The Occupation

by Deborah Swift

  ‘D’you think it’s all right?’ she asked. She meant, could we trust Reginald?

  ‘I hope so. We just have to keep quiet and sit it out.’ I heard the men come in below and begin a conversation over the clatter of cups and cutlery. The smell of frying mushrooms wafted up through the cracks in the floorboards.

  I pointed at the floor and lay down to hear what they said. Berenice followed suit, but the floorboard creaked under her. We froze, held our breath.

  The conversation continued beneath us, perfectly audible. They hadn’t heard us.

  ‘We need two thousand gendarmes from you for this operation,’ one of the men said.

  Reginald translated this into French, and immediately the higher voice of M’sieur Petit replied in French. ‘Impossible. Pétain has already deployed seven-hundred of my men to police the border into Switzerland. Crime’s running out of control here in Dijon. We can’t cope. Ask him where I’m expected to find these men.’

  ‘He says he hasn’t that many men,’ Reginald said in heavily accented German.

  ‘He can recruit more.’ The man speaking had his mouth full. A pause. ‘Tell him it’s a short-term operation, just a few days at most. We are redesigning the whole harbour area and evacuating the population. To do that, we must seal the entire port from behind, drive the undesirables towards the sea and cut off all their escape routes.’

  ‘He says perhaps you might recruit more officers,’ Reginald said coaxingly. ‘He’ll only need them for a few days, he says.’

  Petit’s voice. ‘Will they need to be armed? I can’t arm raw recruits! Anyway, what sort of duties is he talking about?’

  A pause a moment, then Reginald spoke again in German. ‘He wants to know what tasks they’ll be assigned.’

  ‘Schulz, can you pass the butter? What was I saying? Oh yes, the police chief René Bousquet, his superior, has guaranteed us a strong police presence to escort undesirables to the trains and load them up. There’ll be many thousand if our intelligence is correct. Tell him we intend to purge the harbour area of Jews and resisters once and for all.’

  ‘I see. And who will M’sieur Petit answer to?’ Reginald asked.

  ‘Schulz here will be in charge of operations on the ground. Tell M’sieur Petit his men will be detailed to check identity papers in the second arrondissement. His will be one of fifteen constabularies brought in for the purpose. And of course, afterwards, his men will supervise transport to the trains. Tell him the operation must remain secret if we are to smoke them all out.’

  Berenice was raising her eyebrows at me questioningly, wanting to know what was going on. I shook my head, anxious to hear every word.

  M’sieur Petit’s voice had risen in pitch again. ‘Did I hear him say trains? We’re not having anything to do with that. The transport network is a shambles! Timetables ignored, bombs on the line. It’s quite impossible.’

  ‘Be calm, M’sieur. He is only asking you to supervise evacuation transport. From what I can gather, it’s all been agreed from above by René Bousquet. They anticipate many thousands will need to be transported out of Marseille, and it has to be done in an orderly way.’

  ‘I know what they’re doing,’ Petit said. ‘I can’t get my men to be party to this. They won’t want to be responsible for deporting French citizens to their stinking camps. My officers don’t like doing it, and I can’t get volunteers. Not now the word’s out where they go.’

  ‘Be careful,’ Reginald said. ‘They understand more than you think. And if I know Hauptmann Graf, I’m afraid he will not take no for an answer. Best agree, my friend, and then we’ll make some alternate plan.’

  ‘Let me in on your discussion, won’t you, Reginald?’ the gruff voice insisted.

  ‘Your reputation has preceded you, gentlemen. He’s worried because his men know that nobody who goes on the trains ever comes back. He worries you’ll be taking good Frenchmen without cause.’

  ‘Tell him there is always room on the transport for police chiefs who stand in the way of peace and order.’

  There was silence. Even the chink of cutlery on plates stopped.

  ‘What did he say?’ Petit asked.

  ‘You’d best do as he says,’ Reginald said. In a low voice, ‘As your friend, I’m advising you here and now to keep your mouth shut and agree to his plans.’

  A scrape of a chair. ‘Sorry, Reginald.’ A moment later, the door banged. Outside, there was the grind of a Citroen engine, then the crunch of gravel as it drove away.

  ‘God in heaven,’ Hauptmann Graf said. ‘He’s an odious little man. Will he come round?’

  ‘I’ll have a word with him,’ Reginald said, ‘explain what it means if he won’t comply. Don’t worry, I’ll talk him into it.’

  ‘If not, I meant what I said. This operation is vital.’

  For the first time I heard Schulz’s voice. ‘He’ll be grateful to us when it’s done. Once the place is evacuated and the criminal element removed, then we will demolish the whole area and rebuild so the infestation can never return. I’ve seen the architect’s plans; they’re glorious. Cafés and open parks, wide boulevards and plane trees for shade. It will regenerate the port, bring more tourists to Marseille.’

  From the noises below, it was clear that the men continued to eat and make small talk about cafés and wine and the opera. We stayed stiff and still until we heard the cars drive away.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Berenice asked.

  I was throwing on my clothes. ‘We need to get to Marseille as soon as we can.’ I didn’t mention Schulz.

  ‘Why? What’s going on?’

  ‘The Nazis are planning some sort of round-up. We need to warn Antoine; get him out of there.’

  In the kitchen we found Reginald, now immaculately attired in a suit and tie and reeking of cologne, still drinking his last cup of coffee. I spoke to him in French, so Berenice would understand. ‘We heard,’ I said. ‘We have friends in Marseille.’

  ‘Oh dear. I did wonder if that’s where you were heading.’

  ‘Do you know what the schedule is?’ Berenice asked.

  ‘January twenty-third, Graf told me. Four days away.’

  ‘That soon?’

  ‘Things move quickly when Germans want them done.’

  ‘Can you help us?’ Berenice asked. ‘Drive us to Marseille?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, dear lady. I deal in information only. I provide a safe house and a judiciously loose tongue as far as German plans are concerned. To do more would risk all the other networks I have a finger in. If this safe house was lost, if I ceased to be a friend to the Germans, many more lives would be at risk. You do see, don’t you?’

  ‘But my son is in Marseille. Won’t you reconsider?’

  Reginald bit his lip, removed the napkin from his lap and folded it. ‘Sorry, can’t be done. But the safe house will still be here if it works out for you. Harris can drive you to a place where there’s a footpath to Marseille, and I’ll supply you with a map. It’s a day’s walk, that’s all.’

  CHAPTER 30

  By the time we arrived at Marseille, it was more than forty-eight hours later. Heavy rain made the footpaths muddy, and Berenice’s knee had been so sore that we’d had to find shelter. I guessed she’d torn a ligament, but there was no time to rest. We’d slept fitfully in a country bus shelter just outside the city. Entering Marseille was a case of dodging patrols and the checkpoints that might ask us for our papers. Now that the Germans had ceased to pretend France had a free zone, it was impossible to move anywhere without being subject to Nazi inspection, and we knew that any encounter was too risky for us to contemplate.

  The roads to the city were already cordoned off, and soldiers and police were erecting more barriers. We saw families leaving with handcarts piled high with their belongings. So much displacement everywhere we went. We took the winding route through narrow alleys and it was midday when we crept into the city, a humid muggy day with damp from the sea hanging above the streets li
ke a veil. The closer we got to the salty smell of the sea, the more the streets were filled with activity: ragged refugees lugging bundles, heading for the port. We kept our heads down and tried to look purposeful.

  The empty shop windows were plastered with printed notices saying ‘Preparation for Evacuation of the Port of Marseille’. We paused to read one. All French people from the second arrondissement were to be rehomed for the redevelopment of the harbour area. Citizens should prepare to be evacuated.

  All we had was an address, so we had to ask for directions, picking who to ask with care. We avoided the prostitutes loitering in broad daylight on the corners of the tabacs, waiting for German trade. I approached a man leaning out of a window. He shut it fast, but not before I’d seen his black beard and Jewish ringlets.

  ‘Which way to the Rue Coutellerie?’ Berenice asked a stooped old woman with a barrow full of what looked like old iron and scrap metal.

  ‘This way; I show you.’ We followed her as she clanked down the cobbled street.

  We waved her adieu, stopped outside a four-storey house and, checking we hadn’t been followed, stepped into the entrance lobby. There was a smell of cheap perfume and damp coats.

  ‘Which floor?’ I asked.

  Berenice shrugged, and limped to the nearest door. When we knocked nobody answered, though we could hear whispered voices behind. It was the same with all the doors.

  ‘Guess they’re scared,’ I said. ‘Would you open your door to strangers?’

  On the first floor we struck lucky. The door opened a crack, and a woman’s eyes, rather too black with mascara, peered out. ‘We’re looking for Pierre Severin,’ Berenice said. ‘Tall, thin, brown hair, about your age.’

  ‘Don’t know.’ Her accent sounded Polish. She pushed the strap of her flesh-coloured slip back on her shoulder, a cigarette dangling from her red-lipsticked mouth. She took a long drag before deigning to speak. ‘Could be upstairs. Many young men there. Number nineteen.’

  We continued to climb the stairs. The iron numbers on the door hung askew.

  Berenice knocked.

  ‘Who is it?’ said a terse male voice from inside.

  ‘I’m looking for Pierre Severin. Or Antoine. He sometimes calls himself Antoine.’

  Muffled voices. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’m his mother.’

  More angry voices from behind the door, until it suddenly swung open and an arm shot out to drag Berenice inside. When I followed her in, a knife appeared over my shoulder and was pressed to my throat. Two men held Berenice. My first impression was that the room was full of young men, though in reality it was only three. All bearded, all smelling of sweat. All on high alert. Dirty mattresses littered the floor and a machine gun faced the window. Other weapons leant against the corners, boxes of ammo, and what looked like coils of wire.

  ‘What the hell?’ Antoine shook Berenice, eyes blazing. ‘I got a letter from the gendarmerie. It said you’d been shot whilst running away.’

  Berenice wrestled herself free. ‘That’s what they intended to do, darling, but it didn’t work out that way. We’ve been on the run since then. Sebastien helped us. We couldn’t tell a soul; there’s notices out for us all over Paris.’

  ‘It’s all right, Guillaume, I know them.’

  The knife loosened and the two men slunk away, eyes curious, as they returned to lounging on the mattresses.

  Antoine ran his hand through his long dark hair. ‘For God’s sake! You could’ve let me know. I thought you were dead.’

  ‘We daren’t,’ Berenice said. ‘It would have put Sebastien and Marthe at risk. We had to lie low. And until Sebastien told me, I’d no idea where you were.’

  ‘You weren’t supposed to know. No one was supposed to know.’

  ‘What the hell’s he doing here?’

  ‘He helped me. It was Jérôme, not Édouard, who betrayed us.’

  ‘You say they’re looking for you. Who? The Sûreté?’

  ‘Gestapo, but —’

  ‘You risked bringing them here?’ One of the men stood, the shorter thick-set one with the knife.

  ‘Cool down,’ Antoine said, restraining him with a hand on his arm. ‘This is Lucien —’ he pointed to his other friend — ‘and you can call him Guillaume.’

  ‘We came to warn you,’ I said. ‘There’s going to be a Nazi round-up. Berenice thought —’

  ‘Did anyone follow you?’ Lucien asked.

  ‘No. We were pretty careful. Look, you need to listen to what we’re telling you. They’re drafting thousands of police in here to clear the whole area. Every building will be searched. Every Jew will be sent to Drancy and then to Auschwitz. Every anti-fascist, every communist, homosexual, resister, prostitute, anyone they don’t like the look of will be on those cattle trucks with them.’ I explained what we’d heard and how.

  Guillaume lit a cigarette. He was a short, wiry youth with a Roman nose and a restless air. His fingers and upper lip were stained yellow with nicotine. ‘Yeah. We know. Notices went up yesterday saying the houses were going to be evacuated. We’re meeting tonight with the rest of the cell to make a plan.’

  ‘They said the day after tomorrow,’ I said. ‘But I’m worried. They’re beginning to seal the city already. Uniformed police are already massing near the main boulevard. No one will be able to leave by the northern routes except under escort. They’re calling it an evacuation, but we all know what it really is. Systematic persecution. Everyone will have to show their papers.’

  ‘No chance. They’ll know me from my papers. There’s a warrant out for Antoine Fournier. And I’m not the only one. We’re all wanted men.’

  ‘We can’t warn everyone,’ Lucien said. ‘Think what will happen if we do. Mass panic. We need to wait for the rest of the cell before we make a plan.’

  ‘No. There’s no time,’ I said. ‘You need to get out now. The net’s closing already.’

  ‘It’s perfect,’ Guillaume said, pacing back and forth. ‘Now’s our chance to fight. They think we don’t know they’re coming, and now’s our chance to show the bastard Boche we’re a proper fighting force. We’ll get word to everyone we know. But it could be bloody, Antoine. Your mother should go.’

  ‘Are you crazy? It’s not just a few men! It’s every Nazi and every police force for miles around.’ Berenice took hold of Antoine’s arm. ‘Please. It’s time to save yourself whilst there’s still time.’

  ‘Save myself? What about the rest? The ones who are left? The Jews hiding in the next-door apartment? The refugees from fascist Italy? Don’t they deserve some sort of protection?’

  ‘You can’t save them all,’ I said. ‘There are too many police, and the Nazi soldiers are drilled like a bloody machine. It would be suicide.’

  Antoine stepped back, positioned himself next to Guillaume. ‘I’m not leaving. We knew this was coming; the moment where we’d have to fight for France or die.’

  Berenice snorted. ‘Don’t be ridiculous —’

  ‘Don’t you understand?’ Antoine’s cheeks were flushed with anger. ‘This is Marseille! The hub of the Revolution, where French peasants stood up against oppression. Liberté, égalité, fraternité. Shall we abandon it now?’

  ‘Berenice…’ I tried to intervene by pressing my hand to her shoulder. ‘We need to go. If they find us, there’ll be no mercy.’

  ‘You go,’ she said, shaking me off. ‘Go to your fine Swiss mountain. I’ll stay here with my son.’

  Antoine turned on her. ‘Don’t be a fool, Mother. I never asked you to come. I don’t want you here with your bourgeois ideas of what is good for me.’

  ‘Being alive! That’s what’s good for you!’ she blazed.

  ‘I disagree,’ Guillaume said. ‘Principles are more important than life.’ He rested his long thin arm around Antoine’s shoulder.

  ‘I’m not going,’ Berenice said. ‘You’ll have to tear me from your side.’

  Antoine made a face of disgust. ‘I’m not five years old an
ymore. I don’t need this.’

  Lucien sighed. ‘Listen. The best thing we can do is find out where the checkpoints are, which streets are closing, get some idea of the geography, of how the Nazis are working. Then, when we meet the others tonight we’ll be better informed. I suggest we take a few streets each, see what we can find out. Note any escape routes that are still open. Talk to our contacts if we can. Get them to meet here tonight.’

  Guillaume reached into a holdall and drew out a well-thumbed map of the town and unfolded it. I hunkered down over it whilst we divvied up the area around the harbour. I didn’t like it. Every instinct told me to get out of there as fast as I could. But I knew Berenice by now; she was single-minded and stubborn.

  Twenty minutes later, we split up on the streets of Marseille.

  Marseille was heaving. From the different accents I could hear as I headed to the seafront, refugees had converged here from all over the world: Belgians, Czechs, Poles and Spaniards. By the port on the wide tree-lined pavement, I stood for a moment staring at a row of empty green buses, and, opposite, a row of canvas-topped trucks. On the cobbles under the trees, black-cloaked gendarmes were setting up trestle tables and chairs.

  ‘Not there, further over,’ a voice behind me ordered in German. Automatically I turned. And I was face to face with Schulz.

  His eyes lit up in astonishment. ‘God in Heaven! Is it…? Fred? Fred Huber! What are you doing here?’

  ‘Same as you, I expect,’ I said. ‘Getting everyone out of here.’

  He looked me up and down. I knew I looked a wreck. Close up, he was bigger and more solid than I remembered. ‘I didn’t know you were in Marseille,’ he said. ‘Still in the same line of work?’

  ‘Translations, yes. And undercover work, as you can see.’ I gestured down at my filthy trousers. ‘I’ve just been drafted in. You know, we probably shouldn’t speak. It might blow my cover.’ I knew I was blabbering as I grasped for some sort of normality.

  ‘I never expected to see you again,’ he said. ‘I was sure you’d be dead by now. Men in your position don’t usually last that long.’