Liberation

  Still, they were angry at her. About Anne, about Denden, and so they tried to suppress their pleasure at the idea. Christ, it was like dealing with schoolboys. Anne came in with the rolls. She’d managed to filch some butter from the general store. The smell was divine. They leaped on it. Mateo couldn’t even wait to butter his, just biting down through the crust and casting his eyes up to heaven. Yeah, they’d forgive anything now. Men.

  Nancy spread the butter slowly, getting ready to savor it. Tardivat pointedly ignored the plate, pointing at the map instead.

  “If we can find a route here, and I know a tracker there I trust. We’ll be able to use the higher ground to fire down on them. Turn that whole section of road into a killing field.”

  It was a good idea. She set down her roll for a second. “How many men would we need?”

  Mateo grunted. She looked at him, wondering if he had some issue with the plan. He had his hand on his throat and his skin was red and livid.

  “Mateo, shit, are you choking? Greedy bastard. Hit him on his back, Gaspard, give him a drink of water.”

  Gaspard laughed, and clapped him on the back. The coughing increased and a bubbling pool of drool gathered at the corner of Mateo’s mouth. He started scrabbling at his throat, then coughed again. Blood spattered across the map.

  “Fuck!” Gaspard shouted and grabbed the water cup, trying to force it between Mateo’s lips, but Mateo pushed him away, staggered to his feet and out of the bus, then collapsed.

  “It’s poison!” Fournier said following, and dropped on his knees beside Mateo.

  Footsteps thundered down the path, and a group including the other Spanish lads emerged, guns at the ready, to see their friend and brother thrashing on the grass. Mateo convulsed.

  “Role him on his side!” Nancy said. She crouched down next to him, putting her hand under his head.

  He stared at her, his eyes filled with panic; the blood from his mouth streamed over her wrist. She stroked his hair, tried to meet his gaze, but his eyes were darting all over. She could not tell if he knew her. She said his name again and again, quietly, clearly.

  His body convulsed again, then stiffened, the muscles on the side of his neck stood out like ropes and he gave a wet, rattling gasp. His eyes went blank. It was impossible. It was true.

  Nancy stood up. From behind the Spanish boys and the others Anne was watching them. Nancy started to run. The girl turned and darted into the forest, west up the slope toward the promontory. Nancy moved fast, unthinking. Anne was crying, yelping as she ran and Nancy gained on her steadily, her heart pumping hard but with no doubt as to the outcome. The girl had nowhere to go.

  Anne broke through the trees on the promontory and just managed to stop herself on the edge of the rock face, her arms windmilling. She stumbled backward onto the rough grass, then rolled over to see Nancy blocking her retreat. She slid back toward the edge on her belly.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Anne.”

  Nancy took a step forward; Anne slithered back again. God, the terror on her face. The wild animal terror. Nancy took a long breath.

  “You didn’t want to hurt us, did you? Someone made you do this?”

  Anne blinked, but Nancy thought she caught a tiny nod.

  “I understand… I understand. Now, just come back from the edge. Let’s talk, you and me. I won’t hurt you.”

  Anne’s eyes were crazed, darting left and right.

  “Anne, I won’t let any one else hurt you either, I give you my word.”

  Nancy edged closer, put out her hand. And this time Anne took it.

  The poisoned bread was burning in a covered camp fire. The men watched Nancy march Anne between them and into the bus. She saw the look in Tardivat’s eyes as they passed. He was asking her a question and she didn’t know the answer yet.

  The blood-spattered map was still on the table. Nancy left it there.

  “Tell me everything.”

  The girl was shaking, hard, like someone with a fever.

  “Come on, Anne, the better angels of my nature say we can solve our problems with talking, so talk.”

  “The man from the Gestapo… he said it was my duty. That I was special.”

  Böhm. Of course it was him.

  “When?” Nancy asked.

  Anne looked around as if she was expecting the officer in question to pop out from behind one of the seats.

  “When did he tell you this? Last night?”

  “He came to the café, minutes after you left. After your friend took you to his barn. We all knew he’d been renting it from M. Boutelle. I remember I was still crying. He was very interested when I told him my name, that we’d spoken. He was kind. The Germans are trying to build a better world. The Jews and foreigners are trying to stop them. He said it was because of women like you… You forced the Germans to do things they didn’t want to do. Like burn down farms. He said if you and your men were gone, there would be peace. He said many things. He gave me the stuff to put in your food. He sent me after you.”

  Someone must have spotted Nancy before she’d even got to the bar. She had a fleeting image of the man passing them in the street.

  “He said he’d protect my family! That I must be brave for them! He said he’d protect me!”

  Nancy could feel the anger bubbling in her veins. She’d seen herself in this girl.

  “He can’t. Only I can do that, Anne.” Anne. “Did you tell him what I said about the book?” Anne shook her head, confused. Böhm had known already what Nancy’s favorite book was. “And Böhm told you to say you had run away from your mother?”

  A nod.

  “You know how he got that information?” Nancy said at last. “He got it from torturing my husband, you Nazi bitch.”

  She grabbed hold of Anne’s arm, dragging her out of the bus. She tried to resist, crying and screeching, grabbing onto the old seats, the edge of the door, but she was weak and Nancy had grown strong.

  “You said you wouldn’t hurt me!” she screamed as Nancy threw her onto the floor at Tardivat’s feet.

  He hauled her upright, grabbed hold of her right arm; Rodrigo gripped her left.

  “I guess that makes us both lying cunts,” Nancy spat the words out.

  What had Böhm done to Henri to make him give up all those small secrets of the past? Her family, her favorite book. She felt the dry heat of her old hiding place under the porch in Sydney, reading by the light which shone in bright bars through the floorboards. The threat of her mother’s footsteps above.

  Nancy unholstered her pistol, and offered it to Juan. “She murdered your brother.”

  He shook his head. “She’s just a girl.”

  Anne sank down between the men holding her. “Let me go, I’m sorry, I’m sorry… You’ll never see me again…”

  “Tardi?”

  “I cannot.”

  “Fine.”

  Nancy lifted the gun. Anne’s head snapped up and she stared into Nancy’s eyes.

  “He’s dead! Your husband. Major Böhm said to his captain it was a shame he hadn’t lasted longer, as he’d been so helpful.” Nancy began to squeeze the trigger and the girl’s face distorted into a vicious grimace. “Heil Hit—”

  Nancy fired twice. The girl’s body jerked in Tardi’s arms and they dropped her. Nancy re-holstered the gun and stalked off into the woods, leaving the men to clear up the mess.

  She went straight up to the promontory and made it to the edge before she fell to her knees. Her hands were shaking again. She needed a moment, just a moment. Her mind would not give it to her. Henri was dead. Tardi was right, Böhm had lied. She could hear the rattle of blood in Mateo’s throat, she could feel Anne’s thin wrist in her grip, she could see the girl’s final look of murderous rage.

  There could be no peace now, not for her. Buckmaster and his type thought peace was just the end of fighting, the German army rolled up neatly, the French free and grateful. The end is near, Nancy! He was a fool. They were all fools. This hell had no e
nd, just different colors and flavors.

  The rope Denden had used to show her how to hang over the cliff was still there. Just ordinary rope, like the one the Germans had used to make nooses for the one-armed farmer and his wife. Nancy rose, picked it up. One end was still firmly attached to the tree. They were at peace now. That was peace. Not in heaven, not hell, just a place of silence where you did not have to think, to remember.

  Nancy made a loop.

  No love, no hate. No bullies, no propaganda, no children desperate with loathing for revenge. No rage, no guilt. No Henri.

  She fitted the rope around herself.

  She must look a sight. Instinct is a powerful thing. She took the compact from her pocket, flicked it open and looked at herself, wiping the corner of her mouth as she caught her own gaze.

  The rage and disgust lifted her in a wave, and she threw it, Buckmaster’s sweet little goodbye, hope-you-don’t-get-tortured-and-starved-to-death gift hard over the edge of the cliff—then she gave chase and threw herself forward into the void.

  And was caught.

  Her feet on the crumbling edge, her arms forward like a skydiver, the rope around her waist taut. The knot gave a little and she jerked forward an inch. It made her smile. Perhaps it would give. Come on, God, if you’re there. I’m easy pickings. Perhaps she and all her sudden talent for death would disappear into the clear air of the Cantal and her flesh would feed the trees and rot away her sin.

  But the rope held and she stared down and out into the valley. She thought of Böhm. That curious gentle smile that told her he was content with his world. He was in Montluçon now, at his desk, signing his forms. This prisoner dies, that village to be burned to the ground, these men to be beaten till their own mothers wouldn’t know them, these to be crammed into a stinking cattle cart and carried off to Germany. He wasn’t in hell. How could that be? She shifted her weight and lifted her arms high.

  She was mistress of the void. She would bring hell to him.

  51

  Tardivat hated the idea, of course. His first impulse had been to comfort her, offer sympathy, having understood what it meant to have Anne throw Henri’s death in her face. When she told him her intentions had changed, but not her destination, he stalked off, but not before telling her it was a suicidal, idiotic thing to do, a waste of resources and men.

  “We will come, mon colonel,” Rodrigo said. “Me and Juan. I won’t let this go unavenged.”

  “Exactly!” Denden said, hitting the table so the dirty cups rattled. Anne’s cup. “This is just revenge! Revenge for Mateo, revenge for your husband.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with that?” Nancy said, opening a case of grenades and passing belts of them to the two Spaniards.

  “Your mission here is supposed to be for all of us,” Denden replied. “For everyone the Nazis have killed, and for every life they intend to take. That’s what you were trained for.”

  René scratched his ear. “I don’t care why she’s killing them as long as the Nazis end up dead. I’m in.”

  Denden tried again. “You’re playing his game, Nancy.”

  “Enough!” Nancy shot him a dark look. “Gentlemen, I appreciate your concern; you don’t have to come. But I will not, cannot let this stand.” She turned to Juan. “Be ready in an hour. You too, René.”

  “Can I bring my toys?” René blinked at her.

  “Sure.”

  “Yes! Come on, boys. Let’s gather up some more volunteers.”

  Denden watched through the window as René bounced off across the camp.

  “He’s mad. You know that, Nancy?”

  She shrugged. “We’re all mad now. You have the latest instructions from London, Denden.” She handed him the notes she had made the day before, in those delicate hours when she thought she could save Henri. “What’s due to the families of the fighters is in here. Coordinates for possible drops and locations of the arms caches. Usual codes. You know what to do if I don’t make it back.”

  He slipped it into his back pocket and got slowly to his feet, the bruises he had taken the previous day making him move like an old man. “I know. But make it back.”

  When he had gone Nancy picked up her red satin cushion and used the nail scissors to pick apart the seam at the back, then felt around in the stuffing. There were perhaps a dozen pills; they looked like pearls in the gloom of the bus. Cyanide. The plan had been to sew one into the seams of each of her shirts, an insurance policy against the Gestapo. Of course, no one at SOE had told them to kill themselves if they were taken. The pills were simply presented, very politely, as an option. Can’t stand the torture? Want the rape and the beatings to stop? Can’t live with the shame of having betrayed your people? Don’t want to risk giving them up? Take one of Doctor Buckmaster’s patent cures and worry no more.

  The rumor at Beaulieu was that people didn’t take them, but somehow having the option of ending things made the horror a little easier to bear. Maybe, but she knew suicide would never be her way, never be a comfort, no matter what happened. She reached into her bag again and pulled out a half bottle of cologne. Another gift from Baker Street. She unscrewed the atomizer and tipped the pills in, then watched as the fatal tablets dissolved, turning that pretty, expensive scent poisonous.

  The tide really was turning. The madam in Montluçon agreed to take Nancy to headquarters for only a thousand francs and her wedding ring. They talked in the kitchen of her quiet little house in the back streets. Nancy was surprised at how easily she handed the ring over. It was just a trinket now. She wanted Henri, not that little band of gold.

  “And a paper,” the madam added.

  “What paper, Madame Juliette?” Nancy had insisted on getting a dress as part of the bargain, and was trying it on now, admiring herself in the full-length mirror. It was cunningly cut, full length in dark blue cotton, but it brushed Nancy’s curves. Just the right level of suggestion without being too obvious on the street.

  “You must sign this. With your real name.”

  Nancy turned from the mirror to see Madame Juliette had been busy writing something.

  “What is it?”

  Madame Juliette held herself very upright in her chair. “I am leaving the town to stay with my sister in Clermont, now, the moment we have done what we need to do. The Germans are losing. When they lose, the people will say I collaborated. This paper says I have been a very good friend of the Resistance.”

  Nancy looked at her. Sleek and well fed. No doubt her clients had been feeding her little extras from the day the Germans arrived in Montluçon. Interesting. Fournier’s men said the fighters who had arrived at their camp since D-Day smelled of mothballs and farmers who had refused them help last year now trekked for hours to offer them delicacies from their fields. Even with the reprisals, they knew in the end the Germans would be gone. Accounts would be called in.

  Nancy took her pen and as she signed, against all the rules that had been drummed into them at Beaulieu, “Nancy Fiocca, née Wake,” she heard Juliette release a shuddering sigh.

  “I shall take you to the gatehouse,” she said. “None of my girls are in tonight, but I am not the only whoremonger in town, Madame. Other girls might be entertaining the officers.”

  “That’s their bad luck,” Nancy replied and handed back the pen. She’d let Madame Juliette run, but that didn’t mean every collaborator in town was going to be handled gently. “You have the paper. Take me there.”

  52

  Juliette led her past the main door and into a side street. The Gestapo headquarters, a former hotel, faced onto the busy square near the train station, and every day the populace of Montluçon could see the officers in their SS uniforms, their black leather coats, welcoming in the town council members for meetings and briefings. The people watched them, and passed by as quickly as they could. Before the war, taxis and private cars dropped businessmen and tourists in front of the elegant portico, but their luggage as well as all the food and linen flowing in and out of the hote
l was taken into the yard at the rear. Now it was via that yard the real business of the Gestapo happened—the vans rolling in at all times of the day and night, the guards ticking off lists as men, women and children, dumb with fear, were lifted down like livestock and hustled in through the old service doors and down into the cells.

  And this way too came the pleasures the officers enjoyed—the luxury goods plucked from cellars, shops and abandoned villas, and the women. Four sentries guarded the gateway into the yard: two on raised platforms, which gave them a view of the yard itself and the road leading to it, and two others ready to lift the barrier and check the names on their lists. The sentry stared hard at Nancy, and she lowered her eyes, afraid he’d caught the flash of hatred in them. She could feel darkness in her blood and bones so poisonous she was sure she could kill this man with a touch of her fingertip.

  “She’s not the usual girl,” the sentry said. “Captain Hesse normally likes them a bit plumper than this piece.”

  Nancy felt his eyes slither over her.

  “Sophie is sick,” Juliette said. She sounded bored, irritated. A born actress, Nancy thought, but then maybe whores had to be. “Captain Hesse said this girl would do. Now, you want to keep him waiting?”

  The sentry shrugged and made a note on his logbook. “Chicken for the captain’s table,” it said.

  Juliette was gone, back into the night at once. The sentry put out his hand, clicked his fingers and Nancy handed him her bag. He opened it. Lipstick. Scent. A couple of foil-wrapped condoms. Then he handed it back with a sniff and led her from the gate to the service door. Nancy wasn’t the first SOE officer to come this way. She thought about what she had heard of Maurice Southgate, the man captured just before she dropped into France. She thought of the two wireless operators who had disappeared through these doors into the fog and darkness at the same time and wondered if they were still alive somewhere in a camp. She thought of Henri and clenched her fists, driving her nails into her palms.