CHÉRIE'S DIARY
Loulou is ill, and I am very anxious about her. It must be the English
climate perhaps, for I also do not feel as I used to feel in Bomal. I
often am deathly sick, and faint and giddy; I cannot bear the sight of
things and of people that before I did not mind, or even liked. Certain
puddings, for instance, and all kinds of dishes which I thought so
extraordinarily nice to eat when we first came here, now I cannot bear
to see them when they are brought on the table. Something makes me grind
my teeth and I feel as if I must get up and run out of the room. And I
have the same inexplicable aversion to people; for instance the nice
kind Monsieur George Whitaker--I cannot say what I feel when he comes
near to me; a sort of shuddering terror that makes me turn away so as
not to see him. I cannot bear to look at his strong brown hands with the
little short fair hairs on his wrist. I cannot look at his clear grey
eyes, or at his mouth which always laughs, or at his broad shoulders, or
anything.... There is something in me that shrinks and shudders away
from the sight of him. Have the sorrows and troubles we have passed
through unhinged my reason?...
But to return to Louise. I thought that what made her look so pale and
wild was the anxiety of not hearing from Claude; but since his first
dear letter ten days ago telling us that he is safe, she seems even
worse than before. It is true he has been wounded; but that is almost a
blessing, for the wound is not serious and yet it will keep him safely
in the hospital at Dunkirk for months to come. He may remain slightly
lame as he has been shot in the knee, but that does not matter, and he
says his health is perfect.
Of course I thought Loulou would start at once to go and visit him, as
she can get permission to see him and he has sent her plenty of money
for the journey; but she will not hear of it. She only weeps and raves
when I speak of it; and I do not think she ever sleeps at night. I can
hear her in her room, which is next to mine, moaning and whispering and
praying whenever I wake up. I have asked her why, why she will not go to
see Claude--ah, if only I knew where to find Florian, how I should fly
to his side!--but she shakes her head and weeps and her eyes are full of
terror and madness. I ask her, "Is it because of Mireille? Are you
afraid of telling him about her?" "Yes, yes, yes," she cries. "I am
afraid, afraid of telling him what has made her as she is."
"But, Loulou, dearest, what do you mean? Was it not her fear that the
Germans would kill us that took away her speech? Why should you not tell
Claude? He would comfort you. He knows the Germans were in Bomal! He
knows that they ransacked our house, that they killed Monsieur le Curé
and poor André...."
"Yes, he knows that," answers Louise slowly with her eyes fixed on mine.
"But he does not know----"
Then she is silent.
"What does he not know?"
She grasps my shoulders. "Chérie, Chérie. Are you demented? Have you
forgotten--have you forgotten?"
Forgotten!... In truth, I have forgotten many things. There are gaps in
my memory, wide blank spaces that, no matter how I try to remember, I
cannot fill. Now and then something flashes into those blank spaces, a
fleeting recollection, a transient vision, then the blankness closes
down again and when I try to remember what I have remembered, it is
gone.
I ask Louise to tell me what she means, to tell me what I have
forgotten; but she only stares at me with those horror-haunted eyes and
whispers, "Hush! hush, my poor Chérie!" Then she places her cold hand on
my lips as if to close them.
I will try to remember. I will write down in this book all that remains
in my memory of those terrible days and nights when we fled from home;
when we hid starving and trembling in the woods, and saw through the
trees our church-tower burn like a torch, saw it list over and crash
down in a cloud of smoke and flame; when, crouching in a ditch, we heard
the Uhlans gallop past us and saw them drag two little boys, César and
Émile Duroc, out of their hiding-places in the bushes only a few yards
from us.
We saw them--we saw them!--crush the children's feet with the butts of
their rifles, and then taunt them, telling them to "run away!" I can see
them now--two of the men standing behind the children, holding them
upright by their small shoulders, while a third beat and crunched and
ground their feet into the earth....
* * * * *
But stay ... the wide blank spaces in my brain go back much further than
that.
What is it that Louise says I have forgotten? Let me try to remember.
Let me try to remember.
I will go back to the evening of my birthday. August the fourth. Our
friends come. We dance.
Sur le pont
D'Avignon
On y danse, on y danse....
Then Florian arrives--and goes. The last thing I see clearly--distinct
and clear-cut as a haut-relief carved upon my brain--is Florian,
turning at the end of the road to wave his hand to me. Then he is gone.
I remain standing on the verandah, alone; I can see the row of pink and
white carnations in their pots at my feet; Louise's favourite malmaisons
fill the air with perfume, and the large white daisies among them gleam
like stars in the grey-green twilight; I am wearing my white dress and
the sea-blue scarf Louise has given me that morning. Then little
Mireille's laughing voice calls me; they all come running out to fetch
me, Lucile and Cri-cri, Verveine, Cécile and Jeannette....
Then, suddenly--the gun! the thud and roll of that first distant gun!...
The children have fled, pale, trembling, whispering to their homes, and
we are left alone in the house; alone, Louise, Mireille and I, because
Frieda and Fritz--wait! what do I remember about Fritz? That he is
throwing our gate open to the enemy--no; it is something else ...
something that frightens me more than that--but I cannot remember. I see
Fritz laughing. Whenever I remember Fritz I see him laughing. He is
leaning against a door ... there is a curtain.... I seem to see a red
curtain swaying beside him and he is laughing with his head thrown back.
What is he laughing at?... At me? What is happening that he should laugh
at me? The blank closes round Fritz. He has vanished. I cannot hold
him. It is as if he were made of mist.
But--before that; what do I remember before that?...
The guns are thundering, the windows shake ... a huge sheaf of flame
rises up into the sky. There is a roar, an explosion; it is as if the
world were crashing to pieces.
Then soldiers fill the house; officers take possession of our
rooms--their coats and belts are on our chairs, their helmets are flung
on the piano. There is a tall man with very light eyes....
A tall man with very light eyes....
Let me try to remember.
They order us about; they make Louise cry. One of them is wounded in the
arm--I see it bleeding on the wet cotton-wool that Louise is binding
round it--Now the blank comes.... I feel it coming down like a white
cloud on my brain. Lift it, oh, holy Mother, lift it and let me
remember!
There are two of the men near me; they blow their cigarette-smoke in my
face; they want me to drink out of their glasses.... I weep ... I will
not. They laugh and force me to drink. _Eins, zwei, drei!_--they
threaten me with I know not what--the light eyes of one of them are
close to mine ... impelling me, forcing me.... I am frightened, and I
drink. Then they sing and clink their glasses together. I stand between
them, and they make me drink again--cool frothing champagne and hot
burning brandy--until I am so giddy that the floor heaves under my feet.
I cry and cry. I call Louise ... she is gone from the room. I see
Mireille crouching in a corner staring at me, white and terrified. I
call her--"Mireille! Mireille!" She springs up and rushes to me, she
screams like a maddened animal, and the light-eyed man catches her by
the wrists and laughs. The other man--one of the other men, I don't know
how many there are--one who has red hair and has been reciting something
in German, lies down on the sofa and goes to sleep. But another one--I
remember his round face, I remember that the others were angry with him
and called him names--he comes near to me and says something quickly in
my ear. I am not afraid of him ... I know he is trying to help me ...
but I am so sick and giddy that I do not understand what he says. He
pushes me towards the door. He says in German: "_Geh! Geh! Mach' dass du
fort kommst!_" and again he pushes me toward the door. But I turn to see
what is being done to Mireille. She has a broken glass in her hand and
she is trying to strike the tall officer in the face with it, as if she
were trying to strike at his light eyes and put them out. There is a
streak of blood on his chin but he is still laughing. He snatches up my
blue scarf which is lying on the floor and he ties Mireille's hands
behind her back with it. Then he winds it round and round her until she
cannot move. Wait--wait--let me remember!... Then he takes one of the
leather belts that are on the chair and he straps her to the
railing--the wrought-iron railing that ends the short flight of steps
that lead to the drawing-room. I see him lifting her up those three
shallow steps, I see him kick over the china flower-pot on the top step
in order to get nearer to the iron banister, I see him fasten her to it
with the leather strap.... Her little wild face is turned towards me,
her hands are tied behind her back. I hear what he says in German--he is
laughing and laughing--"_Da bleibst du ... und schaust zu!_" Is he going
to kill her? "_Schau nur zu! Schau nur zu_," he repeats. What does he
mean? Is he going to kill me--to kill me before her eyes?
He comes toward me ... (the white cloud is coming over my brain again).
I see the other officer--the one with the round face, the one who had
tried to push me to the door--Glotz! yes, Glotz, that was his name--I
see him dart forward and catch hold of the other man's arms--stopping
him--keeping him away from me. I rush to Mireille and try to drag her
away from the railing, to free her ... I cannot. My fingers have no
strength. She is crying and moaning. I hear Glotz shouting again to me
in German--"Get away--get away!" He is struggling with the tall man to
give me time to escape. I stumble up the stairs screaming, "Louise!
Louise!" I fall, again and again, at almost every step, but I stumble on
and reach her door--it is locked. Locked from the inside. But I hear
sounds in the room--a man's hoarse agitated voice....
I stagger blindly on. I will go to my room, I will lock myself in there,
and open the window and call for help....
I turn the handle and open my door. On the threshold I stop.... There is
something lying there--a black heap, with blood trickling from it.
Amour! It is Amour, with his skull crushed in.
As I stand looking down at it I hear a man's footsteps running up the
stairs--I know it is the tall man--he is coming to find me! I stagger
blindly forward, my feet slipping in Amour's blood. I draw the door
after me. I rush forward and hide behind the curtained alcove where my
dresses hang. The man stops at the door and looks in. He sees the dead
dog on the threshold; he says "_Pfui_" and tries to push it aside with
his foot. He glances round the apparently empty room, then he turns away
and I hear him going down the passage, opening other doors, thumping at
Louise's door, where the voice of a man answers him.... Then I hear him
running upstairs to the top floor in search of me.
I slip from my hiding-place, I stumble again over the horrible thing
that was Amour, and I rush down the stairs and into the drawing-room.
Mireille is still there, tied to the banister, her face thrown back, the
tears streaming from her eyes. She is alone, but for the red-haired
officer asleep and snoring on the sofa. A thought has come to me. I
cross the room, which swims round me, and I go to the sideboard--I take
the bottle of corrosive sublimate from the shelf where Louise had put
it--I open it and shake some of the little pink tablets into my
hand--then I run to the table where the wine-glasses stand. One of them
is still half-filled with champagne. I drop the tablets into it. Even as
I do so I hear the man coming downstairs. He appears on the top of the
short flight, near Mireille, and laughs as he sees me. "Ha, ha! the
dovelet who tried to escape!"
I smile up at him. I smile, moving back towards that side of the table
where his wine-glass stands. He passes his hand over his forehead and
hair; his face is hot; I know he is going to drink again. Then he
lurches towards me; he puts one hand round my waist and with the other
grasps the glass on the table.... Now this again I see, clear-cut in my
memory as if carved into it with a knife; the tall man standing beside
me raising the wine-glass to his lips....
He stops--he looks down into the glass. His face is motionless,
expressionless. He merely stares at the little bright pink heap at the
bottom of the glass from which spiral streaks of colour slowly curl up
and tint the pale-gold wine.
For what seems to me hours or eternities he stares at the glass; then
his light eyes turn slowly upon me. And this is the last thing I see.
I carry the gaze of those light eyes with me as I slip suddenly into
unconsciousness. I hear a crash--is it the glass that has fallen?... I
feel the grasp of two strong hot hands on my arms--is he holding me, or
crushing me down? I hear Mireille shriek as I try madly to beat back the
enveloping darkness. Mireille's piercing voice follows me into oblivion.
Then nothing more....
Nothing more.
* * * * *
The cloud that blots out consciousness lifts for an instant--is it a
moment later? or hours later? Or years later?... I have no idea.
I feel that I am being lifted ... carried along ... then flung down. I
feel my head thrown far back, my hair dragged from my forehead.... The
world is full of rushing horrors, of tearing, racking pain.... Then
again nothing more.
Fritz?... Is it then that I see him laughing as he looks at me? He is
standing near a red curtain--he is speaking to some one, but his eyes
are upon me and he laughs....
Once more unconsciousness like a black velvet tunnel engulfs me.
* * * * *
Out of the darkness comes Louise's voice calling me softly ... then
louder ... then screaming my name. I open my eyes. She is bending over
me. She lifts me up ... she wraps a shawl round my head, she drags me
along ... drags me down the steps and out of the house and down a stony
road that leads to the woods.
It is not day and it is not night; it is dawn perhaps.
Thirst and a deathly sickness are upon me.... I can go no farther. I
lean my head against a tree, the rough bark of it wounds my forehead as
I slip to the ground and fall on the damp leaves and moss.
I moan and cry.
"Hush! for the love of heaven! Hush!" ... It is Louise's voice. "Hide,
hide, lie down!"
And she drags me into a deep ditch overgrown with brambles. We hear
horses gallop past and men's voices, full guttural voices that we know
and dread. They ride on. They are gone. No--they stop.
They have found widow Duroc's two little boys hiding in the bushes....
Little César is shouldering a wooden gun and points it at them. In a
moment three of the men are off their horses.... The children must be
punished.
The children are punished.
... Then the men ride on. But the torture of those children has reminded
me of Mireille. "Mireille--" I cry. "We must go back and fetch
Mireille!"
"Hush! Mireille is here."
Mireille is here! She is not dead? Then who is dead?
"No one, no one is dead," says Louise, "we are all three here."
No--no--no! Somebody is dead. Somebody has been killed, I know it. I
know it. Who is it? Is it I--is it Chérie who is dead? Louise's arms are
about me, her tears fall on my face.
Then once again the velvet mist falls, and the world is blotted out.
* * * * *
We are on board a ship, dipping and rising on green-grey waters....
Many people are around us; derelicts like ourselves....
Soon the white cliffs of England shine and welcome us.