For a long time after he had left her, she was unable to function. Then slowly, as if she still couldn’t face what was to come, she wheeled the bike through the ruins of the town until she came to two of its remaining buildings: the red brick hôtel de ville and Kommandantur, with its bomb-damaged white stone belfry, and the much older, much taller two Gothic towers of the Church of Saint-Vulfran, whose roof had collapsed in places. Nearly everything else in the centre of Abbeville had been reduced to rubble by the Stuka attacks of 20 May 1940 and the ensuing firestorm. Built mainly in the sixteenth century, over two thousand houses had simply been turned into an inferno out of whose ashes had risen, she was certain, a hatred of the Occupier that could only have festered during the past three years.
Seen from the ruins, the bicycle with its suitcase was leaning against the wall and had been left unlocked, thought Angélique, but as Isabelle Moncontre went up the steps of the Kommandantur and hôtel de ville, this résistante must have remembered that theft could happen even on a Sunday and in a place such as this, and that though there were two Wehrmacht sentries on duty, even they could not be entirely trusted.
Returning to put the lock on, she paused to look uncertainly across the barren wasteland of what had once been the heart of a fine old town. Then she, too, like all others who had got off that train, went in to register or to report her return, for this was indeed the Forbidden Zone but with that little added emphasis of the top-secret things that were going on in Bois Carré.
The suitcase had remained behind.
‘Martin. Martin, listen to me, please,’ said Angélique. ‘Before we meet monsieur le maire, who will have come in from his Sunday off, as will all of the others, I have to have your answer or can’t continue.’
He didn’t say a thing, just kept watching that suitcase, and when she insisted on an answer, he picked up a flat chunk of plaster and sent it whistling among the ruins. ‘Martin!’ she snapped. ‘Ah, mon Dieu, idiot, that novice we saw was the girl who rescued us, but was that priest really your father?’
Silently he let that dumb-ox gaze of his settle on her until, furious with him, she again wanted to slap his face. ‘Please,’ she begged, restraining herself.
Her clothes were a mess, her hair too. A ruined wall was behind her. There was a window above her and, yes, a charred timber that could fall at any moment. You slept with my father so many times, he said, letting her read his lips. You lay naked in his arms and yet you can’t even say it was him?
‘Must you torment me like this?’
There were tears, and she said that if that priest really had been his father, then things had changed him terribly. ‘When he looked at me, Martin, there was no longer any love or even recognition.’
Then there, you have your answer, he said, letting her read his lips. Maybe it’s that you are no longer the temptation you once were.
‘Listen you, if it was your father, we must tell the mayor the truth.’
You’ll be shot.
‘That’s a sacrifice I’ll have to make.’
Now tears filled his eyes and he wanted to hit her, to kick and punch and yell at the top of his lungs—yes, yes, just to show her he could really speak!
But … but what about the Mademoiselle Isabelle? he silently asked, nodding towards the bike. What about the orders she gave us? Are they not his orders?
‘Then it was him, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘And me, I can only hope you’re right.’
The smell of the ruins came to them, that of plaster dust, cordite and ashes that seemed never to dry but in the heat of a summer’s afternoon gave up their dampness to sting the nostrils.
Stooping to pick up the suitcases, she found that he had got to them first. ‘Merci,’ she said. ‘That’s better. Now come on, let’s get it over with. Me, I don’t like lying to anyone. Lies always have a way of coming back to haunt a person.’
Even lies to the SS? he asked and knew she was thinking of the Major Kraus and the Colonel Dirksen.
Canals had serviced the docks, the dye-works, textile mills and warehouses that were now no more but for the accusing fingers of their red brick, often half-ruined chimneys. Still choked with rubble and flooded by the gates downstream that held back the water, the canals stank of sewage and rotting vegetation.
Hortillonnages—market gardens—formed hectares of lush green, rectangular islands both upstream and downstream and these had been put back into use that first summer. Among the open stretches of water there were wooden landings and walkways, and the tarred, flat-bottomed boats the farmers used. But of the quaint old houses and narrow streets with names like that of the He-Mules or the Bridge-for-the-Wheelbarrows, there were no more.
‘Martin … Martin, why did your father not give us some sign? A smile, a lift of his hand—a signal just to let us know he loved us?’
He’s not in love with you anymore, he wanted so much to say but would have to touch her hand since that would calm her a little.
Kissing him on the cheek, she brushed a hand over his hair and said, ‘You’re forgiven, I think. It’s not been easy, has it, this trip?’
The bicycle with its suitcase was gone and when they went into the hôtel de ville, monsieur le maire was not waiting for them. The little room the Germans had given him for an office was empty.
Angélique collapsed against a wall and for a moment, the sickness rose in her throat and she shut her eyes, tried to stop herself from thinking, He’s been arrested. Arrested! But everything was going round and round. The Kommandantur, the long counter with its brown linoleum top, its signs and notices in French and in German. For the acts of terrorism on 13 August 1943, the following … Ten this time in Amiens and where must it all end?
Martin was tugging urgently at her hand. There was still no sign of the mayor—why wasn’t he here to meet them?
The counter, indicated Martin. Madame Dussart and Frau Hössler were waiting.
‘Ah, forgive me,’ she managed, her voice sounding overly loud in the near-emptiness of the place. ‘The stomach upset. The food in Paris, it … it was not so good as everyone says. At least, not for us, of course.’
Finding their papers, she spread them on the counter before Véronique Dussart, a coworker she knew well yet who didn’t even smile now or let any warmth enter those lovely blue eyes that could, in reflective moments, become so sad but were now far too wary. There was no recognition whatsoever from Frau Hössler who stood stiffly and unyieldingly to the left. Both of them were blondes, but here the similarities ended except for this … this new coldness.
‘Véronique, what’s happened? Monsieur le maire, has he been … ?’
In her midthirties, and with a husband languishing in a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany and all her petitions for his return rejected, Véronique Dussart had much to be bitter about. Three children and living with her in-laws in two crowded rooms. Work six and seven days a week and no one to share her loneliness at night.
Of medium height, she had always held herself well and had been proud and defiant, never underhand, but now? wondered Angélique. Now … ?
There was lipstick and a little rouge to accent the clear skin that would still be the envy of others when she was much older. The face was thin, the hair in curls and waves, the forehead high, the nose a little too sharp perhaps, but the eyebrows long and beautifully curved, the eyes moist.
Quickly using the cancellation stamp on the laissez-passers, she stamped the sauf-conduits too, ticked off the identity cards, nervously flipped through the ration books, wrote down their names, the date and time, and passed everything along the counter to Frau Beate Hössler, but said nothing. Absolutely nothing. ‘Aren’t you even curious about how we got along?’
Still there was no answer, only an increased moistening of the eyes and the nervousness of fingers that flew away as her back was turned.
‘Someone did their duty,’ grun
ted Frau Hössler. ‘The terrorist Doumier was apprehended in Paris and killed. She suspects yourself of telling the authorities, as do others. The trip to Paris was perhaps your reward.’
Ah no. ‘My reward? And do you think this too?’
The woman didn’t even shrug. In her thickly atrocious French, she simply said, ‘I, too, must do my duty.’
Greying rapidly, the woman had bleached her black hair and then had dyed it blond, but the colour these days wasn’t so dependable, the shade could change from week to week, and always the roots showed through. A war widow who had lost her husband on the Somme in 1940, she had shaved off her eyebrows to catch another man perhaps, but had used pencil to replace them without much success. Powder and rouge might have helped, were it not for the lipstick she wore, and perhaps she really had been loved by that husband. Who was to say? She had followed in his footsteps to tend his grave and do her part to oversee those responsible for his death, the French. A Blitzmädel, one of the rank and file. From Upper Swabia. Sweat stains surrounded the armpits of the field-grey tunic that bulged.
‘Doumier … ?’ managed Angélique as the woman scrutinized their papers. ‘I don’t even know who you mean.’
‘Of course. It’s what the Oberst Lautenschläger has said.’
Ah, grâce à Dieu for that one, but what had happened to the mayor?
‘Your ration tickets,’ said the woman. ‘There are too many.’
‘We skipped a lot of meals, Frau Hössler. There was so little food in Paris, it … well, it seemed the only thing to do. Are they now out of date?’
Brusquely the head was shaken. The slablike cheeks moved and the big, blocky face with its overripe lips and flaring nostrils became grim with determination. ‘I will remove four meat tickets, six each for the bread and the same for the butter and cheese.’
And damn the woman. ‘There was no butter, nor was there any cheese.’
‘That is impossible. Paris has everything.’
Not even bread or milk. ‘Look, we didn’t eat in any of the black-market restaurants so as to avoid using those.’
‘The black market? What, please, is this to which you are referring?’
The pudgy fingers gripped the ration tickets as if to tear them apart.
‘You took food to Paris. This I know,’ said Beate. ‘It was illegal. That, too, was a privilege you were given, but it is one that I must question.’
And had others thought it a privilege?
The big lips moved again. ‘Just because you are employed here does not mean you can disobey the rules.’
‘We didn’t! Martin … Martin, did we break any rules?’ Had the mayor been arrested?
The emptiness of the boy’s gaze was far from good, felt Beate, but he did look thinner and paler than usual. Ein Kind der Liebe,* and unhealthy like so many French children.
She clucked her tongue and pursed her lips. ‘Very well, for Martin’s sake, I allow the return of the unused tickets this time.’
‘That’s really very kind of you.’ But the booklets were still being withheld.
‘Well, what did the specialist say?’ asked the woman.
‘That we must return in a week. He … he thinks hypnosis might help.’
Then the disease was a matter of the mind. ‘It’s nothing. You needn’t be so worried. One is just put to sleep and then awakens at the snap of the fingers.’
‘Yes … Yes, I guess that’s how it will be if … if we’re allowed to return. That’s why I have to see the mayor, Frau Hössler. Where is he?’
Véronique, with her back to them, was standing so still it was evident a breath was being held.
‘He is with the Oberst Lautenschläger at the château,’ said Frau Hössler. ‘The Hautpmann Scheel and the Sturmbannführer Kraus will take you there.’
Kraus, ah no.
In splodges, daubs and full, bold strokes whose white paint had run, the huge letters cried out, NOUS LES AURONS! MORT AUX BOCHES! LES CORBEAUX AU POTEAU!
We’ll get them! Death to Germans. The crows, the writers of poisoned-pen letters and the informants, up against the post!
And then, along a little farther on that same ruined wall of that same brick warehouse, RAPPELEZ-VOUS DOUMIER. Remember Doumier.
Perhaps two hundred carefully tied bunches of red chrysanthemums lay below the surveyor’s name. A dozen workmen in faded bleus de travail were trying to remove the letters but hadn’t stepped on any of the flowers. Their work was slow, and when questioned angrily by Kraus who had the car stopped, they said the paint had seeped into the pores of the bricks.
‘THE FOOLS!’ he shrieked in Deutsch. Livid at such insolence, he smashed the foreman in the face and sent him flying.
Stunned and bleeding, the man tried to get up but knew he shouldn’t, and when the jackboot came at him, the sound of breaking ribs could be heard.
Blood bubbled from his lips. His eyes rolled up.
‘You’ve punctured a lung,’ said the Hautpmann Scheel. ‘You had no right to injure him.’
‘I HAVE EVERY RIGHT!’ shrieked Kraus. One didn’t need an interpreter to understand. ‘This district is to be placed under SS jurisdiction.’
‘Not yet, Sturmbannführer. I still have my orders. My commanding officer must be consulted.’
‘Consult if you wish, but have that one taken to the cells.’
‘To the hospital, I think, and quickly.’
‘How dare you countermand me in front of them? There’s a crisis in Abbeville. This … this …’—Kraus indicated the slogans on the wall—‘is evidence enough. An armed insurrection is imminent.’
‘No it isn’t. Oberst Lautenschläger has …’
‘Arrested that mayor?’
The Hauptmann Scheel saw no further sense in continuing the argument in front of listeners, all of whom would soon repeat what had been said, and any of whom could well belong to the Banditen.
Scheel was young, perhaps twenty-eight, but battle hardened. Calmly he slid the car into gear but paused to nod at the cluster of men. They were to take the foreman to the hospital. The car, and the camouflaged lorry full of armed soldiers of the Waffen-SS that followed, came to a turning, Martin looking back, Angélique too.
Already a two-wheeled cart had been found and the man lain in it. But had the mayor been arrested? she wondered, silently crossing herself, for if the Waffen-SS were to take over security, Kraus would pull out her fingernails, have her half beaten to death, and then use the bathtub.
Panicking at the thought, she gripped Martin’s hand and held it tightly against the leather of the seat.
She was fighting for control, he realized, and moving closer, pushed himself right up against her. I’m sorry, he said, mouthing the words, though she couldn’t see his lips to read them.
Among the trees and underbrush there was a stillness that made her listen, felt Marie-Hélène. Pausing with the bike she was pushing, she let the wooded scarp come down to her from the plateau above. A spring issued from the base of the scarp. Like so many along the valley of the Somme, its waters fed a river that hardly moved, but here the spring was anxious, and in the near-silence of the day she could hear its faint trickling.
The woman had been right. A narrow path led to a rock-laid basin, a mere cup in the hillside. To meet at any time was dangerous—yes, of course, and she didn’t like the thought of it, but Kraus had forced the issue. Châlus as well, if it really had been him. There had been no sign of the mayor and there should have been. The Bellecour woman and the boy had had to go into the Kommandantur to sign in, and they would have been expecting the mayor to have been there to meet them, but he hadn’t and the two at the counter hadn’t looked happy either. Indeed, when the Blitzmädel had left them momentarily alone, the other one had all but burst into tears when spoken to.
So, there, she said as if wanting to reassure herse
lf. It has to be this way. I have to find out everything I can about that réseau de soie bleue and quickly.
Laying the bike down in the underbrush, she took off her blouse and brassiere and, using the face cloth she had brought, took the opportunity to wash, the water ice cold. Kneeling on the mossy stones, she bathed her face first and, in a moment of what seemed pure luxury or abandon, ducked her head beneath the cut-stone lip from which the spring issued.
The water had the faint taste of sulphur but she let it fill her mouth and swallowed, said at last, and as if again, ‘I have no other choice, nor does she.’
When a timid Véronique Dussart looked up from the path below, her blue eyes didn’t rest for more than a moment on those of the one she had come to meet. Embarrassed perhaps, that gaze fled from the bared breasts and shoulders to duck away to the purse in her own hands and then, in futility, to the towel, which had just been dropped.
A corner of the towel had fallen into the water. ‘What do you want of me?’ she said at last. ‘I … I only did it to … to bring my husband home.’
More than a million-and-half Frenchmen still languished in POW camps in the Reich. Letters, infrequent at best and ruthlessly censored, helped but little or not at all, and then had to be written on the back and returned. Otherwise, it was only the postcards, those, too, blacked out as if at will, but … ‘You betrayed the surveyor, didn’t you?’
‘Must you ask it of me? Must you hear my confession?’
‘It’s necessary.’
Their eyes met at last and it was all the Dussart woman could do to say, ‘Then yes. I overheard them talking.’
One must be firm but gentle. ‘Who?’
Quivering, she said, ‘Didn’t Monsieur Doumier tell you that when tortured?’
The woman looked so weak and desperate, felt Marie-Hélène. The pale yellow dress was really nothing much and the straps of the prewar leather sandals had been broken two or three times. ‘Please just answer.’
‘Monsieur Doumier and Father Nicolas. I had gone into the ruins of the church. Though the roofs of the nave and chancel collapsed during the bombing of 1940, there were still places where one could sit quietly and pray. I was asking for God’s help in … in bringing my André home. No one else was around. I know there wasn’t. Just those two and they … they hadn’t noticed me, nor did they.’
The Little Parachute Page 19