"Perhaps."

They could hear the rain rustling in the garden, the last droplets slowly dripping off the lilacs; the fish pond murmuring languidly as it filled with water. The front door opened.

"It's Madame, hurry!" whispered Marthe, terrified. And she pushed Lucile and the officer outside. "Go through the garden! Good Lord, she'll give me hell!"

She quickly poured the remaining coffee down the sink, hid the cups and put out the lamp. "Do you hear me? Hurry up! Thank goodness it's dark out."

They both went outside. The officer was laughing. Lucile was trembling a little. Hidden in the shadows, they watched Madame Angellier walk through the house behind Marthe, who carried a lamp. Then all the shutters were closed and the doors locked with iron bars.

"It's like a prison," the German remarked on hearing the creaking of the hinges, the rusty chains and the mournful sound of the great doors being bolted. "How will you get back in, Madame?"

"Through the side door in the kitchen. Marthe will leave it open. What about you?"

"Oh, I'll jump over the wall."

He made it over in one nimble leap and said softly, "Gute Nacht. Schlafen sie voll wohl."

"Gute Nacht," she replied.

Her accent made the officer laugh. She stood in the shadows for a moment, listening to his laughter fade into the distance. The damp lilacs swayed in the soft wind and brushed against her hair. Feeling light-hearted and happy, she ran back into the house.

11

Every month, Madame Angellier visited her farms. She chose a Sunday so "her people" would be at home, which exasperated the farmers. The moment they saw her, they rushed to hide away the coffee, sugar and eau-de-vie they'd been enjoying after lunch: Madame Angellier was of the old school-she considered the food her tenant farmers ate was somehow stolen from her; she complained bitterly about anyone who bought the best-quality meat from the butcher. She had her police, as she called them, all over town, and wouldn't keep tenants whose daughters bought silk stockings, perfume, make-up or books too often. Madame de Montmort ruled her estate with similar principles, but as an aristocrat she was more attached to spiritual values than the bitter, materialistic middle classes (to whom Madame Angellier belonged). She therefore concerned herself with religious issues: she tried to find out whether all the children had been baptised, whether they took Communion twice a year, whether the women went to Mass (she let the men get away with it; it was just too difficult). Of the two families who owned all the land in the region-the Montmorts and the Angelliers-the Montmorts were the more hated.

Madame Angellier set off at first light. The weather had changed after the storm the evening before: sheets of cold rain were falling. The car was unusable, for they had no petrol or travel permit, but Madame Angellier had unearthed an old gig from the shed where it had sat for thirty years; with two strong horses in harness, it could travel fairly good distances. The entire household had got up to say goodbye to the elderly lady. At the last minute (and grudgingly) she entrusted Lucile with the keys. She opened her umbrella; it started raining even harder.

"Madame should wait until tomorrow," said the cook.

"I have no choice but to take care of things myself, given that the head of the house is a prisoner of these gentlemen," Madame Angellier replied in loud, sarcastic tones, undoubtedly to make the two German soldiers passing by feel guilty.

She glared at them the way Chateaubriand described his father's expression: "a burning eye seemed to shoot out and hit home like a bullet."

But the soldiers, who didn't understand a word of French, evidently interpreted her look as a tribute to their strong physiques, their confident bearing, their perfect uniforms, for they smiled with shy good grace. Disgusted, Madame Angellier closed her eyes. The carriage left. A gust of wind rattled the doors.

A little later that morning Lucile went to see the dressmaker, a young woman who, people whispered, socialised with the Germans. She took with her a length of light material that she wished to have made into a dressing gown.

The dressmaker nodded her head: "You're lucky to have some silk like this now. We don't have anything left."

She said this without apparent envy, but thoughtfully, as if she recognised that the middle classes had not so much the right to come first, but a kind of natural shrewdness which meant they could get things before anyone else, just as people who live on the plains say of mountain dwellers, "No chance he'll loose his footing, not him! He's been climbing the Alps since he was a child." Evidently she also believed that Lucile, because of her parentage, because of some innate gift, was more skilful than she was at evading the law, bending the rules, for she smiled at her and winked. "I can see you know how to get by," she said. "Well done."

At that moment Lucile noticed a German soldier's belt on the bed. The two women looked at each other. The dressmaker's expression was sly, cautious and implacable; she looked like a cat who's afraid someone is about to take her prey from her claws and so raises her head and miaows arrogantly, as if to say, "No? Well, really! Just whose is it, then?"

"How can you?" murmured Lucile.

The dressmaker wavered between several attitudes. Her expression was a mixture of insolence, confusion and deceit. Then suddenly she lowered her head. "So what? German or French, friend or enemy, he's first and foremost a man and I'm a woman. He's good to me, kind, attentive… He's a city boy who takes care of himself, not like the boys around here; he has beautiful skin, white teeth. When he kisses, his breath smells fresh, not of alcohol. And that's good enough for me. I'm not looking for anything else. Our lives are complicated enough with all these wars and bombings. Between a man and a woman, none of that's important. I couldn't care less if the man I fancy is English or black-I'd still offer myself to him if I got the opportunity. Do I disgust you? Sure, it's all right for you, you're rich, you have luxuries I don't have…"

"Luxuries!" Lucile cut in, sounding bitter without meaning to, wondering what the dressmaker could imagine might be luxurious about an existence as an Angellier: visiting her estate and investing money, no doubt.

"You're educated. You see people. For us, it's nothing but slaving away at work. If it wasn't for love, we might as well just throw ourselves in the river. And when I say love, don't think it's only about you know what. Listen, the other day this German, he was at Moulins and he bought me a little imitation crocodile handbag; another time he brought me flowers, a bouquet from town, like I was a lady. It's stupid, I know, because there are flowers all over the countryside, but he cared, it made me happy. Up until now, to me men were just good for a tumble. But this one, I don't know why, I'd do anything for him, follow him anywhere. And he loves me, he does… Oh, I've known enough men to tell when there's one who's not lying. So, you see, when people say to me 'He's German, a German, a German,' I couldn't care less. They're human, like us."

"Yes, but my poor girl, when people say 'a German,' of course they know he's just a man, but what they mean to say, what is so terrible, is that he's killed Frenchmen, that they're holding our relatives prisoner, that they're starving us…"

"You think I never think about that? Sometimes, when I'm lying in bed next to him, I wonder, 'Maybe it was his father who killed mine ' (my dad was killed in the last war, you know…). I think about it for a while and then, in the end, I don't give a damn. On one side there's me and him; on the other side there's everyone else. People don't care about us: they bomb us and make us suffer, and kill us worse than if we were rabbits. And as for us, well, we don't care about them. You see, if we did what other people thought we should do we'd be worse than animals. Around town they call me a dog. Well, I'm not. Dogs travel in packs and bite people when they're told to. Me and Willy…"