“I read your article before Michel approved it for print,” Antoine whispered in Giselle’s ear as another couple passed them by, and all four exchanged acknowledging nods. “It was so raw and emotional that I admit I felt a slight sting of professional jealousy.”
“Pfft.” Giselle rolled her eyes dismissively and waved him off. “Flatterer! You out of all people shouldn’t feel any professional jealousy because you’re a much more gifted writer than I am. I can write my whole life and never get to the level of your poetic language and use of metaphors no matter how much I try.”
“Your writing wouldn’t be half as good as it is now, muddled with my metaphors. And my poetic language as you call it would entirely and completely destroy the naked, undisguised feelings that your characters so proudly display. I’m more of a… an American, romantically inclined Fitzgerald. And you, my dear, are definitely the disillusioned and cynical Guy de Maupassant.”
“I don’t want to be de Maupassant! I want to be Tolstoy!”
“You can’t be Tolstoy; His Excellence Count Lev Nikolaevich was too soft for you. If we’re switching to Russians, you can be Mayakovsky, if you like.”
Giselle snorted with laughter and play-swatted Antoine on his forearm. “I’m no communist, Monsieur Levy!”
“We were talking literature, not political ideology,” he countered, raising his brow.
“Can I ask you something, Antoine?”
“Of course.”
“Why did you decide to go along with this… project?” Even though Giselle was still smiling, her green eyes were now serious.
Antoine dropped his playful mask as well, threw a last glance to the golden water and offered his bent arm chivalrously to his friend. “Let me walk you to the train, for it’s a long story and I don’t want you to be late.”
“I’m only going to stop by my parents’ apartment to check if everything is fine. I finally got a postcard from them a day ago. They’re in the Free Zone, just like Kamille and I thought, so at least they don’t get to see these fine gentlemen,” she motioned her head in the Germans’ direction, “in the streets daily. If I’m late for curfew, I’ll just stay there for the night. So, why?”
“Why did you?”
Antoine’s smile came out a little pained this time, and Giselle already regretted asking. It seemed that, unwittingly, she had struck a nerve in his gentle, sensitive soul, capable of producing such magnificent novels which she could only dream about.
“For fun.” The blonde shrugged off the serious question, being almost sincere.
She didn’t know herself yet why she had initially said yes without giving the rather dangerous idea a second thought. The occupation almost didn’t affect her. She still cringed inwardly, of course, each time a German officer was given a better table in a café than her fellow French countryman. She tried to ignore the sighs and complaints about the endless lines and the talk about the lack of food that she couldn’t help but overhear in the streets. Her food was delivered by the housekeeper who came twice a week to clean the apartment and collect the laundry. The food rations? Karl had Otto speak with the housekeeper only once about what exactly he preferred to see in his (why, it might as well be called his now) fridge, handed her some paper, and since then Giselle started seeing even more food at home that she usually cared to buy for herself, dining mostly outside.
Out of rebellion probably, or boredom. Or because of both – that her austere looking Boche with his sharp, analytical mind was right about, Giselle admitted at last. Oh, well, out of boredom or not, at least she did something for the cause and something that wouldn’t land her in any real trouble if caught. Shoot them? No one would shoot them; it was just a silly little newspaper only. Something to later tell her children about, if she ever decided to have any.
“You still didn’t answer my question,” she reminded her friend in a mild voice after they had walked a long way without speaking a word.
Antoine sighed and lifted his honey-colored eyes to the sky, which had just started turning from a magnificent shade of pink to an ominous purple.
“I’m Jewish, Giselle. You heard already what they do to their Jews in Germany. Now they have come here, and I don’t think it will be any different. They made Michel break contracts with all Jewish writers working for his publishing house. I’m officially dismissed until further notice, with no means of existence. Well, in my case I’ve been lucky, to be completely honest. Michel still pays me a salary and my percentage of the sales every two weeks, even though he has to take the money out of his bank account. My accounts have all been arrested ‘until further notice’ as well. We’re lucky they aren’t making us wear yellow stars yet. But I feel that the change is coming, and fast. So, the answer to your question as to why I agreed to go along with this project is that I have nothing to lose. And I’ll try to do as much as I can against them while I still can.”
Giselle was silent for some time, all the words of comfort which would be suitable in any other case now tasting sour and insincere on her tongue. What could she possibly tell him to make him feel better? Nothing. Nothing at all.
“Michel is a good man,” she spoke at last, giving his forearm a reassuring squeeze instead of meaningless words. How ludicrous was it that the two renowned novelists had no words in this new world?
“Yes, he is. Without him, I wouldn’t last long.”
“I would take care of you. We all would. My bank account is fine and is more than plenty for the two of us.”
Antoine smiled the warmest smile and hugged her gently, planting a friendly kiss on Giselle’s temple. “I know. Thank you.”
“With me, you will always have a place to go to, if you need one.”
“With your new tenant there? I’ll try my chances elsewhere, but thank you for the offer.” He chuckled.
“You know what I mean, silly.” Giselle nudged him with her elbow in mock contempt. “My parents’ apartment is vacant at the moment, and they’re not planning to come back anytime soon – not that I blame them. So just give me a call if things go south with the Boches, and I’ll give you the key.”
They stopped in front of the Champs-Élysées – Clemenceau Metro station, pausing at the steps that lead underground. Antoine took Giselle’s hands in his and kissed each ceremoniously. She smiled at the incorrigible romantic; despite the constant flirting and playful jokes, the two shared a most innocent, almost sibling-like attachment to each other, and never crossed the line that would ruin their friendship.
“Here we are, Mademoiselle.”
“Merci, Monsieur.”
Antoine planted a kiss on her cheek and waited until Giselle descended the stairs, only then turning around to go back to his apartment, facing the Champs-Élysées, just like Giselle’s only from the western side. Heavens knew how long he would be allowed to enjoy that grand, majestic view.
12
Giselle cursed under her breath, almost losing her footing on the cobbled road, slippery with evening dew, for the third time in five minutes. Bercy, the residential area in the 12th arrondissement, despite being considered middle-class and well looked after, apparently lacked lampposts where they were needed most. Giselle almost regretted not seeing feldgendarmes around or their German bosses.
“Of course they don’t patrol this area,” she kept muttering so as to embolden herself with the sound of her voice to go through the dark, narrow street. “They only patrol where it’s light, and where the pretty girls swarm around in the evening. I’ll be lucky if I don’t mugged here, or killed by some communists. Merde! Damn Boches and their curfew! And why the hell did they commandeer all the gas so that we can’t even use taxis now? Is it so dangerous for the occupying forces when people try to get to their destination in one piece, like me? Ah, bordel!”
She regained some confidence as soon as she turned the corner and stepped in the dingy light of the lamp, hanging above the door of the building where her parents had lived for the most of their life, and where she was born,
and later her sister and brother. Giselle caught herself shaking her head, suppressing a lopsided grin. She would have forgotten the road here if Madame and Monsieur Legrand hadn’t asked her for the favor to check on their home while they were away, and maybe rent it to someone, had she needed the money. That must have been Papa’s idea; he was always the most resourceful one, always trying to accumulate some savings. Giselle despised the very idea of this typical lower-middle-class mentality of ‘saving’ and ‘putting away for a rainy day.’
“Instead of saving, why not just make more, so that you don’t have to choose between paying rent and feeding your family? And so that your daughter isn’t ashamed to go to a Uni in her mother’s old dress; or so your wife doesn’t have to miss out on church because she’s embarrassed to go to God’s house without stockings. We could have it all you know if it weren’t for your highly valued principles. A lot of good they do,” she told him off angrily once when overhearing Maman complaining quietly about not having enough money to buy shoes for little seven-year-old Marcel.
Papa only paled then, looking at his oldest daughter as if she were a stranger, and didn’t say a word in response. It was the day when she packed all the meager possessions she had into one small rucksack, grabbed her typing machine – her parents’ present for her seventeenth birthday – and walked out, to work day shifts in a Uni café to pay her own rent and to make her own living, away from all that misery that was poisoning her life and draining her while everyone around was making fortunes. It was the day when Giselle swore to herself that she would do anything, no matter how low or unethical, to make her own living; a life filled with beautiful things that she had only seen in magazines, with influential friends and fine dining, and let them all rot with their ‘savings.’
She didn’t speak with her parents for a few months, and only came back to proudly demonstrate to them her very first article, published under an alias, but still hers, for which she got paid her first salary. They almost had a fight again, when her father refused to accept the money that Giselle tried to give them.
“Don’t be mad at me, Papa,” she said that day with a conciliatory smile, putting the money under the teapot, before getting up to leave. “I know that you would never write for that filthy press, as you call the commercial newspaper that I work for. I know that you will never be proud of what I write. But you can’t keep me here either, Papa. I wasn’t born for this misery. I was born for bigger things. I feel that I can do such great things, things that people will talk about for years after I’m gone… Please, don’t be mad at me. You’ll be proud of me one day, you’ll see.”
Giselle was hit by a wave of deja-vu, stepping through the door leading to the staircase, which hadn’t changed in the slightest in the past thirteen years. She had refused to come back here after her first novel was published, and always invited her parents to either some restaurant or to her newly rented apartment on the fourth floor of a building with a doorman, who her mother secretly feared.
She stood indecisively on the bottom step as if making that step would somehow miraculously transport her back into old times, and the poverty and hunger of the post-war years, which seemed to be forever imprinted in these very wooden steps, shuffled by too many feet in need, hurrying to ungrateful and lowly paid work.
After making her way upstairs, Giselle dug for a key in her leather purse, smiled at the familiar rustling of the lock, and stepped inside.
“Don’t move.”
A firm grip on her shoulder, pushing her inside the apartment, and an apparent gun shoved in between her shoulder blades made Giselle raise both hands instinctively, cursing her decision to come back here in the first place. Great, now some burglar, or worse, a runaway criminal who they had released from the prisons during the exodus, and who had most likely taken up residence in a seemingly vacant apartment, would rob and kill her in her childhood home.
“Make a sound, and I’ll make my trigger happy.” The intruder, whose face she couldn’t see for he had caught her completely unawares hiding behind the door, had shut it closed as soon as he had his victim on aim, judging by the sound of it. His hand released her shoulder only to slide down her waist and back while he searched her for weapons. However, Giselle still slapped his hand hard, gun or no gun pointing at her back.
“You try to lay your dirty hands on me, and you’re dead! The chief of the city’s Department of Staatspolizei is living with me, and he will be here within thirty minutes if I’m not back in time. And when he finds you – and he will find you – he’ll cut you into such fine pieces that you will resemble a Union Jack, flying from the gallows the next morning!”
Instead of a reply, the same strong arm turned her around forcefully, and Giselle came face to face with a giant of a man, well over six feet tall, with dark brows knitted together and black eyes shining with anger. Giselle, nevertheless, quickly regained her composure, glowering as well and doing her best not to look intimidated.
“What the hell are you doing in this apartment?”
“How the hell did you get in here?”
They spoke at the same time, the man’s gun still pointing at her chest. Giselle crossed her arms over her chest, thrusting her chin forward in a defiant manner.
“Unlike you, I obviously used a key.”
“Do you work for the Gestapo?”
“What?” Giselle arched her brow, to which the man jerked his wrist with the gun impatiently.
“I don’t have time to play games with you, Madame. Are you their agent, yes or no? Who gave you this key? That Gestapo chief, your Boche lover? Are there people outside waiting for you? How many?”
“Yes. The whole brigade of the finest, vilest and best trained Gestapo agents are waiting outside. Even Heydrich and Himmler are there, too. To take pictures, you know. You’re so important, after all. They came all the way from Berlin to arrest such a famous criminal, whatever it is you were in jail for. You uncovered our plot. Bravo.”
Giselle pronounced the whole tirade with such a dispassionate face and in such a flat tone that “the criminal,” no matter how much he tried to contain himself, snorted with laughter, demonstrating two rows of enviously even, white teeth. Even Giselle felt the corners of her red mouth curl upwards in a grin.
“Did you seriously think that even if the Gestapo were onto you, they would have sent a woman here first? And a woman like me, on top of it? You’re twice my size, for God’s sake!”
“All right, I admit, it was a rather foolish assumption.”
“It certainly was.”
“Still, what are you doing here?”
He had lowered his gun but was still blocking the doorway. Regardless, Giselle had decided by now that he was harmless and relaxed her shoulders, toying with the keys in her gloved hands.
“It’s my parents’ apartment. They have gone to the Free Zone, and I came to check if everything was in order.” She looked the man over apprehensively. “It’s obviously not.”
“You’re – Giselle Legrand?” the man inquired, much to her surprise.
Her portraits were printed inside her books of course, and she was recognized by the patrons of theaters or restaurants from time to time, but Giselle could never complain that people bothered her in the streets. And it was a wonder that this lumberjack could read at all, to recognize her from her portraits.
“What makes you think so?” She squinted her green eyes slightly.
“You said it was your parents’ apartment. So, you’re Marcel’s sister, I suppose?”
“You know something about my brother?” Giselle stepped forward, her face lighting up at once.
“Yes,” the man grumbled, and went to the closed door that separated the living room from the bedroom. He opened it, and in several long strides crossed the room that used to be her parents’ bedroom and opened another door, which led to a separate bathroom.
Only when he stepped aside did Giselle see Marcel behind his giant frame, and the two rushed to hug each other, meeting
in the middle of the bedroom.
“Marcel! Mon petit! I’m so happy to see you! When did you return from the front?”
“Giselle! What are you doing here?” Marcel beamed at her, after kissing his sister on both cheeks.
“Who’s that?” Her face fell into a scowl once again, when she noticed two teenagers, lingering in the door of the bathroom.
“These are…” Marcel threw a glance over his shoulder in a futile attempt to come up with something credible. “Just my friends. They… erm… they’re former soldiers, from my regiment. They had nowhere to stay, so… I invited them here.”
“Nowhere to stay?” Giselle repeated skeptically.
“Yes… They’re from the South, which is the Free Zone now,” Marcel lied quickly, while the trio behind his back tried their best to look disinterested in the unraveling interrogation.
“Marcel?” Giselle tilted her head to one side, giving her brother one more chance to correct himself. He stubbornly kept quiet, studying the carpeted floor under his feet.
The Indigo Rebels: A French Resistance novel Page 11
