Honeymoon in Paris: A Novella (10 page)
He caught the flash of surprise on my face,
barely suppressed, and I saw that it satisfied something in him. It was perhaps enough
for him to know I had believed myself doomed. He was smart, this man, and subtle. I
would have to be wary.
‘Men.’
His soldiers turned, blindly obedient as
ever, and walked out towards their vehicle, their uniforms silhouetted against the
headlights. I followed him and stood just outside the door. The last I heard of his
voice was the order to the driver to make for the town.
We waited as the military vehicle travelled
back down the road, its headlights feeling their way along the pitted surface.
Hélène had begun to shake. She scrambled to her feet, her hand white-knuckled
at her brow, her eyes tightly shut. Aurélien stood awkwardly beside me, holding
Mimi’s hand, embarrassed by his childish tears. I waited for the last sounds of
the engine to die away. It whined over the hill, as if it, too, were acting under
protest.
‘Are you hurt, Aurélien?’ I
touched his head. Flesh wounds. And bruises. What kind of men attacked an unarmed
boy?
He flinched. ‘It didn’t
hurt,’ he said. ‘They didn’t frighten me.’
‘I thought he would arrest you,’
my sister said. ‘I thought he would arrest us all.’ I was afraid when she
looked like that: as if she were teetering on the edge of some vast abyss. She wiped her
eyes and forced a smile as she crouched to hug her daughter. ‘Silly Germans. They
gave us all a fright, didn’t they? Silly Maman for being frightened.’
The child watched her mother, silent and
solemn. Sometimes I wondered if I would ever see Mimi laugh again.
‘I’m sorry. I’m all right
now,’ she went on. ‘Let’s all go inside. Mimi, we have a little milk I
will warm for you.’ She wiped her hands on her bloodied gown, and held her hands
towards me for the baby. ‘You want me to take Jean?’
I had started to tremble convulsively, as if
I had only just realized how afraid I should have been. My legs felt watery, their
strength seeping into the cobblestones. I felt a desperate urge to sit down.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I suppose you should.’
My sister reached out, then gave a small
cry. Nestling in the blankets, swaddled neatly so that it was barely exposed to the
night air, was the pink, hairy snout of the piglet.
‘Jean is asleep upstairs,’ I
said. I thrust a hand at the wall to keep myself upright.
Aurélien looked over her shoulder. They
all stared at it.
‘
Mon Dieu
.’
‘Is it dead?’
‘Chloroformed. I remembered Papa had a
bottle in his study, from his butterfly-collecting days. I think it will wake up. But
we’re going to have to find somewhere else to keep it for when they return. And
you know they will return.’
Aurélien smiled then, a rare, slow
smile of delight. Hélène stooped to show Mimi the comatose little pig, and
they grinned. Hélène kept touching its snout, clamping a hand over her face,
as if she couldn’t believe what she was holding.
‘You held the pig before them? They
came here and you held it out in front of their noses? And then you told them off for
coming here
?’ Her voice was incredulous.
‘In front of their snouts,’ said
Aurélien, who seemed suddenly to have recovered some of his swagger. ‘Hah!
You held it in front of their snouts!’
I sat down on the cobbles and began to
laugh. I laughed until my skin grew chilled and I didn’t know whether I was
laughing or weeping. My brother, perhaps afraid I was becoming hysterical, took my hand
and rested against me. He was fourteen, sometimes bristling like a man, sometimes
childlike in his need for reassurance.
Hélène was still deep in thought.
‘If I had known …’ she said. ‘How did you become so brave,
Sophie? My little sister! Who made you like this? You were a mouse when we were
children. A mouse!’
I wasn’t sure I knew the answer.
And then, as we finally walked back into the
house, as Hélène busied herself with the milk pan and Aurélien began to
wash his poor, battered face, I stood before the portrait.
That girl, the girl Édouard had
married, looked back with an expression I no longer recognized. He had seen it in me
long before anyone else did: it speaks of knowledge, that smile, of satisfaction gained
and given. It speaks of pride. When his Parisian friends had found his love of me – a
shop girl – inexplicable, he had just smiled because he could already see this in
me.
I never knew if he understood that it was
only there because of him.
I stood and gazed at her and, for a few
seconds, I remembered how it had felt to be that girl, free of hunger, of fear, consumed
only by idle thoughts of what private moments I might spend with Édouard. She
reminded me
that the world is capable of beauty, and that there were
once things – art, joy, love – that filled my world, instead of fear and nettle soup and
curfews. I saw him in my expression. And then I realized what I had just done. He had
reminded me of my own strength, of how much I had left in me with which to fight.
When you return, Édouard, I swear I
will once again be the girl you painted.
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First published 2012
Copyright © Jojo Moyes, 2012
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-1-405-91084-2