The Keeper of the Walls (55 page)

“No, you've been misinformed on both counts,” the man replied. “The line which has just formed
is
for the train due to leave at seven
a.m.
And it's only going as far as Dol. It you don't take it, God knows when another will come.”

They stood up, quickly folding their blankets together. “Oh, well,” Lily said. “Dol is still one step farther in the right direction.”

The three women had already lost ten precious minutes. The train was full, but people let them in, and in the corridor, they found two unoccupied flap-seats. Sudarskaya took one, and Lily the other, but she pulled Kira onto her lap. They positioned their feet over some of the bags. People kept climbing in, more and more desperate, until finally the entire corridor was filled.

But, instead of departing at seven the next morning, they left at eight thirty. When they reached Dol, it was announced that the train would continue, and that there was no need to get off and wait again. But still more people, smelling of sweat and grime, climbed aboard. Many were turned away.

A group of young soldiers, pleasant and joyful, who had fought in Belgium and at Dunkirk, slipped in through the open window of the corridor, and found space standing up, squeezing close together. Then, somebody passed a one-month-old baby through the same window. But its mother had to go through the door. Everybody tried to help, but goodwill was not enough. Finally she was inside, and the baby was handed to her over Lily's head. She couldn't tell how they settled down, but the mother had possessed, as her only baggage, a small purse. How would she change her baby on the way?

All through the night at Lison, and at each stop during the day, those who could get out did so, to refill water bottles at the fountain. Others handed them theirs through opened windows. The stops lasted a long time, and in the train, the air was stale, and it was so hot that drizzles of soot and perspiration ran down everyone's face. When people had appeased their thirst, they would dab a few drops of water on a linen cloth, and press it over their tired faces. The cloth turned instantly black, but it was the only way to obtain some relief. The presence of so many humans pressed together was suffocating.

Going to the rest room was quite a different odyssey. One had to reach the end of the corridor, stepping over all sorts of packages, side-stepping people's legs and even people's bodies. Once there, one had to dislodge the three men who had taken possession of the small room, one sitting on the toilet seat and the two others standing, leaning on the walls. They were more than willing to move: the problem was to find space for them outside.

In Avranches, many people left, and Sudarskaya slid into a compartment where one real seat had been vacated. After a while, a man signaled to Lily to come to the same compartment. “Here,” he said gently. “Sit down in my place for an hour.” And so, at last, she was able to sit high enough so that her legs could rest. For, on the low flap-seat, all the weight of her body had shifted to her feet, which were now swollen and aching.

At three thirty, the train stopped in the middle of a field. The station of Rennes lay in the distance, and after an hour and a half, they started to inch forward at a snail's pace, in fits and starts. It wasn't until five thirty in the evening that they pulled into the station.

Lily, Sudarskaya, and Kira moved all their baggage out, and walked to the other side of the platform where, quite far down, stood the train bound for Nantes. “Maybe we should stop there, in Nantes, and stay with Aunt Marthe,” Kira suggested.

Lily shook her head. “Absolutely not! She's a hateful old woman, and I want to stay with my mother.”

Kira stared at her, dumbfounded. She'd rarely heard her mother speak against anyone, or be excited. Lily was always cool, poised, in control. Absurdly, Kira burst out laughing.

They found some room in a compartment. Some well-thinking official had removed the partition between two compartments, and a greater flow of air circulated inside. They sat down on the floor between the torn-down partition and the corridor. Sudarskaya leaned her head forward, closed her eyes, and started to snore lightly.

Shortly after that, some ladies of the welcoming center managed to enter the cars and hand every passenger some bread and chicken broth.

At around seven, the train departed, and arrived much later at the Nantes station. Lily and Kira went outside for some coffee, dragging all their bags outside and half dragging the sleepy little piano teacher with them. They sat on their packages, leaning against the wall.

There wasn't any thought of falling asleep. From time to time they would doze off, feeling thankful that, for once, they weren't being pressed on all sides by human flesh. At four in the morning, the stationmaster announced that a train would be leaving for Bordeaux in one or two hours. He wasn't in charge anymore, but was simply relaying the orders of the military authorities.

All of a sudden, rumors spread that yesterday's train from Rennes was ready to leave. Everybody rushed back inside. It hadn't been worth it to leave it and spend the night outside—but last night already seemed part of the past. Kira found a third-class compartment that was still half empty, and next door, they heard their agreeable companions, the soldiers from Dunkirk. The train pulled out at five thirty, and each turn of the wheel was bringing them a step closer to Bordeaux.

The day of Friday, June 14, passed quickly. They stopped for several long intervals, and once two young soldiers popped their heads in to ask if Lily and Kira wanted to share some dried fruit with them. Lily realized, with an odd jolt, that to these young men of eighteen, she, at thirty-five, seemed an old woman. She looked at her daughter, noting her small waist, her round, plump breasts, and her lovely legs. It seemed a shame to waste this period of her life, when she should have been enjoying her first flirtation, and learning to dance and to be courted. “You go, darling,” she said softly. “I'm not hungry.”

Afterward, Kira came back, her cheeks shining with pleasure. “There wasn't any dried fruit,” she explained. “We just ate the bread and coffee that the welcome-center ladies handed out. But it was fun. They've seen
so much!”

Lily had always thought that bread and water was considered harsh punishment because it deprived the offender of good food. Now, after hours with nothing else to eat but dry bread and horrid
ersatz
coffee, she realized that the bread was sticking to her throat, and she pictured the pleasure it would be to eat a bowl of macaroni. Bread alone could fill a person, but never satisfy him.

La Rochelle passed, then Jonzac, where they stopped for an hour and refilled their water bottles. One old woman was left at the fountain when the train departed, and the alarm was pulled. The passengers were shaken by a case of crazy, liberating laughter, watching her running to catch up with the train.

At Saintes, at 1:00
p.m.,
everyone was forced off the train. Horrified, Lily heard that all trains for Bordeaux had been forbidden. They could sleep in Saintes—but what then? Their money, too, was running out, and they had no more food left. But somewhat later, they learned that in the morning, there had been an accident, and that they were clearing the rails —and that eventually a train would arrive, and not, as had been supposed, that the military authorities had canceled all further travel.

Then a train appeared. They rushed toward the first open car, along with two ladies holding a huge cage containing nine finches. Some soldiers from the territory of the Landes sat with them, talking their own quaint dialect. Their chatter, mixed with the chirping of the finches, brought a sense of joy into the atmosphere. The train set off from Saintes at three o'clock, and stopped, like its predecessors, many times for long halts. At 2:00
a.m.
it pulled into the Bordeaux station.

Arès was now only thirty miles away. Lily, Kira, and Sudarskaya went to the welcome center, and drank some coffee. “This is our last punishment meal,” Kira whispered conspiratorially. “The next time we eat, we shall be sitting at Grandma's table!”

Suddenly, Lily said: “My God! We registered our large suitcase in Lison . . . but we've changed trains so many times, no one will know where to send it on to! It's lost!”

“Pierre's letters were in it—all of them.” Kira's face, ash-white, stared back at her, horrified.

Lily felt a dead weight landing in the pit of her stomach. “All our clothes ...all our shoes . . .
everything!”

Unexpectedly, Sudarskaya snorted, shrugging. “Shoes! We'll never be able to fit into any of our old shoes, my girls. Look how swollen our feet are! And as for Pierre . . . young men never lose their hand at writing. Just think: maybe next time, little one, he'll address himself to you alone— instead of writing to your brother, like a goose.”

Five hours later, weary and nerve-racked, Lily was half-dozing on the
quai
when Kira drew her out of her fog. “The train is forming, Mama,” Kira said. It was seven in the morning, and she saw that several old third class wagons had been pulled together. Hoisting themselves on, they walked directly into the same compartment as their cheerful soldiers from the Landes. And again, as with the boys from Dunkirk, Lily was conscious of their eyes upon her daughter.

At the town of Facture, the Brasilovs and Sudarskaya unboarded, waving good-bye to the pleasant soldiers. They were going on to Arcachon. One of them winked at Kira, who blushed, and smiled. Lily's heart contracted: she wondered how many of these young men would die at the front before the war was ended.

The railcar only left at nine o'clock. It ran its course through a densely wooded region, stopping several times. Then, all at once, they saw the sign:
Ares!
They had arrived at their destination!

Leaving almost all their baggage in the cloakroom, they took with them only their dry goods, which might please Claire and Jacques, and the plaid cover. They wondered if their other belongings would be waiting for them, or if they would be stolen. But at this point, they hardly cared. They looked at Claire's directions, and set out on foot. They were walking with slow, small steps, their poor feet hurting from days of swelling and disuse. And the villa was far.

“What do you think Mama will say when she sees us, dirty, disheveled, our clothes and shoes caked with dust? We look like vagabonds,” Lily said.

“Well, we've been on the road forever, haven't we? We left Wednesday, at six
a.m.,
and now it's already Saturday noon. Three and a half days without washing or brushing our hair—in trains where we've perspired in the soot, along with thousands of other . . . vagabonds.” Kira laughed, but her voice shook with exhaustion.

And here, at long last, was the villa. It stood behind a small garden, rioting with flowers. Lily pushed the gate open, and, in front of the door, rang the doorbell. She could hear somebody pulling back the bolt, swinging open the door—and Claire's face, her white hair neatly piled on top of her head, her brown eyes round in her head, widened in astonishment, stood staring at them. “Oh, my God,” she whispered, taking Kira in her arms and holding her tightly against her.

When they were all seated in the small mahogany
salon,
drinking hot milk and relishing a thick purée of white navy beans, Claire leaned forward in the green velvet wing chair, and asked:
“Where's Nicky?”

Lily blinked. Pushing back a greasy strand of her dirty hair, she thought, Of course: she doesn't know! “He's coming, by bicycle. He should be here in two or three days.” And she, in turn, asked: “How long have
you
been here?”

“We arrived five days ago. We've been waiting for you ever since. Paris is occupied.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The Germans have invaded Paris. And Mussolini's declared war on us, too.”

But this she'd known; Il Duce's belligerence had been the last piece of news she'd listened to on the radio.

“There's going to be an armistice,” Jacques spoke up grimly. “The French have lost the war.”

Lily sat speechless. In a stunned, exhausted silence, she listened as her parents told her what had happened during her voyage. People had come from all parts to Arès, and rooms were hard to let. They'd hired a girl from the town to help them cook and clean, but she went home at night. Mark had gone to the market to bring back some fresh vegetables and fruits.

“Mark?” Lily echoed.

“He came with us, because he didn't want us traveling alone. I only wish Maryse, Wolf, and Nanni had come too.”

“They're still in Paris?”

“Wolf's had a setback: he's worse than last summer, an emotional piece of ice—nothing seems to move him.”

“With the Germans . . . the Nazis ... in Paris?”

“What can I tell you? He's changed, Lily, since the
Saint Louis.
But surely, before Mark comes back and we settle you down, you'll be wanting to use the bathroom. You too, Raïssa Markovna—and Kirotchka.”

A bathroom. It seemed too good to be true. With great difficulty, the three women tried to remove their shoes. Their ankles were as large as their calves. Lily stretched out in the tub, soaping herself with languorous relish. But when she stood up and looked down, she was horrified. The entire surface of the bathwater was black and oily.

They unwrapped the plaid blanket, and removed their changes of underwear. Claire brought out several pairs of house slippers, because they all needed softness around their tender feet. Then they stretched out on the small but cozy beds in the guest room, and fell asleep.

Hours later, when she awakened, Lily padded downstairs to find her mother. Her clean hair floated down her back, and she could smell her own warm, soapy smell. Claire was standing in the small kitchen, explaining something to a young girl in a simple uniform. “Mark went to the cloakroom at the train station and brought back your bags,” she said. “Nothing was stolen, after all. And I've got a nice lunch prepared—a kind of English high tea, really, because of the hour. I'll bring it in a few minutes to the
salon.
” They stood smiling at each other, happy to be together.