The French were among the victors of that war, but the cost of their victory was staggering. The war memorial in front of Saint-Léon’s church listed more than a hundred of her sons who had been lost. There were two Josquins—Onesime and Jean’s father and their uncle. All six Restaing brothers were killed, along with nine of their uncles and cousins. Entire families ceased to exist.
Nearly a whole generation of French men had disappeared into the mud. Some of the survivors were able to pull themselves from under the crush of reality. But in villages like Saint-Léon, where life was hard in the best of times, that war had inflicted an unbearable burden. And now here it came all over again. No one knew how many dead there were this time. Or how many there would yet be. And this time France had lost.
Saint-Léon braced for the onslaught. People hid their precious belongings. If they lived in town and were able, they moved out to the countryside to stay with cousins. In the country they took their animals inside. Everyone stockpiled what they could and waited for the worst.
The Germans arrived in Saint-Léon in a tidy convoy of two dozen trucks led by a sedan with a driver and a sergeant in front and a colonel in back. Except for the colonel, they all wore low helmets and buttoned-up tunics—even though the day was warm. Their blank faces were menacing and reassuring at the same time. The people of Saint-Léon watched from behind curtained windows as the small convoy passed and then stopped on the square. Soldiers spilled out of the trucks and into the side streets. They stationed themselves around the town.
The sergeant stepped from the sedan and held the rear door for the colonel. Everyone tried to catch a glimpse of him, as though he were the bridegroom in an arranged marriage. What would he be like? Would he be kind? Brutal? The sergeant followed the colonel into the Cheval Blanc. The colonel announced that the upstairs of the empty hotel would be his headquarters, billets, and mess.
By the time the mayor of Saint-Léon rushed into the hotel, guards had been posted at the door, and he had to wait to be admitted to see the colonel. The mayor, Michel Schneider, was Alsatian by birth. But any notion he might have entertained that his Germanic origins would be helpful in dealing with the occupiers was misplaced. The Hôtel de France was empty now, its last guests having fled the advancing Germans the day before. The colonel requisitioned the Hôtel de France, along with several private residences. Mayor Schneider could only stand by helplessly while all this was accomplished.
And yet the colonel—Colonel Helmut Büchner—did not seem unreasonable. The curfew he imposed was lenient. The bar on the ground floor at the Cheval Blanc was allowed to remain open until a half hour before dark, which at this time of year was well after ten. And the people who had been forced to leave their homes were compensated.
“Compensated?” The men on the boules pitch stood weighing the steel balls in their hands. Thierry Simonet looked about nervously and leaned into the circle. He could see a German guard in the hallway at the Cheval Blanc across the way. And for all he knew, the colonel was watching them from a window. “You call that compensation?!” Thierry said. “How do you compensate for something like that?”
“They could have just thrown them out, you know,” said Arnaud Ladurielle. He and Thierry had both been in the trenches in the Great War. “After all, they won.”
“They’re an orderly lot,” said someone else. “That’s for sure.”
“That’s why they beat us,” said Arnaud. He drew on his cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “When they do something, they’re serious about it.”
“This is still France,” said Thierry.
“Is it?”
“So what?”
“And what a mess. What did that kid Léon lose his legs for?” There had been gangrene. The surgery was unavoidable. Léon Mettery spent his days in his parents’ house looking out onto the fields he had once tended. The grain waved at him, mocking him.
* * *
Young Yves Renard had been the town policeman for exactly eight weeks when he found himself accompanying Mayor Schneider and other members of the town council up the staircase and into the presence of Colonel Büchner. The colonel had set up his office in the large meeting room just above the bar in the Cheval Blanc. He was seated at a heavy oak table. A young lieutenant was standing in the corner of the room leaning against the wall with his hands behind his back.
The colonel remained seated and gestured toward chairs that had been set up facing him across the table. The council members filed in and sat down. Behind the colonel hung a large portrait of Adolf Hitler. Hitler had rosy cheeks and soft eyes and was gazing dreamily into the distance. Faint blue mountains rose into the golden clouds behind him.
The colonel and the townsmen regarded one another in silence. The mayor cleared his voice, but the colonel raised his hand to stop him before he could speak. “Monsieur Mayor, please. I will explain why I have summoned you,” said the colonel. His French was correct and lightly accented. “Then you may ask questions, and I will clarify anything that might require further explanation.
“The French defeat is complete,” he said without pausing. “Let us be clear about that. Your government has been totally defeated. Your corrupt leaders have either fled or been removed. Your new government will serve you better than the old one did.
“I will be the commandant of the Saint-Léon-sur-Dême garrison. I am in charge of the town and the surrounding canton. This does not mean, however, that you have been released from your official capacities. I expect you all to continue to serve. You, Monsieur Schneider, are still the mayor, and you, gentlemen”—and here he read off their names one by one—“are still the town council, and you, Monsieur Renard, are still the policeman. The only policeman in Saint-Léon, as I understand it.” Colonel Büchner paused and studied Yves for a moment. Yves dropped his gaze.
“How old are you, Monsieur Renard?”
“I am twenty-one, monsieur,” said Yves.
“Twenty-one. And were you in the army?”
“No, monsieur, I was not. I was in the police academy until April. Then I was assigned to Saint-Léon.”
“And Saint-Léon is your home?”
“It is, monsieur.”
“And your superior is…?”
“Captain Lupardennes in Tours.”
“From now on, Monsieur Renard, you will report to me. At least for the moment, until the gendarmerie is reconfigured.”
“Oui, monsieur,” said Yves Renard without raising his eyes.
“And you, Monsieur Mayor, where are you from?”
“Wissembourg, Herr Oberst.” The mayor spoke some German.
“Wissembourg?” said the colonel, raising his eyebrows slightly. His face seemed to soften. He leaned back in his chair and studied the mayor. “I was stationed in Alsace from 1916 … not far from Wissembourg. I know Wissembourg. We were … invited to leave.” He stopped, having said more than he had meant to.
“In any case, as I was saying”—he folded his hands on the table in front of him—“you will continue as before. With a few small but perhaps significant changes. The first of which is that where you once reported to your superiors at the prefecture level, you will now report through my adjutant, Lieutenant Ludwig, to me.” He gestured with his right hand toward the lieutenant, who did not move. “I hope to keep this reporting to a minimum, since I will be fully occupied with my military duties. Nothing would please me more than to have everything continue as it was before my arrival, to have Saint-Léon function as it did before.
“To that end one other change will be in effect. You understand undoubtedly that we as occupiers are bound by the rules of war and of civilization to look out for the general welfare of the citizens under our control, to see to their security and safety. And it is certainly my intention to do so. It is my duty to see that the citizens of Saint-Léon-sur-Dême and in the entire canton are safe and secure in their towns and in their homes. I don’t need to point out that this is especially important in a time of war. There must
be no disorder, no disruption of the peace.
“Therefore each of you is charged with assuring that the safety and security of Saint-Léon is not disturbed by disruptive or criminal elements. This is a very serious charge, and the failure to meet it will result in serious consequences for the citizens of Saint-Léon and of course for each of you.” Colonel Büchner paused and gazed at the faces looking at him. “I want to make certain that what I have just said is clear. Does anyone have any questions about his responsibility in this matter?”
Jean Charles Arnaud, a member of the town council, slowly raised his hand. He glanced about and shifted uneasily in his seat. “Excuse me, Monsieur Colonel, but I do not think I understand. How are we to maintain order? I am a pharmacist, not a policeman. I am not trained—”
“I do not think I need to tell you, Monsieur Arnaud,” said the colonel, “that there are those who would like nothing better than to undermine the armistice and overthrow our new regime. It should come as no surprise that certain elements—communists, revolutionists, anarchists, other terroristic elements—do not welcome us in France. They fear the order we will bring about. You all”—and here Colonel Büchner made an inclusive gesture with both hands—“may even know such people. Perhaps,” he said, leaning forward slightly, “some of you even feel that way yourselves.” He raised his eyebrows and smiled in what he meant to be an ironic gesture.
Just as quickly as it had come, the smile vanished. “Regardless,” he said, “it will be your job to assure that there is no such trouble. And if there is, you will be held responsible. Monsieur Arnaud?”
“Excuse me, Monsieur Colonel, but … how can we be held responsible?”
“You are the people’s representatives,” said the colonel. “Who else should be held responsible? When they misbehave, it is as though you have misbehaved. We will punish them harshly for their misbehavior. And we will punish you for failing.…”
“But Monsieur Colonel, how are we to control—”
“We,” said the colonel, “will of course assist you, if it comes to that, in exercising that control. The general safety and security are everything.…”
“But Monsieur Colonel,” said Arnaud, unable or unwilling to accept the harsh reality. “I still do not understand.”
“What is there to understand, Arnaud?” said the mayor suddenly. He leaned forward and fixed Arnaud with a fierce gaze. “We are in essence official hostages. Isn’t that correct, Monsieur Colonel? Our lives depend on keeping any trouble at bay. Isn’t that correct, Monsieur Colonel?”
The lieutenant pushed himself off the wall. “May I, Herr Oberst?” The lieutenant had a high, clear voice. His French was less fluent than the colonel’s. He looked at his hands for a moment before he looked up and smiled. “Monsieur Arnaud, you should listen to your mayor. While he says it rather more bluntly than Colonel Büchner or I might, I believe he has correctly understood the situation. This is war, and we cannot be lax when it comes to suppressing uprisings and insurgencies. They must be crushed before they begin.
“You will find us patient and generous if you cooperate and fulfill your duty. But the mayor is essentially correct. By virtue of your official standing in this town, you are men of influence. You are also far more knowledgeable than we can ever be about what goes on in Saint-Léon. We must therefore depend on you. And to assure ourselves of your dependability, you become hostages, if you will. It is the only means by which we can keep the peace. If things go awry, if there is local resistance or insurrection, terrorism of any kind—which we certainly hope and expect will not happen—then you and your citizens will pay a heavy price.
“Of course,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “look to Poland if you want to see the cost of insurrection. The Poles decided to resist our governance, and the entire country has answered for it. We believe you French are … more reasonable. That is why the Führer agreed to an amicable armistice and collaboration in the first place.”
Colonel Büchner was eager to move on. “Your estimable General Pétain and his colleagues will see to your well-being,” he said.
Arnaud wanted to speak, wanted to protest against the unfairness of it all. He was a simple pharmacist, after all, not a policeman, not a spy, not a soldier. His service on the town council consisted of preparing budgets and hiring the town secretary and deciding when a road should be repaved, not of discovering and subverting terror and insurrection.
Arnaud did not favor resisting the new German government. Not at all. Like many Frenchmen—maybe most—he thought that the order the Germans imposed might finally be what France needed, even if it did come from an unwelcome source and with an iron fist. After all, look how Hitler had restored Germany to order and prosperity after the Great War. Arnaud wanted to say all this. But the silence of the others in the room caused him to keep silent. The lieutenant stepped back against the wall and resumed his former posture.
Colonel Büchner cast his eyes around the room. He planted his hands palms down on the table. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I believe our business is concluded for the moment. Thank you all for coming.” He sat and watched as the men stood and filed silently from the room. They walked slowly with their eyes cast down, as hostages would.
IV.
THE GERMAN GARRISON, once it was fully manned, consisted of 185 officers and men. They were billeted in the two hotels and in confiscated buildings in and around Saint-Léon. Their mission was to establish munitions, fuel and transportation depots, and to maintain security in the area.
Saint-Léon had been chosen by the Germans as a supply depot because it lay near the conjunction of several major highways from the east, and no more than four hours by convoy from the North Atlantic coast and the English Channel to the west. It was sufficiently close to the coast to make its stores readily available, and sufficiently rearward to afford protection and some room for maneuver.
There was another geographical quality that recommended the town to the Germans. All of the great châteaux—Chambord, Chenonceau, Amboise—and most of the lesser châteaux and houses of the region had been built using a particular chalklike limestone peculiar to the region. Tuffeau, as it was called, was soft enough to be cut into building blocks with an ordinary saw. It could easily be carved into elegant decorations with a mallet and chisel. And it was ubiquitous. As a result it had been extracted from hillsides over the centuries in such quantities that the entire area was now laced with quarry caves.
There was, for instance, a network of caves that went deep into the hillside behind the Cheval Blanc, where Colonel Büchner had his headquarters. It had long been used by the town’s hotels and restaurants to keep wine, as well as for general storage. The mushroom cooperative used another set of caves to grow the much prized champignons de Paris, although for now the crop of mushrooms was greatly curtailed. Above town you could see windows in the sides of hills and chimneys jutting out above, where caves had been transformed into dwellings.
The Germans saw the caves as ready-made maintenance hangars and fuel and munitions storage facilities. The humidity might be a problem over the long haul, but that disadvantage was more than offset by the security the caves afforded. They were easy to secure and impervious to attack from the air. It took the Germans a few weeks to locate and requisition the caves they wanted, and then a few more weeks to adapt those caves to their needs and to make them secure. By early August, trucks were arriving and unloading fuel and munitions into the caves.
Onesime Josquin leaned on his hoe and watched two German trucks pass the field where he was working. They were out of sight when he heard their brakes squeal. He knew they were turning up the lane toward what had once been his grandfather’s house. The house had not been lived in since his grandfather’s death. Onesime remembered standing with the old man at the entrance to the cave behind the house and peering into the blackness. The cool, damp air pressed against him, pushing him backward into the light. He remembered the shivers of boyish terror and how the hair on his neck
had stood on end.
Most of the caves had been only dug deep enough so that the tuffeau could be easily extracted. But some of the oldest caves—like his grandfather’s—were deeper. They had been quarries first, but in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the warring French and English armies had swept back and forth across the countryside, the caves became protective hideouts and secret passages between fortified farms.
“I followed it once,” said Onesime’s grandfather, pointing into the cave. Onesime remembered the weight of his grandfather’s hand on his shoulder. “I followed it for a very long way and never found the end of it. I only turned around after going for more than an hour. The cave runs all the way to Tours. The oil in my lamp would have run out if I had gone any farther. Without a light, you could hold your hand like this—two centimeters from your nose—and not see it. You could get lost in there and never be found. It has happened.” Grandfather had built a wall a hundred meters inside, to close off the endless cavern.
* * *
Onesime was sitting in front of the fire with his mother and Jean. Anne Marie Josquin was sewing a patch on a torn shirtsleeve. She leaned toward the lamp and squinted as she passed the needle back and forth through the heavy fabric.
“The Germans are using Grandfather’s cave,” said Jean. “I saw them today. I was at the barn when they passed.”
Anne Marie cut the thread with her teeth. “Your grandfather would not be happy about that,” she said.
“I saw them too,” said Onesime. “There were two trucks. Fuel tankers, it looked like.”
Later in his room, he opened his drawing pad and leafed through the drawings he had made since he had been home. There was a nice one of the house. One of some sunflowers with a little bit of color. One from memory of the stream of refugees. One from memory of a dead soldier. You could not tell from the drawing whether the dead man was French or German. His eyes were open. There was a small drawing of Marie Piano sitting on the ground looking up at him. He had not gotten her eyes just right. Her real name was Marie Livrist. But because she loved to play the piano, everyone called her Marie Piano, to distinguish her from the other Maries in town.
The Resistance Page 4
