by Susan Lewis
During those wonderfully light-hearted evenings Claudine often found herself watching Armand as he laughed and joked with Solange and Monique, twirled them about the room or tossed them into Lucien’s arms. He was at last his old self again, and she could see once more why she had found it so easy to love him. She was glad that he now seemed so relaxed – and it was obvious, too, that the worry she had had that he and François would never recapture their former friendship was unfounded. The two of them were as easy in each other’s company as they were in Lucien’s. There were times, though – particularly when she danced with Armand, when she would catch François staring at them, a black frown between his eyes and his mouth a thin, tight line of concentration. Could her invincible husband actually have fallen prey to jealousy?
‘What, when I know how utterly devoted you are to me?’ he would say when she challenged him. And then he would pull her onto his lap and kiss her so soundly – in front of the entire family – that she would almost blush.
‘Oh là là,’ Tante Céline would cry at these public displays of affection. She still wasn’t quite over the shock of discovering that François de Lorvoire had a heart, or that her niece had, by some miracle, managed to capture it, though like everyone else she was delighted for them, and simply longed to tell Beavis – wherever he might be.
It was only on family evenings, when they had no guests, that Claudine and François felt able to behave so freely with each other, and only on those evenings would they dance together, usually to an over-played, scratched record of Al Bowlly singing ‘The Very Thought of You’ – the song everyone remembered them dancing to at their wedding. Later, if it was a night when Lucien was there and Louis had stayed up, François would carry his sleeping son to the nursery, then join Claudine in her room where they would spend hour upon hour making lazy, luxurious, and increasingly erotic love. Her room, like his, was bugged, but now that Blomberg knew they were in love there was little point in hiding it from the Germans, and if they had anything of importance to say to one another they would either walk in the forest or meet at Thomas’ fishing hut. In truth, their recklessness caused François a great deal of concern, but he said nothing; Claudine was so happy, and he couldn’t bring himself to do anything to spoil it.
Summer turned to autumn, and as the German army tightened its stranglehold on Russia, and the British suffered incalculable losses in North Africa, in Lorvoire it was time to harvest the grapes. As they did every year, the locals came to help, and so did the German soldiers who still visited Gustave’s café each Friday to drink an endless supply of black-market spirits with Armand. As Claudine had predicted at the outset of the occupation, befriending these officers had proved extremely useful. Surprisingly often they would let little nuggets of information slip to Armand – troop movements, the location of road-blocks, areas of concentration for radio detector vans. These details were enormously useful to the group in their task of escorting pilots through the escape-line, or when they were trying to send messages to London.
On the night of the harvest there was a party. It was nothing like the one in thirty-seven – but it amused Claudine no end to be dancing with German officers when no more than half a mile away, two British pilots and one Canadian were spending the night at the forest cottage. The following morning they were given black felt berets and blue serge overalls tailored by Gertrude Reinberg, and a collection of identity cards forged overnight by Théobald the signwriter. Then, while their uniforms burned in the grate, they ate a heartier breakfast than most of the locals had seen since the outbreak of war, before being transported in broad daylight to the demarcation line by old Thomas in his horse and cart. The escape-line was now running so smoothly that Claudine often had to remind the others – Solange and Liliane in particular, who had appointed themselves her chief couriers – of the danger they all faced if they were caught.
It wasn’t until the following week that they heard that while they had been celebrating the harvest, fifty Frenchmen had been shot as a reprisal for the assassination of a German officer in Nantes. Two days later, fifty more were shot in Bordeaux where another German officer had lost his life at the hands of the Resistance.
From that day on, all fraternizing with the Germans came to an abrupt end. Even the Attentistes ceased their hospitality. Resistance groups who had gone to ground over the summer months began to re-form, and techniques of sabotage and assault favoured by the Communists started to catch on. It was a difficult time for François. He became a major target for local hostility, and more than once he arrived home with the windshield of his jeep smashed and his face and hands covered in cuts. Claudine became increasingly afraid for his life, but nothing she said would persuade him to go into hiding with Lucien. There had been no sign of Halunke for almost a year, but until he was caught François was not prepared to do anything to antagonize von Liebermann. And von Liebermann, he told Claudine, was due any time now to arrive at the Abwehr headquarters in Paris.
As it turned out, von Liebermann didn’t arrive until early in the New Year, by which time Hitler’s invasion of Russia was suffering severe setbacks, and the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbour, bringing America into the war. This change of fortune for the Allies prompted many Attentistes finally to declare their allegiance, and the numbers of men – and women – who went into hiding in the forest after successful sabotage attacks on German bases started steadily to increase. Léopard, which was Lucien’s code name as well as the name of their escape-line, now prepared to transport American as well as British and Canadian pilots out of the country and back to the war; and though it was a bitterly cold winter, with heavy frosts, snow and gales, neither Claudine nor any of her fellow Résistants were deterred.
Keeping busy all day also prevented Claudine from worrying about François, which was why he made no objection to her becoming one of the vital links between the Maquis – the men in hiding – and the ‘sleeping’ Resistance – those in the towns and villages. However, when it came to going out after curfew he put his foot down. She protested strongly, even going so far as to hit him – which was nothing unusual, for they frequently fought as passionately as they made love – but he would not be moved. So she had to content herself with the daytime activities of ferrying food, drink and the vineyard’s smudge-pots to the Forest of Scevolles, where Lucien’s Maquis group were all but freezing to death beneath tents made from parachutes and old blankets. And when she and Monique weren’t running messages, devising passwords and signals, or closeted in the larder making invisible ink with powdered aspirin and lemon juice, they were working on methods of transporting clothing, radio crystals and an ever-decreasing supply of arms from one hide-out to another. All manner of means were invented, from scooping out the centre of Monsieur Bonet’s melons to carry radio transmitters and hand-guns, to having fillings removed in order to secrete microfilm in teeth. And now that agents and much-needed supplies were at last being parachuted into France, there were reception committees to be formed and landing grounds to be prepared.
Claudine longed to join the reception committees herself, to watch the parachutes float down from the moonlit sky, to gather them up and bury them, to store the arms and supplies in the gazogènes – vans that ran at twenty kilometres an hour on charcoal – and hear them trundle off into the night. She longed to meet the agents and escort them to their safe-houses – she felt she was missing out on the real adventure. But François slept in her bed every night, and there was no way in which she could evade him.
It was one night towards the end of February that François gave Claudine the news she had been dreading. Earlier that day they had had a fierce row because he had found out about her diplomatic mission to the Gestapo headquarters at the Hôtel Boule d’Or, to plead mercy for the seven Chinonais who had been arrested the day before. He still seemed preoccupied at dinner, but it was only when he actually snapped at Monique that Claudine began to realize there was something much more serious than her indiscretion playing on his mind. She knew bett
er than to question him, he would tell her when he was ready. To her relief it turned out to be sooner rather than later: after checking that everyone else was in bed, he came into her room and told her to get her coat.
Claudine hurried into her dressing-room, took off her nightdress and pulled on her fur coat and hat, woollen stockings and old fleece-lined boots, and went to join him at the bridge door. It was a bitterly cold night, but the raging winds of the past few weeks had at last died down, and every now again the moon pushed through the clouds, shedding enough light for them to see where they were going.
They had walked some distance in total silence before François finally said, ‘I’ve received word from von Liebermann.’
Instantly Claudine felt a cold, pinching fear. It was the communication they had prayed would never come.
‘What does he want?’ she asked, leaning closer as he slipped his hand between her fur collar and hat, and gently massaged the back of her neck.
‘He wants me to meet him in Vichy some time in March. He’ll let me know when.’
‘Did he say why?’
‘No.’
Taking a breath, Claudine turned to face him, but before she could speak he put his fingers over her lips. ‘I know what you’re going to say, chérie,’ he said, ‘but the answer is no. I won’t join Lucien.’
She looked up at him with her wide blue eyes and, smiling, he stooped to kiss her. ‘But if von Liebermann asks you to do something dreadful…? she said.
‘Let me worry about that.’ And pulling her head onto his shoulder, he wrapped her comfortingly in his arms.
She lay against him and he gazed absently out into the shifting tree-shadows behind her. His summons to Vichy had inevitably brought with it the preying spectre of Halunke’s revenge. He felt his mind assailed yet again by anguish, fury and incomprehension. What in God’s name could he have done to have incurred such a terrible hatred?
‘What are you thinking about?’ Claudine said.
He let his breath go. ‘Von Liebermann,’ he lied, still looking past her into the forest.
‘Not Halunke?’
He gave a queer sort of half-smile, then lifting her face in his hands, he looked into her eyes and whispered, ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ she murmured, starting to unbutton her coat so that he could slide his hands inside.
‘Claudine!’ he groaned, as he felt the goosey flesh of her naked body. ‘Why have you come out like this? You’ll catch pneumonia.’
‘Not if you hold me very close,’ she purred.
Running his hands down over her thighs, he felt the tops of her woollen stockings. Then, laughing softly, he cupped her buttocks in his hands, pulled her hard against him and pushed his tongue deep inside her mouth.
‘Oh, François,’ she moaned, snaking her fingers through his hair and rubbing herself against his growing erection. ‘I want you, chéri, I want you now.’
Sucking her lips and twisting her so that he could push a hand between their bodies, he inserted a finger into the dark thatch between her legs and started to caress the moist skin beneath. ‘Is this where you want me?’ he said huskily. ‘Just here?’
‘Mmmmmm.’ She lifted her leg, circling it about his waist. ‘Oh yes!’ she cried, as he found her opening and pushed his finger deep inside.
She moved a hand to his fly and started to unbutton it. Her eyes were fixed hungrily on his mouth while her own lips parted, her nipples puckered with the cold and her chest began to heave. Their breath mingled in clouds about their faces, and her eyelids fluttered closed as he started to move his hand back and forth. Then suddenly she was flying backwards, through the air as if fired from a catapult. Her head struck a tree, and she fell awkwardly into the undergrowth. Through the stars exploding in her eyes, she watched as François heaved something over his shoulder and threw it heavily to the ground. The polished barrel of a gun glinted in the moonlight, and she heard the trigger click as François prepared to fire.
It had all happened in a matter of seconds. If Lucien had not that instant cried out, François would have shot him.
‘For heaven’s sake!’ François snapped, as he took his brother’s arm and hauled him to his feet. ‘What the hell are you doing creeping about the forest like that? I might have killed you.’
Lucien’s white teeth gleamed in the darkness as he watched his brother stoop over Claudine to check that she was all right. ‘I was testing you,’ he said jauntily. ‘The reflexes are still good, mon frère.’
‘Obviously better than yours,’ François remarked dryly, as he covered Claudine’s nudity and helped her to her feet. ‘Now, perhaps you’d like to tell me what you’re doing here?’
‘As a matter of fact, I’m here to see Claudine.’ There was enough moonlight for François to see the very appreciative way Lucien was looking at her, and when he heard his brother mutter something that sounded like charmante under his breath, and Claudine stifled a laugh, he pulled her into the circle of his arm and clamped the front of her coat together with his fist.
Collecting himself, Lucien said, ‘I have a message for Claudine. Can I give it to her?’
‘If you must. But if it involves her going out after curfew you can save your breath.’
‘I know, I know,’ Lucien said. Then with a grin he added, ‘Sorry if I interrupted. But if you don’t mind my saying so, it’s a bit chilly to be doing it al fresco, isn’t it?’
‘Mind your own business,’ François retorted. ‘And don’t keep her long. I’ll wait at the bridge.’
When he was safely out of earshot, Lucien took Claudine’s arm and they started to follow him slowly. ‘Jacques is in Paris,’ he said quietly, ‘and I have to leave tonight, to join him there for a few days. But a message came through earlier from the British, asking for our help. They want to parachute in two agents and a supply of arms at the next full moon, but it seems three of their own people in the district have been arrested, and the others have gone to ground. I’ve said we’ll do it, but as I’m not going to be around for a while I want you to start organizing the reception committee alone. Do you think you can do it?’
Without hesitation Claudine said, ‘When’s the next full moon?’
‘Three weeks tomorrow. Jacques and I will be back by then, so count us in.’
‘How many more do we need?’
‘Ten. Twelve if possible.’
‘Mm,’ she pondered. ‘Old Thomas and Yves Fauberg have volunteered to help in any way they can. Gustave, obviously. Monique and me. You and …’
‘Didn’t you hear what François said?’ he interrupted.
‘Armand,’ she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. She turned to face him. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll come up with five more, don’t worry.’
‘Not yourself, though.’
‘Lucien! If I …’
‘No! You might be prepared to face François’ wrath, but I’m not.’
They had reached the edge of the forest by now, and could see François leaning against the bridge smoking a cigarette. ‘Two more things,’ Claudine said, tearing her eyes away from the awesome aquiline profile she loved so much and neatly changing the subject. ‘First, do you have the map co-ordinates?’
‘You’ll find them in the usual bible down at the church on Friday morning,’ Lucien answered.
‘Second, did you get my message about the guns?’
‘Yes. I’ve just put them in the cottage. Who wants them?’
‘Someone in Langeais. I’ll get Solange and Liliane to take them over tomorrow on their bicycle. Will we have any left after that?’
‘No. But we’ll syphon some off from the British when they arrive. If they bring any.’
‘Let me know when you’re back from Paris,’ she said, and giving him a brief peck on the cheek, she ran off to join François.
Lucien stepped back into the shadows to watch as François threw away his cigarette and folded her into his arms. After a long and unmistakably intimate kiss, François
parted the front of her coat to slip his hands inside – but Claudine shrieked and jumped away from him, complaining that he was cold. Lucien continued to watch as François put a hand on the back of her neck and propelled her into the château. Before closing the door he turned, and for a long moment looked straight into Lucien’s eyes. Then, as the door closed, Lucien started back into the forest.
The following afternoon, as Claudine was preparing to go down to the café, Magaly came into her room and told her that François wanted to see her immediately.
‘He says you’ll know where, madame,’ she added. ‘He was in a terrible temper …’ Her eyes were round and her lips trembling with fear for her mistress.
Claudine gave her a quick hug, told her it would be all right and ran off to the stables.
When she galloped up to Thomas’ hut, François was waiting. He all but dragged her from the saddle and spun her round to face him.
‘Whose idea was it to use my mother as a courier?’ he raged.
‘What!’ she gasped, wincing as his fingers dug into her arm. She wasn’t unduly alarmed, for Solange and Liliane had returned quite safely from Langeais half an hour before. ‘But I thought you knew!’
‘Of course I didn’t damned well know. What the hell has got into you, Claudine? She’s an old lady. So is Liliane.’
‘We all have to play our part,’ she argued. ‘And if they’re willing, I don’t see any reason why Solange and Liliane shouldn’t too. Anyway, how did you find out?’
‘Never mind that. Does Lucien know they’re involved?’
‘Of course he does.’
François’ face turned to thunder. ‘Tell him I want to see him. Tell him to get himself to the château within the week.’
‘I’ll do no such thing.’
‘Claudine!’ he said dangerously.
‘You don’t frighten me with that tone,’ she said loftily, all the while thanking God that he didn’t appear to know what Solange and Liliane had been carrying when they’d cycled over to Langeais. If he’d known there were guns in the false bottom Armand had made for the passenger-box, she dreaded to think what he might do. And the way Liliane had cheekily informed a German officer at a road-block that she was sitting on a bomb was unlikely to seem as funny to him as it had to her and Monique. ‘You’re being over-protective, François,’ she grumbled.