They’d talked during this brief journey. He was a farmer; he didn’t believe wholly in collectives, but he did believe that the collective farm – at the root of Communist ideology – made practical sense. The commissar had a family – a wife, three young children.
Kilian had found himself telling the man about the time not long before when he had teetered on the brink of engagement. Ilse Vogel had followed a career in science and had almost forgotten about marriage until the softly spoken, intelligent Markus Kilian had sat down next to her one evening at a dinner party in spring 1936. While the rest of the guests had talked about the Olympic Games, Markus and Ilse had eyes only for each other. They had become lovers – great friends as well – over the next couple of years, but the brewing war clouds had made Kilian nervous to commit.
‘You should have married her,’ the commissar had said in Russian.
Kilian smiled and offered the man a cigarette, replying in his language. ‘Yes, I think you’re right. We were a good match.’
They had shared a smoke peacefully in the quiet of the forest. Finally, they both stood.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ the Russian had said. ‘But face me when you do it. Don’t shoot me in the back like I’m scum. I am a soldier. I’ve fought for my country. I’ll die for it now. Don’t take away my dignity.’
The man had offered a hand and Kilian had been moved by the simple gesture; they’d shaken. The Russian had then walked to a tree before turning stoically to face his executioner.
‘Make it quick,’ he said. ‘Head or heart.’ Then he’d grinned. ‘Surprise me.’
Kilian had shaken his head, resolved. ‘Go. Go back to your family. Kiss your wife, hug your children,’ he said. He waved a hand, gesturing that he was dismissed. And then he saluted.
The man had stared back at him in disbelief but hadn’t moved. So Kilian had sheathed his pistol, to show he had no intention of spending a bullet.
The soldier had frowned, then a bemused half-grin had twitched on one side of his mouth. Raising a hand to his heart as thanks, he’d turned and melted away through the forest.
That simple act of mercy had been witnessed by a visiting officer. It didn’t take long for Kilian’s recall to Berlin, where he had received a gut-twisting dressing-down from his superiors, although it could have been worse. A few months later the Commissar Order had been revoked but it was too late for Kilian. He was already cooling his heels in a dead-end desk job. It was two years of penance in the backwaters of Germany before he was given an opportunity to claw his way back, initially to the Bendlerblock in Berlin. It was not what he wanted, but those superiors who’d protected him and shared similar feelings towards the Nazi ideology reiterated their advice to keep his head down and do what was asked of him.
Although his sense of honour prevented Kilian from outright rebellion, he had long ago decided that Hitler was a monster. He had seen too much that hurt his soul in the Ukraine, and even though he had not made it easy for Himmler’s death squads to carry out their devil-inspired duties, he felt the cloying stain of their work clinging to his uniform and all that he held dear.
Little did Hitler know that Kilian had maintained contact with the Underground and had known of two attempted assassinations on the Führer’s life. Under the protection of others within the Party who shared his feelings, Kilian had been transferred to Paris quietly in December 1943, slipping into a city that couldn’t fully hide her beauty beneath red flags and bold German street signs. On his first day his anger had been flamed by two thuggish milice mercilessly beating an old man with a yellow star wrongly pinned on his coat.
However, he’d come to realise that for most Parisians – unless they were Jewish or Roma – life went on smoothly enough. In the more elite circles families went without little. In fact, well-heeled Parisians led what could only be described as a jolly existence. There was no lack of private parties, nightclubbing and drinking, and all the usual excesses of the bourgeoisie were still to be found, despite the curfew. Nevertheless, Paris was quieter than he remembered – probably because it was now a city of bicycles. The only people with access to petrol were the Germans and wealthy French.
Kilian liked the French; he admired their pluck and especially those who, in the face of stringent reprisals, still defied their occupiers. A trip to the cinema proved comical. As soon as the propaganda reels flickered on, the French audience would whistle and stamp. The only way the police could monitor the audience was by leaving the lights on, negating the effects of the propaganda that no one could now view.
Kilian was particularly fond of the way idealistic teenagers rode up to German cars on their bicycles and stuck signs on them, urging the people not to trust the Vichy government or obey the ‘Boches’. But his fellow Germans lacked all sense of humour and he’d had to step in once, pulling rank on soldiers beating up a youth who’d been caught.
He sympathised especially with the hungry, knowing a lot of the Parisian population spent most of their waking hours worrying about how to make it to the next meal or keep a roof over their heads. And as Europe moved into the depths of winter, even growing food in window boxes became impossible. How many times had he watched Parisians searching the public squares for chestnuts, twigs, dead leaves, anything vaguely flammable that they could burn to stay warm? He’d observed sadly as men and women alike had sold their jewellery, even wedding rings, just to feed their children, stay alive, survive another month. Lentils that he loathed were normally a few francs, but by 1944 could sell on the black market for seven or eight times the official price. He grew to detest the smell of Swedish turnip – rutabaga – that emanated from Parisian households, seemingly the staple of life for the less fortunate.
Unless Kilian was officially required to dine out, he was content to munch on bread and cheese, with the odd slice of cold meat for his evening meal. He couldn’t stomach fine dining when there was so much conspicuous poverty. As a result he had become even leaner, but his gaunt appearance gave him a curiously roguish look. His slightly sunken cheeks made him look younger and accentuated his strong jaw. He was clean-shaven, usually tanned – although paler these days – and kept his blonde hair trimmed around his ears. His eyes could appear anything from a flinty grey to a glacial blue, and his gaze was intense. But Kilian liked to smile, as the lines around his eyes testified. Everything about him was tidy and spare – save his thoughts, but he rarely shared those.
There were more than enough of his fellow officers who would help to fill the packed restaurants around the city, from the hugely popular Maxim’s on the Rue Royale to the Café de l’Opéra near the Grands Boulevards, and happily tuck into rich food bought on the black market at up to four times the official price, before spilling into the cafés, cabarets and concert halls. While its greater population was trying to cope with just staying alive, Paris had never been so effervescent as it seemed now with the cash-flushed German military and its visitors. Art, music, literature were flourishing. Fashion clung on – no matter what hardships were pressed upon the French women, they still managed to look elegant and fashionable. From staining their legs to appear as though wearing stockings, to crafting new hats from old tulle and feathers, their ingenuity was admirable. Clothes were constantly remade into new garments. Even high heels were maintained using old wood or cork.
Paris was still Paris if Kilian squinted his eyes a little and ignored the jackboots and the daunting red flags they marched beneath. And if he was to be in exile, he preferred to be here than any other place. He liked to stroll through the Jardin des Tuileries with its structured and orderly pathways and gardens that had once held beautiful beds of flowers – now replaced by vegetables. He made an effort to enjoy the brass band of the Wehrmacht on a Sunday and avoided the Hotel Crillon as best he could, where the German High Command resided, or Rue de Saussaies, where the loathed Gestapo had set up its French HQ.
There were times when all he wanted to do was get back to the Front, although the Russian cam
paign was going so badly that every German military strategist could surely see the end result. The Battle of Stalingrad, sprawling over five months, was catastrophic, with nearly 100,000 German soldiers in custody. They were all that was left of upwards of 330,000 men.
Kilian’s secretary returned after a lengthy departure, full of apologies. She dragged him from his bleak thoughts, nervously handing him some papers. Sandrine was French, but too uncertain working at this level, and her German was halting at best. Someone at dinner the previous night had heard Kilian bemoaning his help and had quipped that the girls were probably all too in love with him to take the job seriously.
He’d had to grit his teeth. Didn’t these people take war seriously? He was not looking for romance in Paris. How could his colleagues be so flippant when whole platoons of fine young men were being destroyed? Frankly, he wished he’d perished in the frozen wasteland rather than dying of guilt here in this office, a gracious chamber of the Palais Bourbon, where hot chocolate was served in exquisitely painted Limoges porcelain jugs and men smoked cigars and drank cognac.
‘Leave them there, Sandrine,’ Kilian said in French. ‘I’ll sign them later, thank you. You know, it’s a nice spring day out there despite the cold. Why don’t you take the afternoon off?’
The young woman stared at him. ‘But …’
‘Go on. Take the afternoon off,’ he said and stood.
‘Are you sacking me, Colonel Kilian?’ She looked terrified.
‘No. But I think this position makes you unhappy; you are constantly nervous and perhaps a bit lonely working here with me. I know you were drafted from the secretarial pool. Would you like to return to it? Would that make it easier for you?’
‘Well …’ she hesitated.
‘Let me arrange it. No change in wage. Will that be satisfactory for you?’
She glowed. ‘Oh, yes, thank you, sir.’
He nodded and smiled. Now he was without any support, but he didn’t care. He would have to find someone new with flawless German and French. Anything to make his department more efficient and his efforts noticeable. If he could not return to the Front, he needed to manoeuvre into a position to aid those men fighting on the lines.
He spent the next few hours working diligently, immersed in all the nonsense paperwork that seemed to flow in a relentless torrent across his desk. Berlin was pedantic about copies of all letters, and the records it kept of every decision by every small bureaucrat seemed beyond paranoia, but he followed the routine, clenching his jaw.
When he next looked up to glance out of the picture windows it was past four-thirty and already dark. He could suddenly feel the chill from outside biting through the vague warmth of his large office. He smirked at himself for noticing; in Russia his men were freezing to death, literally. Many a soldier had been found frozen solid at his post.
He consulted his diary, hoping the appointment that he knew was there might have miraculously disappeared over the last few hours. Instead it stared back at him in bold black ink: a social meeting with one of the German bankers of Paris at seven p.m. Could he get out of it? Absolutely not. The man had solid connections with Berlin. It was only a drink, after all. The man could prove a handy contact.
So while a hot bath and an early night sounded inviting on this cool spring evening, he would not dash back to the Hotel Raphaël. Instead, he would freshen up at the office and set out on foot towards stylish St Germain to Les Deux Magots. He checked the time again; yes, he could probably even give himself the pleasure of a skirt around the Jardin du Luxembourg before cutting past Saint Sulpice up towards the café. The evening sounded instantly more bearable: perhaps he could even hear the Saint Sulpice choir or the church’s grand organ.
Markus Kilian stood. He needed some sustenance, hot food – and he might even sip a warming cognac tonight as he charmed his new acquaintance in the hope of good words fed back down the line to Berlin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lisette could barely believe it had been seven months since she had arrived in Paris. She’d successfully met up with the local resistance circuit and found herself a top-floor flat in a quiet back street on the Right Bank. The eighteenth arrondissement was well known for its famous cabarets and nightlife and was often crawling with German soldiers. Lisette knew she probably should have moved, but didn’t wish to chance her luck more than she already was.
Many of the German servicemen liked to holiday in Paris, and they flocked to the Pigalle district for their entertainment. Theatres such as the Grand Guignol were never empty. The Moulin Rouge thrived, as did a great many brasseries and brothels. By night the area was a hotbed of restless eroticism and by day it seemed to sleep within its own hangover. It was to the bohemian, arty Montmartre that Lisette was drawn. The hilly, sleepy streets nestling beneath the Sacré Coeur, where she now lived, had nourished artists such as Monet, Lautrec and Van Gogh. The basilica was set on the highest point in Paris, and several times a week Lisette would climb its travertine stairs to sit in the forecourt of the bright white church and look out over Paris. After the French Revolution many nuns had been guillotined at this spot, and Lisette shared a curious sense of sisterhood with the forgotten women.
Unlike most of SOE’s operatives, Lisette didn’t have to report back to London regularly. As a result she was safer than many of her colleagues operating in France. She was free to live the life of a Parisian – in fact she’d been encouraged to immerse herself in the city’s routines – without the stresses of having to hide a wireless and move flat constantly. When the time was right she would get in touch with a young man from London living in Paris, codenamed Playboy, who had audaciously set up a number of wireless sets in safe houses. He was posing as a student, studying hard but all the while tapping out messages to London.
It was a lonely life. She never fully relaxed – every time she left her bedsit she rehearsed her cover in case she was questioned. She slept lightly, sometimes fretfully, in the small room she’d rented, but it had lofty ceilings and tall windows that let in a great deal of light and air, which she found calming. The tiny, rickety cherrywood table was left by the previous occupant and sat over mismatched chairs. Along with her bed, the sink and a very small wood stove, it was the only piece of furniture.
Lisette warmed herself as best she could from a flowerpot brazier she had constructed using paper waste from the bank. It would burn long enough to thaw frozen fingers before she hugged herself into bed from the early evening. She was planning to grow some food in pots on the balcony in summer, and she even entertained the hollow daydream of a parachute drop that might contain some soap or shampoo. Nevertheless, despite the mean facilities, the solitude and the constant sense of danger, she was curiously content.
She was fortunate in many ways: not only did she have regular work at the bank but the folk of the neighbourhood had taken her under their wing. She found herself giving salutations and stopping in the street to chat about the ridiculous price of potatoes or offering to run errands on her way into work. The greatest danger was complacency; this was a luxury she could ill afford. Lisette had to treat every day as though it were the day she would be discovered. Never let down the guard! This had been drummed into her during training, even though that felt like a lifetime ago. So much had happened since the day she’d met Captain Jepson.
Not least Lukas Ravensburg. If she considered everything from the past year of her life, it was Luc who burned in her memory, and the evening he had wept in her arms. She knew it should be the execution of Laurent and the man known as Fougasse that kept her awake at night; or perhaps the knowledge that Luc had killed the milicien. But no – it was the man she barely knew who seemed to stalk her in her quiet moments. Watching him crumble, witnessing those tightly held defences crash down was more heartbreaking than anything she’d ever experienced. And his tender kiss had made him impossible to forget. He was like no other man she’d met. Luc was such an enigma, and like herself, a person full of private pain. She held th
e fanciful hope that they were two halves who could make a whole, if given a chance. A day hadn’t gone by since that terrible evening in Provence that she didn’t think about Luc and didn’t yearn for his kiss, to share his pain and soothe his hurts.
Where was he? Was he safe? He had left her in Lyon. She desperately wanted to ask the network for information, but she knew making contact with him would risk her own cover and might compromise his.
‘Just knowing other Resistance members might get you thrown in prison or executed,’ Playboy had told her. She knew he was right. Prosper, who was to have been her original contact in Paris, had been arrested the year before. His cover had been blown – something to do with his ID papers and the wrong rivets used. London’s forging error was disastrous. Around five hundred résistants had been arrested, most packed off to Germany for interrogation, imprisonment, and probably execution. Playboy had assured her the best and only defence was to remain independent.
Her first task had been to establish a place where she and Playboy could exchange messages without having to meet. It was known as the ‘dead drop’ – all agents had one.
A café on the Rue Pergolese was chosen, ironically in the heart of the German business district, just off the Champs Elysées. Playboy had explained that using an establishment favoured by Gestapo added a curious sense of safety. The best hiding place was in plain sight.
The café owner was a cunning black marketeer and a passive resister who despised the Germans. He would place a green tea towel over his shoulder to signal to Lisette if Playboy had a message for her. If she sent one to Playboy, she would write it on cigarette papers at home and stick the tiny note with its handy glue strip to the inside page of a newspaper that she would leave behind the counter for Playboy. They’d take turns calling into the café every other day to check for messages. So far she had sent only one message to SOE, months before: Accommodated and employed in Paris. Lark.
The Lavender Keeper Page 21