The Resistance Girl

by Jina Bacarr

  It’s like a scene out of a wartime script.

  A tall, handsome RAF pilot with stubble beard shows up at my Trocadéro apartment and pulls me into his arms and kisses me. Hot, trembling… I recognize those tempting lips and hear the words I long to hear, ‘Mon bel ange, I’ve missed you so.’

  Dearest of all moments in my life, it’s real, he’s real.

  Jock.

  ‘Ah, mon chéri, is it really you? Here… in Paris?’ Running my hands up and down the torn blanket the color of a sour pumpkin, stained with dirt and blood, wrapped around his shoulders, I thrill to his touch as his muscular arms grip me tighter. Under the blanket, he’s wearing a brown bomber jacket, the sheepskin lining peeking out and hugging his neck, hair tousled, and… is that dried blood I see on his forehead?

  ‘Yes, my beautiful Sylvie, it’s me.’ He tells me his plane was shot down in an open field outside the city and he’s the only survivor. ‘Now let me kiss you.’

  We absorb all the air in the shadowy alcove. I’m beside myself, touching his face, holding him, kissing him, I can’t let him go. How did he get here? Tired, hungry, wounded with a bum shoulder, he’s huddled in doorways for days, he says, no sleep, in pain. He wouldn’t stop till he found his way to my apartment. He climbed over the stone wall late last night and waited, praying I still lived in the two-story building flanked by tall bushes, the garden in the back with its numerous potted lemon trees and Victorian penchant for odd, covered doorways making it the perfect hiding place.

  We mumble questions, answers between kisses.

  How long have you been in the RAF?

  Long enough to get shot down.

  I thought you were working for the Foreign Office.

  The War Department had other ideas… or rather I did. I won’t let Hitler win… he’s got to be stopped and our boys in the air are the best… besides, I was hoping once we beat these Jerries and take back Paris, I’d see you again.

  Seeing him is maddening, making my pulse race out of control when he presses his chest against my breasts covered by a light silk pink kimono.

  I’m excited and frightened by Jock’s sudden arrival – did anyone see him in a neighborhood crawling with Nazis? My fear doesn’t curtail my physical reaction to the basest need of my sexual desire. But I’m scared.

  Scared he’ll be captured, and then God knows what horrors await him at the hands of the Nazis in a POW camp. If he were lucky, he’d be transferred to an Oflag, camp for officers. That was iffy at best.

  ‘You can’t stay here, Jock,’ I moan, his kisses trailing down the curve of my throat as we stay out of sight in the shadowy alcove of my veranda.

  ‘I understand, Sylvie… if I could just get some sleep…’ His voice trails off and he stops kissing me, his body fueled by passion but the pain reminding him he’s a wounded man in both body and soul. I pray he doesn’t collapse in my arms.

  Where to hide him?

  My apartment in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. I can trust my neighbors there not to say anything if ‘Fantine’ is hiding a downed flier, an ‘evader’. I pray Emil doesn’t drop in unexpectedly, drunk and with his usual abusive manner. I don’t trust his motives these days. As long as Jock stays inside the apartment there until I can make contact with Bertrand and get him a forged identity card, he’ll be safe. The Gestapo will never find him.

  ‘Oh, my darling, I want you to stay here.’ He flinches when I pull away from him. ‘But I’m entertaining an SS captain and his Nazi friends later…’

  His dark eyes that once smoldered with desire for me stare back at me, bewildered. I need to steady myself, knowing what his reaction will be. He’s livid, his whole body stiffens, his eyes blaze hot and his breath hotter as he breathes the words into my face in a choked voice, ‘Why is an SS officer coming here? Are you—?’

  ‘Good God, Jock… no… never, my darling, but I can do more for France by putting up a pretense of helping the Germans. Entertaining Karl and his friends keeps my profile as a prominent actress in a good light in the eyes of the Gestapo.’

  ‘By cheapening yourself… cavorting with these madmen…’ he bellows, an unsettling darkness coloring his rich voice with fear and anger. ‘Not only is it dangerous, it’s—’

  ‘Collaborating with them?’ I say with a spark of truth. ‘Don’t you think every time I have to smile at a Nazi officer and ride around with him in that big, ugly motorcar in the streets of Paris, I don’t die a little? Who else is going to fight for the French people if I run away? Yes, I hate it, despise the bastards who’ve taken the soul out of Paris and wrapped it up in drab olive green and goose-stepping and expect it to sparkle. It never will. I tried to defy them, but it got me nowhere. This… this cavorting as you call it allows me the freedom to do what’s necessary to fight back in the only way I know how. With my art. It’s how I got my dear Jewish friend Raoul’s family out of Paris and over the border into Spain before the Nazis rounded them up and sent them to a concentration camp.’ I take a breath and stand up straighter, pulling my kimono tight around me. ‘I’m proud of what I’ve done, Jock. And now, my darling, I can use that same network to help you escape.’

  ‘How about another song, Sylvie?’

  Karl nuzzles his face in my hair as I sit at the piano pretending to play while a bespectacled lieutenant with new bars on his shoulder dances his fingers over the keys in a melody I can’t name. A favorite of the Reich, I presume. Dressed in a red silk gown cut low to show off my bare back, I’m putting up a good front since I had no choice when Karl insisted his buddies needed a place to ‘unwind’. Get drunk is more like it. I chuckle at his attempt at humor, laughing and flirting with the lieutenant. The elegant, white upright piano came with the apartment and though I can’t play, I’ve faked it enough times on screen to make it look like I am.

  Everyone is too drunk to notice.

  ‘The lieutenant here is the real star of the evening.’ I give him a saucy smile. ‘Why don’t you play something, Lieutenant, we can sing along to?’ He nods and ripples the keys from one end of the keyboard to the other, giving me a break.

  I smile as Karl takes my hand and kisses it, the hunger in his eyes telling me he wants more than that. The party’s been going for over an hour and a half after Karl and two SS officers showed up with two French girls in tow and three bottles of Dom Perignon. Two bottles of the expensive champagne are already gone. The Germans barely touched the local cheese and what fresh fruit I could talk the chef at the Ritz into giving me (it’s amazing how dropping Karl’s name makes things happen). The two French girls devoured the strawberries and pears. Food isn’t on my mind.

  All I can think about is Jock.

  Waiting in the cellar.

  Listening at the keyhole, desperate to hear what’s going on in my apartment with my Nazi guests and ready to storm the Bastille if he has to.

  After I dressed the wound on his forehead, he made use of my tub then I insisted he shave (he’d stand out with that week-old beard). I found milk for him and added a good dose of brandy, then I demanded he let me ditch his clothes. My trip to the Hȏtel Ritz also produced a jar of hot chicken soup (I told the chef I was coming down with a cold and couldn’t afford to pass it on to an SS officer). I had a leftover baguette in the pantry to give him with some cheese I didn’t put out for the party. Then I made a quick stop to a pawn shop I know well and bought clothes for him (I plan to retrieve my diamond bracelet as soon as I receive my salary on the Versailles picture from Galerie Films). Nothing flashy. Old jacket, rumpled shirt, cravat, beret. The owner grunted, took my francs, no questions asked. With his sunken eyes and scraggy hair black as a witch’s kettle, he looks like something out of horror casting call, but he can be trusted.

  Next, I hid Jock in the cellar.

  Blankets, pillow. More brandy.

  Before I was halfway up the staircase, I could hear him snoring.

  Getting a downed RAF flier out of my Trocadéro apartment with a shrewd SS officer watching my every move turn
s out to be a testament to my ability as an actress.

  I relax my attention on Karl, trying to draw his eye elsewhere by talking to the two French girls. They profess to be fans of mine, gushing and hiding their mouths when they tell me how honored they are to meet me. Then they go back to flirting with the handsome German officers (do they even know they’re SS?). I’m not comfortable with this. I find their eagerness to participate in a dangerous game that defies their everyday existence of food rationing and curfews upsetting. I imagine they haven’t had fresh fruit on their plates since the Occupation began. I judge them to be in their early twenties, dressed in poplin and tweed.

  The two French girls drink more than they sing and I wonder if they’re aware they’re collaborating with the enemy. So many young women see dating a German soldier as a way of getting more ration stamps or they just want to have a good time. Cabaret girls are highly sought after, but these two remind me of shopkeepers’ daughters. There’s an innocence about them that tells me they don’t know what they’re doing, that their desire to ‘have fun’ could cost them.

  Then a more heart-wrenching thought crosses my mind.

  Do they see this partying with the Nazis as acceptable because the film star Sylvie Martone is also doing it? In her apartment, no less.

  If so, that’s a byproduct of my game I never saw coming. It disturbs me. I’m influencing young women to go out with German soldiers and yet they have no idea of the serious consequences for them or their families if the ‘date’ goes sideways. It pains me, but tonight I can’t play the good fairy and watch over them.

  I have to get Jock out of my apartment, then make arrangements for him to travel by railway from Paris to the pickup point where he’ll travel over rough terrain to cross the border into Spain, then back to Britain via Gibraltar or Portugal. Bertrand tells me the routes are becoming more dangerous since they suspect a traitor in their midst. As much as I want to keep my love close to me, I have to let him go. My ‘arrangement’ with the Gestapo to publicly promote French culture in films won’t change.

  Which means I can’t give up seeing Karl.

  What terrifies me is, I couldn’t live with myself if Karl gets too friendly with his hands all over me and Jock witnesses it.

  He’ll try to kill him.

  I’ll lose Jock forever because of my game and I can’t live with that.

  A daring plan hatches in my brain.

  I open a window, knowing Karl is watching me slowly sway my hips. The drawing room is spacious with a high ceiling and parquet wood floor, but it feels stifling. I hear him draw in his breath. I imagine he’s conjuring up a long night of sexual activities with me naked beneath him, my body flushed with desire, my voice low and husky, begging him to come to me.

  I have a different scenario in mind. Knowing Jock is in the cellar waiting for me is an agonizing, slow death until I put my plan into action to help him escape.

  I won’t forget this evening for the rest of my life.

  A throwback to my days as Ninette outwitting the devil with my daring stunts.

  I pour more champagne for the German officers (I pray they pass out before they can come on to the girls), then cozy up to Karl, making him believe I’ve had too much to drink. I let him think I’ve had a sudden and most curious rush of desire to get to know him better. Knowing how he likes to be in control when he’s around pretty women and show off his authority, I take a chance he drove here tonight. I fumble with the buttons on his uniform to draw his attention and, using the sleight of hand I perfected in Madame Le Noir, I pick his pocket.

  And retrieve the key to his Mercedes touring car parked outside.

  Holding the key tight in my fist, I make my play.

  Laughing and singing along with the lieutenant banging on the piano keys, garbling words that make no sense, I pretend to take a sip of champagne then toss the glass against the white marble fireplace. Rolling my eyes and swaying my shoulders in a provocative manner, I do a grand slide across the parquet floor, throwing my head back in a wild, sexy laugh and—

  Sacré bleu, my eyes say, oh, my!

  Down I go, sliding across the shiny, polished floor like a slippery mermaid riding in on the crest of a wave. A perfect stunt. Like the old days when I was the queen of pratfalls.

  Ouch. Except I’m not sixteen anymore and that hurts.

  Karl, ever the dashing SS officer, sweeps me up off the floor in a grand manner and is about to kiss me when I beg off, telling him I need to go upstairs and rest my poor ass. Laughing, I steer him toward the girl with the ribbon in her hair. She’s only too happy to play footsie with him while I go lie down… except I don’t. The minute I see Karl pulling the satin ribbon from the girl’s hair and nuzzling his face in her soft tresses, I jam down the cellar stairs.

  ‘Jock!’ I call out in a loud whisper. ‘We have to go… now!’

  He comes out of the shadows dressed in the clothes I bought him. ‘Are the Jerries upstairs?’

  ‘Yes. And, I might add, they’re blessedly drunk.’ I want to wrap my arms around him, tell him how sexy he looks with the navy blue cravat around his neck. I don’t. Instead I cock his black beret at an angle. ‘There. Now you look French.’ I grab his hand. ‘We have to go.’

  ‘Not before I take a poke at those Nazi bastards.’

  I stop, startled at his insane request. I can’t keep out the pain in my voice when I say, ‘I know these bastards, Jock. They’re drunk but armed, which makes them more dangerous. Besides, there are two innocent girls up there who have no idea what these Nazis are capable of. I don’t want to see them hurt… or you.’ For a moment I feel a surge of panic I haven’t felt since Monte Carlo. ‘I found you again, mon chéri, I don’t want to lose you. Besides…’ I dangle the Mercedes key in front of his nose. ‘We’re traveling in style, courtesy of the Third Reich.’

  Strange things happen in Paris after curfew.

  But nothing stranger than the sight of the Mercedes-Benz touring car speeding down the boulevard along the Seine with me at the wheel and a downed RAF flier hiding inside.

  What is a time of calm and civility on the streets becomes the roar of the eight-cylinder engine under my novice guidance. I’m used to driving an Italian roadster with an engine that purrs at my touch, not this giant metal grey monster.

  I keep punching the gas pedal, then jamming it to the mat, sending the long motorcar skidding like a slithering serpent along the grand boulevard. I find it difficult to see where I’m going since the Germans require the headlights of all motorcars be equipped with a blue material that allows only the narrowest of light to shine through. I know the way back and forth by heart, though I’m grateful for the occasional streetlight that’s still working. I pick up speed, not unusual since German arrogance dictates nothing else whenever possible. I’m lucky it is dark, but if anyone looks closer, all they’ll see is a Nazi SS officer wearing a cap, black leather gloves, overcoat with the high collar pulled up, commanding the steering wheel and out for a jarring night spin.

  I smile. And wisps of platinum-blonde hair escape from her cap.

  I hit a pothole and I hear a loud groan from the floor of the rear passenger seat.

  My dearest love wasn’t happy when I ‘requested’ he ride in the back under a blanket. I go as fast as I can under darkness from the 16e arrondissement to the 11e in what is a fifteen-minute drive during the day. The six-wheeled G4 staff car will get up to over sixty kilometers an hour. I don’t dare go too fast and have an accident.

  I drop him off a block away, give him the key, and remind him it’s the apartment with the blue door. Number 23. I don’t give him time to protest, though by the firm squeeze to my waist and brush of my cheek with his lips, I have no doubt he’s surprised at how I outmaneuvered him to get my way. I refuse to let tears fill my eyes at leaving him again so soon. My heart is heavy with longing when he takes a piercing look back at me before racing around the corner and down the dark passage.

  I’ll count the minutes till I se
e him again.

  With my lips stinging for the kiss we promise each other with our eyes, I jam back to my Trocadéro apartment, park the touring car out front, and race into my fancy residence through the back entrance near the kitchen. I take a moment to catch my breath, then put phase two of my plan into action. A way to knock the compass of my SS officer into a direction he never saw coming. I’ve often heard the snide remarks of other SS men at the cafés when the chatter gets around to their favorite ‘pastime’: a French girl wearing nothing but heels, a German officer’s overcoat and cap, and scanty underwear.

  Now it’s Karl’s turn to gain bragging rights.

  At my expense.

  I’ll do anything to save Jock from the Gestapo.

  With the Nazi cap pushed back on my head, I throw off the long overcoat, drop the key into the pocket so he never knows it was missing and has me arrested for stealing Nazi property, and then strip down to my chemise, garter belt, and silk stockings.

  Then I slip the coat back on, pull down the cap to cover my eyes, and wet my lips. It’s as if I hear Emil’s voice yell ‘Action!’ as I grab a bottle of vodka I picked up for tonight’s entertainment (I haven’t touched a drop since the Nazis marched into Paris) and prance into the drawing room, swinging the vodka back and forth.

  ‘Anybody miss me?’ I call out.

  Then I rip open the long overcoat and strike a glamor pose in my sheer chemise, garter belt, and silk stockings.

  A loud cheer erupts from the lieutenant playing a soulful melody, while the other officer is passed out on the divan. The quiet blonde girl is nowhere to be seen, and Karl is tying the white ribbon around the brunette’s bare thigh, her dress hiked up to her waist. His trousers are half buttoned – and an empty champagne bottle lies nearby.