Ethel Vance - Reprisal

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REPRISAL

By

Ethel Vance

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER

When Franoise reached the Rue Keron she got off her bicycle and walked. She noticed that very few people were on the streets and that a number of shops had been closed and the iron shutters drawn. She passed no one she knew and as her rain hood shaded her face she hoped no one would recognize her. Only a man leaning against the wall of a house stared at her as she passed.

The Rue du Parc along the river was nearly deserted. Two empty coal barges were moored alongside the quay. There were no children playing in the steep little park on the opposite bank. Only the old priest who always walked there in the afternoon, reading his breviary, was shuffling his feet in the dry leaves, stopping to look disconsolately now and then at the Gothic patterns of bare trees against a white sky. By the bridge a solitary German soldier paced back and forth.

Franoise propped her bicycle outside a shop and took off the little wire basket that hung on the handle bars. As she went in a pale girl of about sixteen got up politely from a chair. The girl looked at her with eyes that were sleepy but suddenly grew alive with excitement.

Good day, Alice, Franoise said.

Good day, Mademoiselle.

I came to get some paper, if you have any. Any sort will do, though Id rather it had no lines.

The girl scarcely seemed to hear what was said. Then she gave a quick sigh. Yes, Mademoiselle, and she turned to the shelves behind her. After a search among a few odds and ends she found an old school exercise book. She held it out. Its all we have left, she said.

Franoise nodded and opened her little purse. They say that Monsieur le Ministre is writing a petition, the girl said. Is it true? Everyone also says that a petition from Monsieur le Ministre wont do much good now.

How is your aunt? Franoise asked, giving her the money. I hope shes not ill again.

No, no, the girl said eagerly. Shes in church. She spends all her time there. You cant pry her out even for meals.

Shes a good woman, Franoise said rather lukewarmly.

She says only God can save them now, the girl said, her eyes shining, and that perhaps He has turned from us all because of our sins.

Franoise put the exercise book in her basket. Tell her not to give up hope so easily, she said. When she was outside her face flushed with exasperation. The idiot, she murmured.

She walked her bicycle slowly through the fine drizzle that had begun to fall. She was chilled and the handle bars were cold and slippery, but she was in no hurry to reach the shop of Madame Simmonet. Usually it was a pleasant place to be but it would not be pleasant today.

It was a shop full of smells that seemed to linger, though the commodities that produced them had long since vanished, smells of spice, coffee, chocolate. Just as Madame Simmonet herself mysteriously remained fat and full of bustle though everything that might have kept her well and produced energy was gone.

Madame Simmonet had a capacity for working small miracles. Only last Thursday she had said, Listen, Mademoiselle. I had a great piece of luck. I found at the bottom of an old bin in the storehouse a beautiful little box of pure cocoa. How it got there I cant imagine, unless an angel left it or it dropped out of some wrappings a long time ago. Now Im going to get it to my boy somehow. My God, the way they feed them there, nothing but potatoes and a kind of horrible powder that turns into soup. But because Mademoiselle has been so kind and brought the chicken for him last month and the sausage Im going to take out a little of the cocoa for her.

Franoise tried to refuse the cocoa but Madame Simmonet insisted so warm-heartedly that in the end she accepted a little of it shaken into an envelope. It seemed that to do less would have deprived Madame Simmonet of a genuine pleasure.

When she came to the shop she saw a sign in the door, CLOSED BECAUSE OF THE EVENTS. But she could see through the glass top of the door Madame Simmonet, leaning with both elbows on the counter. She tried the door. It was open and she went in.

Madame Simmonet glanced up at her very quickly from under her bushy, auburn eyebrows and then looked down at her hands on the counter.

Good day, Madame Simmonet.

Good day, Mademoiselle.

Franoise felt suddenly weak and afraid of Madame Simmonet. She had expected acute anxiety, perhaps despair, but this was even worse.

Madame, she began.

What did you come for? Madame Simmonet said harshly.

To see if I could be of any help.

You came also for more cocoa, I have no doubt.

No, Madame. How could you think I would come for that!

It is gone, Madame Simmonet said. She did not look up at Franoise. Last week she had also promised to write out a receipt for a sauce using peanut oil. She thought of that and added, There is no peanut oil. And there is no sugar. There is nothing, absolutely nothing.

Franoise stood before her like a culprit and made no answer. Her attitude seemed to infuriate Madame Simmonet, who cried, Why should some people have all the luck? What do they do to deserve it, I ask you?

Franoise turned slowly toward the door. Madame Simmonet, she said, I understand what you feel. Believe me I do. And my father is doing all he can.

Is he indeed! cried Madame Simmonet. She came suddenly, heavily, around the counter and put her face close to Franoises. Her eyes were swollen from crying. But they dont take the son of Monsieur le Ministre, she said.

There was such hate in her that Franoise shrank back. Oh, Madame, she exclaimed, I am so sorry. It was no use. She hurried out.

There was Jeanne Peguinot to be visited, the shoes to be collected and the laudanum to be bought. Which should she do next? She did not feel equal yet to Jeanne Peguinot though she lived near by, so she went past the cathedral square where Jeanne lived and on up the Rue Elie-Freron and the Rue du Salle and into a little Place where Bouchaixs shop, no more than a cupboard, was tucked into an ancient house, blackened with age. He did not live here but went every night to his own hideous little brick and plaster house a few kilometers outside the town. There he had a small garden of cabbages, an arbor to sit under in summer, and there he lived a bachelor life, in the old days drinking a great deal more than was good for him or than he could afford. As Franoise saw his shop and the outline of his head inside the dirty window she was thankful that he was a bachelor and moreover had no relatives nearer than a brother who owned a fishing boat at Audierne. Except for a few cronies he had no friends in town and presumably was not closely affected by the terrible happenings.