Hunting Ground

by J. Robert Janes

  As he left the room, he muttered, ‘Potatoes might help.’

  ‘Marcel’s not to be trusted, Lily.’ said Simone. ‘You know this far better than we do, so why, please?’

  The shoulder-length black hair was wiry and thick and desperately needing its brush and comb, the grey eyes betraying an uneasiness I didn’t realize I was to see time and again in the years to come.

  ‘Tommy’s at the farmhouse with Nicki.’

  ‘Ah, merde, you can’t get mixed up in anything like that, not with Jules and the Vuittons! Even we have seen how close they are to the Nazis.’

  Sitting at her feet, I folded my arms about her knees. ‘For us, we have to decide.’

  ‘But … but why now? Why not give us a chance to learn the ropes? Every day there are changes. New ration cards, new ordinances, more and more papers to fill out. This place … They’ve already been here to question André about some of his patients.’

  ‘The missing ones?’ Those who had gone south during the Exodus and had stayed away, fearing the worst if they came back.

  She nodded. ‘Their valuables, their houses … Lily, what are we going to do?’

  ‘Decide. Tommy and Nicki will be here in the city in three days.’

  ‘If Marcel keeps his word! How can he? He never has.’

  ‘I’ll look the ground over first. They’ll both be armed.’

  ‘You’ll what? Hey, listen, you, I’m not hearing this! What’s got into you? Marcel …’

  ‘Will you hide them for me?’

  Me, I let her cry her heart out, this friend of mine, and tell her, ‘They have to link up with someone. I don’t know who he is, but it must be important.’

  Somehow a presence of mind was summoned. ‘Has this anything to do with the auctions at the Jeu de Paume?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  * * *

  Darkness does something to a person after you’ve been in prison for a while. You never know when they’ll come for you. They may give you a cigarette, your last; they may beat the shit out of you, so you try to sleep, but are always wary. Your mind goes round and round asking, Have I told them this; had I better say something else?

  Huddling in a corner—shaking—it’s never pleasant, so I’ve walked the six or seven kilometres through the forest, have left the ‘Château’ de St-Germain for a little. The wind is from the northeast out of the Baltic it seems, and I’m standing amid the ruins of my mother’s farmhouse near Barbizon. The ashes lift with the wind when I stir them, and the smell comes to me: old, damp, musty, so many things.

  They put it to the torch after having dragged that poor woman out and shot her.

  Forgive me. If only I’d known, but let me remember the time before it happened, because I must. A time of warmth, a tenderness I could never have believed possible.

  We sit there, just the three of us, and I couldn’t believe what’s happened. I couldn’t! ‘Marie … Nini … How I love you both for this.’

  Marie was alive. Nini had gone south to Provence. She had found my little girl safely with her grandmother. Some people had picked Marie up in the confusion and had taken her with them on the Exodus. Marie had run away just as Jean-Guy had said. She hadn’t been killed.

  I was a mother again—whole, complete, with two hearts to protect and all the fears that go with such a thing, and I couldn’t keep my hands off Marie. I touched her hair, her back, looked at her, said how much she’s grown. My sister watched me, and finally the daughter she had adopted took a hesitant step towards the mother she’d thought lost. Then it was Nini who couldn’t keep her hands from touching us. It was, of all the moments in a war that was filled with so many, the most profound for me.

  Only later did we talk of Marcel, and only later did I tell Tommy and Nicki about the lift I’d arranged. Smoke rose from the lantern on the kitchen table. Marie slept in my arms. Nicki cleaned and loaded the Lebels, checking them over yet another time.

  Janine had just made us some sandwiches, big, crusty things of meat and cheese, the last of the food she’d managed to bring from Provence. There were olives, too, and a bottle of wine. ‘Marcel can be trusted this time,’ she said, ‘but maybe not the next. He’s an odd one, Lily. He runs deeper than you’d think.’

  Me, I had to tell her how it really was. ‘But he will wait to see what we’re up to. If he must sell information, he’ll make certain of what he has to offer.’

  Tommy wasn’t pleased with this analysis. ‘Perhaps we should forget about it and try some other way.’

  Nini reached for the olives. ‘Then there would only be trouble because Marcel would feel he had to strike while he could. No, it’s best you go, but give me a couple of days. After I’ve taken Marie to Lily at the house and made a big show of it, I’ll go into Fontainebleau and turn myself in. Those gros légumes will have to send me to Paris where I can then be of much use to you.’

  The big vegetables, the brass, the Oberbonzen und Bonzen. ‘And is that wise for yourself?’ asked Nicki.

  My sister had a way of smiling at a man she liked. It was very delicate, very subtle, you understand. A slight twist of the lips. Very seductive.

  ‘It’s the only thing I can do. Oh, for sure, Marie and I crossed the demarcation line from the Free Zone without a permit, but lots of people are doing it. I had to return my sister’s daughter. The Boche can’t all be without heart. Besides, they might not even check. They might be so anxious to see me, they’ll forget all about it.’

  ‘Which leads us to Michèle and the others. What has happened to them?’ I asked.

  She indicated that I should hurry up and eat something, that the time for me being there was running short. ‘Michèle and Henri-Philippe split up with Dmitry and me in Lyons when the van finally packed it in.’

  ‘And Dmitry?’

  Nini could shrug like no other woman. ‘We slept in the fields. One morning, I awoke to find him gone.’

  I grabbed her hands. ‘Is he a Nazi, of the SS?’

  She shook her head. ‘He’s a Communist. He didn’t tell me this. Ah, mon Dieu, how the hell could he? I found out in other ways—friends, associates of his, a little by following him, too.’

  There was the sharp click of a hammer, but when we looked at Nicki, he only shrugged, though he had one of the Lebels in hand and we knew he hated Communists, but all he said was, ‘War makes strange bedfellows. I wonder who he killed for that Luger you’ve still got hidden?’

  When I told them of the rest of the cache, Nicki said, ‘Burn the papers. Don’t keep them around. Bury the wallet where they’ll never find it. Don’t trust the stove with leather. He can always get himself another set of papers after we’ve checked him out. After, Lily.’

  It made me wonder what Dmitry would have to say about things.

  Tommy walked me across the fields and into the woods until we came to the road I was to take. We had said so little to each other, we still seemed at a loss for words. I knew I dreaded their linking up with Marcel’s contacts. Tommy also knew how I’d be feeling about meeting them where I’d been attacked. ‘Be careful,’ he said. ‘I’d hate to lose you.’

  ‘Hey, listen, I’ll be seeing you in two nights. Marie’s safe!’

  ‘And I’m glad for all of us. Your sister’s quite a girl, Lily, but is she too impulsive?’

  He’d seen this, hence his silence. ‘Nini will be okay. That one will grow up fast because she has to.’

  I didn’t ask what he and Nicki were planning. Very quickly, we dropped into this way of working. What one didn’t know the Nazis couldn’t pry out. Later, of course, I absolutely had to know.

  ‘What will you do if Schiller’s there in the house?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll stay right there and keep him busy.’

  Tommy’s kiss was hesitant. I think some snowflakes were falling, the first light dusting of the 1940–1941 winter that was to be so harsh.

  The dawn hasn’t broken yet. It’s still pitch-dark, but how many times was I to drag myself home like th
is, dead beat only to appear as if refreshed by a night’s sleep? The note is still nailed up there by that fork. I run my fingers over it, feel the jamb of the door, a touch … just a touch. Have they come as requested?

  The door is no longer the way I left it. There is something—a feeling, a sixth sense, call it what you will, but you either have it or you don’t. They’ve come.

  Cautiously my fingers move down the jamb and across the stone sill until I find the length of thin wire. So it’s to be this way, is it? No confrontation. No, ‘Lily, let’s talk things over.’

  Just as I’ve suspected, there’s a car parked down the road. I give it a careful circuit, run my fingers lightly over its dented wings. A Citroën—prewar, real vintage, a 1937, I think. Black, with lovely flowing lines. One of the Sûreté’s, ah, oui. Dupuis at last.

  With my SS knife, I let the air out of every one of the tyres and fade fast into the trees, for that hunting ground of kings is to be hunted over again, and I must remember everything I will need, only this time it’s me who’s the hunter.

  Tommy waited beside me in the forest, just near the turn-off to Arbonne. Nicki had gone to watch the road. It was two days since I met them at the farmhouse, and Marcel’s contacts hadn’t shown up. It was almost dawn.

  We didn’t know what to think. For them, for me, the waiting had become an agony. Should they return to the farmhouse? Should they hide out in the forest and try to make a run for the zone libre?

  There had been no opportunity for love, none in which to lie in his arms. Again, I asked him, ‘Are you sure of the address? Simone will hide you, but you must get a message to her first. She’ll know what to do about their concierge.’

  Faintly on the cold night air the sound of a gazogène lorry finally came. Since it had a firebox that produced wood gas to power its engine, there was a certain misfiring of the engine, the grinding of ancient gears, a hunkering down before each gentle rise. Those things, they didn’t have any more than sixty percent of the power of a gasoline engine.

  Soon there were voices, the pungent aroma of wood smoke, and the squeal of ancient brakes. ‘Sacré nom de nom, is this the fucking place? Hey, mais amis, are you the ones we’re suppose to collect?’

  There were pigs in the back of the lorry, which the smoke and the banging of the engine had frightened. The poor things squealed, making a racket of their own. Thirty or so were haunch-to-haunch and terrified as light from a torch briefly passed over them before coming to rest on the money in my hands.

  ‘Ten thousand francs, madame.’

  ‘Ten? But …’

  Nicki says, ‘Give it to him.’

  There were no names and I didn’t see their faces, but knew Marcel had done me in again.

  ‘Vite, vite,’ said someone. ‘Get in the back.’

  They were gone and I had to return to the house alone.

  The axe fell once, the axe fell twice. Blood splashed over the chopping block. A head rolled away, but it was not a human head. No young girl vents her bowels at the moment of her death. The eyes of Michèle Chevalier didn’t stare up at me, not yet.

  I was down the road from the house. Georges was butchering rabbits. I held the children by the hand. There was snow, and all around the woodpile it had been trampled.

  Another rabbit was seized by the hind legs and ears. It jerked as it was taken from the cage, tried desperately to get away, but he swung it up high in the air. Marie’s eyes follow it. She was very silent, very intent. Her lips were parted in a gasp as the rabbit came down hard in a rush of brown fur, Jean-Guy watching it hit the block as its eyes burst.

  Up came the axe. The black beret, stained by the grey of snotty forefingers and thumbs, was pulled down, for we’d come at his summons. ‘Madame, your husband wishes me to tell you that your friends are not wanted.’

  Georges had been to Fontainebleau again to talk to his wife’s relatives. ‘Which friends?’

  ‘The two who came three nights ago, late and well after curfew. I saw them, madame. There’s no sense in your lying.’

  Fortunately, I had an answer for him. ‘That was Michèle Chevalier and her boyfriend, Henri-Philippe Beauclair. They’re on their way back to Paris from the south, and the colonel has said they might stay for a few days.’

  The stained butt of his Gauloise bleue was pinched out and budgeted in a small, flat tin as he clucked his tongue, ground his false teeth, and began to skin the rabbits. ‘It’s not the colonel’s house, madame. Monsieur Jules has asked that they leave.’

  The skin was pulled off as he continued. ‘We have only the interests of our employer at heart. If there are goings on at the house, they must be reported to Monsieur Jules.’

  ‘Who is paying you again, but how much, please?’

  Bundled in an old coat, boots, scarf, and crocheted hat, Tante Marie appeared with the iron casserole. ‘That is no business of yours. Be thankful you’ve been left alone.’

  One by one, the little corpses were laid side by side and the skins collected. ‘They’ll be gone in two days,’ I told them. ‘The Lieutenant Schiller wishes to interrogate the two here, so there’s nothing you or I can do about it.’

  They didn’t look at one another, only at the rabbits, Georges wiping his hands on the skins. ‘You’ll be the death of us all, madame.’

  ‘Then you’ll only get what you deserve!’

  I dragged the children after me, those two watching, one on either side of that chopping block with the wood piled up under the roof of their shed—oak, beech, and pine. New wood. Seasoned wood. Lovely stuff!

  ‘There was a third visitor, madame,’ he called out ‘This is the one who must definitely leave.’

  The pilot Michèle and Henri-Philippe have brought me. ‘There is no third person!’

  It’s Tante Marie who says, ‘Would you like the Germans to look for him? Be sensible. Don’t bring trouble down on all of us. Just let him leave. It’s not your affair. It certainly isn’t ours.’

  He was badly burned about the hands, but would they have me turn him out in this weather, 22 January 1941? I remember the date because, late the previous night, we had listened to the BBC London and had learned of the British and Australian breakthrough at Tobruk.

  Of Tommy’s and Nicki’s getting safely into Paris, there had, as yet, been no word.

  The dawn has come. The house is still. There’s no sign of Dupuis or any of the others. They’re afraid to show themselves, but from where I’m sitting in the forest, I can watch the place and remember.

  I never once questioned what I should do about that pilot. For me, his life was precious. I remember, though, that his hands were black, that the encrusting scabs leaked pus and the fingers couldn’t move as he lay in the spare bedroom next to Marie’s. I’d locked the door and had brought him some soup. ‘Can you sit up a little?’ I asked.

  He was only nineteen, just a boy, had been flying aeroplanes since the age of sixteen. ‘In the bush,’ he had said, and I had seen the dream of it in his eyes and known he wanted only to go home to Canada.

  His name was Collin Parker. He was tall, big, and once strong; more than filled the length of the bed. I set the soup down and took hold of him under the arms. Collin pushed himself up with his feet.

  He gave a sigh, didn’t complain. ‘How are things?’ he asked in a whisper.

  ‘Okay. Schiller’s interrogating Henri-Philippe first, in the library.’

  The soup—a broth of chicken stock, finely chopped vegetables, and a little wine—was just what he needed, but he couldn’t eat much. He was too weak. ‘You’re going to have to turn me in,’ he said.

  We both knew this, but I told him to hang on. ‘Once Michèle and Henri-Philippe get to Paris, André de Verville will come. He’s a very good doctor.’

  ‘Can’t you trust anyone local?’

  ‘They give me no reason. Fontainebleau is replete with collaborators and Boche. Now eat, please. At least a little more.’

  His Bristol Beaufort had been on coastal patr
ol out of West Malling in Kent when the weather had socked in. They’d drifted off course and had been shot down over Rouen. Collin had crash-landed in a field. Of the others in the crew, he remembers only the flames and the screams, which are with him all the time. His hands had been welded to the stick, but somehow he’d been thrown clear or had gotten free of the wreckage, though with no knowledge of this.

  Luck played such a part in things. Luck found him with a farmer who passed him on to another and another so that he made a wide detour around Paris only to find himself alone at our railway station in Avon.

  Luck caused Henri-Philippe and Michèle to get off the Paris-bound train and pause to stand beside him. He’d been trying to make sense of the timetable, had thought he might head for Spain. Henri-Philippe noticed that his hands were leaking through the shabby woollen mittens he’d been given; Michèle asked if he might, perhaps, need a little help in reading the timetable.

  I’m the one who cut the mittens off. ‘Now try to sleep.’ I left the soup—I could get that later. I closed and locked the door, wiped my hands on my apron, and tried to tidy my hair.

  That house … How it all comes back to me. The corridor was long and filled with such lovely things, but it passed by the open door to the library. Their voices were muted, for they were sitting at the far end of the room, facing each other across the small oval of a Louis XV gilt-wood table. The Louis XIV chairs were really very uncomfortable, and Schiller had chosen the setting, even the furniture they’d use.

  Henri-Philippe would be able to look out the French window to see Rudi standing guard at the gate, and if Schiller wanted it, knees would touch ‘accidentally’ to generate increased fear, and we would’t know what he’d asked Henri-Philippe or what answers had been given.

  Pale and afraid, Michèle was waiting for me in the kitchen. She’d brushed her lovely light brown hair and tied it behind with a dark brown ribbon. The blouse and heavy cardigan suited her, but she couldn’t panic, couldn’t weaken. ‘Just answer readily,’ I told her. ‘Repeat if necessary, but don’t offer information. Let him do the digging.’