God Speed the Night (4 page)

Gabrielle went back to the train platform by the way she had come. Only the nuns and the three girls were still there with the officials. The little boy was gone. Down the platform men were lined up, boarding the train. Sister St. André’s large round face was flaming red and there were tears in her eyes. Gabrielle went to the children and the other sisters where they waited with the luggage a little distance apart. She heard, nonetheless, the protests of Reverend Mother and Sister St. André, part of which she would remember and think of many times again: Sister St. Andre saying, “But,
Monsieur le Prefet
, our Lord Himself was circumcised. The feast is a holy day of obligation.”

“And our Lord was crucified by the Jews, Sister. That also is a holy day.” This the policeman, and then the German officer saying that he was right.

Reverend Mother said, “Peace, peace, Sister. The prefect has promised to do what he can.”

“You will let them have the child, Reverend Mother?” St. André said.

“They have already taken him, and we may lose the others if we do not go, Sister.”

“Exactly,” the policeman said.

Sister St. André came then and picked up two of the roped suitcases herself. “God save France,” she said. “Herods, all of us.”

M
ONSIEUR DORGET, THE PREFECT
of agriculture, Moissac discovered, had been summoned to St. Hilaire by Colonel von Weber. He had informed Moissac of his coming in order to facilitate, on the same journey, the security processing of the harvesters. It was a matter they discussed first at the station, then in Moissac’s ancient Peugeot on the way to Von Weber’s headquarters in the
Hôtel de ville
. Monsieur Dorget had witnessed the affair with the nuns, but neither man spoke of it. There was implicit in Dorget’s manner, in the very way he sat in the car, his distaste for the policeman. Moissac did not suggest the luncheon.

He went round to the police prefecture further disgruntled, for the mayor of St. Hilaire, the local commander of the gendarmerie, and several department officials were gathered for the meeting. He had not been asked to attend. Von Weber often called him in for private consultation, but not when there was anyone important around.

He was at his desk but a few minutes when a terse communication, handwritten, was brought to him. “
Wo bist du?”
His own staff had neglected to tell him of the meeting. He skittered along the polished corridor to Von Weber’s office, once the chambers of the justice of the peace. In the old days these floors had been safe to walk on. In the old days, too, the corridor had been lined with busts of the heroes of 1918—Foch, Clémenceau…Now the only occupant of his marble pedestal was Marshal Petain.

Von Weber suspended his remarks until Moissac had found a chair to suit his bulk. He started to sit on the one nearest the door, decided that it was too fragile, and moved across the room on tiptoe to a sturdier one.

“A bumble bee should not covet a violet,” Von Weber said in perfectly accented French.

Everyone laughed which rarely happened when a German made a joke in St. Hilaire.

Von Weber proceeded with his usual lecture on the ingratitude of the people in his district, on the benevolence of his command. It was not the day for it what with the labor conscriptees and word having reached the Frenchmen of the peasant woman’s death. They sat in an unresponsive silence that even Von Weber could not overlook. He stopped abruptly. Then, “What is it, gentlemen?”

“There was a woman shot in her field this morning, Colonel,” the mayor said.

“She attacked the officer. There were witnesses, two members of the religious community, I understand. Nonetheless, the man is under arrest at this moment. He will be tried before court martial.”

He waited. No one said a word. “What more do you want?” he demanded.

Still no one spoke.

Moissac felt something should be said. Also, he saw an opportunity to justify himself with the prefect of agriculture. “You will not call on the nuns to testify, Colonel? It would not be fitting.”

“If it should become necessary, Monsieur Moissac, I shall ask you to take their testimony. Perhaps that would be fitting. Shall I proceed with the purpose of this meeting?”

“Please,” Moissac said miserably.

Von Weber detailed his latest policy directive. There was to be every co-operation with the harvest. Since there were itinerant workers, he would see that their travel was facilitated, provided the prefect of police cleared them in St. Hilaire. He had already arranged the necessary fuel for the transport and operation of the syndicate’s machinery. “I find it interesting—why a syndicate and not a co-operative, Monsieur Dorget?”

The prefect of agriculture was slow to answer. “It is an ancient association, Colonel.”

“Of very rich men.”

“For the most part they have been.”

“It is not our purpose to impoverish them. I had hoped you gentlemen would take that message from me today. Let us have peace during the harvest. Allow us that much cooperation with one another. Do you agree to that?”

The mayor stirred uneasily. “The woman’s death,” he said again, “it was a bad omen.”

“I do not suppose she was a member of the syndicate,” Von Weber said bitingly. “But I personally offer you, the mayor of St. Hilaire, my deepest regrets.”

“What will happen if there is a reprisal?”

“That would be a great pity, but no hostage will be taken. I give you my word on it.”

“Then,” the mayor said, leaning forward to see the faces of his colleagues, “we must do our best to see that there is no reprisal.”

The others murmured assent.

“I would have hoped for more enthusiasm from you gentlemen. I cannot understand why a country under peaceful occupation arranged by solemn treaty condones so much violence. You may go, messieurs.”

He did not rise. Nor did he look up again from the desk until he heard the click of the guards’ heels as they came to attention before opening the doors to the departing Frenchmen. Then he called out, “Moissac, a moment, please.”

Moissac shuffled back and waited. Von Weber continued the study of the papers on his desk. He instructed the sergeant who would prepare the memorandum of the meeting. Finally he looked up at Moissac. “So you do not wish me to embarrass the religious ladies?”

“It is not our custom to call them in civil or criminal matters,” Moissac said. Von Weber had asked him once to inform him on local custom.

“Interesting,” the German murmured. He took off his glasses and polished them. “I had no intention of calling them and you know it. Whom were you trying to impress?”

Moissac could feel himself coloring. “It seemed like a way of making peace, that was all.”

Von Weber smiled. If he could not get the answer he wanted, he was content to embarrass a man. He put on his glasses again. “You don’t live in Old Town, do you, Moissac?”

“I did for many years, Colonel. I was born on Rue de Michelet.”

“That’s where we need to make peace if it’s to be made in St. Hilaire. Otherwise the whole district should be cleared out.”

“What do you mean, cleared out?”

“The
Maquis
breeds there, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not the
Maquis
, Colonel. Not in St. Hilaire. We are a religious people.”

“I keep forgetting that, don’t I? What was the incident with the convent ladies at the railway station?”

“
Monsieur le Colonel
is quickly informed,” Moissac ventured. He wondered how much Von Weber knew.

“I overheard. That is why I wish to be informed now.”

“Some sisters arriving from Normandy brought four children with them. Captain Mittag wished to detain the children.”

“Why?”

“Refugees. Their papers were questionable.”

“Were they Jews?”

“The nuns did not admit it.”

“And they called on you to come to their aid.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Poor Moissac,” the German said. “You would think that if they had passed this far Captain Mittag would not have been so zealous.”

Moissac said nothing.

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Well. I am sure Monsignor La Roque will put in a soothing word on your behalf with the religious ladies. Or were the children given over to them?”

“Three of them were. The male child was detained.”

Von Weber smiled. “On your suggestion?”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“You have a genius for compromise, a true Frenchman.”

“Thank you, Colonel.”

Von Weber just stared at him. “These agricultural workers,” he said finally, “you will process them yourself?”

“Yes, Colonel, but they have been screened already by request of the prefect of agriculture.”

“The friend of the syndicate. Tell me about the syndicate.”

“It is a group of large landowners. Most of the holdings are hereditary. They own certain machinery in common, and on a share basis they harvest also the smaller farms along the way. They dine together formally tomorrow night with the mayor—certain officials. It is a ceremony to begin the harvest season. And they feast the workers.”

“Will you dine with them?”

“I have not yet been invited,” Moissac said.

Von Weber rubbed his hands together. “Then I was right. You were hoping to impress the prefect of agriculture with your defense of the religious ladies. He was present at the railway station. Isn’t it so? Ah, Moissac, Moissac, do not deny me the pleasure of knowing you. There are so few Frenchmen I can truly understand. Now. These harvesters—where do they come from?”

“Mostly students, but this year there are not so many students. Flotsam and jetsam.”

“Exactly. And yet one does not want Section Four interfering. It is I who must provide the grain quota, not Captain Mittag. I assume you understood my self-interest in the pacification program. Between ourselves, I will say the officer was right to shoot anyone who attacked him. But I can afford an officer if that is the price of the harvest. And I would rather work with a Frenchman than the Gestapo. After all, you too are an officer of the peace, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Then see if you can use some of that genius for pacification in the Old Town.”

R
ACHEL CAME AT LAST,
moving among a crowd of girls on their way home from work. She walked, Marc thought, as though she too had a home to go to. He glanced around the loft. It was almost in darkness, the glassless windows boarded up. Once it had been a home of sorts, and he was pleased with his salvage. He turned back to the broken board through which he watched. When Rachel dropped from among the girls and seated herself on the parapet, Marc went down thinking how well she had learned the pattern of flight.

The street was a clamor of voices and bicycle bells and the clopping of wooden-soled shoes. The air was tainted with gas fumes, coal smoke, and the stench of the tannery up the canal, but the haze was golden in the late sun and it gave the hovelled town a kind of beauty. Marc waited in what was now a hollow shell of stone from which everything worth removing had been taken away, grinding wheels and machinery, even the door to the office. The whole structure trembled when a heavy truck rolled along the street and chunks of mortar plopped into the murky water.

As a transport of military trucks approached and everybody scattered to make way, Rachel ran down the ramp. Marc called out to her from the shadows. He opened his arms to her, but she came with such slow shyness that he knew they would have to begin all over again, almost from their discovery of one another.

He showed her his acquisitions of the afternoon piece by piece. He had ventured twice into the streets, moving along the wall with a bargeman’s pole in his hand, and hiding the pole each time beneath the bridge for his return. To the matches and candles, to the bit of soap, to the bread and the cheese, to the pot on the charcoal burner, Rachel put her fingers tentatively and whispered her wonder at his having managed them.

“You don’t have to whisper,” he whispered teasingly.

“I feel like I’m still in the church.”

“I know.”

But when she stroked the flour sacking on the planked bed as she might a silken sheet, he laughed aloud.

“What?” she said.

“You’re like a child in a confectionary.”

“I am.”

He put his arm around her. “No. We cannot be children any more.”

“Not even for a little while?”

He shook his head and kissed her.

“We must be gentle, Marc,” she said after a moment.

“When was I not?”

“I know. I didn’t mean it that way. But I’ve hurt myself somehow. It’s a little pain mostly, but I don’t want it to come back again.”

“It won’t.” He moved away from her well aware of the sudden coldness he had not tried to keep from his voice. It was virtually a reflex with him: in three years of trying to get stubborn Jews safely out of Paris, he had learned that the timid of them used your sympathy as they might a crutch: they magnified their infirmities in proportion to the concern you showed. It was not fair, even this momentary abandonment of her, but fairness measured nothing in their lives, if indeed in the life of man. He moved to the boarded window and picked up the voluminous serge skirt he had found in the flea market. “Serge in July, monsieur?” “After July, November is not long in coming.” “Such a thought for so young a man!” “Madame, I have an ancient mother.” And so he had. Somewhere.

“Rachel, are there scissors in the valise?”

She found them and brought them to him. He opened the pleats and the seams and then hung the heavy cloth over the window and fastened it with a strip of molding he had torn loose in the office below. He used a brick for a hammer. When he was done the room had the darkness of night.

“You may light the candle now,” he said.

The flame flickered up and wavered in the draft. She cupped her hands to protect it, the light making briefly luminous her fingers. She glanced at Marc. “I do not even know what day it is.”

“Let us say it is whatever day you want it to be.”

And so she prayed silently with a little bow and the touching of her forehead with her fingertips.