The Resistance

by Peter Steiner

  “And then we go after them?” said Piet Chabrille.

  “And then we go after them,” said Aseline.

  “With guns,” said Piet.

  “If necessary,” said Aseline. “If there’s no other way.”

  Yves Renard did not say anything.

  At the meeting two weeks later they were twenty, and they filled the small room. Yves Renard was there. Piet Chabrille. Joel was not. Still Aseline was right: It wasn’t hard to get people interested. Word had gotten around that some citizens were organizing to root out communists and Jews, and people signed on eagerly. Some women wanted to come, but the men said no. For now at least. Aseline looked around the room smiling. He had compiled a list of known and suspected communists, which he read aloud.

  “Robert,” said a new man, “what do we do with this information?”

  “Well,” said Aseline, “we mount a surveillance operation.…”

  “For what purpose,” said the man. “Are we going to watch, or are we going to do something?”

  “I’m getting to that,” said Aseline. “I’ve been talking to Jacques Courtois. He’s in Tours now with the German police. He says they can supply us with weapons and ammunition.…”

  “Wait a minute, Robert,” said the new man. “Should we be discussing that kind of thing in front of the cops? I mean, what we’re talking about here isn’t strictly—”

  “Kosher?” said someone. Everybody laughed.

  The new man laughed too. But then he continued. “I mean this is serious and, let’s face it, technically illegal. So we should at least know where Renard stands.”

  Everyone looked at Yves. Yves looked around the room. “You don’t know?” he said.

  “How should we know?” said the man.

  “You know about me the same way we know about you,” said Renard. “After all, how do we know about you?”

  “Wait a minute, Renard…,” said the man.

  “Or Aseline here, or anybody? I mean, I can tell you I want to get rid of communists and Jews, if that’s what you need to hear. And Gypsies and homosexuals and Freemasons, if you need more proof. Except it’s not proof. It’s only words. I can swear it’s true. But what does that mean? People swear to all sorts of things these days. It comes down to this: Either you believe me or you don’t. There’s no way you can know for sure where I stand.”

  “Until the shooting starts,” said Piet. Piet Chabrille’s face hardly ever changed, but just now there was a broad, toothy smile spread across it, and his eyes danced. “When the shooting starts, then we’ll know.”

  XV.

  IT WAS A WARM SPRING day. Anne Marie Josquin walked her bicycle down the lane. On reaching the road she stepped on the bottom pedal, lifted herself onto the saddle, and rode off toward town. She passed Gerard Penoit pruning his fruit trees. His wife, Roberte, was hoeing the garden. They ignored Anne Marie and she ignored them. They were not enemies, but these days it seemed better not to talk, for fear of what you might say or what you might not say.

  Anne Marie felt the sun on her neck as she rode toward town. It is time to put in lettuce and onions, she thought. She stopped at Courbeau’s, left some eggs, and collected several rounds of goat cheese. Next she stopped at Angeline’s house. Angeline was her youngest, but unlike the boys, Angeline was married and already had a baby daughter. Anne Marie and Angeline embraced.

  “How is Henri?” said Anne Marie. “And you, my sweet? And how is my petite-petite?” she cooed, leaning down so that her face was close to the baby’s. “Oh, you’re so big, such a big girl already.” The baby smiled.

  “It’s unbelievable how she grows,” said Angeline. “And how she eats.”

  “Here, my sweet,” said Anne Marie, reaching into her basket. “Eggs. Only four this week. The hens aren’t laying. And cheese from Courbeau.”

  “Come in, Maman, for some tea.”

  “Not this time, Angeline. Maybe tomorrow. I have my rounds today. Henri is well?”

  “He’s all right. He’s working at least.”

  “Be glad of that,” said Anne Marie.

  “He’s working for the Germans.”

  “Ah, well, at least it’s work.”

  “Who knows whether it will last.”

  “Who knows whether anything will last these days,” said Anne Marie. “The news from England—”

  “Please, maman. I wish you didn’t listen to that. It’s dangerous. And besides, it’s not true.”

  “The Americans—”

  “Maman, stop talking about it. It’s not just dangerous for you. It’s dangerous for us, for me and the baby. And for Oni and Jean. The Germans shoot people for listening.”

  “Oni and Jean can take care of themselves, Angeline.”

  “Are they involved in anything, Maman?”

  “Involved in anything?”

  “You know. Anything … subversive. Henri thinks they might be.”

  “No,” said Anne Marie. “Don’t be silly. Don’t worry.”

  “Well, stop talking about things, and stop listening to the radio, and I’ll stop worrying. We all have to survive.”

  “You’re right of course. Anyway, I have my rounds.”

  In town Anne Marie looked in at the mechanic’s shop.

  “Bonjour, madame,” said Claude Melun.

  “Bonjour, Claude; bonjour, Piet,” said Anne Marie. “Jean? Could you look at my bicycle. The back wheel is rubbing.” The two walked outside. Jean bent over to look.

  “Have you seen your sister lately, Jean?” she said.

  “The wheel’s all right, Maman.”

  “I know. Do you ever see your sister?”

  “No,” said Jean.

  “Well, maybe you should. Henri’s been filling her head about you and Oni.”

  “Henri?”

  “She says he thinks you’re up to something.”

  “Up to something? Up to what?”

  “You might want to find out what she means.”

  “I’ll stop and see them.”

  Anne Marie touched his cheek and then reached up and kissed him.

  “Maman, don’t.”

  “Even a mother’s kiss is suspicious?” she said. “The times are bad when a kiss is suspicious.”

  Anne Marie went into the bakery and bought three small custard tarts. She put the package in her basket and rode out of town. On the road to Villedieu she passed a column of men being marched under German guard. They walked with their heads down. Halfway past the column, she said in a low voice, “Hello!” in English. Several of the men looked her way. One mouthed the word hello back at her.

  In Villedieu, opposite the church, she turned up the narrow street that went to the château ruins. She stopped in front of a small stone house with a garden out front and leaned her bicycle against the stone fence. Edith Troppard came out of the house. “You already have lettuce,” said Anne Marie.

  “I took a chance and planted early,” said Edith, “and this year luck was on my side.” The two women embraced, then stopped to admire the row of tender greens just showing above the soil.

  “That settles it,” said Anne Marie. “I’ll plant tomorrow.”

  Edith laughed. “Come inside,” she said. Anne Marie lifted the package from her basket. “Aah!” said Edith. She could see the butter soaking through the paper wrap.

  The house was sparsely furnished. Edith Troppard was not one for fancy decorations. Downstairs was one large room that served as a living room, dining room, and kitchen. A long oak table sat at the center of the room, an iron stove against one wall with a stone sink beside it. Straight-backed chairs were lined up against the opposite wall. There were a few pictures on the walls, mostly framed landscape photos that Edith had cut from magazines.

  A man was seated on one of the chairs beside the table. “Bonjour,” he said, and stood up. He took a step forward and extended his hand. “Please, madame,” he said, before Anne Marie could speak, “don’t tell me your name. Make one up instead and whisper it t
o me.

  Anne Marie had always liked the name Florence. “Florence,” she whispered.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you,” he said. “I am Simon. Our friend”—he smiled toward Edith—“tells me great things about you.”

  “Well, Simon, she tells me great things about you too.”

  * * *

  That evening at dinner Anne Marie told her sons about her day. “The chickens aren’t laying. They’re old. It’s hard to get chicks these days. The Germans are building something in the fields just above The Trout. Did you see it?”

  “I did,” said Jean. “I couldn’t tell anything about it. But it’s got a high double fence.”

  “It looks like a chicken house,” said Anne Marie, “but I suppose it’s a barracks of some kind. Yveline at the bakery said she saw some workers up there. But they weren’t from here.”

  “Maybe it’s a prison camp,” said Onesime.

  “Oh, and I saw some prisoners today. Germans were guarding them. They were on the road to Villedieu. Where could they have been going?”

  “Really?” said Onesime. He tried not to seem too interested.

  “They were English,” she said.

  “How do you know they were English?” said Jean.

  “Some had foreign-looking uniforms,” she said.

  “That doesn’t mean they’re English.”

  “I talked to them in English, and they understood me.”

  “You spoke to them?”

  “Yes.”

  “With guards there?”

  “The guards were far away. It was a long column, and the guards were at both ends. They didn’t hear me.”

  “How do you know?” Jean and Onesime had dropped every pretense of being disinterested, but this time she did not answer. “How do you know?” Jean said again.

  “Stop interrogating me,” she said. “Both of you.”

  “It’s just that—”

  “I am not stupid,” she said. “And I don’t interrogate you, so you stop it.”

  Onesime and Jean looked at their hands in silence.

  “I met Simon today,” she said.

  Onesime and Jean continued looking at their hands.

  “You know, we can’t protect one another by pretending not to know anything,” said Anne Marie. “I hear you talking together. I hear you listening to the radio. I hear you go out late at night. I am not an idiot.

  “In peacetime you have the luxury of thinking others are stupid or ignorant or blind. But not now. Not your enemies, not your friends, and not your mother.” She paused and thought for a moment before she continued. “It is certainly not my intention to know what you are doing, and it should not be your intention to know what I am doing. But we have to all trust that we are competent. You better learn to trust me as I trust you.”

  There was a long silence before Jean spoke. “I saw Angeline on my way home. I stopped by their house. She said Henri is suspicious, like you said. I think he’s dangerous. He seems to know something about our—Onesime’s and my—activities. I don’t know exactly what or how he knows it. But I don’t trust him. Or Angeline.” Jean put his face in his hands.

  “Listen, Jean,” said Anne Marie, “you can mistrust him, as I think you must. You can mistrust your sister, as I think you should, without despising either of them or even loving them less. They are arranging things as best they can for themselves. They have a certain way they believe is right. The best thing we can do for them is to not let them know anything. We must try to persuade them that we are not a danger to them.”

  Later that night Anne Marie lay on her bed and stared into the darkness. “Where did I find this hardness in myself? How will I ever do the things I might have to do?”

  * * *

  When such a sudden and enormous upheaval occurs, as there had been in France, it can only result in chaos. Once order is obliterated and the law itself becomes lawless, all anyone has left is his own moral compass. And the personal moral compass is an extremely unreliable instrument. Convenience, opportunism, greed, malice—all these things and more exert a stronger magnetic force than virtue ever could.

  Simon recognized that the struggle he was engaged in was all but futile. Few were even tempted to resist the Germans. And few of those resisting would survive. The chances for success in the spring of 1942 seemed small beyond reckoning. And yet, what choice did he have but to continue building a network, training resisters, and preparing for the moment, should it come, when the Germans could be beaten?

  In Paris, Savanne, his contact, scoffed at the notion. “I am sorry,” she said. She drew deeply on her cigarette and studied him over the top of her glasses. “But you are mistaken. You are too sentimental. You have allowed yourself to become attached to those people. Your job is not to keep them alive. They are necessary but dispensable, soldiers in the struggle against fascism. That is what they are.

  “Like you and me,” she added. They were sitting at a table by the door to the kitchen in La Coupole. “Make use of them,” she said. “You have those ammunition dumps down there that you talk about. Blow them up. You have German officers that need killing. Kill them. And collaborators. The train line to the coast. You say you have good people there.”

  “Yes,” said Simon.

  “Then make use of them. If there are reprisals, so much the better. The more the fascists clamp down, the worse they behave, the better for us. Stop being sentimental. Why wait? For what?” Simon had slept with her once. She had told him what to do every step of the way. Her advice was like her lovemaking. Do this, do that, now do that.

  “Do we want fireworks?” said Simon. “Or do we want to defeat the Germans?” It was nine o’clock, and the restaurant was full. Many of the tables were occupied by uniformed German officers. For some reason their proximity comforted Simon.

  “Of course we want to win,” said Savanne. “But we also want to bring about a Soviet France. That is the overriding necessity.” After a late start—they had been busy in Spain—the Stalinists had now maneuvered themselves into positions of control in the resistance. It had been easy. They were experienced in secret organization, and they were ruthless. Savanne noticed that Simon was silent. “The objective is not liberation. It is the overthrow of a fascist regime, whether it is German or French,” she said.

  “I agree,” said Simon. “That is the goal. Absolutely.” He wished he had not said “absolutely.” He drank the last swallow of wine from his glass. “There is a train in fifteen minutes,” he said. “It is time I get back.”

  * * *

  Jean found Henri at the bar in the Cheval Blanc. It was eight o’clock, and the colonel and his staff were gone. The door leading to their upstairs offices was locked. That let the patrons talk more freely and gave the informers among them something to hope for. The bar was full. The air was smoky. “Hey, Jean,” said Henri, waving. “A late night?”

  “Salut, Henri,” said Jean. “Yes, a little late. A glass of red,” he said to the bartender. Jean touched Henri’s glass with his own. “Santé.”

  “So you’re busy at Melun’s?” said Henri.

  “Pretty busy,” said Jean. “What about you? I hear you got a job. That’s good luck.”

  “Yeah, finally,” said Henri. “Me and Lucien both.” He leaned back a bit so Jean could see Lucien next to him. Lucien touched his hat in greeting.

  “Salut, Lucien,” said Jean. Lucien took out a package of cigarettes and offered them around. Jean took a cigarette and leaned in to light it on the match Lucien held. “So is it good work?” said Jean. “Something that will last?”

  “It’s all right. With the Boche,” said Lucien. “Nothing special, but it pays.”

  “Let’s sit down,” said Jean. They moved away from the crowded bar to a small table beside the door. They sipped their wine. People came and went, greeting their neighbors. Suspicion and misgivings hung in the air like the smoke.

  “What are you up to? Otherwise?” said Henri.

  “Nothing much,
” said Jean.

  “Really?” said Henri. “That’s not what I hear.”

  “What do mean?” said Jean. “What do you hear?”

  “That you’re with the resistance, the maquis,” said Henri.

  “You’re kidding,” said Jean. “The maquis?”

  “That’s what I hear,” said Henri.

  “From who?” said Jean.

  “Let’s just say that’s what I hear.”

  “Well whoever it is doesn’t know what he’s talking about. That kind of talk can get people in trouble. Me? I’m staying out of things.”

  “What do you mean ‘get people in trouble’?” said Henri.

  “I’m just saying,” said Jean. “People ought to mind their own business and be sure of their facts before they open their mouths.”

  “You know, you can’t stay out of things,” said Lucien. He drew deeply on his cigarette and snuffed out the tiny stub in the ashtray. “How are you going to stay out of things? It’s like saying you’re going swimming and not getting wet.”

  “That’s right,” said Henri, studying Jean. “I mean there are sides; there’s no middle. These days you’re on one side or the other.”

  “Yeah?” said Jean. “Well, I don’t see it that way. I’m keeping my head down, like I said.”

  “You should come to Aseline’s on Friday,” said Lucien. “It might interest you.”

  “Yeah?” said Jean. “What’s going on at Aseline’s?” It was his turn to extinguish his cigarette, and he did it as though it were a delicate operation, mashing it this way and that in the ashtray until not a spark or a wisp of smoke was left.

  “Well?” said Henri, looking at Lucien. “You brought it up. So tell him.”

  “Well,” said Lucien, “we’ve only been once, so I can’t tell you too much. But it’s a bunch of people who … well, we don’t particularly like the Germans but … well, we think Pétain is doing his best to save France, and the communists are trying their best to destroy what he’s building and, well, they’re—the communists—behind the maquis, and they’re the ones passing out that pamphlet, which is openly communist, and they’re doing other things.…”