Madame Barbara. Helen Forrester

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      The driver closed the taxi door and went round to the door on the other side. He opened it and laid the flowers carefully beside his passenger on the seat, with the ends of the stems nearest to her. In that position, she could easily grab them if they threatened to slip onto the floor when he started up the ancient vehicle.

      During the three months he had been doing it, he had become quite experienced at driving young widows and weeping mothers to cemeteries, and he prided himself on knowing all the possible small snags that could occur, like expensive wreaths slipping off the seat as the taxi bumped its way over hastily repaired roads.

      As he laid down the flowers, he glanced at this widow and smiled again. As with most of the women he drove, his passenger was interesting in her foreignness. She was, he noted, wearing a flowered scarf draped around her neck over a shabby pink tweed jacket. So unlike a perfidious French woman in black skirt and white blouse, he thought, his mouth tightening with long-suppressed rage.

      As he climbed into the driver’s seat, he asked in English if this were her first visit to Normandy.

      ‘Yes,’ she answered with a sigh.

      He nodded as he started the taxi and put it in gear. It shuddered in protest and then, as he feared it would, when he pressed the gas pedal, it suddenly bolted forward like a startled horse.

      She caught the flowers before they fell, but her handbag slid off her lap and onto the dusty floor.

      ‘Oh dear!’ she exclaimed. The black embroidered handbag was precious; she had fashioned this one herself from remnants of an old overcoat bought in a second-hand shop; the body of the coat had yielded a plain, black skirt, very useful in a tightly rationed country. She had spent several late evenings embroidering the bag with scraps of knitting wool and was proud of the design of roses on its sides.

      As the taxi shot out into the main street of Bayeux, narrowly missing a heavily laden hay wain, she clutched an old-fashioned safety bar by the door rather than attempt to retrieve the handbag.

      The hay wain’s horse reared, and the beret-crowned wagoner shouted angrily at the taxi driver.

      The taxi’s bald tyres shrieked as the vehicle skidded round the back of the cart and into the outside lane.

      The taxi driver muttered furiously to himself. Then, as he passed the cart, taking with him wisps of hay from its protruding load, he leaned out of the open window and shouted what was obviously an epithet at the wagoner.

      In the cracked side mirror, his passenger caught a glimpse of the wagoner shaking a fist after them.

      As the taxi driver sped down the almost empty street, he turned to reassure her. ‘Pardon, Madame. These farmers think the road is for horses only. Germans steal all mechanical vehicles to facilitate their retreat, you understand?’ He chuckled as he went on, ‘The owner of this taxi hide it in an old racing stable – long time no horses – beautiful horses sent to America for safety, just before the Germans arrive. Lots of straw and horse shit left behind in the stable – Germans never look under it.’

      She merely nodded at the driver’s remark while, agitated by his poor driving, she continued to clutch the safety bar with one hand, and with the other held on to the bouquet. She had no desire to take the erratic driver’s attention away from the street.

      Despite the noise of the ancient engine, she had caught the gist of his remark about farmers – his English was surprisingly good, she thought. She herself had little French beyond the schoolgirl version taught her in her last year at school and the contents of the phrase book which she had studied earnestly for some weeks before embarking on her journey. She was, however, far from stupid, and in the few days she had been travelling in France she had begun bravely to use the words she knew, though she pronounced them very badly. She had gratefully accepted correction by persons with whom she attempted to communicate, whether their remarks sounded good-natured or irate.

      Barbara saw that the driver was watching her through his rear-view mirror, and she again nodded polite agreement with his remark regarding farmers and their horses. Though there were quite a number of carts, vans and even small carriages being pulled by horses through the streets of Bayeux, there were only a couple of cars and a small delivery van to be seen. Even bicycles were few and far between. She had, at first, assumed that an acute shortage of petrol was the cause of the unexpected return to horsepower in the streets, but it was apparently not the basic cause.

      ‘The Germans took all the motor vehicles?’ she asked in English, when the taxi seemed to be being safely driven in a straight line.

      ‘Yes, Madame.’ The driver cogitated for a moment, trying to collect for her benefit his knowledge of English. ‘The Germans fight very hard to defend themselves here in Calvados; they were brave men, the Germans. Finally, they see that Caen and Lisieux are – what you say? – finish.’ He let go of the wheel and threw up his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘They lose faith in Adolf Hitler. He does not send them enough ammunition. Their generals are confused. They fight well. They despair, retreat fast – in our lorries, our cars, our bicycles, when they find them.’ His English was imperfect, but he did not appear to be short of vocabulary.

      She nodded. The explanation confirmed what Reservations had told her.

      The taxi began to veer towards the ditch and the driver hastily grabbed the steering wheel again.

      Despite her alarm at his driving, it was a relief to Barbara to reply in English, ‘Didn’t they believe that Hitler was invincible?’

      ‘Non, Madame. That is big story. When Normandy is invaded by the Allies, he not agree with the plans of his generals. Support troops not come when needed. If he permit the German generals to fight as they plan, invasion very difficult for the Allies.’

      ‘It must have been terrifying, anyway, for the French civilians?’

      ‘Madame, it was most dreadful. After the Germans kill so many of us and they deport so many to Germany – 180,000 deportees die in Germany, 18,000 when the British bomb the railways and airports before they invade. Then, when invasion come, when we hope for freedom at last, so many more innocents die.’ His uneven shoulders were shrugged. ‘I do not know how many. I hear one-third of the people of Caen die. My fiancée’s parents die somewhere on their farm. They are not yet found. In addition, how many injured, only the good God knows. The bombardment was terrible. It never stop. Hospitals round here are still full.’

      ‘And yourself?’

      ‘Myself? My family?’ He swallowed. He was not used to being asked personal questions by strangers, and his experiences had been so traumatic that he found it difficult to talk about them. Then he said slowly, almost reluctantly, ‘We are three. Mama, my big brother, Anatole – he is very sick – and me, Michel Benion. We live now in Bayeux; my two married sisters in Rouen – Rouen is enormous ruin. Sisters and their husbands is alive.’ His tone dropped, as he added sadly, ‘One little nephew killed.

      ‘Mama, Anatole and me, we wait for our poultry farm to be clear of anti-tank traps and mines. We cannot work the land – not walk on it – until it is clear. One neighbour go to his home and – boom-boom – he is dead.’

      Barbara was interested. The sad story took her mind off her own misery. She murmured in English, ‘It must have been terrifying. I’m so sorry about the little boy.’

      Encouraged by her sympathy, Michel went on, ‘Anatole, my brother, come home СКАЧАТЬ