‘Ah,’ said Thierry, ‘are there not?’ He slanted a superior eye down on this upstart sceptic from the New World. ‘Then it will not upset you to know that you sleep each night in the room where Isabelle died.’
‘Isabelle.’ Madame Chamond curled herself gracefully onto the seat opposite me and tilted her head to one side, smiling faintly. She was a lovely woman, tall and dark and elegant, with all her husband’s grace and charm and then some. ‘But this is such a sad story to tell, Simon, and I do not wish to spoil the evening for everyone.’
Which was a rather hollow argument, I thought, considering what a sorry-looking bunch we were, the lot of us. The boys and I had just come back from dinner at the Coeur de Lion, and the food had made me drowsy. Paul, too, was leaning back with half-closed eyes, while beside him Neil lounged in his corner seat, unmoving. Even Christian Rand, who’d dropped in for a nightcap at the bar, looked rather like he might fall off his stool from sheer exhaustion. Simon appeared normal enough, but then nothing seemed to tire Simon. And Garland Whitaker, recovered from her headache, was back in full voice, snuggled like a kitten on the chair beside her husband.
She smiled a faintly pouting smile of encouragement at Madame Chamond. ‘You won’t spoil our evening one bit. Anyway, you’ve got us all curious now, about this Isabelle person.’
‘Think of how I feel,’ Simon chimed in. ‘She died in our room, for Pete’s sake.’
Behind me, at the bar, I heard Monsieur Chamond’s low and pleasant laugh. ‘Isabelle did not die in your room,’ he said. ‘Who told you this?’
‘Thierry.’
‘Ah.’ Our host nodded. ‘Well, he does not know the story very well. Even I do not remember all of it. It was so long ago, before I myself was born, you understand …’
‘She was a Chinon girl,’ Madame Chamond began, relenting. ‘She worked here as a chamber maid, during the war, the occupation.’
Garland raised her eyebrows. ‘Occupation? I thought France collaborated.’
‘Not all of France. Not Chinon,’ Madame Chamond answered firmly. ‘We were occupied. This hotel was used to garrison … that is the right word? … garrison the German officers. And that is how Isabelle met her Hans.’
‘A romance!’ Garland’s eyes gleamed victoriously. ‘Oh, how wonderful! I always love a wartime romance, don’t you? That’s how Jim’s parents met, when his father was stationed in … where was it, darling?’
Jim Whitaker balanced his second double Scotch with care on his outstretched knee. ‘Normandy.’
Madame Chamond smiled rather gently. ‘This was happy for your parents, that they could find each other. But war is not so kind to many people. Not to Hans and Isabelle.’
Cradling her wine glass, she settled back against the cushions, warming to the tale. ‘They met in 1944, in the spring. They say that Isabelle was very beautiful, a beauty one does not forget, though she had only sixteen years. The German officers noticed this, of course, but Isabelle guarded well her reputation. She had no love of Nazis. Her older brother had joined already the Maquis, the Resistance. In time Isabelle might herself have joined them. But instead, she met Hans.
‘He came from a good family, Hans. He spoke French and English also, not just German. He was educated. The other officers would bother Isabelle when she was working, say things to her, but not Hans. Always to Isabelle he was a gentleman, a quiet handsome gentleman. She did not wish to think of him, but …’ Her shrug was philosophical. ‘Life does not always let us choose. And so they fell in love, the French girl and the German officer. For both of them the risks were very great. Always they would meet in secret, for an hour of stolen happiness that could not last.’
Madame Chamond paused to sip her drink, quite calmly, though she must have known she had drawn every one of us into the web of her story. Like an audience waiting for the curtain to rise on the second act, we sat in silence until the wine glass was lowered and once more that lovely, lulling voice took up the narrative. I leaned back, listening, my eyes fixed on the dancing flame of the candle on the low table in front of me, and as Madame Chamond went on speaking, my own mind conjured up the images like something seen through darkened glass. I saw young Isabelle, alone and waiting, listening for the familiar footsteps of her lover. And I saw the German officer slip through the sleeping town, heart pounding … saw him reach the cliffs and find again the hidden door behind the fall of rock …
He turned the corner of the tunnel, blindly. Six steps on, and then another right … He counted off the paces in his mind. It wasn’t safe to use the torch, not yet – the faintest glimmering of light, the smallest shadow, would bring the sentries running. The tunnels had made them all nervous at first. They’d made him nervous, too, the thought of them, the thought that underneath his feet the earth was riddled with the things, with hollow caves and passages that twisted off, unseen, into the darkness. But now he knew the tunnels well, and welcomed them, and on this night he was more worried about meeting one of his own men than he was afraid of the Maquis.
Two paces more, then left … he switched the torch on, blinking in the sudden brightness of the ghostly limestone walls that curved round him like the walls of a tomb.
‘Hans?’ Her voice, uncertain. ‘Oh, God, I was so worried …’
How could he have known life before, without her in his arms? He pulled back, smiling … touched her face. ‘You must be brave for me.’