Helen Forrester - Madame Barbara

Madame Benion could not completely hear what he said but she saw the need for help. When he tried again, she added her small weight to his and pushed.

It gave slightly more.

Michel pressed his mother’s hand to indicate that she should keep pushing. Hoping that it would not slam shut again and smash his fingers, he braced himself against it and ran his hand along the opened space. Halfway down the outer side of the door, his fingers touched wood. Below that, there seemed no further impediment. Whatever was there had certainly wedged the door shut.

He withdrew his hand. Already nearly frantic from that which had gone before, panic rose in him.

He stood firm, however, while he tried to control himself. Beside him, his mother shifted slightly. She said something but he could not hear what it was.

Keep your head, he warned himself. You must; otherwise you may starve in this rathole.

Again, he braced himself as firmly as he could to keep the door open as far as it would go. Then he shouted into his mother’s ear, ‘Quickly, Maman, bring me some wood chips and a couple of small logs.’

Despite the loudness of his voice she had not heard him clearly. Uncertainly, she picked up some pieces of firewood.

‘That’s right,’ he shouted at her.

She rapidly collected some more wood and held it towards him in her arms. With one hand, he picked three or four chips to wedge the door as far open as it would go. Very slowly, he eased away from it. The wooden chips cracked with the door’s pressure, but held.

With a sigh of relief, he stepped back.

Gesturing to his mother, he said, ‘Put the wood down here, Maman, and bring me the big mallet we use for pounding in fenceposts.’

While she hesitantly complied, uncertain that she had heard properly, he gave the recalcitrant door another heavy shove. It refused to shift any further.

‘I’m going to give the door several blows with the mallet to see if I can loosen it. Stand back, Maman,’ he shouted.

He swung the heavy tool with all his might, hitting the door several times in quick succession. He wanted to scream with the resultant pain in his shoulder. Undeterred, he aimed several more blows.

It sounded to him as if something outside slid. He stopped and then, once more, he shoved as hard as he could. The door opened about three inches.

Full of hope, he let it swing shut again and then continued to whack it with the heavy mallet, but the best he could achieve was an opening of about three inches – no more. Finally breathless, he gave up.

Her hands hanging loosely at her side, his mother was weeping helplessly. ‘Perhaps someone will come to help us,’ she sobbed.

He doubted whether there would be anyone in the vicinity who had survived. He did not, however, tell her this. He simply grunted and ruefully rubbed his shoulder while he considered what to do next. He was, however, desperately hungry and thirsty, and his usually clear mind was refusing to think constructively.

He leaned his head against the cold stone wall, and then, when he felt steadier, he walked over to the little window with its prisonlike bar, to look out again at a June morning marred by a fearsome amount of dust. In the near distance there was the scarifying sound of continuing conflict, though it was definitely receding; even his troubled ears noted that.

Beside him, his mother sounded as if she were speaking from a vast distance away. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, her voice cracking.

He had to shout to make her hear. ‘I’m going to try the door once more.’

She followed him trustfully as he returned to the recalcitrant door.

He felt for the smallest log he had picked out. With this in hand, he shouted, ‘Push.’

They gave a concerted shove, and the door opened as much as it had before. Michel quickly pushed the log into the gap to wedge it open. On this more sheltered side of the cave he could now see light a little more clearly than through the tiny window. ‘It must be nearly mid-morning,’ he decided.

He then picked up another log of uneven width. This he handed to his mother, and told her what to do. Making her stand back, he swung the mallet as hard as he could, in a blow to hit the door at the edge of the opening. Then he flung his weight against it. His mother swiftly dropped the second log into the slightly further opened aperture as a rattle of debris came from outside.

Michel paused for breath.

After a moment, he cautiously stretched himself across the door as far as he could reach and ran his fingers down the open edge of it. He could feel that the wooden obstruction now lay wedged against the bottom of the door.

Several more tries failed to shift the door further.

Furious with frustration, he turned from his mother so that she should not see the intensity of his despair and strode again to the window. His mouth tight as he boiled with anger, he seized the bar across the middle of the window and shook it.

In a split second, he found himself thrown back by his own impetus, flat against the apple grinder, the bar still in his hand. From the window a small slither of debris fell to the floor.

He stared in astonishment at the bar, and then he began to laugh hysterically.

Startled, his mother eased herself round the grinder.

Bewildered, she could not understand what had happened. Then her son shook the bar at her. ‘It came out,’ he shouted. ‘But the window’s still too small to get through! It’s so absurd.’ He continued his manic laugh.

When she understood, her own mind began to clear. She went to look up at the aperture. ‘It’s too small for me – in my clothes.’

She continued to stare at it, ‘Anyway, it’s too high for me to reach.’

The laughter behind her died away. She heard Michel drop the iron bar. He came to stand beside her and looked down at her. She was indeed small, like a young girl, a wisp of a woman, just bones from lack of adequate food.

She said, ‘If I could reach, I could get through – without my skirts.’

He made her repeat the remark, not sure that he had heard correctly. ‘Could you?’

‘I believe so,’ she said slowly. ‘I should go face down and feet first, because I don’t want to drop on my head on the other side.’

He rubbed his ears in the hope of persuading them to clear, so that he could hear better. Then he said loudly, ‘I don’t think you would have much of a drop, Maman. The potato patch slopes slightly up towards the window – and it would be soft.’

She made a wry face. ‘I would still need to be face down because my old body won’t bend backwards much in order to ease myself down the wall. I don’t think even a young girl could do it face up.’

Despite the dire need to get out of their prison, this cold assessment of what a lifetime of toil had done to her body distressed Michel beyond measure. Maman was like a little tree constantly exposed to an east wind – she was indeed permanently bent forward.

Though she said with determination that she was prepared to try to ease through the window naked, and go for help, she was shy at appearing unclothed even before her son, never mind any foreign soldiers who might be around.

‘I could push your clothes through after you,’ suggested Michel. Then loath to put her through such an ordeal, he said, ‘We could first try shouting for help. There might be somebody out there after all.’

They shouted and yelled at the tops of their tired voices. To no purpose.

Michel then tried to move the windowsill. It had, after nearly a thousand years, crumbled partially under the constant vibration of the attack, and had thus loosened the bar. The sill was badly cracked, but little more of it could be moved out of its stony, foot-long depth. Michel cursed his forefathers for building so soundly.