by Sharon Maas
‘Jacques tried to blow up the Brisach bridge. He failed but they saw him and gave chase. I was with him. We drove out towards Ribeauvillé and Jacques told her to stop and let him out; he would hide himself. He didn’t want to get her into trouble, you see. She was in so much danger already.’
‘I’m not following. Who is she? What trouble?’
‘That’s her.’ Pierre pointed, and there, at the corner, parked in the shadow of an enormous oak tree, was a van; a van as familiar to her as the pick-up she’d seen so recently; and standing beside the van was Aunt Margaux.
‘Tante!’ cried Sibyl and propelled herself into the arms of the woman who had once mothered her so well, had mothered her even in her dreams.
‘Sibyl. My little girl. But come, come, there is no time to waste. You must get in the back. You and the old man.’
She opened the double back doors of the van. Sibyl helped Oncle Yves in and then climbed in herself. Aunt Margaux climbed into the driver’s seat, Pierre entered the cabin through the passenger’s door; the van drove off.
Sibyl leaned on the back of the driver’s seat.
‘Aunt Margaux. You must explain now what has happened. Jacques tried to blow up the bridge? Is he mad? How are you mixed up in all of this?’
‘I helped him,’ she said. ‘I was fool enough to help him. I drove him there and waited for him – for him and Pierre, who kept watch but the yellow sentries saw them and gave chase. Jacques was shot.’
‘Oh my God! Is he…?’
‘No, not dead – Pierre stopped to help him. He had a leg wound, bleeding badly, couldn’t run any more. Jacques told Pierre to run away and he did. Jacques tried to get up but he stumbled. He was bleeding. The yellow picked him up. Pierre saw them take him away. They must have taken him to hospital, I think. But he is in custody. The network is shot. I had to let you know immediately. It’s what Jacques told me. If anything happened, warn you. Rescue you. Just in case.’
‘In case – Jacques talks?’
‘Jacques won’t talk, Sibyl. He loves you. He won’t talk. But…’
‘But in the end everyone talks. Nobody can withstand the Gestapo interrogation. They… their methods… they use torture and everybody talks. Does he have his L-pill? Do you know?’
‘He doesn’t. He has always rejected it.’
‘How do you know all this, Tante?’
‘Jacques is like a son to me. He tells me everything.’
‘He should not, you know. He should not be telling anybody. That is a serious security breach.’
‘Oh, Sibyl, do not talk like a bureaucrat. Jacques is family. He is carrying a heavy burden. Sometimes he needs to unburden himself. Everybody needs that. Don’t you?’
‘I may not, Tante. It is forbidden.’
‘Then one day the burden will make you crazy, like it is making Jacques crazy. Anyway it is too late for recriminations. That is the situation. Now we must decide how to proceed.’
‘You say they have taken him to hospital?’
‘Yes. I’m pretty sure. What else can they do? They can’t let him bleed to death. He is too valuable for them.’
‘So, not yet the Gestapo…’
‘No. But the Gestapo will come, once he is patched up.’
‘I know. They are already on the alert for terrorist activities. They call us terrorists.’
‘Pff. It’s the yellow who are the terrorists, they have terrorised Alsace for years.’
‘Where are we going now?’
‘To Château Gauthier. The main thing was to inform you, and to get you out of the way.’
‘But if they have to patch him up first, there is still time.’
‘Yes. Time to think. I am already hatching a plan. While I was waiting for you, I was thinking.’
‘You have a plan?’
‘Maybe. It all depends.’
‘So?’
‘No, first I take you home and give you breakfast and then I will tell you my plan.’
‘Tante – we still have a problem. Oncle Yves’ shop window has been shattered. Pierre broke in. We cannot leave it like that all day. For one thing, thieves might really break in. For another thing, the neighbours will see and alert the police and search the house and it will look suspicious – the same night that someone tried to bomb the bridge. Maybe even the Sicherheitsdienst, the SD, will come to investigate. If they connect me to the bombing…’
‘Do you have anything incriminating in the house?’
‘No. I brought the radio with me. There is nothing else.’
‘Good. Then we will organise that as well.’
‘Yes. Actually, I have an idea. But we have to go back. Or someone has to go back –maybe Pierre.’
‘Later. Not now. It is not yet even dawn – nobody will go there yet.’
Aunt Margaux, all this time, was driving through a complex network of back roads and lanes through vineyards. ‘I know this area like the back of my hand,’ she said. ‘If they are looking for anyone, they won’t find me. We’ll soon be home, safe and sound.’
Indeed; half an hour later Sibyl and Yves were safely tucked into Margaux’s kitchen at the Château Gauthier, hugging warm cups of a delicious concoction Margaux had made for them. ‘It’s a special herb,’ she said, ‘and with milk added – well, it’s better than coffee.’
‘You have milk?’
‘Mais oui! You forget our goats? They are still thriving. And the hens. And rabbits. I even have bacon – the farmers around here, we share produce. I shall make you a lovely breakfast.’
Before breakfast, though, Sibyl asked for a sheet of paper and Margaux tore a page from a child’s old exercise book.
‘Pen?’ asked Sibyl, and Margaux produced a black crayon.
‘Better yet!’ said Sibyl as she took it. Across the blank page, in big black letters, she wrote:
‘COLLOBARATEUR!!!!!’
‘See! Now, we’ll wrap this around a large stone and Pierre will go back to the house and place it in the window. If they come to question me I will say that I have enemies in the town because of my friendship with the German major. That it was only an act of hatred; that when we heard the window break Oncle and I fled the house because we were afraid of robbers. We will go back later today and board up the broken window. D’accord, Oncle?’
‘Yes. We must return as soon as possible, if there is no more danger to my niece. We cannot leave the shop exposed in that way. I too have my secrets.’
‘Ah, but yours are really well secreted, Oncle! I think there is no danger.’
‘I will wake Victoire. She will drive Pierre back to Colmar to deposit the stone and the note.’
Margaux left the kitchen and a few minutes later returned with a young girl, still buttoning up a long man’s shirt which she wore over loose farmer trousers. She had long black hair, tousled still from sleep, around a face, that in spite of the heavily sleep-laden eyes still bore the promise of extraordinary beauty.
Sibyl jumped to her feet.
‘Victoire! It’s you, and all grown up! My word! Do you remember me?’
‘Certainement! It is wonderful to see you again, Sibi.’
‘But after this morning you do not know each other, bien? It is an emergency. Victoire, you must drive Pierre to Colmar. Pierre will tell you what happened to Jacques on the way.’
‘Something has happened to Jacques? What? Is he in danger?’
‘Pierre will tell you. Go. Vas t’en.’
She gave Victoire instructions.
‘I will go with you,’ said Oncle Yves. ‘I cannot leave my house empty with a huge hole in the window,’ he insisted. ‘If the Boche come I will say it is vandals, people trying to persecute my niece because she is the girlfriend of a Boche. It is quite simple.’
‘I cannot let you go without offering you hospitality! Let me give you something.’
Margaux quickly packed up a side of ham in some newspaper, and then two eggs. ‘These are already hard-boiled,’ she said. ‘Take them. You
need them for strength.’
‘I’ll see you later, Oncle Yves!’ said Sibyl.
Victoire hooked her arm into his and led him out to the van. She turned to cry out as she left: ‘You must bring back Jacques! If you don’t, I will!’
‘She has turned into a lovely young lady,’ said Sibyl.
‘Yes, and she adores her big brother,’ said Margaux as she and Sibyl took their seats again, ‘just like you used to adore him.’
‘Her brother? Jacques? But…’
‘Half-brother, yes. You were too young to know back then but it is no secret now, that Jacques’ father is also Victoire’s father, and my lover or ex-lover, as the case may be. You remember Maxence?’
‘Of course! Does he know about Jacques? About the maquisards? Will you tell him what happened last night?’
‘No. He knows nothing – only that Jacques has defected, did not let the Boche conscript him. It is for his own protection that he does not know. It is bad enough having a son who is a defector from the German army. To have a son who is also in the Resistance – it would not be good for Maxence. He is only free because he is so valuable to the Boche as a winemaker. And so am I, as the owner of Château Gauthier and of the magnificent label Laroche-Gauthier. You see, the one thing the Germans appreciate about the French is our wine. My wine has given me many advantages. For one, I refused to change my name to a German one and also my wine label stays French. Wine is my trump card.’
It was the Margaux of old, chattering away as she prepared breakfast for her guests. Sibyl could hardly get a word in, but a question burned on her lips and she simply interrupted as she had to know; as much as she was eager to hear the gossip, one thing was more important.
‘Tante Margaux, you said you had a plan to free Jacques? Shouldn’t we be discussing that?’
‘I was coming to that. There is nothing to discuss. What I am telling you, it is all relevant information, it is why I am explaining about the wine. Don’t be impatient, girl, let me tell you. Listen. What was I saying before your interruption? Ah yes. The wine. My trump card. Do you remember, when you were a little girl, how we built a wall in the cellar to hide our best wine from the Boche, because my husband, your Oncle Jean-Pierre, was so terrified the Boche would attack and requisition it? Ah, we were so clever, building that wall, hiding wine, and indeed, all over France the yellow did steal the wine. Good wine is like the crown jewels of France, and here too, we had to hide our best and our second best, so that only the lower quality wine was visible in the cellars. It was a lot of work. Even the children helped. You may remember.’
Sibyl nodded. Margaux set a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her. There was bread, too, on the table, and butter, and cheese, all luxuries she had not seen for years. Ravenous, now, she began to eat.
‘Well, as it turned out, it was all a waste of time, though not really as we used the secret cellar for something else – I’ll tell you that story later. Where was I? Ah, yes. The wine and Les Boches. Well after they annexed Alsace we knew they would come and come they did. They inspected our low quality wine, which we had disguised as high quality wine by relabelling it and throwing carpet-dust all over the bottles so they looked old. We got carpet dust from the aspirateur, the vacuum cleaner. The bottles looked very impressive, very old, and the Boche were deceived and very impressed. But you know, we had a tolerable sort of Boche Commander and they did not create any destruction and did not go on a rampage in the wine cellar. No: the yellow made deals with us and bought our wines for export to Germany. Of course, now all the wine in France goes to Germany instead of to England. I suppose you could call us collabarateurs in that sense but really we had no choice and anyway we had to accept their prices, which were much lower than previously. Still we cannot complain. On the whole, with a few exceptions, winegrowers did quite well after the Boche took over. Where was I again? Ah yes, the best wine we still had hidden away. It turned out to be quite a treasure chest because any time we needed something done by the Boche, or when we wanted them not to do something, all we had to do was hand over a bottle or a crate of our best wine. See, the Boche are as much susceptible to bribery as any other human being! And so our wine remains our strength, and with our wine we will free France and free Jacques!’
‘Free Jacques?’
‘Yes my dear; that was what I was coming to. We will find out where he is, find him in that hospital, and bribe the guards with our very best Château Laroche-Gauthier 1919. That is the year the last war ended and you know the saying. So you see, your Tante Margaux still lets her mouth run as ever she did but always she has something useful to add to the discussion, isn’t it so?‘
‘You really think…?’
‘Mais oui. I do it all the time. In fact, I am now an expert in the fine art of bribery and corruption, and believe me there is not a Boche on earth who can resist the lure of a good bottle of Château Laroche-Gauthier 1919. It is better even than sex. Next time you come or at the latest when Alsace is free and you come to celebrate we will open a bottle together. I promise you, it is the nectar of the gods!‘
‘Oh, Tante! It’s so wonderful to be here again, if only for an hour or two! To hear you talk – I have been so lonely in Colmar, all on my own.’
‘Then you must come. Come more often, whenever you want. You have left it much too late. Why didn’t you come before?’
‘Because, because I am an agent and I was not supposed to tell anybody…’
‘Pah! I can keep secrets as well as anyone despite my big mouth. I can talk nonsense at a hundred kilometres an hour but the real secrets are locked in my heart. You must come. If anyone asks, you can say you met me somewhere, maybe at the Colmar farmer’s market, and we became friends and that’s how you know me. Nobody will care. The Boche will not think, ah, maybe she is an English girl who lived here when she was seven years old. Why would they? You must come. Especially, you must come and help with the harvest. It is soon. You always loved the harvest.’
‘Oh, Tante! That would be…’
‘Magnifique. I know!’
‘You know, I saw you once, a while ago…’
‘In Riquewihr. I know. I saw you too. With your German Majeur.’
‘You recognised me? But…’
‘Of course I did. But as I said, I know how to keep a secret. Do you think I would jump into your arms crying out “Sibyl! Sibyl! You are back from Angleterre!” No, I am very discreet. But you were surprised, no? You looked very surprised. Shocked, even.’
‘You seemed so – changed. But you aren’t really.’
‘That was the day after I got the news. About Leon. Leon is dead, Sibyl. Killed in action on the Eastern Front.’
‘Oh, no! Tante, I’m so sorry!’
She jumped to her feet and flung her arms around Margaux. Margaux allowed it without reacting, and then shook her off. Sibyl returned to her seat.
‘It is nothing. I am just one Alsace mother with boys over there. Sooner or later I will hear the same thing about my Lucien. I am resigned to it. Don’t cry, chérie. I have accepted it. It is all part of life. Millions of mothers have lost their precious sons in this damned war; I am not the only one. Here, here’s a napkin. Dry your eyes.
Sibyl dabbed at her eyes and sniffed.
‘Sometimes the tragedy of it all is just so… So overwhelming. And Marie-Claire? How is she? I heard…’
‘Do not mention that name to me. She is no longer my daughter. She is another price I had to pay when the Boche invaded us. I do not even want to hear her name. This war has taken three of my four children from me. All I have left is Victoire. That is why I look like the living death. It has eaten into my flesh. I am surrounded by death and I myself am almost a skeleton – look at me! The horror of living under the thumb of the Boche has left its mark on my face and on my body. It is true – in a way I am a broken woman. But it is not true because deep inside there is a spirit that cannot be broken! I will not allow it! I must fight on another day! Now there is hope that the
war will soon be at an end – do you know, we get the BBC here? We have a secret radio, though it is forbidden. The Allies are advancing quickly across France. It is just a matter of time till they free us from our horrible yoke. It has been years of being strangled at the neck, and good riddance. But tell me about this Majeur. I heard he has gone to Berlin. For how long? Does he love you? Do you love him?’
‘He is not my major, Tante. He is my job. Did Jacques not tell you that?’
She chuckled. ‘Jacques is a man. He does not see it that way. You must comfort him, Sibyl, and forgive him this foolish action. It is the action of a man who doubts himself and so thinks he must prove himself to the woman he loves by some grand action, some big show of power. It is the way of men, to prove themselves to us women. Men think they have to win wars to show they are strong, and they only demonstrate how weak they really are. Because otherwise, why? Why does this fool Hitler think he has to rule the world? It is only weakness. This war has weakened Jacques and your affair with the major… well, it is hard for him, as a man. You must reassure him.’
‘But first you must free him. Do you really think…?
‘We will free him. Later on I will drive you back and then I will go to the hospital with my best wine. I will take a whole crate – I might have to bribe a few guards but I will do it, Sibyl. Never fear.’
‘I will come with you.’
‘No! You cannot be seen together with me! I am known to be an old friend of his but you – you must never be seen with him. It is a security risk.’
‘I need to see him, Margaux. I need to know.’
‘You will take such a risk, at such a time? The SD will be on high alert, Sibyl, after this attack. You cannot be seen anywhere near him – he is a terrorist in their eyes.’
‘I will wait in the van. I cannot let you do this alone.’
Margaux shrugged. ‘If you insist then I cannot stop you. But we must think this through, do it properly. You are a nurse, Jacques told me, and he is wounded. What do you think will happen?’
‘Well, first they will take him to theatre to remove the bullet, if there is one in his leg. I do not know – how bad is the wound? Did Pierre say where it is, where he was hit?’