Miss Ellis came and sat next to me and Annette on the chaise longue and Madame Bénatar knelt on the floor at Maman’s feet and held her hands very tightly. ‘Delphine, I’m so sorry. It’s the most awful news. We tried very hard to get him released. But yesterday they found twenty of the men they rounded up guilty of spying for the resistance movement. I hate to have to tell you this, but Guillaume was among them.’
A noise came out of Maman’s throat that wasn’t a word, it was more like the strangled cry of an animal in pain. Madame Bénatar gripped her hands even harder – I could see her knuckles go white.
I was the one who found my voice first. ‘Is he . . . ?’
Miss Ellis reached over and put an arm around my shoulders and there were tears running down her cheeks. ‘Josie, I’m so terribly sorry. All twenty of the men were executed at dawn today. The Gestapo wanted to make an example of them, to deter others.’
My ears were filled with noise then, and my brain couldn’t seem to register what it was or where it was coming from. It took a few seconds for me to realise that it was the sound of Annette’s screams, filling the room and echoing in the vast emptiness that I felt within my heart.
It’s still there now, that emptiness in my heart, as I write these words in the journal that my papa gave me a year and a half ago in order that I could write down the thoughts that were in my head and stop being so anxious. But there aren’t enough pages in the world for me to express the way I miss him.
I’m trying to remember the dreamseller’s words. She said I’m stronger than I know. She also said it’s only when you let go of fear and grief that you will find your freedom. I don’t feel strong at all tonight. And my fear and grief close in around me like the bars of a prison. I wonder whether Papa was held behind bars. I wonder whether he was able to stay strong until the end. I can see his eyes now, when I close mine, trying to say so many things. But mostly telling the story of his love for me and Maman and Annette.
I think I understand the dreamseller’s words about the moon shining in one hundred bowls of water differently now. Perhaps she was also saying that when someone dies, their love is still there, bathing you in its light. The only trouble is, it doesn’t feel that way at all to me at the moment.
Yes, my heart is empty now. How can it hold the moonlight when it’s been shattered into a thousand pieces? Because without Papa our lives seem as bleak and desolate as the Sahara Desert.
Zoe – 2010
I hear the faint whispers of the Duvals’ story in every room in the house now. As I come in through the front door, on my return from the library or Monsieur Habib’s shop in the Habous, I shudder, picturing the Gestapo standing on the steps and Guillaume Duval glancing back over his shoulder towards Josie, his eyes trying to communicate so much to her in those final moments. I can hardly bear to sit on the couch in the drawing room, imagining that terrible day when Hélène Bénatar and Dorothy Ellis arrived to break the news to Delphine, Annette and Josie that Guillaume had been executed. I can find little peace indoors, now I know what these walls have witnessed. The plasterwork surely still holds resonances of the women’s words and the echoes of Annette’s screams.
How did they manage to keep going, Delphine, Annette and Josie? Their money was running out and the clock was ticking for the refugees in Casablanca.
There are only a couple of places I can bear to sit. One is upstairs in Grace’s room, keeping watch over my sleeping daughter and bearing witness to the phantom presence of Josie, alone and afraid without her papa.
The other place is outside in the courtyard and it’s to here that I now retreat, bringing my sewing to sit beneath the jasmine-covered trellis. I settle Grace on her play mat, which I’ve surrounded with cushions from the garden chairs so it’s safe for her to practise her crawling. It’s a skill she’s seemed to be in no hurry to acquire, preferring to sit and thoughtfully survey the shade-dappled leaves rather than being tempted by the toys I put just beyond her reach to try to encourage her. She knows I’ll give in sooner or later and come and kneel beside her, handing her the pink rabbit and the brightly coloured jack-in-the-box that are her current favourites.
When she settles for her nap in the shade beside my chair, I pick up the quilt and begin to stitch through the layers, outlining each block so it springs into relief. Assembling the blocks and sashing strips didn’t take long with Kate’s sewing machine, but I want to finish it off by hand. There’s not much more to do – just the quilting and then I’ll hand-stich the border with the binding that will frame the whole thing.