Corpus Christi we made little altars at the edge of the lawn, with lace cloths and red roses. Throwing rose petals and singing, we went before the priest carrying the Monstrance. Gold rays flaming like the sun. We knelt down at each altar as he raised the Monstrance for us to adore. Afterwards we’d have almond cakes and wine at supper.

Mother Lucie made the cakes. Just once or twice in the year, on those special occasions, she deigned to come into the kitchen. So proud of herself, coming from a baker’s family. Anyone can cook up treats if they’re not on a tight budget. Still, she didn’t know any better and she meant well. She’d get all flushed from the heat of the oven, pull out the tray, cry: they’ve risen! She didn’t know how foolish she looked, her coif slipped sideways and flour smeared across her cheeks. I’d go over to her, stroke the flour off her face, pull her veil straight, generally brush her down. Once she laughed and said: you’re grooming me! And she shut her eyes and purred.

Another good thing about the convent: we had no mirrors, and so I could forget about what I looked like. It just didn’t matter.

My brother did sometimes come to visit me. He talked about the fields and the animals, the harvest, and I listened. He was still my brother, and I was godmother to his first child. A girl. Big brown eyes, soft pale skin, thick brown curls. Just like her mother. My brother doted on that child. He brought her in on his visits to the convent, to show her off. When she whimpered and jumped from his lap he’d get up and throw her in the air and let her ride piggy-back on his shoulders. Round and round the parlour, while Adeline smiled. I cautioned him: you’ll spoil her! He said: shut up!

I said to Adeline: you want to come in?

She said: if you like.

We stood in silence, side by side, near the range. Adeline smelled of sweat after her walk from the farm. She threw down her cap. She sighed and chewed her bottom lip. Her short hair, curling like a sheep’s fleece, was going grey, but her thick eyebrows were still black. Her hands were raw and scrubbed but her fingernails were crusted with earth. She saw me looking. Hastily I asked her: so what’s the news?

She could only tell me new things. She didn’t know the old things. Those were pictures from childhood, before she arrived on the scene. She was from Ste-Madeleine, not Ste-Marie, so as a child I hadn’t known her. In any case, like my brother, she didn’t talk about the past. The two of them got on with each day as it came. But I remembered the goats it had been my job to feed, the calves I’d been allowed to name, the way the small stone house and barns grew straight up out of the green land. No flowerbeds or high walls like the convent. Just a thin fence, and the orchard to one side.

Adeline said: what d’you think? Trying to manage, aren’t we. Watching our backsides day in day out in case someone informs on us.

I said: what’s he up to, my brother? Adeline shrugged. She put down her basket on the table, next to her cap, looked around. Trying to catch me out somehow but she couldn’t. The place was all in order. Sparkling clean. Finally she said: the
patron
’s started supplying someone here in town. Seems an OK sort. Understands the way things are. Not like some.

She was trying to hurt me. Words like a smack to the belly. I felt winded. That she should show me such contempt! But I wouldn’t let her see I minded. I shoved my hands into my sleeves and just waited for what she’d come out with next. She put her palms flat against the oven door. Wriggled her fingers up and down. He comes with his girlfriend. Good sturdy lass. She helps him carry the stuff into the car.

I said: I could starve for all my brother cares. My hands jumped out of my sleeves, rummaged in my pocket for safety pins. I fastened back my wide cuffs. I fetched out my mop from the broom cupboard. I said: I must get on. I’ve work to do.

Adeline said: you’ve always had such a temper! That’s what the
patron
says and he’s right. Why are you in such a huff?

She picked up her cap, her basket. She paused. She was obviously trying to think of something nice to say before she left. Then she’d be the good one not the nasty one. But her words squeezed out like rabbit droppings. You don’t know how well off you are. A roof over your head, no responsibilities, no decisions to make. You might as well still be a child!

We kissed each other goodbye. I said: I’ll pray for you.

I knew that would annoy her and it did. She stomped out. But I kept my word. Once the door had clacked shut behind her I said a Hail Mary, nice and slow, then picked up that good-for-nothing cauliflower from the table top and balanced it in my open hand. Hey there, I said: you old misery. The cauliflower stared back and said nothing. Before the war, I’d have made
choufleur au gratin
, with a couple of capers to give it a kick, cream and cheese sauce crusted golden on top. Now we were in 1942 and vegetables had to work harder all by themselves. A bath in boiling water for you, chum, I said: and perhaps a hat of toasted breadcrumbs if we’re lucky. The cauliflower looked at me with its little black eyes.

Annoying as children, that cauliflower, that cabbage. What are you going to do with us, eh?

I spent my days working out how to make our rations stretch to feed us all. I had no time left over from all this scrimping and scraping by, yet Mother Lucie refused to see that those two Jewish kids gave me extra work. I was running up and down the stairs after them all day long. We should have kept them in amongst the orphans, hidden them that way, in the most obvious place. In this case, right under the Germans’ noses, with the Jew-man gone from next door and his house made over to some sort of barracks. The children would have been perfectly safe with us in the school. On the farm, you kept the animals together. You took the cows out in the morning, after the milking, herded them into the pasture, brought them back at evening for the second milking. A cow on her own, that meant she was ill, or about to give birth. Sometimes you left cows in labour alone for a bit, to let them get on with it in peace. They didn’t always want you there.

I admit, I didn’t always want those two children there. They didn’t need special treatment. They weren’t ill. They could have just been part of all the others. Yes, all right, always supposing no one was looking. Always supposing no one was going to tip the wink. But they wouldn’t, would they? People in town respected us. They didn’t enquire into our doings. They didn’t gossip about us. But Mother Lucie had got it into her head that the Jewish children must be kept separate at night, in case someone came in and counted the others. Who was going to do that? Some gendarme was going to storm into the dormitory with a list and tick off the little ones’ names? Why would they bother? Mother Lucie said: please, dear, just do as I say. So on top of coping with two extra mouths to feed I had to climb all that way upstairs to tuck them up at night, keep an ear cocked for their crying.

I was at my wits’ end over their naughtiness. Smacking them only made them cry harder. So I’d say: if you don’t stop crying, your daddy won’t come and fetch you. That usually did the trick. That hushed them up all right.

Mother Lucie got it all wrong. If only she had listened to me. But she didn’t.

That stupid Jeanne. Of course she was seen. What did she think she was up to, bringing the children over to us in broad daylight?

Jeanne in her fancy get-up, her tart’s clothes. We all knew how she was earning a living. I had it from Madame Baudry, on one of her visits, who’d had it from someone else. She could hardly speak for being so upset. Jeanne’s mother had been her protégée, after all. That poor woman, what must she be feeling? Madame Baudry said: this will break her heart. Oh, she doesn’t deserve this.

What a cheek Jeanne had to show herself at our door! People were going through so much, suffering so much, and there was Jeanne making mock of good French wives and fiancées. I couldn’t stay in the same room with her. I dashed out and called for Mother Lucie. We’d tried so hard with Jeanne, we’d done our best, but blood will out, you couldn’t expect anything better, not with her background. Of course Mother Lucie took the children in, such a soft heart, but I told her: you mark my words, Jeanne brings nothing but trouble!

It wasn’t my fault, what happened afterwards. I couldn’t stop them. Nobody could.

I was sweeping the entrance hall, in the middle of the afternoon. I was still feeling very hurt about my brother’s behaviour, and there was nobody I could tell. I wasn’t due for confession until Friday. Reverend Mother would have said that I shouldn’t get so upset about my brother, that I lived in the Holy Family now. Mother Lucie might have been too nice and so made me feel even worse. I thought I’d never speak to my brother again, not even if he sent Adeline over to say sorry.

They hammered on the front door. Two gendarmes. Blank-faced boys in uniform: I didn’t know them. Sorry, I said: what? I let them in, took them to Reverend Mother’s office, then went away to say a prayer. I knelt in the shrine opposite the office, in the red passage, in front of the Blessed Virgin. At one point they raised their voices and so I heard some of what they said. This way there’ll be no fuss, no disturbance. We don’t want any of you good sisters making a scene. Later, when Reverend Mother spoke to me, she said some of it over again. She sighed. She said: I always meant to get that entrance closed off but I never got round to it. It never seemed to matter.

Her face set white, like a blancmange, then wobbled. She said: I know I can rely on you to do what you’re told.

When I’d entered, my mother had packed me a bag with what the nuns said I’d need. A change of stockings, a nightgown, and suchlike. She added in her own rosary beads, which she’d been given for her First Communion. That was a mistake, it turned out, because they got taken away as soon as I entered and given to someone else. My nightdress and underwear vanished too. So much for all that careful laundry-marking I’d spent hours on. I lost my stockings as well. They danced away on to someone else’s legs. In this new life you got stockings just as they came from the wash. Ownerless. Often mixed up. You couldn’t be sure everything came in the right pair any more.