‘Saint-Émilion.’
‘Ah, yes. I remember now. That should do well enough.’
‘For what?’
‘For us. To go there.’
‘But she’s dead.’
‘But you know people there, no? This Monsieur Dubois. You spent summers there as a boy. I’m sure they can help us now.’
‘Bertrand, you’re drunk.’
‘I am as sober as I am in the mornings. That’s all I can say.’ He grinned.
‘Saint-Émilion…’ Michel mused. ‘You really think we should go?’
‘Michel, the city is emptying faster than my brandy bottle. We have heard the rumble of guns, the bombs that dropped. Does this not scare you?’
‘I am scared, but I’m scared to leave too. This is my home.’
‘And mine. And thousands of people’s homes. We can come back. When it is over.’
‘You think it will be over one day?’
‘Who knows? All I can say is, for now, let us go on a new adventure. The two of us together. That way you will not be scared to leave.’
‘I need to sleep.’
‘It’s you who are drunk.’
‘A little. I need to sleep.’ Michel stood and felt the room spin. He wanted to tell Bertrand that he wasn’t going anywhere, but his tongue felt too big for his mouth and wasps had moved into his brain – all he could hear was their constant, irritable buzzing.
‘Go now.’ Bertrand guided Michel across to his apartment.
Michel spotted his bag on the floor and picked it up. ‘I have ham,’ he said with a grin.
‘Good. Eat your ham, pack a few things, and I will see you tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow…’
‘Better to leave as soon as we can. Let’s not dither any longer.’
Michel nodded, his brain still sluggishly processing the warnings from the radio, from his friends, and from the fear on everyone’s faces.
He managed to push the key into the lock and open the door just as Bertrand’s own door sealed shut. He dropped his bag into the middle of the room; a room which was living area, bedroom and kitchen together. He opened his bag and took the ham and mutton from it. Heating up a small frying pan on one of the two gas burners, he cooked them whilst humming a tune his mother would sing when she used to make dinner.
As he prepared his food, he looked around his apartment – a lone chair sat by the window and a single bed with rumpled sheets was pushed against the far wall; a few books were scattered on the floor and a threadbare green rug lay at the end of the bed. It had not always looked like this; when his mother was alive it had been cosier, with more furniture, rugs, vases full of flowers and thick curtains at the windows. But all that was gone, sold first to pay for her funeral and then to pay off Michel’s occasional gambling debts over the years.
The ham sizzled in the pan and spattered Michel’s hand with hot fat, but he barely winced. He turned off the blue flame, and slid the ham and mutton onto a chipped cream plate, then sat with his meal on his scruffy pale blue chair and ate, looking out at the street he had known since he was a child. He could not imagine that his life could ever really be any different.
Two
Au Revoir, Paris
Michel heard the knocking; his brain felt as though it were smacking into the side of his skull with each pound. He opened his eyes, his lids heavier than usual, and moved his neck which was sore and stiff. It was then that he realised he had fallen asleep on his chair, the empty plate from his dinner smashed at his feet.
‘Michel, for goodness’ sake!’ Bertrand’s voice came from behind the front door.
Michel gingerly walked to the door and opened it, revealing an angry Bertrand, a travelling case and violin on the mat beside him. ‘Are you ready?’
‘For what?’ Michel said, his dry lips smacking as he spoke.
‘We. Are. Leaving,’ Bertrand said slowly. ‘The. Germans. Are. Coming.’
Suddenly Michel remembered the night before, the warning from Bertrand, the crackly radio presenter, and the brandy. ‘I can’t go,’ he said, and put a hand to his head as if by doing so it would stop the incessant thud. ‘What time is it?’
‘Two o’clock. I let you sleep whilst I chatted to Mathis from next door. He is going to Bordeaux but couldn’t fit us in his car. He says everyone is trying the trains.’ Bertrand pushed his way into the apartment, grabbed Michel’s knapsack and stuffed clothes into it. ‘Where’s your book?’
‘They’re over there.’ Michel waved Bertrand towards the stack of books that littered the floor and sat back into the comforting embrace of his chair.
‘The book, Michel! The one I gave you as a boy!’
‘Over there.’ Michel waved him again in the general direction of the floor. He could hear Bertrand mumbling and swearing under his breath, then silence. After a while, there was more noise and something else; a smell that lifted Michel slightly.
‘Coffee,’ Bertrand said. ‘Madame Odette was not happy with me, but you need her coffee, no other will do the trick. I had to pay off my debts to get this so you’d better drink it all.’
Michel opened his eyes, not realising that he had closed them again. ‘Was I asleep?’ he asked, taking the coffee from Bertrand and sipping it slowly.
‘Yes, whilst I packed. Here,’ Bertrand threw his bag at his feet, ‘you are ready to go.’
‘Are you sure we should, Bertrand, really sure?’
‘Look out there. Go on, look.’ Bertrand pointed to the window.
Michel peered out onto the street, the daylight brightening even the dullest greys of the buildings so that he had to shield his eyes a little. It was a few seconds before he realised what Bertrand meant, and then he saw. His neighbours were not just walking down the street, going to the shop or exercising their dogs; they were scurrying like small animals, bags on their backs, suitcases under each arm as they packed up their cars or bicycles. Other cars had arrived – family members – who helped tuck children into the back seats and more suitcases on top.
‘You see?’ Bertrand asked.
Michel nodded and drank his coffee in silence.
Michel and Monsieur Bertrand left their tiny apartment block at four o’clock in the afternoon. Bertrand carried his violin in its worn, battered black case, and a compact leather suitcase with brass clasps. Michel carried his small woven knapsack, which still smelled of horses from the stables – inside there were a few changes of clothes, an apple, a photograph of his mother, and the tatty copy of Le Lotus Bleu by Hergé, a children’s book which Bertrand had gifted him years ago. He had checked his cupboards and his drawers, and felt a pang that there was little else worth taking with him.
His coat was too thick for this time of year, a dirty green coarse wool that weighed him down in the early summer heat, but Bertrand had insisted he wear it. It was his only coat, a big clumsy affair, and which he had no recollection of buying or being given.
Bertrand walked ahead, seemingly knowing exactly where they should run away to. Michel looked over his shoulder every few steps, watching as the already small apartment block became even smaller. Then they turned a corner and it had disappeared. I will be home again, I will. The Germans will not come; Bertrand is surely mistaken… Yet Michel noticed that Bertrand did not turn to take a last look at the home he had lived in his whole life.