by Ariel Lawhon
The driver whistles one bar of the French anthem.
Bastian whistles the next.
“Vive la France!” the driver responds.
“Get up,” Bastian tells us. “This is your ride.”
“Aren’t you coming?” one of the Frenchwomen asks.
“Non. I’ve done my part. Raoul will take you to the guides.”
The six of us climb onto the back of the lorry while Bastian and Raoul cover us with empty sacks and loose coal.
“No matter what happens, be quiet and be still,” Raoul says when we’re situated. “Sometimes the Germans stop me, but my cargo has never been checked. They don’t like getting their precious uniforms grubby.”
Bastian and Raoul say their good-byes and then the lorry shifts into gear once more and we are on our way. The sacks smell of old cigar smoke and I can feel the grit of coal powder settle into my hair and my clothes with every bump in the road.
True to his word, we are stopped twice, and we listen, breathless, as Raoul presents his papers at the different checkpoints. Once we hear someone walk around the back of the vehicle and one of the bags near the tailgate is poked with a rifle—to ensure it is in fact coal he’s carrying, I suppose—but we’re released without further inspection.
The remainder of the trip takes less than an hour and Raoul finally turns off the engine just after one o’clock in the morning. He bangs on the side of the lorry with his fist. “We’re here,” he says. “You can get out.”
“Where are we?” I ask, looking at the abandoned barn beside his truck.
“At the foothills of the great Pyrenees Mountains. You’ll stay here for the rest of the night. There is hay inside. It won’t keep you warm, but it will stop you from freezing. Your guides will be here at dawn. Sleep while you can. The trek across the mountains takes about two days and once your guides have started, they won’t stop.”
He gets into the lorry and drives off without further comment.
I find an unclaimed corner of the hayloft but do not sleep. I think and I shiver and I worry. The coal dust itches. The hay itches. And I imagine little things crawling over my body. I burrow deeper into the pile and curl into a ball, trying to stay warm.
* * *
—
Our guides arrive just as the sky turns from ink to pewter. I never hear them approach. One moment the barn is silent, except for the scurrying of mice and the hiss of wind, and the next someone is clapping their hands.
“Wake up!” a man commands. He isn’t shouting but his voice sounds loud and authoritative.
Six exhausted, bedraggled, sooty travelers emerge from the hay. Two people stand before us: an older gentleman—easily in his late sixties—and a very pretty young woman.
“I am Jean,” the man says, “and this is my granddaughter Pilar. We will be your guides.”
Pilar is carrying a small mongrel terrier, and she has the longest, thickest hair I’ve ever seen. It is pulled tight, into a single braid that is easily two inches thick, and it falls past her bottom. Her face betrays nothing as she takes stock of us.
“You were given socks, correct?” Jean asks.
“Yes,” I say.
“Good. Keep them dry. You’re going to need them.”
* * *
—
Jean wastes no time getting on our way.
“We will keep to the higher peaks. It’s harder for walking but safer from the Germans. They patrol the lower routes with police dogs,” he tells us thirty minutes later as we begin our ascent into the foothills.
The sky has turned the most astonishing color of lilac and I force myself not to look upward. The path before us is uneven and it is hard to tell what is shadow and what is root in the dim light.
We walk in single file behind Jean, with Pilar bringing up the rear. Jean charges forward at a fast clip, his polished walking stick leaving pockmarks on the path behind him. “We will walk for two hours, then stop and rest for ten minutes,” he says. “When we stop you will remove your shoes, take off your wet socks, and put your dry ones on. You will put your wet socks back on before we begin walking again. Do not fail to do this or your feet will blister and bleed at best. At worst you will get frostbite.”
O’Leary told me that these guides once ushered a prince across the mountains but paid him no special attention. On this journey the guide is king, and his word is law.
* * *
—
The itching begins at noon. We have been walking for a little over six hours and at first I think my clothes have begun to chafe against my skin and the fine layer of sweat that runs across my entire body. But when we stop for our next break and I remove my socks, I see the red blisters on my ankles. A quick inspection finds that they are on my legs, arms, neck, back, and torso as well.
Scabies.
I wasn’t imagining that crawling feeling in the dark last night after all. The hay was infested with mites and they feasted on us while we slept. It takes only a few moments for the others to discover our situation as well. The women cry. The men curse. I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches. I replace my socks with grim determination, realizing that a grueling journey just became a great deal more difficult.
“Time to go,” Jean says as he pops to his feet once more.
We hike through the night and it seems that with every step the temperature drops. Still, we move forward, except for our ten-minute breaks. Jean was right. Our socks are soaked with sweat and the skin of our feet is clammy and white. We blister anyway, but our brief time in the dry socks every couple of hours saves us from further agony.
The higher we climb into the mountains, the more snow we face. Soon it covers the path, soaking our shoes and the first few inches of our trousers. The sky is obscured by heavy, black-bottomed clouds that block the light and predict a day more miserable than the last.
Our bodies have resorted to the rote sort of movements that befall those simply trying to survive. Heads down. Aching joints. Burning muscles. One foot in front of the other.
I have managed not to scratch the sores along my body but that does not stop them from oozing. The thick, sticky liquid begins to seep from my skin at roughly the same time that the blizzard falls upon us. The howling wind and biting shards of ice are the only things that divert my attention from the all-consuming itch that crawls across my body. We cannot stop and shelter because there is no shelter. So we carry on, heads down, tears freezing to our cheeks, teeth chattering, fingernails digging into our palms, forging headfirst into another long, sleepless night.
We follow the pockmarks left by Jean’s walking stick. We follow the footsteps left in the snow ahead of us, warping them with our own. We walk and we walk and we don’t stop until Jean tells us to change our socks. Those of us who have bread left eat it. Those of us who don’t remain hungry. Seconds, minutes, hours. Days or years perhaps. I lose all track of time. This is my life and it feels as though I have always lived along the ragged, hateful cliffs of the Pyrenees Mountains. I am not in Europe, but in purgatory.
I think that Jean does not tell us we are climbing the last mountain because relief would come too soon. We might stop altogether, miles from the end. But as light fills the sky on the morning of our third day we begin the steep descent into a Spanish valley. The snow stops. The wind lessens. Patches of green replace the blanket of white.
Jean stops along a bluff and waits for our eyes to clear, for our minds to register what we are seeing. “Look,” he says. “To the horizon. Do you see the river?”
Yes. We nod, trying to focus on the ribbon of water winding through the valley.
“That is the Riu Rippol. Everything between us and it is the forbidden zone of Spain. But once we cross, we will be out of German-controlled Europe.”
PART FIVE
The White Mouse
> You who suffer because you love, love still more.
To die of love, is to live by it.
—VICTOR HUGO, LES MISÉRABLES
Madame Andrée
SAINT-SANTIN
July 1, 1944
There are seven members of the firing squad. Judex. Gaspard. Hubert. Louis. Anselm. Jacques. And myself. I have exempted Denis from participating, in part because he despises firearms, but also because the only gun he will use—and only when absolutely necessary—is a Welrod pistol with a whopping twelve-inch barrel and a silencer. He’s chosen it because it is quiet, and therefore, in his estimation, civilized. But for this task, the use of rifles is required.
Each of us holds an Enfield rifle with one bullet in the chamber, but because there are two men tied to the trees, five of us have blanks. It is to ease the conscience, to create doubt. Killing an enemy in the heat of battle is one thing. But rendering a death sentence on a fellow soldier who has betrayed his own conscience is not a weight any man should carry alone.
“Do you know their names?” I ask Judex.
He stands beside me, quiet and uneasy, staring at the men blindfolded and tied to the trees. We are only ten feet away. Close enough to see the snot dripping from their noses as they cry. Close enough to ensure that we will not miss.
Judex shakes his head. “Only their faces.”
“Do you want to ask?”
“Non.”
“God knows their names. Pray for them anyway,” I say, then raise the rifle to my shoulder.
Hubert stands to my left and gives the orders. “On my count. Aim for the heart.”
I hear seven people inhale deeply and prepare themselves.
“Ready!” Hubert shouts. “Aim!” And then, a breath later, “Fire!”
One-two.
Three-four-five.
Six.
Seven.
I wonder who hesitated. I wonder who was fast on the trigger. I was somewhere in the middle, though I don’t know where. We stand there for a moment, looking at the two soldiers with hanging heads and spreading red splotches on their chests. With each second that ticks by their skin grows paler, their lips blue. No one moves.
When the echoes have fully gone silent Hubert goes to check their throats for a pulse.
“They’re dead. Take the bodies down,” he says, then looks at me. “There is one more.”
Seven heads turn to look at Marceline. We had agreed she should not die with two flawed, wicked French soldiers. She will meet death alone. Jacques and Anselm set their rifles down and go to her. Each takes an elbow and lifts her to her feet. She doesn’t fight them. Marceline walks to the tree on her own. She presses her back against it. Gives me the glare I have grown to hate. As though everything is my fault. As though I should have left Henri to her and none of this would have happened. Anselm places the blindfold as Jacques secures her to the tree. They return to the line and pick up their rifles.
“Madame Andrée,” Louis says, “I don’t think I can…It seems wrong to kill a woman.”
“It would be. If she were innocent.”
Only two and a half fingers remain on his left hand. Thumb. Ring finger. Half of his pinkie. He cradles the barrel of his rifle in that damaged gap and I feel responsible for all that has happened to him. Everything he has become. He should be holding his wife and baby now, not standing in a field aiming a rifle at a heartless woman.
“I am sorry,” I tell him.
“For what?”
“For everything.” I step out of line and turn to this group of men that I have assembled to be executioners. “I will do it.”
There is another way. No less lethal but perhaps more civilized. I finger the second button on the cuff of my left sleeve. In it lies the cyanide pill I brought from London. They gave it to us so we would have the option of a quick death. A way out when no other way presents itself. I take a step toward her, then hesitate. No. She doesn’t deserve such mercy.
“Get back in line,” Hubert commands. “We do this together.”
It is the first time I can remember Hubert giving me an order. We stare at each other for three long seconds before I resume my place in line.
“Do you have any final words?” I ask Marceline.
She smiles in my direction, then draws her head back, pulling every ounce of spit and phlegm into her mouth. Then she hurls it at me. I do not flinch or step away. It lands three feet from my boot, dripping off the curled leaves of a small fern.
I lift my rifle and look through the sight.
Hubert’s voice rings steady in my ears. “Ready! Aim! Fire!”
YGRANDE
August 10, 1944
“Alex is dead.”
I watch Denis’s face for a response. It is remarkably blank for a man normally possessed of great emotional articulation.
“How?” His voice cracks. He swallows. Shakes his head. And tries again. “How did he die?”
There is no good time to deliver such news. So I waited until Fournier’s group was properly supplied and we had arrived at Tardivat’s encampment near Ygrande.
“The Germans shot him in Bourges,” I say. He stares at me, stricken, as I explain. “He was in a bistro. I was told that he went there the first Saturday of every month. I learned of it when I went to Châteauroux. I’m so sorry. I should have told you sooner.”
Denis is silent for a long time. He nods, then moves as though to get out of the car, and I fear he hates me for delivering this news. For having kept it from him for so long. But then he crumples back into his seat and the look he gives me is one of utter bereavement.
“He was waiting for me,” Denis explains. He shrugs, wipes his eyes on the back of his sleeve, then growls, like he’s trying to dislodge a boulder from his throat. “It’s my fault.”
“No. It’s not,” I tell him. “And I promise you I will kill the man who did this.”
Denis pushes open the car door and gets out. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Duckie.”
“But I can keep this one.”
He turns. Looks at me. “How?”
“Because I know who he is, and where to find him.”
* * *
—
Our work with the Maquis is never finished. Hubert, Denis, Anselm, and I have been accompanied by the eighty men we conscripted from Fournier’s group. As far as we are concerned, they are an official part of the Allied team. I know them each by name, but what’s more, I like them. And I am satisfied that, rather than having political aspirations like Colonel Segal, they simply want to see France rid of foreign occupation.
Tardivat, like Fournier, has been flooded with volunteers escaping the relève. Two years ago Germany began pulling French workers to man their unrelenting war factories. But they did not get the necessary numbers needed, so Vichy has complied with their demands and able-bodied men are now required to join the German workforce. Thus, able-bodied men are vanishing by the thousands and showing up at the doorsteps of every Resistance group in France, this one included. And since we do not want to find ourselves in the same position we were in with Gaspard—surrounded by untrained Maquis and massed in a concentrated area—we determine that the first order of business will be to tighten our security and create a workable escape route. And this can be done only if our small group remains separate from Tardivat’s larger one.
We establish rules. Never remain in one spot for more than a week at a time, no matter how favorable the location. All members of our group will know the next established rendezvous spot should our camp need to be abandoned. In the event of attack, Denis’s radio, transmitter, and wireless equipment will be distributed among various members of the group and brought with us. If Maurice Buckmaster has an issue with that, he can take it up with me directly after the war.
These security measures are put to th
e test within forty-eight hours of our arrival in Ygrande when three of our scouts, led by Louis, creep back to the farmhouse in the dead of night to warn us that a large patrol of German soldiers is approaching.
“How large?” I ask
He hesitates, but only for a moment. “Three hundred. At least.”
“That doesn’t sound like a patrol. That sounds like a search party. What are they looking for?”
“You, I think,” Louis says. “They’ve come from Montluçon. Do we fight? Or retreat?”
Almost four-to-one. Not my favorite odds. We’re armed to the teeth but it’s still not worth the risk. I look at Hubert and he shakes his head.
“Retreat,” he says, and I watch in great delight as each man in the farmhouse slips away to inform his own small group.
Thirty minutes later we watch from a neighboring hill as three hundred Germans waste an ungodly amount of ammunition firing on an empty farmhouse. We’ve lost our shelter for the night, but Denis is still in possession of his equipment, Anselm has confirmed that all our weapons are secure, and Hubert is looking as close to being pleased as I’ve ever seen him.
His expression darkens when he meets my gaze, however. “They’ll be back. You know that, right?”
“Yes.”
“And there will be a hell of a lot more than three hundred next time.”
YGRANDE
August 15, 1944
“Do you know,” I tell Hubert five days later as we stand beneath the overhang of an old barn, “that the Germans have taken to calling us forest terrorists?”
We are studying a map of the Allier in order to find new drop zones for the ever-increasing shipments from London. Like everything else, these have to be moved continually so as not to risk being discovered by the roaming Nazi patrols.