I remained in France while she was to live in England with the large Matthews clan that loved her and cared for her and saw she was happy. To her, her mother was dead. Rest in peace. I know they would have told her that and I feel sure she nodded sorrowfully. I think she would have liked to have had a mother. I hope she would have liked me. I know I would have liked her.
I left the Villa Romantica and went to live in the lower mountain regions of the Luberon, where I bought a small farm, nothing more than a homestead really, a few hectares, a few animals, goats that butted me and made me laugh; a cow splotched black and white that gave me milk that I sold at market, with so much cream it would make anyone gain weight. I found a little brown dog in the window of a store with beseeching eyes that told me he was as lonely as I was. I named him Enfant, child in French, which got me some stares when I called for the child and a dog answered. The joke made me laugh at least. The gray cat who had adopted us at the villa came with me and soon acclimated himself, the way cats can, to his new surroundings. His devotion was first to his home and second to me, but I settled for that.
The canary was part of a traveling circus troupe that came through the small town. He walked across a wire singing his song while people applauded. I swear that, like myself, that bird never got over his moment of fame. He loved an audience. But I could not bear his life of servitude so I paid a small fortune, as it seemed to the owner, and took him back to his new home, where he sang every day—and sometimes nights—for my enjoyment, as well as his own.
So there we were, me and my new little family, making the best of what we had, who we were, content, happy even, in each other’s company. The past, with a great effort, was put behind us.
And then the war came and changed everything.
42
The real war, the hand-to-hand fighting, the tanks, the bombing, did not come immediately to the South of France. For a while, life seemed almost normal. The market opened every morning, the fishermen delivered their catch, though admittedly now smaller since they did not venture out as far; the purveyor of fresh eggs rode her bicycle, fragile bags dangling from the handlebars, then sat sipping her usual mug of cold coffee topped up with a slug of crème de menthe, “to keep out the morning chill,” as she told us, each and every morning.
At first, I kept to myself, as was my custom, but then I was sitting with my usual glass of red and a slab of St. André cheese, which I liked because of its semisoftness. It was not runny, but had just enough texture to get your knife through, to smear a little onto a piece of the excellent—baked at six A.M.—“baton,” which is the same as a baguette, only thinner, which gives more crust.
“Madame Matthews?”
I glanced up at the man who had, without my leave, taken the seat opposite. I knew he could not be French. No Frenchman would have been so impolite. I chose to ignore him.
“I wish to speak to you on a matter of importance for La France.” He leaned forward, gazing earnestly at me, as though making sure no one could overhear.
Now, when anyone speaks of La France, and not simply “France,” you understand immediately it is important.
“You speak of my country,” I said, arranging my cheese on a morsel of bread and taking a bite. “Though you are not French.”
“I am speaking of what you can do for your country, Madame. And you are correct, I am English. But it is your country that I, and others like me, wish to help. And you are in a position to help all of us.”
I listened carefully while he explained that he was a member of the British Intelligence Service, that they needed to connect with French people who had access to the Nazis because of who they were, and who they knew, or who they might meet at social events where gossip flowed as easily as the wine, and where many a detail of a planned raid or a troop movement or the whereabouts of important enemies might be overheard, and noted. And then passed on to the trusty intelligence officer, who recruited me right there and then, as a member.
I put on my old finery, and sometimes my old flirt face, and it was astonishing what secrets a man would let slip when he needed to boast to a woman like myself. Flattery, with those men, I discovered, got you everywhere.
At first it was not difficult. I was able to help in several cases, which I was told later resulted in lives saved, positions altered, a safer escape route taken. I played only a small part, but I helped in my own way, and I hoped some of those saved lives were because of me.
I also picked up my old self, the singer, the entertainer. I offered my services to the War Office and put together a pianist, or sometimes an accordion player for when there was no piano, as well as a guitarist, and the woman who had for many years been my dresser.