Flame in the Night

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Flame in the Night Page 22

by Munn, Heather;


  It had been a week now. She’d woken this morning thinking of it again. Of the way the young German in the street had hung on his every word, of the fierce will in his eyes as he clambered up the bank with only his arms, legs still locked in a cramp. Even that heavy face of his, so careless of its scarring, spoke of power. Who have I killed? She’d woken hard in the darkness, her heart beating that rhythm, no hope of falling back to sleep. She’d walked down here before dawn to start the day’s work. Might as well. The broth was better if it simmered all day. She drew the sharp knife down the stone, praying again for mercy, for justice, for no more death. Outside the windows of the quiet kitchen, dawn was pale behind the trees. A movement caught her eye in the woods. She froze, one hand on her knife.

  There was a knock on the door.

  In the dark stone church the sunlight fell bright as Élise’s eyes, between shadows dark as her hair. Julien’s father was preaching for the first time in many months, and something in the rise and fall of Papa’s hoarse voice held him, something that made the shadows stir in the corners and the hair stand up on his arms. Papa did not sound like a teacher now.

  “‘… and in His word do I hope.’ Our hope is real, brethren …”

  There had been Gestapo in the street again on Friday. No one knew why. Gestapo in the street, and a stain on the hallway wall by their classroom door despite all Madame Flory’s scrubbing, and a place on the patio the students silently stepped around as they filed into class. There was a whistle in his inner jacket pocket, always, and a place on his hip that his foolish hand drifted to when he saw one of their uniforms. An empty place, and useless.

  She hadn’t come to school on Friday. Midmorning Nicole had slipped him a note, She’s fine, and he’d bowed his head in relief and wished he could sink into the floor. Wished he could keep watch by her side always.

  He sat in his pew hearing his father declare the word of the Lord and seeing nothing but her, her pale face and fierce dark eyes in the moonlight. Seeing the world he wanted to promise her, and the world she was given instead. He stared at the pew ahead of him, one finger tracing the grain of the wood, and heard Papa’s voice rise, ringing into the final psalm, phrases coming out to him between his broken thoughts: The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? He will hide me in the day of trouble. He looked up at his father in the high, shadowed pulpit, his face cut out sharp against the darkness behind. I would have lost heart if I had not believed I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

  Julien almost stood up that instant. Something seized him, the muscles of his belly and chest all clenching painfully at once. He couldn’t sit there another second. He rose unsteadily, not looking at Mama and Magali. The faces turned toward him were a blur as he walked slowly out of the church. The June sunlight hit him like a blow.

  He walked up the Rue du Verger, past the mairie where his father had been questioned. Across the place where Monsieur Heckel and seven strangers had sat in their bus waiting to be deported. Past the alley where he had seen Duval writing down names. Where Duval had told him flatly that this was the way of the world. He stood on the corner by the Rue des Genêts, where a black automobile had taken his father away for what could so easily have been the last time. He tried to breathe, his lips shaping words he couldn’t say. The land of the living. A little while yet. A fist was gripping his heart and lungs, painfully. He felt dizzy. He was going mad. It ran in families. He threw his head up toward the sky, the pressure in his chest so tight that the upward movement felt like tearing, and tried to force his gritted teeth apart, the words barely escaping through them: You have a little while yet, to show Yourself. He lowered his head and stood there breathing hard, though he had been walking very slow.

  After a minute he raised his head again. In the bright morning sun someone was coming toward him across the place at a loping, uneven pace. Someone panting, his legs unsteady from running. Roland Thibaud.

  “Julien,” he gasped. “Julien. The Gestapo are at La Roche. They’re arresting everybody.”

  Julien’s hand shot out, his fingers digging into Roland’s arm. “Élise? Élise Fournier?” He didn’t recognize his own voice. She was there. It was eleven—she was there.

  Roland took a ragged breath, his eyes large and dark. “Everybody,” he said.

  Chapter 24

  A PROMISE OR A LIE

  JULIEN STOOD VERY still as the world staggered around him. When he opened his eyes he still stood on the corner, but the place had changed: the stone houses around the place du centre with their empty, staring windows; the wilderness of cobblestones stretching out before him; the dark maw of the mairie door under its lying colors, the blue, white, and red that should have been taken down and burned three years ago now—

  “How many?” he said.

  “I told you. Everyone.”

  “How many Gestapo?” He realized his hand was on his right hip. On his empty right hip pocket. He pulled it away forcibly and thrust it into his light jacket, where it found the small, hard shape of the whistle.

  Roland gaped at him. “I saw three outside—with machine guns. Must be more inside. Julien, what on earth … ?”

  His mind sketched the encounter for him in brief, bright lines, from the Maquis patrol’s discovery of the odds stacked against them—and swift retreat—to Pierre’s demotion for giving him the whistle. His nerveless fingers dropped it back into its hidden pocket. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I’ve gone mad.” His other hand touched his lips, as if he could hold the words in front of his eyes and stare at them. Roland looked disturbed. “I’m all right,” said Julien tonelessly. He was a city on fire, the bombs falling in waves, screams muffled by the massive, almost soundless shock of explosion. He looked at his hands again, at his feet, intact. He could walk down to La Roche. Walk down to La Roche and scream, Take me instead. He could see their laughing faces.

  He could walk down to La Roche and say goodbye.

  The power of the truth turned his knees to water, and he put a hand on the wall beside him to keep from stumbling. Roland was watching him. “Thank you,” Julien got out. He pointed the way to the church with his chin. “You’ll tell them too?”

  “You’re going down there?”

  Julien nodded, his mind spinning out wild things for him to say. Maybe I can get them to shoot me. That’d be good. Quicker. That’s how this ends, you know. Me. You. Her … “Yeah,” he whispered hoarsely, remembering Élise’s face as they stood together in the street—Don’t be sorry. For anything—so bright, like the sun, even his mind’s eye could barely look at it. She had pulled a German soldier out of the river that same day, and he hadn’t even known it. The day he had betrayed Duval. Was it better to go down that way? he wondered as Roland walked away from him—with your innocence whole, nothing on your soul but an act of mercy—if you were going down anyway? I did it for you. I would’ve shot him for you. He grudged her nothing. She deserved everything, everything but what she was doomed to. And those swine with no idea of what they owed her—

  “Roland!” Julien roared, the name echoing loud against the house-fronts, and ran. Within seconds he caught up to him, took him by the shoulders and babbled into his face: “Do you know? She pulled a boche out of the river, a convalescent, she saved his life, do you know? Did you hear? Do you have any idea who he is?”

  Roland was shaking his head. “I never heard that. She did that?”

  “Yes! Yes! She did that!” He realized he was shouting, but he couldn’t stop. He let go of Roland’s shoulders, turning. “Magali—Magali knows!”

  “Julien, what—”

  Julien barely heard him. He was racing for the church, as fast as his feet could go.

  Almost an hour later he was knocking on the door of Les Genêts—“that fancy little guesthouse down by the river,” Madame Flory had called it—sweat beading on his forehead, a deep ache in his chest. He tried to slow his shuddering breath, to summon tact, politeness, any kind of thought at all—
what if the man himself answered the door?—but his heart could only hammer, What if they’re gone? What if they’re gone? Papa had gone down to tell them what Élise had done, to tell them he was coming with evidence, with this man—Lord willing—this man he had lost so much time finding.

  Silence. He knocked again. A sparrow landed on the wrought-iron balcony railing above and twittered at him. Geraniums in window boxes raised their blood-red petals innocently to the sun. He started at a sound from inside. The door opened on a woman his mother’s age with a calm, lined face. The scent of roasting meat from somewhere inside made his stomach twinge.

  “Bonjour,” the woman said, her eyebrows going up a touch.

  “Bonjour, madame. Madame Delaure?”

  “That is me.”

  He swallowed. “I was told there’s a German staying here who has, er—” His hand came up and brushed one side of his face.

  “Scarring, I suppose you mean? Major Albrecht is on the terrace out back. I ought to ask what you want with him,” she added, laying thoughtful eyes on him.

  “It’s a—a personal matter, madame.”

  Her mouth quirked. She stood aside, gesturing toward the French windows at the back of the little oak-paneled sitting room. He wiped his feet on the mat and walked in past the umbrella stand and between the spotless sofas, the rug deep and soft beneath his feet, the sour taste of terror in his mouth. Outside were two wrought-iron tables in the shade of a spreading tree; at one of them, leaning back in his chair, a man smoking. He turned at the sound of the glass doors opening, and Julien saw his face, the whole left side a ridged and melted mass of pink and red. His eyes fixed on Julien, who swallowed and started forward.

  Did she tell you anything at all that could identify him? he’d asked Magali.

  Yeah, she’d said.

  “Bonjour, monsieur.” He ducked his head, forcing the words through his tight throat. “Forgive me for disturbing you …” He looked up into the piercing gaze, and suddenly he was speaking fast and clear. “I’m told a young woman saved your life in the river last week. She’s just been arrested by the Gestapo.” His hands came up and clasped in front of him; he couldn’t take his eyes off the man’s eyes. “I’m here to beg you to save her life.”

  Albrecht rose to his feet. “The girl?” he murmured. His lips moved stiffly, the skin of the burned side stretching oddly as he spoke again, louder. “You tell me you know who she is? How do you know?”

  “She told my sister, the day after she did it. She’s a family friend.”

  “Family friend, eh?” The man examined the glowing tip of his cigarette, his ravaged face unreadable. “And how were you able to find out who I was?”

  Julien took a breath, looked down. His hand went up to one side of his face. He glanced up to see the German’s lip twisted upward on the intact side.

  “Naturally.” The man looked at his cigarette again, exhaled slowly, then put it to his lips and took a drag. “And you really think that I can save her?”

  “If anyone can, sir.”

  “I am an army officer. I have nothing to do with security. Nothing to do with those men.”

  “Surely they must think your life is worth something, sir.”

  The lips quirked up again. “One would hope.” He ground out his cigarette in the ashtray. “Where is she?”

  “At a boardinghouse called La Roche, just a little ways down the road from here, out of town. The Gestapo are there right now making arrests. Will you come, monsieur?”

  The man nodded, and turned toward the house. His first step forward showed a slight limp. At the door he paused, and called in, “Madame Delaure! We would like to borrow two bicycles, if you please.”

  “Of course, major.” The woman’s voice came again a moment later, calling, “Murielle!”

  As a girl came down the hallway to her, the major turned again to Julien and said quietly, “Now listen. I can ask them to produce her, and if I recognize her as the one, I can tell them what she has done and ask for her release as a personal favor. That is what I can do.”

  “Yes, monsieur.”

  “I have no authority over these men.”

  “I understand, monsieur.”

  “See that you remember it.” He limped across the living room and through the foyer. Out front the girl was just bringing up a second bicycle. Julien stood politely, his stomach roiling, and mounted his bicycle at the same time Albrecht did. “Lead on,” the German said, and Julien did, spinning down through the streets and over the bridge. I’m coming, Élise, I’m coming. The light played lovely on the water, wind in the hayfields, the whole world a promise or a lie. Sweet the sun’s light, bright and terrible the last bend in the road before La Roche came into view. Their wheels took them round it unwavering, and Julien let out a hoarse, inarticulate cry.

  The place was deserted.

  Papa’s haggard face lifted out of his hands. “They were already in the bus. The men wouldn’t speak to me—wouldn’t acknowledge me at all. I tried, Julien …”

  At the far end of the La Roche common room, someone was weeping. Another young man sat by him, staring. In the corner a broken suitcase spilled shirts, a toothbrush, a pair of glasses. Dirty dishes lay here and there on the long table; Madame Ferron turned toward him, a plate in her hand. “They wouldn’t let any of us leave,” she said. “I kept her in the kitchen, I told them she was only a cook. She was the last one they questioned—she had that little bit of an accent …”

  Julien held up a hand just as Albrecht stepped through the door behind him. The man’s eyes swept the room. “They’ll be taking them to headquarters,” Albrecht said.

  “In Le Puy?” said Papa.

  Albrecht nodded.

  Julien turned to him, his stomach rising up sick with hope and fear. “I’ll buy you a train ticket. I’ll—I’ll give you a tour of the town—there’s some beautiful places. All I ask is that you try—once.”

  Albrecht’s eye studied him out of its angry scar, his ruined jaw set. Julien watched him, not breathing.

  “You can fetch me for the morning train tomorrow,” said Albrecht. He gestured out the door. “And bring back that bicycle when you’re finished here. Madame Delaure would not like to lose it.”

  And he turned on his heel and strode out.

  “It’s not crazy.” Magali was leaning forward over the table, passion in her voice. “It’s a chance—she deserves a chance!”

  “Let your brother speak for himself, Magali.”

  Julien lifted his head out of his hands, elbows on the familiar wood of the kitchen table, throat too tight to speak. A whole afternoon. A whole night. Why was there no late train on Sunday? Monsieur Faure was out of town with his automobile. Julien shook his head to clear the mad vision behind his eyes: Albrecht in a farm cart, bouncing as Julien whipped the horse to a gallop …

  “Contrary to your immediate assumption, young lady,” Papa was saying, “I absolutely believe this ought to be done. What I don’t believe is that this senior German officer needs a French eighteen-year-old to accompany him—”

  “He doesn’t even know her name—”

  “I know her name!” shouted Papa.

  Julien looked up. Across the table, Mama sat up slowly and very straight, her eyes on her husband.

  “And I should go,” said Papa, with weight.

  “No!” Mama shouted, her voice like a whip. Everyone jumped. “No, Martin! If you dare—” She raised a hand. She didn’t move from her seat, but she actually raised a hand to him. She spoke between her teeth, and Papa pulled back from her. “You maniac, you troublemaker, you pastor, have you truly forgotten where you were three months ago? I haven’t. They haven’t. You’ll go present yourself at Gestapo headquarters over my dead body.”

  “You’d rather have your son go?” Papa’s voice cracked.

  Mama sat very straight and still. After a moment she said quietly, “I’d rather go myself.”

  Julien started up from his seat.

  Magali
dropped her forehead into her hand and muttered, “No, me. I’ll go.”

  Mama stared at her, mouth open. A strangled bark of laughter escaped Julien’s throat.

  Mama drew herself up. “I’d rather go myself,” she said to Papa, lifting her chin. “But I don’t fool myself about my chances of leaving him here. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but our son doesn’t answer to me anymore. He’s made that quite clear. You could try and see, if you like, whether he still answers to you.”

  There was a moment of shocked silence. Julien still stood, leaning forward with his hands on the table; he stared and stared into his mother’s sane eyes. Papa said nothing.

  “Mama,” said Magali a little shakily, “are you … all right?”

  “I am perfectly well,” snapped Mama.

  Julien spoke at last, hearing his own voice like a bell struck once and hard in clear mountain air. “He told me to fetch him for the morning train. I’m going to do exactly what he said.”

  No one said a word. Julien sat down. I have spoken, he thought, and felt a bubble of strange, bleak laughter rise up in his throat.

  Then he put his head down, and returned to trying to rein in the carthorse galloping in his mind.

  Chapter 25

  THE MOUTH OF THE BEAST

  THEY PRAYED THAT evening, the whole family, down on their knees as the dark came on. Begging a God they had never set eyes on to show His goodness here, now, tomorrow, before it was too late. It was already too late for hundreds, thousands; it was too late for Jacques Marlot and Édouard and all the guys at La Roche who had never pulled anyone out of a river—anyone German. Who do you think you’re fooling? It’s too late. He wanted to leap up and beg his family to shut up about hope, to go away and let him scream himself to sleep. He begged God instead, for mercy, for her, though his heart ached like a broken bone with the pain of it, like the broken leg of a man running for his life.

 

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