Liberation

by Ellie Midwood

  “Sounds fabulous!” True or not, Philippe decided to go along with the story.

  After exchanging final handshakes, the group was dismissed.

  “Do you think Hardy really has access to the General?” Marcel asked Philippe when the two were making their way along Place Bellecour. Philippe had already noticed Patrice smoking under the bronze tail of Louis XIV’s statue’s horse – their usual meeting place.

  “Nah, he’s full of it.” Philippe snorted and made a dismissive gesture. “Have you ever seen a former army General fraternizing with communists?”

  Both were still chuckling as they approached their comrade. Patrice’s hard, lined face had acquired a healthy, golden tan from his recent trips to the countryside, where he was training his growing army on Etienne’s orders. People had started calling them the maquis, future fighters for an independent France, who chose the uncertain freedom of the hills over Service Obligatoire du Travail in Germany.

  “I need more guns,” Patrice said simply instead of greeting the men.

  “Will German ones do?” Philippe, as well, preferred efficiency to the empty exchange of pleasantries.

  “More than.”

  “Wonderful. Your friend Didot showed us some railway tricks, and my hands are itching to find out if they work.”

  Hotel Terminus, Gestapo Headquarters

  Klaus entered the room, wiping his hands on a handkerchief. He instantly fixed the gaze of his glacial eyes on the former résistant, whom he had personally “turned.” The informant was waiting at his desk, standing at attention except for his fingers that kept anxiously fumbling with the brim of his hat.

  “Monsieur Lunel.” Klaus acknowledged the man with a barely visible nod. The latter swallowed a sudden lump in his throat at the sight of red smudges on the white cloth. The memory was still fresh then. Klaus put it away, satisfied with the effect such a simple reminder had produced. “I was in the middle of a highly important interrogation. This better be important.”

  “It is, Monsieur Obersturmführer. Very important.” Lunel rushed to bow his head with the fervor of a civil servant in front of the regional supervisor, eager to please and, more importantly, to remain in Barbie’s good graces. Who, if not Lunel, knew from his own experience that being on the Gestapo Chief’s wrong side wasn’t particularly beneficial for one’s health. “I have just learned from one of the men in my cell the exact address to which all the correspondence is being sent from Paris, perhaps from the people who are in direct contact with Rex himself. 14 Rue Bouteille, in the name of Mme Dumoulin. From what I know, the man who sends the letters doesn’t even bother coding them sometimes…”

  “If you’re playing games with me—” Klaus started, in the voice which always had the right effect on people.

  Lunel went ghostly pale in a matter of seconds. “I would never, Monsieur Obersturmführer…”

  Klaus searched his pocket, extracted a small number of bills and threw them on the table, from where Lunel promptly grabbed them and just as promptly ran out of the room as if the devil himself was chasing him.

  “Too good to be true?” Erich Bartelmus, who was busy typing a document at his desk and didn’t seem to pay any heed to the conversation, lifted his head to his superior. “I mean, uncoded messages… They can’t possibly be that stupid.”

  “You underestimate our French friends,” Klaus muttered sardonically, sending his second-in-command into a fit of chuckling. “Put a man there, just in case. I have a certain feeling about it. If the correspondence comes from Paris, as Monsieur Lunel correctly suggested, it might just be coming from Rex himself, or at least someone close to him. And I will be cursed if I don’t grab him.”

  Salzburg, Austria. May 1943

  Kamille woke up at dawn when the birds were still quiet, partly out of habit and partly because she couldn’t wait to see the face of her husband, which she had previously lost all hope of seeing. He was sleeping on his right, the “bad side” as he called it, with all of the long, ugly scars hidden by the soft pillow, together with his missing arm. He still grumbled under his breath, asking her why would she need such a husband but Kamille invariably silenced him with kisses, covering his whole face in them – good and bad sides indiscriminately.

  When Jochen’s mother, Angela, opened the door to her, it took Kamille some time to explain who she was. Gradually, Frau Hartmann’s guarded expression transformed into an amazed and relieved one, until she grabbed Kamille and pulled her into a tight embrace, crying.

  “Gott im Himmel, and to think of it! This whole time he was telling us the truth, and all of those doctors kept persuading us that he only imagined it all, the fact that he married you! They eventually persuaded him that you never existed, that you were only in his imagination due to the trauma! God Gracious, we thought he was mad! Poor girl, how you must have suffered! He didn’t remember your last name or your address; just kept insisting that he had a wife in Paris and a young daughter. My husband even wrote to the Kommandant himself, but he only laughed at us and said that no one ever authorized such a marriage.”

  “We married in a church; there is only a record there,” Kamille explained, wiping her tears as well. “None of his superiors knew about it. Jochen left for the front the very next day.”

  “My poor boy!” the woman whispered again, pressing her fingers to her trembling lips. “He became so upset after all that; he wouldn’t talk to anyone. Just sits in his room all day; only goes to the orchard and even there hardly ever! He says, he doesn’t want to scare the neighbors with his face…”

  Frau Hartmann looked at Kamille sternly and spoke with a warning in her voice. “He was injured badly there, at the front. I’ll tell him that you’re here only if you swear to me here and now that you won’t abandon him because of his injuries.”

  “Of course, not!” Kamille clutched Frau Hartmann’s forearm, pleading with the woman with her eyes. “I would never abandon him!”

  “He lost his arm and can only walk with a stick.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “His face is badly disfigured on one side.”

  “So what?” Kamille cried out, breaking into nervous, desperate laughter. “He’s alive! That’s all that matters!”

  Yes, Jochen was alive, but he was barely a shell of the man she had known before. He sat in a room, darkened by the tightly drawn drapes, and stared at the wall, an open book lying forgotten on his lap. The room would have been elegant and cozy if it wasn’t for the artificial twilight he had created. There was a vase with fresh flowers from the garden, cut by the loving hand of his mother early that morning, and an embroidered tablecloth on which the breakfast still stood, untouched in its delicate china that looked as fragile as the man in the corner.

  He slowly turned his head to the two women, his gaze stopping at Kamille. He scrutinized her for a very long moment, scowling, almost angry, as though wishing for her to disappear and stop haunting him. But then Kamille ran up to him, faltered for a second, fell on her knees in front of him and buried her face in his lap, kissing his cold, lifeless hand with its thin blue veins under the white skin. He stroked her hair with uncertainty, lifted her tear-stained face and peered into her eyes, his entire body trembling.

  “Jochen, it’s me, Kamille,” she whispered, brushing his cheek, which was furrowed with long, red scars. “Do you remember me?”

  “They told me you never existed,” he finally muttered after a pause, his voice hoarse with emotion.

  Throwing herself on his neck and kissing him all over his pale face, Kamille heard his mother cry softly behind her back.

  She nursed him back to life by the sheer power of her love, which knew no boundaries and acknowledged no obstacles. Soon, he started taking walks with her, first around the house, then outside, and then finally to the street, after Kamille helped him into his old uniform and pinned a sleeve to his chest, next to the black and red ribbon. Much to his surprise, no one turned away or mocked him as he had expected, but greeted
him with smiles, expressing gratitude for his service. Even the Hitlerjugend boys, whose reaction Jochen dreaded most of all for some reason, stopped marching in their small squad, straightened at attention and saluted him. Kamille chuckled, overhearing one of the boys commenting on Jochen’s “neat scars”; “I hope I get some of those when I go to the front. All the ladies will be mine!”

  “See?” She motioned her head in the direction of the small squad that went past them. “Your scars, which you were so ashamed of, are officially considered ‘neat.’ I think I should start worrying about the ladies; you may become too full of yourself and leave me for some movie star.”

  Jochen grinned, his face positively glowing. Kamille would always remember these days as the happiest.

  One thing he wanted to do though and that was to take Kamille to the psychiatrist who had announced Hauptmann Hartmann “unfit even for desk service” basically announcing him not right in the head after Jochen tried to persuade him in the existence of his French wife.

  “I might have amnesia which still causes me trouble, but I’m not insane.” Jochen threw his discharge papers down on the stupefied doctor’s desk. “Fix this so that I can get a position at least on desk duty. Major Holstoff from the Wehrmacht HQ in Berlin had already invited me. Here’s his official letter; you know, in case you tell me I imagined that too.”

  Major Holstoff, who helped Kamille find Jochen, had indeed replied with enormous enthusiasm to Kamille’s letter, in which she asked if something could be arranged through his channels for her husband to get appointed in some position in Salzburg’s Wehrmacht headquarters.

  “Why Salzburg? I can get him posted right here, in Berlin,” the Major replied in his letter. “The pay is much higher and, to be completely honest with you, I could do with a good comrade’s company who has also been through what I’ve been through. I’m sick to my stomach with the local appointees.”

  For some reason, Kamille was certain that the two men would soon become fast friends.

  13

  Lyon, June 1943

  Klaus cursed under his breath, crumpling the innocent piece of paper in his hand. Another complaint from the Paris SD Headquarters. Another derailed train, this time south of Mâcon. Five soldiers dead. Twenty severely injured. Résistance fer – the railroad Resistance network – was getting insolent.

  “Do something about that Didot!” Standartenführer Sievers from the Paris SD urged him in his latest communiqué. “According to our intelligence, he operates in Lyon, somewhere right under your nose. It’s quite baffling as to why you have been unsuccessful in your attempts to arrest him.”

  More than anything Klaus disliked having any mention of his supposed incompetency being shoved directly into his face. He strived to be the best and had strived for praise and appreciation ever since he was a child. It all started with his parents, Klaus concluded after endless nights of insomnia-induced self-psychoanalysis. It was all their fault for deciding to have him out of wedlock in times when Germany didn’t look too kindly on bastards like him. The fact that they married afterward didn’t fix his situation. “Once a bastard, always a bastard,” as the old German saying went. Even his alcoholic father seemed to favor his youngest – legitimately born – son, despite the boy being much feebler and sicklier than Klaus. His brother ended up dying of heart failure when he was only seventeen, leaving Klaus saddened but with an odd feeling of being avenged. His grandfather was no better, leaving Klaus without his share of his father’s inheritance after the latter’s death. That quickly put an end to Klaus’s dreams of university and his future as an archaeologist for he simply couldn’t afford to pay for his education.

  Klaus was a misfit, without a place in the world, shunned and scorned by everyone who felt they had the right to do so. But then Hitler came to power with his black-clad SS and their motto “Blood and Honor,” and Klaus finally found his place. They didn’t care one bit about the circumstances surrounding his birth; the only thing that mattered was that he was of good Aryan origin as that already made him better than everyone – one of the chosen, accepted – at last. On the day Klaus pronounced his oath of loyalty to Hitler, he pronounced one more to himself; he would do anything for his Führer and his SS. Everyone else could go to hell for all he cared, and particularly those who meant harm to the new regime. They would die by his hand, no less, and he’d take pleasure in punishing them for their disobedience.

  No, Klaus didn’t like anyone pointing out his weaknesses.

  “What about that lead Lunel gave us?” He turned quickly on his heel to face his orderly, who was the unfortunate one to bring Obersturmführer Barbie the scolding communiqué.

  “We’ve had the mailbox under constant observation since May 27, Herr Obersturmführer. One of the messages was indeed not coded and mentioned ‘Didot,’ and his upcoming meeting with General Delestraint at 9 am at the Metro station La Muette. I was just going to report this to you after you read the Paris correspondence.”

  Klaus cringed ever so slightly at the mention of the Paris mail. “And?”

  “And, we are waiting for this ‘Didot’ or one of his men to pick it up. As soon as he does, we are going to arrest him—”

  “No. Don’t arrest him yet. Don’t even let him know we’re onto him.” Klaus rubbed his chin, his dark brow creasing in concentration as he worked out all the details of the plan in his mind. “This is what you’re going to do; Lunel knows what ‘Didot’ looks like. Take Lunel with you to Paris and as soon as he points out this ‘Didot’ to you, arrest both him and the General, but do it discreetly so that other résistants don’t get wind of what has happened. Maybe this will give us the chance of grabbing at bigger fish.”

  The orderly beamed a bright smile and saluted him with a sharp click of his heels, clearly satisfied with such arrangements. Klaus sighed in relief too, patting his pocket in search of his cigarettes. He was sure of his men. They would do a good job.

  Chalon, June 8, 1943

  René “Didot” Hardy sat on the cell cot, holding his head in his hands and staring at the opposite wall. They arrested him so fast that he still didn’t quite process what happened. So, it was Lunel then. It was Lunel who approached him on the station here, in Chalon and shook his hand amicably.

  “I’m sorry, my friend,” Lunel added instead of a greeting, and at that instant, a pair of hands were already pulling his, Hardy’s, behind his back to handcuff him.

  “Well, you have your Didot,” Lunel addressed the Gestapo agents, dressed in civilian clothes, as always. “Can I go now?”

  “Of course not,” followed the reply in a somewhat mocking tone. “We still need you to point General Delestraint out to us in Paris.”

  Hardy didn’t say anything to his former comrade, only looked at him long and hard, with accusation. How could you?

  Lunel jerked his shoulder as though in response. You’ll find out soon enough for yourself, how I could. Once ‘The Butcher’ gets to you.

  But Hardy refused to think of the whole mess now. He sat, completely immersed in his own world, where Lydie Bastien, his beautiful Lydie, was lying next to him, her long legs draped around his, and where there was eternal summer, and radiant beams of sunlight on the warm hardwood floor, and no Gestapo, and no wars, no misery…

  The key turned in the door of his cell, and Hardy jumped to his feet, as though in an attempt to run, gasping for air. A young man of medium height and build stood before him, good-looking, dark-haired, dressed in a light beige suit. Behind his back were two severe-looking uniformed jailers. However, for some inexplicable reason, Hardy couldn’t look away from the pleasantly-smiling young man in civilian clothes, who was in return studying him with curiosity.

  “Good morning, Monsieur Hardy,” the man finally spoke, his voice betraying a slight German accent. “Your game is up.”

  He had never met him before, but René instantly realized that The Butcher of Lyon himself was standing before him.

  He moved to the side when Klaus Ba
rbie walked into the cell with an astounding ease about him, sat on the cot and started extracting some papers out of his valise as some lawyer would. Hardy expected the two SS lumberjacks, who menacingly towered behind his back, to manhandle him to one of the interrogation cells where Barbie would show him firsthand how he earned his title, but Barbie instead asked him for his glasses.

  “I’m terribly sorry to bother you with this, but I forgot mine.” The Gestapo Chief’s smile came out unbelievably pleasant as he voiced his request.

  Astounded at such a request, Hardy studied the German before him with mistrust. It seemed rather unbelievable to him that such a feared man would have such an ordinary problem as bad eyes. However, even though he was already sensing some malice, Hardy slowly removed his spectacles and handed them over to Barbie, who took out his handkerchief and started wiping the lenses with exaggerated thoroughness before regarding his victim through them with a sly grin. Hardy closed his eyes and swore quietly at his own stupidity; he wore glasses for camouflage purposes only and naively refused Lydie’s suggestion to get himself real glasses. He had insisted on plain glass, waving off his lover’s concerns and assuring her in an overly confident tone that he knew what he was doing, and that no one would stop him to inspect his glasses, and that Germans were far too ignorant anyway to catch him… and now it dawned on him with all clarity that his arrogance might have just cost him his life.

  “Hardy, your eyes this time were just as bad as your glasses.” Barbie burst out laughing, returning his glasses to him. “Otherwise, I would not have caught you.”