by Kurt Magenta
Christmas passed, marionettes bobbing in the windows of the Galeries Lafayette department store. Edith Piaf and Mistinguett performed at the Étoile Palace, Josephine Baker and Maurice Chevalier at the Casino de Paris. The musical comedy Tourbillon de Paris, starring Ray Ventura, opened at the Max Linder cinema. When spring came, foaming clouds of pink and white blossom appeared on the chestnut trees and Parisians returned to the café terraces, just as they had always done.
It would be some time before Lucien discovered exactly what happened on May 10. When he did, he had to admit that it was spectacular, in a sickening way.
The Wermacht was unleashed in a fury on Holland, Luxembourg and Belgium. There was only one major obstacle: a Belgian fortress named Eben Emael, whose guns watched over three vital bridges straddling the Albert Canal. German glider troops landed softly on its rooftop and destroyed its machine gun emplacements with brand new armour-piercing explosive charges. Defenders were mopped up with flamethrowers. With the fortress out of action and the bridges taken, the ground forces were able to roll into Belgium. Panzer tanks crashed through the Ardennes forest and over the border into France. They flanked a gap in the Maginot Line like fire ants avoiding a rock.
The reports in Le Courrier reflected the government’s selective treatment of these events. The Dutch and the Belgians had fought valiantly: at least a hundred enemy aircraft had been shot down.
‘Once again, Hitler has committed a crime against humanity,’ wrote Chatagnier on the leader page. ‘But he has underestimated the courage of France.’
Parisians were urged to remain calm. Lucien typed out an instruction from the préfecture de police: cafés and restaurants could remain open, but must close at 11pm. The bustle on the city streets astonished him. Back at the bar, even Grosselin seemed bemused. ‘They think we’ll beat the Germans back at the Marne, like in ’14,’ he muttered, his Gauloise bobbing at his lip.
Lucien disinterred his bicycle the very next day.
That night, at the family apartment in the ninth arrondissement, he spoke urgently to his mother and his sixteen-year-old sister, Liliane. For years now, they had spent their summer vacation in La Rochelle, a pretty town on the Atlantic coast. Lucien suggested that, this year, his mother and Lili should depart earlier than usual. ‘The Germans will be in Paris in a few weeks – and I don’t want you here when they arrive,’ he told them.
‘But what about you?’ his mother protested. ‘You can’t seriously expect me to leave you behind? You’re my son!’
‘I have to see what happens at the paper. There’s talk of us moving south. When we do I’ll join you, I promise.’
In the end, after pleas and tears, he persuaded them. They left Paris by train on the evening of May 18, a Saturday. When they had gone, Lucien slumped in his father’s favourite armchair. The worn leather felt cold. He looked around at the familiar contours of the furniture and wondered when he would have to leave it all behind for good.
It happened soon enough. On the morning of Friday June 7, as the front page of Le Courrier ran with the news that prime minister Paul Reynaud had reshuffled the cabinet – appointing a little-known brigadier named de Gaulle as under-secretary of war and national defence – Emile Chatagnier called a meeting in the newsroom. Despite the fact that about a quarter of the men had been called up the previous September, the place seemed even more packed and dense with smoke than usual. Some of the reporters stood on chairs so they could see their editor.
‘I have just emerged,’ Chatagnier told them, ‘from a meeting with our proprietor. It has been decided that, as of this evening, Le Courrier will suspend publication.’
The chatter rose in volume and Chatagnier lifted his hands to calm them. ‘As you are well aware, despite the assurances of our government, it has become clear that the Germans will be in Paris within days. The bombing that destroyed the airfields left no room for doubt. Until the situation is resolved, I suggest that you spend time with your families. Make no mistake: you are still employed by this newspaper. I will contact you individually when I require you to return to your posts. Until then, may God go with you. Vive la France!’
‘Vive la France!’ echoed several of the men.
‘Bande de cons,’ said Grosselin – bunch of asses, a phrase to describe everybody and nobody in particular. ‘Let’s get drunk.’
On their way out, Lucien glimpsed the rolled newspaper shoved into Grosselin’s coat pocket. At the top of a column there was a quote from Reynaud: ‘We have reason to hope.’
And then the departure, l’exode – the great snaking abandonment of Paris. Some travellers would make it to safe havens in the south. Many would give up and return to the city. Others lost their lives on the road.
After the attack on the convoy, he lay for a long time with his head in his arms, wondering if the plane would return.
The smell of burning fuel mingled with the vegetal scent of the grass. When he was certain the aircraft had gone, he creaked to his feet and brushed himself down. No damage done.
He lost time helping to care for the wounded, improvising bandages and splints with other men and women who seemed far more competent than he. Later, as he moved along the convoy, he saw a dead woman slumped on the rear seat of a car. Her young son caterwauled by her side as her husband sat at the wheel, staring glassy-eyed through the cracked windscreen.
A few metres on, he came across an adolescent girl sitting in the dust, her blank face turned towards the fields as survivors filed past.
He felt as though he should help them all, but he could help none of them. He cycled on until dark, listening for planes.
Chapter 3
Point of Departure
In the morning he arrived at La Rochelle. It smelled of brine and fish, and the raw shrieking of the gulls lifted his spirits. He wheeled his bicycle up a gently sloping lane between white buildings, some of his old optimism returning. Malgré tout. Despite everything.
His destination was a four-storey structure no more or less attractive than the others. It had dun-coloured walls, flaking blue shutters and wrought-iron balconies gnawed by salty breezes. He had spent so many happy summers here that they blurred into one unspecific memory: the view of terracotta rooftops above white boats in the harbour; the rumbling of carts on their way to market, followed by the shouts and chatter of commerce; at night the talk and laughter over the chink of glasses and crockery through windows open in the heat. He knew every cat in the old town, every current in the harbour and every plant in the botanical gardens.
The building’s porte cochère was unlocked, so he pushed his way into the cool lobby with its cement tile floor – a geometric floral pattern in faded blue and beige. He propped his bicycle against the wall and made his way up the wooden staircase, the air growing warmer as he climbed. There was a smell of coffee and something else that made his stomach swoop and murmur: fresh bread.
At the top floor, just barely out of breath, he knocked on the plain wooden door. Slapping footsteps approached, the door was wrenched open. And there was Lili, scowling at him from under her straight fringe, as chic as ever in a stripy mariner’s top.
‘Ça alors,’ she said. ‘What kept you?’
He grinned. ‘Hello, shrimp.’
His mother bustled into the remaining space. Before he could plead his rank odour and aching limbs, she had her arms around him, weeping with relief.
‘We can’t stay here,’ he announced, buttering another piece of the warm bread.
Over his mother’s shoulder, he saw Madame Brechignac stiffening at the stove. The concierge of the building was an old friend of the family. Physically, she could not have been more different from the plump, magpie-eyed Madame Masson who watched over them in Paris. Madame Brechignac was slender to the point of fragility, yet apparently tireless. It was she who had baked bread and bought butter – both scarce commodities now the town was flooded with re
fugees. She would also, he was certain, procure fish for supper. Her dark brown eyes always shone in her long, creased, sun-bronzed face. Like many women of her generation, she had been widowed during the last war.
Which was why, no doubt, she dreaded the discussion that was about to take place.
‘You already hustled us off here. Where do you suggest we go next?’ his mother asked.
‘England,’ he said. ‘That’s why we’re here – we have to find a boat for England.’
‘But I don’t want to go to England,’ piped up Lili, by his side.
‘Shush, sweetheart, nobody’s going to England.’ His mother turned back to him, her voice edged with steel. ‘So that’s your grand plan, is it? You want to pack your sister and me into the hold of a ship? Turn us into refugees?’
‘But that’s just it – we won’t be refugees. We have family in England, don’t we?’
‘A sister who’s barely spoken to me since I married your father. And who is herself married to a dolt. No, I don’t think so. France is our home. We’re staying right here.’
‘But in a few days the Nazis will be all over this place. It’s a port – it’s bound to be strategically important. If we’re going to stay here we might as well have stayed in Paris.’
‘I’m beginning to think that’s exactly what we should have done. After all, what could the Germans want with us? I’m sure they don’t intend to slaughter the entire population. If we keep our heads down, all this will blow over.’
‘How can you say that?’ He felt his face flushing. ‘It goes against everything Papa ever told us! He always said that if the Germans invaded, we should go to England. They’ll fight with us, he said.’
‘So you intend to fight now, do you?’
‘Why not? I don’t need your permission, not over there. One thing’s for certain: I’m not going to sit here and watch this country get overrun by the bloody Nazis.’
His mother stood, suddenly furious. ‘That is not your decision! As you full well know, until you are twenty-one years old you are my responsibility. And I will not let you break up this family!’
He stood to face her, his chair toppling with a crack. Madame Brechignac twitched as though she’d been shot.
‘I am an adult,’ he said, speaking slowly in English. ‘I don’t know which of Papa’s old strings you pulled to keep me out of this, but now it’s over. I’m going. That’s all there is to it.’
He stormed across the room and out of the door, slamming it behind him. His footsteps clattered down the stairs.
Elizabeth Cortel knew exactly what he would do next. He would go and see Uncle Dédé.
The baked red rooftops of La Rochelle encircled the harbour like a clay-tinted prehistoric jawbone. And on either side of the harbour wall, the two fortified towers guarding the entrance were the last broken teeth. Behind the harbour lay the old town, a labyrinth of narrow streets that to an outsider was as bewildering as a Moroccan bazaar.
It was here that Lucien went to look for Uncle Dédé.
André Dehix called himself ‘a dealer in antiquities’ – but he was no more an antiques dealer than he was Lucien’s real uncle. In fact Dédé was a trader in anything and everything, legal and larcenous, physical and purely informational.
He had met Lucien’s father during the last war, while working in some kind of obscure intelligence capacity. Over the course of their adventures the two men had developed a close bond. Jean-Louis Cortel had often returned to the apartment unsteady on his feet – and smelling unmistakeably of pastis – after one of his ‘dinners’ with his old pal Dédé. In fact, it was Dédé who had first alerted Jean-Louis to the existence of an empty apartment in La Rochelle, their old stamping ground, and secured it for the Cortel family at an advantageous price.
Dédé was precisely where Lucien had expected him to be: at a back table under the cranking ceiling fan of the Café de la Lanterne.
A smoke-blackened hurricane lamp behind the bar was the café’s only concession to its name, which in fact referred to the fifteenth century lighthouse overlooking the harbour. Grimy oil paintings of sloops and galleons contributed to the nautical air of the place, but there were also faded music hall posters and a signed photo of the actor Jean Gabin. At this time of the year, most of the patrons preferred to gather on the small terrace. But Dédé was always tucked away inside, smoking, reading the newspaper – and waiting for the next deal to walk through the door.
‘Mon Dieu,’ he exclaimed, when Lucien advanced through the mist of tobacco fumes. ‘It’s like seeing a ghost! Come in, come in! Step into my office!’
Lucien grinned as he took a seat opposite his father’s old friend. Dédé had hardly changed: perhaps a little thinner, his double-breasted jacket hanging from his shoulders, his garish tie almost as broad as his chest. White had frosted his temples, and his shrewd brown eyes were underscored with pockets of fatigue.
‘Is the whole family here? Your mother? Lili?’
Lucien nodded. ‘They’re here. And it looks like they plan to stay.’
‘Mais bien sûr! Where else is there to go? Soon the Germans will be everywhere, like influenza!’ He tapped the newspaper, Le Matin, which had shrunk to a single sheet. ‘Have you read this merde? They try to fool us, but the truth is there for everyone to see. Our army is scattered, decimated. A few days, a week at the most, France will be a province of Germany. I could weep, really I could.’
Instead, he turned to the bar. ‘François! C’est l’heure du Ricard! Ricard time!’ He raised an interrogatory eyebrow at Lucien, who shook his head. ‘And a coffee for my young friend. The good stuff – not that trench water you’ve been dishing out lately.’
Lucien leaned forward, his voice strained and urgent. ‘Dédé, I have to get out of here. I need to find a boat for England.’
Dédé’s glittering eyes studied him. ‘Hmm. England, you say? How many passengers?’
‘Just one.’
‘I see. And you would do that, would you? Leave your mother and sister here, with nobody to protect them?’
Lucien sat back. ‘We’ve been through that. I asked them to come with me, they refused.’ He smiled nervously. ‘Besides, I hoped you’d look after them.’
‘Ah, ça!’ Dédé brushed the problem aside with a dismissive gesture – don’t worry about it. ‘But tell me: what do you plan to do in England? Join the British? Seek glory?’
‘In a way. I’ve decided to fight.’
‘Are you sure you’re picking the right side? I assume you’re aware of what happened at Dunkirk?’
‘Let’s just say I made a promise to my father, all right?’
Dédé’s face darkened; fortunately at that moment their drinks arrived. When François had limped away Dédé looked placid again. He said reproachfully, ‘It really is most unfair of you, invoking your father like that.’
‘So can you help me, or not?’
‘I think so, yes – although it won’t be easy. Bordeaux is in chaos, with more refugees arriving every day. The estuary is cluttered with ships that failed to return to the northern ports. Passenger ships are over-booked and afraid to leave for fear of being torpedoed. Here in La Rochelle there is talk of mines and submarines.’
After this depressing summary, Dédé sat back and smiled. ‘But fortunately for you, I have a good relationship with the port authorities and certain documents that enable me to move around unhindered. I will make some inquiries. Do you have any money?’
‘A little. Maybe a couple of hundred francs.’
‘That should help. But you will have to be patient. I will send for you.’ He raised his glass. ‘So let us drink to this foolish enterprise of yours. I suppose you realise you stand an excellent chance of getting yourself killed?’
Lying sleepless that night, he remembered something his father had said. They had been sitting in the salon �
� the dinner plates cleared away, a wine bottle unfinished – at that moment in the evening when the light had grown dim but nobody could be bothered to turn on the lamps. Lucien must have been twelve or thirteen.
‘Once, when you were a little boy,’ said Jean-Louis Cortel, ‘you had a terrible nightmare. You made me leave the light on in the hallway for a week afterwards. Your mother blamed me – said I read you too many stories of ogres and ghouls. She was probably right, as usual. Immediately after the nightmare, when your forehead was still damp, you asked me if I believed in monsters. And of course I replied that I did not. I said they existed only in fairy tales.’
He looked over at Lucien. ‘That was a lie. All the evidence I’ve amassed, as a reporter and a soldier, suggests that monsters do exist. They look like you and me – no scales or flickering tongues. But they are just as hateful and devouring.’
He smiled to lighten the tone. ‘I am a prudent man, so mostly I’ve chosen to fight them with a pen. But sometimes only a sword will do.’
In the morning Lucien repeated the story to his mother. She stared at him with moist eyes, knowing that he had already gone.
On June 17, France woke to the news that Paul Reynaud had resigned as premier. His replacement was Marshal Philippe Pétain, grizzled hero of the Great War, who was pressing for an armistice. At the Café de la Lanterne they gathered around the radio, listening to Pétain’s ancient, reedy voice. ‘It is with a heavy heart that I tell you today we must cease hostilities. The fighting must stop.’
Questions crackled along the bar. ‘So that’s it? We’ve surrendered?’
‘He didn’t say anything about an armistice, did he?’