Village of Scoundrels

by Margi Preus

  “Get up! Get up!” she hollered, pulling a sweater over her pajamas. “Raid!”

  There was no way of knowing where the cars were headed—to what residence, what farm, what house?

  Covers were thrown back, clothes pulled on, feet slipped into shoes. Bodies pounded down the stairs, slipped out the back door, and ran along the narrow walkways and paths that led to the forested hill beyond the village.

  Once Henni and the others were out of the house, Céleste sat down on her bed. Trying to get rid of the swirly feeling in her head, she leaned over and put her head between her legs. There, under the bed, was the suitcase she was supposed to deliver to the château where she’d met Léon. What was she going to do about that?

  RAID ON RIVER HOUSE

  Perdant had planned to bide his time concentrating on “maintaining positive relationships with the locals” while he waited for word from police headquarters about carrying out his proposed raid. So he was taken by surprise when he was informed that a raid was in process at River House, on Chemin du Dragon. Already. Without him.

  By the time Perdant arrived, even from outside the house he could hear thumps and thuds and shouts of “Schwein Jude—Jewish pig!” He winced, then entered.

  The place was crowded with plainclothes German military police—or whoever they were—every one of them with a weapon in hand. The number of machine guns caused even Perdant’s heart to race.

  The thug shouting “Schwein Jude” was openly beating a young man. Perdant looked away.

  Who were they? Gestapo? Kripo—criminal police? Or German military police? Who had directed the raid? Head of Gestapo in Lyon, Klaus Barbie? Wehrmacht?

  “Who sent you?” Perdant asked, trying to keep his voice level. The presence of so many machine guns and the casual brutality—a boy was being shoved, by the barrel of a gun, into another room as he asked this question—made him quake a little.

  The more senior member turned his reptilian head to regard Perdant with his cold gray eyes. “And who are you?” he asked.

  Perdant told him and handed him his card.

  “Ah, yes, the boy policeman.” The German sniffed at his card and set it on a side table. “We have been informed that this house is harboring wanted terrorists.” He rattled a piece of paper at Perdant. “We come and what do we find? A nest of Jews and anti-patriots! And, of course, these . . . these . . .” The man gestured at the gathered boys while searching for the French word.

  “Les étudiants?” Perdant suggested. “Students?”

  The man scoffed. “Terrorists,” he spat out.

  Perdant couldn’t prevent a slight lift of his eyebrows, and the man responded with a disdainful curl of his lip. “Since you haven’t investigated it yourself,” the German said, “then we must do it, to keep your little village safe. For the safety of all.”

  The student boarders were taken, one by one, into a separate room to be interrogated while the rest were held in the dining room, waiting their turn. Perdant did a quick head count and was pretty sure that some of the students were missing—perhaps they had fled to the woods. He decided not to mention it.

  From the living room—now the interrogation room—came a snarling voice and muffled noises Perdant didn’t want to think about. The student emerged with a bloodied face that made Perdant turn away. There was nothing he could do here, nothing he could say, no one he could help. The Germans didn’t want help from him, nor did he want to give it.

  So he went out, walking the wooded path along the river, hoping he would not see anyone he didn’t want to see.

  Perdant found he was trembling. Was it because his authority had been usurped? That he hadn’t been consulted? That he, himself, hadn’t been the one to make these arrests?

  Maybe. Or maybe it was the brutality of the raid. And the fact that he had finally accepted where these kids would be sent: not to a new homeland in Poland where they could live in peace. That is what everyone had been told, and it was still an idea to which many people clung. He had believed that myth—or had chosen to believe it—for a long time, but he could no longer deny the truth: These young people would be sent to their deaths.

  He followed the path to a quiet place and, as he had as a child, started throwing rock after rock into the river. He tried to derive some satisfaction from the ache in his arm, from the thunk as the rock hit the water, and the way the stone disappeared from view, knowing it was sinking down, down, down, and he would never see it again. Each stone a bad decision he had made.

  The decision to join the national police.

  His desire for promotion that had led him here.

  His fawning admiration for the leaders of Vichy and, worse, their German overlords.

  It seemed, if he was going to be honest about it, that he, like everyone else around here, didn’t much care for the German occupiers.

  Why? he wondered. Why did he want to do what he did? He’d had the idea that he would help rid France of foreign troublemakers, communists, Bolsheviks, and Jews. He’d thought he was helping to save Europe from a terrible conspiracy, and helping to restore France to its former greatness through the goals championed by Marshal Pétain and the Vichy government: “Work, Family, Fatherland.”

  He didn’t know what to believe anymore, except that he’d seen these kids on their sleds and bikes, singing as they hiked in the woods. They were hardly dangerous. They were just kids! All they wanted was to have a life.

  Still . . . Perdant brushed the grit off the palms of his hands and straightened his back. He was not going to be shown up by some German hoodlums. He was going to show his superiors he could make a few arrests, too. Not in the thuggish way the Germans did it, but in civilized French fashion. He’d been mulling a variety of things he’d heard here and there—and had begun putting it together. It added up to criminal activity that he intended to investigate. All he needed was someone to show him the way.

  The scoundrel. He went to find him.

  NOT INVISIBLE ENOUGH

  The afternoon sun slanted in through the hotel dining room windows, laying elegant white stripes across the linen tablecloths.

  Jules had been practicing being invisible, a talent he figured would come in handy for avoiding Perdant. Unfortunately, his sabots tick-tocking across the tile would have given him away. If there had been anyone there to notice.

  But nobody was there—well, almost nobody. Only a lady wearing a long, swishy skirt who brushed past him, limping slightly, and who paused only long enough for him to slip a note into her hand before she disappeared out the door into a blinding shaft of sunlight.

  Now the dining room was empty and quiet. Jules took advantage of its emptiness to filch a handful of sugar lumps from a china bowl before pushing through the swinging door to the kitchen.

  The enticing and all-too-unfamiliar smell of melting chocolate drew him to a double boiler on the stove, the bubbling chocolate the only sound in the also empty kitchen. In fact, the whole place was as quiet as the palace in the fairy story where everybody fell asleep for one hundred years. Well, thought Jules, even if the enchantment only lasted for a few moments, it would be long enough to stick his finger into the pot and—

  “Ouch!” It was as if the chocolate bit him! He jerked his burned finger out of the pot and stuck it into his mouth, singeing his tongue.

  And now someone had him by the scruff of the neck and was shuttling him toward the kitchen door.

  “Chanterelles!” he managed to squeak out, holding up the basket he was carrying.

  The basket of mushrooms was snatched out of his hand, and he very swiftly found himself out on the street.

  “What about my payment?” he squawked.

  “Come back tomorrow,” said the cook.

  “And my basket!” Jules cried.

  “Tomorrow,” the cook repeated, and shut the door.

  The rest of the hotel staff was outside, animatedly discussing the morning’s event: a raid on one of the houses.

  A raid! Jules thou
ght. It was the first he’d heard of it. He sensed the dark mood of the hotel staff. Some were smoking nervously; others tucked their hands under their armpits and leaned against the building. He thought of the cook’s unusual snappishness. Perhaps it explained the quiet of the dining room. The day, which had seemed so bright, dimmed a little. And to make matters worse, he noticed that policeman, Perdant, eyeing him from across the street.

  “La Crapule!” Inspector Perdant shouted. “Come over here.”

  Does he know about the sugar lumps? Jules wondered. He deposited them into the safety of his pocket, then crossed the street to where Perdant waited, leaning against his car.

  “What do you know about Château de Roque?” Perdant asked him.

  “That place?” Jules said. “It’s been empty for years.”

  “Yeah, well, it might not be so empty anymore. And it sounds like you know it, so get in.”

  Perdant opened the car door and shooed Jules into the front passenger seat. He went around to the driver’s side, opened his door, and slid inside. Before starting the car, he reached over Jules to open the glove box, where he deposited his sidearm, a semiautomatic service pistol.

  GESTAPO!

  Word spread: It was the Gestapo.

  The Gestapo! Céleste thought as she pushed her bike up one of the steeper village streets. A new level of horror. The Gestapo was merciless in its pursuit of information—they wouldn’t quit until those in custody gave up names. Names and addresses.

  Céleste, Sylvie, and Henni converged on Madame Créneau’s at the same time. When the door opened, the aroma of cooking fruit rushed out while Madame pulled them inside.

  Everyone started talking at once.

  “Gestapo—River House—” Celeste began while Sylvie was saying, “—some of the boys are in the woods—” and Henni cried, “Max’s friend was staying there—they took him! Max is in danger now!”

  “Everyone sit down and we’ll get it all sorted,” Mme Créneau said while filling a teakettle with water.

  Céleste noticed Madame’s hand shaking as she lit the stove and set the kettle on to boil. It wasn’t until she sat down at the kitchen table herself that Céleste realized her own legs were trembling. But she found herself steadied by the velvety feel of the steamy kitchen, the smell of jam cooking on the stove, and the empty jars lining the countertop waiting to be filled. It was all so normal, and seemed somehow hopeful.

  “Now,” Mme Créneau said, taking off her apron. “What happened?”

  Sylvie told them about going to River House and seeing those who were arrested come outside; she counted the students as they came down the stairs and climbed into the truck. Eighteen. And the director of the house, too. But still, that was not everyone.

  “Not everyone?” Mme Créneau said.

  “The household had been warned,” Sylvie explained. “But some of them felt more secure in the house than others. Some spent the night in the woods. Some chose not to.”

  The three girls all started firing questions at once:

  “Is the Gestapo gone for good?”

  “What if they come back?”

  “Is this likely to keep happening?”

  Mme Créneau held up her hand to stop them and said, “No one knows the answers to any of those questions. We just have to get as many people to safety as we can. The Gestapo is likely to get the names of others who were in the house, so we must help those young men first.”

  “And Max!” Henni chimed in. “His friend was arrested and knows where Max is staying.”

  “And you, Henni,” Céleste said. “His friend knows about you, too.”

  “And Madeleine,” Henni said.

  “You and they will need somewhere to stay for a short time until we can get everything arranged. Now . . . Where to take them?” Mme Créneau drummed her index finger against her chin, thinking. Her gaze fell on Céleste. “Do you know anywhere, Céleste?”

  Céleste’s urge was to go home, climb into bed, and pull the covers over her head. No, a part of her wanted to say, I don’t know any place. But the thought of the remote, abandoned hillside château came to her, its vine-covered turret, the old orchard grown up with grass, the Scotch broom growing in the garden, the gate hanging on its hinges. And she remembered the suitcase that was to be delivered there.

  While Céleste’s mind lingered on this image, Mme Créneau was thinking out loud. “Jean-Paul seems to have disappeared . . . He was supposed to deliver papers for Max . . . Has anybody seen him?”

  None of them had seen Jean-Paul.

  “Has anybody seen Jules?”

  None of them had seen Jules.

  Everything is falling apart! Céleste thought. Jean-Paul had disappeared. Jules was nowhere to be found. The Gestapo had raided one of the houses! What else could go wrong?

  Mme Créneau asked Sylvie about the young men who had spent the night in the woods.

  “I know where to look for them,” Sylvie said, reminding Céleste that there was something to do. And as long as there was something to do, there was still hope.

  “And I know a place where they can stay,” Celeste said. She told them about the château.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Mme Créneau said. “These boys are old enough to be left on their own, but they’ll still need someone to move them out of the country.”

  “Philippe?” Céleste suggested.

  Madame turned her gaze on Céleste. “You haven’t heard,” she said softly.

  “What?” Céleste’s throat was so constricted she could barely manage the word.

  “He was arrested.”

  Céleste turned her head to look out the window and blinked away tears. The day that had begun so sweetly before the arrival of the German police was still bright, but the brightness seemed metallic, as if the sunlight had a knife-sharp edge.

  But now she had to pay attention, because Madame was giving her an assignment:

  “Céleste,” she said. “You must find Jean-Paul and ask him to make new papers for the others. While you’re at it, get Max’s papers, then get Max and take him to the château. That’s a lot,” she said. “Will you be able to handle all that?”

  Céleste nodded. And the suitcase, she thought. Don’t forget the suitcase.

  “And in case you meet anyone who is thinking of revenge, you must spread the word,” Mme Créneau said. “There must be no retaliation. Not against Germans. Not against Perdant. Nothing can be allowed to jeopardize the rescue operation.”

  Céleste nodded again. The ramifications of what had happened were clear. If someone were to try to retaliate for the raid or do anything that seemed like it, the Germans would hit back a hundred times harder. It had happened in other places, other villages.

  Madame continued with the plan. Sylvie was to find the other boys—the ones who had slept in the woods—and meet Céleste and Max at the château.

  “As for me,” Mme Créneau said, “I’ll take Henni and Madeleine to a safer place. But first, Henni and I have to finish this jam,” she said, tying on her apron. “I used my entire sugar ration, and I’m not going to see it ruined!”

  PERDANT AND JULES LOOK FOR THE CHTEAU

  “Why do you want to go to the château?” Jules asked Perdant. “Was it something Claude said? Because you know he’s kind of . . .” Jules tapped the side of his head to indicate crazy.

  “I don’t need to divulge my sources to you, nor will I,” Perdant said.

  While Jules wondered what divulge meant, Perdant stopped the car at the intersection of the main road that led out of town.

  “All I need,” the policeman went on, “is for you to get me to the château. Which way?”

  Jules pointed to the right, and while Perdant swung the car to the right, Jules plunged his hands into his jacket pockets and fingered the sugar lumps he had filched from the hotel dining room. He thought of the dessert he’d glimpsed as he passed through the kitchen—a delicious little mountain of Chantilly cream next to a bowl of jewel-like straw
berries. He tried to imagine what it would taste like but really couldn’t. Something like that was only for wealthy tourists or German officers. And as for the melted chocolate, what was to be its destiny?

  Clutching the steering wheel, Perdant stared out the windshield and muttered, “Someone has to keep law and order, am I right?”

  “I don’t know,” Jules said. “Somehow we got along without a policeman before you got here.”

  Perdant scoffed. “You got along, that’s for sure. Everybody in cahoots. You can find more criminals here than ever were in the Bastille.”

  “Turn here,” Jules said.

  Perdant spun the wheel, turning the Citroën onto something that could hardly be considered a road. They bumped over rocks and roots, but Perdant seemed oblivious.

  “And!” he continued, nearly shouting with frustration. “Not only are there Jewish children mixed in with the Protestants and Catholics at the homes and schools, but some of the teachers, cooks, and directors of the homes are Jewish, too. Those sweet little Protestant children in those pews on Christmas Day live with Jewish children in the children’s homes. But, like every other frustratingly silent person in this place, they keep their mouths shut. Maybe I didn’t know it then, but I figured it out, La Crapule, and now I’m on to all of them!”

  Ahead, Jules saw a road going off to the left that, after the recent rains, was probably in pretty bad shape.

  “Turn left here,” he told Perdant.

  “I didn’t know it then, but if I had arrested everyone at that Christmas service who was involved in illegal activities, I’d have had to arrest nearly the entire congregation. That stout lady who was sitting in the pew in front of me?” Perdant said. “I’ve seen her lugging cauldrons of soup to the parsonage, no doubt to help feed all the criminals passing through the pastor’s home. And it’s not just him! I bet all twelve of the pastors on the plateau are involved. On top of that, the farmers either have, are, or soon will be hiding Jews, labor service dodgers, and miscellaneous troublemakers.”

  The car galumphed over a large rock.