The Map

by T. S. Learner

  6

  The rugged French coastline loomed up. It was after eleven but small brightly painted fishing boats, tugs and dockworkers still crowded the bustling harbour of Calais. The ferry docked in a flurry of shouting and ropes as August, bemused by the laconic and casual manner in which the sailors secured the hull to the metal bulwarks, waited with the other passengers while the rickety walkway was lowered down. As he stepped onto French soil it occurred to him that the last time he’d been in France he was undercover, liaising with the resistance as they tried to track down an Allied airman who’d been shot down and not captured. Now, to be walking towards a French customs and passport checkpoint felt uncomfortably dangerous and foolish. Force of habit, August reminded himself, half-expecting to see a German soldier sitting alongside a French officer with the tell-tale Vichy insignia stitched into his jacket. Fighting the instinct to break and run, August approached the glass window with his US passport and papers in hand. Oblivious to his inner turmoil, the French customs officer behind the partition took his passport politely. August watched as he placed the page with August’s photo and date of birth against a list of names that would include ex-Nazis trying to escape the war crimes tribunal, possible Soviet spies and other criminals wanted by Interpol. August’s stomach tightened in anxiety – he had assumed he wasn’t on any list, and if he was, it was more likely because the Americans had him profiled as a Communist and had contacted Interpol. An unlikely scenario as his last official involvement with the Communist Party had been over fifteen years earlier, but old fears dictated and the officer, his face a mask of pedantic concentration, seemed to be taking his time.

  ‘It’s been a while,’ August said, in perfect French. Surprised at the faultless pronunciation, the officer looked up.

  ‘For an American you speak good French,’ he remarked, his suspicion seeming to grow.

  Noticing the metal badge in the buttonhole of the officer’s lapel – an emblem of Free France, indicating the officer had fought against the Germans – August handed over the pass issued by MI6 to all its staff, showing he was an employee of the British government and Allied forces and as such was allowed free access to all Allied countries. He prayed the passport officer would not notice it was out of date. The officer pulled it towards him and examined it short-sightedly.

  ‘I came in and out during the war – unannounced of course. A guest of that wonderfully French institution, the resistance,’ August elaborated. ‘I see you were also a member?’ he added, a deliberate attempt to distract with his charm. The officer looked up and saw that August had recognised his lapel pin.

  ‘Indeed, I fought for France, in my way.’ Now he smiled. ‘Nice to meet another unsung hero.’ Then he stamped August’s passport. ‘And thank you, Monsieur, for your contribution to the liberation of my country.’

  The SNCF express to Rouen wasn’t leaving until two that afternoon and, after buying a ticket at the Grand Station, August walked into the town square and bought himself a soft felt hat – the kind the local French sailors wore – a pair of cheap workman’s trousers and a nondescript blue jumper. He changed in the shop and, after hiding his blond hair under the hat, examined himself in the mirror. Despite his height, and rugged square jaw, he almost fitted in – he certainly didn’t look so much like a tourist. The young shop assistant, amazed that a handsome foreigner like August would want to dress down, watched dumbfounded. The final touch was an old leather tool bag, the kind locals would carry to work. August transferred the camera, the chronicle and the Mauser into it then hoisted the strap across his shoulders. It was a comfortable fit, and the old excitement he used to feel adopting a new identity began to drum through his veins. Already he felt freer, as London and the turmoil of the last two days seemed to drop away.

  Back at the Grand Station he found a restaurant that looked as if it had remained untouched since the glory days of the belle époque. The waiters wore white jackets, the decor was art deco, the maître d’ was moustached, his dyed black hair oiled smooth to perfection, while the metal arches of the station’s domed ceiling soared like high musical notes above the tables covered with linen cloths and gleaming wine glasses. The grandeur of the architecture reminded August of a cathedral – a basilica dedicated to the epicurean. It was like the war had never happened. There was even a faint glow of prosperity as the waiters bustled around the clientele, silver trays propped on their shoulders while an accordion player played ‘La Mer’ in the corner.

  August took a table in the opposite corner and picked up the menu, which to his delight appeared to have escaped any rationing. He called a waiter over and ordered mussels, followed by steak and pomme frites. Then he sat back, contemplating the journey ahead. By his calculations he would be in Bordeaux by six, and from there a local train ran on to Saint Jean de Luc, but it wouldn’t arrive until late. He would have to find a cheap hotel and approach the contact. Then he would have to convince the man of two things – his identity and his sincerity. Recalling the profile SOE had composed based on the communications sent by Marcos, August imagined he’d probably be a truculent, naturally suspicious individual. Most of the Basques he’d met fighting in Spain had been – with good cause. But the fact that August was now a maverick operating without official blessing was going to make it a lot harder to win that trust, especially as neither of them had ever met face to face. But August had no choice. He knew of at least two other International Brigade fighters who’d returned to Spain since the Civil War – one of them was still incarcerated in the notorious Carabanchel Prison and the other had been executed. It was near suicide to consider going back. But I will, I have to.

  The last time August had any communication with Marcos was back in 1945. He owned a bar in the public square of Saint Jean de Luc – a popular venue known as La Baleine Échouée (‘The Beached Whale’). Marcos had proven the perfect conduit for Operation Comet – he’d hidden hundreds of US and Allied airmen as they made their way down through Urrugne past Biriatou across the Pyrenees and over to San Sebastián. But how did August know whether Marcos and La Baleine Échouée were still there in Saint Jean de Luc? It had been years.

  August looked up. Again he had that sensation in the back of his neck. He glanced around the restaurant, careful to be subtle. About half the tables were full, mainly families travelling, he guessed, south for the summer. He saw several couples engrossed in each other, and one older woman, maybe an academic of some sort, who had her head buried in a copy of Le Monde. No one even appeared to notice him. Was this sense of being followed another wartime legacy? The habit of paranoia? Or were the same people who murdered the professor now following him?

  August took a sip of wine and turned his mind back to strategising. Marcos, Saint Jean de Luc – it made sense, he’d heard rumour the route was still used by exiled Basque freedom fighters on the French side of the border who needed to get either information or themselves into Fascist Spain on the other side. If anyone could get August safely into Biscay, it would be Marcos.

  Reaching into his satchel, August pulled out a small black notebook – a travel diary covered with jotted notes, train times as well as botanical notes. He double-checked the route he’d mapped out for himself back in foggy London in the early hours of that morning. Planning on the possibility that there might be an alert out on his identity papers, he would avoid the larger cities, and instead take local trains, which was circuitous but safer. He would take the train to Rouen, then a local service to Le Mans, then through Tours, and finally onto Bordeaux, where he would change for an even smaller slower local train that would take him into Saint Jean de Luc itself. It would be a long journey, but after Copps’s murder, he wasn’t willing to take any chances.

  A gleaming bowl of mussels, a freshly baked bread roll and a finger bowl of water interrupted him. The fragrant steam floated up from the shellfish sprinkled with garlic and parsley, each gaping. They smelled delicious. August prised one open and scooped the orange-lipped flesh out with a fork. The tast
e was incredible after the bland fare of British rationing. As the salty taste of the mussels filled his mouth, August felt as if he was seeing colour after years of monochrome. He sat there eating, trying to remember the last time he’d had mussels. It would have been over ten years, in another life, in another era. It was extraordinary, he reflected, how the war seemed to have accelerated history, shaping Europe in ways that were inconceivable only a few decades earlier. And with Stalin and the accelerating gulf between Eastern and Western Europe, he had the sense that they were all on the edge of a new precipice. Would I survive another war? It was too terrible to contemplate.

  Olivia watched him over the newspaper she was holding up. Despite the rough clothes he was wearing and the hat pulled low over his brow, she’d recognised him almost immediately – she’d followed him from the ferry to the train station and had then lip-read the ticket seller’s lips as he repeated the destination the American had requested.

  Saint Jean de Luc.

  A small resort and fishing port near the Spanish border. The question was, why there?

  The rattle of the train as it passed over the tracks was like an incessant sea over which he now rode. Hypnotic, soothing. Outside, the French landscape sped past. Once they’d left Calais, the broken trees gave way to struggling wheat fields and small lines of sprouting green sugarbeet just beginning to poke up above the dark-brown earth. Occasionally, the train would whistle as it trundled past the remains of a bombed-out village – new timbered structures springing up defiantly beside the burned-out skeleton of a church or town hall – or the tumbling walls of a cottage spilling bricks like entrails. Staring out, August found the desolate images all too familiar and it was hard not to imagine the events that had led to such destruction – makeshift battles between retreating German forces and Allied troops, a betrayal of the local resistance leading to the slaughter of all the men and boys, the arbitrary bombing by both Allied and German aircraft, flattening farmhouses like paper cards. Fragments of buried memory now began to flash through his mind in synch with the spinning wheels of the train. Don’t lose control, don’t lose control. Gripping the edge of his seat, August forced himself to focus on his fellow passengers.

  The second-class compartment seated six and apart from August, there were only three other people. A Catholic priest, a thin elderly man, slept in the seat opposite, rosary in hand, his face pockmarked and seemingly scarred by both harsh weather and a begrudging asceticism, a dog collar chafing his wrinkled neck. His gaunt face pressed against the leather headrest bounced gently with the movement of the train. His sandalled feet and plain cassock with crudely hewn wooden cross hanging around his neck made him look as though he’d been transported from the Middle Ages. Only the watch hanging loose on his wrinkled thin wrist placed him in the twentieth century.

  Sitting next to the priest was a red-faced bellicose-looking man in his forties, wearing a too-tight cheap suit, the trousers of which were far too short. He looked like a farmer dressed for church. A handkerchief was spread on his knee in front of him and he was chewing noisily on a baguette stuffed with garlic sausage, the scent of which filled the carriage, making the other passengers’ stomachs rumble and causing the small boy sitting next to August to fidget and stare longingly at the cascading breadcrumbs. The boy, ethereally blond in that transparent manner the very pale sometimes display, was with an older woman August had decided must be either his mother or his aunt. But as he watched the thin boy hungrily eye the baguette he noticed a label attached to a battered child-size leather suitcase at the boy’s feet. It had the words ‘DP-Lager’ and the symbol for the Red Cross beside it. The woman sitting beside the boy caught August’s eye.

  ‘I know, I know, but what could I do? So he’s German. He was an orphan, not even two when his parents were killed. I was working in the displaced persons camp and the poor kid was starving, and not only for food, let me tell you,’ she explained, apologetically, to August in French.

  ‘Madame, it was the Christian thing to do,’ the priest interjected, now awake and nodding his head. ‘It is not for us to visit the sins of the parents upon the children.’

  ‘Indeed, Father,’ August agreed, careful to pronounce his French as authentically as possible.

  ‘What would a priest know?’ the farmer cut in, gruffly, after belching a garlic stench. ‘Did they fight? No, in my village the priest was the only one who kept both his belly and his gold all through the occupation. Call that Christian?’

  The priest, flushed in rage, did not reply, and the matron, now visibly uncomfortable, also remained silent. August was again reminded how the occupation had divided neighbours and families between collaboration and resistance. The woman cast a querying glance towards him, but August knew his accent precluded any kind of judgement and besides he needed to stay anonymous. But then, unable to bear the huge eyes of the child any longer, he leaned towards the boy.

  ‘Hungrig?’ he asked.

  The boy nodded shyly. August reached into his pocket and pulled out the apple he’d bought at the station, and handed it to the child, who waited for a nod from his guardian before eagerly taking the fruit.

  ‘Danke schön,’ he whispered then added ‘Merci’ loudly after his guardian landed a small slap on his leg.

  August could hear voices in the next compartment. It sounded like more than one man. Instinctively, he slipped his hand into his breast pocket to check that his passport and tickets were there. He stood and walked to the door of the compartment and saw a train guard and a border policeman, checking tickets and passports. Again, he fought the desire to run. Was it possible the English authorities had contacted Interpol by now? After all he was a suspect in a murder case. As he turned away from the door a tall balding man, wearing a leather jacket and hat, glanced casually into the compartment as he passed by in the corridor outside. It took Vinko all of two seconds to place August. Satisfied the American was now back on his radar, he continued down the corridor as silently as he had arrived. He had a telephone call to make at the next station.

  The ticket inspector glanced at the middle-aged woman in front of him then looked back down at the grainy black-and-white photograph in her passport. In the passport the woman looked vivacious, wanton – there was something animalistic about the way her hair snaked down her face to her shoulders and her eyes promised plenty of trouble of the good kind. She was the type he would normally try to pick up: dangerous, a little overripe perhaps, but a good fuck for sure. And yet he wouldn’t look twice at the woman sitting in front of him. It was as if she had deliberately flattened out all her sensuality and personality – the flesh and blood woman was in black and white and the passport photograph was in colour. It was this that made the ticket inspector suspicious.

  ‘English?’ he asked, as if it weren’t obvious.

  ‘I am,’ she replied, in that superior English manner he’d always found faintly offensive. ‘I’m on my way to see my sister in Saint Jean de Luc. She’s an English teacher there,’ she added, unnecessarily and entirely without smiling. Shrugging, the inspector handed the passport to the border policeman, who turned it several ways, then flicked through the pages looking at the border stamps. There were several to the Middle East – Egypt in the early 1930s, India in 1935 and one marked ‘Hungary 1938’, a strange destination, he thought, for one who looked so staid. He turned back to the passport photo and, like his colleague, found it difficult to associate the woman in the photograph with the woman in front of him.

  ‘Olivia Henries?’ He read her name out in English, in a thick provincial accent.

  ‘Yes, that is me,’ she replied, again in a voice devoid of emotion, too devoid the policeman thought. Besides, the name resonated with him, if only he could remember where.

  ‘You tourist, yes?’

  ‘Absolutely, I only intend to be in France for a month, then thankfully back to Britain. Not that I don’t think the countryside is beautiful.’ Her French was correct and thoroughly unappealing. Unattractive in
voice as well as in the flesh, the border policeman concluded, unaware that his colleague had arrived at the exact same verdict.

  The policeman snapped the passport shut, then handed it back to her.

  ‘Madame, enjoy your stay.’

  The two officials stepped back out to the corridor, about to move on, when something kept the border policeman back. ‘Just a minute, Jean-Marc.’ He pulled a small notebook out of his pocket and opened it to a list. He scanned down the names. On the second page he found it. Olivia Henries, neatly sandwiched between two others. Voila. That would be worth at least a hundred francs. He glanced back at the number of the compartment and made a note of the time, the train number and the last station they went through. He would make the call from Bordeaux before the Englishwoman caught her next train to Saint Jean de Luc. The American would be most pleased and most generous. Who cared if he wasn’t exactly CIA – the American paid enough for him not to ask too many questions. Besides, it was foreign business, foreign trouble. Why shouldn’t he, a Frenchman, capitalise? After all it wasn’t hurting France. Happy at the prospect of the new hunting rifle he intended to buy with the hundred francs, he closed the notebook and the two men moved onto the next carriage.

  ‘But I already showed my papers at the station.’ The farmer, bristling with indignation, crossed his arms defiantly. The ticket inspector glanced at the border policeman. Great, August thought, just what I need, two upset and tense police officers. He tried not to look up at the luggage rack overhead, acutely aware of the Mauser semi-automatic hidden in his old leather bag. It would be difficult to explain why he had it if they decided to search him. Relax, avoid eye contact, don’t sweat, don’t antagonise them any more, he tried to communicate silently to the irritated farmer. It didn’t work.