Resistance

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘So that’s why Liane never attempted to contact us,’ Barbara said. ‘She must have been so terribly ashamed. The poor child. And now...’

  Madeleine was still trying to decipher what Frederick was saying. ‘Where is Mademoiselle Jonsson now? Is she still in Paris?’

  ‘No. She left the country, presumably to return to the States.’

  ‘And what happened has never been made public?’ Albert asked.

  ‘Regrettably, it was felt important to hush it up, for propaganda purposes. However, the men involved have been hanged, for desertion. The end result was the same.’

  ‘Not for Liane,’ Madeleine muttered.

  ‘Yes,’ Helsingen agreed. ‘And you see, Captain Biedermann was one of the Gestapo officers who interviewed her after her rescue, and who pooh-poohed her story. Well, it was his business to do so. But she must have formed a severe dislike for him. And when he visited her in her flat, and appears to have made advances to her, and, I suspect, told her what had happened to her sister, well, she must have lost her head. That is my interpretation of what happened, anyway.’

  ‘But what you have told us,’ Albert said, ‘surely that provides mitigation for what Liane has done?’

  ‘Sadly, monsieur, there is no factor that can mitigate the murder of a German officer. I am most terribly sorry, but I wanted you to know the facts. Now, if you wish, 1 shall leave. I can wait outside until the car comes back for me.’

  ‘Of course you must not leave,’ Madeleine cried. ‘You have so tried to help us. Papa...’

  ‘A drink,’ Albert said. ‘You must have a drink. Ring the bell, Madeleine.’

  ‘And you’ll stay to lunch,’ Madeleine said. ‘Mama?’

  ‘Oh. Yes. I must tell cook.’

  ‘I feel I am imposing,’ Helsingen said.

  ‘You could never impose on us,’ Madeleine told him.

  ‘You have a very compact family,’ Helsingen remarked.

  They sat together on the back porch, watching the sun decline over the not very distant Bay of Biscay. Lunch had been a bit stiff, mainly because of the presence of Amalie, but now they were alone. ‘It was, once,’ Madeleine said. ‘Now, Liane is on the run. Amalie... well, you know about Amalie. Pierre...’

  ‘You have had news of him?’

  ‘He has been here.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Three days ago.’

  ‘You told me you had not heard of him since the first day of the invasion.’

  ‘We hadn’t, then. And we didn’t, until he suddenly turned up.’

  ‘After two months? Where had he been all that time? In one of our prison camps?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He wouldn’t tell us, or at least he wouldn’t tell me, where he had been, but I think he would have if he had been a prisoner. The fact is, I think he deserted to avoid being taken prisoner. Oh...’ Her mouth formed the letter. ‘Will you have to report that?’

  ‘I am not concerned with discipline in the French army. But where is your brother now?’

  ‘In Paris. Papa sent him there to take over the office.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘He left yesterday. He only spent a couple of days here.’

  ‘Is that not very odd? To have been away for two months, and considered dead, then to come home, but only for two days?’

  ‘I suppose it is odd. But he was desperate to get on with his life.’

  ‘Do you think he will have visited Liane?’

  ‘I know he meant to. But according to the colonel she won’t be there.’

  ‘I meant, during the two months when you did not hear from him.’

  Madeleine frowned as she considered. ‘I don’t think so. I’m sure he would have mentioned it. He seemed as surprised, and bewildered, as any of us that we had not heard from her. If he had seen her himself, he would have known what happened, and I am sure he would have told us. Is it important?’

  ‘It could be very important.’ He held her hand. ‘I did not wish to upset your parents, but they are in a very dangerous situation. One of their children has committed an act of war against the Reich, after the surrender of your country. In most circumstances what Liane did would be considered the responsibility of the entire family, and as Kluck said, you would all have been arrested.’ Madeleine stared at him in horror. ‘Now, I managed to talk him out of doing that, firstly by vouching for you personally, and secondly by pointing out that his best chance of capturing Liane is to leave her a sanctuary to which she could flee. I don’t think the first interested him very greatly, but the second did. However, if Liane does not come here, and if she is not captured elsewhere, or even if she is, I suspect that he will soon enough decide that you have outlived your usefulness and should be arrested anyway.’

  ‘But why? We have done nothing.’

  ‘The main reason will be because Biedermann was Kluck’s personal aide, and he is determined to avenge his death.’

  ‘My God! What are we to do?’

  ‘There is nothing you can do. However, I think I can protect you. In certain circumstances.’

  ‘But you may not be here.’

  ‘That is exactly it. You must always be with me.’

  Her eyes were enormous. ‘You want me to be...?’

  ‘My wife.’ Madeleine gasped. Now he held her other hand as well. ‘This is something I have wanted to say to you almost from the moment we met. It has nothing to do with what has happened since. I fell in love with you from the very first moment, Madeleine.’ Madeleine could not speak, but neither could she take her eyes from his, and she made no effort to free her hands. ‘I had planned a proper courtship, letters, flowers, the opera... but now there is no time for that. I am to leave Chartres. I have been promoted to colonel, and am to join the Fiihrer’s staff in Berlin. I shall be hundreds of miles away from Bordeaux, from you. I cannot take the risk of something happening to you before I could intercede.’

  Madeleine could only clutch at straws. ‘But if you marry me, a Frenchwoman, will it not harm your career? The Führer - ‘

  ‘Will be delighted. He is anxious for integration, where it is suitable. It is his goal to bring about a general Aryanization of Europe, providing the blood is pure on both sides. Anyone can see that you are of Aryan stock. You will have to become a naturalized German, but that will not be difficult.’

  ‘But my sister is guilty of murder. You say.’

  ‘Every family has at least one skeleton in its closet. Believe me, the Führer will be pleased. My father was one of his first associates. He helped to finance the Party from the beginning, long before it came to power. Hitler will want to help my wife, in any way he can.’

  ‘You mean, if I married you, you would be able to help Liane?’

  Helsingen sighed. ‘No. There is no one on earth that can help Liane now. You simply have to accept the fact that to all intents and purposes she is already dead, and try to forget her. Mourn her, by all means, but you cannot resurrect her, any more than you could resurrect a corpse. But if you are my wife, and we can swear that neither you nor your family had anything to do with Liane’s crime, I can protect all of you.’ Madeleine had been clutching his hands tightly. Now her fingers slowly relaxed. ‘But I do not want you to marry me simply to protect your family. I love you, Madeleine. Can you not love me?’

  Yes, I could love you, she thought. I have been steadily falling in love with you, or at least your memory, for the past month. But you are an enemy of my people. Yet you are offering to save my family from a ghastly fate. If I entirely turn my back on my sister. The odd thing was that were all things equal, Liane was the one to whom she would have turned for advice. But was he not right to say that Liane was gone from her life, all of their lives, had to be gone for ever? Had there been no war, and she had committed murder, she would still have been executed, by her own people. But had there been no war, there would have been no multiple rape, no necessity for a moment of madness. Liane was gone. It was the remainder of the family who now nee
ded protection. And only she could provide that. By marrying an enemy? But also by marrying about the most charming, generous, honest man she had ever met.

  ‘Have you nothing to say?’ he asked.

  Madeleine stood up, still holding his hand. ‘I think we should tell Mama and Papa.’

  *

  James turned the pages of his diary. ‘Three weeks,’ he said. ‘Long enough.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We call at five our time.’

  ‘I feel quite excited,’ Rachel confessed.

  Living virtually in each other’s pockets, as they had done for the four weeks they had been together, they had settled into an easy camaraderie, while still preserving certain essential barriers. At least he considered them essential. He could not be sure of her feelings on the subject.

  He supposed that he had made a mistake, on the day he had both sent Joanna to the academy and Pierre on his way to France, by becoming so emotional he had wanted to lose himself in an alcoholic haze. He and Rachel had sat together, refilling each other’s glass, looking at each other, not talking much. She had released her bun and her hair had come tumbling down in black profusion, turning her from a woman who had suggested she could be attractive into one who very definitely was attractive, especially when she had taken off her glasses and laid them on the desk. ‘How badly do you need those?’ he had asked.

  ‘I can see well enough, close up,’ she had replied provocatively.

  In their mutual inebriation things had very nearly got out of hand. Already sexually stimulated by two days of resisting the temptation of Joanna, he had found himself stroking her hair and then the line of her chin before his hand had dropped, almost inadvertently, on to her shirt-front. As she had made no effort to restrain him, had merely sought to kiss him, he had realized that she was his for the taking...and realized at the same time that he was on the verge of creating an impossible situation. Not only was he, an officer, using his rank to seduce an enlisted soldier, but he did not love her, nor could he ever, not in the way he had fallen for Liane. It would be an act of pure sex. Did that matter if they both wanted it? But the wanting was a matter of the moment. It was what came after that mattered. He had to be in total control of their relationship, the man who gave the orders, made the decisions, however unpalatable those might be for both of them, the man whom she had always to respect and obey without question. Those requirements could not possibly endure with an in-house mistress.

  If she had been disappointed at his sudden change of mood she had not revealed it, and the next morning had been as trimly polite and eager as always, and since then there had been no more bottle sessions. He actually felt that he might have accomplished something by his indication that he was not the totally cold-blooded controller of other people’s destinies that she had supposed him to be in the beginning. But she still looked for insights into his character, his strength of mind.

  ‘What happens,’ she asked, ‘if a German answers?’

  ‘We close down immediately.’

  ‘Just like that. What about Pierre?’

  ‘If the Germans have got hold of his radio, he is either dead or in the hands of the Gestapo.’

  Rachel shivered. ‘Can people really live with something like that hanging over them?’

  ‘It’s not a lot different to being in a campaign. The secret is never to accept that it can happen to you. It’s time.’ She switched on the set, selected the correct wavelength. James sat at the table, adjusted the earphones. ‘Sterling,’ he said. ‘Sterling.’

  There was no reply. He waited for five minutes then said again, ‘Sterling.’

  ‘Sterling,’ said the voice. Rachel gave a thumbs-up sign.

  ‘Thank you,’ James said. ‘Out.’

  ‘Wait!’

  ‘We do not wait.’

  ‘This is urgent. Liane.’

  James drew a sharp breath. ‘Liane is with you?’

  ‘Liane is on the run. She has killed a Gestapo officer.’ For a moment James could not speak. His heart seemed to have stopped beating. ‘Did you hear me?’ Pierre asked.

  James still could only stare at the set. Rachel took the mike from his hand. ‘We hear you. Does this affect your position?’

  ‘It does not appear so. I have been questioned as to when I last saw her, but that was months ago.’

  ‘Then nothing has changed. Carry on. Out.’

  ‘Wait!’ James snatched the mike back. ‘You say she is on the run. Does that mean...?’

  ‘She has not yet been captured. But they are confident of doing so.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘There is no defence. They will cut off her head.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes. I am all right.’

  ‘I am so terribly sorry. Out.’

  The set switched off. Rachel looked at him. ‘That was a long chat. Have we compromised him?’

  ‘Hopefully not, as it was our first call.’ James left the radio table and sat behind his desk. He felt suspended in mid air, one half of his mind saying there must be some mistake, that conversation never happened, the other half screaming, Liane, Liane, in the hands of the Gestapo. And there was no limit to what they could do to her before sending her to the block. While he sat here...

  Rachel stood beside him. ‘This person, Liane, is she very important?’

  ‘She is Pierre’s sister.’

  ‘Oh, dear. I can see that he would be upset. But is her situation dangerous for our set-up? He wouldn’t have told her about it, would he?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so.’

  ‘Then she can’t hurt us, can she? I mean, even if they catch her, and, well...’

  ‘Torture her?’

  ‘I know it sounds grim, sir. But seen against the overall picture...’

  ‘She is also the woman with whom I am in love,’ James said.

  ‘Oh! Oh, my God! I am most terribly sorry, sir. I didn’t know... well...’

  ‘It was not your business. It was nobody’s business, except Liane’s and mine. She was not supposed to get involved.’

  Rachel rested her hand on his shoulder. ‘If there is anything I can do...’

  ‘You can go home. It’s past five. Call it a day.’

  ‘While you stay here, all by yourself?’

  ‘If you stay here, Rachel, I am liable to hurt you.’

  ‘I think it is my business to prevent you from hurting yourself.’ She took off her glasses. ‘What are you going to do to me?’

  She was still standing beside him, and when he turned his head he was looking at her stomach. Do to you? he wondered. Do to you? What would the Gestapo do to Liane? He remembered reading various booklets, propaganda handouts circulated through the troops to keep them informed as to just what they were fighting for. Or against. The Gestapo favoured whipping women. There was a thought to make his blood boil.

  ‘Sir?’ Rachel asked. He raised his head, and the telephone jangled. ‘Shit,’ Rachel muttered, and picked it up. ‘Sterling.’ ‘Sterling,’ said the voice on the other end. ‘Let me speak to Sterling.’

  ‘It’s the brigadier,’ she whispered.

  James took the receiver, and she placed the mouthpiece in front of him. ‘Sterling.’

  ‘Has your man been installed?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I confirmed not ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Very good. I am afraid you will have to contact him again.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘There has been a cock-up, for which you will have to take responsibility.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Your American protegee has done a runner.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘For God’s sake, stop saying “sir”. I have just received a telephone call from Ashley Manor, from Colonel Marsham herself. It seems that your friend has not been amenable to discipline, and when her behaviour became so outrageous as to require disciplinary action, she simply left.’

  Part Three

  Resistance

  ‘What reinforcement we ma
y gain from hope If not what resolution from despair.’

  John Milton

  Seven

  Outlaws

  ‘But... where is she?’ James asked. ‘She was staying at the Dorchester.’

  ‘We checked that out. She hasn’t been there.’

  ‘The embassy...’

  ‘We’ve checked that as well. They don’t know, and we gained the impression that they don’t want to know. Seems she was rude to the ambassador.’

  ‘That sounds about right. But with respect, sir, people do not just disappear, certainly in wartime, with all the restrictions...’

  ‘They can if they have the right connections and sufficient time. Jonsson has had three days.’

  ‘Three days?’

  ‘It appears that she has done this sort of thing before, just taken off. But the last time she came back after two days, and was disciplined. So this time Colonel Marsham waited for her to turn up again. It was only yesterday that she began to worry and decided to call me. Jonsson has both an American and a Swedish passport, as you know, as well as apparently unlimited funds. And we do know that a Swedish ship left Harwich last night. We’re trying to get hold of a passenger list now. But with her connections it is quite possible that they accepted a false name even if it didn’t gel with her passport. I’m afraid it looks like water under the bridge. We can’t involve the police: we don’t want anyone even to suspect the existence of places like Ashley Manor. If, as I suspect, this bitch had you along just so she could get into it and have an exclusive for her paper, we are going to have shit all over our faces. While if she’s a double...

  ‘I can’t believe that, sir. After what happened to her, and the death of her brother, she hates the Nazis.’

  ‘What proof have you got that anything happened to her? Or her brother? So she told you a story, which, conveniently, cannot be confirmed or denied by anybody. And you went for it.’

  ‘There were two of them...’

  ‘That is your only hope, and perhaps ours as well. Tell de Gruchy to get in touch with his sister as rapidly as possible, and have her confirm or deny Jonsson’s story.’