Ignorance (23 page)

I fell down from the ceiling, landed back on the bed. I wasn’t there, I didn’t do it, I wasn’t there. We both lay still. Winded. He stirred and said: I’m not wasting my come on you. You weren’t a virgin, you little tart.

I brought him a bowl of warm water, soap and a clean towel, washed him. He stood shivering and gasping. Big brown body. Curling black hair. He looked bewildered. Wide dark eyes. The boy waking from his bad dream. He put out a tentative hand and touched mine: you understand me. I can’t control it. Soft towel blotted his words, the tears that stood in his eyes. I handed him his clothes, helped him dress, flung on my dressing gown, escorted him back upstairs into the hall, handed him his hat and coat.

He brushed his hat lightly on his sleeve, stroked his moustache. He said: if you don’t want a new dress what do you want? I said: get rid of my mother’s food card in the town hall. Make her records vanish. So that the Germans can’t find her if ever they come looking.

Don’t ask for too much. Don’t ask him to lose my food card too. Anyway, I was well hidden here. Just a piece of the furniture: a footstool, a doormat, a drinks tray, a chamberpot. Germans saw me every day, knew my name, took little notice of me. On Madame’s orders I kept out of their way. They got drunk with the girls, not with me.

Maurice smiled: what’s the little word? I said: please please please. Looking into my face, he pinched my cheek. Tears started up in my eyes and he squeezed my hand: did I hurt you? I’m so sorry.

He flicked my nose: is your mother’s hooter as big as yours? No good getting rid of a food card with a nose like that.

The following night it rained. He arrived carrying a bulky paper parcel under one arm. He thrust his streaming umbrella at me, his damp hat. He made a fuss about his black cashmere coat, insisting I hang it up extra carefully so that it wouldn’t be pulled out of shape by the wet. Tonight he’d become the wolf on two legs. Covered head to foot in thick dark fur. Those fairy tales I’d read as a child: I fitted Maurice in amongst the book’s pages. I’d illustrate his story. A black-haired prince in slashed sleeves, slashed breeches, who turned into an ogre once midnight struck. Outside in the dark and the rain he prowled on all fours; starving and nameless; lonely. He longed for company. He was cruel because he didn’t know whether or not other people felt pain and he wanted to find out and also he wanted to give them his pain to keep for their own. His blonde fiancée, dressed in white organza, sat at home drinking hot chocolate, toasting her bare feet on the fender, approaching her soles to the red scorch of the flames.

The fairy stories mixed into the girls’ gossip about their clients. Four grumpy princesses discussed the prince clad in black fur. At the drop of a black felt hat yes he could turn into a wolf. He could turn into an ogre. Except you didn’t realise he was an ogre because he looked at you with tenderly shining eyes. What’s wrong with you? Why won’t you trust me? He enticed you in to play with him because he made you feel you could help him, rescue him. Then he hurt you. No, but he doesn’t really mean it. Underneath, he’s just a little boy lost. So you shouldn’t sulk at the things he wants to do. Stupid girl! You should get out of there! No, he told me he had an awful childhood, his foster parents made him sleep in a shed, even in winter. Yes, and they beat him, I do feel so sorry for him. And who amongst us didn’t get beaten, may I ask? No, but for him it was worse. No, one day he’ll go too far and then you’ll feel sorry for yourself, idiot. And who’ll take any notice of that? Idiot yourself. Just close your trap! Get lost go screw yourself!

Once out of the dark, wet street, indoors in the warm house, Maurice turned from glittery-eyed wolf back into charmer. He preened himself as I watched. Raindrops sparkled on his black shoulders, slid to the floor. He dumped his parcel on the floor, pulled off his ogre-skin, threw it at me. I caught it, slung it over my arm, took his hat. He took pieces of torn-up paper and card from his wallet, showed them to me, slid them back. I imagined him eating them, chewing them between his strong white teeth.

He said: you had the right idea. The Germans often wander in and search through the food cards. Looking for Jewish-sounding names. They’ve got good memories.

The shapes of typed letters hanging in the air even when the cards disappeared. Crisp and black, like print on a poster, like a sign over a shop, there for everybody to read. I felt breathless. He was watching me. He said: careful with my coat! He took out his cigarette case, lit a cigarette. I slipped a hanger inside his coat, hung it up on a brass hook. Water dripped from it on to the floor. Names were like coats. You put on new ones and disguised yourself. But Maurice watched, a sharp couturier, pointed a finger: those name-coats don’t fit.

His voice stayed casual. Musing. How a husband might sound, home from work. Preoccupied, shrugging off the working day along with his coat, not quite arrived yet, still in transition, still thinking about the office. He said: they’re very methodical. Checking numbers at the moment. New orders. I don’t know. Lots of activity.

His words translated themselves: fists battering doors frailer than matchboxes, voices wailing. He dropped his match on to the floor, looked at me with kind eyes: do you want help with anything else? I’ll come down later, shall I?

The hallway air shivered. The rainy night pressed at my back like hands. Perhaps he’d just come from seeing Marie-Angèle. She and I had been sort-of friends once. No longer. She had too much of everything and I didn’t have enough.

The girls and I had that in common. When we couldn’t steal, we bartered. Having got to know each other, we made exchanges. Cautiously. With reserve, with our own forms of politeness. In return for my sugar ration they did my hair for me. Plucked my eyebrows. Lent me shoes. They called me the little old woman, they called me monkeybaby, they called me cinnamon stick. I preferred fags to sugar, so parted with it easily. Marie-Angèle’s glossy name stuck in my throat, like a boiled sweet. I’d choke. I said: all right.

Through the crack of the
salon
door I watched him untie the string, fold back the brown paper wrappings. Master of ceremonies. Jump to it! Shouts and laughter from the sprawled Germans watching, drinks in hands. One by one the girls rolled off their slips, stripped, put on the costumes Maurice handed out. Fancy dress party, shrilled the
patronne
: on parade, everybody! A white poplin blouse with black buttons. A green crêpe de Chine frock. A red silk dress. A white silk evening frock. The gramophone spat and crackled, the needle bounced then scratched out a waltz. The girls strutted up and down, chins in the air, hands flaunting their rustling skirts. The clients clapped, seized at the swirling material as the mannequins marched past. Hands plucked at sashes, hems. Hortensia fell over, dutifully waved her legs in the air. Pivoine yanked her back on to her feet. Stand at attention!

At the end of the working night Maurice came downstairs. He and I rehearsed our play again. He watched me strip, step out of my unstrapped pink canvas-rubber skin. I tried to smile at him. He caught my wrists, pouted. You’re a rotten actress.

His lip sticking out, he sounded like a hurt child. Did he want me to pretend I loved him? I jerked my hands away, pushed him back on the bed. He whispered: fat greasy dirty Jewish cunt! The girl flew up, hovered just below the ceiling, wore the ceiling on her back like wings. An exquisite blonde angel who only ever felt chaste love. Down below, the little dark-haired devil lowered herself on to the client, leaned forwards, she rose and fell over him, rode him, she pumped away like a machine, he lay back eyes shut arms flung wide, the fuck could have gone on for ever in her tiny room in the lemon-sweaty half-dark with the footsteps going back and forth just overhead, the faint noise of the radiogram drifting down, she felt thirsty, she longed for a drink of water, she wondered if she had some clean stockings to wear in the morning, she wished he’d finish, finally he twisted round, got on top of her, arched up and back, groaned, and she leaped away from him and he shouted out and came all over the sheets as before.

His long cry roped me, hauled me back down. Sticky thighs. Bruised lips. Soreness. I lay in a cold puddle. He bit my neck and pushed me off him, sat up. He pinched my breast, my nipple.

When, at school, I cried in public, the nuns used to command me: pull yourself together. So I did that. My unravelled self. I picked up my dropped stitches. Hands piled with emptiness. I wanted my mother. I wanted kindness wrapping round me soft as new knitting wool. Everybody in this house needed so much kindness but they didn’t get it and never would. Everybody’s mothers were too far away. Gone. Lost. The girls wanted to receive true caresses, just like anybody else. Fat chance. After work ended, they’d run into the kitchen, search for something to eat. They’d fall on their late supper, stuffing themselves with whatever they could find. Usually thin soup, bulked out with stale bread. Madame ate well, but the girls didn’t. They gobbled in silence, serious as cats.

Maurice said: so what do you want now?

I said: a ride in your car, please, please, please, Maurice.

Again I washed him, dried him, helped him to dress. He put his good self back on with his clothes. Dark eyes glowing, he looked at me tenderly. He stroked my cheek, said: I’ll wait for you in the hall. Hurry up. I drew aside a corner of the blackout in the kitchen, craned my neck to squint up at the dark grey sky above the houses opposite. A glimmer of sun. My eyes stung with lack of sleep. I stripped my bed, bundled the sheets into a corner. Washing-day not for another week. I’d have to find myself some clean sheets from somewhere upstairs. I stood in my tin basin, shivering, poured a jug of water over my shoulders, reached for my flannel and washed Maurice off me, got dressed again. I wrote a note for the
patronne
, telling her that my mother was ill, and tucked it under her door.

Curfew was just ending; we slid through silent back streets. In Ste-Marie-du-Ciel Maurice dropped me near the parish church. He touched my knee, smoothed my dress to lie neat and flat, as though he were my mother tidying me up for school: sorry I can’t drive you back. I’ve got business to do.

But my mother wasn’t here, was she? She didn’t understand my situation. She’d start droning about right and wrong and the rights of women. No time for that now. Shut up, Maman. I slammed her shut up in the cupboard, along with the empty crocks that used to hold flour, sultanas, coffee, sugar, macaroni.

My mouth was watering and that made me feel furious. What was the point of feeling hungry when there was nothing to eat? I started to clamber out of the car. Hand opening door, foot searching for kerb. Maurice held on to me. His brows contracted. His dark eyes gazed at me. He flicked my nose with his leather fingertip. He said: better not ask me for any more favours, little Jew-girl. That’s enough. Silly child, you don’t know how dangerous it is. For you and for me.

I was six years old, with scabbed knees, pigtails tied with tape, fists and elbows jabbing, dancing to and fro on the pavement throwing down marbles in front of the bullies you can’t catch me you can’t catch me! The words shot out of me like marbles. You should be helping people for nothing, not screwing them for money and sex. Maurice’s leather hand drew back then swiped at me. I dodged. His words caught me full in the face. You offered me the sex, you little hypocrite. Nobody forced you. You just can’t admit you wanted it. You enjoyed it.

I didn’t try to visit my mother: she’d be out at work already, and anyway, I didn’t want to involve her. She’d have started arguing with me, insisting on going through her political group, trying to take charge. She thought I was still a child but I wasn’t. I could make decisions for myself. There wasn’t time for meetings, for group discussion any more. I had to act on my own initiative. If I didn’t hurry, it would be too late.

I walked to the rue de la Croix, knocked on the door of the cobbler’s shop. I put my proposal to Monsieur Fauchon. It’s urgent. You know that. He fiddled with a length of string. His eyes were red. I spoke in a brisk and practical way. I was able to sound so businesslike because he seemed a stranger. He’d shaved off his beard. His face looked raw and bare, like the shut-up shop. The semi-darkness in which we stood smelled musty and stale. I had a sense of time stopping, a clock falling on to a tiled floor and breaking, this moment lasting for ever. His wife and the two little ones were gone and so words were gone too. He’d put his words on to a piece of paper inside their pockets: I love you always. Inside my silence rose a cry I seized and strangled. If I let it out we’d collapse. Words had worn out, like old bootlaces, old leather soles: useless; no longer serviceable. The broom leaned in a corner, the dustpan beside it.

Monsieur Fauchon coughed and we both woke from our reveries. He fingered his naked chin: it’s to go with the photo on the new papers. He covered his face with his long fingers. Brown skin calloused from work. I waited. He knew I was waiting, that he’d have to speak, he’d have to agree. I was resolved not to speak before he did. Finally he murmured: I’d rather consult your mother first.

My mother’s face: pale, big-eyed, dark hair swept back. Hovering in front of me like a photograph. When someone got taken away, if you were lucky, you still had a photograph of them. If you didn’t, for how long would you remember what they looked like? Already, I couldn’t remember really what Madame Fauchon looked like, nor the two elder children. I couldn’t remember the sound of her voice. But of course her husband remembered her. The tiny moments that made up his life with her; her portrait. She stood at the window and put out food for the birds. At night, in the dark, she pulled the sheet up over their heads and whispered her secrets. When she was angry she stamped in a killing dance. Was that true? I didn’t know. Would he find her again and if not what would he do? Perhaps he’d hammer nails into himself; a kind of shoe. Nail down his tongue so he couldn’t cry out.