A Good Death Read online

  From the office behind came a man Theo thought he recognised. He was of medium height, thin and wiry, with short curly grey hair. The face was younger, narrow and foxy, with grey eyes, as clear and cold as water.

  ‘Mr Vernhes?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked surprised, not welcoming.

  ‘I’m Colonel de Cazalle from Bonnemort.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ve come to see you in your capacity as schoolmaster, rather than mayor.’

  Vernhes’ expression was not noticeably friendlier.

  ‘I’m only here for a very brief visit, which is why I’m calling without an appointment. I hope it isn’t an inconvenient moment.’

  Four years of dealing with the petty officials of powerful interest groups had taught Theo that an excess of politeness, oiling the raw vanity of such people, which cost him nothing except a slight self-disgust at how easily he did it, was always worth it.

  ‘Very well. Come into my office. Colonel, you say. The Armistice Army?’ The military of Vichy were despised by the Resistance, as were the mothballed officers who had emerged from retirement in June ’44.

  ‘Free French,’ Theo said briefly. His provenance would not necessarily make Vernhes more sympathetic. The Resistance bore a grudge against the Gaullists for not supplying them with enough arms, not permitting action until the invasion and for generally not valuing their efforts.

  ‘And you, you were active around here?’

  ‘I founded a group of FTP and then I worked in the regional HQ.’

  The Franc-Tireurs et Partisans were the communist Resistance. The communists had been driven underground in 1940 by Vichy’s hostility, but orders from Stalin had forbidden them to attack the Germans. However, their experience of organising networks of self-protection had meant that when Hitler had launched Operation Barbarossa, his attack on Russia in June 1941, they were ready to act against the Nazis. They had always been the Resistance grouping least susceptible to pressure from the Free French, least influenced by reprisals by the Germans or hostility by the local population.

  The moment of recognition was simultaneous. Theo suddenly recalled the three guerrillas who had stopped him in September 1944 on the road to Bonnemort, the commissar behind his table, who did not give his name. And he could see that the other had just recalled the colonel who had then been so impervious to hints about what had been going on at his home. So now they knew where they were. Or thought they did.

  * * *

  So this was Ariane’s husband. Vernhes had been curious from the start about the man who had brought such an exotic creature to the country. He remembered his astonishment when he first realised what she was, like discovering a zebra in a field of donkeys. It is shaped like a donkey, it eats and moves like a donkey, but its stripes show clearly that it is not a donkey and does not have a donkey’s nature. When he had believed, like everyone else, that Colonel de Cazalle was dead, he had imagined him to have been an army officer in the classic mode, rigid and dashing, who had won her in the drama of the war and whose attraction would have faded rapidly even if he hadn’t got himself killed. After the liberation he had heard that her husband wasn’t dead after all, had resurfaced fighting with the Free French, which had put a different perspective on him, and on his wife. All resistants were exceptions to the norm, he thought complacently, had something that pushed them beyond acceptance of the given situation. What was it in this man? Not much that was visible. He was older than she was; tall, but not as extravagantly so as his leader the president; with smooth, grey-black hair, a long oval face and small mouth. Even in his country clothes, he looked as if he was wearing a uniform.

  Was Ariane with him in Paris? He assumed that was where she had gone to hide herself. What, he wondered maliciously, had the brave colonel thought of her shaven head? He could imagine that this man would not enquire too deeply, perfectly content not to see what he did not want to, as long as no public shame was brought on the family.

  * * *

  Theo was putting Vernhes into context. Micheline had said the first runaway they had sheltered at Bonnemort had been a communist.

  ‘Was Henri Menesplier one of yours?’ he asked.

  ‘Henri? No. His group, Rainbow it was called, was part of the Secret Army. It was set up by Lucien Maniotte, whom I’m sure you knew. We worked with Henri at the end, when all the Resistance groups were united under the National Committee, but… Well, he wasn’t the most competent soldier, Henri, and it was too late for him to learn. What did they call it in the trenches in the last war, gun-shy? He didn’t like a shooting war, would do anything to avoid it, which may explain what happened to him. Not that he didn’t do a good job with his escape routes in the early days.’

  Theo took note of these comments. ‘I didn’t come to see you about Henri, I came about your courses at the school. I wondered whether for a few months, until the summer holidays at the latest, you would be able to teach my daughter Sabine?’

  Vernhes raised his eyebrows in surprise. He moistened his lower lip. ‘How old is Sabine now?’

  ‘Ah …’ Theo was calculating, for he had not the least idea. ‘She must be …’

  ‘She is approaching her fourteenth birthday,’ the schoolmaster told him.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And does she want to remain here to study?’

  ‘Yes. That is, I haven’t proposed this particular plan to her, but I have no doubt that it would work for a few months, before she goes to her next school. She might have to spend the summer on some special courses to catch up. Or repeat a year. I’m concerned not to lose too much of her education because of the war.’

  ‘Well, if you wish it and she agrees, I see no difficulty whatsoever. I have no other students at her level, but I shall have pleasure in preparing the course she should be following.’

  Theo rose and shook hands. ‘I’ll get her to come in and agree with you when she should start. Next week, as soon as possible. Goodbye.’

  ‘How is Madame de Cazalle?’ Vernhes remained standing behind his desk.

  ‘She is well, thank you.’

  ‘She has recovered from her shocking experiences?’ He could tell by the sudden arrest of Cazalle’s movements that he had understood. ‘The liberation of the region and so on, I mean.’ He expected a curt reply, a swift departure. Such a man would never reveal anything more than he had just, involuntarily, shown.

  Cazalle turned back and sat down again. ‘You saw what happened?’ he asked.

  Vernhes reseated himself. He had stirred up more than he had anticipated, but he was stimulated by hostility and had always been a skilled tactician in meetings. He could cope.

  ‘Oh yes, I was there. It didn’t happen here; it was in Montfefoul on the Saturday after the town was liberated.’

  * * *

  The sense of arousal that had surged through him when the colonel took up his challenge increased as he recalled that Bacchanalian scene in the forest. He did not drink, so he was sober among the drunken crowds of men, between seventy and a hundred of them, who had liberated the cellars of Montfefoul. She was sober, too. She had been picked up when they were making arrests in the town, gathering in the collabos at the same time as seizing the wine, emptying the grocer’s and the butcher’s and taking anything they could lay their hands on.

  He couldn’t pretend that he liked what had happened that day. It’s never comfortable for a commander to feel that his men are out of his control, but sometimes it is better to let them have their heads, as if you were allowing it, when in reality you have no power to stop it.

  He didn’t approve of random sweeps for criminals. He preferred to make lists of suspects and to send his men for them very early in the morning when they would know where to find them, still in their beds. The wine he could forgive. An army has to live off the land and they had had lean times. Who was he to grudge the men a day of drinking and pleasure to celebrate their liberation of the region? Montfefoul deserved what was coming to it. Its mayor, Ch
enu, had been an ardent Petainist to the end, who hadn’t even had the sense to resign and let the Resistance get on with the job. He had tried to keep the French Milice in the town even after the Germans withdrew, but they knew what would happen and retreated with their masters.

  They began with the mayor. Vernhes had tried to retain some semblance of order; in any case he liked the trial to take as long as possible, that was the pleasure. He called for the indictment, but accusations were shouted from all sides and no examination was possible, as cries for the sentence took over at once: ‘Death. Death. Death.’ The mayor was taken for execution immediately, although it took a number of bullets to kill him. He was followed in quick succession by three more: the grocer, a captured paramilitary from the Milice and a peasant accused of black marketeering who had refused supplies to the Maquis.

  They lost interest in the male prisoners after that, since someone pointed out that they needed to keep some of them to dig the graves. Vernhes was glad. He wanted to make a proper court, to conduct it in a proper revolutionary manner, to watch his victims suffer. So they turned their attentions to the women.

  Ariane was the first. When he saw her being dragged across the clearing, he felt real shock and regret; he would have liked it done in a different manner, lingeringly, not hastily, thoughtlessly. She was wearing a cotton dress and sandals, her legs bare and her hair hanging down to her shoulders. She looked afraid, as well she might. Whatever they wanted these men were going to get, in the mood they were in. Nothing could stop them, and both he and she knew that a beating, a gang-rape, a noose or all three could be her fate in the next hour.

  He had given the lead, to try to protect her, taking a handful of her hair, forcing her to her knees.

  ‘This is what they do with the women, lads. Anyone with scissors, a knife? They cut their hair off, shear them like the sheep they are.’

  Someone thrust an aged hunting knife with a honed blade into his hand; he sawed at her thick, dark hair. The idea took off: someone produced a pair of scissors, a cut-throat razor. Three men were working at her now. One was pulling her head back while the other two with drunken concentration rasped the blades across her scalp. They wielded the knives with a clumsy skill that might at any moment have veered into an accidental slashing of cheek or ear, or into something more. With her head thrown back her throat was exposed from jawbone to clavicle; a single stroke and she would have been dead. The three barbers went on with their scraping, Ariane’s hair falling in thick clumps onto the grass.

  They were all watching, the whole band, swigging wine from bottles passed from hand to hand, focusing on the scene with the quiet at its centre. For no one spoke and she did not cry out. For all of them the chief interest was to inflict shame on an aristo. As long as it went on she was safe, but he could not guess what would come after the humiliation was over. In the event, she was saved by the next victim, the girlfriend of a paramilitary, who offered better sport. She shattered the silence with her shrieks. Her ripped clothes revealed spilling breasts, which she nursed in her folded arms. Taunts and laughter broke out again.

  Vernhes hustled Ariane away. Her skirt was torn to the waist and the bodice hung down in tatters from the belt. She made no attempt to hold up a shred over her nakedness. He was grasping her by the upper arm as if she was under arrest, but when they had passed the first thicket he released her.

  ‘Go,’ he hissed. ‘Just get going, now.’

  * * *

  ‘Not a nice story,’ he said.

  Even sharply censored for Cazalle’s ears, it wasn’t pleasant. But he didn’t mean it to be. No mention of the shootings, of course, or of the rapes. Cazalle’s head was bent. His face bore no expression.

  ‘I did my best for her. I don’t know whether you’ve ever seen men in that state, but it’s not easy to deal with them. It’s the mob.’

  Cazalle was getting up once again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Vernhes said. He wasn’t, of course. He had enjoyed it.

  ‘No. I wanted to hear it. Thank you for telling me.’

  It was dark outside and Theo cycled cautiously out of the village in the direction of the little farm called Pechagrier to visit the Russian. Vernhes had given no indication of why his men should have seized Ariane. He implied that he had tried to protect her. Because he had thought her innocent, or because he thought her guilty but did not want to say so to her husband?

  At the turning for Pechagrier he dismounted and searched the hillside for a light. The house was dark and lifeless. The Russian was his best hope of discovering what had happened to Henri. He had, perhaps, been with him on the last day and would be able to give a first-hand account of his capture.

  Although all the shutters were closed, he refused to give up, pushing his bike up to the door to knock loudly. Finally, the silence of the house convinced him there was no one there to answer his questions. He turned away and continued his journey back to Bonnemort.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Did Florence have any luck?’ Theo asked as they sat down at the table that evening.

  ‘Wait and see. Everything in its time.’ Micheline was putting the tureen on the table, while the aunts were already breaking their bread into their bowls. Micheline spooned thick brown soup on top of it.

  ‘Chestnut soup. What haven’t I done with chestnuts these last years – bread, soup, cakes. Sabine gathered the chestnuts at Toussaint, didn’t you, Sabine?’

  The child made no reply, pretending to sip from an empty spoon.

  ‘I went to see the schoolmaster this afternoon,’ Theo told them. He savoured the curiously dry texture of the chestnuts and allowed Micheline to give him another helping. All his riding of horses and bicycles had sharpened his appetite. The reaction to his remark was more emphatic than he had expected. Micheline underlined it by dropping the ladle in the sink. Florence jumped up to help her mother. Both the aunts put down their spoons. Only Sabine continued her pretence of eating.

  ‘Mr Vernhes?’ said Aunt Odette.

  ‘For what purpose?’ asked Aunt Marguerite, a step ahead of her sister-in-law.

  ‘To arrange for him to teach Sabine, of course.’ Theo looked around in surprise.

  ‘Ah.’ The aunts took up their spoons again simultaneously.

  ‘I thought I explained to you yesterday,’ Aunt Marguerite said reproachfully, ‘that Ariane did not think him suitable for Sabine. That’s why she took her away.’

  Theo was used to controlling his irritation at human inconsistency. ‘You said yesterday that something had to be done about Sabine’s schooling. She doesn’t want to go back to the convent. You don’t want to go on teaching her at home. The only reasonable answer is the village school until I can arrange an alternative.’

  Aunt Odette’s lips were set. ‘We’re talking about a few months, I presume. Marguerite and I can continue for that period.’

  ‘Why are you opposed to Mr Vernhes?’

  ‘Ariane would not approve of this solution,’ Aunt Marguerite said firmly, as if that settled the matter. Micheline and Florence were busy at the stove, taking no part.

  ‘It wouldn’t be suitable.’ Aunt Odette’s reply was equally definite. ‘He is after all a communist.’

  ‘I can’t imagine that Ariane held that against him. She has plenty of friends who are communists.’ He found it galling to have Ariane cited as an authority.

  ‘It wasn’t that,’ Aunt Marguerite said. ‘It was much worse.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He beats the children.’

  * * *

  When Marguerite de Cazalle was growing up, it was an axiom that whoever loves, chastises. So when Ariane had announced one evening that she was removing Sabine from the school because the schoolmaster had given the child a beating, she had said, ‘Are you sure you’re not overreacting, my dear? I don’t know what misdeed Sabine is suppose to have committed, but punishment is sometimes necessary. Don’t you agree, Odette?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘I’
m afraid I’m not going to change my mind. I don’t approve of hitting children in any circumstances …’

  ‘You are a utopian, my dear Ariane. I am sure you don’t approve of the death penalty or war or anything else which, although violent and disagreeable, happens to be necessary.’

  ‘I don’t, but I wouldn’t object if it were just a question of the odd rap on the back of the hand, but this is out of all proportion. I’ll show you.’

  When Sabine was summoned, Marguerite de Cazalle had to admit that it was not a pretty sight. The child submitted while her stepmother lifted her skirt to show the backs of her thighs, striped with blows. The switch used had been sharp and flexible enough to break the skin, so the whole extent of her upper legs was not just bruised but marked in blood.

  As Ariane dropped Sabine’s skirt Aunt Odette said doubtfully, ‘Should we write and protest? He wouldn’t dare do it again.’

  ‘No,’ Ariane said forcefully. ‘She’s leaving. That’s that.’

  * * *

  The conversation broke up in a flurry of activity. Sabine was removing the bowls and spoons; Florence was laying out the plates. Micheline put the omelette, filled with black shavings of truffle, in the centre of the table and the erotic scent of the fungus, faint yet pervasive, filled the air.

  ‘Florence, where did you find it?’

  ‘Up the hill.’ She was cutting the omelette into six.

  ‘You have to have lived in Paris or London to appreciate this.’

  ‘We don’t get this every day.’

  Micheline relaxed, became more like her old self when her food was praised.

  ‘I’ll let you take something back to Paris, Monsieur Theo, if you’re really so badly off there.’