Gara / Reed Welcome to the Free Zone

1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-1-78094-188-2
Verlag: Hesperus Press Ltd.
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 370 Seiten

A moving and witty portrayal of a family and community in turmoil during the Second World War. It is 1942 and the sleepy village of Saint-Boniface in the Ardèche has become stuffed with refugees from all over France and indeed Europe. Expats, exiles and migrant Jews all mingle together. Daily life is shambolic. Several Jewish families have washed up in Saint-Boniface, lodged in guest houses and rented farmhouses, they are attempting to carve out a new life for themselves among the folded hills and isolated farmsteads. Battling against the bureaucracy and paperwork of Vichy-France and the spectre of the Germans closing in on the Free Zone, the families struggle to get used to the local ways, just as the locals struggle to accept them. From the non-existent toilets and lack of electricity to black market dealings and the self-serving, sadistic gendarme, life in Saint-Boniface is challenging and spirited. Welcome to the Free Zone is a vivid and dark humoured novel based on the true story of Nathalie and Ladislas Gara, who take on the role of the Verès family in the book. Originally published in 1946 this new translation with revive this extraordinary tale.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gara, Nathalie

Gara, Ladislas

Reed, Bill

Leseproben

Chapter 2 All Roads Lead to Les Tilleuls
I
Whistling cheerfully, Longeaud crosses the schoolyard to the village road. He’s getting more portly now, but that doesn’t stop him keeping up a brisk pace, brandishing a stout stick on which one of his pupils has spent hours carving patterns and initials. On the road, he overtakes the schoolmistress from the Free School, Mlle Amélie Martin, whom he greets coolly. He doesn’t have much time for this strange, timid spinster. To start with, he doubts whether her qualifications are worth anything, which would explain why she has ended up as a teacher in a Catholic school, after teaching French abroad. Her grey shawl makes Longeaud think of the bats which flit around the church at dusk. It is rumoured in the village that she doesn’t get on with Sister Félicie, the headmistress, and that the Curé is always finding fault with her. But that’s parish politics, and Longeaud is careful not to get involved. It would be beneath his dignity. He hurries on, eager to get to Francheville. His table companions, all ‘on the same side’, will be expecting him at the Café de la Poste for their regular Thursday gathering. The group consists of three or four state employees, a shopkeeper, the plumber, and the bus driver, who comes from Manvin, and only returns in late afternoon to his village high up in the hills. Thursday is also market day, and this merry band starts with a few apéritifs and then makes its way to the Hôtel Panorama. There, over a meal served with particular care by the Patron, they indulge in heady debate. Around two in the afternoon, the session draws to a close with coffee and a few liqueurs, whereupon M. Longeaud at last reaches the euphoric state which, in the drabness of his life, is the ray of sunshine without which it would not be worth living at all. Compared with these Thursday gatherings, he finds other forms of entertainment very dull. He has hardly read anything apart from newspapers since he completed his teacher-training. He has avoided affairs of the heart, which only cause trouble, and since he has had to lay up his Citroën he hardly goes anywhere. Although he has an old wireless, he doesn’t like music. As for the news, he only listens with half an ear. Longeaud knows it’s all up with the Germans anyway, and he can’t be bothered with the details. That just leaves fishing, as he gave up hunting a few years ago when it began to take too much out of him. But none of that can beat a Pernod, or even a glass of red wine. Francheville, 4.2 km. Longeaud has just reached the main road. No, nothing can beat a Pernod – oh, cherished memory! Or even the rough red wine which is also becoming hard to get. M. Longeaud has no time for those Temperance skinflints, even when they are not vegetarians and Esperantists to boot, a triple curse prevalent amongst his colleagues, but to which he has never succumbed. Francheville, 4 km. Certainly never succumbed to that, thank God. Nor to institutional sermonizing about repentance. Obviously, you have to have your wits about you if you’re to get your daily wine. M. Longeaud congratulates himself on the administrative sleight of hand he indulges in as Secretary to the Maire, which earns him the gratitude of Saint-Boniface’s population. Not to mention the good grace with which he carries out the duties of village letter-writer! It’s a service to all those bumpkins, which allows him to keep up his merry three litres a day, summer and winter, plus the odd glass here and there. Francheville, 3.5 km. Plus the odd glass, of course. M. Longeaud’s penchant for red wine does not mean he turns his nose up at spirits, which sear the throat deliciously, and impart a rosy outlook on life. But from there to conclude that he’s an alcoholic would be a big step, a very big step. For even if he drinks liberally – he concedes this is the word for it – he can hold his liquor. Obviously, anyone can make mistakes. And you have to make exceptions for days when the threshing is finished or the pig is slaughtered, because then you’re expected to get drunk. Francheville, 3 km. It is rather a long way, though. It’s not so bad going downhill, but on the way back it’s no joke climbing these steep slopes when your head is overheated and your legs are weak. But the fresh air sobers him up and allows him to escape a scolding from Mme Longeaud. She’s always been cantankerous, but now she’s turning into a real harpy. Maybe she would have been better-tempered if she had had children. But ever since she has had to accept that she would remain childless, she has moped, fretted, got thin as a rake, and her intolerance has taken on ridiculous proportions. Better not to think about it… Even so, children… Longeaud has given up on that idea; he’s seen too many of them. Not to mention the parents! Take that dunce Grandjean’s parents. You keep these cretins’ noses to the grindstone for two years, three years, you drive them as hard as you can, you just about manage to get them to take the exam, which they scrape through thanks to you alone, and what recognition do you get from the parents for all your trouble? A dozen eggs! Oh, if he depended only on the gratitude of his pupils, he’d always be tightening his belt. Of course the Grandjeans are a family of reactionaries, the father is a big shot in the Veterans’ Legion and the mother is a church busybody. The countryside is still in the dark ages! Look what happens when you try to teach them about progress and justice! Francheville, 2 km. M. Longeaud is a standard-bearer for progress and justice. It has been his lifelong vocation. Yes, he’s always been an idealist, and he always will be. Even in these difficult times he has remained steadfast, he has never wavered for a moment. But – and he is proud of this – he has never sold out to any party, and this has allowed him to keep the freedom of his convictions. Anyway, party membership involves all sorts of tiresome duties. But he has never hidden where his sympathies lie. Before the war he was a member of the League of Human Rights, and of the local branch of the Front Populaire, and he could often be seen at meetings, sitting on the platform along with the other eminent figures. Whenever a compromise had to be reached on the agenda, or a well-turned resolution had to be delivered, his proposals were always appreciated. Well, maybe that’s all ancient history now, but M. Longeaud has still not had his last word. Francheville, 1 km. Ah! If only it was up to him! If his wife didn’t hold him back so much, it wasn’t too late for him to show what he could do. But she’s always moaning, mocking his opinions, and for some time now she has even been attending mass regularly. A teacher in a state school! When he married her, he never expected that. But the Curé has got round her, as he has so many others… Hardly surprising that with ideas like that, she holds him back as she does… As if he’s not big enough to look after himself! He’s not going to make mistakes like that hothead Galtier, who has been suspended for speaking without choosing his audience carefully enough, and now has to take any private lessons he can get. He, Camille Longeaud, would never dream of giving ration cards to people whose papers are not in order, as Serray does in Saint-Paul. It’s just pure bravado, trivial stuff, not worth the risk. You have to take care, because if you’re stupid enough to get locked up, you deprive the cause of a worthy defendant in its time of need. Francheville, 0.2 km. Yes, a worthy defendant, as events will prove. But in the meantime you have to live in the present, in the real world. And the most immediate reality is the gathering of friends, at the Café de la Poste, towards which M. Longeaud now hastens, with gusto and a parched throat. FRANCHEVILLE … II
Francheville: population 4,800, according to Larousse. Paper mills, sawmills. ‘A market town which you might take for a sub-prefecture’ as the local newspaper reporter likes to say. The town is served by a pathetic little local train providing connections to the mainline routes, and some twice-weekly buses, which operate according to a whimsical timetable. Paper mills, sawmills. But that doesn’t make Francheville an industrial centre. It’s a sprawling town hemmed in by steep hills dotted with hamlets and villages, whose farmers make their way down to the market on Thursdays, just as a thousand springs and tributaries flow into the lively river which splits the town in two. Throughout the ages, Francheville has been a focus of local trade, so its population consists largely of shopkeepers and craftsmen. Industrial workers are something of a novelty, but hardly noticeable. As they are few in number and do not rock the boat, Francheville has always had the good fortune to elect representatives committed to the traditional order of things. Even in this third year of war, Francheville is still a quiet place. In fact the war never got this far: it stopped about forty kilometres away. Instead of pressing on, the occupying forces actually withdrew further north after the armistice. Francheville has suffered neither damage nor shelling. Its inhabitants have got used to the sound of planes flying south in the night. In May 1942, it is one of the few towns in Europe where blackout orders have not been enforced. So the war has spared the population of Francheville up to now. Neither life nor property has been taken. In contrast with the dreadfully long roll of dead in the previous conflict, inscribed on the base of the War Memorial, only one person born in...