Honey, Cinnamon, Lemons Ch. 01-08

The garden was paved close to the house, and there was a large wooden table with half a dozen chairs, shaded by an old apple tree. Apart from a few crumbs and some scraps of lettuce and fruit peel, obviously left there after her family lunch, the table bore nothing but a round tray on which sat a couple of loosely-corked bottles and an ashtray overflowing with cheroot ends. She swept the food scraps onto the floor with the back of her hand. Under the balcony was a cupboard and a refrigerator, and she asked him to bring two tumblers and some ice. 'I am going to offer you a local drink. This is called pousse d'épine. There is red, and there is rosé. You shall try them both. Or do you prefer whiskey? Pernod? I do not have English ale.'

'Oh, your local drink, please, madame. Thank you.'

She poured out two glasses of each colour, dropped an ice cube into each one, and placed a red and a pink in front of him. 'You sip it in small drops. Or if you are like Gilou you drink it like lemonade!'

'Thank you, madame.' He sipped the rosé. It was the same stuff he'd taken at the boules game, sweet and strong as port, but with a pleasant almond undernote. 'Mmmm. It is truly delicious!'

He was startled by a scratching sound under the table and something brushing his leg and when he looked down he laughed to see two large hens foraging about for leftovers. Along the garden a troupe of chickens of all colours, shapes and sizes came strutting towards them.

'They are my children, monsieur. We had one for lunch today. Do you see the trees in front of the barn? They are plum trees and each year they give me 15 litres of eau-de-vie. The vine along the left boundary gives me 40 litres of red wine, and the vines on the other side give me 35 litres of white. In a good year, you understand. When the wine and the eau-de-vie are mixed, one adds sugar, and fresh shoots of épine - blackthorn: the first week in the month of May. Two weeks later one strains it and bottles it. Voila! These are last year's bottles.'

'It must be a lot of work for you, madame.'

'No. Gilou does the work for me. He is the boss of the local hunters, and he is a nephew. Perhaps you saw him today at your boules; he is also the boss of the boulistes.'

'Moustache? Sanglier?'

She chortled quietly. 'Yes, that is him! Did you hear about the train crash, monsieur?'

He felt faint. 'Oh, yes.'

'It was on Thursday, was it not? Did you travel to France on Thursday?'

'Oh, yes...'

'By the tunnel?'

'Yes...'

'You were lucky. Were you on the train which crashed?'

'Yes...'

She leaned forward and looked at him closely. 'Many English would have been on board. You must have left the train at Lille. They say that two people are lost and have not been found. An artist, a woman. And a man who is being sought by the English police; and now, presumably, by the gendarmes.'

He knocked back his glass of red in one hit, his hand trembling, and she re-filled him. Her hand was trembling, too, but from a different cause, and he steadied her wrist with gentle fingers. The sun, now lower, was dazzling him and making his eyes water. He blinked and wiped with the back of his hand.

Augustine continued. 'Do you know what the man did, to be hunted by the police like that?'

'I think he accidentally killed a man. The police might think he is a murderer.'

'I hadn't heard such details; you must know more than I do.' She kept her eyes fixed on his, and murmured. 'I wish to tell you some things. I was twenty-six when the war started. I had a job in the brewery in Montmorillon. After the occupation of France many young women, and of course some older women also, became friendly with German soldiers because of the shortages. The officers were the best to befriend, because many were educated and civilised men, and a few were not brutal, but what was most important was that they could provide better access to food. There was very little food in France at that time, for the French. For the Germans it was different, better. And for the officers it was quite comfortable. Women with hungry children or family - brothers, sisters, parents - were prepared to go a long way to feed them: I don't mean to travel a long distance, I mean to travel a long way, morally - to do desperate things. You understand?'

He nodded.

'After the war, many of these women were punished. Their heads were shaved and they were paraded and insulted in the streets. I never made friends with Germans like they did, and I did not like those women but, looking back, I no longer judge them harshly. To protect one's own flesh and blood sometimes comes before everything.'

Tim's eyes were brimming and he gulped another half glass. Madame Ribot sipped her own.

'Part of France was occupied by the Germans, and part was controlled by the French, who carried out the orders of their German masters; two parts divided by a line of demarcation. France, too, had bad people; there are nazis in every society, whatever they call themselves, and they enjoy the same things - wicked games. As for our police, it was not easy for a French gendarme to refuse to do what his government had agreed with the Germans. Our chief of gendarmes was not a wicked man, so he merely did his duty without being over-zealous. Of course he suffered for it when the war was over.'

He drained his glass and re-filled it, without ice, and she pushed hers towards him for a top-up, saying in English, 'Don't worry, Tommy, French girls do not get tipsy! His name was Tommy Atkins, Tommy like you, and he was a Major when he was twenty-three - younger than I was!' Her eyes sparkled and would have overflowed had she not dabbed with a handkerchief pulled out from the cuff of her cardigan. Two sharp reports sounded in the distance. 'Shooting the crows.' She trinked her glass against his and they both sipped.

'The Germans liked their beer, and, so, the lorries from the brewery at Montmorillon were allowed to cross the line with much freedom; to make deliveries. There was an Ursuline sister, Sister Lintz: she came from Alsace and she spoke German perfectly. She accompanied one of our lorries so that she could translate to the Germans on behalf of the driver. She and the driver arranged a place, under the floor of the lorry, where food and...packages, could be carried in secret; even a person, a thin person for sure, you understand, could hide there. Many lives were saved; food and wine were taken into the prison camps, and sometimes a British would be helped along the clandestine escape route. The British were thin, like most of us at that time, because of the shortages.'

'Life was hard for you then, madame.'

'And then, Sister Lintz was arrested, because she was bold in what she did; too bold; over-confident you could say, and the chief of gendarmes felt he had to act, to make a show, you understand. She was kept for a week. When she was released, there was talk. Some said she had been violated. Some said that she had done things willingly to escape death. I knew from my sweetheart that she had not been mistreated, physically, and that she had not betrayed...but who knows what really happened, or why. Even a sister must try to preserve herself. The driver too was arrested and given to the Germans for a time: when he was released it was obvious that he had been treated badly: he carried some of the marks for the rest of his life. After her release, she continued her work for the unfortunate, but she was much more careful. She would not let anyone drive her; she drove the lorry herself. And after the liberation she returned to Alsace.'

'The driver who had been arrested was older than me, but still young, and we were married after the war. He was a good friend of a resistance fighter called Blaireau. That was his nom-de-guerre, his code name, you understand. He also survived the war and opened a bicycle factory in Malthus. But, it lost money, and he went later to Alsace. So many questions and mysteries there are about the past, but it is gone, and keeps its secrets!'

They looked at each other, each with wet cheeks: she was remembering shocking things and he was drunk. And perhaps vice-versa.

'There were terrible things done at that time. Look at me and imagine a pretty young woman - I was pretty, you know! That pretty young woman killed two Chleuh and one collaborator. She shot them! You would not think that was possible, but it is true. Hep! Pardon.' She giggled and took a sip. Politely, he re-filled their glasses, and they trinked.

'The first two were killed during actions in the forests along the Gartempe. The last one was done in cold blood, but for good reasons: justice, revenge, I don't know what it should be called. I did it because Blaireau ordered me to do it, for Sister Lintz. I believe that the deaths I gave were justified. Have you ever done a wicked thing?'

'No! I did it because I had to! A man threatened to kill me, to mutilate me. And he threatened to do the same to my granddaughter! To mutilate her! To torture her! My granddaughter!'

'Then you were justified in killing him. Here, one shoots a wicked dog. One even eats an innocent chicken. Ha!'

'I didn't do it on purpose! I tried to save myself and I didn't mean to kill. He fell badly, hit his head, I called an ambulance afterwards when I was safe, but he died.'

'When I did it, monsieur Tommy, I did it on purpose, and I do not feel guilty. You should not feel guilt for trying to protect your own flesh and blood. Are you telling me the truth?'

'Yes, madame.'

'Look me in the eyes and tell me from your heart.' She leaned forward and placed her hand on his chest. 'Now tell me!'

Tears streamed down his face and he moved it close to hers until their breaths and tears mingled. Mingled tears were salty-sweet and mingled wine-breaths were fruity and sour. She knew the smells of the internment camps and maquis latrines in the woods; he knew the miasma of his thirty-seven year marital bed. Neither gave a shit about the other's effluvia: both found it attractive.

'I did not mean to kill! I am not sorry that I attacked him, but I did not mean to kill!'

She lifted the tears from his cheek with her knuckles and touched them to her lips, then his. 'I learned long ago who one can trust and who one can not trust. Knowing that trick got me through the war alive. I tell you now that I believe you, and I will help you if I can. You must stay in the chateau as much as possible. I will say that you travelled here on Wednesday, and that you are taking rest for your health. You must remember this. When did you travel?'

'Wednesday. And I am convalescing.'

'Good. Monsieur. But you would not have lasted five minutes during the occupation! You are too honest! Ha! You have just confessed to murder. To me, a stranger! But maybe the Chleuh would have sent you away for wasting time with stupid false confessions.'

'I trusted you, madame. I do trust you! What is Chleuh?'

'Never trust anybody! The Chleuh is what we called the Germans. They were familiar with the word Boche. The word Chleuh was not so familiar to them. Both words are very impolite nowadays and you must never use them, even with the boulistes. Putain, con, merde; all acceptable among the men. But never Chleuh, even if there are no Chleuh around to hear. That sort of hatred should have ended with the end of the war!'

'Don't worry, madame, I will be a good boy!'

'Augustine, not madame! And now we shall have one for the road, and you must return to your little brown friend; she will be wondering where you are.'

'She is away today, Augustine.'

'Away? I did not notice her leaving. Ah, well. You must go home soon or there will be talk. Be careful on the winding staircase. It is steep.'

He sipped his drink. 'How do you know that, Augustine? That it winds and is steep?'

She clutched his wrist. 'After the war, when the Germans had left the chateau, my husband stayed on as chauffeur to the Audricourt family, and he slept above the gateway: they had been in America for the war and were not very popular when they returned, but that is another story. I used to visit him there, and so I know the winding staircase very well. He was not my husband at that time, but we were lovers, and Gilou's uncle used to drive me to Bourg when he went to visit his own little friend, who owned the tobacconist's shop by the church. It is all very complicated. Such is life. Go now before I am too naughty! You know, people are all the same in the world, wherever they are, they fall in love and fight, and make money and, all those things, but they are all the same. Chleuh, French, Russian, Chinese, Tonkinois.'

'Froggies, Paddies, Jocks, Tommies...'

What are Tommies?'

'English soldiers, Tommy Atkins, the bravest finest fighting cream of the British nation! Salt of the earth!'

'So it is a nickname for English soldiers? Not a real name?'

'Well it might have been his real name...'

She burst out laughing. 'Oh, what a fool I am! He never told me his real name. I thought he was a fool to tell me his name, but it is I who was the fool. I am so happy that he was more clever than I thought. But now he will never know...'

'Never know what?'

'Never know that he was so resourceful and cunning and clever! He will think he was weak and stupid, and I cannot tell him my admiration. Life is so sad! Sometimes it is too much.'

'Don't cry, Augustine. I'll tell him when I go back to England.'

'Oh will you? Oh, please tell him, and ask him for me now for his real name. The war is over and he can tell it to me now. Please carry me to my bed now: carry me up my straight staircase! But I am a good girl...'

She was light as a feather and they rode the lift together. She had a stair-lift to the upper floor but he carried her easily up her straight staircase and laid her gently on the bed. She sighed in her sleep and said, 'I need peepee, papa, and my nightie.' He sighed back at her, but did his duty with an old man's love in his heart for an old woman in need.

Before he left the house he tidied up the glasses and the now empty bottles, then closed the back doors but could find no lock or bolt. He let himself out of the front door cautiously, first checking the coast was clear so as to avoid motorbikes and scandal, then crept off to his own bed, taking extreme care on the stone spiral staircase, but nearly falling all the same.

[*

]* Sir Les, Australian Cultural Attache, was an elderly drooling lecherous alcoholic fictional character created and portrayed by Barry Humphreys, aka Dame Edna Everidge.