The Resistance Man

by Martin Walker

  He was saved by a phone call. He glanced at the screen and saw it was Florence, so he pulled to the side of the road to answer.

  “Bruno, I’m with Monsieur Crimson, and he wants to invite us both to dinner if you are free. I have a babysitter. Here, he wants to talk to you.”

  “Bruno,” came the familiar cheery voice. “I just got a call from the Vieux Logis. They have a cancellation and can give me a table for three in an hour. Can you join us? I want the three of us to put our heads together over an idea I’ve had.”

  “That’s very kind of you, and I’ll see you there in an hour,” Bruno said. “I just need to go home and change and look after the dog, then I’ll head straight for Trémolat.”

  “Bring your puppy. The waiters will love spoiling him. See you there.”

  They sat in the garden, beneath the plane trees whose leaves seemed almost to be growing as Bruno watched, surging with the energy of a Périgord springtime that was about to burst into summer. Whether indoors in winter or outside as the warmth came, it was the restaurant that Bruno would choose if it were to be the last meal of his life. He could afford to dine here only rarely but always ordered the same menu du marché: whatever the chef had managed to acquire that day and assemble into a wonderfully balanced meal.

  There were always little amuse-bouches to begin, baby pizzas the size of eggcups or a morsel of boudin noir stuffed into a fig or something equally inventive. Then the meal took its usual course, a crème brûlée of foie gras or a chilled soup, and then some confection of fish, sometimes a seviche of raw fish cooked in the acid of some exotic fruit rather than the usual lime juice. The meat could be rabbit or lamb, veal or venison, but always with perfectly cooked vegetables. That was the difference between his own efforts and the meal of a professional chef, Bruno thought, the blending and balance of dishes and the arrival of each component at just the right moment.

  The evening’s pleasure was enhanced by the sight of Florence, seated between himself and Crimson, in a simply cut linen dress of pale blue that brought out the color in her gray eyes. Her hair, which had been lifeless and dry when he had first met her at the truffle market in Ste. Alvère, now shone with life and had been shaped to highlight her fine bones and slim neck. She looked around the garden and eyed the ordered shapes of the topiary, the obelisks and spheres, with cool interest rather than open curiosity, as if she were accustomed to dining at a place such as this.

  “This dinner seems small thanks for your efforts in recovering my rugs and paintings, Bruno, and for your remarkable skills with a computer, Florence,” said Crimson. “I wish you’d been on the team in my old job. Take a look at this document she cooked up, Bruno. That should smoke our quarry out.”

  He pushed an iPad across the table, and on its screen was what looked like a photocopy of an aged document from some official archive. It looked genuine down to the ancient typescript, the utilitarian gray of the official paper and the marks of little holes where papers had been pinned together. It appeared to be the contents page of a file, and Bruno recognized some of the words and acronyms: Neuvic, Valmy, FFI, FTP. Other names were new to him, and some words, DIGGER and ARCHER and WHEELWRIGHT, were in capital letters. He asked Crimson to explain.

  “The names are simple enough,” Crimson replied. “Maurice Buckmaster was the head of SOE’s section F, which ran operations in France, and Gubbins was the major general in overall charge. The document refers to Buckmaster’s report to his boss on the Neuvic train, which makes it look as though London was much more involved in the whole business. The words in capital letters are the names of operational networks. DIGGER was one of the SOE networks active around here in 1944, run by a Frenchman called Jacques Poirier who joined the British army, where he was known as Captain Jack. He became friendly with Malraux, and that document is supposed to be Poirier’s account of what happened to the money. You know the other acronyms, Francs-Tireurs et Partisans and so on?”

  “They look very convincing. Well done, Florence,” Bruno said, nodding that he understood the terms. “But do these documents exist?”

  Crimson pursed his lips. “Some of them do, like the reports from Buckmaster and Poirier, but they haven’t been declassified yet. I know roughly what’s in them, and there’s no smoking gun, as our American friends say. It’s fairly routine stuff, reporting rumors about the Neuvic money and saying there’s no confirmation. The fact is, we didn’t really want to know. What we’ve concocted here is just the contents page, but that should be enough to smoke Murcoing out. And Florence also cooked up a new e-mail to Francis Fullerton, with a copy to Murcoing, claiming to come from the Public Records Office as a notice that new files which Fullerton had requested have now been declassified. She copied their official format, and it all looks very persuasive.”

  “So it does, but now that we have the bait how do you propose to draw Murcoing out into the open if he bites?”

  Crimson ran his fingers over his iPad, and another document appeared that looked like an e-mail. It was in serviceable French, but obviously written by a foreigner.

  “I set up a new e-mail account with a fake name and e-mailed Murcoing,” Florence said, evidently proud of her work. There was a slight flush to her cheeks, as if she were excited by her unexpected role in the venture.

  Bruno quickly read the e-mail, which purported to come from a professional researcher in London who claimed to have done regular archive work for Fullerton at the Public Records Office. It said he’d been sorry to see news of Fullerton’s death in the British press, but Fullerton had earlier given him Murcoing’s address and the researcher wanted to know if Murcoing was still interested in the documents. Murcoing should know that much of the contents of the supposedly declassified files had been blacked out, but the researcher had personal contacts who had given him the uncensored version. He was coming to France and would be happy to arrange a meeting, if Murcoing was able to pay the sum Fullerton had offered.

  “We attached the faked contents page to the e-mail,” Crimson explained. “I’m rather proud of that last document, the one dated 1946 that claims to come from the British Embassy in Paris, reporting a meeting with American and French government officials on the Neuvic affair.”

  As two black-clad waiters approached the table bearing plates, Crimson ran his fingers over his device, and the documents disappeared. He slipped the iPad into a briefcase that rested against his chair. The sommelier arrived and refilled their glasses with the champagne Crimson had ordered, a Celebris from Gosset, one of the oldest of the champagne houses. Bruno had heard of it but never tasted it before. With just a faint hint of sweetness, it went perfectly with the scallops in beurre blanc.

  “So now we wait for Murcoing to log on to his e-mails and then to contact you at your fake e-mail address,” Bruno said. “And then you arrange a meeting. What do you suggest should happen then?”

  “I assume we can arrange the meeting at a place where you can organize a police ambush,” Crimson replied.

  “We know he’s armed and dangerous, and he’s already killed once. I don’t think you should be anywhere near the meeting place,” Bruno said firmly.

  “I hope you’re not planning to be involved yourself, Bruno,” Florence said. “This is a job for a specialist police unit.”

  “Of course, you’re right,” Bruno said. “What worries me is that we may be underestimating Murcoing. He’s no fool, and he must be suspicious of something like this falling so conveniently into his lap. I’m not sure he’ll just come waltzing to some prearranged meeting spot. If he takes the bait, he’ll try to set up a meeting at a place he can control, and he’ll certainly check it out beforehand for any sign of an ambush. That’s what I’d do. Still, we may be lucky. Filial piety may bring him to his grandfather’s funeral tomorrow, which would save us all a great deal of trouble.”

  The sommelier brought the decanter with the red wine Crimson had ordered, laying the cork beside it so Bruno could make out the stamped capital letters that spelle
d CHTEAU HAUT-BRION.

  “Le quatre-vingt-quatorze, monsieur,” murmured the sommelier, a man who had learned his art in the old school. Instead of pouring some wine for the customer to taste, he poured a tiny sip for himself and then sniffed and tasted it to pronounce it good before half filling the three glasses.

  The ’94, thought Bruno, a wine made when he’d been dodging mortar bombs in Sarajevo, when Paul Murcoing had been a young teenager and Francis Fullerton had been attending funerals in New York of friends who had died of AIDS. Crimson had been doing whatever the interests of the British crown required, and Florence had been at school amid the dying coalfields of northern France.

  Bruno’s eye was caught by a movement at the far side of the garden, where two diners had been hidden by the trees. He saw Gilles offering his arm to help Fabiola rise from her seat. The couple then strolled hand in hand from the garden and out into the night. Well, well, he thought. If Fabiola had been at school when the wine was bottled, Gilles had been darting across Sniper’s Alley in the same wretched Bosnian siege that he had known. Curious, the strength of the bond that such a shared experience could forge, and it left him confident that his dear friend Fabiola was in good hands.

  25

  Bruno was almost always proud of his town, but he felt an extra glow as he stood at the big wooden doors of St. Denis’s church greeting the steady flow of mourners arriving for Murcoing’s funeral. Some he had expected, like his friend the baron, wearing his medals from the Algerian War, and Joe, Bruno’s predecessor as the town policeman. Joe wore in his lapel the small red rosette of the Légion d’Honneur, awarded for his boyhood exploits as a Resistance courier. Then came those inhabitants of the retirement home who could still walk; they always enjoyed a good funeral, if only to remind themselves their turn had not yet come. What Bruno had not expected was the turnout of youngsters. He assumed at first it was because of the presence of Florence, their favorite teacher, in the choir. Then he saw Rollo, the headmaster, bringing up the rear.

  “I thought it made a good teaching moment,” Rollo said, shaking hands. He spoke over the slow, sad tolling of the church bell. “We held a special lesson this morning on the history of the local Resistance for the senior classes and then asked if any of them wanted to join me at the funeral. I’m proud of them: not one stayed behind.”

  Crimson murmured, “No reply from Murcoing yet,” as he arrived with Brian Fullerton, followed by Monsieur Simpson, the retired English schoolteacher who had been called up in the closing weeks of the Second World War and thus counted as a comrade-in-arms of the dead man. He was flanked by the only two other citizens of St. Denis who could claim the honor, Bachelot and Jean-Pierre, one a veteran of the Gaullist Resistance and the other a fighter for the Communist FTP. After a lifetime of enmity that had made their families the Montagues and Capulets of St. Denis, they had finally in old age and retirement become friends.

  Jacqueline came alone, rather than arrive with the mayor, who stood beside Bruno at the door to greet the mourners. Since he was to give the eulogy, the mayor was wearing his sash of office and accepted with quiet dignity the murmured condolences on the death of Cécile. “Friday,” he kept saying, again and again, as the old folk asked when her funeral would be.

  Joséphine and her sisters were already installed in the front row, Gilles sitting behind them, his notebook open to scribble details. Plainclothes police were scattered throughout the congregation. More police were in the nearby cafés, and J-J himself stood just inside the door of the Maison de la Presse, pretending to study the magazines. There was no sign of Paul and his sister.

  Out of respect, Bruno was wearing the medal of the Croix de Guerre he had won in Bosnia, which he normally kept in a drawer at his home. He was in full-dress uniform, freshly pressed, and he had polished his boots and leather belt that morning. Philippe Delaron was taking photographs of the honor guard: eight soldiers and a junior officer from the garrison at Agen who stood at ease in the churchyard. The officer looked at his watch. The mayor looked at Bruno, who glanced across to J-J in the shadows of the shop and shrugged. It was time.

  “Escadron, garde à vous,” the officer called. The troops came to attention and marched in pairs into the church, down the nave and, as Bruno and the mayor followed them, took their places at each side of the coffin. The futuristic shape of their FAMAS rifles looked oddly out of place amid the ancient stones. Loïc Murcoing lay in state before the altar, on which stood giant photographs of the young fighter he had been. The coffin was closed, and on its lid rested his Resistance medal.

  The tolling bell had fallen silent, and from his place before the choir, a schoolboy began to beat on his drum the slow, steady rhythm of a march. The choir began quietly to hum the familiar chords of the Resistance anthem, “Le Chant des Partisans.” Slowly their voices grew louder, and then Florence’s pure soprano rang out high and clear throughout the church.

  “Ami, entends-tu le vol noir des corbeaux sur nos plaines?” Friend, do you hear the dark flight of the crows across our land?

  The handful of words and the tune were made heavy by the weight of history. As Bruno shifted his eyes from Florence to the coffin and the photographs of the young fighter behind it, he felt tears begin to gather. He was not alone.

  He saw the eyes of the young officer glisten and Father Sentout weeping openly as Florence reached the line: “Ce soir l’ennemi connaîtra le prix du sang et des larmes.” Tonight the enemy will learn the price of blood and tears.

  “Bring the guns from the haystacks, careful with the dynamite.” Behind him he heard the quavering voices of the old people take up the words, and then the full choir joined in with “Si tu tombes, un ami sort de l’ombre à ta place.” If you fall, a friend will come from the shadows to take your place.

  It had all happened a lifetime ago, a generation before he had been born. Bruno wondered why it moved him so. He suspected it was less the words and the music than the images they summoned in his head: jackboots marching through the Arc de Triomphe, de Gaulle speaking from London to pledge that France would fight on, General Leclerc’s Free French Forces racing into Paris as young men like Loïc Murcoing fought against tanks with a handful of weapons in their own streets and villages. He thought of his predecessor Joe recounting how as a boy he’d watched as the collaborators of St. Denis had been lined up on the bridge Bruno knew so well and shot so that their bodies crumpled into the timeless flow of the river below.

  But as Father Sentout began the Mass, there was something else that stirred Bruno deeply, beyond these wartime pictures flickering in his mind. It was the presence around him of the folk of St. Denis, young and old, conservatives and Communists, men who had worn a uniform and women who had kissed them farewell and waited for their return. It was this gathering to commemorate and to remember, to pay tribute to one of the last of the old men who had gone to the hills to take up arms against the invader knowing that death would be the price of defeat. It was fitting, Bruno believed, that the young people were here, to understand what it had meant to France to be vanquished and occupied by foreign troops who did not bother to hide their contempt for the conquered. And it was right for those youngsters to know that in a nation like France, no defeat was ever final, no fate was ever foreordained, that even amid the ruins and corpses of defeat, rebirth and recovery and renewal could always come.

  The Mass ended and the mayor came forward to stand by the coffin, his head bowed in homage before he turned to address the crowded church.

  “Françaises et français,” the mayor began. “Dear friends and citizens of St. Denis, we are here to pay honor to a brave son of France and to the cause of freedom for which he fought. Nothing I could say here would match the courage and sacrifice of thousands of our young men and women who stood for France in our bleakest hour, when that dark flight of the crows haunted our sweet land and the panzers rolled through our villages. We thank them for what they have taught us about this France that we love. We stand in awe of their
courage and we extend our sympathies to their families for their loss. And we give thanks to the Lord, in this church where our ancestors have prayed for a thousand years, that Loïc Murcoing was able to live the rest of his life in pride and dignity in this valley that he had helped to free. And we pray that our sons and daughters will never again have to bear such burdens. Vive la France, vive la République.”

  While the soldiers presented arms and the choir burst into the “Marseillaise,” Bruno joined in the words as he reflected that the mayor had a rare gift among politicians: he never spoke too long. Along with the mayor, Jacquot the builder, Joe, the baron and Montsouris, Bruno took his place beside the coffin, and as the anthem came to its end he gave a quiet word of command, and they lifted it onto their shoulders. The officer ordered his men to port arms and, stooping a little under the burden, the coffin-bearers followed Father Sentout and the file of troops down the nave and out through the churchyard to the cemetery.

  “Now,” said Bruno, and the six men began to lower the coffin slowly as the first shots of the salute rang out. As the echo of the third and final volley died away, Loïc Murcoing rested in the soil for which he had fought. One by one, his relatives and neighbors came up to pick more of that soil from the heap by the grave and toss it onto the coffin lid. By the time each of those present had dropped a handful of earth, the coffin was no more to be seen.

  Bruno scanned the wooded hill behind the cemetery and then across beyond the church to the hedges that lined the winding road to the hamlet of St. Félix. He felt certain that somewhere in that shadowy terrain Paul Murcoing was watching the interment of his grandfather. A cruel irony, thought Bruno, that Loïc Murcoing was being honored for taking to the hills to fight the enemy, while his grandson was now hiding in those same hills to evade the justice of France.

  In Paris, Le Monde was published as an evening newspaper, but it did not reach the provinces until the following morning. The Internet, however, had made it universally available as soon as the print edition was published, so Jacqueline was reading the text of her article on her smartphone, the mayor peering over her shoulder to make out the words on the tiny screen. Around them in the council chamber of the mairie the crowd lined up for glasses of wine and tiny sandwiches and canapés. The vin d’honneur the mayor had arranged to follow Murcoing’s funeral was in full swing.