The Lavender Keeper

by Fiona McIntosh

  Luc reluctantly tipped a small dribble of the brandy into Kilian’s mouth.

  ‘Thank you,’ the colonel whispered, as he ran his tongue over his lips. ‘Bonsoir, Lisette,’ he breathed. ‘So much prettier to say farewell in French, don’t you think?’

  The question died with him as Kilian’s eyelids closed. Luc lay with him a little longer beneath the soft moonlight among the gardens, choked with emotion.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  25th August 1944

  Lisette woke to the sounds of cheering. She was disoriented at first, and then realised she was still in the Hotel Raphaël; she’d fallen asleep on Kilian’s bed and slept deeply.

  There was no indication that anyone had disturbed the room through the night. Kilian’s jacket was still lying across her, like a blanket. She stood, made an effort to clean and tidy herself in his bathroom. When she emerged she looked presentable, and the frock she’d been wearing didn’t look as creased as she’d feared. She looked in the mirror and pinched her cheeks, but even she could see how slight she’d become. The good food and good living of her weeks away with Markus had not lasted, and the weight had fallen off her since she’d returned to Paris. Dark circles had appeared beneath her eyes, and her cheekbones stood out starkly. Markus would be appalled at the state of her, but in truth she looked no different to the other famished people of Paris.

  Lisette took a deep breath. It was time to go. She didn’t think she’d ever see Kilian again, but she’d accepted that long ago. Now she had to find Luc. She needed to return to places he knew. Montmartre, perhaps? She couldn’t face going back to Bastille and Sylvie right now.

  Yes, she would go to Montmartre. She wanted to go to Sacré Coeur – the place where she felt most at home in Paris. She could leave a note on her old apartment door. Luc would find it – if he was looking for her. And he would come to her at the church.

  At least it was a plan. And it was one that comforted her in her fractured state. But this was no longer about SOE or a mission. It wasn’t even about the war. It was simply about her heart. Life had become complicated, and she had compartmentalised her life, but she needed to realign now. And the voice in her head was right. She had chosen. Lying in Kilian’s hotel room, beneath his jacket, with his smell on her and his sheets beneath and the memory of him engulfing her, Lisette knew she had to let him go. He was her mission, and she did love Markus. She hadn’t expected to, certainly hadn’t wanted to, but he was a force, and in a different life they would have been more than lovers. Markus loved her, that could not be denied.

  A small sob escaped her. She hated herself, and she hated London for turning her into this person. Markus was such a good man. If he’d been born British, he would have been hailed an Allied hero.

  For the first time since that day more than twelve months ago when Captain Jepson recruited her, Lisette felt ashamed. Until now it had always been about striking back at the enemy, sabotaging the machine from within. Except Markus was the enemy. She felt the tears on her cheeks and hurriedly swept them away. No tears!

  If only she could tell Markus that what they had shared hadn’t all been a lie. Could she ever explain it properly? Yes. She would like to tell Markus of her love for Luc – an equally good man. Luc he had stolen her heart before she and the colonel had met. But it was too late now. Too late for recriminations and apologies.

  She hung Kilian’s jacket back in the wardrobe, straightening it carefully and lingering for a moment in farewell. She would never see him again – she was sure of this. Lisette held the sleeve against her cheek before giving it a kiss.

  ‘Goodbye, Markus,’ she whispered, then she closed the wardrobe door and left his room.

  Armed Germans moved around in the lobby. They were likely preparing to surrender their weapons and themselves, but not to an angry band of trigger-happy men. She wondered how many of those French outside had joined the Resistance once they knew that the Allies were close. She wondered also at how many were former collaborators, now looking for protection in the ranks of the brave.

  She wasn’t concentrating as she walked quickly through the lobby, keen to remove herself from the gathering Germans. She stepped out the door and was shocked when one of the men pacing outside yelled, ‘Her!’

  Lisette looked up, startled.

  ‘She’s one of them,’ the voice said.

  ‘One of their whores!’ another called out.

  She stopped dead, watched the angry men approaching. ‘What?’

  A man gripped her arm. He was old but he was strong. Unshaven and jeering, he stared at her. She could smell liquor on his breath but he didn’t seem drunk.

  ‘Hello, whore,’ he spat in German.

  She opened her mouth in dismay. ‘I’m French,’ she explained.

  ‘Worse! Slut!’

  ‘Shame on you, whore!’ came the catcalls.

  No amount of protest or explanation was going to change anyone’s mind. She was dragged down a side street, aware of a small crowd of people following, jeering, calling her names. Not all men, either. Women and even children were among the mob.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ she demanded.

  No one answered her. And she simply wasn’t strong enough to twist away. Even if she had kicked and fought her way free from the older man, there were ten, twenty others who’d grab her. Lisette knew that to struggle now would be to invite a beating; it was wiser to cooperate. It would pass.

  She became slightly disoriented as she was roughly pulled along, and saw that she was being directed towards another mob, far larger. There was a carnival atmosphere, lots of clapping and cheering, and she was pushed through the crowd until she emerged to see a small line of women waiting with their heads bowed. Lisette felt a sharp twist of fear at the sight.

  She had no one to shield her. These strangers would vent their rage, and they would have fun doing so. The women knew they could not escape that rage, in the same way that a tethered goat knows there is no escape from the blade.

  Luc had stayed with Kilian for a few hours. He was surprised at the deep despair he felt that the colonel had given his life so cheaply and so deliberately. He told himself he should be thrilled, and yet all he felt was sorrow; it reminded him of how he’d felt kissing his grandmother’s cold face, how he’d looked upon Wolf’s ruined body and accepted another loss. He didn’t want it to feel the same, but it did.

  Luc gently unclasped Kilian’s stiffening fingers from the Walther P38 handgun. He checked the chamber. It was empty. He hung his head in fresh dismay. So Kilian had left the hotel with only one round in this gun. Luc felt sure that it had been intended for Kilian himself, but instead he’d shot Luc to save Luc’s life. Kilian had needed the young French boy to pull that trigger.

  Luc straightened Kilian’s arms and took the trouble to pull back on his socks and boots as best he could. He even straightened the man’s hair. He didn’t want to think what would happen to the body if it were discovered by French freedom fighters, but that was no longer his concern.

  He looked at the bloodstained envelope in his lap. It was addressed to someone called Ilse Vogel, which he could now just read beneath the lightening sky. Luc tucked it into his pocket; he’d post it as promised when the inevitable madness died down. It was the least he could do.

  He slipped Kilian’s pistol into his trousers, beneath his shirt. He checked the colonel’s pockets; there was some money, a single cigarette and a lighter with his initials engraved on it. Luc dropped the lighter and money into his pocket with the letter. He didn’t like the idea that Kilian’s corpse would be looted, even though he wanted none of the man’s possessions.

  ‘Despite what you thought, you were a formidable adversary,’ he said quietly to Kilian’s still face, his heart heavy. He sensed that the world had lost a good man. Once again he was struck by how much Kilian reminded him of himself in appearance. He sighed, squeezed Kilian’s hand and then stood.

  He’d all but forgotten about his own bullet wound
until now, but the exertion of standing had awoken it. The bleeding had stopped but it was still very painful. He took off his shirt with difficulty and assumed that the bullet had passed cleanly through his shoulder. No bones seemed to be shattered. He touched the pouch hanging from his neck and smelt a faintest waft of lavender. His seeds had survived this long, and if his grandmother was right, they still protected him … even from bullets. He would need to get the wound cleaned and dressed; it might even require stitches. But for now he ripped his shirt tail to form a makeshift bandage.

  ‘Goodbye, Colonel,’ he said softly in German.

  Luc took off and didn’t look back, running out of the Tuileries through all the haunts once again, just in case he stumbled across some lead on Lisette.

  As he approached the Hotel Raphaël he noticed crowds of people loitering outside. His sleeve was grabbed by a man standing in the leeway of the building.

  ‘Excuse me.’ The man looked nervous.

  ‘Yes?’

  He glanced at Luc’s shirt, still damp with his blood. ‘I … er … I work … worked at this hotel,’ he whispered.

  Luc frowned. ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘Some hours ago, you asked me about the young lady.’

  Luc hadn’t recognised the man out of his uniform. It was the concierge.

  ‘After you left, she came.’

  Luc’s eyes widened. ‘She did?’

  The man looked around furtively, and Luc pulled him back behind a corner of the building. ‘What can you tell me?’ He started digging in his pockets for money.

  ‘No, no,’ the man protested. ‘Perhaps you should get to a hospital, sir.’

  ‘What about Mademoiselle Forestier?’

  ‘I did see her last night – she was looking for Colonel Kilian.’

  Luc’s jaw tightened. ‘Where did she go?’

  ‘Up to his room. And I think she must have stayed because I saw her again this morning, but … but—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They took her.’

  Luc stared at the man quizzically.

  He pointed. ‘Not that long ago. That’s what everyone’s waiting for here. Either to see Germans dragged out, or their whores and collaborators.’

  Luc’s expression clouded, like a gathering storm. He understood.

  ‘Down there,’ the man said, pointing again. ‘They’re teaching a lesson to all the French women who associated with the Boches.’

  Luc ran, following the sound of a jeering crowd.

  Lisette refused to weep. It didn’t win her any sympathy, but this was not a crowd in the mood to show compassion anyway. She’d discovered that the girl next to her was a waitress who worked in a café popular with the Nazis.

  ‘I was friendly, yes,’ she whimpered to Lisette, ‘but I’m married, mademoiselle. I have a baby. I needed tips.’ She dissolved into tears. The woman behind her was far less emotional.

  ‘Hooligans,’ she said. ‘You see that man with his blade?’

  Lisette nodded, watching it being waved around.

  ‘He’s a collaborator. I know Remy Jocard. He’s spent years sliming up to the Nazis, passing on information, fingering people to the Gestapo – most of them innocent. He’s a pig! And look at him now, pretending to be offended by us. I cleaned their hotel, that’s all I did, trying to keep body and soul together for my family.’ She spat at her feet.

  Lisette gritted her teeth. There were calls from some of the men to strip the women, run them through the streets with swastikas painted on their breasts. Still others were calling for calm.

  It was Lisette’s turn to be paraded in front of the crowd. The young mother had just been led away, her humiliation complete. But Lisette, at least, deserved the crowd’s contempt. She had fraternised with a German colonel, accepted his gifts, become his lover; if only she could explain that she was a spy. Lisette was shoved roughly to the centre of a makeshift stage and she didn’t resist. There was nothing to be gained. Besides, she felt too weak to fight back. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She wasn’t sure whether the crowd was moving or whether she was swaying; Lisette felt a sudden light-headedness. She didn’t want to faint. Not now. Not yet.

  She wasted no time. ‘This man’s name is Remy Jocard. He is a collaborator! I know, because I’ve seen him fraternising with the Nazis,’ she yelled loudly, happy to lie on behalf of all the other women.

  The man grabbed her and slapped her. ‘Shut your filthy mouth, Nazi whore!’

  The blow hurt but she managed a sneer even though she was now dizzy. ‘Boche-lover!’

  The crowd murmured.

  ‘I’ll do you properly, bitch!’ he threatened.

  ‘You’ll do her fairly, Jocard, or perhaps you’ll be answering to this same crowd,’ a new voice said. It was an older man, and as Lisette watched him she realised it was the maître d’ from the magnificent restaurant at the Ritz. She nodded at him, remembering how he’d enjoyed her praise.

  And so it began.

  Lisette was forced to sit on a small bench. This was a merciful relief. She clutched her bag close to her belly as she heard the dislocated sound of scissors hacking roughly at her shoulder-length hair. Her tormentors threw some of the dark lengths into her lap and the crowd cheered. She looked forlornly at the hair that her father had loved, her mother had plaited, that Kilian and Luc had caressed.

  And now a new sensation began. Lisette felt the barber’s blade begin to scrape against her scalp. Her remaining hair fell away in chunks around her, looking as dead as she felt inside. Jocard was rough and she felt the sting of the cuts he carelessly inflicted.

  The trauma continued and the only way she could escape was to go inside her own mind. As though separating herself from this scene, she felt her spirit dislocate. She could see herself sitting on the bench, her eyes downcast, her lips thinned and resolute. One man held up her chin so the crowd could see her face, while Jocard shaved off her hair in clumps. She watched it all from a distance.

  ‘You wouldn’t want to draw any more blood on this girl, Jocard,’ her supporter warned.

  Jocard mumbled beneath his breath but she didn’t feel the blade slice into her scalp again as the last of her black hair fell away and the crowd – most of them, anyway – laughed and cheered at the newest femme tondeur in the popular justice sweeping France during the liberation.

  Lisette let her breathing slow and deepen as best she could and let her mind transport her to a field of lavender. The bees buzzed around her, the stalks tall and strong, their purple flowers level with her face. She could smell their perfume.

  And in doing so she could smell Luc.

  Luc ran headlong into the crowd. He pushed through the mocking throng and shouldered his way painfully towards the front, his shoulder bleeding freely again. He arrived in time to see Lisette raise her shorn head and look directly at him with large, vacant eyes, almost violet in the light. She could have been a young boy, she looked so waif-like. Her summer frock hung loosely on her frame.

  The worst thing, though, was the thin rivulets of blood that ran from her shadowy scalp past her ears and down her neck.

  ‘Lisette …’ he whispered, his voice choked before his anger arrived. ‘Get away from her, you thugs!’ he roared.

  As Luc pulled free Kilian’s gun, women began to scream. Everyone backed off as Luc brandished it; he suspected he had murder in his eyes, and felt fortunate that the gun held no bullets.

  ‘Get your filthy hands off her,’ he warned again, aiming the gun at the tondeur.

  ‘You can have her,’ the man taunted, seemingly unafraid. He dragged Lisette to her feet and pushed her in front of him.

  ‘This woman is as Maquis as I am!’ Luc yelled for all to hear. ‘She has spent the last year trying to help free this nation. What were you doing?’ He levelled angrily at one woman and pointed the gun. She nearly fainted. ‘Or you, monsieur!’ he said, swinging around at another man who shied away. ‘What were you doing to save our country?’


  ‘Monsieur,’ said another man carefully. ‘Take your woman away. You look as if you’ve shed enough of your own blood. We don’t need any more spilt here.’

  ‘Hypocrites!’ Luc spat. He shoved the tondeur aside before he lifted Lisette into his arms, ignoring the protest from his shoulder and the blood that now wet her dress.

  He put her hands around his neck, laid her warm, bare, bleeding head against his chest and watched as she wept. ‘I smelt the lavender, Luc. I knew you’d come for me.’

  Ignoring the tears streaming down his own face, Luc pushed through a much quieter crowd, carrying Lisette like a precious bird. He hadn’t been able to save anyone he loved, until now. But he had kept her safe.

  Luc walked as far as he could with his wounded shoulder. And then he placed Lisette on a small cot in the apartment in Montmartre, lay down beside her and held her still and silent until the evening closed in and darkness carried them both into welcome, peaceful oblivion.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Lisette woke up with a start and looked around, momentarily disoriented as she took in the familiar surrounds of her old flat and Luc lying next to her awkwardly on her single cot.

  It was the blood she reacted to first.

  ‘Luc,’ she called. ‘Luc!’ She was shocked to discover that he’d been shot. Her frantic pawing reopened the wound and fresh, bright blood seeped onto her fingers. How? When? Why? Kilian sprang to mind but she dismissed the thought. Luc needed help immediately.

  She reached for his clammy forehead. His whole body was burning, and her dress was damp with his perspiration. It was a warm morning but Luc was shivering. She prayed he wasn’t dying. The bullet itself may not have claimed his life, but infection could.

  She had no choice but to find help – and she knew where to go. She was dirty, bloodied and confused but she ran out of her flat and down the stairs, feeling the strange sensation of wind on her bare scalp. This was her old stomping ground, where she still had friends.