‘Yes. Me, I’m sorry to have to say this, but you mustn’t trust André.’
‘But why?’
Since I couldn’t tell him about Collin, I couldn’t tell him all of it. ‘Simone. He’s totally devoted to her and to his work. If the Nazis should ever take her, he’ll break.’
There, I’d said it, something I’d been afraid to admit even to myself, even after everything that had happened since. Back then, I knew, you see? I knew and I could have stopped him. Me!
As with Marcel, Tommy said André was okay and that I was not to worry so much. ‘The firm in London will sure be happy when they hear we’ve got this stuff. They’ve a special interest in our work, Lily. Nicki’s determined to get back what’s his and whatever else we can grab, and so am I.’
They’d not take no for an answer. ‘Then the robberies will continue and get bigger and bigger, is that it?’
He reached out, motioned that I was to come to him, but I remained standing with my back to those crates, ‘What if the Germans find these? What if we’re all taken?’
‘Relax. Don’t worry so much. Everything’s going to be fine. Have you missed me?’
I felt my coat as it fell to the floor, still couldn’t take my eyes from him. Candlelight flickered, throwing shadows across the wall, but was there time?
Quickly, I hiked up my dress and tucked it into my belt, kicked off those sabots, and heard them clatter away as my underpants followed and I knelt to one side of him. We kissed. I placed an exploratory hand behind his neck, felt the short curly hairs that were there as he fumbled with his belt, and I knew that his trousers would soon be down and that we’d make love that way, that for a brief moment we’d forget about everything else as we lost ourselves in each other.
Luck played such a part in things. It was luck that got me home that night and told me not to go to sleep, that the dawn would come too quickly.
It was luck that warned me I might soon have visitors and that they’d be asking a lot of questions.
Luck also brought the mayor of Fontainebleau to me first.
‘Madame, we must speak freely. We both know that not everyone goes along with the Nazis, but if things should happen …’
Picard mopped his florid brow and ran a knuckle over the handlebar moustache. ‘You’d better come in. The colonel and the lieutenant are both away. It’s safe enough.’
The mouse-brown eyes looked at me. ‘Nothing is safe, madame. Me, I have come out here with a warning for you. Last night, you returned from your mother’s very late. Questions are being asked.’
‘I had two flat tyres! Some idiot scattered broken glass all over the road!’
‘The Résistance from Melun?’ he asked, startled by what I’d said.
It was the first I’d heard of them. ‘Résistance? How should I know?’
‘The bicycle, Madame de St-Germain. Please, may I see it?’
‘Do you doubt my word?’
‘Not for a moment. I merely want to make certain. I don’t want hostages to be taken.’
‘For what, please?’ It was my turn to be startled.
Picard blew his nose then mopped his brow again. ‘For the robbery. The theft of several valuable works of art from the Reichsmarschall Göring’s lorry.’
‘Of this I know nothing, I assure you.’
He wasn’t quite satisfied. I think, looking back on it, Picard and I understood each other very well, but at the time he only nodded brusquely. ‘The bicycle, madame. It might just help if the tyres were badly slashed by the broken glass of those people from Melun.’
‘Then come and see for yourself.’ I indicated the way, and he followed me round the house with his bicycle, which had those big, heavy balloon-type tyres.
I remember that it was very hot inside the shed. Picard sucked in a breath and ran his eyes over each of the tyres. ‘Where? Madame de St-Germain, where, exactly, did you run into the glass?’
Had I learned well enough to lie even then? ‘On the road about seven kilometres from here. There’s a hill. It’s an effort to climb when you’re tired. It was a very long walk from there.’
He knew the hill. ‘Will there still be some glass?’ he asked, not of me, you understand, but more of us both. A simple man.
I took a chance. ‘There will be. I’ll see to it.’
Picard lifted his gaze to mine. I think then that he knew I was involved in things and that he had to make a choice, one way or the other.
Again, there was that brusque nod and a muttered, ‘Ah, bon.’ I asked if he would care for a glass of wine. We sat, one on either side of the picnic table Jean-Guy and I had moved earlier. Picard’s bicycle leaned against the nearest of our pear trees. ‘It’s a lovely garden, madame. You do well with it for someone who’s not used to the soil. You use your head and plant for the future. For me, I should like a few moments in my garden now and then, but the Germans … Ah, they are such sticklers for the paperwork.’
‘Let me get you some lettuce and green onions and … and some radishes. Yes, I have all those. And eggs … would you like ten?’
Ten! Such a thing was unheard of. ‘Madame, you honour me, but it isn’t necessary. With me … Ah, what can I say? Of course, we could use the eggs, a few, just a few, you understand. They’ll give me an excuse to come back to see you now and then. Yes, that’s what we’ll do, but you must register the chickens and me, I must pay you for the eggs. Otherwise …’ He gave a shrug, the universal gesture.
Our bargain settled, Picard rode off and I wondered then, how the Germans had known I’d come home so late?
It could only mean they were still having the house watched and that, in turn, most probably meant Georges and Tante Marie.
Luck made me think to cut the tyres, bien sûr, a terrible loss since replacements were next to impossible. Now luck would have to see me back on the road with several empty wine bottles to smash and kick about.
The things one had to do.
The sound of broken glass is like no other, and I heard it as he kicked it away again. I stood in the middle of the road waiting for Dupuis to say something, but he let the glass do the work. Fortunately, I chose the road from Barbizon to Fontainebleau, so for me there was the advantage that the Caves of the Brigands were just to the south of us and Chailly-en-Bière to the northwest. Barbizon was to the west some three, maybe four kilometres. Melun was between eight and ten almost due north.
It was quiet on the road, except for the sound of the broken glass. Even the birds had deserted us, and the two men who were with Dupuis when that black Citroën came to call, now leaned against the side of it, smoking cigarettes.
Both were gestapistes français. One I recognized as having been with that gang who attacked me, the Action française …
The glass was green, the sun warm, so that when Dupuis crushed a piece beneath the thick-soled shoes he wore, the sunlight broke as the sound of the glass came to me.
He wasn’t satisfied. He waded into the tall grass at the verge and looked around. He examined the gravel right at the edge of the road. He was very thorough—painstakingly so, he always was.
I heard a piece as it tinkled, heard another and another. Dupuis wore a dark brown, lightweight business suit whose threadbare jacket was open, a white shirt, and a brown tie. He reminded me of a shoe salesman. How wrong can appearances be?
‘Madame, you say this glass was here when you rode your bicycle back from your mother’s after the curfew.’
‘Not after, Inspector. I started out well before it, but the glass punctured both tyres and slowed me down so that, through no fault of my own, I arrived home well after it had started.’
‘Ah, bon, but …’ The small brown mole on this brown man’s chin moved as he tossed his head. ‘But the glass, madame. Surely, it should have been more flattened by now? A patrol passes by here several times a day. There are farm wagons loaded with manure, firewood, produce …’
‘At this time of year? Forget about the manure, Inspector. It’s ve
ry difficult to buy, and all of it has already been used on the fields. As for the firewood, the Germans don’t get the French to cut logs at this time of year. They’re too busy using up what they’ve already cut for charcoal and lumber. And the produce, you ask? What produce?’
‘Pigs, cattle, horses, chickens. The patrols, madame.’
There were up to six a day sometimes, although their number varied as did their timing, but I didn’t enlighten him. ‘The tread of those lorry tyres is heavy and deep, is it not? On a hill like this, it would tend to scatter the glass rather than to push it in. Besides, I don’t think you’re right. You’ve not been walking back and forth along the road but wandering all over it. If you were to look closely, Inspector, you’d see there are tyre marks in the glass.’
There weren’t, of course, but I wasn’t going to go down easily. Dupuis walked up the hill to stand in the middle of the road and look back at me. We were perhaps one hundred metres apart. The forest was close on either side, but there wasn’t as much underbrush as I would have liked, and those two by the car were just waiting for me to make a run for it.
‘Terroristen from Melun. Banditen, ja,’ Dupuis said using the Occupier’s terms for such, but as if he was tasting something that’s not quite right. ‘Sabotage, madame. Is this what you think? If so, hostages will have to be taken and shot.’
He meant it, too. He waited. I waited. Those two waited—he couldn’t be serious, but he was, and yet I asked myself, Are they really going to have someone shot for this? I couldn’t believe it.
‘Madame, écoutez-moi, s’il vous plaît. Oberst Neumann has no other choice. All acts of sabotage are to be severely punished so as to set an example to others.’
‘But … but perhaps it wasn’t sabotage? Perhaps a crate of bottles fell off a lorry or wagon and the men only cleaned up what they could?’
I was frantic and hoped my voice hadn’t betrayed me. Dupuis took out his pipe, and I watched him slowly pack that thing. Then the pouch into the jacket pocket, then the pat to make sure it was safely there, then the match—would he strike it with the thumbnail or on the cleat of one of those shoes?
It was the cleat this time. ‘Glass,’ he said, puffing away to get the furnace going. ‘Madame, everyone who was at your house the night of the Reichsmarschall Göring’s visit is under suspicion.’
‘For what?’ I managed.
The match was waved out and pocketed as always. ‘For robbery, Madame de St-Germain. It is with regret that we must take you to Paris. There are some questions that need to be answered. The children you will leave in the care of your husband’s gardener and housekeeper.’
Georges and Tante Marie. That bastard wanted them to pump my kids. He saw that I knew it, and all he did was smile. He’d got me right where he wanted me.
8
The mound of ashes is now almost totally grey. There are big chunks, little ones, powdery flakes—several shades, with lasting embers that only glow when the gusting wind decides to fan them.
I’ve built this bonfire in the forest knowing they’ll see it from the house. As expected, they’ve sent André to reason with me, but I don’t trust any of them. Why should I?
Having made a careful circuit of the area to be certain they’ve sent no one else, I let him wait. He doesn’t yet know I’m close. I’ve walked in my bare feet—left those shoes they gave me by the fire, the stockings, too, so that he’ll see them and think I’ve gone to relieve myself. He won’t know that bare feet are so much better for hunting.
André has gained a good fifteen years, not the few that should have made him the fifty-seven he really is. The shoulders are slumped as if in defeat, there’s no pride, it’s all gone. The overcoat is the same grey tweed with the black velvet collar, but he has no hat and that just isn’t right, not with him.
Even so, I step from behind the trees. Without the wind to fan the embers, there’s barely light enough to see him on the other side of the ashes. ‘Ah, bon, André. It’s been a long time.’
‘Lily…’ He’s startled, casts a glance towards the house, wonders where the others are but somehow manages to ask, ‘How did you … ? How are you?’
Searching the darkness for the others, I tell him it’s not important how I came to be alive.
At once, he’s irritable. ‘The war’s over, Lily. It’s finished. Forget it.’
‘Me? How could I?’
‘Look, I know you must have suffered terribly, but …’
‘What could you possibly know of my suffering?’
‘Simone …’
‘Ah, oui, Simone. I’m sorry she didn’t make it.’
‘She was the price I had to pay. Did she …’
‘Say anything, this woman who loved you so much? Is that what you’re wondering? Yes, she said lots of things. She asked us not to blame you for what you’d done, and when she died, I know her last wish was that others, not just myself, should show compassion towards you.’
This humbles him, and he stares at the ashes as a gust fans them to life. ‘The Nazis left me no choice, Lily. They said they had arrested her, and that if I’d agree to give them certain information, they would look the other way.’
‘The Vuittons told you that. Schiller was with them and … and Jules.’
‘Yes. They all came to my surgery. Your sister was too involved, Lily. I couldn’t …’
‘My sister, yes. And Michèle Chevalier, André, and Henri-Philippe Beauclair. You told those bastards where they could be found, but Janine, she managed to get away.’
‘They ought to have known better! I warned them many times. Janine was too impetuous. She took far too many chances. Michèle was far too innocent. She didn’t know how to lie, for God’s sake. She …’
I wait. He knows it’s no good trying to tell me Michèle was the first to break. At last, he says, ‘How did Simone die?’
He really wants to know, and I can see that he must have dwelt on this matter day and night.
‘Bergen-Belsen, André. Can you believe it? We’d been in Birkenau, the death camp at Auschwitz. Finally, they sent us to Bergen-Belsen, a so-called convalescent camp. Typhus, dysentery like you wouldn’t believe, mass starvation, no water at the end. Sixty … eighty thousand of us, the men in one part, the women in another, the soup so rotten and thin, everywhere people were dying so fast their last breaths made a constant whisper. A hush as the squeaking, lime-encrusted wheels of the carts hauled the heaps of bodies to the pits for burning and burial by those who were left and could still wield a shovel, myself among them.’
He says nothing. He can’t lift his eyes, but I feel no elation, only an emptiness that is hard to describe because he was once my friend. ‘Bergen-Belsen, André. Do you know what that must have meant for a woman like Simone? She was so thin. She needed rest, warmth, love—medical attention. You’re a doctor. Surely, you can appreciate that?’
Doubtless my voice shows traces of madness, but I have to get it off my chest. ‘That camp is in a kind of fir forest, low and swampy. Mud is everywhere. Always there is the mud, but on the morning she died it was all churned up and frozen solid. The spring of last year. March the 20th, so near the end and yet so far. They always woke us at four thirty in the morning for the roll call. The blockova would bash her truncheon against the wall of the hut, then scream at us in German, ‘Raus! Raus! Schnell, Huren!’ Out! Out! Hurry, whores! ‘Herunter!’ Down!—that means down from our so-called beds, André. The din is horrible, the panic indescribable. Sleeping, half-dead, exhausted women tumble from the Kojen where, tier upon tier, crammed head to foot, we’ve spent our nights. Arms, legs—sticks of bone; ribs showing—we fight to reach the floor and get outside. We have to get outside. It’s an order. AN ORDER!
‘Fog blankets the camp. Frost rims the ground, the barbed wire, and the trees in the distance. Huddled in our filthy rags, we wait under the blinding glare of the searchlights. Always it’s, ‘Achtung! Achtung!’ from the loudspeakers. ‘Zum Appell! Fünf Seite an Seite!’ Lin
e up, five (by five), side by side. Sixty thousand of us … One hundred thousand. I really don’t know how many. Lots and lots of men and women, but segregated, of course. Oh, yes.
‘The frozen mud hurts our feet. Some have shoes; some have none. Socks are mismatched, rags bound around their feet. Shit and blood and pus. Simone? I ask. Where’s Simone?
‘Frantically, I began to look for her. I ran back to our hut, but Pani Nalzinski, our blockova, wouldn’t let me get her. ‘Please,’ I begged. ‘She’s okay. She’s just a little tired. I guarantee you, she’ll be on her feet all day.’
‘It began to snow, but it wasn’t snow, André. It was ashes from the cremation fires that burned in the open. The blockova gave me one across the seat and another across the shoulders, shrieking at me to get back in line, me begging her to let me get my friend. ‘All right. Both die. If one no good, other no good.’
‘At eleven, the roll call was completed. Eleven, André. Nearly seven hours in the freezing cold and God help you if you had to relieve yourself. Eleven was the time for our block to go. There was a mad rush as the doors to the latrine were thrown open. Screams and yells accompanied the pandemonium, laughter, too, wild and shrill and broken by the insane. Blows rained on us from everywhere. Some vented themselves and fell under the blows to be trampled. Some tried to pick them up and were hit for so doing. Others just wept.
‘The hole received us. It was huge. You couldn’t have asked for bigger. A funnel that was fifteen metres deep, brimful and surrounded by a low wooden rail and the milling throng of fighting, pushing, shoving, anxious women.
‘There were no spaces—all were taken. There was no shame, how could there have been? The slippery earth was puddled with half-frozen excrement, the stench of ammonia so unbearable it made one weep.’
I pause. I let this information sink in, giving him time to lift his gaze from the ashes, but he can’t bring himself to face me.
Again, I wonder why he’s forgotten his hat. Is he still the Judas he was? ‘That rail, André, it was stained and greasy. Neither Michèle nor I could touch the ground with our feet when we sat on it, so for us it was a special ordeal to grip the rail, relieve oneself, and cling to your wife.
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