The French Promise

by Fiona McIntosh

  Max was going to break his promise. He had to save him – as his father had in 1944 – for Jenny, for Jane, and especially for Lisette, whom he’d defied. He would run until his lungs burnt and his legs trembled. Max tripped, fell, rolled, but didn’t even look at his ripped trousers, his bleeding knees. He picked himself up, straightened his pack and set off again, his breath coming in rasps, his muscles tense from the speedy descent, but he could see the town spreading before him and the terrain was flattening out. But still he refused to slow. He ran on, past von Schleigel’s café into the main part of the town to where he knew the local gendarmerie was.

  He ran in, shouting for help.

  When Max returned to the summit with a small troop of men following him, including police and medicos, they arrived – many of them breathless – to discover a grisly death scene. Gasps were heard from all who peered over the edge of the cliff face to see one of Fontaine-de-Vaucluse’s favourites, his lower half twisted at a horrible angle, while his mouth was contorted in a rictus of agony.

  When he’d charged into the gendarmerie, barely able to speak, a small voice in Max’s mind warned him not to break faith with Luc fully. He remembered Luc comparing him to his father – hoping that Max would live up to Markus Kilian’s being a man of his word. Standing there, with a small crowd of men looking bewildered by his explosive arrival and with a nag in his thoughts that he should keep at least one promise to his friend, he proceeded with caution, begging the police to help him with a man who was hurt. That’s all he would say. Their questions – Who? When? What? How? – had been met with the same bewildered response: ‘I don’t know.’

  He planned to determine what to reveal only once they’d reached the summit, but now here, Max stared down at what was clearly the corpse of Horst von Schleigel … but only him.

  He blinked, stunned.

  He looked around but there was no sign of Luc, mercifully not even blood. How had von Schleigel died? The only clue was that his glasses, one lens broken, the other shattered and fallen from the frame, had been returned to his face. The medicos carefully climbed their way down to the lifeless figure on the ledge.

  ‘He was alive, you said,’ the senior policeman berated Max.

  ‘Yes, I came to get help. He looked angry, pointed a gun at me,’ Max said. Where was Luc? Wherever he was, he’d not died here or they’d have spotted his body in the waters on the way up. So he’d got away? To die? Max refused to believe it.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He pointed the gun at me, told me in no uncertain terms to leave him alone and not interfere. I was scared, monsieur. I didn’t know if the weapon was loaded but he looked like he’d use it on me, if not himself.’

  ‘So where is this gun?’

  Max shrugged. He knew where it should be. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Do you know who this is?’ the man implored, sounding so shaken that Max felt sorry for the gendarme.

  He shook his head. ‘I am a tourist, monsieur,’ he said. He pulled out his instamatic camera. ‘I wanted to take some photographs of the sunrise.’ This must have been how it was for people like Luc during the war, living by their wits, making up plausible lies on the spot, except in his father’s time men like Luc could have been summarily shot for just looking at their interrogator the wrong way.

  ‘Tell me again, son,’ the man said, as they watched a medico check for von Schleigel’s vital signs.

  ‘Anything?’ the senior policeman called down.

  ‘Unless I’m mistaken, he’s taken poison.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A post-mortem will confirm it.’

  The policeman turned and scowled at Max. ‘Go on.’

  Max took a deep breath, covering his amazement. He shook his head with innocence. ‘I came up here and think I surprised that man,’ he pointed. ‘He was definitely angry to see me. Demanded to know what I was doing up here, and that’s when I saw the pistol.’

  The policeman held up a hand. ‘Have we found this gun he keeps referring to?’

  ‘Over here,’ one of his men yelled, emerging from the bushes with von Schleigel’s weapon held gingerly with the aid of a handkerchief. He whistled. ‘Walther P38.’

  The senior officer nodded. ‘Get that checked for fingerprints.’ He returned a withering gaze to Max. ‘And?’

  He shrugged again. ‘I was frightened. Wouldn’t you be? He told me to leave him or he’d shoot me before he killed himself.’

  ‘He told you that’s what he was going to do?’

  Max nodded. ‘I believed him, although he seemed to be trying to find the courage to jump. But that’s only how it looked to me. I just turned and ran.’

  ‘But when you came to us you said a man had been injured.’

  Max felt his insides tighten. He had said that. ‘Yes, I thought I heard him yell as I left. I didn’t hear a gunshot, which is why I’m presuming he jumped, or perhaps fell. I don’t know – the waterfall is loud; the gun could have been fired. I was slightly panicked. I knew I needed to get help.’ Max was breathing hard. Was this lie convincing? He forged on. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Monsieur Segal is a prominent local business owner. I cannot imagine what prompted him to do such a terrible thing. But he has a wife who is probably wondering where he is right now, and a family to be told of traumatic tidings just before Christmas.’ The officer rubbed his eyes wearily, as though imagining the conversation ahead. ‘Right, you’ll be required to make a formal statement and I’ll need to check your fingerprints.’

  Max lifted a shoulder as though he wasn’t intimidated by any of this. ‘Of course. I’m very sorry about his family.’

  ‘You did your best.’

  ‘I was trying to save a life,’ Max said carefully, honestly. ‘Sir, I am due in l’Isle sur la Sorgue later today. And I will be returning to Lausanne shortly.’

  ‘One of my men can drive you to l’Isle sur la Sorgue when we’re done.’

  Max gave the impression he was grateful for the suggestion. ‘It’s okay. I can take a later train.’ He needed to ring Jane. She would have to find Jenny; he knew he could count on her to do so.

  He was thinking this as his mind inevitably reached towards Luc and whether he was bleeding to death in the scrub somewhere. He must hold his nerve, Max knew. This is how Luc wanted it and it was the least he could do for him.

  Luc had stayed with his enemy in the same show of respect that he had given his former enemy, Colonel Kilian, more than twenty years earlier.

  ‘You don’t deserve it,’ he’d said in answer to von Schleigel’s wish for him to remain until it was over. He had to admire him in a bitter way; the man was impressively calm in the face of death and the extreme pain he was surely bearing.

  Von Schleigel had nodded. ‘But I know you’re a man of your word – you’ve proven that. Besides, you might as well make sure it works.’

  They both stared at the small rubber-coated capsule in Luc’s hand.

  ‘This is different to Gestapo issue,’ von Schleigel remarked. ‘Ours were glass phials in tiny brass capsules.’ He laughed. ‘I threw mine away once I’d re-entered France; I never had any intention of using it. Where did you get this one?’

  ‘It belonged to Lisette. She didn’t know I knew about it. Perhaps she was issued with it in London, or maybe she was given it in Paris. I don’t know.’

  ‘Pity. I could count on a Gestapo one to work.’

  Luc had smiled mirthlessly.

  ‘Ravensburg, you had always intended for me to use this, didn’t you?’

  Luc had blinked with faint surprise. ‘It was the only weapon I could carry across borders without any discovery.’

  ‘And Mossad?’

  ‘Originally my back-up plan that shifted to the main one when conscience got the better of me,’ he’d said.

  Von Schleigel had nodded. ‘Contingencies are wise. My family will not understand a suicide.’

  ‘Be glad they’ll never know the truth about you.’ Luc had looked down a
t the capsule in his palm. ‘It’s thin glass. Over in moments. I saw it work once.’ He hadn’t thought it appropriate to explain that it had looked agonising despite its swiftness. Besides, he’d been convinced von Schleigel already knew it.

  Von Schleigel had sighed deeply. ‘Strange. I always thought it curious that the Jews we rounded up were always so meek, so complacent … accepting even.’

  ‘And now you feel the same way?’

  He’d nodded and reached for the capsule. For a moment Luc had wondered whether von Schleigel would simply throw it into the waters below. He wouldn’t have been at all surprised if so, but he was genuinely taken aback when von Schleigel then reached out his right hand.

  ‘You’ve been a worthy adversary, Ravensburg. I’m rather impressed you kept that promise; held the hate for so long.’

  Luc looked down at the proffered handshake. ‘I’d rather not.’

  Von Schleigel had smiled as though he understood. ‘Would you pass me my glasses, please?’

  Luc had shaken his head. ‘I’m not leaving fingerprints for anyone, but I do admire your slyness to the last.’ Besides, Luc had remembered his field training and that pressure on a gunshot wound is the single most critical piece of advice anyone could give him. He had been pressing on his wound, despite the pain, since he’d landed on the ledge and had no intention of removing his hand until he absolutely had to.

  Von Schleigel had somehow found a chuckle despite his pain. ‘Well, I guess your nasty pill will at least deliver me from this wretched broken hip,’ he’d quipped. He had then reached for his glasses with a painful effort and put them back on, not bothered by the state they were in, before lying back down to ease the stress on his broken bone. ‘Sieg Heil, he’d said, sarcastically. To victory.

  ‘No, all the way to hell for you, von Schleigel. The victory is ours – your death is for Rachel and Sarah, for Wolf and for all the other innocents who died under your orders. May the likes of your evil never walk the earth again.’

  Von Schleigel had sneered and Luc watched in dreaded fascination as his enemy bit down on the small capsule and released the cyanide poison. Luc’s sharp olfactory senses immediately homed in on the smell of bitter almond, as the former Kriminaldirektor began to gasp. He clawed for Luc but he pulled further away. He didn’t want to leave any trace of himself.

  He knew consciousness – and pain – would last for half a minute; brain death would occur next and the heart would stop within a minute or two. It was obvious that von Schleigel was rapidly losing consciousness, although the silent kicking struggle was hideous to witness. But Luc reminded himself – as he watched von Schleigel’s face contort in agony – that this was how each beloved member of his Jewish family had died: choking in agony, kicking and coughing. Luc stuck it out, determined to keep his promise to ensure that von Schleigel was gone.

  He fixed the memory of the man’s death mask in his mind.

  The devil was dead.

  The promise was kept.

  Using the last reserves of his energy, Luc packed his wound using a small flannel from his rucksack so that no blood would be left behind as he carefully, painfully, climbed back up to the summit. It hadn’t been far, but it had felt like a mountain over those sweating minutes, made tenser by the realisation that Max would be returning with police any moment, no doubt. He found the spent cartridge from von Schleigel’s gun and put it into his pocket to get rid of later.

  He’d made slow but steady progress back to the car, picking his way gingerly across the terrain, having taken a longer route down but one that he felt sure would not risk him being spotted.

  Luc was now sitting dazed and increasingly numb in the rental car. He had to get himself as far away now from Fontaine-de-Vaucluse as he could. He couldn’t go back to l’Isle sur la Sorgue, even though all he wanted to do was hug Jenny. He wasn’t sure if he was dying. It felt like he could be. Pins and needles were pricking somewhere in his body but he couldn’t focus on where. A fever was rising. Soon he wouldn’t be able to drive.

  There was only one place to go. It was the right place to die, if that was his fate today. He turned the ignition and eased the car out of its hiding place. Still being early, the road was deserted and he swung in a wide U-turn and headed away from the pretty town of Fontaine-de-Vaucluse.

  He was going home.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Luc opened his eyes, blinking at the gritty feeling. He looked around, frightened, trying to focus, wondering where he was. He heard someone murmur ‘Thank heavens’ in a trembling but relieved voice.

  He thought he recognised it. A soft, lovely voice. A face came into view, hovering above him with a tearful smile. ‘Luc? Your fever’s broken …’

  ‘Jane?’ was all he could croak initially but was never more pleased to see anyone. She wiped her eyes, embarrassed.

  ‘Dad.’ He turned his head at the new touch. His daughter held his hand, her beautiful face – so like her mother – a study in anxiety. ‘I thought you were going to die on me.’

  ‘Jen … I’m sorry.’

  ‘I promised her you wouldn’t. Thank you for not making a liar of me,’ Jane laughed but was helplessly weeping. ‘Are you in pain?’

  ‘Only the good kind. The kind that tells me I’m alive. I’m not dreaming, am I?’

  Jenny kissed his cheek softly. ‘Does that feel real?’

  He nodded.

  She found a crooked smile. ‘We’re all here. Your strange little family.’

  He looked to his right and could see another pair of familiar faces.

  ‘Max, Robert …’

  The two young men smiled their relief. ‘We’ve all become quite acquainted,’ Jane said. ‘How long …?’ he began.

  ‘Three days of anguish, Dad,’ Jenny said. ‘Jane refused to sleep; refused to leave your bedside. You’re lucky she was given some training in nursing during the war.’

  Jane tutted and moved away, embarrassed. ‘I’m sure every woman my age did,’ she murmured.

  Luc frowned. His mind still felt fuzzy, not yet fully connected. ‘How did you all get here?’

  Jenny took the lead as the others seemed reluctant to steal her thunder. ‘Max was taken by the police for questioning but was allowed to ring Jane. He sent her to find me and Robert. Then when Max joined us later and discovered you weren’t with us … he completely fell apart and had to tell us what had happened.’ Her words were greeted by a self-conscious sound from Max. She ignored him and continued. ‘I have a lot of questions for you, but Jane has insisted I let them keep. Anyway, none of us wanted to believe you’d died up there. Robert kept saying you’d cheated death before and you would again because you had a few magical lavender seeds with you.’ Luc couldn’t believe that Robert would remember his family superstition. ‘I trusted that you’d got away, Dad – I had to. But then we had to work out where you might go,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘There was only one place I thought of.’

  ‘I came home,’ he croaked, emotion crowding his mind, closing his throat. He recognised the room he was in now. It was his parents’ bedroom. It looked very much the same as he remembered it, with dark furniture, even the same curtains that Golda had sewn. There were no pictures, though. The room had once been crowded with family photos. He vaguely recalled now staggering into the house. He’d still had the key and had worn it around his neck to journey alongside the lavender and Lisette’s cyanide pill. The locks hadn’t changed; it appeared that no one had lived in the house since the Bonets had left it. He didn’t know why he’d expected it to have been taken over by another family or squatters, perhaps, but the silence of the village should have clued him that tiny Saignon was near deserted. Many locals had clearly left, and their children had probably fled to the cities after the war to find work of a different style to the traditional farming of their parents. He now remembered collapsing on the flagstones of their old hallway as the front door had closed behind him, welcoming their deep chill just before he’d passed out.

/>   He was increasingly aware of the trio of adults watching him, their breath collectively held; perhaps they understood the enormous emotional toll that returning to his childhood home was taking.

  Jane was most keenly aware of his discomfort. ‘Okay, everyone; Jen … let him rest.’ She shooed the others out of the room despite their protests and Luc sensed her immediate awkwardness in spite of his increasingly hazy thoughts.

  ‘Jane …’

  ‘Luc, you misunderstood.’

  ‘You have nothing to explain,’ he said.

  She re-fluffed his pillows, helped him to sip some water and laid him back down on the bed while she busied herself changing his dressing. He liked the feel of her cool, gentle hands on his belly. ‘Listen to me. I know you’re fragile and I know Jenny is busting with questions, which you’ll be obliged to answer truthfully later. But right now, forgive me for hustling them all out. I have things to say to you.’ He opened his mouth and she glared before continuing. ‘I wasn’t meeting anyone else. It was Max having dinner with me at my hotel.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Max came to see me, suddenly unnerved and frightened about what you were going to do. He needed to tell someone. I was shocked, I won’t lie, and I tried to reach you but you’d already left. I know what happened now – how it must have looked – but it was all a misunderstanding. But by the time I worked that out it was too late. Then we had no choice but to try to intercept you. We raced south and Max was sure he could beat you to Fontaine-de-Vaucluse as we figured you’d go via Mont Mouchet to meet Robert. Anyway. Max has now told us everything about you and von Schleigel.’ At Luc’s startlement, she laid a hand on his chest. ‘Be still. He had to tell us. It’s not as though we were going to let him keep it a secret. And I had to somehow keep Jenny calm – she needed to understand. She was beside herself, Luc. What was in your head to risk your life like that, knowing you’d leave her an orphan?’

  He shook his head. ‘You’re right. It’s been a madness. A cancer of my mind. But I cut it free, Jane. It’s gone. He’s dead.’