Wild Lavender

by Belinda Alexandra

  In the summer of 1944, the tide could not be held back any longer. André managed to smuggle a disassembled radio transmitter past the guards outside my apartment and together we listened to the crackly voice of de Gaulle announce: ‘This will be your year of liberation.’ Something was happening at last.

  Paris started to look like a city at war. German trucks rushed out of the city and a few days later they returned full of wounded soldiers. André and I met again to listen to the BBC but this time the signal was blocked. Food became scarce; there was no milk or meat in any of the shops. Our electricity and gas supplies were limited to certain times of the day. The métro stopped running. It was from Monsieur Dargent that we heard the thrilling news that the Allies had landed in Normandy and were pushing the German army back.

  By August it was clear that the Germans were losing. They were no longer the proud force that had entered Paris. As most of the soldiers were evacuated, those left behind to guard strongholds moved about in groups, terrified of what might happen to them should they become separated from their unit. The women’s auxiliary organisations and civil servants were evacuated in buses. Madame Goux recounted to me the story of one busload of German women, military wives, who waved tearfully at the Parisians lined up along the sidewalk, wondering what was going on. Madame Goux’s parting shot was to suck up as much saliva as she could and project it at the bus’s windscreen. The most telling detail, however, was that the German soldier accompanying her said nothing.

  In the middle of the month, there were rumours that the Allies had landed in the south and, with the help of the maquis, were chasing the Germans and Milice out of their strongholds. The Paris police, seizing the moment to wipe out four years of shame, put away their uniforms but kept their weapons. The numbers of the fighting Resistance swelled. The police may have been left with the task of handing Paris over to the German army back in 1940, but now they were keen to show the enemy the way out.

  Madame Goux and I clung to each other in my apartment, listening to the exchange of fire between the Germans and the Resistance. We kept a candle burning, although candles were not easy to come by, and prayed for Paris and the men and women who were dying. The French people took to the streets; not in our neighbourhood, but on the Left Bank and in the suburbs. They built barricades to stop the Germans escaping or patrolling the city in their tanks. Madame Goux and I ripped up sheets to make bandages for the Red Cross, and the German soldiers who guarded us now that the Gestapo had fled allowed us to take them to the hospital. Bound by the Geneva Convention, the Red Cross nurses were treating both Resistants and Germans.

  Then one hot August evening, while I was taking a bath, the battle sounds ceased. The silence after so much violence was unnerving. A while later, the bells of Notre Dame began to ring. I dried myself and wrapped a kimono around me. I rushed to the window and threw the sash open. The bells of St Séverin joined in with those of Notre Dame and I peered into the black night, wondering what was happening. The lights of the buildings near the Seine lit up, flickered, then died. Suddenly the bells of St Jacques, St Eustache and St Gervais filled the night with sound.

  I ran downstairs to find Madame Goux standing in the foyer, her face gaunt and her eyes wide. ‘What do the bells mean?’ she asked.

  It was then I noticed that the two German soldiers who guarded us were gone. I rushed down the remaining stairs and threw my arms around her. I knew I would never forget that moment. The hug I exchanged with her hurt my ribs but lit my heart.

  ‘It means the Allies have won!’ I cried. ‘Paris is free!’

  In the initial sweep of euphoria it seemed that our joy would last for ever. The tricolour flew from windows and doorways, some of the flags hastily sewn from whatever was available—a white tablecloth, a red petticoat, a blue shirt. Despite the glass that littered the streets and the stray bullets fired by German soldiers who had not yet received notice of their surrender, we could not stay indoors any longer. The summer air was filled with the stirring melody of the Marseillaise, once banned but now sung on every corner.

  I walked Paris from street to street, as I had when I first arrived in the Twenties, but as I passed the cafés and the crowds gathered around monuments or the flower-strewn Allied tanks, it dawned on me that our happiness was a kind of charade. How could Paris be the same? There were bullet holes in many of the buildings and flowers laid on streets and pavements where a Resistant had offered up his or her life for France. ‘Here died Jean Sauvaire, who fought bravely for his country.’

  But there had been pitifully few who resisted. What about those who had done nothing, or, worse, who had actively collaborated? Already I was hearing of women who had taken German lovers having their heads shaved and being paraded through the streets, and other collaborators being found dead in stairwells or floating face down in the Seine.

  General de Gaulle was due to make his official appearance in Paris a few days after the Allies had entered it. We understood from the police milling around the Arc de Triomphe that he would be parading that afternoon along the Champs élysées. I was eager to see the man who had been a disembodied voice in the war years, a voice that had so inspired me that I was prepared to risk my life for its call.

  As my dining room had a balcony facing the avenue, I invited André and Monsieur Dargent to join us for lunch. Madame Goux and I set about scrounging together the best feast we could—tomatoes, some limp lettuce, bread and goat’s cheese. We pushed the table close to the balcony doors and set it with serviettes of red, white and blue. After we had put the champagne on ice, I glanced at the clock and noted with surprise that André and Monsieur Dargent were half an hour late. André, especially, was usually so precise.

  ‘Look at this,’ said Madame Goux, calling me out to the balcony. She unfurled a tricolour that she had somehow managed to knit in the past few days. The sight of her woolly flag, curling at the edges, made me laugh.

  I was about to offer her a drink when there was a violent banging on the door which made both of us jump. I rushed into the entrance hall and called out, ‘Who is it?’ But the caller only answered by knocking fiercely again. Certainly it wouldn’t be André or Monsieur Dargent.

  ‘I’ll answer it,’ said Madame Goux, undoing the latch before I could stop her.

  She opened the door and three armed men rushed across the threshold, one of them brandishing a machine gun as if he were expecting to find an apartment full of Germans. They were unshaven and smelt of stale sweat but there was pride in their rugged faces. I glanced at the FFI armbands on their shirtsleeves. They were men of de Gaulle’s French Forces of the Interior.

  ‘Come in,’ I said, assuming they must be searching for vantage points from which to detect snipers over the Champs élysées. Some people had thought it premature for de Gaulle to parade out in the open when there were still pockets of fighting in the city. But he had insisted on congratulating the people of Paris for their contribution to the liberation. ‘Please feel free to use whatever balconies or windows you wish. And help yourself to the food. We don’t have much, but you are welcome to it.’

  A flicker of surprise flashed across the face of the soldier nearest to me. ‘Mademoiselle Fleurier?’ he barked.

  ‘Yes.’ I was taken aback by the ferocity in his voice.

  ‘By the order of the Paris police, I am placing you under arrest,’ he said. ‘You will come with us immediately.’

  I didn’t move. I was too stupefied to take in his orders. The soldier stared me down as if I were challenging him. ‘You are charged with collaboration and will accompany us to the police station.’

  I glanced at Madame Goux, whose gaping mouth showed that she was as shocked as I was. ‘You must be joking,’ she said. ‘Mademoiselle Fleurier is not a collaborator. She is a Resistant. She was resisting from the moment the Germans occupied Paris. Why else would she have been placed under house arrest?’

  The soldier shrugged. ‘That is not what our report says. But if it is the truth then sh
e can clear it up at the station.’

  My head felt light. I tried to think clearly. The best course of action would be to cooperate. Surely I couldn’t be found guilty of collaboration even if I had somehow managed to be charged with it? I would have to set things right.

  I picked up my purse from the sideboard and put my hand on Madame Goux’s arm. ‘Don’t worry,’ I told her. ‘There has been some mistake. Go ahead and celebrate with the others when they arrive. I am sure this will be cleared up and I will be back for afternoon tea.’

  The police station the men took me to looked like a railway platform. Soldiers marched up and down the foyer with guns by their sides while the police checked the papers of bleary-eyed detainees, many of whom looked as if they had been dragged out of bed. I was led to a row of chairs and made to sit down next to an old lady in a dressing gown and slippers. I glanced around the waiting area and saw that Jacques Noir was sitting opposite, his head in his hands. Surely they couldn’t mistake me for someone like him? Noir had gone so far as to perform for Hitler in Berlin. I glanced at my watch. If this whole misunderstanding was cleared up soon, I could be back in time for the parade.

  After my papers were verified, I was taken to a cell. It was crowded with the most mismatched group of women I had ever seen. At least half of them were prostitutes, while the rest looked like shopkeepers and housewives except for three elegantly dressed women who were huddled together on a bed.

  ‘What do you think they will do to us?’ whimpered one of the women, tugging at her red curls. ‘My God, what will they do to us?’

  She seemed familiar to me and I tried to place her. Then I realised she was one of the women I had competed with in the Concours d’élégance automobile, a former friend of André’s. He had told me about her war deeds. She had taken a perverse pleasure in denouncing Resistants and Jews, including her own housekeeper. She didn’t do it for the reward, she never took the money. She did it because she thought it was an amusing game.

  ‘I hope they shoot you,’ said one of the prostitutes. ‘Just so the rest of us can get some peace.’

  I hoped that they would shoot her for what she had done, and was surprised at the vehemence that stung my blood. I hadn’t known I was capable of such hate. I glanced at my watch: it was almost three o’clock. General de Gaulle would have started to march.

  Some time later a soldier opened the door and called out my name. The way the other women trembled in his presence, he may as well have been calling me up for the firing squad. The soldier led me up two flights of stairs to a questioning room. I eyed the stiff-jawed lieutenant sitting at the table.

  ‘Take a seat,’ he said.

  I did as I was told and the lieutenant read out the list of accusations against me. My skin prickled at the words ‘passing intelligence information to the enemy’ and ‘treason’. Those were serious charges, much more than mere collaboration, and were punishable by death.

  ‘Who denounced me?’ I asked. ‘There has been some mistake.’

  He gave me a look that said he had been hearing that all day and for once he’d like to see someone admit their guilt. ‘I can’t give names, but you did perform for the Germans and the records at the Deuxième Bureau support the charge of treason.’

  Merde! The records Mouse had ‘amended’. But who had denounced me? A jealous rival trying to settle a score?

  ‘I worked for a network,’ I told the lieutenant, trying to sound as calm and factual as possible, although his attitude had dampened my confidence. ‘I accompanied Allied servicemen and French soldiers across the demarcation line. I was assisted by my concierge, Madame Goux, and my neighbour, Madame Ibert.’

  ‘And where are they now?’ he asked, noting their names on a piece of paper. I told him that Madame Goux was at my apartment and that Madame Ibert was in the south.

  ‘We can’t reach the south yet but I will have Madame Goux interviewed. What was the name of your contact in the network?’

  ‘Roger Clifton…Roger Delpierre, I mean.’ I hated the way my voice trembled. It dawned on me that it might not be so easy to prove my innocence as I had thought. I had assumed that Roger had either contacted the Special Operations Executive or rejoined the Royal Airforce when he had returned to London. But I had not seen or heard from him for almost two years. The war was over in France, but it was not over everywhere. It might be months before Roger could reach me. And with de Gaulle and Churchill fighting from separate camps, the FFI may not know who he was.

  The lieutenant looked at me appraisingly. ‘The Garrow–O’Leary line? That is quite a claim, Mademoiselle Fleurier. Besides your concierge, do you have any French persons in authority who can vouch for you?’

  ‘I became involved with the network after being approached by two members of the Deuxième Bureau.’

  ‘And what were their names?’

  I was about to say Mouse and the Judge, when I realised those were not their real names. I had no idea who they really were. I tried to explain that to the lieutenant. He let out a sigh and leaned back in his chair. ‘If you don’t know their names, is there anybody else?’

  ‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘André Blanchard.’

  The lieutenant stared at me. ‘André Blanchard has been arrested on serious charges. He supplied uniforms for the German army while his brother-in-law was manufacturing weapons.’

  ‘André is a patriot,’ I said. ‘He gave money and clothing to the network. Without his help we would not have been able to save as many servicemen as we did.’

  I sounded much more confident about André’s innocence than I did about my own. It seemed to make an impression on the lieutenant. ‘He will have a fair trial and so will you,’ he said, standing up and opening the door.

  He called out for a soldier then turned to me. ‘What is most amazing,’ he said, rubbing his hands together, ‘is that all through the war there were never more than a few hundred people in Paris involved in the Resistance. But in the past two days, in this police station alone, we have interviewed over five hundred known collaborators who have insisted that they were really working for the Resistance. Now how could that be?’

  I was taken to Cherche-Midi prison, the same place where the Germans had interned me. Although I wasn’t beaten this time, and was given adequate food and water, I was more terrified than I had been when I was imprisoned by the enemy. This time I was innocent and the people who were holding me were French. The new administration seemed bent on rounding up and punishing collaborators before they could escape. When I heard the crackle of bullets the following morning, I wondered how much time the police would allow for the collection of evidence supporting my case.

  After a breakfast of bread and ersatz coffee, a guard led me out into the exercise yard. There were about ten other women there and the sight of them turned my stomach. They had shaven heads and swastikas tattooed over their bodies. One shivering girl wore nothing but a chemise. She tried to cover her nakedness by crouching in a corner. I was still wearing my clothes from the previous day and gave her my scarf so she could make herself a skirt. She glanced at me and I saw she was no more than fifteen. Sleeping with the enemy was not an honourable thing to do, but I didn’t see it as the worst crime of collaboration. For many women it had been the only way to feed their children. Industrialists, like Felix and Guillemette, who had helped the German war effort were far worse. And what about the politicians who had abandoned the city in the first place?

  There was a soldier guarding the entrance to the yard. I turned to him. ‘Is this what I risked my life for?’ I snarled, pointing to the girl. ‘Is this my beloved France? If it is, then we are no better than the Nazis!’

  ‘Be quiet!’ he cautioned.

  I was not about to be silenced. ‘Why are these women here?’ I screamed. ‘Is it because you can’t touch the real collaborators?’

  I was whipping myself up into a frenzy and, despite the gun in his hand, the soldier looked alarmed. One of his comrades rushed up and twisted my arm b
ehind my back. ‘If you can’t appreciate the fresh air, then you’re going back inside.’

  He dragged me by the hair to my cell. For the first time it occurred to me that what happened to those women might happen to me. Simone Fleurier, shaved and humiliated, marched through the streets of Paris for her crime of collaboration. The soldier shouted to the guard to open my cell door and then pushed me inside. I stumbled on my knee, which had never become quite strong again. The soldier picked me up and threw me onto the straw bed. Then, his adrenaline spent, he straightened and said, ‘We didn’t do that to those women. It was the mobs. We detest their behaviour and have made it illegal. But those women have been denounced by others and we must investigate their crimes.’

  ‘Perhaps those who are denouncing them have much to hide themselves,’ I said.

  He stared at me, sizing me up. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, before turning and slamming the cell door shut behind him.

  I rested my head on my knees. I had thought the war was over. How wrong I had been.

  I was still in prison a week later when I received a message from the guard that my trial would take place in a few days. I asked him if Madame Goux had been interviewed; if Monsieur Dargent’s testimony had been taken; if the doctors who had used our apartment building had been found? The guard said he knew nothing, but I could answer those questions myself. If those testimonies had been taken, then they had not been strong enough for the charge of treason to be dropped.