Julius Raphael's Diary

By Alan S Dale

Some properties feel as if the sunlight has danced on their roofs and dappled their walls since the day they were built. In contrast, a considerable number feel as if someone has died there the day before. The cold dankness of them can be felt from across the street.

The house in the book has character. The Maison du Lac is a French chateau with a soul. The Chateau on the lake has memories and secrets to unlock. Unusual discoveries by the new owner lead to the uncovering the house's dark secrets. He feels challenged when tracking down the previous owners of the house in an effort to restore the family's plundered heritage.

The Raphaels are a Jewish family. They are the last descendants of a wealthy Paris banking family and are targeted by the Gestapo and eventually the family disappears.

The book's two characters, the chateau and the writer, combine to discover the fate of the Raphaels. But guilty secrets are unearthed which local residents would kill to suppress.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alan S Dale
• Release date: Oct 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301355556

Alan S Dale

Lifelong mariner, Andrew Lansdale has spent more than 50 years in the shipping industry. He lives in South West London or on his yacht in Chichester Harbour. His ambition is to sail around the world.

Book preview

Julius Raphael’s Diary

Andrew Lansdale

Copyright 2012 by Andrew Lansdale

Smashwords Edition

Author’s Note

Geographical places and names are purely the subject of my imagination and the result of putting a pin in a map. No accuracy is claimed and any similarity between people and places is purely coincidental.

DEDICATION:

This work is dedicated to Donna, whose patience encourages me and to my children who inspire me.

Chapter one.

I am a writer. I never thought I was perfect, but probably every author searches for perfection, and many feel their final results were imperfect. But it is the reader that counts. In my case my first scribblings landed on a certain literary editor's desk when she was in receptive mood and the publishers wrote back, an unusual occurrence in itself. They requested a few sample chapters which I then forwarded. After a spell of waiting and uncertainty, when my neighbour’s daughter, who types my manuscripts, and I were on tenterhooks, I was asked for the whole work to be forwarded and Rebecca worked over the weekend to provide it.

A small advance followed and, after an anxious time waiting for stardom, my books were published and started to bring in a small but steadily increasing income which kept me in food and drink and eventually paid the mortgage. Some even became reasonable sellers and after a while, I was confident enough to begin to occasionally call myself a novelist. Several of my books have brought me an advance from film companies, anxious to turn them into celluloid. These advances enabled me to buy a Mini Cooper-S car and a portable computer. Most of the films were never born but I hung on to the money and the car and the computer.

These purchases gave me the freedom to roam considerable distances to find suitable places to park up and write a few chapters. I also had a double-sized tent and cooking utensils so that I felt no time constraints squeezing my working day at either end. The car has had two modifications which were essential to this rather gypsy way of life. Firstly the driver's seat was fitted with brackets so that I could sit in comfort without being bent double behind the wheel. I am a big man in every way and didn't fit comfortably into a standard Mini. Secondly, I had a local auto electrician fit an electrical socket in the dashboard so that I could recharge the batteries of my laptop computer.

Thus equipped, I travelled to all the beauty spots in the British Isles of which there are thousands. I was inspired to such a degree that my work took on a popular style and became more widely read and swelled the coffers enough to satisfy my needs. It also satisfied those of the tax man and there was enough in the pot to leave a little over at the end of each month. Letters from my readers and sent to my publishers indicated that there was a public out there waiting for my next book. One only has to look at the green hills of England, the rugged peaks of the Northwest and the rocky heights of Wales to want to try and put it into words.

In many ways, the landscape artist has an easier time of it, converting images into different sized coloured blobs on his canvas. From a distance, the blobs blend and mix and throw out an extraordinary effect which looks not unlike the real thing. Words on a page however, can only be placed in a structured way. They must be accurate and stand alone and can only occasionally blend into each other. This type of art became my life. Then came the breakthrough. A film production company decided that they wanted to purchase the film rights of another of my books. It was rather a long-winded family saga which, they said, fell neatly into enough episodes to make a TV mini-series. My agent negotiated skilfully and a large settlement was agreed together with a percentage of the ‘take’. I was able to pay off my mortgage, much against the wishes of my accountant, and with the balance I looked for a place to buy abroad. I wanted wider horizons and I settled on France as the country on which to concentrate.

I took my car, my computer, my tent and my cooking utensils and travelled for some weeks through the length and breadth of this large country. In post cards I called it my ‘grand tour’. I was looking for a mixture of hills and stunning scenery, off the beaten track but not too far south. By accident I found a municipal campsite in a town almost in the centre of France. It was rugged yet heavily into agriculture and wine growing. It was almost as far from the Mediterranean as it was from the Channel coast. It was a similar distance from the Alps as from the Bay of Biscay and I accidentally came upon it. The accident that brought me to this municipal campsite was a traffic collision and took the form of a tractor pulling out of a farmyard at the same time as I was travelling too fast down the country lane. The coming-together did no discernible damage to the tractor, but stove in my front grille and bonnet and the essential bits just behind it. The farmer’s acceptance of liability only went so far as a tow to the nearest panel-beater. I took in some of the local colour while I was waiting for the Rover Group to send the parts necessary to get the Mini back on the road again and the Municipal campsite suited my rather Spartan existence. The site was a large field divided into numbered plots about ten metres square, separated by hedges. I pitched my tent in one of these bays; I had my own cold water tap and in the centre of the field was a modern and spotless shower and lavatory block.

On my fourth day, seeking some local colour, I was sitting at a table in a pavement cafe, the Cafe de Les Essartes and ruminating on life in general and watching the pretty girls go past. The man on the next table grinned at my interest and called to me in French and gestured as only a Frenchman can do.

I’m afraid that you’ll have to speak slower than that for me to understand, I grinned back at him. A few weeks in France had not substantially improved my grasp of the language.

English? he said. I would enjoy practising my skills. He had a cultivated similarity to Charles Boyer, the French actor from a bygone era. He came over and joined me. We chatted about the weather, of course. We talked about good places to eat and about wine. We talked about Rugby, one of his passions, though he had not played for thirty five years. Nowadays, boules was his more normal exertion and he invited me to play. I accepted.

Hey Jacques, he called the barman over. This is my friend, English. I am going to teach him to play petanque.

The bar owner shook my hand.

Jacques Essartes is the most important man in town,

Jacques smiled a tired smile and brought over a ball set and we walked across the square and indulged ourselves in a bottle of wine and few ends of boules. My companion was scruffily dressed and his dark suit was covered with cigarette ash, but everyone appeared to know him. He gave cheery waves and exchanged banter with all and sundry. During the course of the game, he asked me what had brought me to this part of France.

I am looking for a house to buy, I grasped the heavy aluminium ball and missed my target with it. He looked interested.

How much do you want to spend? It was his turn to throw and although he had a coughing fit in the middle of it, he ended up only a few centimetres from the jack.

I am not often flustered but, like all Englishmen, I find it embarrassing to discuss financial matters with a stranger. He looked up at me, quickly sensed my reluctance and grabbing my arm, led me to a wooden bench and filled up my glass.

hand.

Gerard de St. Valery.

We shook hands formally and he looked at me expectantly.

Campbell. I shook his hand again and he dropped his cigarette on the ground and shrugged his shoulders.

Thank you, Monsieur Campbell. He rubbed his hands.

Let me tell you a story, he began. We both took a swig of wine and he paused to light another Gauloises and then continued.

During the war, there was a prominent family who lived nearby. The family had occupied the house for generations. In 1941 or 1942 they were all sent away by the Germans and the house and grounds became a training establishment for the German army; a sort of Officer’s club if you like. After the war, attempts were made by various organisations to locate the original family but with no success. The property was taken over by the French government and used by the CRS.

I must have looked slightly baffled.

The paramilitary police force. he coughed, They used it as a staff college and a centre for training courses. He called to the bar owner for another bottle of wine and I knew that I was in the hands of a seasoned drinker.

Two years ago, they decided that they no longer had any use for it and transferred ownership to the local council. How is my English so far?

It is excellent, I agreed.

It gets better with the wine. He topped up my glass and continued.

Where was I? he screwed up his eyes against the smoke. Oh yes: The Mayor was delighted and eagerly took it under his wing as his pet project. He would turn it into a country house for visiting dignitaries. Of course, when there were no visiting dignitaries, and there never would be, he nudged me in the ribs, He would occupy it himself.

How do you know all this? I asked, wishing to be persuaded of his veracity.

I am the local Magistrate, he touched the side of his nose with his finger. I get to know everything.

I nodded discretely. He spoke again.

So - Monsieur le Mairie has ambitions to become resident in a slightly shabby, is that the word, shabby?

I nodded vigorously.

To live in slightly shabby splendour. He scratched his neck. That is until the Government Inspectors indicted him for corruption over some land deals that he arranged. The Aldermen of the town are suddenly running round like chickens without the heads. They decide to quickly dispose of the property to the first serious buyer.

He takes a serious swig of wine as if to emphasise the point.

But who is above corruption? Who can they ask to sell this property? Into whose hands can they place it and be free of suspicion them?

The local Magistrate? I ventured. He slapped me on the back.

First class, Mr. Englishman, the local Magistrate. We clinked glasses to honour my intelligence and downed the contents in one.

Encore du vin, Monsieur, he called out. We must celebrate our progress so far. Another bottle was brought out into the afternoon sunshine and the contents sparkled like cascading rubies into our glasses.

Now my question again, Mr. Englishman. How much have you got to spend? He took another gulp and waited for me.

And do I want to live in shabby splendour? That is another question. I stalled.

Yes, indeed. he glanced me in an owlish fashion. That is indeed another question. He struggled to his feet.

Quite another question. Let us survey the shabbiness right now. The matter was placed in my hands only this morning and I confess that I have not addressed the question of the shabbiness myself. He picked up the bottle and walked unsteadily across the square. When I looked down on the top of his head, I noticed he was getting rather thin on top with pink flesh

Come on. Let’s go. By sheer inquisitiveness, I was forced to follow.

Behind the Hotel de Ville, he climbed into a Citroen XM. I squeezed into the other side and he placed me in charge of the wine bottle. He took a long time to get the car going as it automatically ran through all its computer checks like an Airbus on the tarmac.

These have been described as the Belgian bankrobber’s getaway car, he said. Or Irish perhaps you would say in England!

With great verve, we travelled in the centre of the road, straddling the white line for some four or five miles, steadily climbing into the hills. There were great trees overhanging the road and Monsieur Gerard slowed to a crawl and gazed into every opening in the hedgerow.

Ah this is it. He turned into a drive between the trees and stopped at a large pair of rusty wrought-iron gates. Monsieur Gerard lurched out and undid a bright shiny padlock and chain.

It all took me by surprise and the small stones crunched and splattered against the underside of the car as the gravel drive disappeared around the bend behind us. Then we were drawing to a halt in front of a typical stone-built French country chateau. Small but elegant; shabby but symmetrical; turreted and spired in equal measure. It gave an impression of delicacy and almost flimsiness from a distance.

I was spellbound.

Come, he instructed, Bring the wine.

May 1940

Julius Raphael, seen at a distance from the Chateau’s tall drawing room windows, might have appeared a remote, withdrawn, even a lonely figure, sitting beside the table down by the lake. The sun burned down from an impossibly blue sky and almost lit up his white linen suit, his cream Panama hat and his white whiskers.

He was alone, his arm draped along the back of the bench so that he was half-turned, gazing fondly over both the smooth mirror of the lake and the ornamental gardens.

He was not a remote person however. Neither was he withdrawn nor lonely. He was at peace with himself and with the world, looking over his beautiful and smallish slice of his beloved France.

He blew out the match which had lit his post-luncheon cigarette. A small flock of rooks preened and strutted in the top branches of the trees on the other side of the lake, their blue black wings catching the light in flashes, while their calls carried across the water. Elsewhere song birds chirruped and chattered their melodies and insects buzzed.

He was always taken with the beauty of it all, almost surprised. It never palled and never diminished and he never imagined a time when he did not sit and marvel at his fortune.

It was Sunday the 5th of May 1940 and the sun shone.

I climbed out of the car and together we walked crunching on the gravel around the side of the house to a terrace. The windows were boarded up but the view over the lake, mirror-smooth in the late afternoon stillness made me hold my breath. I passed him the bottle and he took a swig and leant against the terrace stonework.

Have some. he passed the bottle back and I took a gulp.

This is wonderful, but out of my price range, I protested. He looked surprised.

How could you know. We haven’t discussed the price.

My money wouldn’t even buy ten percent of this. I gestured in a circular movement. Shabby though it undoubtedly is.

The impression of flimsiness was not evident close to. The walls were clearly of stone rather than brick and were several feet thick. A substantial, not a delicate building and one that had stood up to everything that nature and man could throw at it for the last few hundred years.

Take a look inside. he suggested. I nodded. He went to one of boards across the window and heaved it to one side.

Tradesman’s entrance! he laughed in amusement. Tradesman’s entrance... he chuckled again, slapped his thigh with enthusiasm and I followed him inside. Our feet echoed on the wood block floor and I stared in wonderment at the panelled walls and high ceilings. The plaster work was superb with flowers, cherubs, tablets and garlands. There was a plaster relief around the fireplace topped with a Grecian urn. There were birds and cornucopia and my mouth must have hung open in amazement. We went into the hall and I was awe-struck by the staircases which went up on either side of this large open space to the galleried upper floors. The carved wood was as splendid as the plaster work had been. I went over and patted it.

People don't like that sort of thing anymore, Gerard muttered.

We went into each of the downstairs rooms.

When I have looked at empty houses in the past, the rooms have always looked so small, I wondered how they could ever fit any furniture in them. I looked around, But every room here is so huge. I wonder what size they’ll look when they are furnished.

Gerard grinned at me.

Quite big, I think.

Then we inspected each of the upstairs rooms and then the attic rooms with windows in the mansard roof and the turrets. Then we came downstairs and sat on the stairs and finished the bottle.

I must confess that I am speechless with amazement. I admitted.

Make me an offer. he suggested.

Are you serious? I asked.

Perfectly serious. Make me an offer.

I hesitated.

The sooner I commit this property to a serious purchaser, the happier the council will be. My standing in the community is maintained, or even enhanced. The amount of money is almost immaterial. Make me an offer.

I realised then that one's life is punctuated with moments when you either ride your luck or jump off. I named a figure.

He looked at me. I thought at first that I had insulted him. It appeared though, that the calculator was clicking inside a head, dulled and slowed a little by the wine.

He cleared his throat and took a pen from his pocket and an old envelope. He wrote something down on it and passed it to me.

This amount and it’s yours.

I looked astonished.

Are you serious? I asked again.

Perfectly serious. Do we have a deal? He held out his hand. I took it. I had nothing to lose.

Come. Buy me dinner. The best dinner in town. The most expensive for me, but probably the cheapest you will ever buy.

I followed him out wondering about it all. I helped him carefully pull the board across the French window and we weaved back to the car and the car weaved back to town.

Over dinner, we again partook of large quantities of wine, but of a much higher quality and price. After all, I was footing the bill and Gerard was doing the ordering.

In between mouthfuls, he gave me the third degree. I told him of my army career, of my life as a geologist, of my writing, of my present existence and of my ambitions. I remembered that he was used to cross-examining witnesses as he wrung every detail from me without my even realising it.

I staggered back to the campsite and crawled into my tent. I probably lay like a slab of meat, with my mouth open, snoring like an old soak. I had no way of knowing, nor did I care. I was awoken only by the heat of the sun as it made the interior of my tent close to an inferno. In the roasting light of day, I realised that the purchase of my own little mini-Chateau was perhaps a dream and that I had been well and truly conned. However it was well worth the price of dinner. I had enjoyed myself immensely and the bill was not large, unless of course you imagined how high the pile of books would have to be sold to pay for it.

I pottered around and got some writing done. I often find that a hangover acts like a cattle prod. I wandered into the town at lunch time and sat at the cafe again and had a coffee laced with cognac and felt immediately revived. Perhaps life in France would not be that bad. It might even be better than I expected.

I felt that the need to return to England had become rather pressing. I had to see whether my resources could stretch to buying, repairing and furnishing the Chateau. I also had become a bit stalled in my present work and needed a change of scenery. I paid an exorbitant sum to the panel beaters, packed up the car and headed north up the Autoroute to the Channel.

May 1940

On Friday, May the 10th, the German Army, comprising one hundred and twenty six divisions of infantry and artillery and ten divisions of Panzers roared across the borders into France. They rolled up the defending armies of France and the British Expeditionary Force with scant resistance. After the French had realised that their ability to halt the German onslaught was limited, the BEF escaped back to England from Dunkirk by the 4th of June. In two further weeks France collapsed. Julius Raphael sat at home unable to believe that his country had been so let down by those who had sworn to serve her. These were gloomy days, and getting darker.

With no serious enemy to confront face to face, the Germans consolidated their gains and sped South and Southwest and took Paris. Later in the month they halted at a curved and wriggly line which extended from the South of the country to the Northwest, leaving the rest of France under the puppet Vichy regime, with that city as its seat of government.

The proud French nation, co-victors of the Great War of 1914-19, co-signatories of the Treaty of Versailles, engineered by the firebrand Clemenceau, were under the German boot. In quick succession, led by the Panzers, the infantry and finally by the SS, the iron grasp of the Nazis squeezed the population and the grip ever-tightened. The pride of the barbarian hordes, lost in 1919 was being restored.

In the small French town of La Rouchard, situated to the north-west of La Souterraine in the Departements de Creuse, there lived an old French family. They were aristocratic and distantly related to the old Paris banking family of Raphael. They were also Jewish. The family house had been inhabited by generations of Raphaels and, contrary to usual practice, the house and grounds had not been divided up in the Napoleonic way, but had passed from eldest son to eldest son down through the generations.

When the Nazis tightened their hold on the country, they established a small garrison in the town’s only decent hotel. This had an annexe which housed the local SS Officers. By mid 1943, Major Max Stueffel and a Captain von Mueckle, with three Waffen SS soldiers, were considered sufficient an intimidating presence by the High Command. Soon after the group had moved in, the annexe cellars had been re-designed and its wine store removed. It was divided off with iron bars. There was a wooden bed bolted to the stone floor, an iron bucket and a metal washbasin with a cold tap.

Even on the hottest of summer days, the atmosphere was chill and the air damp. The coolness of the stone flags, designed to keep the wines at an even temperature, overwhelmed even a hardened optimist and the gloom suffocated all hope. The iron bars were moist with condensation and the room dripped darkly. Here opponents of the regime were brought and the very environment hastened them towards their last moments on this earth. The devil-men had arrived.

The Raphaels were liked and well-respected in the neighbourhood. Mr. Raphael worked part-time as a partner in the family bank and spent two or three days a week in Paris, where he stayed in a comfortable room at his club. After the fall of France, travel got back to normal for a few months, but the allies bombed the railways in an attempt to disrupt the passage of supply trains to the Germans. This caused mixed feelings among the locals whose country was occupied by their enemies, but their friends dropped bombs on them. Not an easy conundrum to unravel.

In the end, the directors of the bank conducted their affairs over the telephone and by mail so that Mr. Raphael was an infrequent visitor to the capital. He sat at home in the sitting room whose windows opened onto the terrace, where the lawns ran down through the formal gardens and paths to a balustraded lookout, commanding a view over the large lake. He had a square, highly-polished desk in the window and liked to study the papers sent to him from the bank and prepare his replies and reports which he mailed on Mondays and Thursdays from the yellow-painted, stuccoed Post Office in the town centre.

Before the war, there were servants and a butler on hand to supervise the buying-in of supplies to keep the house running. Groceries, vegetables, meats, wines, cleaning material, everything needed to run a small village such as the Chateau was, were delivered by the local tradesmen, who valued such trade. The only articles that Madame travelled into the town for, were fashion articles; material for the dressmaker, a visit to the milliner or the shoemaker and hosier. Madame and her friends might make up a party at one another’s houses occasionally, but more usual was a trip into town, clutching Vogue or New Yorker and persuading the local craftsman to emulate such fashions. Then a luncheon or dinner party at which to surprise one’s fellow guests with the latest from Paris, London or Milan.

Now that the war was underway and with the shortages of food, materials and money, Madame had to travel into town to obtain what she might.

After all, if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed must come to the mountain, she was keen to say. So on the days when her husband visited the Post Office, Mrs. Raphael and her maid travelled with him in the small car which they now owned. While the ladies were buying groceries and whatever else was available, Mr Raphael went to the Cafe Des Essartes, in the town square and drank café crème to pass the time.

The square was cobbled and the surrounding buildings shared different architectural styles both old and new. Some of the medieval old stone buildings such as the cafe and the post office had been stuccoed and painted in pastel shades and fitted with shutters at the upper windows. The Mairie was old and solid and bare of coatings and colourings. It was not as old as the cafe nor the Post Office but was too full of pomposity to dress up to look young, modern and frivolous. The Church was the oldest and one of the bakers was the youngest, but neither had airs or graces, they fed the populace with dietary and spiritual support and that was that; one worked on Sundays, the other did not.

The square was planted with plane trees and had two boule areas, one under the trees and one out in the open. One was in the sun for when it was cool and one in the leafy shade for when it was hot. There was some debate as to whether the area under the trees and almost under permanent attack from the sap and gum given off by the bark and the leaves, slowed down the boules when they rolled towards the jack ball. Some felt their game was more suited to one than the other and scratched their heads through their black berets whilst in debate over the matter. Some players took their game to one and some to the other and everywhere the smells of rural France, the tobacco, the pastis and the hangover smell of market day scented the square.

As the war progressed, supplies were harder for the Raphaels to obtain. The shopkeepers to whom they had given their custom for as long as they could remember and as far back as the family records led, in fact generations of Raphaels, began to be short of certain items. The Raphaels and families like them originally provided the raison d’etre for the town. Without the estates, there was no reason to build a town. Without the families, their big houses and the staff, their lands and the estate workers, there would not be mouths to feed and bodies to clothe.

Now the towns could not do their job and the tradesmen often rationed things to less than half that which the family needed and were allocated by their ration books. The shopkeepers blamed the difficulties on the war with a shrug of their shoulders. It was only after a few weeks of study that Mrs. Raphael was outraged to discover that other shoppers were given their full allowance, whilst she and her maid, Juliet, were given a lot less. The knowledge was stored in her breast and festered. It smouldered and waited its turn to rise to the surface when the trigger was activated.

The straw which broke the camel’s back was laid on by Mr. Laballe, the grocer. He finished serving one customer with a bright smile on his face and his eye lit on Mrs. Raphael, a long-standing customer of him, his father and his grandfather before him and probably for countless generations before that.

He took their list with barely concealed bad grace and held it out in front of him as if it was contaminated.

Non, we don’t have this. he struck the paper a blow with the back of his fingers. Non, we have none of this, he struck another blow. I cannot give you any of this. The paper received another assault.

She at once remonstrated.

But I have been standing here watching you give out all the things on my list to your previous customer. She glared at him. What makes them so special? She aimed a well-directed finger towards his chest. There was a short silence.

I have asked my question. I now require an answer.

She folded her arms and lifted her chin in a challenge.

I am unable to give you more than I already have, he replied aggressively, but at the same time spread his hands in a Gallic gesture.

This is scandalous, Madame Raphael replied, Why should we be treated any worse than anyone else? We have been your best customers for a century and more. She caught a glimpse of a bottle of Courvoisier on the shelf. Probably since before Napoleon Her glare was unabated.

Have we not always paid our bills on time, she continued, I’ve a good mind to move my account to someone else. She spoke with some asperity but her maid pulled at her sleeve.

Please, Ma’am. Leave it be. Come along and let sleeping dogs lie. She tugged again at her threadbare cuff, Please Ma’am. She was desperate with concern.

No I will not leave things. Mrs. Raphael pulled her arm away and had now raised her voice. By this time she was attracting the attention of others in the shop.

You had best do as the young lady says, advised Monsieur Laballe, quietly. By rights, I shouldn’t be giving you anything. That’s what the law says.

Law? Law? What law? She was almost beside herself with fury by this time, her face and features were sharp and focused.

Our law, came the firm voice from the doorway. I hope Monsieur Laballe has not been breaking it. Captain Von Mueckle, in his black uniform with the shiny silver trappings, stood in the doorway of the shop. His uniform accentuated his height and the silver epaulettes exaggerated the breadth of his shoulders so that he looked huge, sinister and looming. He slapped a leather riding crop impatiently against the side of his jack boot. In the background outside the shop were two Ghehrpolizei, in their green uniforms with brass plates hanging from a chain round their necks like labels on spirit decanters.

No, no. Monsieur Laballe suddenly appeared grey and sweaty and was visibly shaking in fear, his face drained of all colour.

I have just completed their order; made before the edict was announced, you understand. He had a pleading look on his face. You must believe me! He almost cried with sincerity.

Complete it and the Jews can go home then. the Officer paused meaningfully, staring insolently at Mrs. Raphael, Can’t they? He slapped his cane against his black boots again. To underline the unspoken threat, his hand went to the hilt of the ceremonial Gestapo dagger at his belt, its silver death’s head shining as it caught the light.

Monsieur Laballe quickly gathered up a few grocery items and put them in a bag and handed them to Juliet, who hurried from the shop, head bowed. Mme Raphael followed in haughty disdain.

This was a significant watershed for the Raphaels. From that moment, their supply of food, clothing and other necessities dried up one by one, slowly but surely. Mr. Raphael could no longer obtain sufficient petrol for his car. He had the coupons, but the local garage owner would not always serve him. In the end, he put the car in the stable behind the house and instructed one of the few remaining gardeners to put it up on blocks. Mr. Raphael could also, not obtain the stamps necessary to send his work to the office and the postman then refused to deliver mail to the house. They had to rely on the goodwill of neighbours and friends to bring mail and post letters for them, particularly to and from the bank in Paris. Mr. Raphael spent more time in the garden which uplifted him and raised his spirits. It was his pride and joy. There were neatly clipped hedges, bordering gravel walkways with dwarf cedars and other evergreens. There was the Italian garden, which was walled and more formal. Its cypress trees, thin and dark green, provided the Tuscan Italianate setting. There was a walkway, between box hedges, running down to the lookout over the lake, where the family took their breakfast sometimes. The slope down to the lake was terraced with formal flower beds, carefully delineated with diagonal gravel paths and stone statues of Greek gods and Roman Centurions, set up on pedestals. Mr Raphael and his family loved the garden. It was a halfway house between the luxuriant sub-tropical splendour of Florence or Cannes and the formal seasonal gardens of London or Edinburgh. Its latitude dictated it and the bright summer sunshine and mild winter softness governed it. In these troubled times, it provided an oasis of peace and tranquillity for Julius and his