The Collaborators

by Reginald Hill

  She knew then that she had to go back. She was no longer sure if the old Jean-Paul was retrievable, but while there was the faintest chance, she could not abandon him.

  Not all the resolve in the world could render the final leave-taking any less painful. Céci looked set to cry her heart out until Pauli took her aside and assured her that all was well and maman would soon be back and there were honey-cakes for tea. But there was no one to do the same comforting service for him, and more than anything else it was the sense of tight control in his slim body as she kissed him goodbye that almost persuaded Janine to change her mind even at this stage.

  But at last she was on the train.

  Mireille said, ‘We’ll see you in the summer then.’

  ‘Yes. July.’

  ‘Come earlier if you like. Stay longer.’

  It would have taken little to make her get off the train there and then. But now it started. She waved from the window, smiling, till her cousin and the two little heads on either side dwindled to nothing.

  Now she cried, quietly but passionately. A man offered her a handkerchief. She took it unthinkingly. Only later as she returned it did she see it belonged to a German soldier, a warrant officer. A French family, two middle-aged women and an old man, glared at her as if accepting the hanky had been the ultimate patriotic betrayal.

  It was a slow journey, full of stops and starts. So much for the famous German efficiency. She caught the soldier’s eye and he smiled ruefully as though reading her thought. She looked away.

  She was several hours late getting into Paris.

  As she descended from the train, she felt herself seized in a tight embrace and for a second thought it was Jean-Paul who’d come to meet her. Then Christian Valois said, ‘Janine, welcome back!’

  ‘Christian? Where’s Jean-Paul? Has something happened?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ he said releasing her. ‘Jean-Paul’s busy. I said I’d come. Then the train was so late and there was talk of air attacks and I started to get worried.’

  ‘You’re so sweet, Christian,’ she said.

  A hand touched her shoulder. When she turned she saw the German warrant officer. He smiled at her and said in heavily accented French, ‘Good night, madame.’

  ‘Good night. And thank you,’ she replied.

  He went on his way and she turned back to Valois to find he’d turned aside and buried his face in a handkerchief.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she said almost gaily. ‘Did you think I was going to turn you in?’

  ‘Don’t even joke about it!’ he said.

  ‘He was kind to me in the train, that’s all,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, Christian. Your own mother wouldn’t recognize you now!’

  It was true. The elegant young civil servant had disappeared. Now, dressed in a baggy old suit, with a heavy moustache and a fringe of beard, he looked like an illustration from Les Misérables.

  His manner had changed too. There was a new alertness about him, a sense of command. He had rapidly become Les Pêcheurs’ mouthpiece, their linkman with other members of the Resistance Council. But from the start he had insisted on being operational too. Soon he had matured into a brilliantly effective field commander with a consistently low casualty rate.

  This was highly valued by his men. The Resistance trumpeted its successes but those involved knew the cost. Loose security, bad planning and Gestapo infiltration were wreaking havoc. Raiding parties walked into traps. Whole networks got swept up. Agents and suppliers parachuted into enemy arms.

  Simonian reacted by taking ever greater risks. His loyal lieutenant, Henri, might disapprove, but would never oppose. Janine knew that the only person with any hope of holding her husband in check was Christian Valois.

  He took her back now to the flat in Clichy. This was her home now, though it seemed to her that Jean-Paul used it more like an animal uses a bolt-hole. He hadn’t returned from his ‘business’ and Christian said apologetically that this was one of those nights when he probably wouldn’t be back at all.

  Janine collapsed into an armchair. The well of energy which had kept her going since leaving Lyon was completely dry.

  ‘Jan, you look dreadful. Are you ill? Shall I get a doctor?’

  Valois’s concern was so genuine, it made her smile. It was good to have someone caring about you. She held out her hand to him.

  ‘I’m all right, Christian. Just so tired.’

  He took her hand and knelt before her and it seemed perfectly natural to take his head and draw it down on to her bosom, then to close her eyes and slip into sleep.

  She awoke as often she’d awoken in the first years of her marriage out of a dream into its reality. She’d dreamt she was lying passive beneath Jean-Paul and he was beginning that old, long, unhurried journey which would end in her arousal. Warm lips were at her breast, gently nudging her nipple to firmness, a soft hand stroking the curve of her thigh. She stretched, arching her body sensuously to thrust the nipple deep into his mouth, to let the hand slip easily beneath her buttock. She half-opened her eyes to look down at the dear narrow head with its crown of jet-black hair.

  And instead found herself looking into a tangle of nut-brown curls.

  ‘Christian!’ she screamed, trying to sit upright and push him away. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  He raised his head and looked at her, his eyes blank with desire.

  She opened her mouth to shout again, but his lips caught hers half-open and pressed bruisingly down on them. She caught hold of his hair and dragged his face from hers.

  ‘Christian!’ she screamed again. ‘No!’

  And suddenly he heard her and saw her clear. He pushed himself to his feet in a single spasmodic movement, his face full of shock.

  ‘Janine, forgive me, I’m sorry, I thought…’

  ‘Thought? What did you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought… Janine, I love you, I’m sorry, I can’t help it.’

  Another one! What is it about me? My husband’s enemy first, and now his best friend! thought Janine in horror. And somewhere in there was the edge of a disturbing awareness that as a woman she responded much more positively to the German than to the good-looking young Frenchman.

  She pushed all such notions from her mind and said, ‘Christian, please go now.’

  ‘Yes, I will. Of course. I’m sorry. Jan, can’t we talk…?’

  She said, ‘We’ll talk later. Not here, not now. Please, Christian, just go!’

  He went. She locked the door after him. Usually she would have sat up late just in case Jean-Paul did come home. But tonight she hurried to get into bed, pressed by an impulse she didn’t understand till she found herself curled foetally with the covers pulled tight above her head and recalled that this was how she’d sought escape as a child when all the pressures and disappointments of her young life seemed too much for her.

  She sought now as she’d sought then for consolations and compensations. Then, they’d usually been found in a promised treat, or an approaching birthday, or a good mark at school. Now, they were much harder to find. The Occupation seemed endless. In her mind, like most people she knew, she was accepting it and all its dangers and horrors as a permanent state of existence. So must a criminal serving a life-sentence come to terms with the limits set on his movement and his actions.

  But there was a consolation. At least the children were safe.

  Clutching this to her mind as in younger days she’d clutched a rag-doll to her breast, she fell asleep.

  2

  Paris in the springtime. Of all the clichés about the city, this was the one Günter enjoyed most.

  1941 had been best; triumph still tasted sweet on the lips and there’d seemed to be some correspondence between the blossom on the trees and the shape of things to come. 1942 hadn’t been too bad, the daffodils and lilac speaking of a second chance to remedy lost time and opportunities missed. In 1943 he’d hardly noticed the spring. Down there in the south he�
�d been too concerned with other matters; on the one hand, the Maquis, in his eyes the greatest danger yet to the Occupation Forces; on the other hand, the Milice, who seemed bent on outstripping the Gestapo and SS in their repressive measures.

  Now the Milice were in Paris at the instigation of SD Headquarters in the Avenue Foch. What an admission of failure, thought Mai bitterly. It was no consolation to know from Michel Boucher that there was one person who resented their presence more bitterly still - Alphonse Pajou, who saw in these new Géstapistes a threat to his own power and profits!

  From Boucher he also got news of Janine, though he never asked directly for it. He’d seen her distantly from time to time, arriving at or leaving the boulangerie where he still sometimes enjoyed a croissant and coffee. He knew she used the house as a poste restante for mail from the Ain, the regular postcards which confirmed the children were well. They had never exchanged more than a formal greeting since that day he had declared his love. Now with the end of May in sight, he decided that memory had been a cheat. The blossom lacked colour and scent, nor were the skies as blue, the air as wine-like as he had recalled. He felt a sense of mockery everywhere, of scornful farewell. And he felt no sense of romance whatsoever, which confirmed what he wanted to believe - that this absurd, potentially destructive passion for the Simonian woman was dead.

  So he did his work, ate, drank and had the occasional security-vetted whore.

  And from time to time he updated Janine’s ‘agent’ file to be on the safe side in case the Gestapo had their plant in the Lutétia just as he had his in the Rue des Saussaies. It wasn’t for her sake he was doing this, he assured himself. It was for his own safety. Also the children’s. If he’d done nothing else worthwhile in this war, at least he’d helped two innocent kids to a place of safety where the sounds of spring could still fall without distortion upon responsive ears.

  All afternoon there had been the crackle of distant gunfire in the hills.

  Hunters, Mireille told herself. But she had lived too long in the country not to know the difference between hunting rifles and automatic fire.

  As soon as the firing had started she had gone to look for Lucien, hoping to see his sturdy silhouette as he toiled in the nearby fields or hear his axe at work in the coppice. But there was no sign.

  She asked old Rom, the farmhand, if he knew where his master was, but he merely shook his head. The villagers had a joke which said that Rom had found he’d got some life left over at the end of his words.

  She now went into the living-room and looked at the old clock. It was time to eat. In fact, as she well knew, it was rather late. The table was set, the food was ready. Céci had been sitting there impatiently for some time. She went to the door and called, ‘Boys!’

  They came at their own pace as boys do, the elder pair first, then Christophe, all red-faced and hot from their exertions.

  ‘Where’s Pauli?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t know,’ said one of the older boys.

  ‘And don’t care,’ added Christophe with the surliness he still showed at the mention of Pauli’s name.

  His campaign of persecution might have ended, but his old resentment was never far beneath the surface, even after more than a year.

  ‘He’s here now,’ said one of the others.

  His sharp young ears had caught what Mireille now heard a moment later, Pauli’s voice calling, ‘Aunt Mireille! Aunt Mireille!’

  She went to the window. The boy was running across a field towards the farm. She realized she’d rarely seen him run before. He wasn’t slow of movement, in fact his reactions could be amazingly quick, but the general impression he gave was of a calm passivity. Now his speed, his exertion and his voice caught her heart in a spasm of fear.

  Now he was in the farmyard, running past old Rom whose weatherbeaten face was provoked to something like surprise, and tumbling through the kitchen door.

  ‘The Boche are coming, the Boche are coming!’ he gasped through deep ragged breaths.

  Even as he gave his news, the noise of vehicles could be heard and when Mireille looked through the doorway she could see a covered truck and a German staff-car bumping down the track towards the farm.

  ‘Stay inside, children,’ she commanded.

  She went out, shutting the door behind her.

  ‘What’s happened?’ demanded the eldest boy. ‘Pauli, what’s going on?’

  ‘They attacked the Maquis,’ said Pauli, beginning to regain control of his breathing. ‘They killed some of them, captured the rest. I saw them. And they captured Uncle Lucien.’

  ‘Papa? Why did they capture papa?’ The boy’s voice was shrill.

  ‘He was up there. He’d taken some vegetables I think. He often did it.’

  He sat down by Céci and, putting his arm around her said, ‘Eat your meal, little one. Eat it all up.’

  And seizing a hunk of bread himself, he began to chew vigorously.

  ‘Why are you eating? Pig, pig!’ cried Christophe. ‘How can you eat now?’

  But Pauli just looked at him and continued chewing.

  Outside, the vehicles had come to a halt. Two soldiers sprang from the back of the open car, one of them knelt with his gun aimed at Rom, the other ran past the old man, kicked open the kitchen door and went inside. A little while later he emerged.

  ‘Just some kids, captain,’ he said to the officer in the car who now got out. Mireille’s heart contracted even further as she recognized the SS insignia on his tunic.

  He saluted her and said, ‘Madame Laurentin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wife of the terrorist, Lucien Laurentin?’

  ‘What do you mean? My husband’s no terrorist!’

  ‘You must come with us, madame,’ said the captain who looked no more than twenty.

  His youthfulness deceived her into making a plea.

  Going close to him she said urgently, ‘Please, monsieur, it’s all a mistake. My husband’s not a maquisard. A few vegetables he gave them from time to time, that’s all. What’s the harm in that? They’re local boys, we’ve known their families for years…’

  ‘And will have the chance to renew the acquaintance. In the truck!’

  He turned away, she caught at his arm, he pulled it free, then swung the back of his hand into her face with a force that broke her nose.

  She screamed and almost fell. The kitchen door opened and her sons tried to come out, but old Rom blocked their way.

  ‘No, no,’ she cried to them. ‘I’m all right. I’m all right. Stay inside. I’ll be back soon.’

  She held her hand over her face in an effort to conceal the blood gushing over her lips. One of the soldiers took her arm and said, ‘Come on, missus. Let’s get you inside.’

  There were more soldiers in the truck. Grumbling, they dragged her over the tailboard and now she saw they were not alone. There were half a dozen men lying on the floor, most of whom she recognized. At least two were unconscious and the others close. All had blood soaking into their clothes either from visible or invisible wounds.

  The engine started. She went to the tailgate; the soldiers grabbed her arms but she thrust her head out and cried, ‘Rom, take care of the children! Children, take care of each other!’

  A glimpse, then the soldiers threw her to the floor alongside the wounded men and the truck was grinding round the bend and out of sight of the house.

  Back in the farmyard, one of the soldiers said, ‘What about him, captain?’ pointing his weapon at Rom.

  ‘Him? Of course not,’ said the officer with distaste. ‘We’re not in the business of collecting scarecrows.’

  The soldier laughed dutifully and went on, ‘And the kids?’

  ‘They’ll be sorted out later. Corrective schools most likely, so they don’t grow up like their terrorist parents. You didn’t notice such a thing as a bottle of wine in there, did you, trooper? It’s been a thirsty kind of day.’

  ‘I’m sure we can find you something, sir,’ said the sold
ier, jerking his head at his mate, who winked in reply. They’d been fearful that the captain would be in such a hurry to get back to his comfortable quarters in Lyon that their chance of a bit of booty would go begging.

  They went into the kitchen, the three boys and the old man retreating before them. The captain followed. Pauli and Céci were seated at the table. Pauli was still eating.

  ‘Hello, more of them. They farrow well these country sows,’ observed the captain to his driver, who was close behind. ‘But hold on. Five? Surely our information was three, all boys?’

  He took out some papers and examined them.

  ‘Yes. So, we have two over? Is that you two, the hungry ones?’

  His French was excellent. Pauli nodded.

  ‘And who may you be?’

  ‘We’re visitors, monsieur. From Paris. Madame Laurentin is my mother’s cousin.’

  ‘I see,’ said the captain, assured by the boy’s rather pedantic way of speaking. ‘Then what stories you’ll have to tell when you get back home, eh?’

  He smiled as he spoke. His friendliness to Pauli, his casual reference to their return home combined with all the other sources of resentment in Christophe.

  Bursting from the restraint of Rom’s long arm, his face red with shock and terror and fury, he burst out, ‘It’s all their fault! It’s all their fault! It wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t come! They’re Jews, they’re filthy Jews, that’s why this has happened.’

  One of the soldiers appeared with a bottle of wine and a glass which he filled.

  The captain took it and drank it.

  ‘Not too bad,’ he said. ‘Jews, you say, boy? But they’re your relatives. Does that mean you too are Jews?’

  Christophe’s fury was spent. Only the shock and terror remained. And increased. He shook his head but couldn’t speak.