by Perrat, Liza
‘I hope to know that soon.’ I hugged my arms around myself against the chill, my mind racing with Dr. Laforge’s plan –– our only chance to save whoever was still alive.
We walked on, and reached L’Auberge des Anges, stopping beneath the sign dangling above the wooden gateway.
‘Will I see you in three days then … at our usual place?’ he said, hunkering into his greatcoat and sliding the black-gloved hands into his pockets.
‘I don’t know, Martin. After this I really don’t know what to think.’
‘I will count every minute, my love, and hope you will come.’
He strode away, the blond wisps around his cap gleaming gold in the moonlight. I kept staring down the hill long after he was gone, trying to push aside my self-loathing for letting things get so out of hand. They’d all been right to be wary of me; Céleste Roussel was not up to any sort of Resistance mission.
I knew I should heed Félicité’s warning and stop everything right then. I should take a knife and gouge Martin Diehl out of my head and my heart. But it seemed he had bewitched my every thought and move, and as much as that enraged me it only made me want him more.
My clogs slid across the dew-damp cobblestones, and I imagined my sister’s disappointment –– no, her horror –– if she discovered I’d not only lost the game, but that I’d crossed into no-man’s land and fallen into the gulf of enemy love.
I trudged up the steps, the sobs swelling in my throat.
22
I stood once again in the snap of cold at the gates of Montluc Prison. After Martin’s betrayal at Au Cochon Tué, Karl and Fritz’s attack, and my anguish over the boys, my night had alternated between miserable sleeplessness and confused nightmares.
Beneath the eiderdown I wrestled with my agitated mind; fought my self-loathing at allowing Martin Diehl to steal my reluctant heart. I watched the moonlight shadows of semi-bare trees shifting across the wall like grotesque creatures. But beyond the hurt and anger, I was still lucid enough to realise that a co-operative German officer might be useful to the boys.
Downstairs, Maman paced the kitchen tiles, and several times I’d had the urge to pad downstairs and join her. Perhaps we could have united our concern, somehow making it more bearable, or at least given each other moral support. But the fear that we might be forced to talk for once, to lay bare our private thoughts to each other, stopped me. The very idea was bizarre.
I was so lost in my ruminating I’d have missed my turn if the woman behind hadn’t nudged me.
‘Get a move on, mademoiselle,’ the guard said, as I handed him the parcel of clean clothes, which also contained Dr. Laforge’s bag of boiled sweets. ‘You’re not the only one here.’
I stood back and waited for another half hour until the guard shouted, ‘D60! Dirty clothes for cell D60.’
‘That’s for me.’ I stepped forward and the guard threw me the usual bundle of stinking garments.
‘And this is for you.’ I slid him the tobacco rations donated by Dr. Laforge, his brother and Père Emmanuel.
‘I must know,’ I went on. ‘Which of the prisoners in D60 are still alive?’
‘I told you, girly,’ he said, pocketing the tobacco. ‘I don’t know … don’t much care either.’
‘Please.’ I slid him a wad of francs I’d taken from Maman’s stash beneath the herbal room floorboards.
The guard slipped the money into his pocket and looked at his board, frowning as he moved his pen up and down the list. ‘Let’s see then. D60 was it?’
‘Yes. D60.’
‘Hmm,’ the guard murmured. I itched to punch him in the face and snatch the board from him.
‘Copeau and Dutrottier were shot.’
I reeled backwards, stumbled and fell against the line of waiting women.
‘There, there, poor thing,’ a woman said, holding me up. ‘The shock’s the worst. Is there someone who can see you home?’
I gaped at the woman, not seeing her; barely hearing her words. ‘No, thank you … I’ll be all right.’
I clutched my bag to my chest and hurried away from the prison, my footsteps weaving across the pavement, my mind a swarm of confusion.
As I stepped onto the Lucie-bound train, the terrible reality of it all swelled inside me. I felt it burst like a pus-laden sore. André and Marc, gone. Poor Ghislaine. Her poor father. I saw how closely they touched, grief and relief, and how fragile the line between them was. Flimsy as a skein of Maman’s sewing yarn.
***
The early autumn dusk had fallen by the time I got back to Lucie, and walked across to Saint Antoine’s to give Père Emmanuel the terrible news. Afterwards I used the telephone in Au Cochon Tué to call the convent. There was only a straggle of people in the bar, but still I kept my voice low.
‘Patrick and Olivier are still alive,’ I hissed, when Félicité came on the line.
‘And you?’ she said. ‘You’re all right?’
‘I’m fine. Still working on things … on the German. I’ll let you know.’
‘Bless you,’ she said.
I hung up, feeling the sting of guilt; the betrayal of my sister, of our cause, which clung to my shoulders like a putrid cloak. I should walk away from Martin, and never see him again. It sounded so simple. Why, then, was it beyond me?
I plodded back up to L’Auberge, perched on the hill like a giant brooding mare, and headed for the slant of light coming from the stable door. Maman was brushing Gingembre; long, repetitive strokes across the glossy chestnut coat, her knuckles white around the brush. The horse let out a soft neigh, and from the way my mother glanced up sharply I knew she’d been waiting for me.
‘Patrick and Olivier are still alive,’ I said.
The horse-brush clattered to the ground and her shoulders slackened.
‘Thank God. And the others?’
I shook my head.
‘And Madame Dutrottier dead only a year,’ she said, with a final pat on Gingembre’s flank. ‘The poor wretch of a man.’
‘Père Emmanuel has gone to see Monsieur Dutrottier and Ghislaine,’ I said as we crossed the cobblestones and climbed the steps.
‘Your friend too, must be stricken,’ she said, hovering about me as I removed my coat and hat and snagged them on the rack in the hallway.
I sank into a chair at the kitchen table and started fidgeting with the egg timer. ‘Ghislaine’s lost more than a brother, André Copeau was her fiancé.’
My mother removed her apron, took a fresh one from behind the door and started rattling about at the stove.
‘But your brother and Olivier are still prisoners?’ she said, plunging a clutch of leeks into boiling water. ‘Still going to be shot?’
‘I hope to get them out before that, Maman.’
‘I suppose you still won’t tell me how you propose to do that?’ She wiped the back of her hand across her steamy brow. ‘Still refuse to tell me these secretive plans?’
‘I can’t discuss it with anyone. You’ll just have to trust me for once.’
Neither of us said a word for a time, Maman fussing about cooking and setting the table as I stared up at the great exposed beams striping the ceiling; staring but seeing nothing except flashes of Patrick and Olivier’s tortured faces, the grisly bodies of Marc and André. And Martin Diehl who, it seemed, had won our game with a single, triumphant hand of cards.
‘Well it seems I have no choice,’ Maman said, her wooden spoon thudding onto each plate as she dished out our meal. ‘But to trust you.’
As we ate wordlessly by the muted candlelight, I thought of Patrick and Olivier again, and how precarious life had become. They might be alive now, tonight, but would they avoid the firing squad for another two days? Would they even be transferred to the Antiquaille hospital, and would Dr. Laforge’s breakout strategy succeed?
23
In the fog-swamped dawn, I fed the animals, milked the goats and collected eggs as if I were a machine. All I could think of was returning to Montluc as
soon as possible.
I’d spent the last two days in a fresh spiral of worry, peaks of hope plummeting to depths of despair and back again.
I almost forgot I was to see Martin again that day. As I carried the pail of water inside, his betrayal at Au Cochon Tué and the raw, horrifying shock of my feelings for him reared in my mind again. How had it all gone so wildly wrong?
I set the bucket on Maman’s sleek kitchen tiles and vowed I would not go to our afternoon riverbank rendezvous. I would never see him again. Then I remembered the meeting Martin might have arranged with Obersturmführer Barbie.
‘Go,’ my mother said, her palm grazing my forearm. ‘Quickly. And see what’s happening with your brother and Olivier.’ The touch of her hand on my arm felt strange; an odd prickling that snaked up to my shoulder, and around my neck. ‘But be careful for God’s sake, Célestine. I have enough to worry about without you getting yourself arrested too.’
I was part way down the hill, headed for Lucie’s train station when the dark-clad figure of Père Emmanuel appeared.
‘We have a reprieve,’ he said, leaping from his bicycle. ‘Our contacts at the Antiquaille sent Etienne a message. Patrick and Olivier have been transferred to the hospital.’
‘Thank God,’ I said, a seed of new hope sprouting. ‘Shouldn’t we go to the hospital now, Father, and try to get them out?’
‘We must be patient, Céleste, if the breakout plan is to succeed. You’ll go to the Antiquaille tomorrow with Etienne, to get acquainted with the place and our contacts.’
***
Later in the afternoon, as I wove through the screen of willows, I saw Martin was already at the riverbank. He looked smaller somehow, sitting on the big rock, huddled beneath his greatcoat in the cool, unlovely tangle of autumn. One long arm jerked out as he threw a stone across the smooth water. It dropped straight down without the slightest skim.
He swivelled around, stood, and smoothed down his coat with his palms. ‘I was afraid you would not come.’
‘I still don’t know whether I should have.’ I ignored his gloved hand on my elbow, gathered a few pebbles and skimmed them deftly across the water in quick succession.
‘Mein Gott! Céleste, you have to believe me. The whore was only for appearances. Surely you can understand I was trying to protect us both? Anyway, what of your brother and his friends?’
‘Patrick and Olivier are still alive. Thank you for asking.’
I looked away, towards the Monts du Lyonnais, the peaks invisible beneath the mist. I shivered as a rat scurried along the riverbank, its tail curling around a silvered log as it disappeared into the dead foliage.
‘Say something, Céleste. Tell me you understand.’
‘I don’t know what to say. Why should I believe you? And what about my meeting at the Gestapo headquarters?’
‘I am working on this,’ he said. ‘But it is no simple matter to arrange a meeting with SS Obersturmführer Barbie. Besides, what would you say to him? They have been arrested as resistors. I am truly sorry but you have no cause to plead, Céleste.’
‘I’d think of something. But I bet you haven’t even tried to organise the meeting.’
He planted his hands on my shoulders and pivoted me around to face him. ‘Look at me. I am trying. I care about you. Would I have saved you from Karl and Fritz if I didn’t?’
I shrugged, still avoiding his eyes. ‘Maybe, maybe not.’
‘How can you doubt my feelings? How can you question what we have?’
I crossed my arms, my words puffing out in foggy snaps of air. ‘What if you saw me with another man? How would you feel?’
‘Come and sit with me,’ he said. ‘Please.’ We shuffled across to a rock and I sat beside him.
‘Have you heard of those cyclones that rage in the South Seas of the Pacific Ocean?’
‘What have cyclones got to do with anything?’ I snapped.
‘These cyclones form a kind of circle,’ he went on. ‘The edges are made of wind and rain, but the centre remains so still even the smallest bird caught in the middle of terrible destruction is not one bit harmed.’
‘So? I still don’t ––’
‘When we are together,’ he said, clasping my hands between his. ‘I feel we are those birds, safe together in the middle. And when this cyclone has blown itself out, we can truly be like that. Not just in these snatched riverbank meetings, but all the time. We can be like any other couple.’
He draped an arm across my shoulder and drew me close. As much as I tried to ignore it, his familiar warmth spread through me. Perhaps I had overreacted, and the whore was only for appearances.
‘When we are apart,’ he went on. ‘When I am filled with loneliness and desperate to see you, to feel you, I wish we could run away together.’
‘Run away? Where?’
He shrugged. ‘Anywhere that is far from this awful madness of war; from this Europe dripping with blood. A place where nobody would judge us for being on opposite sides. Somewhere our love would be as natural as a blooming rose.’
‘You should’ve been a poet,’ I said, unable to resist a smile. ‘Instead of a soldier.’
‘I have told you the army was a mistake. I would much prefer if we could all live together peacefully, instead of destroying each other.’
‘That sounds odd, coming from an officer. So why are you here then, occupying Lucie?’
‘You would not know this, Céleste, but long postings to occupied France are for those the Wehrmacht believe are better suited to non-combat activities –– reluctant warriors. And if the truth be known, I am grateful to be here, rather than risking my life on that ghastly, blood-stained Eastern Front.’
‘I’m glad you were sent here,’ I said, leaning into him, breathing in his special smell. Unable to resist his potent magnetism –– no longer fighting it –– I closed my eyes and imagined us together every minute of the day, every second of the night, a long way from my mother and the farm. Far from this terrible war, this crazy world. After all, there was really nothing binding me to Lucie, or even France. We could go anywhere. The thought both pleased and terrified me.
‘I could study at university,’ I said, feeling the hardness of his gun barrel beneath the coat. ‘Get a good job. Something better than a farmhand.’
‘What?’ he said. I heard the flick of a match and smelt the smoke.
‘In the faraway place, where we’d go. I’d study at university. I don’t know what. Something … I’d think of something.’
Martin laughed and I felt the hiccup of his chest against my head. ‘Ah yes. Yes, of course. We could do whatever we wanted in the faraway place. Though I cannot imagine what you would find more interesting than caring for our children … and our home.’
My eyes snapped open. ‘Children? Our home? You really mean that?’
‘I am quite serious. But I fear we must wait until the war is over. I desperately want the insanity to end, and I want us to survive it. That’s what is important, to survive, one day at a time.’
‘All right,’ I said, keeping hold of him, afraid that if I let go that solid yet so fragile thing I had with Martin would have vanished into the mist. ‘We’ll find the faraway place when the war’s over. You’ll look after our children, won’t you, while I’m studying to get a good job? You know, more and more women are becoming educated these days. We want to be independent and not have to rely on our husbands for income.’
‘We shall see,’ he said with a small laugh. ‘We will work it out when the time comes.’
‘I’m sorry for not believing you about the whore.’ I gazed about me, at the leafless willows, silent without their birdsong. ‘I’m just mad with worry for my brother and Olivier. I’m not myself.’
‘I understand. It must fill you with pain, not knowing.’
I patted the outline of his weapon. ‘Can I hold it? I’ve never held a gun before.’
Martin ground his cigarette into the damp earth and unholstered his gun. He took my
hand and placed it on the brown handle. ‘It is a Luger,’ he said, wrapping his hand around mine.
A thrill rippled through me as I levelled the heavy pistol. ‘Is it loaded?’ I squinted down the barrel, feeling, in that moment, all-powerful.
‘As if I would let you loose with a loaded gun, my fiery Spatz.’ He patted his leather holster. ‘The bullets are safe, in here.’
I frowned. ‘Spatz?’
‘Sparrow.’
I turned the gun over. ‘How do you load it?’
‘You put a magazine in the end, see here.’ He indicated the butt. ‘And push until it clicks into place.’
‘Then it’s ready to shoot?’
‘Not ready,’ he said. ‘You have to pull these two knobs backwards, until you see this.’ He pointed to the word geladen. ‘It means “loaded”.’
‘Can I have a go at firing it?’
‘Not a chance,’ Martin said. ‘It is a deadly weapon; you have to know how to use it properly.’
‘You’re such a spoilsport, Martin Diehl.’ I smiled, one eye still cocked over the sights. ‘Oh don’t worry, I wouldn’t shoot you. I’ll simply shoot every other German around. Then the war would have to be over, wouldn’t it?
‘Sometimes I think you would take us all on single-handed, my little Vulkan.’ He smiled, taking the gun from me.
He sheathed the weapon and as he wrapped his arms around me, I wondered what his legs looked like beneath the starched trousers; what his hands would feel like on my bare back. He kissed me, and I tried to push my dread for Patrick and Olivier to the back of my mind, if only for that divine moment. I let my eyes close, blotting out the drab countryside and the Vionne slithering along the valley like a drugged snake.
A delicious thrill rippled through me as his fingers crept beneath the layers of my clothes. His hand moved across my breast, caressing, kneading, a warm prickle scurrying up my legs to the peak of my thighs.
My head felt light, giddy almost, and I sensed that was the moment I’d been waiting for — waiting, it seemed, since the first time I’d seen him at the market. Anything was possible. Anything at all.
