The Children's War

by Monique Charlesworth

  “That’s it,” said Marie-France. “I’m going to have a bath. I’m desperate for a wash. I’m filthy.”

  Ilse looked at her. “Where?” After all these days of semi-imprisonment, her skin was crawling with dirt.

  “Somewhere. I’ll find something. Well? Are you coming?”

  “Of course I’m coming.”

  They took the torch and, using it as little as they dared, carefully felt their way down the hill. The night was velvety still. The fountains near the post office were gushing. Stripping to their underwear, Ilse and Marie-France waded into the shallows. Lacking soap, they beat at the clothes with their hands to get the dirt out, rinsing their frocks and spreading them on the dolphins’ heads to dry. Then they washed themselves and their underwear, putting it on again in case someone came. Floating luxuriously in the wide stone basin, faces upturned to the sun climbing in the sky, they were still splashing and giggling when the air-raid siren sounded.

  “Forget it,” said Marie-France. But the sound went on and on. The fifteen-minute signal was the sign for the Resistance to rise up.

  In spite of the heat, Ilse was covered in goose pimples. She scrambled out of the fountain and started to dress. “It’s started,” she said. She clutched at Marie-France. “They’ll be bringing out their hidden weapons,” said Ilse. “I don’t have anything.”

  They looked at each other: two girls with their clothes clinging to them. Marie-France brandished the torch. Then they both burst out laughing.

  Fifteen minutes later a unit of men passed, carrying weapons with armbands sporting the tricolor. Other men passed, walking fast, in a disciplined way. The streets began to fill with people. A small group of disarmed German infantrymen marched through, their French guards jubilant. One of them shouted that the Germans had left. Only a few Polish soldiers were still in Cannes and these too had surrendered. Now women and children also started coming out onto the streets. Rumours circulated: the surrender was true. It was false. The German armour and artillery had all been removed; no, they were waiting in the hills and would return. Then the news that the Germans had all left before dawn was confirmed on the radio. With every rumour or surmise, emotions tore through the gathering crowd like electricity, sparking every way, rippling into outbreaks of cheers.

  People were heading for the Palais de Justice. By eight o’clock on the cloudless perfect morning of August 24th, the broad expanse of the Boulevard Carnot was jammed with men, women and children. It was extremely hot, with none of the humidity or haze of previous days. The two girls threaded their way over to the shade of the plane trees. Ilse embraced and was embraced by weeping and laughing strangers, whose cheeks were damp with tears or sweat, who were unshaven, lipstick smeared, who smelt of garlic or dirt, of perfume and ersatz tobacco. She hugged these strangers and was alive; underneath each unknown face was a real person being cracked open, as she was, each prickly conker splitting at last to show its kernel of polished goodness. People started bringing out banners in red, white and blue: sheets torn up, material that had been hoarded and cut up in secret. They swarmed up trees and soon banners hung the length of the long, dead-straight boulevard as far as the eye could see. Men with tricolor armbands and weapons stood on every corner. A small thin man climbed the steps of the courthouse and stood at the top, very upright in his white shirt and FFI armband. News sang through the crowd: it was Commandant Jean-Marie, the leader of the Resistance for the area. He held up his arms and the whole crowd quieted down. He announced that the German occupying army was gone. The Resistance had liberated Cannes. A tumult of noise broke out. The crowd started roaring out the “Marseillaise,” Ilse and Marie-France with them; the day of glory had arrived. Tears ran down her friend’s face.

  Half an hour later news shot through the crowd that German tanks were on their way from the direction of Grasse. In a panic the crowd melted away, a group of resistants remaining defiantly on the steps of the courts.

  “Let them come,” said Marie-France. “I’m not running.” She sat on the steps and Ilse sat beside her with the sun pouring throbbing heat onto them. She waited, staring down at the tiny golden hairs on her white arms, at the marks of strangers’ shoes on her dusty espadrilles, holding the torch between her knees. It was a false alarm. Some hours later, marching in single file, a long line of American infantry from the Seventh Army filtered into town. A young man with a dog-tired face threw out packs of Lucky Strike cigarettes. Marie-France caught one. Leading them all was a small boy on a bike waving an American flag.

  They left La Californie and returned home, half carrying Maman down the steep hill. The flat was extremely dusty but untouched by bomb damage. They sat her down in the parlour and went to get pails of water from the fountains at the bottom of the hill.

  Maman kept asking when Fernand would return, when Jean-Baptiste would be back. Scrubbing floors which ran with filthy water, the two girls on hands and knees looked at each other. Ilse said nothing.

  “Very soon, Maman,” said Marie-France. “Don’t you worry.”

  Tired out from the cleaning, they went to bed early. While Marie-France settled her mother, Ilse opened the Lucky Strikes and sniffed at the Virginia tobacco. They were going to ration them, to make them last. Marie-France combed and put up her mass of brown curls, much too hot to have hanging down, and for the hundredth time Ilse admired the beautiful sweep of her neck and jaw. Distant noises of rejoicing flared up and down. Silently, they smoked a cigarette each, filling the tiny room with the delicious aroma. This smell and taste marked the beginning of a better time, a better world that she would start to comprehend when she stopped being so tired. Ilse was nearly asleep when Marie-France lit another one. The light flared through her eyelids, illuminating the veins, mapping a different world.

  “When I think how I made him wait and how important it was for him to have a good job I can hardly believe I’m the same person,” she said casually. “I’m twenty-one soon. If Jean-Baptiste wants, we can get married right away.”

  “Good idea,” said Ilse. She held her breath, then exhaled. She wanted to whisper that it was bad luck to think ahead. She wanted to say that Marie-France should never count on anything.

  “And we can have a little reception, maybe at my aunt’s. Or perhaps in a restaurant. I wonder if I can get some coupons from someone to make a dress—you’ll be my bridesmaid.”

  “Don’t—” said Ilse.

  “Don’t what?”

  “I’m not called Laure,” she said, blurting it out. The truth of it was, she only wanted to stop her from jinxing all her hopes. “My real name’s Ilse. I’m Jewish. Well, I used to be but I’m baptised now.” She did not quite dare say that she was also German. She waited in great anxiety for the response.

  Marie-France said nothing. In a moment the tip of the cigarette glowed bright. The rich smell of the smoke wafted over. “Well. I don’t see what difference any of that makes. You can still be a bridesmaid,” she said.

  Two days later the atelier reopened. As Simone put it, war or no war, a girl still had to earn a living. Women in the neighbourhood noticed them taking down the blackout curtains and cleaning the windows, and came in. Everyone wanted new dresses, now that there was something to dress up for. The girls unpicked anything usable, collected coupons and scoured the town for fabric. Evidently, they would be able to sell everything that they could make. They had the radio on all day in the workroom and from time to time, when there was important news, the machines fell idle and everyone listened. General de Gaulle marched at the head of a victory parade across a Paris hung with flags, which the war had apparently left virtually intact. The girls listened to a brass band, crowds cheering, the victory parade passing down the Champs de Mars. With eyes closed, Ilse remembered Paris. When the commentator described the Foreign Legionnaires in the parade she sat up, thrilled. She had not even known that the Legion was in France. When they turned the radio off a buzz of conversation erupted. None of the girls had ever been to Paris.

&nbs
p; “That’s where I’m going on my honeymoon,” said Marie-France.

  They were all making plans. Ilse said nothing.

  “You need a boyfriend,” said Marie-France on the way home.

  “I do know somebody—” She stopped. She had never said as much before. The word “boyfriend” hardly applied to François, though perhaps it might to Arnaud, if he was still alive.

  Marie-France looked quizzical. “You introduce me. I’ll tell you if he’s the right kind.”

  “What’s the right kind?”

  “The marrying kind. You haven’t got a clue about anything, you poor innocent. You leave it to me. I’ll frighten him away.”

  “I might not want to get married,” Ilse said.

  “And work all your life for Simone? No thanks.”

  “Well, there are other things to do.”

  “Such as?”

  “There are other types of work.”

  “A factory? No. Long hours, anyway you’re not strong enough. Shop work is boring. And don’t tell me you’re going to enjoy being something really dumb.” Marie-France ticked away her future on her fingers, one by one.

  “People find better jobs, you know.”

  “Such as?”

  “Writing—and being a secretary for somebody—you know.” Her voice trailed away.

  “Writing?” She made a mock curtsy. “Oh, là là. Can you type?”

  Ilse shook her head.

  “Who’s going to employ you then?”

  Ilse looked at her. She said nothing.

  “A husband, my dear. That’s what you need.”

  Ilse turned and left her right there, on the pavement. She marched round the streets for two hours, drank a marc in one café and a coffee in another and returned late. Even after she and her friend made up, the heavy feeling did not go away.

  She lay on her bed, frowning and smoking one of the precious cigarettes that, alongside the rush of real tobacco, gave a painful but necessary taste of François. Through the thin wall, she could hear Maman clattering around the kitchen and dropping things and muttering to herself, while Marie-France did the actual clearing up. Her own mother had qualified as a lawyer, though Hitler had not allowed women to practise. Her father was an educated man who had owned property and a business, though both had been taken away. Children learnt by watching adults move through the world, always assuming that one day these things would happen to them. She had always believed that she would be as they were. That was idiotic. Everything they had had was gone. None of the things that had happened to them had been good. She herself was nothing and had nothing. She had no education or qualifications, just the skill of her hands. There could be no return to that lost world. Yet she had not realised until now how distant it truly was. She was amazed at herself for having had such expectations. What was to become of her? She had no idea. Wrong though it was, she felt very depressed. If she could go to Marseilles, she thought, she might feel better. For down the coast, the war went on. The 148th Division of the Wehrmacht was mounting a fierce defence of Marseilles and Toulon, and François, who wanted and needed to fight, might be there.

  In Cannes, the FFI rounded up a huge hall full of Miliciens and collabos. They knocked the hell out of them, then paraded them through the streets to be jeered at. Women who had slept with the Germans were being shaved and put on stands in the marketplace and marched through the streets with swastikas painted on their foreheads. Ilse felt such pity when she passed them. One young whore had a little girl, perhaps five or six years old, who stood at the side of the street with her bare legs streaked with dirt and looked at her mother with a crumpled face. The face of the whore, herself barely more than a child, was puffy and tragic. Ilse did not turn away, as many women did, including Marie-France, who said that they deserved what they were getting. She looked carefully at every girl, in case one of them turned out to be La Petite Louise or Pauline or La Grande, who had wanted no fewer than six children. Ilse looked and then turned away quickly and hoped that they understood that she was not being curious or mean. People did not understand what it meant to be a prostitute. These were not clever girls: they were not wicked at all. It was the fault of the men, who had wanted and taken them. They had been taken in by the times, as so many others had. The haunted look in their eyes made her feel ill. Renée had understood it very well: a degree of self-deception was required in a whore. But Renée’s was another of those lost lives that Ilse could never recover.

  News came all the time, too much of it. The Legion was in Paris but nothing was said about the liberation of Marseilles. Thousands of people were on the move, trying to get back to their old lives and homes. The newspaper reported that a young man discovered burying his Milice uniform in the garden had been shot on the spot. Public executions went on. Ilse began to avoid the detailed local news. Then she stopped reading the newspapers at all: the radio told her all she wanted to know. A giant hand-painted poster appeared on a wall near the atelier. IL Y A DEUX CHOSES ÉTERNELLES: LA FRANCE ET NOTRE FIDÉLITÉ.111 Marie-France said that the hypocrisy of it made her feel sick.

  Returning from work, Ilse saw that the streets were suddenly full of FFI men, thousands of them back from the hills. She ran all the way home, rushed up the stairs and burst into the room.

  Marie-France was lying flat on the bed. “What’s the matter?” She lifted her face. She looked stricken.

  “Fernand?”

  The head flopped down again. “He’s with Maman. It’s Jean-Baptiste,” she said.

  Seven months earlier Marie-France’s fiancé had been caught by the Germans in a village and shot out of hand somewhere against a wall. They had shot a dozen village men too, at random, to teach them not to help the maquis. Jean-Baptiste had been buried somewhere in those bleak hills, where he had lived for a year. The grave was not even marked and they would never find it. Her brother had brought the news.

  Fernand, sitting with his mother—once more in tears—awkwardly turned his beret in his hands. Head down, he shook hands with Ilse, muttered that he had to go. He had things he had to do. He, who had had to wait so long to bring the bad news, could not bear to spend a moment longer with them. He said he would return, sidled out and was gone almost immediately. Ilse saw how the old place, the old ties, even their faces constrained him.

  Marie-France lay facedown for a week. She had known Jean-Baptiste all her life; she could not absorb the fact that he could disappear out of the world. She did not cry or complain; she simply did not move. Ilse tried to comfort her and when she could not, she went out and walked. Bad news made her restless, but had the opposite effect upon her friend. On one of these walks she saw half a dozen men sporting the kepi and sash of the Foreign Legion strolling along the Rue d’Antibes. Ilse went up to the nearest one. “Excuse me, Monsieur—where can I find the headquarters of the Legion?”

  “Mers el-Kébir. That’s where the Legion is, safe and sitting on its fat arse,” the Legionnaire said.

  She did not understand.

  “Most of the Legion chose Vichy, Mademoiselle, to their eternal shame,” another Legionnaire said. This one looked at her more nicely. “Only the treizième demi-brigade is here, Mademoiselle. We’re with the French commandos.”

  “The treizième DBLE? You don’t know a Willy Lindemann?”

  Suddenly the men were laughing.

  “You wouldn’t perhaps know where he is?”

  “Willy? Where did we leave Willy?”

  “Where do you think?” the other said. “Hotel Carlton. Only the best for our Willy.”

  At full pelt, she sped along the Rue d’Antibes. She turned abruptly onto the Croisette; panting, she raced up the steps to the terrace. She stopped and looked. The terrace was half full. She shaded her eyes against the sun. A man in the uniform of the French Foreign Legion was sitting at a table on his own. The sun lit up reddish-gold hair. Urgently, she threaded her way through, pushing a little against tables, jostling people to get closer.

  “Willy? Willy!”


  He looked to see who was calling. It took him a moment to see, to understand. Then he was on his feet and she was in his arms and then at arm’s length again, as he looked at her, then back in his arms. “I never imagined it—” he said.

  “Nor me.” That was exactly how it felt.

  “Sit down, little mouse. Or are you going somewhere?”

  She laughed at the idea. Shyly, she stole glances at him. This was a sadder version of Willy; the smiling eyes had more crinkles around them, he was thinner. He jumped up and signalled to a waiter. He seemed smaller than she remembered and a good deal older.

  “You haven’t changed at all,” she said.

  “And you are wonderfully different. Listen to you. Look at you. Impeccable French. Altogether a little Frenchwoman and a woman. Like Lore at seventeen—the image—”

  “I’m eighteen now.”

  They spoke at once, were silent together, then both laughed. She explained that she lived in Cannes, that she had found work here as a seamstress. When the waiter came, he ordered champagne, a whole extravagant bottle of it.

  “Well, we must celebrate. Every time you can in life, celebrate.”

  He was amused when she took one of his cigarettes—he had a whole carton of Lucky Strike there on the table—and lit up like a real hardened smoker. The tobacco was strong. The sun on their faces was as strange as the blue sky and the palm trees and the crisp, delicious cold bubbling up of the wine in her nose. None of it was real.

  “There is something I heard. You must be strong.” When her uncle smiled, his mouth curled up and pleasure crinkled his face. But he did not smile. “It’s about your mother.”

  The people he knew in Hamburg had written to him in Meknès; Marie the maid had sent on his letters. Half Hamburg had been destroyed in raid after raid. The flames had leapt higher than the houses. Fifty-eight churches, including the Michaeliskirche, had burnt down. Thirty thousand civilians had died. Most of them had died instantly, he said, not burnt at all but suffocated by a great hot wind that simply sucked the air out of their lungs. She said nothing. She just watched his mouth and the way his hands held the cigarette and waved it about a little, and the way he never looked away, even when the news was very bad, even when it was news no person should have to bear in any place. The chatter of the crowd on the terrace went indifferently on.