Sisters of the Resistance

by Christine Wells

  Yvette had to restrain herself from falling upon the food like swine at a trough. She made herself take another slow sip of wine before dipping her knife into the pâté and spreading some on a piece of toast. But the urgency she felt made her clumsy. The toast cracked in half in her hand. “What do you do in your job as a diplomat, Monsieur Lind?” she asked, hoping he hadn’t noticed. She selected a piece of shattered toast and nibbled on it. The pâté was gamey and smooth, laced with cognac. Sublime.

  “Please. Call me Vidar.” He waved a hand. “My duties are quite unexciting. Paperwork, mostly.”

  “Really?” She didn’t believe it. He was too vital, too quick-witted, to spend this war sitting behind a desk. “And how does it come about that someone who does mostly paperwork can lay his hands on a bicycle at a moment’s notice, and from a rather shady-looking establishment, too?”

  He sat back in his chair and fiddled with the stem of his wineglass. “There was nothing shady about that alley—except in the literal sense, mademoiselle.”

  “Then why did you tell me to stay in the motorcar?” countered Yvette.

  His eyes crinkled at the corners and he nodded, as if happy to be caught out, the master with an apt pupil. “I did, didn’t I?” He reached for a point of toast and spread pâté on it. “If I tell you why, will you promise to keep the bicycle?”

  As he ate, Yvette hesitated. “You gave me your word that it wasn’t confiscated property. So in that case, I will promise to keep the bicycle, monsieur.”

  He leaned toward her. “The bicycle was police issue. It was acquired by an associate of mine. And, since he owed me a favor, he was happy to hand it over.”

  She gasped. “Police issue? But—”

  He held up a hand. “Remember your promise.” He smiled, a little grimly, she thought. “It wasn’t stolen, I assure you. My associate has connections. He managed to purchase a surplus supply.”

  Yvette stared at him. Whoever heard of there being a surplus of anything in this war? Lowering her voice, she asked, “Is your . . . associate part of the black market, monsieur?” She thought of Monsieur Arnaud and the thug, Rafael, who had beaten him. Clearly, there was a hierarchy of black marketeers. Someone who could lay his hands on a shipment of bicycles was probably more in Friedrich Berger’s league than Monsieur Arnaud’s.

  “One comes across many different characters in my line of work,” said Vidar, as if reading her thoughts. “One deals with people one doesn’t necessarily like. It is all a question of expediency.”

  “I suppose it is expediency that forces such people to extort and beat up elderly men,” she hissed. “I saw a gold-toothed ruffian creating havoc in a bookshop the other day. A fellow by the name of Rafael. He was from the Berger gang, or so the bookseller told me.”

  Vidar nodded. “Protection money. Berger’s men collect a fee from the local businesses every month, in return for not raiding them or smashing up the premises.” He eyed her for a moment, then explained in a low voice, “The Germans have deputized several criminal gangs to do their dirty work. They round up resistance workers, then torture them to give them names of more people in the network.”

  “I have heard about this.” She shivered at her own narrow escape. On the very day she had encountered one of Berger’s men, she had been acting as a courier for the resistance. “What happens to these agents after that?”

  Vidar’s eyes burned like hot coals, though he kept his face neutral. “Some die of the torture. Some are sent to Fresnes or one of the other local prisons, then shipped off to Germany to work in the camps.”

  Suddenly, their opulent surroundings took on a nightmarish aspect. All around them, fine ladies simpered and preened, gentlemen laughed. Did they know what went on right here in Paris, not too far from where they all sat, quaffing wine and sampling delicacies as if rationing had never been invented?

  Yvette pushed her plate away. She had lost her appetite. Vidar cleared his throat. “My apologies. Hardly appropriate dinner conversation.”

  The waiter removed the appetizers and set new plates before them. Some kind of fish in a delicate lemon sauce. New potatoes tossed in butter and parsley. Yvette couldn’t eat a bite.

  She leaned in to continue the conversation. “Berger’s men, they are French, aren’t they? How can they cooperate with the enemy like that?”

  Vidar touched a napkin to his lips. “They might be French but they are first and foremost criminals. The Germans have let them run amok, importing goods and selling them on the black market, rounding up Jews and dissidents and stealing their property. All of it is officially sanctioned. They are untouchable.”

  “But how much longer can they continue to operate?” She glanced around to check no one was within earshot. “Surely the war is almost over. The Allies are marching through France.”

  An impatient shake of the head told her she did not understand. “Listen to me, Yvette. Now that the Allies are so close, it is even more dangerous for people like you. The Germans will want to leave as much destruction as they can in their wake. There will be no mercy for those who resist.”

  Her attention snagged on one phrase: people like you. What did he mean by that? What did he know about people like her?

  She made herself fork a morsel of fish into her mouth, chew and swallow, playing for time, but the tender flesh stuck in her throat. She sipped her wine. “All I want to do is to work in fashion and mind my own business until it’s all over.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Is that why you have been visiting Monsieur Arnaud’s shop and leaving newspapers in the Luxembourg Gardens?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Paris, June 1944

  YVETTE

  Her gaze flew to his, a surge of fear filling her chest. Had she got him all wrong? Would he denounce her in the middle of Maxim’s with all these German officers looking on?

  He smiled. “Oh, I know all about you, Yvette Foucher. But you needn’t look so terrified. I’ll keep your secrets. You have nothing to fear from me.”

  That did not reassure her very much. Carefully, she set her fork on the edge of her plate and did her best impression of Gabby. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I keep my head down. I don’t make trouble. I just want to get through the war.”

  Vidar nodded but his eyes seemed to bore into hers, as if to read the thoughts behind them. “That is a very good plan, Yvette. But you should not go to Chantilly, in that case.”

  She licked her lips. “It is already arranged. It’s too late to back out now.”

  He seemed to accept the rebuff and changed the subject. Dessert came next, but she was so agitated by his sudden revelation that she hardly noticed what she ate. Suddenly, her life was in the hands of Vidar Lind, and she did not like that sensation at all.

  As they left the restaurant, he offered his arm. “Perhaps we might take the long way home?”

  Despite Yvette’s misgivings, a delicious thrill of apprehension shot through her. Did he intend to kiss her tonight? His manner had hardly been romantic. He seemed to find her amusing more than attractive, and his warnings about Chantilly showed he thought her incapable of looking after herself.

  Nonetheless, she tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and let him turn her in the direction opposite to number 10. The evening was sultry, and thunder rumbled in the distance. She felt a confusing mixture of excitement at his closeness and terror at the knowledge that a word to the right quarter and he could have her arrested. “Where are you taking me?”

  “I have no idea,” he said. “Isn’t it nice not to have a plan?”

  Although it was late, they passed many other people along the way, out strolling after an evening on the town. Yvette was in a strange, reckless mood, her attraction to this man heightened by the danger of their shared secret. He had not referred to it again, but it was there, vibrating between them like a tuning fork, a constant hum in the air.

  “Ricky, mein lieber Freund! Wie geht’s?” A large man in a German officer�
�s uniform lumbered toward them, opening his arms wide.

  Vidar’s arm tensed beneath hers. In French, he said, “I’m afraid you have confused me with someone else. Excuse us.” His grip was firm on Yvette’s elbow as he guided her past.

  She was too surprised to resist. “What was all that about?”

  “Keep walking,” answered Vidar. The grim note in his voice made her shut her mouth and do as she was told. They continued at a steady, brisk pace toward the Place de la Concorde.

  Questions bombarded her brain. Was Vidar a spy? He must be if he had found out about her dead drop in the Luxembourg Gardens. Was he working undercover? Was that why that German had greeted him by a different name?

  She followed his lead as he slowed to a meandering stroll. They stopped to peer through shop windows, at the empty shelves inside. They doubled back, turned abruptly down quiet alleys, changed direction once or twice. She recognized the same countersurveillance techniques Catherine Dior had taught her.

  Vidar’s grip on her elbow was not tight, but it felt inexorable. She said, “That German officer knew you. He called you Ricky.” He had also called him “friend.”

  “He mistook me for someone else,” said Vidar.

  That was so blatantly untrue that she opened her mouth to probe further, but he cut her off. “Let it go, Yvette.” His tone made it clear; he was implacable. No matter how persistently she interrogated him, he would never tell her the truth.

  When they passed La Madeleine, she realized they had essentially walked in a circle. She was nearly home again.

  Relief and disappointment mingled in her chest. Would she see him again? Would he kiss her good night? As they approached her front door, she slowed her steps in hope.

  But they’d no sooner reached number 10 than the buzzer went on the street door, signaling that someone—Maman or Gabby—had seen them and released it. With a rueful smile, as if his thoughts ran along the same lines as hers, Vidar took a card case and pencil from his pocket and jotted something down. “If you ever need me, call this number.”

  That sounded very much like a final farewell. “All right, then,” she said, taking the card he offered. She lifted her chin, hoping he didn’t read the disappointment in her eyes. “Goodbye, Vidar.”

  She was about to turn away when suddenly, he gripped her shoulders as if he would either shake her or kiss her. But he did neither. He stared down at her with those deep, world-weary eyes and said, “Don’t go. Chantilly is not the place for you, Yvette.”

  But of course, that only made her more determined to prove him wrong.

  GABBY

  The evening after Yvette left for Chantilly, Gabby waited until her mother was asleep and snoring before she crept across the courtyard to visit her patient. She eased into the building and tiptoed upstairs and along the corridor, careful to be especially quiet as she passed Madame Vasseur’s apartment, so as not to wake Chou-Chou.

  She unlocked the door to Madame LaRoq’s suite and eased it open, then went to the spare bedroom. Since the day she and Liliane had carried their patient there, she had not had the heart to move him back to his original hiding place.

  At first, Jack had seemed to improve. The wound to his shoulder was healing. He would talk to her about his home in the English countryside and ask about her childhood on the farm before Papa died. But after a few days, his eyes seemed to glaze over and his cheeks grew flushed. When pressed to describe his symptoms, he admitted to a sore throat and headache, and it was clear that breathing was becoming a struggle. A hand pressed to his brow told Gabby he was feverish, burning.

  Gabby soaked towels in water and gave him sponge baths to try to cool him down, but the effects didn’t last. He needed medicine, but who could come by medicine in times like these? There was no doctor she could trust. Perhaps Yvette’s Swedish diplomat could help, but Yvette had left for Chantilly with her movie star friend and Gabby didn’t feel she could visit the consulate to inquire.

  She perched on the edge of Jack’s bed and took his hand in hers. His eyes opened and slowly focused. Then he smiled and her heart grew warm and soft in her chest.

  She had to save him. She simply had to.

  His eyelids seemed too heavy to keep open. He sighed, and her name was just a whisper on his lips. He fell into a fitful doze.

  She did not like the sound of his breathing. She tried pressing her ear to his chest. There was a distinct, rattling wheeze. Might it be a chest infection rather than the wound that was making him feverish? How could she tell? If only Catherine Dior would come back. But Gabby wouldn’t relinquish this burden now, even if Catherine offered to take it from her.

  Jack grew hot again, restless, as if he were trying to find a cool place on the pillow to lay his head. His blond hair was dark with sweat, plastered to his forehead. She ought to give him another sponge bath. It seemed such an inadequate measure, it made her want to cry.

  Would Jack die here, alone in a foreign country? The Allies were fighting their way through northern France, but not fast enough. If only he could hang on until they took Paris. If only she might save him.

  A knock fell on the door, a faint rat-tat . . . rat-tat-tat. Liliane.

  “I’ve found a doctor. He’ll come tomorrow,” she said in a low voice. “It’s all right. He is one of us.”

  Relief flowed like alcohol through Gabby’s veins. “You are sure he can be trusted?”

  “Yes. I’m sure. As sure as anyone can be, these days.” Liliane checked on Jack and her expression darkened. “I hadn’t banked on this fever. It is taking too long for him to get better, far longer than I’d thought. We need him to walk out of here on his own two feet.”

  “There is not much I can do with homemade remedies,” said Gabby. Even herbs were hard to come by. “I try to keep the fever down, give him fluids.” She spread her hands. It was far too little.

  “I’m sure you’re doing everything you can.” Liliane licked her lips. “There are more men like him,” she said. “Not injured, but needing sanctuary until we can get them out.”

  All these people needing sanctuary . . . The implication was clear, but Gabby’s instinct was to protest and deny. Wasn’t one secret enough? She risked her life for the man in madame’s spare bedroom, but she’d accepted that because she’d had little choice, and . . . well, because she had a tenderness for him, if she was honest with herself. But a stream of strangers putting not only her but her mother and sister, possibly everyone in the building, in grave danger? No. Too much could go wrong.

  “Think about it,” said Liliane, pressing her shoulder. “You said there were more spare apartments around the building. I know it is a risk, but we must all do what we can.”

  * * *

  WHEN THE DOCTOR attended Jack at last, he confirmed Gabby’s fears. “Pneumonia. His right lung is very congested.”

  Taking off his coat, he rolled up his sleeves and showed Gabby a technique she could use to break up the congestion, pummeling the man’s chest, kneading it like bread dough. Gabby winced when the action made Jack moan in pain, then clamp his teeth down hard on the wad of cloth the doctor had shoved in his mouth.

  “His wound!” gasped Gabby. “Please be more careful.”

  The doctor grunted as he worked. “I am being as gentle as I can.”

  “Is there no cure?” Gabby asked. “No medicine for this?”

  He rolled down his sleeves and shrugged into his coat. “Sulfa pills. If by some miracle you could get hold of some, they would inhibit the growth of bacteria.” He jotted down the dosage for her. “In the meantime, rest, plenty of fluids, and use that massage technique I showed you once a day.”

  “But without the medicine . . .” Gabby struggled to form the words. “Will he die?”

  The doctor looked grave. “He is malnourished and weak. You must prepare yourself for the worst.”

  “How do we get our hands on those pills?” But the doctor only shook his head and left.

  Liliane set her jaw. “I will ask
my contacts about these sulfa pills, but unfortunately an escaped English spy is not a high priority.”

  “Escaped?” repeated Gabby. “How did he get caught?”

  Liliane raised her eyebrows. “I thought you wanted to know nothing about it.”

  When had she said that? She wanted to learn every last detail. Liliane was regarding her with a knowing smile but Gabby refused to rise to the bait. “Either way, I am doomed if they find him. Tell me. You know I can be discreet.”

  So Liliane explained. “He was operating north of Paris. One of the captains in his circuit was caught and betrayed him under torture. He should have run as soon as he heard the members of that circuit were taken but he insisted on carrying out his last mission in Paris. He was shot in a melee, then taken to a place on rue Lauriston and tortured there. Somehow, he managed to escape and evade capture until one of our people found him half-dead at a safe house nearby. There was nowhere else to take him at that time, so in desperation, Catherine brought him here.”

  By the end of this recital, Gabby was struggling to hold back tears. Of pride in Jack’s bravery and of horror at what he must have suffered. “So, the marks on his body—”

  “Are thanks to those thugs who held him,” said Liliane. “The pneumonia is probably a result of the baignoire. They plunge their victims into an icy bath, almost drowning them, over and over, until they talk.”

  Gabby shuddered. A murderous rage bubbled up inside her. “The Boches, they are barbarians.”

  “Yes. But these were not the Germans,” said Liliane quietly. “What makes it so much worse is they were Frenchmen. The Bonny-Lafont gang.” Liliane’s expression darkened. “But they will get what is coming to them when this war is over, mark my words.”

  Gabby hesitated. “Those others. The ones you want me to hide. Are they escaped prisoners also?”