Elizabeth Elgin - Windflower Wedding

‘Hullo.’ He looked up, smiling, as Natasha walked towards him carrying a fat, earthenware mug of coffee.

‘Good morning, Hibou – or now I think I should call you Gaston. You are honoured. There is very little coffee in the shops, so don’t expect it every day. The Boche takes most of it, just as they think they have the right to all the wine the château produces.’

‘But they don’t get it, of course?’

‘No. M’sieur at the big house sees to it that we locals have our fair share. Tante Clara left me to sleep in this morning because I was up late last night.’

‘And you have missed school?’

‘Ha! I left school a year ago. Book-learning isn’t important at this time.’

‘It was when I was sixteen,’ Keth scolded.

‘Really? Well, as far as I am concerned, school is a waste of time; learning to stay alive is not!’ She went to sit on the chopping block, arranging her skirts prettily.

‘Where is Madame?’

‘Gone to the village to buy your food and to let it be known, I suppose, that her hired help has arrived.’

‘Is that wise, Natasha – and should we be talking like this in the open?’

‘It would be unwise not to let them know you have come. Why shouldn’t they know Tante Clara’s gardener is here? Now, if they walk by and see a stranger, no one will think anything about it.

‘And talking out here is safe enough. The dogs would bark if anyone came.’ She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘This place is a good walk from Clissy. It is why They decided it should be a safe house.’ She touched her nose with a warning forefinger.

‘Who are They ?’

‘If I knew I wouldn’t tell you; but I don’t know. There are many people around here who – help , but it wouldn’t do for me to know them.’

‘The Nazis wouldn’t suspect a child?’

‘They would. And when they looked at my papers they would see I wasn’t as childish as I look! But this far they’ve left me alone.’

‘Aren’t you afraid, Natasha?’ All at once Keth remembered the pill in the cuff of his shirt.

‘Of course I’m afraid. It would be stupid not to be. But I don’t intend to go the way of my mother and father.’

She said it with such matter-of-factness that he wondered how anyone so young could have known so much heartbreak.

‘But you know who I am, Natasha, and that Madame Piccard hides people like me, for instance. What about Hirondelle?’

‘Hirondelle? Before last night I hadn’t seen him and I doubt I will see him again. You brought something for Hirondelle, I suppose?’

‘I was told someone would be waiting for the bag.’ Now Keth was wary.

‘There you are then. Next time that man comes out of hiding he will have a different codename. No one knows more than two people at the most. Until you came, Tante Clara was the only other contact I knew. Here in France people like us don’t play games. It is all very serious, though I’m not important. Anyone could be a messenger,’ she said scathingly. ‘I know very little and I like it that way. The less I know, the less I can tell them .’

‘But how would you explain being here, at Clissy, if you were stopped and asked for your papers?’

‘My papers are false, like yours. It wouldn’t do to have a Jewish name on them. My parents took care of it all long before I was sent here. They knew, you see, what would happen to them eventually. And when France was invaded, they sent me to Tante Clara at once. We heard, later, there had been a search in Paris and that every foreign-born Jew was taken away. After that, I had no more letters from them. They probably went to Belsen. I think it is one of those places; killing places.’

‘Natasha! How can you talk like this?’

She rose, shrugging, throwing logs into the wheelbarrow.

‘My papers say I lived at Dunkirk, not Paris, and if anyone asked they would be told my parents were killed there at the time of the evacuation of your army, Gaston. Many civilians were killed there.’

‘Yes.’ He had been in America at the time.

‘It’s strange, but I have had three names in my life. The name I was born with, the name I was given when I was adopted and the name on the papers I use now. The first I do not know. I wasn’t told until the war started that I was an adopted child. When I asked about my parents all they would tell me was that my father was unknown and my mother’s name was Natasha.

‘It’s why I used it when I met you; it is the only name you will know me by. It is unlikely you will get into conversation with anyone from Clissy – you won’t be here long enough – but if you do, you must refer to me as Madame Piccard’s niece.’

‘Very well. But how can you be so blasé about it all? How can you bear to talk about your parents without –’

‘Without breaking down; without weeping?’ She lifted her shoulders in an unchildlike gesture. ‘Because although I tell myself they are dead, I refuse to weep for them until I know for certain they are.

‘When I was three months old, I was adopted. I had black hair and brown eyes – Jewish colouring even if my nose was not kosher. I was reared in the Jewish faith, though now, of course, it is wisest I worship with Tante Clara. She belongs to the Roman Church, and believes in miracles. It is why she thinks I should pray to St Jude. He’s the patron saint of lost causes, you see.’

She said it without bitterness, wheeling the barrow to the woodshed beside the gate, back stiff, head high and he ran after her.

‘I’ll help you stack them, Natasha!’

She turned and smiled – to let him see she was not crying, he supposed – and for the second time since their meeting he felt a wash of tenderness for her. Had he had a sister, he thought, she would probably have looked like Natasha. The same dark hair and eyes as his. Funny, that, when you thought about it.

‘Pass them to me. I’ll pile them up. I’m good at it. When I was sixteen, I always chopped the logs at home. But tell me,’ he felt safer talking to her within the confines of the shed, ‘you said “every foreign-born Jew”. Where were your parents born?’

‘My adoptive parents? In Russia. In Moscow. They got out before the Czar was shot and came to Paris to live. I think my natural mother was Russian, too, her name being Natasha, I mean. She went to the nuns to have me but that’s all I know, except that I was born in Paris.’

‘I know someone who had to leave Russia,’ Keth offered. ‘Were your parents rich, then?’

‘No, though I suppose you might have called them middle class. My Jewish mother was a milliner – had her own shop she told me – and my father was a musician. Most of what they had was taken. What they could carry away helped them bribe their way out of Russia. They never had children so they adopted me,’ she said softly, sadly. ‘I can tell you no more. I would like to know about you, Gaston Martin, but I won’t ask, though I think you were born in the country, the way you can use an axe,’ she smiled as Keth began splitting logs again.

‘The country,’ he nodded.

‘And your French? Where did you learn that?’

‘In school, and then by speaking it to a governess. Not my governess,’ he added hastily. ‘I have no father, and my mother isn’t well off. If I see this war through, though, I’ll make sure she never wants.’

He turned sharply as the dogs began their barking and Natasha ran to the gate, smiling. ‘It’s Tante Clara!’

‘So! You have got yourself out of bed,’ Madame Piccard admonished. ‘Here – take my shopping into the house and be careful of the eggs!’ Then turning to Keth she said, ‘You, too, M’sieur. The kitchen, if you please.’