The Silent Hours Read online

  The soil sticks to my damp fingers as I burrow down, pushing out. Another flicker, and I snatch my hand away, watching the soil trickle back into place once again. Breathing out slowly, I close my eyes. On opening them I can make out Sister Bernadette beyond, head bent over her task, planting in the row in front of me. I can hear her quietly humming.

  I try to stay with her, stare at the soles of her shoes, feel my head get cloudy, a familiar lurch in my stomach as unbidden memories start to thrust and jostle their way out.

  Sister Bernadette … the soles of her shoes are muddy, worn in the middle.

  The sun is burning my neck, the top of my head exposed so that I can feel the heat in my hair, close. Feeling the hot, remembering heat filling me up, I wobble. The hand I thrust out to balance myself pushes into the mud. The garden of the nunnery fades away and the light shifts. It is late afternoon and I am reliving it once again.

  There are shouts in the distance and I know I have to get away, have to hide. I crouch down, low to the ground, the past few minutes and hours making my head fill up. My lungs constrict, I gasp for air. I have to hide. I stumble over a fence post, crushing the grass as I get to a garden. My leg protesting as I drop to my knees and tear at the ground. My fingers plough into the dirt and I look down at my hand, now five tiny strips of flesh, the rest submerged in the earth. Clawing with two hands as quickly as I can, I feel the dry grains and tiny stones scratch at my fingers as I push them aside.

  The trench deepens and I drag myself around a curtain of green stalks – pea pods dangle in the semi-darkness, dripping down, their bobbled exteriors still. The colours merge with the shoots; the stalks are like thin tendrils winding, suffocating, around the canes, around me. Clutching my useless leg, I heave it across and push through the pods; they brush against my face and body like ghostly fingers as I lie in the soil, try to bury myself. Scooping great clumps over my body, shuffling into the dip I’ve created, delicate stalks snapping, pressing down so that I can’t be seen. More soil as I push into the earth, the grains spilling over my legs, trying to hide my torso with every scoop. Then, lying still, surrounded; the smell, the sweet fragrance of the pods as they tickle my face, whisper above me.

  I look out from my shallow grave through a curtain of green.

  I hear voices. Footsteps on the stones beyond. Words pass between them. Soil over soil, I wriggle, sink deeper, push my head into the earth. My ears are covered and the world becomes muted. Voices gone. Some of the soil brushes over my lips, my nostrils, breathing it in. The ground swallows me into its cool. The heat has gone, the raging heat has been extinguished and now there is a dampness seeping into my clothes as I try to be still.

  The peas hang above me, no sky beyond. A cloying smell, sickly. Maybe I will die like this.

  Sister Marguerite finds me bent over the ground and whispers to me to follow her. Some of the nuns are looking at me from across the lawn – a rake scraping, a bucket slopped. Sister Constance is frowning, mouth clamped into a line, as we walk past her.

  Pushing open the enormous door, we are back in the cool of the corridor, a smell of stone, history and dust, the air forcing me to wrap my cardigan around myself. My room is at the end, the square grille showing a brief, barred glimpse into my world.

  Sister Marguerite stops before we are there, outside the other door, the one I will not enter. Panels of wood are set into the wall: the doorway is a mere hole cut out of the stone; you have to duck to get inside the room. Enormous iron hinges wrap themselves across the planks.

  Through it is the small chapel: dark wooden pews, stained-glass windows above them, blinding glints in the little space of reds, oranges, and gilt. Candles dance in brackets. I will not go in again. I pull back sharply.

  ‘The others, they want …’ She pauses to take a breath, turns to me. ‘If you don’t start to attend services she will send you away. There is talk. Sister Constance feels you will be better served elsewhere.’ She looks over her shoulder, behind her. It is a touching gesture: she has pitted herself against them. ‘We could go in now, just you and I, and kneel at the altar.’

  I step backwards, shaking my head, like a horse refusing a jump. My chest rises and falls faster now and I can feel my eyes roll backwards as I resist.

  Sister Marguerite’s shoulders drop, her face falls; she soothes again. ‘Tomorrow perhaps,’ she lies, drawing me to my room.

  SEBASTIEN

  I have lost her in the crowd. She was right there, just for a moment. I nearly walk straight into the man in front of me. My eyes scan the strangers moving around the street. Limoges at its busiest. Tipping my hat to the man, I apologize to him. The early morning commuters are swarming to their offices, men in suits and hats all flowing along with a purpose, peeling away into side streets, stepping onto the cobbles, the occasional tinkle of a shop door, a greeting, the smell of an automobile idling, engine running as a man steps out.

  My heart leaps as I see it: a flash of olive-green coat.

  The girl from the tram crosses to the other side of the road. I am late for my meeting but I don’t want to lose her again; I want to run after her, spin her round, ask her name. She is walking with purpose, her heels click-clacking on the pavement as she skirts other people in her path. I take half a step forward. Her long blonde hair bounces in time to her steps as she rounds a corner.

  Briefly looking back over my shoulder at the direction in which I should be going I falter, then I return to the blank space the girl occupied seconds previously. With a last look at the corner, I turn and break into a jog to our offices two blocks away, pushing through the revolving door, panting a little.

  Mademoiselle Fourie greets me at reception with a raised eyebrow and points at the stairs. ‘They’ll be waiting for you, monsieur.’

  ‘Merci.’

  She rolls her eyes, smiling.

  Pausing briefly at the top of the stairs to straighten my tie and smooth down my jacket, I take a breath and walk into the conference room.

  Father and Monsieur Phane are standing at the end of the long, oval table hunched over a semi-circle of documents. The morning sun is bouncing off the table’s smooth mahogany surface, its rays showing the tiny dust particles that hang suspended in the air. A tray of cups, saucers and a cafetière lies at the other end and I busy myself with it, grateful to be able to do something useful. I pour the coffee into the cups, the distinctive smell tempting the men to look up and acknowledge my presence formally.

  Monsieur Phane, a portly gentleman, comes over to pump my hand warmly. An antique watch hangs off the pocket of his waistcoat, which is starting to show signs of strain around the midriff. ‘Good to see you, Sebastien. You’re looking older, always older,’ he says, shaking his head ruefully.

  ‘Monsieur Phane.’ I shake his hand and then pass him a coffee.

  ‘I’ve told you a dozen times before, call me Jean-Paul! We’ve been going over the plans for this new branch in Couzeix, and Pierre here tells me he is sizing you up to take on the management,’ he says, sipping from his cup.

  ‘That seems to be the plan.’

  ‘Well, excellent, excellent! Good to know we have someone on the shop floor, so to speak, who can let us know what is going on and how the employees are working …’ He guffaws, almost spilling the boiling liquid down his front.

  ‘We’re not planning on spying on them, Jean-Paul,’ Father says.

  ‘Well, not all the time …’ Jean-Paul winks at me.

  Father joins us and there is a brief silence as we all enjoy the taste of the coffee. As I place my cup down, in the circular window beyond I can see the tops of the trees in the park: a mix of oranges and reds, the grass almost olive. I blink, returning to the room.

  Father is planning to open a new bank in a nearby town and he has hired an architect to come up with a modern design for the building, which is currently a disused garage.

  ‘Are the
plans what you’d hoped?’ I ask.

  Jean-Paul’s whole face lifts, his brown eyes filling with reflections of the tiny lights from the chandelier above. ‘Incredible to think we’ll have another branch up and running within a year,’ he says.

  ‘This impending war, though …’ comments Father, shaking his head. ‘What they’ve been doing to the Jews in Germany. And we run a bank, Jean-Pa—’

  ‘Don’t start up again, Pierre,’ says Jean-Paul, cutting Father off with a tap of his cigarette case on the table. He raises his eyebrows at me. ‘It’s all doom and gloom around here, boy.’ He nods his head in the direction of Father. ‘Anyway,’ he continues, draining his coffee in one go, ‘I’ve got to get off. I’m sure Pierre will fill you in on our evil schemes. Until next time,’ he says, holding out his hand.

  I move across to scan my eyes down the pages on the table as Father shows him out of the room and closes the double doors behind him. He places his hand flat on the wood, pausing. He seems strained.

  ‘So, tell me about the plans for the new branch,’ I say, deliberately trying to distract him from gloomy thoughts.

  Father allows himself to be diverted, eyes creasing as he states: ‘It is going to be the most wonderfully modern building.’ He moves across the room in quick strides, a bounce back in his step. ‘The architect has come up with some ingenious designs.’

  The next couple of hours are spent sifting through the early plans, discussing the precise profile of the people we need to employ. Not for the first time I feel a warmth flood through me as we work on these plans, as we see his vision coming together.

  ‘What made you late this morning?’ he asks, when I’m about to leave the room. ‘You’re normally very prompt for these things.’

  ‘Just a beautiful day,’ I mumble, not turning around. ‘Just soaking up the sights, I suppose.’

  I can hear the smile in his voice. ‘Was she very pretty?’

  My mouth twitches as I turn the handle of the door. ‘Very,’ I reply, looking at him over my shoulder.

  He nods and returns to the business; he hunches over the documents once more, dwarfed by the enormous room, the mahogany table, the large oil paintings that hang on the walls. My father has made it, and no war can take that away.

  This is France, things are different here.

  When Armistice Day comes it seems all the more poignant this year. Ticker tape has been tied to the lampposts: the red, white and blue triangles flutter in the breeze; tricolor flags are draped out of many first- and second-floor apartment windows. The vendors sell hot chocolate, candy floss on wooden sticks, croissants, nougat. A nearby boy is focused on devouring a fresh pain au chocolat, the insides of it smeared around his mouth. The cold November air makes my breath visible as I stamp my feet in an effort to try and warm them. My knee twinges, but I’m used to the sporadic pains and I’m distracted by the mood: it seems the whole of Limoges has come out to have a good time. With the Germans on the doorstep, it seems we will not forget who we are, that no one can dull the love a man has for his country.

  The celebrations are louder this year. People are singing ‘The Marseil­laise’ and proclaiming victory to France. Bands play, people dance in the street, swapping stories, talking about their sons, fathers, sweethearts who are all away, ready to fight for the honour of France. The voices and the familiar melody blends, swirling about me as I stand for a moment longer on the street before returning home.

  An old man perched on a stool nearby, cigarette dangling from his mouth, taps one foot, bangs his walking stick on the cobbles in time. There is a girl, no more than twelve, leg in a brace, sitting and watching her friends as they dance an eightsome with boys in the village. One of their fathers has been forced to join in and he grimaces at me from over a shoulder as I smile at the group.

  The girl on the seat looks downcast, scuffing the toe of one shoe backwards and forwards on the ground as another tune starts up and she is left out once more. A couple of boys nearby point at her, one of them smirks and the girl grows redder as she tries to ignore their gestures. Toe back, forward, back, forward.

  I walk over to her, holding out my hand. ‘We’ll go slowly.’

  She looks up, shy and uncertain, and then grins at me, a face full of freckles and now two rows of white teeth. She takes my hand and we move to join the group. The steps are simple; even so we get it all hopelessly wrong but the girl seems happy; she shows me how her mother taught her to move in a triangle, one foot back, to the side and then the front, and we start to get the hang of things. A friend calls to her and she waves, jutting her chin out proudly. Another boy cuts in, asks her to join him, and I bow out. She looks at me, mouthing a thank-you.

  Returning to the safety of the pavement, I feel the familiar throb just above my knee. I rub at it absently – nearly missing her. A head of thick blonde hair, an olive-green coat …

  My arm reaches out and I find myself tapping her on the shoulder. ‘Excuse me.’

  The girl looks startled and then, when she recovers, an inquisitive expression replaces the surprise.

  ‘I …’

  ‘Can I help?’ she asks.

  ‘I, well, I saw you once before and I …’ My voice trails away into a whisper of jumbled words as my eyes explore her face. She has the smoothest skin: glowing. I’ve seen a photograph of Greta Garbo in a picture magazine and she has skin like this. Her wide eyes are an unusual shade of green, like a forest lake, flecked with brown; the left iris has a muddy dot, like a leaf disturbing the surface.

  Her smile falters a little as I struggle to say something, anything, coherently. The mood of the day has given me the confidence to approach her; now I’ve done it, I’m suddenly at a loss.

  ‘I thought …’What did I think, oh God, what did I think? ‘I thought you might like to dance,’ I say, pointing at the couples nearby who are dancing on the cobbled street as a man plays an accordion and sings in a wobbly tenor.

  The girl’s face lights up again as she glances across at them, then she crosses her arms and looks back at me. ‘I thought you only danced with little girls.’ I can feel my cheeks burning and she laughs. ‘It was sweet of you, and I’d love to,’ she continues, in a voice like melted caramel. ‘I’m Isabelle.’ She offers her hand.

  I take it. ‘Sebastien, and I have to warn you, I am a terrible dancer. She was just too polite to reject me.’

  ‘Sebastien the bad dancer,’ she repeats. ‘Enchantée.’

  ‘And you.’

  We step off the pavement into the street. My palms are beginning to sweat and my feet are clumsy. Isabelle appears not to notice, chatting happily to me as we dance. I nod at a nearby acquaintance, a friend of Mother’s. She waves, raises an eyebrow.

  I am a head taller than the girl in the olive-green coat and momentarily relieved that I can focus on the top of her hair as we move in time to the music. Who is this woman in my arms, who seems full of restless energy? Her movements are fluid: they match my own, as if we have danced together before, her light steps in low-heeled shoes so soft she could slink away without a sound. I had better say something or she might disappear again.

  I ask her where she lives, mentally congratulating myself on getting the words out in the right order. She lives in a village not far from Limoges, a little place called Oradour that I know by reputation because many of my colleagues have fished in the river there at weekends.

  ‘Excellent pike,’ I comment.

  ‘Quite,’ she says, looking up and meeting my eyes.

  I want to roll my eyes at myself. Fish, Sebastien?

  The accordion stops for a moment and our dance comes to an abrupt halt. Isabelle doesn’t move away. I feel my chest rise and fall. I’m aware of my knee protesting, sending sharp signals to stop and sit. I can’t bring myself to move away, to ruin this moment.

  ‘I’ve never seen the town like this,’ she says, doing a
quick spin about her and breathing out. ‘It’s fantastic, don’t you think?’

  I picture Father that morning saying something similar, qualifying the statement with bleak predictions. I don’t want to dampen her mood; I want to agree, see the street through her eyes, vibrant with colour and life and people whipped into a fever of patriotism.

  I nod. ‘This is what we do. We dance.’

  ‘It’s the right thing to do,’ she says. ‘I think we owe it to them to live in the present, to carry on as they left us. Isn’t this what today’s all about?’

  The passion in her voice surprises me, her eyes fiercely lit from within. She has thrown her arms out wide, and I focus on her upturned wrist, the sliver of flesh, thoughts crammed into my brain, the noises outside fading. I hear her voice repeating the word ‘them’ again and again.

  ‘Sebastien?’ Her head is tilted to one side, the sun on her hair making each strand glow.

  ‘I wish I was fighting with them,’ I begin, ‘it’s my leg, I can’t,’ I gesture at it before taking a breath, ‘but sometimes’ – I look beyond her now, admit these words to the space above her head – ‘there are moments when I’m … relieved.’

  I stop short, astounded that I have shared this, my deepest, ugliest thought with her. I look down at her, wait for the green eyes to grow dull, narrow, for her to make her excuses, to leave me in the street with the dancing crowds.

  But she stays there, reaches out a hand and encloses my hand in it.

  I look down, blink once, feel her fingers encircling, pressing on my skin.

  ‘Everyone has their own story,’ she states. So simple.

  She removes her hand almost immediately, tucks it protectively under her arm as if stopping herself repeating the action. I miss her touch, that instinctive gesture that made me feel for the first time in weeks that someone understood.