The Occupation

by Deborah Swift

  I smiled reassuringly at him, went to the chair near the door and opened the file.

  He unbuckled his belt and wrapped it round his hand.

  My mouth went dry. I swallowed, then took out my pencil and pad, as if I was about to take notes.

  ‘Where is your son, Pierre Severin?’ Schuster asked.

  I didn’t need to translate. The question was clear enough.

  ‘No idea,’ Berenice said, eyes blazing. ‘Last time I heard of him he was in Rouen.’

  ‘Rouen? Is that what she says?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Liar.’ He let out a few inches of belt and swung it. His arm was long and the buckle hissed before it sliced across her forehead.

  Berenice’s head snapped sideways before returning to upright. Her eyes spilled tears but she didn’t cry out.

  Dear God. I winced, but Schuster didn’t see; he was re-winding it for another shot.

  ‘Tell her Félix Armand has been executed,’ Schuster said. ‘Say he refused to give us names. Because of that, we’ll kill another fifty French civilians. Fifty more if she doesn’t speak.’

  Was it an empty threat? Would they really kill civilians for this? I’d no way of knowing. I didn’t want to tell her that. I tried to put all my intention into my hurried words, hoping if I spoke quickly enough Schuster wouldn’t catch the words. ‘Listen. Félix didn’t give you up. Jérôme betrayed you. If you know where Antoine is, say nothing. Make something up, anything, and I’ll try to get you out.’

  Had she understood? Something in her eyes changed. I could see her thinking, weighing up whether to believe me. I hoped she was reading the minute signals I was trying to convey.

  All this within the space of a few short seconds. This time the belt caught her a slice on the cheek. The noise she made was a gasp like a sigh. Blood dribbled from the split onto her blouse. She spoke with venom in French. ‘I’ll die rather than tell you anything, Édouard Vibert. I don’t believe you. You betrayed us.’

  ‘She says her son has gone over into the Vichy zone,’ I said, frantically improvising. ‘A small town called Ambert.’

  ‘Stupid bitch,’ Schuster said.

  He withdrew his fist with the coiled belt wrapped round it and punched her hard in the mouth. ‘That’s for telling us lies.’

  For the second time, my hand went to the cold weight of my gun. Not yet.

  I released my hand from the grip. Unable to use her hands, Berenice doubled over and slumped forward until she slipped to the ground. I felt so sick I thought I might faint.

  More senseless beating, kicks with his boots, until my neck was so knotted and tense my head throbbed. Berenice cried out something unintelligible. Then, ‘He’s in Ambert,’ she said, ‘76 Rue Allemand.’

  ‘We’ve got an address,’ I said thickly. ‘And the son’ll give us everything else. File says we’ve to take her to the woods. And we can have a smoke on the way back.’

  ‘Can’t do it by firing squad,’ he said. ‘French law forbids us to execute women by the gun, unless they’re Jews.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘We can shoot the bitch if she tries to escape. And she will, when she sees the trench.’

  The law was supposed to prevent barbarity. I couldn’t believe Schuster was talking of it as if it were some normal everyday duty. The hard coldness of my gun repulsed me, but I’d have only one chance, when it would be me or Schuster. Could I do it? I really didn’t know.

  Berenice could barely stand, and she was too woozy to struggle, but she let us drag her, stumbling, her hands still tied behind her back. Her feet tripped on the stairs, her eyes dazed and unfocussed. I concentrated on holding her up, my breath coming fast with the extra weight. We walked on through the gate to the Bois de Boulogne, past the bored-looking guards with machine guns. They watched us pass with indifference as if we were just ordinary passers-by. On, through the shade of the trees, past big old oaks with skeletal branches bearing a few brown leaves. The lack of birdsong made the shadows too silent, and our feet scuffed the dry ground.

  Finally we came to a deep trench. The trees around it were scarred with bullet holes. I didn’t look in. The stench of putrefying flesh told me everything I needed to know. Berenice suddenly seemed to realise what was happening and started to struggle.

  Oh God, I couldn’t let her run, Schuster would shoot her. I clung onto her arm, desperately pressed my fingers there so it would hurt. I hissed in French, ‘Stay still. We only get one chance, d’you hear?’

  ‘Run, bitch,’ Schuster said, pulling his gun from its holster.

  My fingers clutched her sleeve. I heard the fabric rip.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Schuster said.

  He turned to look at me, and in that moment Berenice broke away. My hand slipped in and out of my pocket like butter, and in one smooth movement I fired.

  The shot echoed in the sultry air, the reverberation bouncing off the trees and sounding over and over. Schuster clutched his chest, his face a mild expression of wounded surprise. He took a single step towards me, with his mouth open, about to speak. I found myself about to answer him, but then he toppled sideways away from me.

  The moment seemed to stretch as his feet left the ground, so that the pattern of the sole of his boots imprinted itself in my memory.

  There was a dull thud as he fell. I looked over the edge. Schuster was spread-eagled over a tangle of other bodies. The buttons of his uniform glinted around the red hole in his chest. One leg was splayed up towards me. His eyes were open, staring up at the empty sky.

  The adrenalin came after, like a shot of morphine, making everything grainy, unreal.

  I began to shake, as if my knees were made of cotton wool.

  Point-blank range. The words repeated in my head. I shot him at point-blank range.

  The fact he was dead stunned me.

  I turned, confused, to see Berenice running towards the dark of the woods.

  CHAPTER 28

  She wouldn’t stand a chance if anyone saw her. Not with her hands tied and the terrible state of her face. I stumbled after her. She was about fifteen yards ahead of me, dodging in and out of the trees. Suddenly she stopped, crouched down.

  Her warning made me drop flat on the ground behind a pocket of woody scrub. Along one of the paths came a platoon of soldiers who were obviously out on manoeuvres. They passed close by, heading towards the Avenue Foch. I had to hope they wouldn’t see Schuster’s boot sticking out of that trench. My plan, before the reality, had been to change clothes with Schuster, even though he was a bigger man. A German uniform would have given us breathing space to get away, a way of pretending Berenice was my prisoner.

  But Berenice had her own idea. She was running again now, awkwardly, her hands still tied. I chased after her, not daring to call out. She was faster than I thought she would be, despite everything. But I was fitter, stronger and unencumbered. I launched myself towards her and we fell in a crashing rugby tackle.

  I had hold of her round the waist. ‘Let go of me,’ she hissed, kicking at my groin.

  ‘At least let me untie your hands. You won’t get anywhere like that.’

  She squinted up at me through a swollen eye. ‘You had a gun. Why didn’t you shoot him earlier?’

  ‘And risk the whole of Avenue Foch descending on us? I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him… Oh what’s the use? There’s no time to explain. When Schuster doesn’t go back, and I’m gone, the German Army will be after us.’

  She sat up, her breath still coming fast. Her eyes bored into mine. ‘Untie me then.’

  We crawled over to a patch of undergrowth where we’d be out of sight. Freeing her was harder than it looked; her struggle had tightened the knots, and my hands felt like they belonged to someone else. ‘Shit. I can’t do it.’

  ‘Have you got matches?’

  I took out the matches with the Nazi symbol on the cover that Vogt had given me. Her mouth curled in disgust, but I ignored her and crawled behind her back
. I struck one match after another and held them to the leather laces. In my haste, I burned her arm, and she winced but made no sound.

  When she was free, she rubbed her swollen wrists before putting a hand on my arm. ‘Was it really Jérôme?’

  I nodded. ‘Sorry. I saw him at Avenue Foch with the Gestapo.’

  ‘The piece of shit.’ She put a hand to her face, drew in a sharp breath.

  ‘You need something for that. Does it hurt?’

  ‘What the hell do you think?’ She was tying her shoes together as best she could with the remnants of the laces.

  I looked over my shoulder. ‘We need to move.’

  ‘Wait until dark,’ she said. ‘I don’t look dressed for Paris in the afternoon.’

  ‘No. They’ll have dogs. We’ve got to get under cover somewhere. Not my apartment or the café.’

  A shout from the direction of the trench.

  German voices. ‘Over here.’ ‘Fetch help.’

  Cold shivers ran up my back. ‘They’ve found him.’

  ‘The Seine. The Quai Carnot,’ Berenice said. ‘We’ll try to get a boat.’

  ‘You go, Berenice. You know Paris. I’m going to make it much harder for you to disappear.’

  ‘I feel like company. Come on.’ She grabbed my arm and we began to hurry northwards, skirting the trees, keeping out of sight.

  ‘Which way?’

  We turned down a wooded path only to see two German soldiers on patrol coming towards us. We backtracked, and one of them called out, ‘Hey! You!’

  As we turned back we saw more soldiers behind them, dozens of them in formation. The Bois de Boulogne was the Wehrmacht’s training ground.

  Berenice yanked my arm and we plunged into the undergrowth. To our right we heard the noise of men’s boots on the footpaths, but we kept on dodging our way though. Behind us, to the right, there was movement between the bare trees and the glint of helmets and rifles.

  Panting hard, we emerged on the other side of the thicket onto a broad path beside the river. Downstream, we saw German guards close to a bridge, to the left no one.

  ‘Walk quietly,’ I said, ‘as if we’re just out for a stroll.’ We walked upriver, looking for a place to cross. ‘The bridges will all be guarded. Can you swim?’

  ‘Only ladies breaststroke.’ She stared at the fast-flowing brown murk of the Seine. ‘I don’t know if I can swim that. And if we do, you’ll lose your papers.’

  ‘Useless anyway, given the whole of the German Army will be looking for me.’

  The lower bridge was in sight. We walked briskly towards it, but even from here I could see the grey-green helmets of troops.

  An order from behind me: ‘Halt!’

  A soldier was on the path about a hundred yards behind us. More soldiers burst from the thicket.

  I grabbed Berenice’s arm and we skidded down the bank. I kicked off my shoes, shrugged off my jacket. ‘Your shoes!’ I gasped.

  She pulled them off and, half falling, we staggered into the freezing water. The shock made me gasp. The current was strong and dragged us downriver towards the soldiers. I splashed out in a front crawl, keeping Berenice ahead and to the left of me, but she was already tiring.

  Braat-a-tat! A rain of machine-gun fire skimmed the water just behind me.

  I didn’t dare look back, just kept on swimming, the dark peat smell of the river in my lungs, the cold making my breath ragged. I floundered, trying to reach Berenice, who was drifting upriver away from me, going nowhere. ‘Turn on your back,’ I gasped. ‘I’ll help you.’

  She rolled over and her head momentarily disappeared.

  I scrabbled and splashed for her with one arm and towed her, not caring if her head was in or out of the water. She coughed and struggled. More machine-gun fire bouncing fountains off the water. Something hit me in the shoulder, sinking me, until I resurfaced to the fact that one arm was weak and wouldn’t pull.

  Berenice, seeing the bank ahead, found extra strength from somewhere and hauled herself towards a pontoon with small boats bobbing alongside. Spluttering, we dragged ourselves up, water cascading from our clothes. Behind us, bullets still rained into the water.

  I glanced to the right: soldiers running towards us.

  To the left: more men running.

  We shot across the road towards a side street. On the corner opposite me was a café. A man with a white moustache was sitting at a table outside, smoking. ‘Les bicyclettes! La bas!’ he said in an urgent whisper.

  ‘Thank you,’ I yelled.

  ‘Vive La France!’

  We followed his eyes. Just around the corner, several bicycles were propped against the wall. As soon as I stopped running, the air swam around me like I was still underwater. Berenice was already wheeling a cycle out as I grabbed the handlebars with a slippery hand. As I looked down to put my bare feet on the pedals, I saw a trickle of blood in the water still sluicing from my clothes.

  We set off pedalling like crazy, in and out of alleyways. I clung on with one hand; the right one didn’t seem to work so well. After fifteen minutes of frantic legwork, Berenice leapt off and threw her cycle into a side street.

  She led me down into an alleyway, and as we came out, I saw we were opposite a churchyard. We wove our way uphill past ancient trees and decrepit mausoleums and bone-houses. My feet kept stubbing on the steps; my toes were numb with cold. By now I was panting hard, my arm hanging like a dead weight. Berenice climbed steadily upwards, her skirt stuck to her legs as she pulled herself up by the stone walls.

  God, she was tough. Finally, she paused at the top of a flight of stairs. She ducked down between two crumbling tombs.

  ‘Where the hell are we?’ I asked.

  ‘Mont-Valérien cemetery. Site of an old Catholic monastery. We can see people coming from up here, but we can’t go any further. Too dangerous. There’s the old Fort up there, and it’s been taken over by the Boche.’

  I looked down towards Paris. I could even see the Eiffel Tower in the haze of the city. It didn’t look like a city at war. It looked peaceful in the late afternoon light, the Seine curving around it as if to protect it.

  ‘You’ve been shot in the shoulder,’ Berenice said. Her voice was slurred because her lip was swollen.

  ‘I know. My right arm won’t work properly. Is it bad?’

  She came around to look and I felt her touch my shoulder. There was a sting of pain. I winced.

  ‘The bullet’s still in there,’ she said. ‘Good thing too, you would have bled more otherwise.’

  ‘Have you a plan?’

  ‘No. You?’

  ‘Staying alive seems like a good idea.’

  I peered down the hill. ‘Can you see anyone?’

  ‘I think we lost them. We should rest here,’ she said. ‘Once it’s dark, we can move, try to find help.’

  ‘Who will help us? Whoever tries will write their own death sentence.’

  ‘There will be someone,’ she said stubbornly. ‘France looks after her own.’

  I looked at her face, a mess of dried blood and bruising. ‘I said before … go alone. I’m the one they’re looking for. Even before Jérôme, Vogt knew; he knew I was working for the French. It was only a matter of time.’

  ‘I would be a corpse in that trench if it wasn’t for you.’

  ‘No. I saved myself. It was the end of the line, and I knew it was my only chance to run.’

  ‘We go together.’ She turned away from me, stared down the hill.

  ‘I don’t know. Who will want to take me in? They said they’d shoot more civilians for every German lost. That’s the tactic; use terror to control the people, make them feel responsible.’

  She didn’t reply. And in my mind’s eye I saw Schuster, cigarette burning in the ashtray before him, grinning at me over a hand of cards. I hadn’t meant to kill him, yet my hand had leapt to the gun almost like a reflex. How had I known that was the moment? The speed of his death had rocked me to the core. And the fact that flesh was so
soft and weak. I hadn’t known men could kill each other so easily.

  I took the pistol from my pocket and laid it on the tomb next to me. Then we waited until night fell and the curfew bell was long past. As we waited, I dozed, and Schuster’s face turned into the face of my brother, Horst. I hoped to God some bastard Frenchman hadn’t put a gun to his head.

  CHAPTER 29

  Berenice had a map of Paris ingrained in her head, and without it we would never have been able to negotiate the alleyways of Paris and find our way back to the city. Even with her injuries, she strode doggedly on. I had ceased to think. I had just followed her blindly where she led me, watching our backs and keeping out of the way of the night patrols. We were both bone-tired by the time we arrived at a black front door in a small street of tall tenement houses. Berenice tapped softly on the door.

  It opened a crack and a familiar wrinkled face peered out. Sebastien.

  His smile died on seeing Berenice’s face. Wordlessly, he pulled her in, and once I was inside he shut the door and bolted it.

  ‘Thank God. We heard you’d been taken,’ he said. ‘The café’s swarming with Germans. They’ve taken all your belongings. The Bechsteins have been put on a train — east.’

  ‘Sebastien?’ A woman with her grey hair scraped back under a hairnet appeared. She was in a rose-flowered nightdress and dressing gown.

  ‘This is my wife, Marthe,’ Sebastien said. ‘You know Berenice, and this is Édouard, who beats me at chess.’

  ‘They can’t stay here.’ Marthe folded her arms across her chest. ‘Look at them. And he’s got a bullet in his back. You can’t tell me they’ll be no trouble.’

  ‘It’ll just be one night, won’t it, Édouard?’ Sebastien said.

  ‘We’d be really grateful,’ I said, aiming for reasonableness. ‘We’ve had quite a day.’ How ludicrous it sounded to be making polite conversation. Yet, instinct told me that begging would only make us seem more desperate.

  Marthe ignored me. ‘I don’t like it, Sebastien. You told me the Gestapo closed down her café. Do you want the Gestapo here?’