Wolfsangel

by Perrat, Liza

  ‘… black market … serious crime,’ the Gestapo man went on. ‘… imprison you simply for that.’

  The men divided up and started invading the rest of L’Auberge, room by room, and I pushed the hourglass aside and gripped the underside of the table.

  Three of them entered the herbal room. My mother’s eyes tightened to slits, one hand leaping to her chignon. I knew she would be fearful not only for her precious remedies, but for her stocks of food, wine and cash secreted beneath the floorboards.

  She needn’t have worried because the officers were out of there in less than a minute without touching a single glass jar. Their pale features seemed twisted in suspicion, or was it fear? Their blue eyes skimmed about, as if searching for something invisible to the human eye. Their shoulders quivered, like they were shrugging off a thing that had gripped them in that narrow, secretive den.

  We remained silent as they sifted through Maman’s drawers and cabinets, disturbing her orderly piles of papers and inspecting each dust-free ornament. They took great care not to damage or break anything as they upturned furniture, their hands running along seams checking for hidden compartments, secret openings.

  Minutes passed, the Gestapo’s perfect manners and excessive politeness chilling me more than if they’d shouted, thrown things, or pushed us around.

  The moustachioed boss returned to the kitchen with Patrick, whose wrists were clamped in handcuffs. I dared only a quick glance at my brother.

  Chafed with anguish for the Wolfs, and how petrified they must be crouched behind the attic partition, I felt bewildered more than anything when one of the officers appeared carrying the plastic tubing with its small pump inset. In the shock and confusion of their arrival, I’d completely forgotten Maman’s illegal business.

  They placed the tubing, coiled in its metal bowl, before her on the table, beside the emptied hourglass.

  ‘Explain, madame, s’il vous plaît,’ the boss man said. Maman said nothing. She braced her arms across her chest, pursed her lips in a hard line and her eyes widened with the cornered stare of a deer catching the hunter’s whiff.

  ‘There’s a drop-down ladder here,’ another one called from upstairs.

  I felt I might faint, as I listened to him climb up to the attic. It was over for the Wolfs; over for all of us. I bit hard on my top lip, my full bladder pressing against my belly. I hadn’t had time to use the chamber pot before they forced us out from beneath our eiderdowns.

  Please, Jacob, don’t cry out, don’t make a sound.

  Over and over I repeated the words, silently willing the little boy to keep quiet, as the Gestapo soldier rattled about in the attic.

  It seemed like an hour, but probably only several minutes had passed when he returned to the kitchen. He muttered something in German, which I gathered meant he hadn’t found anything. I glanced at my mother and swallowed my cry of relief.

  ‘You’ll have to come with us,’ moustache man said, pulling Maman to her feet and snapping handcuffs around her thin wrists.

  He nodded at me. ‘Bonne journée, mam’zelle.’

  ‘But why? Where are you taking them?’ Tears bleared my vision, and I grabbed Patrick’s arm, trying to snag him from the German’s grip.

  ‘There are serious accusations against your brother,’ he said. ‘Not to mention the illegal business Madame Roussel is evidently conducting from her home. Please step aside, mam’zelle, we must leave now.’

  I kept hold of Patrick. ‘No! Please don’t take them. You can’t!’

  The German prised my fingers, one by one, from Patrick’s arm.

  ‘Look after things, Célestine,’ Maman said as the Germans tore her away from me too, and her eyes flickered, for the briefest instant, up to the attic.

  I felt the urge to run back to her, to hug her and kiss each incurved cheek. I wanted to tell her I didn’t hate her, not at all; that I’d had enough of our eternal battle and only wanted peace. But I couldn’t, because we’d never touched or shown emotion. The very idea was bizarre.

  From the kitchen window, I watched the shiny boots thunder back down the steps, impatient and heavy, then click-clicking across the cobblestones. I grasped my angel pendant, desperate for the comfort of the old bone.

  The Gestapo hustled Patrick and Maman into the back seat of one of the cars, slammed the doors and screeched away. As if a harsh hand had shoved me, I reeled back from the window.

  I filled a glass with water, my quivering hand spilling most of it over the tiles. As I sank into a chair and gulped the water down, Martin Diehl’s face hurtled into my mind. An arrest the very day after I’d spoken to him. Was that too much of a coincidence?

  ***

  After the initial shock ebbed, my first instinct was to jump on a train to Valeria. Félicité would know what to do. I fleetingly thought about going to Uncle Claude’s farm, to see if Olivier and the others were safe, but if the Gestapo knew about Patrick there was every chance they knew about the rest of the boys. I ached to see Ghislaine and Miette, but the Gestapo could well be in the village and I had no desire to run into them again. I could have gone to Aunt Maude and Uncle Félix in Julien-sur-Vionne, but with my cousins being held prisoner I was reluctant to heap any extra misery on them. I knew though, whatever I did, however deeply I floundered in that black pit, the farm chores needed to be done first.

  I grabbed my coat, stumbled down the steps and went through the motions, my hands working separately from my brain as I filled the buckets with water and brought them inside. It was only as I finished milking the goats, and covered the pail with a muslin cloth, that I remembered the Wolfs.

  I shovelled together a breakfast of coffee, milk, bread and apricot jam and hurried up to the attic. The family were still crouched in the partition behind the false panel.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ I said. ‘They’ve gone.’

  ‘They arrested Patrick and your mother, didn’t they?’ Sabine said. ‘How terrible. Where did they take them? Will they be all right? What will you do?’

  I patted Sabine’s arm, trying to calm her as much as myself. ‘I don’t know where they’ve taken them. And I truly have no idea what to do, yet.’

  Jacob clung to his mother’s skirt with one hand. In the other, he clutched the soldier with the red coat. Max remained silent, as if the terror had stolen his voice.

  ‘Will the Germans come back and find us and take us away?’ Talia said, a single tear running down her cheek.

  Sabine stroked the hair from her daughter’s forehead. ‘Don’t fret, my girl, Céleste won’t let that happen.’

  ‘No, of course I won’t,’ I said, but in that instant I did not feel capable of helping, or protecting, a single person. I knew though that I had to do something –– I could not remain at L’Auberge in that state of bewildered stupor a second longer.

  ‘I need to see my sister,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

  Sabine gave me a hasty hug. ‘Take great care, Céleste.’

  ***

  The half hour I waited for the train seemed endless and I hopped from one foot to the other, my eyes continually scouring around for the slightest glimpse of a dark Gestapo uniform, or for any other Germans who might be tailing me.

  Once with Félicité, in that same sparse and unfriendly visitors’ room, my words spewed out in a gibber.

  ‘Slow down, take deep breaths,’ my sister urged. She fidgeted with the silver cross that dangled from a black cord around her neck until eventually I got the whole story out.

  ‘I think all of this,’ I said, tracing the groove of a deep scratch on the desk top with my fingernail, ‘the war, the occupation, has been bearable up to now because we’ve been taking it one day at a time. Every day people look after their families, their animals, their crops. We live from day to day but nobody seems to plan for tomorrow. All we say is, “Good, another day when nothing really bad has happened”.’

  I looked up at my sister. ‘Well now something really bad has happened, a
nd you know what? I don’t have a single plan for tomorrow.’

  Félicité sat opposite me, behind the tatty desk.

  ‘Céleste,’ she said, cupping a hand over my fisted ones. ‘Besides the problem of Maman and Patrick, and most certainly the other boys, the family in L’Auberge attic is in great danger. We’ll have to move them immediately, even if their papers are not finalised. Now I’m going to have to trust you with certain information; to depend on you to keep it to yourself.’

  ‘What information? Of course you can trust me.’

  Félicité drew her hands from mine. ‘I know that, and I’m sure, with this business with the German officer, you’re learning to think with your head, not your heart. Now,’ she said. ‘You should know there are more of Lucie’s villagers involved in our brother’s group –– people the other boys, besides Olivier and Patrick, don’t know about for … for safety reasons. They have the contacts, do the organising, rather than go out on missions, like the boys. They might be able to help us with these terrible arrests.’

  Even after my sister confided the “trusted information” to me and I began to grasp it all; to understand the people and the stakes involved, I was still stunned.

  ‘I never imagined people like priests and doctors would be involved in such illegal activity,’ I said. ‘But I suppose it’s no more surprising than nuns harbouring children in their convent.’

  ‘We all want to help, Céleste. People from every walk of life are keen to do their bit.’

  ‘I might’ve guessed,’ I said. ‘Only the other week I saw Père Emmanuel stand by doing nothing as his Sunday school group giggled at a scarecrow wearing a German helmet. And I suppose they did grow up in Lucie together, he and Dr. Laforge.’

  ‘Childhood bonds certainly are strong,’ Félicité said, ‘and of course, both of them having the Ausweis makes it easier. Doctors and priests are among the few allowed to circulate freely these days.’

  I slid my chair back and stood. ‘I need to get back to the farm. I don’t like leaving the Wolfs alone for too long.’

  My sister laid a hand on my arm. ‘Before you rush off, any progress with the officer?’

  ‘After the Gestapo left this morning, he was the first person I thought of. I saw him only yesterday, at the Harvest Festival –– he had another present for me. But I didn’t give him a single scrap of information about Patrick’s group, nothing, but ––’

  ‘Of course you didn’t, Céleste.’

  ‘I don’t see how it could’ve been Martin who told the Gestapo,’ I said. ‘Really.’

  Félicité patted my arm. ‘Just a coincidence, I’m certain.’

  ‘But he does play his role to perfection,’ I went on. ‘His French is good and he’s smooth, and at ease with this pleasant, cunning kind of coolness. He’s asked a bit about Patrick and Olivier, but nothing direct concerning any sort of activity. I still don’t know if he’s truly interested in me, or if he’s hankering after information.’

  ‘Probably too early to tell,’ Félicité said, as she ushered me back into the shadowy hallway. ‘Just keep up the good work and take great care.’

  She swung open the creaky front door.

  ‘You don’t have to worry for me,’ I said, kissing my sister’s pale cheek. ‘I know how to be careful.’

  12

  When I got back to L’Auberge, a bicycle was leaning crookedly against Papa’s woodworking shed, as if flung there in a hurry.

  Père Emmanuel strode across the cobbled courtyard, his cassock rippling about him like a single dark wing.

  ‘Your sister called me, Céleste. Are you all right?’

  ‘As all right as I can be, after what’s happened.’ I picked up the pail of goat’s milk and the basket of eggs I’d left at the bottom of the steps in my rush to get to the convent. ‘Félicité said you could help us, Father.’ I gestured to the priest to follow me inside.

  Père Emmanuel began pacing about the kitchen as I set the pails on the tiles and started brewing coffee.

  ‘Sister Marie-Félicité has faith in you,’ he said. ‘She convinced me you can be trusted.’

  ‘Yes, you can rely on me.’ I placed two cups of coffee on the table, his agitated pacing making me more edgy. ‘Sit down, please, Father.’

  ‘The Gestapo have arrested the others too –– Olivier, Marc Dutrottier and André Copeau,’ he said, as he took a sip of the ersatz coffee. ‘Incredibly, Gaspard Bénédict escaped. Nobody can understand how the boy managed to get away.’

  ‘Do you know where they are, Father?’

  ‘Your mother is being held in Saint Paul-Saint Joseph prison in Lyon. We don’t yet know where they took your brother and the others. Etienne and I are waiting for word from our city contacts.’ He swallowed more of the chicory coffee. ‘And you do understand this family in your attic is in mortal danger? We’re yet to discover who, but someone informed the Gestapo about your brother’s group.’

  Someone. Martin Diehl?

  ‘The Germans have marked L’Auberge des Anges as a Resistance centre,’ the priest went on. ‘They didn’t find the Wolfs this time, but they may have heard about them hiding here. They will come back, and eventually they’ll discover them.’

  ‘What can we do then, Father?’

  ‘As your sister told you, we’ll move them to the convent urgently. As you know, there are others like the Wolfs at the Valeria convent, people whom the Reverend Mother has welcomed. The nuns will integrate the little girl into their classes. The father will work as a gardener, while the mother can cook for the students and the nuns. All under assumed identities, of course.’

  He drained his coffee. ‘We’re taking them tonight, in Etienne’s car. Let’s just pray the Gestapo don’t stop him and search the car. Now not a word about this to anyone, Céleste … not even to Miette and Ghislaine. Nobody.’

  ‘I know how to hold my tongue,’ I said, breaking off hunks of bread and goat’s cheese.

  ‘It’s dangerous work,’ he said. ‘You’re young …’

  I forced the food down, past the sour liquid rising in my throat, and pushed the bread and cheese across the table to Père Emmanuel. ‘I’ve just turned twenty, Father, quite old enough. I won’t let you down. Or my family and friends.’

  ***

  ‘Everyone in place?’ Dr. Laforge said, his thick brows knotting into a single line above his black eyes. In the pale dusk light we all shivered on the cobbles of L’Auberge courtyard: the doctor, the priest, the Wolf family and I. My nostrils flared with the autumn chill that smelled of old capsicums and mown grass and reminded me I’d soon have to put the animals inside for winter. With Maman and Patrick gone, I would have to think of everything.

  ‘Yes, everyone should be in position,’ Père Emmanuel said. ‘Only Céleste to go. I’ve posted two lookouts at each junction,’ he said. ‘At any sign of German vehicles along the route, the lookout will cycle to the next post and pass the message on, and so forth, until it reaches us here.’

  For my first Resistance job –– besides my secret German officer mission –– the doctor had delegated me as lookout at the junction of the Lucie road and the main départementale, which he would take to drive the Wolfs to Félicité’s convent.

  Max Wolf clamped his large hand in his daughter’s small one. In the other, he held an old suitcase of my mother’s, containing a change of clothes, basic toiletries, a few toys, books and his art supplies: the sum of the family possessions. Bunched up in her coat and trying to hide her fearful eyes, Sabine held Jacob close to her breast, the little boy gripping his soldier with the red coat.

  ‘Ready, Céleste?’ Dr. Laforge said. ‘You’re clear what to do?’

  I nodded, rubbing my gloved hands together, my breath forming jets of fog. Despite my fear and anguish for the boys and Maman, I couldn’t help feeling the excitement of my first legitimate job.

  I kissed each of the Wolf family in turn, blinking away tears. ‘I’ll miss you all.’

  Jacob gave me a small
smile and waved with his toy soldier.

  ‘When will we see you again?’ Talia said.

  ‘I’ll come to your new school as soon as you’re settled in and I can get away from the farm.’

  Sabine gripped my arm. ‘I hope we can repay you one day, for all of this.’

  ‘What you, your friends and family, are still risking to help us,’ her husband said, the spectacles fogging with his quick, steamy breaths.

  ‘It’s a pleasure, Max,’ I said. ‘I feel privileged to have met your lovely family.’

  ‘Thank you for the paints and brushes and paper,’ Talia said.

  Père Emmanuel and Dr. Laforge stared at me, obviously wondering how I’d got hold of such things, and I was glad of the darkness to cover my blush.

  ‘No word from any of the lookouts?’ Dr. Laforge said as he bundled the family into his Citroën Traction.

  ‘All clear,’ the priest said. ‘So far.’

  ‘See you soon,’ I called to the Wolf family, hoping my chirpy voice masked my unease.

  I pedalled down the hill through the ugly tangle of autumn foliage and the fog that was galloping down from the hills, and as I approached my post, the icy air snipped at my cheeks and my speeding heart.

  I had to get it right –– to help the Wolfs, and to prove to Père Emmanuel and Dr. Laforge that I was a worthy resistor in whose hands they could entrust lives.

  I crouched at my lookout post until the doctor’s car drove past. I watched it disappear into the fog, and knew I had played my part. The Wolfs’ safety was, from then on, beyond my control, and I cycled back up the hill slowly, towards L’Auberge.

  ***

  In the ghostlike silence of the farm, I knew sleep would be impossible. I could never rest easy until the doctor and the priest came back to tell me they’d hidden the Wolfs safely at the convent.

  By the light of my candle I climbed the attic ladder and cleared away all traces of the Wolf family, then I padded downstairs and sat at the kitchen table. Shivering in the sallow candlelight, I gathered my mother’s crocheted blanket tighter around my shoulders.