The Lyon Affair: A French Resistance novel

by Ellie Midwood

  “Body of Christ.” She took a thin white piece of bread from his hand. His warm breath caressed her forehead, and all she could see was the blackness of his cassock in front of her because she’s too afraid to lift her gaze to his. She wants to drown in this darkness together with him…

  “You shouldn’t have looked.”

  “Pardon?” Blanche’s cheeks blushed bright red at his words as if she feared that he might have guessed her sinful thoughts.

  “The newspaper. You shouldn’t have looked at it.” Father Yves was as calm and reserved as always as he spread a film of butter, glistening in the dim light, on top of a fresh baguette. “And you shouldn’t have told me about it either. Didn’t they teach you that, in that cell of yours?”

  Blanche observed his confident movements without replying.

  “The gendarmes might catch you and take you for questioning,” he continued, in a mildly scolding voice, after handing Blanche her piece of bread with strawberry jam generously applied to it. “What will you do then? And if they come to me and start asking me about you? Have you thought of that? What if I tell them all I know at once? Lying is one of the mortal sins. What if I’d rather not sin than keep you safe? Have you considered that?”

  Blanche almost buried her head in her plate, squeezing her toes inside her shoes as tight as she could, abashed from his shaming. Then she suddenly lifted her chin defiantly and proclaimed, “Well, I trust you I guess. And I know that you won’t give me away to the gendarmes, sin or no sin. I don’t believe that you’re so pious anyway. I don’t even believe that you’re a priest.”

  Father Yves only chuckled softly in response. “It would be rather difficult, to keep such a façade and to deceive the whole congregation for such a long time, don’t you think?”

  “You somehow managed.”

  “Such blasphemy against the Lord’s servant in God’s house.”

  “See? Even now you sound ironic. What kind of priest would joke about something of that sort in his church?”

  Father Yves barely suppressed a grin, rose from his chair and bid her good night, ignoring her question. In the doorway, he paused, though, and spoke before leaving. “You are meddling with some dangerous business, Blanche. I don’t want anything to happen to you, that’s all.”

  “What do you know about dangerous business, Father?”

  “More than I wish I did.”

  The indigo velvet of the night transformed the route into a maze of shadows, illuminated only by the shimmering waves of the blizzard cutting through it each time the wind picked the snowflakes up off the ground. As the two figures navigated their way knee-deep in snow, the steel-gray crescent of the moon followed them silently from behind its hideout of threadbare clouds, thinly painted across the sky. Breathing heavily while mounting yet another hill, braving the cold with admirable stoicism, the two figures hardly spoke to each other, choosing to cover their faces so that only their eyes, shining with determination, were visible above their scarves.

  Finally, the couple came to a halt at the top of the hill to observe their surroundings and to catch their breath. The taller figure pulled his sleeve up, revealing a beautifully executed hand watch and squinted his eyes in an attempt to see the time in the dim light of the uncooperative moon.

  “Surprisingly, we’re on time. We have exactly half an hour left before the British drop their cargo.”

  “Is your man waiting for us?” the other man asked, his voice sounding muffled behind the multiple layers of a heavy scarf.

  “Yes, down the hill, right there, where the forest starts. See?” He pointed his gloved hand towards the woods looming up ahead, indicating the direction.

  “Are you sure we’re in the right spot?”

  “Quite sure. If the compass doesn’t lie, of course.”

  They started making their way downhill, panting and sliding in the snow which was covered in a thin film of ice, rendering the easy descent almost impossible to navigate.

  “Have you been here before?” the shorter figure demanded, hoping not to lose sight of his comrade in the dark.

  “Only in summer. My father and I came here to ride horses quite often.”

  “How are we going to find your friend then?”

  “Don’t fret. He’ll find us.” The taller figure seemed to be much more confident than his companion, even after admitting to himself that he was just as helpless at navigating through snow-covered mountains in winter, and particularly at night, as the other fellow was. “He’s a hunter; he knows the forest and his way around it like the back of his hand.”

  The couple, with their backs now completely covered in snow, caught each other’s hand to steady themselves from sliding on a particularly steep part.

  “Etienne.”

  “Yes, Jules?”

  “I think you should leave it to me.”

  “Leave what to you?”

  “This whole affair, with the parachutists. It’s not just a simple newspaper anymore. This is… They’ll shoot you for this.”

  Their breath was still coming in short gasps as the two stopped to peer into each other’s eyes, Etienne’s matching the silver shade of the moon.

  “So, you would rather get shot instead of me?” His voice sounded mildly amused but with notes of sadness at the same time.

  Jules lowered his scarf, revealing his mouth which was pressed into a hard line.

  “It is only sensible and fair, Etienne. Those parachutists, if captured, must under no circumstance reveal who is in charge of the whole enterprise. You are too important, far too important for the Resistance. And, therefore, you should stay in the shadows and supervise everything without revealing yourself. I think that you know it perfectly well yourself… You’re just too noble of a man to admit it.”

  “Understanding it and agreeing with it are two rather different ends of the spectrum, Jules.” Etienne turned his face away and resumed his walking.

  Jules trailed after him, unwillingly admiring the grand scenery unraveling in front of his eyes. The Lyon mountains, within several kilometers of the city itself, were even more imposing now, with the impenetrable wall of the forest rising right in front of their eyes.

  “War is a strange thing,” Etienne continued, in what seemed to be musings which he had decided to pronounce out loud, into the stillness of the night. “It changes a man and even his way of thinking. And while the sensible man in me agrees with you wholeheartedly, the honorable man in me won’t listen to any of those very sensible arguments. I can’t sacrifice your life to keep mine safe, Jules. It simply wouldn’t be right.”

  “You’re right about the war, Etienne. And yet, you’re wrong about one thing: sometimes a man must sacrifice the honorable man in him and all his moral qualms for the sake of a bigger cause. Even a few months ago I wouldn’t have said any of this to you because I didn’t understand this myself. Then something happened—”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “No, I want to. I killed an innocent man, Etienne. An innocent man, whose only fault was the uniform that he was wearing. I knew before I set out to kill him that I would never look at myself in the mirror the same way again. I knew that I would be a changed man after I went through with the gruesome deed. But as you said so yourself: it’s the war, comrade. And it’s us against them. And if we don’t kill them all, they will kill us, simple as that. And after I realized that, all of my moral qualms and the honorable man in me didn’t matter anymore.”

  They stood in silence a moment, sharing the most intimate truth between them. Two conspirators, with souls bared, in a rare moment of precious sincerity, as if it might decide the whole world’s fate; or so it seemed under the cover of that velvet night, under the light of the crescent moon, still peeking curiously from behind the curtains of the clouds.

  “So, you’re the legendary Ghost then? The one who shot that naval officer in Paris?” Etienne’s words came out in a mere whisper. “I can’t say that I didn’t suspect as much after my father’s fr
iend, Monsieur Demarche, asked me with utmost urgency to smuggle you out of the Occupied Zone. I wondered what you did to cause such havoc all over the North. How do you know Michel though?”

  “My sister has a contract with his publishing house. She asked him to shelter me and then help me get out of Paris before the Gestapo got a hold of me.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Giselle Legrand.”

  “Really? I must say, I very much enjoyed that novel of hers, with Jean-Marc as a protagonist, what was its name…?”

  “A Good Man’s Bayonet.”

  “That’s right. My father loved that book, too. He fought in the Great War, so he understood it better than me. She stayed in Paris then, your sister?”

  “She did. She’s one of the writers for La Libération, you know.”

  “You’re joking, most certainly? Our Libération, the one that we’re reprinting and distributing?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I thought all of the writers were men.”

  “Giselle is a man, only in a woman’s body.” Jules smirked. “She always had more guts than I did. And the sharpest mind to match. Helps her get all that information for the paper, obviously, from that Nazi lover of hers.”

  “Nazi lover?”

  “Yes. She lives with a Boche. And a formidable one on top of it.”

  “What?”

  “Ah, long story. She’s getting married to him, too. I have no idea what’s going on in that mind of hers and why she’s acting like a dog in the manger – being with the Resistance on the one hand, and refusing to let go of her high-ranking Nazi on the other. I can only hope she will choose the right side sooner rather than later. By the way, since tonight is the night of revelations, my real name is Marcel. I thought I owed you at least that after you saved my life. Or maybe because I don’t want to die nameless.” He snorted mirthlessly.

  “It’s an honor to meet you, Marcel.” Etienne outstretched his hand, and the two exchanged firm handshakes. “No matter what you think of yourself, you’re still a hero in my eyes. And in the eyes of many people, too.”

  “I told you my story for two reasons,” Marcel spoke mildly after a pause, seemingly glad that Etienne walked in front of him again and couldn’t see the tears that shone in his eyes against his will. “The first one is to persuade you to leave this to me. And second, for you to know that I am capable of whatever needs to be done in the name of the Resistance.”

  “Even though it would mean that you would most likely put a gun to your head after the war is over because you won’t be able to live with yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  The howling of an owl interrupted their conversation, and the two men stopped at once, gingerly listening for the second one to follow. After it did, Etienne cupped his hands, brought them to his mouth and replied in the same manner. Barely a minute later, another figure appeared from behind the dense growth of the trees and started approaching them in a resolute step.

  “Comrades,” the harsh voice grumbled from under a scarf, also shielding the man’s face from the weather as he stopped to shake hands with the two men.

  “This is Jules. Jules, this is Patrice; he’ll help you collect our parachutist and take you both to safety.”

  Etienne’s voice sounded slightly strained as he proceeded with the introductions in his usual collected and efficient manner; only this time there was another reason behind his hastiness. The sensible man in Etienne had listened to Jules’ – Marcel’s, Etienne mentally corrected himself – story, and realized that the only reasonable decision was the one that Marcel suggested. The honorable man in Etienne recognized that he should become a faceless puppet master, governing the whole affair from behind a curtain of anonymity, unknown and devoid of the honor of a true fighter, and yet so very indispensable and necessary for the greater cause. He had to turn around and leave, now.

  “You’re going then?” Patrice’s voice gave way to surprise as he watched this strange bourgeois, whom he had met during the Armistice parade when he gave him his first copy of that paper, La Libération, to then simply stride off rapidly in the opposite direction.

  “Yes.” Etienne threw the words over his shoulder. “Jules will explain everything to you. And forget that you ever saw me.”

  7

  The visitor shifted uneasily from one foot to another, his agitation obvious to Father Yves, who’d been observing him for a few silent moments. He rarely ever crept up on his parishioners in this manner, watching their backs without making a sound when he happened to catch them unawares between the services; only, this man was not one of his parishioners, that much Father Yves knew from the very moment he had spotted him. Instead of removing his cap and making a sign of the cross, the man stood indecisively as if taking in the new and unfamiliar surroundings of the church.

  Father Yves wrapped a rosary around his fingers and cleared his throat with intentional loudness. The visitor visibly jumped and turned around swiftly.

  “You startled me, Father.”

  “I beg your forgiveness. I didn’t mean to.” Father Yves’s voice was as serene as the atmosphere in the empty church – one of the rare islands of peace and silence from the world outside, raging with the madness of the war. “How can I be of service?”

  The man approached him gingerly, outstretched his hand in a somewhat nervous gesture but then, as if on second thought, quickly retracted it, hiding both calloused palms in the pockets of his worn-out leather jacket.

  “Sorry, Father. Priests don’t shake hands, do they?”

  Father Yves lowered his head, concealing a coy smile, and asked instead, “And communists don’t usually seek priests without a seemingly good reason, do they? Isn’t your ideology supposed to be atheistic?”

  “How do you…?” the man stuttered, then shuffled anxiously once again and lowered his gaunt face that had a shade of visible stubble on his square chin. “Well, it doesn’t matter I suppose. It’s even better that you know who I am; saves me time as I don’t have to go into long explanations.”

  “How can I be of service?” Father Yves repeated, gesturing his unexpected guest towards the nearest pew, polished to perfection by his own hands during one of those nights when the demons of the past wouldn't let him sleep, and he would serve his self-appointed penance by rubbing the dark wood with ferocious obsession in order to clean it, together with the blood on his hands that he swore was still visible.

  “I heard from my comrades that you... well…” The communist threw a quick glance over his shoulder and, despite the church being empty, lowered his voice to a mere whisper. “They say that you’re not too fond of the Vichy government, and Maréchal Pétain in particular. They say, during your speeches—”

  “Sermons,” Father Yves corrected him.

  “Sermons, right. That during your sermons, you call for denunciation of the Vichy and for standing up to the oppressors.”

  A shadow set across Father Yves’s face, settling deep into the lines creasing his brow and annihilating the kindness in his gray eyes, leaving them cold and dead.

  “I don’t call for anything. I merely quote verses from the Holy Book. I’m not responsible for how my parish chooses to interpret them.”

  “No need to put on such a defense, Father.” The communist grinned, still not offering his name. “I don’t work for the gendarmes.”

  “I would be rather surprised if they started hiring communists.” Father Yves sighed and looked his guest square in the eye. “I know who you work for, and before you say anything else, let me state this clearly: I don’t want to get involved. I’ve seen my share of fighting already, and have no desire to get entangled within another war. Take care of your fighters, and I’ll take care of my parish. Let’s leave it at that.”

  Father Yves made a motion to get up when the persistent communist caught his sleeve, imploring him only by the sheer force of his deep brown eyes to sit down. Father Yves lowered himself on the pew, obliging him with visible r
eluctance.

  “Just one more question, Father, and I’ll let you go, I promise. Do you care only for parishioners of the Christian faith?”

  Father Yves knitted his brows in confusion. “It’s a Catholic church. I think it implies that all of my parishioners are of Christian faith.”

  “Of course, Father, I understand that. But what if I told you that there are people of a different faith who might be in more desperate need of your help than their Christian counterparts?”

  “Are you talking about Jews?”

  “Bien sûr. Who else could I possibly mean?” The communist chuckled mirthlessly.

  “Why would they be in ‘desperate need’ as you called it? And besides, I always thought they gravitated more towards your communist lot than our Church.”