The Lyon Affair: A French Resistance novel

by Ellie Midwood

“Of course. ‘Crime and Punishment’.”

  A shadow of a smile appeared on her pale face. “I hate it now. It haunts me like it haunted Raskolnikov in it. I see him in my dreams sometimes. Or, shall I call them nightmares, perhaps?”

  She snorted softly and rubbed her forehead.

  “Who? Karl?” Philippe inquired.

  “Yes. Karl.” She glanced at him after a pause. “Do you think I’m going insane?”

  “No. I think it’s normal after what you did. You’ll keep thinking about it for quite some time. It’s unnatural for humans to take another human’s life, so we suffer greatly if we go against this law of nature.”

  “Very logical explanation. Just the way I like it.” Giselle grinned.

  Philippe grinned too. “Wake me up next time you have a nightmare.”

  “I sleep while you’re at work, Philippe.”

  “I can ask to switch my schedule so that I’ll be working night shifts together with you.”

  “I’m a night owl. You’re a morning person. You won’t last long during the night shifts.”

  “I’ll manage,” he promised confidently.

  Giselle stubbed her cigarette on the brick outside the window and threw it on the ground. The street was littered as it was; what did one more cigarette butt matter? Her whole life was now one big garbage pile; she lived in it, she worked in it, and now she had a sudden, moral qualm, that had awakened in her several months ago, something she never suspected she would experience. What was happening to her? She was becoming like her father right after he returned from the Great War, the righteous, honorable Monsieur Legrand who tried to teach her things that weren’t meant to be taught, as it appeared. One had to live through them to understand the true value of things, and Giselle hated all of the new revelations that came to her in this swamp of a street.

  “Do you want me to pluck the chicken?” Philippe’s mild voice distracted her from her musings. “I assume you wouldn’t know how to do it.”

  She reached out and pressed his hand ever so slightly, much to his surprise.

  “Let’s do it together, comrade. I need to learn a few things, now that I’m stuck here with you.”

  Philippe’s eyes lit up as he recognized the old, feisty blonde in this shell of the former Giselle he used to know. No, the new life didn’t break her then; merely burned mercilessly but soon, like the Phoenix, she’ll come out of this even stronger, and maybe then…

  Philippe stopped at the door, gallantly allowing her to go first. Maybe then she’d look at him with different eyes.

  Paris, July 1941. Bastille Day.

  A tender July night covered the city with its velvet embrace. The circle of the moon spilled its liquid silver onto the streets – the only source of illumination left in the city after the blackout law had professed its power. People lurked in the darkness, although Etienne knew well enough that they shouldn’t be; not after the curfew at least. He doubted that these small groups, throwing wary glances his way as he passed them by, had an Ausweis allowing them to be out in the after-curfew hours.

  Another couple passed him by, the young man’s shoulder nearly brushing Etienne’s as the two rushed along Place de la Concorde. Etienne scowled but decided not to pay heed to the students, who the couple most likely were, with serious yet agitated sharp faces, glancing straight ahead of them. Etienne strode unhurriedly towards l’Arc de la Triumphe, a bittersweet, melancholy mood overtaking him again at the ungodly sight of all the swastika flags and banners marring the capital, their crimson draperies turning deceivingly black at night like the SS troops’ uniforms. Lyon had been spared such humiliation, so far. Today was Bastille Day, and like any proud French citizen, Etienne wanted to at least pay his respects to the monument of the Liberty, even though honoring Liberty under the enemy’s occupation seemed like a mocking charade. Naturally, the local Kommandantur strictly prohibited any gatherings and parades celebrating the biggest national holiday; strangely enough, the Parisians grumbled their displeasure but obeyed.

  The official reason why Etienne had traveled to Paris was to attend a security meeting on behalf of the ever-absent Prefect of Lyon, Raimond Bouillon, to reassure the Germans of their “most willing cooperation” in surrendering any Allied parachutists and Resistance members that the gendarmes of Lyon encountered. Etienne barely concealed a smile thinking how astonished and furious the Germans’ faces would become if they only knew that it was him and his cell members who were hiding Allied parachutists in the cellar of his orphanage. However, there was another reason, an unofficial and much more dangerous one: tonight, Etienne was to meet with the man who was currently collecting information about all functioning Resistance groups to later deliver his report to General de Gaulle in London. The man’s name was Jean Moulin.

  He knew nothing about the man, well, not enough to form any opinion at least, besides what Marcel had told him before arranging the meeting. Supposedly, Patrice knew Moulin, and strongly advised the chief to meet with him. Etienne managed to collect little snippets of rumors from here and there before setting out on his trip, and had acquired an official document which stated Moulin’s “crimes”. Etienne knew well enough by now that crimes nowadays meant one thing only: a refusal to collaborate. Moulin had seemed to take it even further than that, actively defying the Germans while he still held a position in the administration. This resulted in his incarceration and endless torture by the Gestapo, who more than anything loved teaching the disobedient French what a mistake their refusal to collaborate was.

  Moulin tried to cut his throat with a piece of glass that he found in his cell. Fate, however, had another plan on his account; Moulin not only survived and managed to escape his captors but swore to fight against the Germans until he drove every last one of them out of his land. With more and more resources falling into his arms from the sky thanks to the generous MI6, Etienne thought it would be simply foolish not to offer help to his counterpart, whose connections encountered more obstacles towards obtaining weapons and explosives than the Resistance in the Free Zone did. The meeting was to take place at midnight in one of the conspiracy apartments Moulin’s people used. So, Etienne still had time to pay his silent respects to the defeated French Liberty and vanish into the night.

  Loud singing and shouts burst through the night air like a thunderstorm, unexpected and startling with the sheer insolence of its force. Etienne stopped in his tracks but, following natural human curiosity and completely ignoring a heightened sense of alertness hammering insistently in his brain, telling him to go back, he rushed in the direction in which the students had previously disappeared.

  The view that unraveled in front of his mesmerized eyes when he turned the corner was truly fascinating. Over a hundred, or maybe even two hundred, young men and girls, dressed in the colors of the national flag, were marching along the street laughing with intentional boorishness, shouting derogatory slogans against the Germans and acting with such reckless fearlessness that Etienne found himself holding his breath in, instinctively, enthralled by the utter madness.

  Apparently, the Parisians grumbled their discontent only during the day, turning the night into a true nightmare for the local feldgendarmes, a few of whom now watched the improvised student parade with their mouths agape, looking entirely unsure of what to do as the numbers were obviously not in their favor. It was a breathtaking celebration of life in the darkest of hours, a celebration of defiant youth over the authority which had been forced on them, shouts over imposed silence, and laughter over gunshots.

  The gunshots, and not metaphorical ones, followed far sooner than Etienne had hoped. Not even ten minutes passed before reinforcements, in the form of the German military, arrived, dispersing the crowd the best they could by shooting into the air. Only, the young mob, drunk on wine and fearless patriotism, turned on their aggressors, much to their surprise. Some soldiers ran; one almost knocked a stunned Etienne off his feet, but smaller brawls soon broke out between the students and the soldiers, some
of whom found themselves surrounded near their military cars, now shouting their last warnings to the enraged youth, pointing their machine guns in their direction instead and not into the air. Etienne hoped that the students would think rationally and burst into a run as well. He also wisely decided not to stick around to see what would come out of all this and joined the small group running past him.

  All he could hear was loud footsteps, heavy breathing, and meaningful silence. No one exchanged excited exclamations or banter to cheer each other up, as they escaped through the smaller Parisian streets. They ran like a very organized group led by a single mindset: tonight, we showed them what we’re worth. Tonight was only the beginning. Tonight is when our fight for liberty begins. Etienne felt electrified air filling up his lungs with each labored breath, their collective determination pushing them forward, back to the shadows where they belonged – for now.

  Only several hours earlier he had been shaking hands with the men who were chasing him now, and in an hour, he would meet the man who would soon unify the entirety of the Resistance in the Occupied Zone, and if he accepted his proposal, would soon unify the Resistance in the whole of France. Etienne’s eyes gleamed in the dull light of a narrow alley, to which he darted after breaking away from the running crowd. He resumed his regular walk at once, willing his breath to calm. He fixed his tie, checked if his hat sat perfectly straight on his head, and soon appeared in a brightly lit square, walking right into the muzzle of a German machine gun.

  Etienne quickly scanned the street, visible in the yellow light of the military car’s headlights, noticed one soldier propped against its hood who was eyeing him with malice while holding a bloodied handkerchief to his nose, and several students sitting cross-legged against the wall with their hands above their heads. He raised his, just in case.

  “Papeire!” the German, who held him at gunpoint, barked out.

  “I’m a Vichy government official,” Etienne offered, keeping his tone purposely respectful, and slowly reached into his inner pocket so as not to provoke the soldier. At least one of his comrades had already suffered at the students’ hands judging by his broken nose, which could have made them all much more trigger-happy than they originally were. “Here is my passport and my Ausweis.”

  The German lowered his machine gun and moved closer to the car to study Etienne’s documents. After thoroughly perusing them and exchanging a few remarks with his men, the German glared at Etienne.

  “What were you doing here at night?”

  “Evening, not night,” Etienne corrected him politely and allowed himself a warm smile. “I was just now dismissed after meetings with the Kommandant of Groß-Paris and the rest of the officials, and merely wanted to take a walk along the streets of the city when all this hell broke loose. I suppose I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, Mein Herr. Surely, you can tell I’m not one of these unruly young men who came out looking for trouble tonight.”

  “Collaborating pig,” one of the students immediately snorted under his breath, looking away from Etienne in disgust. One of the Germans kicked the big-mouthed young man with obvious pleasure, now having a good reason for it.

  Etienne only tilted his head to one side and offered the German another humble smile as if apologizing for his compatriots’ behavior.

  That, and the scorn with which the rest of the students regarded Etienne was a decisive factor in the soldier’s decision-making. He grinned in response, handed Etienne back his papers and even courteously saluted him.

  “If I were you, I’d go straight home, Herr Sub-Prefect. The streets are still full of these scoundrels. It’ll take us some time to round them all up. Would be a shame if one of our particularly ardent comrades rounded you up together with them.”

  “What will happen to them?” Etienne probed carefully, making use of the German’s shifting attitude towards him, and motioned his head in the students’ direction.

  “What Herr Kommandant ordered. Prison, and in some cases – execution.”

  Etienne threw a last glance at the group of brave young men and women - who didn’t grace him with even a single look – and fought off a surge of repulsion as he shook the German’s hand, and set off on his way, deep in his brooding.

  17

  Lyon

  Blanche critically appraised her reflection in the mirror. It was one of the first things she had bought for her new apartment. The priest, who took over Father Yves’ congregation after the latter moved to a city-funded orphanage (which was odd to begin with, as Blanche never pictured him as a person who loved children that much), didn’t take too kindly to her living under the church’s roof and had sternly advised her to move out at the first chance. Blanche shrugged indifferently and went to pack her meager possessions. She had nothing left there anyway. And as for Father Yves, whom she had adored with such passion just mere months ago? She didn’t deem him a second glance after he wished her farewell and left with his black-eyed Jewess in tow. Very well; good riddance to them both.

  Blanche selected the thickest needle from her sewing kit, wiped it with rubbing alcohol carefully, disinfected her earlobe with the same cotton pad and then, without giving it a second thought, drew the needle through her tender flesh.

  She had someone better now, someone who paid attention to her, even though most of the time she questioned the very motive of that attention. But as soon as those doubts started gnawing on her thoughts, Blanche chased them away with the same determination with which she had just pierced her ear, observing the result with a twisted smile. Standartenführer Sievers had presented her with pearl earrings during their last meeting, and Blanche had every intention of wearing them. The fact that her ears hadn’t been pierced didn’t deter her from such a decision in the slightest.

  Sievers demanded information from her with the ruthlessness of the most merciless of the interrogators; yet, he didn’t forget to award Blanche with these small gifts even when she had nothing else to tell him, just like a master awarding his dog with a treat for a seamlessly followed command. She sketched the whole scheme of her cell for him, and even though Sievers visibly cringed at the vagueness of it, he had at least seemed satisfied with what she supplied him, for now.

  “My primary supervisor in Lyon is Jules,” Blanche had told him two weeks ago while sitting at the mahogany dining table, bent over a sheet of paper with a pencil in her hand. Sievers hovered somewhere over her shoulder, sharp gaze trained on the paper, the usual glass of brandy in his hand. It was strange how his presence both terrified and excited her at the same time. Blanche cowered a little lower above the paper before writing down the first name. “I only know his first name, not his surname. He’s young, about my age, maybe a little older. Short brown hair, hazel eyes; he has a beard, and wears glasses. He’s a communist.”

  Sievers grumbled his approval, left the room without speaking another word and soon returned with a stack of files, which he threw on the table in front of her.

  “Look through the pictures. Those are all communists, registered with the Prefecture de Police of Lyon.”

  Blanche wondered how many of those files he had in his study, in which she was not allowed, and started shuffling through the multitude of mug shots. Ten minutes later she admitted her defeat.

  “He’s not among them.”

  Sievers only raised his brow, the cynical smirk she feared so much pulling the corner of his mouth upwards.

  “Which means he’s either not a communist, or not from Lyon, Schatz. You can’t even confirm this little bit of information?”

  The somewhat sadistic disappointment in his voice slashed her strained nerves like a scalpel.

  “But the description—”

  “He can grow out his hair, shave the beard and dispose of the glasses, Blanche.” Sievers sighed tiredly, swirling the liquor in his glass. “Moving on.”

  Blanche felt her cheeks heating up and tried her best to keep her composure.

  “There’s this woman, Margot, she
works in the photo atelier, in which they make all of the documents for new agents and runaways. Here’s the address.” Blanche hurriedly wrote down the name of the street and the number of the building. “She’s tall, large, somewhat crude looking, with dark hair and brown eyes.”

  “That’s all fine and well, but my interest mainly lies with the Occupied Zone. You see, my dear Blanche, I can’t just take my people and barge into the Free Zone to arrest some résistants. That’s why that zone is called Free, for we have no authority over it. Now, the Occupied Zone and your connections here is something feasible. Give me something I can use, Herz.”

  “My supervisors in Dijon are a couple – husband and wife. Her name is Laure and he is Alain. They appeared sometime around late March-early April, and Jules wouldn’t tell me where they came from, but I don’t think they’re from Dijon. I’d been working with an entirely different man there before they came along.”

  “The names are fake, most certainly, but… Husband and wife, you say?” Sievers lowered onto a plush chair next to her, rubbing his chin pensively. “Interesting. What do they look like?”

  “She’s older than me, maybe in her late twenties-early thirties. He’s about the same age, and he’s very tall. About two meters, I would say. He’s quite handsome, with brown hair and brown eyes, and he has a charming smile.”

  “What about the wife?”

  “Brown, shoulder-length hair, green eyes. Sometimes they seem hazel; it depends on the lighting.” Blanche shrugged with sudden irritation. “She’s a factory girl. Looks as pale as death. Smokes a great deal. Wears men’s clothes. Very full of herself for an unkempt woman.”

  Sievers broke into a fit of chuckles. “That sounds like jealousy, Blanche.”

  “Why would I be jealous of her?” Blanche jerked her shoulder.

  “That’s what I’m curious about. Why do you say she’s full of herself?”