The Occupation

by Deborah Swift

  ‘I know, I know. But I had a letter this morning telling me I’m to be closed down unless I serve only soldiers. Then I’ll be entitled to a special licence. All the cafés that serve the French, especially small ones like me, are having their rationing licences revoked.’ She moved her index finger round and round on the counter, tracing circle after circle. ‘And I think there’s a political motive too.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘These are places where the French get together and talk … or plot. I think they don’t like that idea.’

  ‘But what will you do?’

  She shrugged. ‘Find war work, I suppose. I don’t suppose I’ll get much choice. And they don’t like women running things either. They think all women should do is sit at home. Haven’t you heard their slogan? The three “Ks”?’

  Kinder, Küche, Kirche. I’d heard it of course, but I pretended I hadn’t.

  ‘Children, kitchen, church,’ she continued. ‘The kitchen I’m fine with. The others — well, if you want my opinion, it’s just an underhand way of producing more obedient citizens for Hitler. As if women have no minds of their own and are just there to be the Reich’s baby-producing machines.’

  ‘Can’t you get work in a bigger restaurant?’

  ‘What, and serve Nazis all day long? You’ve got to be joking. But the worst thing is, I’ll probably lose my apartment too.’

  ‘Won’t they let you stay?’

  ‘Doubt it. It’ll become Boche property, another brothel probably. But it’s not just me. Sometimes I take in … lodgers.’ Her expression became guarded. She was watching my reaction.

  Now was the moment. I felt it, even though nothing was said.

  I caught her eye, spoke carefully. ‘Lodgers like Antoine?’

  ‘He said you were a good sort. He took to you. He doesn’t trust many people; we’ve learned not to. Look at the Finkelsteins — betrayed by a neighbour.’

  The air between us bristled. ‘Where’s Antoine now? I liked him.’

  ‘He’s not living upstairs anymore; we … move them around. Makes it harder for the Germans to get a fix on them.’

  ‘Are they all work dodgers like Antoine?’

  She lowered her voice. ‘They’re all people who want to…’ She paused, waiting for me to fill in the word. When I didn’t, she said, ‘People who don’t see why they should collaborate.’

  ‘I see. If there’s anything I can do…’

  ‘No, no. It has certain … dangers. And I’m not sure how long I will be able to stay in Paris. I told you, I’ll have to close unless I pander to the troops, and once the Germans get an idea, it’s as if it has to be done yesterday.’

  ‘I hope you’re wrong. Where will I eat if you’re not here?’

  ‘You’ll survive. After all, you can at least cook.’

  ‘Let’s look on the bright side. It might never happen. We should make a decent casserole with that bacon before it goes bad. For your loyal and regular customers only, I mean.’

  She smiled, and the stiffness seeped out of her. ‘Then we will have to work out a way it doesn’t get to German mouths,’ she said. ‘Food has always been the first act of resistance, all through history. The invader always fills his own belly first.’

  ‘Not today, though,’ I said. ‘Today we keep our bacon off the menu and under the counter.’

  The first act of resistance was easy.

  The next morning, I was up early and at my desk. From the sheer number of transcripts I’d received, I guessed more illegal radios had fallen into Vogt’s hands. I paused and sucked on my pencil, trying to distance myself from the task. There were orders to grapple with too. I hadn’t been able to avoid translating the new rules for Jews in Paris, and here were more of the same.

  I walked to the window and stared into the street, and I was just in time to see a black car draw up outside and the spiky figure of Freitag get out. He straightened his cap and looked up at the apartment. I shot out of sight and hurried back to my desk and put everything into order.

  Sure enough, there was a sharp rap on the door. I let him in, and without preamble he said, ‘Herr Vogt wants to see you. I’ve to drive you over.’

  A summons. Never a good sign. I took up my work, and as I locked the door, I asked, ‘Was it you who brought the food?’

  ‘That, yes. All right?’

  ‘Fine. Do you have a key?’ I couldn’t keep the accusation from my voice.

  ‘Of course. You weren’t in, and I didn’t want to leave it outside. It’d be snatched by the thieving French as soon as my back was turned.’

  All very reasonable. But still I resented it. I led the way downstairs with him following behind. As we got to the bottom, I looked back, and I was in time to see a white-haired man in an ancient cardigan emerge from his apartment and stare at us over the bannisters.

  Seeing Freitag, he retreated hurriedly behind his door.

  Vogt looked exactly the same as the previous time I’d met him. ‘Ah, Vibert,’ he said affably. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘The work’s pretty straightforward — main problem is that sometimes the coded transmissions make no logical sense, so I can’t rely on context.’

  ‘True. But you manage. The other task — another train line was incapacitated last week by an explosive device, and it has all the hallmarks of our friend Severin. I’d almost forgotten about him until this incident. He’s a mechanical engineer — manages to make bombs out of old motorcycle cylinders filled with gelignite.’ His manner was as if it was my fault.

  ‘I’ve kept my eyes open, but I haven’t seen anyone of his description. In the day, the customers at the café are mostly our men, and the Gestapo. The food’s good, and it’s popular.’

  ‘The woman who owns it, have you spoken to her?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve made a friend of her, but I don’t want to arouse her suspicion. An old Frenchman I was talking to says she sometimes takes in lodgers, young men who are dodging the work conscripts.’ The closer I could stay to the truth, the less chance of messing up.

  ‘Ah, that sounds more like it. And?’

  ‘There’s nobody lodging there at the moment, though just before curfew I’ve seen several men arrive and then leave quietly one by one, dodging the patrols. They could just be illegal drinkers, or they could be the men you’re after. It’s always too dark to identify anyone. I heard, though, that you’re thinking of shutting the café down. That seems a shame. If you shut it, if it really is a meeting place for the Resistance, they’ll scatter. There might be a chance to root out the whole network if we had a little more time.’

  ‘Hmm. Better to just to close the place and deport the woman.’

  I tensed. ‘I don’t think she does much except provide the premises. They’ll soon find somewhere else, then we’ll have lost them. If it’s Severin and the young men we’re after, we should turn a blind eye, let them get over-confident. Once they think they’re getting away with it, that’s the time to strike. We could have them in for questioning, and we’d get much more out of them that way.’

  ‘We’ve been turning a blind eye.’ His eyes narrowed, and I could see him grudgingly weighing up what I’d said, but he was a man who was reluctant to accede to anyone else’s ideas. ‘See if you can wheedle your way into their group. Otherwise, as inconvenient as it is for your stomach, we’ll just close her down.’

  There was nothing to do but nod, agree, and give him the damn salute.

  I was left to walk home again. It irked me that they drove me there on a whim and then didn’t drive me home. As if Vogt’s time was too precious to be wasted but mine was utterly disposable.

  I’d bought Berenice a little more breathing space, but I could already see that this wouldn’t end well. I was deceiving both parties, and sooner or later one of them would rumble it. The thought made me unaware of the traffic until a horn blared, and I leapt back from the road I’d been about to cross. I held up my hands: ‘Sorry, sorry!’ I said, but then repeated, ‘Pardon!’ G
ood job the traffic was too noisy for them to hear my English apology.

  Panic rose in my chest. I was always so close to the edge, as if fear had lodged in the seams of my clothes and I could never get away from it. I liked Berenice, who was supposed to be my enemy, but Vogt, who was supposed to be my friend, made me shrivel inside.

  CHAPTER 14

  Céline

  The winter of 1941 was hard. Temperatures were below freezing, and the Germans needed our fuel, our electricity, and our cars; even our blankets and spare pillows were requisitioned. I took to wearing two jerseys when I served in the shop, and even then, my wrists and hands were blue.

  With coal being rationed, I allowed myself only a few lumps of coal a day for a few hours warmth in the evening, and gleaned as much wood as I could from the copse behind the farm. When the gas ovens were hot in the morning I huddled next to them, only moving when the shop bell went and a customer needed serving.

  The evenings were the worst: no gas, no electricity, and little light. There was little we could do in the cold and dark, except go to bed early. I often looked at the wooden bread trays and wished I could chop them up for firewood, but they were needed for the German bread deliveries.

  One morning, I’d just seen Mrs Flanders off on the bread run, when two soldiers came into the shop, carrying a bulging sack. ‘You have soap?’ one of them asked.

  My mouth must have fallen open because it seemed such an odd request, but they pushed past me into the house and headed to the kitchen and the bathroom. I followed and was in time to see them take the half-used bar from the sink, and look through the cupboards and drawers for more. I was helpless to stop them; what could I do against armed men? And yet it seemed such a trivial thing to demand. They took every scrap of soap including the hard carbolic from the kitchen and the soap flakes for washing clothes from under the sink.

  ‘I must have soap to clean the bread tins,’ I protested, as they were about to take the remnants of my packet of washing soda, ‘unless you want your bread to be dirty.’

  The young soldier shrugged. ‘It is orders. The men need soap, so we must bring soap.’

  It seemed ridiculous, but there was nothing I could do. When Mrs Flanders got back, I told her and she said, ‘that’s nothing. One of my farmhands says they waltzed in one night, bold as you like, and took his whole dining suite. A table and four chairs, to go to an officer’s mess in St Helier. How the Boche knew he had ’em, no-one knows. But it seems that if they need it, we have to give it up. Mind you, he can’t really complain — he’s the one that went to his neighbour’s house, the one who’d been evacuated, and stole his best bedroom suite.’

  After I’d helped Mrs Flanders with the milking and was back in the shop, the first customer in the queue was Mrs Galen, a colourless little woman with her hair squashed under a hair net. She lived opposite, and was often at her window to see when my queue was the shortest. She asked for her weekly bread ration, and I wrapped it as usual and pushed it across the counter.

  ‘That’s not the full weight,’ she said, her eyes accusing. ‘You’ve sold me short.’

  ‘Four pounds,’ I said, placing it on the scales so she could see. ‘That’s the ration for a woman, unless you’re a manual worker.’

  ‘Your scales are rigged. Just like in the butcher’s. You think we don’t know, but we’re not stupid. Your bread’s full of chaff and sawdust.’ She turned indignant eyes to gather support from the woman behind her.

  ‘It’s got bran and rye in it, that’s all. We can’t get as much wheat flour now, so we have to make do.’

  ‘The Germans don’t make do, though, do they?’

  ‘Do you want this bread, Mrs Galen, or not?’

  She grudgingly held out her ration card and I passed her the bread. She pushed it into her basket, but not without making a parting shot. ‘All you care about is the Germans, because they line your pockets. A nice little fortune you’re making for yourself, and I bet their bread hasn’t got chaff in it.’ She flounced out.

  ‘Ignore her,’ the woman behind said. ‘I know her husband gets his baccy on the black market, so she can hardly talk.’

  I served the rest of the queue, wondering how it was we’d all become so suspicious of each other, that instead of the common enemy bonding Jersey people together, somehow distrust was driving us apart.

  Rachel arrived to share my fire as she often did. In her building, one of the apartments had a German soldier billeted there and his presence in the building made her uncomfortable. I was unravelling an old blue Guernsey sweater to knit up into socks and asked her to hold out her hands so I could use them to hold the wool taut. She was quieter than usual, her gaze troubled as she stared into space.

  Finally, I whipped the wool off her hands and put it down. ‘What is it, Rache?’

  ‘I had to deliver a customer’s file to my boss, Mr Scott, today. There was something on his desk … a paper.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘An order. I couldn’t help seeing it. It said no Jew was to be — let me see if I can remember the words — yes, no Jew was to be “engaged as an employee who comes into contact with customers” and that Jewish employees should “be dismissed and replaced by non-Jewish employees”.’

  ‘Has Mr Scott said anything?’

  ‘No. But it said the penalty for disobeying the order would be a fine or imprisonment. Honestly, Céline, I’ve been dry-mouthed all afternoon, wondering if he’d come and dismiss me, or take me off the front desk and put me in the back, but he just carried on as usual. He asked me to cash up just the same as always, and told me he’d see me tomorrow.’

  ‘D’you think he knows you saw the notice?’

  ‘I expect so. I was so shaky when I read it that I just left the file on his desk right next to it. But what worries me more is that other people will have had the same order, so it looks like soon I’ll be not only out of a job, but unemployable.’

  ‘Maybe Mr Scott will just ignore it. He will if he’s any sense, anyhow. You’re a good worker, and it would be cutting off his nose to spite his face if he were to lose you.’

  ‘But it isn’t fair on him. He’d be risking prison, just to keep me on.’ She picked up the wool and began to wind an end around her fingers. ‘D’you think I should talk to him about it?’

  ‘I don’t know. You probably shouldn’t have been spying on his desk in the first place, so it’s a bit awkward.’

  ‘I know. I’ve always been too nosy for my own good. It’s just I saw the word “Jew” and couldn’t resist reading it.’

  ‘If I were you, I’d just leave things as they are. If he doesn’t mention it, then you needn’t, and we just have to hope he doesn’t follow their instructions.’

  ‘That’s you all over, Céline. Never rock the boat.’ She put the wool down in her lap and sighed. ‘But maybe you’re right. It’ll be hard to just carry on as if I don’t know. It makes me feel so … so indebted. I really hate that feeling.’

  ‘Hate it or not, I don’t think you’ve much choice.’

  After she’d gone home, I picked up the wool but had no heart to wind it into a ball. I’d intended to knit socks for Fred, but now the idea chafed. Surely he couldn’t approve of this sort of thing, of sacking people with no notice? And I worried for Rachel. She was right, Mr Scott was putting himself at risk, and how long could he do that before they caught up with him?

  CHAPTER 15

  Fred

  Throughout the winter and into early 1942, the café became my second home. I’d grown to enjoy a game of chess with Sebastien whilst old Henri looked on sagely and muttered advice. Both of them had wives at home but preferred to sit at the café.

  ‘After forty years wed, she’s glad to see the back of me,’ Henri said.

  I appreciated his good humour. The French seemed stoical, but the city felt greyer, people smiled less, and the weight of the German orders grew heavier as the war rumbled on. The food had become steadily less appetising as the winter weather cam
e and rationing bit harder. Berenice and I used to sit together most evenings muffled up in coats, breath steaming before us, trying to fathom out what we could do with the few ingredients at our disposal. Early mornings, whilst I was at my translation work, Berenice bought what she could on the black market. Mostly eggs, rabbit and vegetables. Food was the constant topic of conversation. What we could serve, how to cook it and where we could get it.

  ‘You’ve been such a help,’ she said one day, after I’d walked three miles in driving rain to collect a dozen eggs, ‘but I can’t pay you.’

  ‘You feed me. That’s payment enough.’

  ‘How do you manage though? Are they still investigating you?’

  I knew the question would come, and I was well prepared. ‘To be honest, I think they’ve forgotten about me. I’m just one man, and I’m trying to keep my head down. I was lucky; they gave me ration cards because I was born here in France, but now Jersey’s been taken over, I’m terrified they’ll transport me to a labour camp or something if I make a fuss about going home. I’ll have to sit it out and hope the war ends soon. There aren’t many men left in Paris, so I try not to stand out.’

  ‘Still no news from your wife?’

  ‘No. But the papers say there were very few casualties on Jersey, and the occupation of Jersey is more peaceful than here in France because it’s so small. No news is good news. The British had disarmed the island, and we … the Germans just marched in.’ Berenice hadn’t noticed my gaffe. I exhaled, though I felt adrenalin race in my veins.

  ‘How’s the book going?’ To cover all my hours at the typewriter, I’d told her I was using the waiting time to write a recipe book.

  ‘It’s the only thing that keeps me sane. We’re all obsessed by food, aren’t we? It feels good to channel it into something useful.’

  ‘I hope you don’t mean recipes from Les Deux Pigeons?’

  ‘No. From my research from before all this. A Taste of Jersey, it’ll be called.’