Living with Strangers (21 page)

Josef and I met up for breakfast at the hotel. I’d slept badly, fearing he would not turn up. Less than twenty-four hours had elapsed since our meeting – already a lifetime away.

The day was cooler, rain hung in the air. Dispirited, lost for words, we wandered again through the old streets, killing time. There seemed, in any case, nothing more to say. At the station, he stood dejectedly on the platform as I boarded the train for Hamburg.

‘Don’t wait too long, Joe. Don’t leave it till it’s too late.’

He scuffed at some unseen object with his toe, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans. ‘We’ll see,’ he said, then turned and walked away, his shoulders hunched. Then suddenly he turned back. For one glorious moment I thought he’d had a change of heart, but instead he said, ‘Your letters, Maddie – everything you wrote – I loved them. They kept me alive.’

I had to be content with that.

*

Returning without Josef was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. Nor did I have any guarantee that he would eventually come at all. Our time together had achieved much – had joined the remaining dots in the mystery his leaving had created, but it was hard to recognise the Josef I had missed for so long in this person I had just met. Having him back in my life was less a restoration of something cherished and familiar – a reacquaintance with the past – it was new, uncharted territory.

*

I had asked Paul not to meet me at the airport, in the hope that I would not be travelling alone. I caught a bus into central London. It was slow and crowded with weekend visitors. I sat miserably, encroached upon by a large woman who spent the journey talking loudly to someone in the seat behind. By the time I reached St. Pancras, the rush hour had subsided, but I had just missed a train and again found myself waiting half an hour in the cold. Each delay added more anxiety to the news I carried – how to phrase it, how to express the vague uncertainty that Josef had left me to deliver. How to counter, as gently as possible, Saul’s inevitable disappointment.

As I walked through the front door and found Molly and Saul standing in the hall, almost as I had left them at the beginning of the week, I still had no palliative to offer.

‘I’m sorry Papa, not this time.’ Then, echoing Josef’s words, I added, ‘Not yet.’ Saul sighed and turned away, but not before coming to greet me, taking my bag, patting my shoulder. Molly kept her distance, her feelings hidden, as if this were news like any other. She made tea and we sat in the kitchen while I brought them up to date. There were two rolls of film that I would take to the chemist in the morning – evidence that I had, in part, succeeded.

The gloom of my return home was only offset by the joy of seeing Chloé again. I crept up to watch her sleeping. She lay in her sideways pose, legs hanging down between the bars. Sophie followed me and peered over my shoulder.

‘Thanks,’ I whispered, ‘for looking after her.’

‘Mum did most of it – I’m back at school now.’

We left Chloé and went into Sophie’s bedroom next door. I picked a path through the muddle of her eighteen years – shoes, books, underwear, music, mugs. In the corner stood her beloved cello, Oma’s cello, which had played in Berlin before the war.

Sophie sat next to me on the bed. ‘I know this isn’t how you wanted it, but there’s no more you can do. Mum and Dad know that.’

‘Do they? We’ve come a long way these past weeks. I just wanted to make it right for them.’

‘But that’s not up to you, you never did anything wrong. Any more than Josef did. It’s for them to atone, not you. You did your best, it’s with Josef now. We’ll just have to wait.’

I looked at my little sister – her large eyes alight – and thought again,
When did you get to be so wise?

Saul’s health deteriorated over the next few days, his hacking cough audible in every room. Molly called the doctor one morning, after a long night when none of us had slept much. I left Chloé with Paul when the doctor came, needing to hear what he had to say. Saul had finally been sleeping. As we went into the room, he woke suddenly, startled. I saw then with terrifying certainty, how desperately ill he was – his skin pallid, grey beneath the eyes, with a deep, haunted look I had never seen before, even when Josef left. He tried to pull himself up in bed. Molly stacked pillows behind his shoulders, but he lay back, convulsed with another fit of coughing.

The doctor sat on the end of the bed while Molly and I hovered.

‘Has the cough worsened recently?’ he asked, pulling out his stethoscope and placing it against Saul’s fragile back and chest.

Molly was about to answer but the doctor asked again, ‘Mr Feldman, when did your cough come back?’

We all knew the answer to that.

Saul shut his eyes. ‘A few days ago, maybe. Not long.’

‘And does your chest hurt? Does it hurt to breathe?’ Saul fumbled with the buttons on his pyjama jacket. ‘I’m a bit stiff from coughing, that’s all. It’s nothing much, doctor. I’m sorry you’ve had to come here.’

‘I’d like to run some tests, but it looks as if the pneumonia is back. ‘I’ll put you on a course of antibiotics and come and see you tomorrow.’ He finished scribbling a prescription and handed it to Molly. ‘Best to get these started as soon as possible.’ Then he turned again to Saul. ‘Mr Feldman, you know you should really be in hospital. They can monitor –’

Saul cut him short. ‘Thank you doctor, but I’m not going anywhere.’

In the hall, Paul came out of the schoolroom with Chloé and I picked her up. Molly paused before opening the front door.

‘It’s not good, is it?’ she said.

The doctor touched Molly’s arm, a gesture of familiarity that surprised me. I saw her flinch, though I doubt the doctor did. He was young and brisk and only doing his job.

‘He’d be better off in hospital – but he knows that. He needs good nursing, Mrs Feldman. Make sure he does as he’s told.’

Lunch was a sombre affair. Paul had made soup and then went to collect Saul’s prescription, before setting off on his sandwich round. We sat without appetite, Molly absently crumbling bread onto the table.

‘He will pick up, Molly. The antibiotics will help.’ It was hard to sound convincing.

Molly rubbed her temples. ‘I’m not so sure. He’s not been this low before – not even when we had the initial diagnosis.

‘I feel responsible. I should have done more to help.’

Molly picked up a spoon and began to drink her soup. ‘None of this is your fault,’ she said, ‘you mustn’t blame yourself – in any way. True, your father had set his heart on Josef’s return. But if that isn’t to be, well then, we’ll just have to accept it. It’s no more than we’ve been doing all these years.’

But Molly was greatly concerned. Later in the day I heard her on the phone to Adam. I asked Paul if he knew whether Adam was intending to come down again.

‘It’s possible, but he never stays the night. Says he has too much to do, but I think it’s Fee – she doesn’t cope well if he’s away.’

‘You used to call her ‘The Mole’ – remember?’

He winced. ‘Not my finest hour. Adam had such a go at me once.’

‘Does he know I’m here?’

‘Mum told him but, well, you know Adam.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t really know him at all.’ Had I expected him to come, did I want him to? I thought of Molly’s words,
a complete and utter mess
. We all trampled in it still, I doubted we could ever change that now.

*

By the following weekend, Saul had stabilised. His cough under control, some colour returned to his face. Antibiotics and the determination to avoid hospital had gone some way to reviving his spirits. But at the back of my mind, I knew I had another blow to deliver.

I had been away from France for over a month. In spite of the support from Molly and Saul and my free board and lodging, money was short now. I’d had no translations since Christmas and I missed the security of my modest payments from Antoine. Jean-Luc’s money, I would leave largely untouched. It would stay that way as long as possible. I missed Marie-Claude too, the shape and substance of my life there. This visit had achieved much, but now it was time to go.

How strange it seemed. I dreaded telling Molly and Saul that I had to return to France, at least for a while. I thought of the last time I had told them of my plans to leave, when we sat in the garden and misread so much in each other – I believing myself banished, they protecting themselves from my desire to flee.

In the event, a threatened strike rescued me and Paul brought up the subject as we sat drinking coffee.

‘Not sure whether you’ve heard, but they’re planning a strike next week.’

Molly handed a wooden spoon to Chloé on the floor. ‘Who is it this time?’

‘Air traffic control.’

Molly looked up. ‘Are you travelling next week?’

‘I ought to be going back soon. They’re keeping a job for me – Marie-Claude and Antoine.’

Molly turned back to Chloé. ‘They must miss her. You know, in a way, I’m grateful to them – for what they’ve done. For looking after you when I… when we… when things were the way they were. You couldn’t have known how much I wanted you to come home – way before Papa became ill.’

‘So, why didn’t you ask me?’ Though this I already knew.

Molly sighed. ‘Perhaps I didn’t know how to. Perhaps I just wanted it to come from you.’ Then she smiled, the lined tightness of her features softening. ‘But you did come – that’s all that matters now.’

‘I didn’t manage to persuade Josef, though.’

‘It’s his decision, we have to accept that. Though I fear Papa will never give up hope.’

I booked a flight for the following Saturday, using the last of my cash reserves. I would need to brave the language school and start teaching again, or at least hope that Antoine might find me some extra work to do. Thoughts of France and the village and Chloé’s world there eased the distress of leaving. Saul stayed in his room while we gathered in the hall.

Molly took Chloé in her arms and kissed her forehead. She turned to me and said, ‘Go and see Papa,’ then went outside to the car, where Paul waited to ferry us away yet again.

Saul sat in the chair, a book in his lap. ‘You’re all set then?’

‘I think so. We seem to have a lot of stuff – more than we came with.’

He struggled to his feet.

‘Papa, don’t get up.’

He waved a hand dismissively. ‘I’m not dead yet, you know.’

Somehow, I missed the joke.

Antoine fetched us from the airport. Chloé ran to meet him and he swept her up out of the crowd, while I picked a way though with a mutinous trolley. By early evening we were back in the village; Marie-Claude greeting us with a rare display of emotion and a superb meal. She confessed to awaiting our return anxiously, admitting her fear that we would not come back at all. ‘In which case,’ she said, ‘I might just have had to visit you over there. Imagine!’

Antoine, at his usual post behind the bar, coughed on his cigarette and shook his head. ‘Now that I’d like to see.’

Upstairs, when I opened the windows of our bedroom and flung back the shutters, warm spring air filled the room. Chloé came and stood beside me, now just able to see over the sill – how rapidly time had lingered. We heard the swallows whistling and she pointed as they circled, before swooping to disappear under the eaves. A tractor chugged somewhere in the distance, a murmur of voices rose from the bar downstairs. ‘Welcome home.’ I whispered, though I knew as I said it that our lives had shifted.

My French had suffered after the weeks away. I had lost the cherished immediacy I’d grown used to, having to work hard again, temporarily lost for words. In small ways, and for the first time, I felt a stranger here. I had two homes now; at some point soon, I would need to decide which one to adopt. I knew too that my future did not lie with tending a bar or the insecurity of short-term contracts. I had Chloé to think of, to provide for, yet I also hungered for something more. Teaching had addressed this to a certain extent, but it was not enough. In any case, I could not go back to the language school. Now, ten years after my first attempt, came a growing need to study again, to grapple with matters beyond the confines of my daily round.

Saul had acknowledged this one evening, not long before I left England, as we sat at his desk addressing envelopes.

‘There is money, you know.’

I looked across at him, his pale head bent over the task. ‘Money? Money for what, Papa?’

‘For you all – afterwards.’ He spoke as if planning a holiday. ‘You could study again, go back to university – you might even enjoy it this time.’ He glanced at me over his spectacles, an old spark in his eyes. ‘Think about it. Talk to your mother. She may be able to help – with the little one.’

Yet, in many ways it was good to be back in a familiar routine. I loved its rhythm and certainty, spending time in town with Sylvie and in the village with Marie-Claude. Chloé too settled into her life as if we’d never been away, though she sometimes asked for the big house and where all the others had gone.

As the weather grew warmer, the deep green perimeter of the forest surrounded us again in all directions. On the footpaths, wild chives returned among the cowslips and, when time allowed, Chloé and I would walk there and catch sight of kingfishers in the shade by the
étang
. I saw Chloé’s burgeoning love for the natural world, how, with infinite patience, she would sit and watch a caterpillar’s slow progress, or add more names to her lexicon of wild flowers. It was a gift. Saul’s gift to her.

One evening, not long after our return, Marie-Claude came up to the flat armed with a bottle and a large onion flan. I fished out glasses and plates and we sat at the table while I brought her up to date on my weeks away. Through it all she listened, sipping wine and nibbling at her food.

‘So,’ she said afterwards, ‘you’re still waiting for Josef.’

‘I suppose we are. But it’s better now – it’s changed.’

‘And Josef? He still blames your father?’

‘Perhaps. I hoped that going to see him would change things for him too. Saul only did what he thought was best – how can we blame him for that?’

‘There’s still time. Josef may change his mind.’ Marie-Claude pushed her plate away and lit a cigarette, unimpressed with her own cooking. Then she said, ‘To blame someone, to hold so much anger – it destroys you.’

I stopped eating too. ‘There’s something else isn’t there – something you’ve never told me?’

Her eyes held mine across the table, then dropped as she blew out a long cloud of smoke. She’s so strong, I thought, strong and silent like my mother. Strong and silent and full of sadness. Just like Molly – just as Sophie had said. In my own blinkered state of need, I had never noticed how much Marie-Claude was hiding. Yet there had sometimes been an instance, a clue, a rapid change of subject. I had asked her once about children, if she’d ever wanted any, and she’d paused for just a second before answering,
No, it wasn’t for us.
There was another time, too, on a rare occasion that she was ill, I took some soup to her bedroom. She was in lying in bed and as I went in she pushed something away under the covers. Her eyes were red – I took it to be the fever, but now I thought of the way Antoine looked at her, of how sometimes she would snap at him for the smallest thing, of why she rarely left the village.

‘Ok. It’s your turn now. What is it you’re not telling me?’

Slowly, she drained her glass, then poured another and topped up mine. ‘I don’t want you to go,’ she said. ‘I know you will and I know you should. It’s the right thing – you can’t stay here hiding – not now. Your family needs you. But I’m afraid…’

How could she be afraid? I was about to protest, to say I hadn’t decided what to do yet, that this was still my home. Then I remembered Antoine’s words:
She was like this all the time before you came.
Like what?

Marie-Claude continued, staring at a point beyond my shoulder. ‘Having you here was such a… lucky thing. You know the film
Casablanca
? When he says that line about,
Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine
? Well, that’s how it was for me when I saw you sitting outside in the heat with Sylvie. Then you came in – small miracle – and needed somewhere to live. I think I woke up that day – from a long and angry sleep. Antoine gave you the job – he knew how I’d feel about it – and it was the first time we’d really communicated in almost five years.’

I waited; the kitchen tap dripped.

‘I was very young when I met Antoine – a child. During the war, the village was occupied, and Antoine came here in 1941 to work as a forester. The Germans needed logs for barricades, border posts or something. What the Germans didn’t know, of course, was that he also worked for the Resistance – hiding airmen who’d been shot down or prisoners needing a safe passage to Switzerland or across the Pyrénees. I used to watch him swing an axe; it’s a powerful thing – hacking at the trunk until the tree slowly falls. The timber was loaded onto trucks and driven away, but Antoine would chop up the small bits left over and give them to us for firewood. We were never cold. I think I fell in love with him then, though I was only ten.’

Marie-Claude smiled, rolling the tip of her cigarette round as she always did. ‘After the war, Antoine left the village and I grew up. But a few years later, he came back. My mother had been ill and couldn’t manage alone, so I’d stayed to take care of her. He was still chopping trees, I was still in love with him. Only this time, he noticed me. I wasn’t bad looking then.’

‘So you married?’

‘Not straight away. My mother didn’t like him – thought I could do better. She’d no idea what he’d done during the war – she thought he was just a labourer, like my father was. Anyway, he stayed and we saw each other – she’d have been horrified to know what we got up to in the forest! Then, when she died, we did marry and stayed on in the cottage. I cooked for people, looked after the weekend houses. Parisians were coming back to claim them – the village was popular for weekends. Everything was fine except…’

‘There was no baby?’

‘No baby. Sometimes it would happen – I would hold my breath, but I always lost them after a few weeks. Antoine reassured me, said we just had to be patient. I kept busy, time passed, we were happy.

Then, just like that, it did happen. Eight weeks went by, then ten, then twelve. Antoine made me stop work, and I had to sit around all day getting fat. But it worked. Béatrice was born twelve years ago in July. Everything was fine, she was strong and healthy. It was wonderful. I couldn’t believe what had happened, I’d waited so long – I was thirty-six by then. Antoine adored her, of course, and she followed him everywhere. Then this place came up for sale and we bought it, moved in and Antoine ran the bar. He drank a lot, but that went with the job.’

‘You lived up here, in my flat?’

‘For five years, yes. Downstairs was just the bar. My bedroom was a storeroom. You know, Antoine had visions of turning the whole thing into a restaurant, but I wasn’t so keen. Not now we had Béatrice.

Then, one afternoon when Béatrice was five, she’d been playing out at the back and I was in the kitchen. She came in saying her head hurt. She looked hot, but then it was a warm day and she wouldn’t wear a hat. I gave her a drink and she climbed on my knee, but she was burning up – yet clammy and shivering all at once. I put her to bed and sat with her – gave her aspirin, but it didn’t seem to help. The fever worsened, her eyes hurt. Then I saw the rash, all over her chest.’

‘Was it measles?’

‘That’s what I thought. I called the doctor and he agreed. Told me to keep her cool and give more aspirin. There wasn’t much else to do.

Antoine was out; it was his night off and he’d gone to deliver a case of wine to some friends in the Sologne.’

Marie-Claude paused again, lighting another cigarette. ‘I tried to ring him, at the house where he’d gone, but there was no reply. The phone lines were often bad, or they just didn’t hear. Whatever – he didn’t come home.

I sat with Béatrice most of the night, but by four o’clock she was delirious. She didn’t know me – saw monsters in the room. Antoine had taken the car – I couldn’t drive anyway, so I phoned an ambulance, but they took two hours to come. They must have thought I was just a crazy mother, but by then that’s exactly what I was – half out of my mind. At hospital they put her on a drip, did blood tests, but it wasn’t measles at all, it was… a lot worse than that.’

‘Meningitis?’

Marie-Claude nodded slowly. ‘I managed to contact Antoine eventually. By about eight o’clock he was home and came straight to the hospital, but it was too late. She died that morning – twenty past nine.’

I breathed out, slowly.

Marie-Claude continued. ‘I don’t remember much about the next few months. We managed, people were kind, but they left us alone. No one knew what to say, no one talked about her.’

‘As if she’d never existed?’

‘Exactly.’

‘And Antoine?’

‘All my anger turned to him. For not being there, for drinking too much, for making me go through it alone. Then there was my own guilt – for not taking her to hospital sooner.’

‘But you didn’t know what it was. The doctor diagnosed measles too.’

‘I should have known – a mother always knows. Yet I failed her, failed to keep her safe. It’s not easy to live with that.’

The room had gone dark. A pale glow came in from the street light outside; cigarette smoke drifted out.

‘I’m not sure how we survived, how we got through it.’

‘But you are still here, still together.’ Slowly I was beginning to see the part Chloé and I had played, just what elements of chance had brought us together, the secret sadness she had carried that I, in my ignorance and need, had helped to alleviate. ‘And having us here has helped?’

‘More than you could ever imagine. So you see, I know you must go home, you must face up to your other life. But I will miss you – so much.’

Marie-Claude stood up and cleared the plates, her flan scarcely touched. Then she went to the door.

I put our glasses in the sink. ‘Marie-Claude?’

She turned.

‘Is she here – Béatrice?’

Marie-Claude smiled. ‘In the churchyard.’

‘Will you take me?’

‘In the morning,’ she said. ‘We’ll go in the morning.’

When Marie-Claude had gone and I heard the shutters close downstairs, I went in to Chloé, picked up her warm, sleeping body and held her close, listening to the small, steady rhythm of her beating heart.