Madame Barbara. Helen Forrester

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ for all,’ he assured her gloomily.

      Barbara changed the subject. She said slowly in English, ‘It was very kind of the American soldiers – the undertakers at the hotel – to permit you to take me to the cemetery. The hotel says they booked this taxi for four whole months. The reservations clerk said that you usually stay with the Americans at the cemeteries throughout the day while they work.’

      The length of Barbara’s remark made it a little difficult for Michel to understand. He replied cautiously, ‘American Army very good, soldiers most kind, Madame. Lots of petrol! Certainement, they pay taxi four months – not like the Boches – he never pay for anything he can take, les sales Boches.’

      Though he laughed, he sounded cynical, as he remembered how some German soldiers had demanded his best poultry breeding stock and had wrung their pretty necks in front of him. Then they had made his mother clean and pluck them ready for cooking. Cook some of the world’s best breeding stock? It was murder. His poor Chanticleer and his pretty, fertile wives. Hélas! How would he ever find the money to replace them?

      As he mourned his dead hens, Michel edged the vehicle round a pothole filled with water, and then continued, ‘Taxi is the only transport to cemeteries, Madame. Now many people want to visit their dead. This is the only taxi in Bayeux. So I ask Americans, can I take civilians to the cemeteries, while they work? I promise to collect them from their American cemeteries exactly when they order. You understand taxi cannot be left for one moment unattended. Someone steal, dead cert.’ Michel was rapidly extending his vocabulary while working for the Americans.

      ‘They say OK. Take some lady to cemetery. Make a buck. So I drive American ladies, English ladies, one lady from Poland – widow of man who fight with British, je crois.’

      He cleared his throat and spat out of the window. ‘Two German ladies come – they omit to tip me.’ He half turned his head towards her. He sounded mystified, as he added, ‘You know, they cry like everyone else.’

      ‘I am sure they did,’ Barbara agreed.

      She felt fiercely that she did not care whether the Germans flooded the earth with their tears; they could never undo the ruination of her life by the taking of her George’s life.

      Let the German widows cry. Let them suffer. She hoped their cities remained shattered, their factories empty, looted by both Americans and Russians, their farms fought over and desolate. Let them pay.

      After a while, to take her mind off her own troubles, she asked the taxi driver, ‘What are the Americans doing here? Are they really undertakers? Aren’t all the dead buried yet?’

      ‘Ah, simple, Madame. They arrange for dead American soldiers to go home. Bury them in America.’

      ‘What a lovely idea!’

      ‘Very, very expensive, Madame.’ Michel obviously did not believe in such a waste of money, even if it resulted in work for himself.

      They swung round a corner into a narrow lane. At the end of it, an open ironwork gate faced them, and, beyond that, what at first looked like a sea of white and green.

      As they drove through the gateway, the sea resolved into masses and masses of white crosses set in neat rows amid green lawns, stretching, it seemed to Barbara, into infinity.

      She caught her breath. So many! Her mild amusement at the taxi driver’s disapproval of American extravagance was forgotten in the shock of being suddenly surrounded by the evidence of so much death. Surely, it could not be?

      But the evidence lay there, crying out in its silence.

      She was appalled.

      Just inside the gate, the taxi came to a halt. Michel opened Barbara’s door and took her hand to help her alight. Her normal self-confidence left her. She was so shaken by the scene before her that she was grateful for the man’s firm grip; though he smelled at least it was the smell of a man – a man such as she was used to, who worked hard.

      ‘I get the flowers for Madame,’ he said gently.

      She looked at him a little helplessly, and then she pointed to her dropped handbag and asked him if he could reach in and rescue it for her.

      ‘Mais oui, Madame.’

      The cloth bag was covered with dust and not a few hayseeds, blown in when they had passed the hay wain. Michel carefully brushed it as clean as he could, before handing it to her.

      He smiled. ‘Very pretty bag, Madame.’

      ‘Thank you,’ she answered, and then, looking a little rueful, she muttered absently, ‘I made it myself. It’s still difficult to buy things.’

      He made a wry face. He, too, knew about the shortages of everything. He leaned into the taxi to retrieve the flowers for her.

      As he handed the bouquet to her, he saw that despite her casual remarks about her handbag she had gone as white as her lilies. Her dark blue eyes were wide with fright.

      Pauvre petite! So little, so sweet, and, at this moment, looking so helpless. He wanted to take her in his arms to comfort her and tell her that all would be well, that she could be sure that Jules, the gardener, was very kind and that he looked after the graves with great care.

      In the silence of the cemetery, his voice sounded harsh, as, instead, he cleared his throat and enquired hastily, ‘Number of the grave, Madame?’

      She told him.

      He took her arm. ‘I walk with you. Then wait by taxi.’

      She was shaking, and simply nodded acceptance. Fearing she might faint, he held her arm firmly and guided her further along the little lane on which the taxi stood. ‘Germans that side, Allies this side,’ he explained.

      She nodded again. They walked across the grass for a minute or two. From a little fenced enclosure at the back of the cemetery, a figure emerged.

      ‘He is Jules – the gardener,’ Michel told her.

      She was pressing her arm against the driver’s guiding hand, as if she never wanted him to let go, but she showed some sign of animation by saying, ‘Oh, yes. I remember the name. I wrote to the Head Gardener of this cemetery. He replied that the cemetery was, at last, open for visitors. His letter was so kind. So I knitted a pullover – out of wool from old pullovers – and sent it to him as a thank you present for, for …’ Her voice broke for a moment, then she went on more firmly, ‘for looking after George.’

      The taxi driver showed surprise. ‘He like that. Nobody thank gardener before – certainement.’

      As Jules approached, she smiled at him as bravely as she could. The driver repeated the number of the grave to him.

      ‘Come, Madame.’

      She unlinked her arm, and, hugging her flowers, her chin up, her face suddenly old and grim, she walked forward – like St Joan going into the fire, the driver told his brother, Anatole, sometime later.

       Chapter Two СКАЧАТЬ