‘Me, I think God should punish the Boche!’
‘DON’T YOU DARE CALL THEM THAT IN THIS HOUSE OR ANYWHERE ELSE! ARE YOU CRAZY?’
She burst into tears and ran away to her room as I bowed my head and tried to get a hold of myself, but knew that for us, the agony had just begun.
‘Jean-Guy, go and see if there are any more eggs.’
‘I’ve just been.’
‘Then look, damn you! Wait … wait, please. I’m upset. Scared.’
‘You should be!’ he yelled and ran out the back, leaving the door for me to close as again I plunged my hands into the flour the Germans had begrudgingly provided. Kneading the dough, working it, I finally shaped a loaf. Would I make a dragon for Marie, one with big, woeful eyes and a long tail with spikes?
It was Jean-Guy who caused me a problem. It was always guns and tanks and aeroplanes with him in those days. ME-109s, Heinkels, and Stukas. Rudi and he had been talking constantly about the war, especially in the east. Our little German was very worried. The fire down the road was one thing; that corpse I cut up and he buried in the cellar, another, and then the robbery. Schiller had given him hell and had again threatened to bring in SS guards, having accused Rudi of being slovenly, and I knew in my heart of hearts that it was only a matter of time until he talked.
The aeroplane I made was a Spitfire, but I daren’t put British insignia on it and substituted that Maltese cross the Prussians had liked for far too many years.
‘Rudi, your lunch is ready.’
He’d been out by our gate for more than five hours, marching steadily back and forth across the drive and seldom, if ever, standing still, and the dampness and freezing wind had been heartless. ‘Madame Lily, it’s not safe for you to stay here. Obersturmführer Schiller has asked me about that old couple and their house. I’ve not told him the truth, have said we were all asleep, but that one, he didn’t believe me.’
The woollen cap I knitted protruded from below that helmet of his. There was also a scarf I’d knitted out of an unravelled sweater, a vest, too, and mittens, but there was no sense in my denying I was responsible for that fire. ‘Is it to be Poland again?’ I asked.
We both looked along the road in the direction of Georges and Tante Marie’s house whose ashes lay just beyond a last gentle rise. ‘Poland,’ he said. ‘They’ve taken thirty-six hostages from the surrounding villages and towns, Madame Lily. One is to be shot tomorrow, then two on the following day, then three, and so on until all are gone unless someone comes forward to tell them who the robbers were and where they’ve hidden what they stole.’
Eight days, then.
‘This war, Madame Lily, it’s never going to end.’
I had my children to think of, he his family and little farm, so the lie came readily and I gave it to him with the gentle touch of a caring hand. ‘They’re sending you to Russia.’
‘Me?’ he managed, stricken.
I nodded grimly, even gave him a quick hug, for he’d been a friend. ‘Please, I’m sorry you should hear this from me, but I thought you should know ahead of time. Obersturmführer Schiller is insisting that Oberst Neumann get rid of you.’
There were tears. He was devastated but would he run, be shot in an attempt to desert, or simply wait for what he believed would be his orders?
It was all a gamble. Everything. ‘You’ve been such a good friend, Rudi. We’ll all miss you terribly but when this war is over, you’re to come and see us. Please, I must insist. Your wife as well.’
Liar, cheat, fraud, coward, I silently cursed myself, for he was the one good thing in all the slime.
‘I knew this could never last,’ he said, indicating the woods, the pasture, the house, and the cushiest job he could ever have asked for had he had any choice in the matter. ‘Russia. I won’t come back from there, Madame Lily. This I know.’
‘Come in and get warm by the stove and have some soup. Perhaps if you eat a little, things won’t seem so bad. I’ll try to speak to Neumann. I know it’s not to be for a few days, well one or two. I can’t be sure.’
Ashes … there were ashes all around me, the remains of Georges and Tante Marie’s house. Bundled in overcoat, scarf, fedora, and gloves, Dupuis was standing where the front door used to be, while Schiller’s jackboots waded in the rest.
It was the inspector who picked up the twisted remains of a wine bottle, but the lieutenant who said, ‘What have we here?’
He was behind me and I didn’t yet turn, for beyond the farmyard, along the edge of the forest, German soldiers with rifles had formed a line, each three metres from the other, and the lightly falling snow had made their grey-green uniforms greyer still. It was freezing.
‘Well?’ shrilled the lieutenant.
‘Well, what, please?’ I asked.
The scar tugged at his chin. ‘Silver. Where did they get it?’
The thing in that black-gloved hand had bubbled with the heat and was the size of a small pancake and about as thick, and as our eyes met, I told him as calmly as I could, ‘How on earth should I know? They didn’t exactly like my living in my husband’s family home.’
‘You were afraid they’d talk.’
‘Me? Why?’
‘Madame, this fire was deliberately set,’ said Dupuis. He was still holding that wine bottle.
‘Deliberately set? You’re crazy, Inspector. Who would wish to do such a terrible thing, especially since they had no enemies? Not that I knew of.’
‘Is any silver missing from your husband’s house?’ asked Schiller. They’d got me right between them.
‘Silver? I’ll have to check, but with so many visitors …’
‘A list of the contents, I think, Herr Obersturmführer,’ said Dupuis. ‘Have her prepare one. We can get the husband to check it over.’
He thought of everything. ‘Just why are you so certain the fire was not an accident?’
‘Because, madame, there are melted bottles where the front and back doors were, and also at one side of the house. That one.’
Where I had found a window I could easily open. ‘Georges loved his wine, Inspector. He made it, borrowed it, and stole it from time to time. If you look closely, you’ll find bottles all over the place. That shed is full of those he had been gathering for sale.’
On the marché noir, but Dupuis didn’t say this, because it was then Schiller’s turn to go at me.
‘And these?’ said that one. He was very pleased with what he’d found, and as the wind teased the ashes from that black-gloved hand, he took on the air of a triumphant archaeologist confronting a competitive colleague with the remains of a pair of gold cufflinks.
Instinctively, I shrugged. His hand lashed out. Knocked almost off my feet, I found my lip was bleeding and my jaw hurt like hell, but it was Dupuis who fetched the dog. Grousing up to me, that poor creature with the beaten eyes found the will to wag its tail and lick my fingers, and I heard the inspector saying, ‘So, madame, perhaps you would be kind enough to tell us what has happened here.’
In panic, I fought for composure and stiffly said, ‘I’ll make the lists as you have requested and my husband will, I’m sure, thoroughly check them, but should anything be missing, I can’t vouch for any of the guests he’s had, nor for these two old people who knew that house and its contents far better than myself. They were always taking things, even in the time of my husband’s father, or so I’m sure my husband will inform you he told me when he first brought me here to meet them.’
‘And this dog?’ asks Dupuis. ‘It knows you and wouldn’t have barked.’
‘That dog has always been fed by me and my children. If you will release it, I’ll tell it to go to my kitchen.’
They watched as that creature made a beeline for its supper, and I realized suddenly that I’d just condemned myself, for it was Dupuis who says, ‘Ah, bon.’
The noise from the dining room was almost more than I could bear—laughter, hooting, jeering. They’d rounded up most of those who escaped from the ca
ttle trucks, had shot a few and had a bit of fun, were still breaking dishes and glasses when the moment struck them. Jackboots graced the dining room table. Brandy, cognac, and wine had been looted from my husband’s cave, and I’d had to do the cooking and feed them all.
The sculpture was in the storeroom. Schiller rested his fingers on the head I’d done of Michèle Chevalier. She had such a fine young body, and I’d been true to it in every detail, but a general in Paris seemed likely to caress the real one, not himself. ‘Herr Obersturmführer, I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again, I had nothing to do with that robbery or that fire.’
He fingered Michèle’s buttocks and thighs, didn’t care for the feel of the wax and turned the piece to gaze at her front again, for she was leaning back and the three figures were holding hands in a circle.
‘Yet you take the train on the evening of that outrage and end up but a few kilometres from it?’
‘Chance, that’s all. Ah, mon Dieu, Lieutenant, I’ve a commission to do, an order, damn it, from the Reichsmarschall Göring. It’s not easy for me to find the time. It’s taking a lot longer than I had thought.’
Now it was Katyana’s body that he fingered, and I knew he was going to tell me that I had earlier denied knowing anything of her, but instead, he said, ‘The piece looks finished enough.’
‘Not if you keep pawing it! Besides, there is still the base to make. Something very French and of the Fontainebleau Forest. Leaves, vines, rocks, birds …’
‘We’ll have a little surprise for you tomorrow.’
I stood before one of the dining room windows, looking out through the icy rain across the emptiness to where Rudi was again on guard and marching back and forth with that Mauser appropriately over his shoulder.
I waited. Cigarettes wouldn’t help, but those bastards from the ratissage had left packages and butts all over the house, and there were plenty for me to pick up. It was now nearly noon of the following day, and they hadn’t yet come for me. Has Schiller forgotten his little surprise, or is the delay simply more torture?
The children would be in school. I lit another cigarette and took a few quick drags. Tommy and the others hadn’t been caught yet, not in so far as I knew, but Schiller’s surprise could well be that they had, and when I saw Rudi turn suddenly to look along the road, I felt the cigarette leave my lips to pause as the smoke trailed up into my eyes.
A breathless Alphonse Picard appeared on his balloon-tyred bicycle, obviously struggling desperately against a clock whose hands would not stop, and when Rudi challenged him, the mayor simply shouted, ‘Emergency! Out of my way.’
The wind and the rain beat against my face when I stepped outside. ‘Madame, hurry! Hurry! They’re about to shoot your son.’
‘Rudi … RUDI, IT’S JEAN-GUY. HE’S HOSTAGE. I MUST GO TO HIM!’
Continually, Picard called out to me, ‘Madame, please wait! It’s best to arrive at the same time!’
They were all in the street before that school—the children, their teachers, everyone in town. Most were without their coats and hats in the pouring rain.
Two sad-looking men had been tied to posts in front of a wall. One was younger, the other older, my son a third. I pushed my way into the crowd. A gap opened for me, but no one said a thing, and when I was at the edge of that semicircle, it was Jean-Guy who cried out, ‘MAMAN!’ nothing else. Not, please tell them what you know. Not even, Please, maman, they’re going to shoot me!
The Wehrmacht kept the crowd back. There were forty or fifty of them: lorries, cars, machine guns, helmets in the deluge. Schiller and the Oberst Neumann were near, the latter grim-faced, the former all business as a priest begged them to release my son, but he was not our regular priest. Father Damien was away in the south for the duration.
The lieutenant nodded to one of the officers. I started to cry out in anger, but bit my tongue as Jean-Guy glared at me from across that distance. He couldn’t believe I wouldn’t come to him, nor could any of the others. To them I was to be damned, and I knew this was what Schiller also wanted.
Someone tried to take the bicycle from me, but I yanked it back, had to stand firm. There was the metallic sound of the rifle bolts being slammed home, but if I offered myself in Jean-Guy’s place, I’d be made to tell them everything.
The younger of the two men found a last shred of bravery and cried out, ‘Vive la France!’
I tried to tell myself to run to my son, that nothing else mattered, but turned aside to sob, ‘No … please, no,’ and as the sound of the shots came to me, I felt Jean-Guy in my arms. They’d cut the ropes and let him go, and I was smothering him with kisses as Schiller stood over us saying nothing.
Only then did I realize that I had been pleading with them in English, and that I must have said a lot more than I could ever remember.
In my orchard, there were old apple trees much revered for their gnarled, outreaching branches and their bountiful harvests. Rudi would help us pick the apples. When he first came to us, those trees at the back of the orchard formed a bond between us.
His helmet lay on the ground catching the rain. Beside it were his rifle and, neatly folded, the greatcoat they’d issued him. ‘Rudi, forgive me.’
He made no sound. He’d bitten through his tongue and lifted his eyes to a heaven I was not sure he even believed in. The rain had plastered the dark brown hair over his brow, and as he slowly turned, I begged him again and again to forgive me. A dear, dear friend.
Jean-Guy tugged at my hand. Marie, in her white dress, hesitantly stood in the kitchen doorway, down through the tunnel of barren bows, afraid to join us, horrified by what had happened. It had been a morning of utter agony.
‘Maman, why didn’t you try to stop them from shooting me?’ He had to know—had every right to be told.
I looked into the eyes of my son. ‘Because I couldn’t. Because for all of us, there are more important things than one single life.’
I couldn’t tell him that they would all have been killed had I given up and told the lieutenant where they were, but he knew, and I knew, too, that at the moment of that execution I was thinking of Tommy more than of anyone else. ‘Don’t hate me, chéri. Just try to understand.’
Schiller was so clever. He knew that by exposing the truth to my son, he could turn Jean-Guy against me. This wasn’t to be a sudden process, but something so gradual I didn’t notice until it was too late.
10
Out over the Barbizon plain, there are distant lights in some of the farmhouses, the night at its darkest just before dawn. Instinctively, I search for the ashes of my mother’s house and find, on the near horizon, the deeper darkness of her willow.
Dupuis and Schiller kept the pressure up all through that winter of 1942. There were repeated searches, the executions of all the hostages, the endless days of waiting, never knowing if someone would talk.
I was sent to Paris for a medical examination by a German specialist, but fortunately André saw me first and gave me an anticoagulant so that I bled like a stuck pig, became weaker by the day, and was finally allowed to go home. They gave me six months to live. Actually, it was nearer to three years.
As soon as I could, I came out here to the caves to see if everything was all right. Then, as now, the gurgling of the spring caused me to feel for a foothold. Though I’m now wearing those shoes they gave me, as before, I still hear a whispered, ‘She’s not coming.’ It’s Dupuis, and it’s so like it was in that winter of 1942.
‘The loot must still be here,’ says Schiller as Dupuis lights a cigarette.
The silhouette of that gumshoe’s fedora, scarf, and threadbare overcoat are clear enough. Schiller’s behind him and taller, but even as Dupuis says, ‘It’s impossible. These caves are far too small. Rodents would have got at everything,’ the lieutenant vanishes.
‘Not necessarily,’ comes that other voice from above me and now much closer. ‘The Chevalier girl told us Lutoslawski and the American would have been very careful.’
They beat her anyway. They very nearly drowned her. ‘Cement,’ says Schiller, ‘into which stones have been pressed so as to make them look as if fallen.’
Tommy didn’t use cement, how could he have, but I manage to move a little away as Dupuis says, ‘There will definitely have been dampness.’ He’s now much closer to me.
‘Who gives a damn anyway? It’s the collections of rare coins, smaller pieces of sculpture, and icons that we want,’ says Schiller. ‘Enough to buy our way out of France and set us up in Argentina or Chile.’
‘You shouldn’t have come back. Even the Americans are looking for you. Those so-called war crimes, eh? Poland and all the rest. Without you, we could have …’
‘Dealt with her, you and the Vuittons and that former husband of hers? Admit it, you need me.’
Irritably, Dupuis pinches out his cigarette but doesn’t throw it away, not him. It’s thrust into a pocket. ‘So, what are we to do? Wait here until someone finds that you killed those two old people and left them to their geese?’
Ah, non, Henri Poulin and his wife. It’s all my fault!
The leaves make a sound that terrifies even though I’ve the Luger in hand. Wire cutters, knife, and a grenade are still in my pockets …
It’s Dupuis who says, ‘She’ll have figured us out and will have gone after the others.’
Schiller doesn’t answer, and again it’s Dupuis, ‘Vuitton simply wants out, but that wife of his is demanding a share of everything. If you ask me, our Dominique sees it as a way to buy them back into favour should anything be said, which it will be if we’re not careful. She’ll simply hand everything over and turn us in.’
Clearly, they don’t yet know that I’ve already dealt with them, but again it’s Schiller who makes no sound, and as Dupuis continues to whisper, the other hunts for me just as they did that night I came back here. Using his silhouette, I see that the lieutenant is now standing on the path above and not three metres from me, his head cocked to one side. He moves away just like he did on that night, me to follow because I have to cut him off from Dupuis, taking out the one and then the other, no ‘lectures’ now because there simply won’t be time.
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