The Occupation Secret

by The Occupation Secret (retail) (epub)

  ‘But what do you people expect me to do for you?’ Lartegui had asked at the end of Hervé’s introductory spiel, his hands raised in Celtic incredulity.

  ‘Why, help us to escape to Spain, of course.’

  Lartegui had burst out laughing. His eyes had darted from one to the other of his unwanted guests as they perched awkwardly in front of his fireplace, as if he had just figured out the punch line to a particularly satisfying joke. ‘Impossible. Quite impossible. Listen to me. The Germans control us when we leave the harbour and they control us when we come back – with our families standing surety in the interim. They know each boat and its crew. Every fishermen must register with the authorities once a week. And then, when we least expect it, we can find ourselves called upon to renew our permits before we are allowed out of port again. It’s a nightmare of bureaucracy. The whole thing is run like a successful business, my friends. The Boche take ninety-five percent of our catch, and the remaining five percent we are allowed to sell on the open market. But only after they have come aboard and made their own personal estimates of our tally. Even if I murdered you, and then buried you under a ton and a half of fresh fish, the Schleuhs would succeed in sniffing out your bodies with their dogs.’

  ‘And take their pound of flesh?’ Max smiled, but his eyes were hard.

  Hervé muscled in on the conversation before Lartegui’s evident suspicions about Max could coalesce into certainties. ‘Couldn’t we meet you outside the harbour? At a prearranged pick up point. Somewhere further along the coast, maybe?’

  ‘Using what?’

  ‘A rowing boat?’ Hervé was not at his strongest in maritime matters. ‘Couldn’t we row out from somewhere – some quiet little inlet, perhaps – to a predetermined rendezvous out at sea?’

  ‘What would you do with the rowing boat once you were finished with it – assuming, for one moment, that you managed to catch the tide exactly right, that you managed to avoid the German patrols in the Bay of Biscay, and, on top of all that, that you managed to navigate your way, without further mishap and in pitch darkness, the eight or so kilometres to the rendezvous point? Abandon it? Heave it onto the fishing boat to take with us? Or perhaps you would prefer that we attach it to the stern, camouflage it as a sperm whale, and tow it back to port?’

  ‘Couldn’t we just sink it?’

  Lartegui reared back. Hervé’s suggestion of scuttling a perfectly good rowing boat, during wartime when such objects were as valuable as gold dust, had clearly shaken him to the core. It was as though Hervé had suggested the blanket shelling of a hospital ship. ‘Let’s cease our discussion of the boat. You inland people have no more sense than you were born with. How would you feel if I threatened to destroy one of your tractors?’

  ‘Tractors? What tractors? Where do you think we get tractors from? The Germans? Or maybe the Russians? Or do you think the English float them in to us on parachutes?’

  Lartegui had raised his eyes heavenwards. ‘If you have no tractors, do you have money at least?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then maybe something can be done for you after all. In a few weeks’ time, perhaps. When the Boche have got over their post-invasion nerves. But why don’t you simply wait here in France? The war will soon be over, we shall be liberated, and then you can return to your homes as heroes.’

  ‘The war won’t soon be over.’ Max was not accustomed to remaining silent when plans were being discussed. He threw the remains of his cigarette, together with his caution, into the fire. ‘It will last for another year. Maybe more. The Germans may have their backs to the wall, but they still have three million men under arms. Adolf Hitler will not give up until he is entirely destroyed. With the Russians on one side of him and the Allies on the other, he has no alternative but to fight on. Or they will, quite simply, squeeze him to death between them, like a nutcracker.’

  Lartegui narrowed his eyes. ‘So. You know what you are talking about. That much is clear. Hervé told me you were a car mechanic. You sound more like a soldier to me.’ He ground out his cigarette on the sole of his fishing boot. ‘Look like one, too.’

  Max lowered his gaze in response to a furious scowl from Hervé. ‘I’m Alsatian. I understand the German mentality, that’s all. We’ve lived next door to them for hundreds of years. Just like you with the Spanish.’ Max was all too well aware that Lartegui had reservations about him. The fisherman sensed that he was a fake. But family loyalty appeared to take precedence, in this instance, over prudence, for Lartegui did not pursue the issue.

  It was clear, too, that Lartegui’s wife did not approve of the unmarried Max and Lucie sharing a room. But then, thought Max, exactly the same thing could be said of Hervé, who was becoming more resentful by the day.

  Max was starting to feel that if they didn’t succeed in persuading Lartegui to help them soon, he and Lucie would be forced to strike out on their own, or run the risk of yet another undesirable confrontation with Hervé.

  The fragile truce that they had achieved in the first few days of their enforced proximity had gone for good.

  No Return

  3:15 pm: Friday 16th June ‘44

  ‘Hervé should go home. There is no reason for him to stay on here any longer and risk his life for the two of us.’ Max was in his usual place by the window overlooking the dock area. He squinted into the afternoon sun. All his attention was focused on an incoming boat. Its movement drifted across his eye like a piece of detached retina.

  ‘What?’

  ‘No one in St Gervais knows about the Delage – he can bring it to his parents’ farm at the dead of night, hide it in one of the barns, and then sell it on after the war. He can tell his friends in the Maquis that he buried me in secret somewhere up on the Causse. That he took you on to Toulouse at your request, where we Germans requisitioned the Citroen. That he was forced to walk home. They will have no reason not to believe him. His return by foot and in broad daylight will more than adequately account for the five days we have lost here.’

  ‘But he’s staying because of me, Max.’

  Max fixed his attention firmly on the freight yard. ‘Then perhaps you should consider going back with him? Letting the poor devil off the hook?’ His heart lurched in his chest as he said the words. He knew that he must bring the situation to a head, but part of him shrank from the possibility that Lucie might unexpectedly take him at his word and ditch uncertainty, and him, for a life that she knew and understood with Hervé. The thought of being abandoned – no family, no Corps, no country, no Lucie – filled Max with a Stygian dread. ‘It’s obvious that he still wants to marry you. There’s a stubborn streak in him that refuses to believe that apples from different trees can make good cider. I think he’s praying that I will make a run for it, upon which he will step in and sweep you back to his farm, where you will doubtless live happily ever after, basking in the protective glow of his wartime exploits.’

  ‘You’re making fun of him. Or maybe it’s me you’re making fun of?’

  ‘I can assure you I’m not.’

  ‘And will you make a run for it? Is that why you want me to put my neck back inside the guillotine? I can’t believe you said what you just did.’

  Max turned towards her. ‘I’d never make a run for it without you. I’d rather give myself up to the Gestapo and being done with it, than for us to be separated again. But if you tell me that you want to go back, now, to my face, I won’t stand in your way. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.’

  Lucie’s eyes had taken on a hunted quality, as if she were being forced down an increasingly narrow trail by a pack of ravening wolves. ‘I don’t want to go back to St Gervais. I never want to hear of St Gervais again.’

  Max could feel the noble phrases he had been preparing for just this eventuality clotting inside his throat. ‘But Lucie, your entire life has been spent there. It’s your home. I’ve nothing to offer you beyond misery and pain. As far as the military authorities are concerned, I perished at Oradour – a fall
en hero, assassinated by unknown terrorist elements, scion of a degenerate family that never quite lived up to the Nazi ideal. When they do eventually catch up with me, they will beat me to within an inch of my life, shoot me, and bundle me into an unmarked grave – and whoever happens to be with me at the time will suffer a similar fate. We don’t acknowledge traitors in the SS. They simply do not exist. Especially ones who have been accorded high military honours.’ He shook his head, his eyes haunted by nameless ghosts. ‘No. I’m as good as dead already. A non-person.’

  ‘And what do you think I am?’ Lucie turned on him, her expression more animated than he had seen it in days. ‘How can I go back? To what home? To what country? Look at me. Look into my eyes. I know the people that killed my mother. I know them. Do you expect me to pass them in the street every day for the rest of my life and say nothing?’

  Max leaned forwards, his hands grasping his knees, his eyes fixed on Lucie’s face. ‘Do you want revenge, then? Is that it? Is that what you require of me?’

  ‘Of course not. How could you think such a thing? What’s revenge but more of the same poison that’s destroying us already?’ Her eyes found his, searching for answers. ‘Do you want revenge for Meyer’s death?’

  ‘No. Nothing can compensate for that.’

  ‘Well, then.’ Her outburst had exhausted her. Her chest was heaving and her face was pale.

  Max felt an eerie calm – the calm he customarily felt before embarking on any well-planned military action – descending on him. He realized, with a pang of loss, that he had just witnessed Lucie’s transformation from a girl into a woman before his very eyes. For the first time ever she was addressing him as an equal, and not as the ingénue towards the experienced older man. Pride at her maturity, twinned with sadness for the passing of her innocence, contended at loggerheads inside him. ‘So. It’s clear then. We must free Hervé from the weight he is carrying on our behalf. No?’

  ‘How can we do this?’

  ‘By leaving. This goes without saying.’

  ‘Without telling him first? That would be intolerably cruel.’

  ‘Look, Lucie. I’m not trying to put undue pressure on you. But you must make up your mind once and for all. While Hervé thinks there is any chance at all with you, he will stay put, steadily drinking himself into a state where he will give either himself or us away. He belongs in St Gervais. He’s rooted there. It’s unfair of us to deprive him of his birthright.’

  ‘He’s all that I have left of my home.’

  Max stood up. He limped across the floor until he was standing directly in front of Lucie. Taking both her hands in his, he knelt down in front of her, easing his injured leg out behind him, so that his face was exactly on her level. Tenderly, marvelling anew at the freshness of her skin – the youthful, still undaunted glow behind her eyes – he brought her fingertips to his lips and kissed them. ‘Listen. If we can get across the border into Spain, we have the chance of a new start. A home of our own. And if we can make it that bit further – to Lisbon, say, or Porto – we may, God willing, even be able to secure ourselves passage on a boat to South America. Living is cheap there. And no questions asked. We could wait out the war. Open ourselves a coffee farm. Breed cattle.’ He raised an ironical eyebrow, convinced that he was finally getting through to her. ‘Or you could start singing professionally. And I could accompany you. Just think of it. Lucie Léré and Max Ash. Idols of the Cuban nightclub circuit. The toast of Rio. Lucienne Boyer would have nothing on us.’ His face turned serious again – even wistful. ‘If the Allies win – I mean when the Allies win – we might even be able to come back. Pick up the pieces. Regain contact with our families.’

  Lucie shook her head. ‘I don’t want to come back. I never want to come back.’

  ‘Not even to see your father and your brothers again?’

  ‘Never.’

  Nomansland

  2:20 am: Saturday 17th June 1944

  That night Lucie dressed herself with three layers of everything, just as Max had suggested – underclothes, blouses, skirts, and even socks. When she finally plucked up the courage to look at herself in the broken pane of glass, backed with cardboard, that she had contrived as a mirror, she decided, with her bald scalp and staring eyes, that she resembled nothing so much as the rubber man, Bibendum, from the Michelin tyre hoardings near Cambillac station – ‘Michelin Tyres Swallow Up All Obstacles.’

  She awarded herself a quick smile in a vain effort to force back the sting of her uncalled-for tears. Then she fastened a scarf around her head to limit any further damage to her self-esteem.

  At a little after two o’clock in the morning, she followed Max out of the blacked-out sardinery, past the barely visible silhouettes of the warehouses, and under the skeletal outlines of the abandoned steam cranes, which seemed to hover over them both like predatory monsters preparing to strike. To Lucie, the darkness seemed as thick and mysterious as the black truffles preserved in goose fat, that her mother used to keep behind the counter to add flavour to her omelettes. Left to her own devices she would have fled, in claustrophobic terror, and possibly fallen into the sea and drowned. This blackout darkness was like no darkness she had ever known. Rural darkness was different, she decided – it contained at least some residual light, some luminosity, some elemental heart, which this disinterested urban gloom entirely lacked.

  An hour earlier, before she had secreted her goodbye letter in the sleeping Hervé’s room, Max had taken her aside and explained to her which fishing boat they would need to stow away on and why.

  ‘They check each individual boat every third day. And the boats are numbered, and are always forced to leave in the exact same order. I’ve watched them for the past five days, and they never vary their routine. It’s incredibly slipshod of them. Routine’s a killer. If those were my men, Meyer would have had them pulling latrine duty by now.’ Realising what he had just said, Max shook his head, regret for the past and for lost certainties momentarily clouding his eyes. ‘It means that all we have to do is to choose ourselves a vessel that has been checked the day before, and we’re almost certain to get through.’

  ‘It’s all right, Max. You don’t need to reassure me. I know the extent of the risks we’re taking.’

  Max had raised his eyebrows, surprised anew at Lucie’s self-possession in the face of the mayhem surrounding her. It was as if she had digested all that had happened to her during the course of the past few months, and had acknowledged and learned from it, rather than allowing herself to be cowed by it as he had dreaded she would. ‘I’m not reassuring you, Lucie. Please believe me when I tell you this. I’m reassuring myself.’

  Now, awed by the claustrophobic darkness, Lucie pressed closer to Max as they felt their way through the anonymous obscurity of the port. Gradually, however, as the adrenalin leached away and she emerged from her initial panic, she could feel the sap of youth rekindling inside her – some latent strength, some residue of peasant longanimity, forcing its way back to the surface.

  ‘I’m sorry, Max. Really sorry.’

  ‘Sorry for what?’

  ‘Sorry that I wouldn’t let you touch me, these past few days. Wouldn’t give you that comfort.’

  Max reached back for her hand. ‘You don’t have to be. It’s entirely understandable in the circumstances.’

  ‘No. It’s not.’ She broke into a brief run, anxious to catch up with him again, to force his attention. ‘You remember the story I once told you. Of how I injured my nose? Of how the man who attacked me stole an item of my clothing while I was unconscious?’ Max was very close to her in the darkness. Lucie could feel the heat from his body. Feel the energy of his unspoken questions, hissing like an electrical charge between them. In the distant backdrop she could make out the faint clanking of steam cranes, like an out-of-tune orchestra preparing for its final performance. ‘Well, there was more to it. More that I must tell you, before we can continue.’

  Max grasped her by the elbows. ‘What are yo
u saying? How much more? And why are you bringing this up here? Have you gone mad?’

  For the very first time since their initial meeting at the shrine, Lucie felt afraid of him. Afraid of the effect her confession might have on the way he perceived her. Afraid of his physical bulk. Afraid of his foreignness. But she did nothing to elude his grip. ‘When I came to, the man was crouching over me, doing something to himself. I pretended I was still unconscious. At the very last moment he raised my head up…’ She stopped, no longer able to express herself in words.

  ‘Lucie. For God’s sake…’

  She drew herself together. ‘When they shaved my head in the square – when they forced my head back and wrote on it with lipstick, with everybody screaming at me and calling me a traitor to my country – it felt the same. Don’t you see? They were violating me, just as he had done. And I could do nothing about it. Could tell no one. My own people were violating me, and I could tell no one.’ She tossed her head from side to side, fighting back her tears. ‘That’s why I can never go home. To humiliate my father and my brothers. To suffer my grandmother’s disdain for me. That’s what I want you to understand.’

  Max slid his hands up to her shoulders. Even under the triple layer of clothes she felt fragile, as if too firm a grip might simply shatter her. He could sense her fear of him, and it made him ashamed. ‘Listen to me, Lucie. Listen very carefully. Nothing that anyone can do to you, or has ever done to you, or will ever do to you, can touch you in my eyes. Do you understand that?’

  He could feel, more than see, the tentative movement of her head in the darkness.

  ‘When I came to you, that afternoon, in your room at the Auberge, I came to a woman who was immaculate – who had saved herself against all the odds for the man that she loved. Thanks to your sacrifice, the one that you made in daring to love me – a man who should by rights have remained your enemy – I, too, felt immaculate. As if knowing that you had put your trust in me had rinsed me clean me of all the filth and the horror and the guilt I had accrued during this godforsaken war.’ He held her face in his hands and kissed her on the forehead, on the nose, and on the point of her chin. ‘Lucie, I promise you one thing. We’ll make it out of here. And this time I’ll be there to protect you. I won’t let you down again.’