The Indigo Rebels: A French Resistance novel

by Ellie Midwood

  “Herr Hauptmann awaits you.” The young man got up and proceeded to open the door to Herr Hauptmann’s office, motioning Marcel inside.

  Marcel faltered at the door, waiting for the man at the table to acknowledge his presence. So, if the young officer, who he saw in his sister’s window was his orderly, this one was the Boche who lived with Kamille. He was rather young and handsome, in that German blond-hair-blue-eyes way. The uniform suited him well; better than Marcel’s had suited him (back when he still wore it, that is).

  “Sit down, please.”

  Even his accent was soft and barely noticeable. Germans, who spoke French in the same manner as this one, came from well-educated, upper-middle-class families, Marcel thought with relief, remembering Philippe’s teachings for the millionth time. They weren’t savages like the ones who used the Nazi Party to swiftly rise from poverty and abuse the higher echelon of power by being brutally vicious in pursuing their higher command’s twisted desires. And this man was wearing a Wehrmacht uniform, not an SS one, or plain clothes, which was the Gestapo agents’ trademark. Marcel noticed a child’s painting with some other documents under the thick glass, which was covering the German’s table, and let out a soft sigh of relief. Hardened Nazis, who tortured people for a living, would hardly display such sentimental items in their office.

  The German noticed his look and quickly moved a sheet of paper on top of the drawing, covering it.

  “You’re Philippe Bussi’s brother?”

  “Yes, I am.” Marcel nodded his affirmation.

  The German squinted his eyes slightly, scrutinizing his face.

  “You two don’t look alike. Your brother is a veritable giant.”

  Marcel offered him a bashful smile.

  “Everybody says so. He took after our father. And I – after our mother.”

  “I see.” The German proceeded to study Marcel’s papers closely, marking something down in a notepad next to him. “Are you aware of your brother’s activities within the Communist Party?”

  “I do know that he has a fascination with it, yes. But I never understood why, to be honest.”

  “Is that so?” The German’s brow shot up in surprise. “Usually when a family member belongs to a certain party, he drags everyone else in too, especially younger brothers who strive for approval.”

  “That was not the case with our family. Philippe traveled a lot, and I stayed on the farm and took care of it together with my father. I never understood why Philippe found communism so attractive. It’s too… vague and idealistic, in my opinion.”

  The German got back to his scrutinizing.

  “So you have read about their main ideas, have you? I must say, you sound very well-educated for a farmer. Where did you go to school?”

  Marcel bit his tongue inside his mouth, realizing his mistake. Philippe had warned him to speak like a factory worker, not a former Sorbonne student, and he had gone and done just that. Moron!

  “There’s a school for farmers’ children that I attended for nine years… But it was mostly Philippe who taught me other subjects and gave me books to read.”

  “Communist manifests?”

  “No. French classics mostly.”

  “Interesting choice.” The German grinned.

  Marcel almost thought that the worst part was over when suddenly his interrogator took a photo out of his folder and put it right in front of Marcel’s eyes. From the black and white surface, Nicolas’s face looked at his with his unseeing eyes, his wet hair matted and blood streaks marring his young, innocent face. Marcel pulled back at once.

  “Did you know this man?”

  “Yes.” Something caught in his throat, and Marcel forced himself to clear it under the German’s attentive stare. “Yes, I did. He worked in the same factory with us.”

  “Do you know what happened to him?”

  “He just failed to come to work one day… We thought that something happened in his family, or his failing lungs got the better of him. He was coughing quite badly.”

  “You see now that it was not the case.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Do you know why he got shot?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “He and one of his comrades organized an assault on two of our army soldiers. He got killed, while the other one was lucky to escape.” The German held a very long pause. “You wouldn’t be, by any chance, the one to know who that second comrade was?”

  “I assure you that it was not my brother,” Marcel spoke fast, wiping sweaty palms on top of his trousers under the table. “He wouldn’t do something of this sort…”

  “I know for a fact that it was not Philippe Bussi,” his interrogator replied, nodding. “He has a firm alibi of being at work on the day when the assault happened. Just like the rest of his comrades, with whom he is seen with most of the time. Only one man was absent from work that day.”

  Marcel swallowed hard, already knowing what the German would say next.

  “You.”

  21

  Humming a tune under her breath, Giselle didn’t notice Karl clearing his throat behind her back. Her fingers were flying over the keys of the typing machine, apparently not fast enough to follow her thoughts. Only when he brushed her hair gently did she turn towards him, beaming.

  “Your muse has returned to you, I see?” he inquired, observing a small stack of papers filled with black text on the corner of her table.

  “It has indeed.” Giselle shifted in her seat, impatient to return to work. “You wanted something?”

  Karl nodded and produced a stack of papers from behind his back.

  “I found these in the waste bin and realized that it was your manuscript. You must have thrown it away by mistake.” He held his hand out, but Giselle only shook her head, not making any attempt to take the papers from him.

  “I don’t need it anymore. I started a new project.”

  “Just like that? There are a lot of pages in this one… Surely, you can make something suitable out of this.”

  “You said it yourself that my characters were bored and overfed. I reread it and realized that you were right. That manuscript is no good. Now this one,” she motioned her head towards her typing machine, “this one is simply brilliant. I’ve written five chapters already, in one sitting.”

  Karl glanced at the stack of papers near the typing machine with curiosity, placing both hands with the old manuscript behind his back once again.

  “What is it about?”

  “Oh. I decided to try the noir genre. Literary fiction has become a little too overused for me.” She scrunched her nose.

  “Noir?”

  “Yes. You know, murders and femme fatales,” Giselle whispered in a theatrical manner, narrowing her eyes. “Only, I changed it a little. In my noir novel, a femme fatale is a killer, not a beautiful victim. The public should be intrigued, what do you think?”

  Karl didn’t reply and only straightened his back a little more. Giselle noticed his movement, and grinned more widely.

  “Yes. You know me, I’m an innovator. Ordinary noir bores me. So, I made my main protagonist a woman instead of a man, like I used to do before and like everyone else does. Present day, the war is raging… And she’s just an ordinary French housewife, right? An exemplary one, of course, not like me.” She laughed, but her playful laughter sounded artificial. “And what do you know? Behind her perfect façade, this exemplary housewife plans her husband’s murder. He’s a no-good husband too; he cheated on her, and she found out. Only, when she demanded a divorce, he hurt her, not much, but just enough to threaten her to stay in the relationship. And so she stays, only in her mind she’s scheming such things, from which the hair on his neck would have stood up if he had the ability to read her thoughts.”

  A meaningful silence lingered for what felt like a minute until Giselle turned on her chair and started humming again, gently caressing the keys with her fingers instead of hitting them with force, as she did it before.

>   “And so?” She heard Karl’s voice, tense with barely detectable emotion, behind her back. “Does she kill him?”

  “I don’t know yet. So far she’s in the planning phase, making sure that she can get away with it. As soon as she ensures that she can…” Giselle threw another impish glare over her shoulder at the German. “Then she will.”

  He slowly circled the table and stood in front of her, placing her old manuscript on top of the new one.

  “It’s a rather dangerous idea.”

  “Trying to get away with one’s husband’s murder? Most certainly.”

  “No,” Karl replied coldly. “That new novel of yours.”

  “That’s a chance I’ve got to take. With my name and my connections I’m quite sure that, just like my protagonist, I can get away with anything.”

  A pointed look of her green eyes unnerved him, she could see it in the thin blue vein pulsating above the high collar of his uniform jacket. Giselle sighed contentedly and offered him her most radiant smile. His guarded look remained in place.

  “Do you think that people will like something of this sort?” he inquired quietly.

  “Oh, my darling, people will absolutely love it! They’ll be in ecstasy, I promise!”

  Another pregnant pause followed.

  “So, what, if you don’t mind me asking, inspired you for such a… dark undertaking?”

  “Oh. Promise not to tell anyone.” Giselle pressed both palms on her chest in a play-pleading gesture, mischief dancing in her gaze. “I reread ‘Crime and Punishment,’ and inspiration just overcame me. Can you believe it?”

  Karl replied with a tight-lipped smile. “That’s prohibited literature you’re playing with.”

  “Are you going to bring me up on charges? Come, Charlie, even you couldn’t bring yourself to throw away that book. It’s a first edition, a rare, collectible item, and besides, you know my weakness for Russian classics. You said it yourself: even your highly praised Goebbels loves it.”

  Karl studied her face a little longer. “I’d like to read it when you’re done.”

  “Pas de problème, chéri. And, knowing how impatient you are, I’ll put these first few chapters on your bedside table this very evening.”

  “Danke.”

  He turned around sharply on his heels and proceeded to his study. Giselle stretched her arms over her head, moved her tense shoulders front and back a few times, and attacked her typing machine with a renewed vigor.

  Kamille pushed more paper into the fireplace, trying to get the damp wood to start burning. Thankfully, they still had wood, only due to the German officers’ presence in the house. From her neighbors, she heard that all firewood had been confiscated, unless a uniform-clad tenant was lodging with the owners. The others, who weren’t so fortunate, had to warm themselves with multiple blankets in their unheated houses. And it was not even winter yet.

  Violette lay on the carpet in front of the fireplace, mixing her aquarelles in an emptied-out ink bottle, drawing some chef d’oeuvre, judging by the look of deep concentration on her face. Kamille smiled at her daughter and shifted the wood with an iron rod, allowing it to finally start catching fire. She had just moved to lower herself onto the carpet next to Violette, when the latter, together with Giselle’s Pekinese, who seemed to have taken a liking to the girl and wouldn’t leave her side now, scrambled to her feet and rushed to the hallway.

  “Monsieur Jochen!”

  Kamille caught a quiet gasp escaping her lips and hurried after her daughter. Violette was already hanging off his neck, her bubbly enthusiasm being most contagious.

  “I haven’t expected you so early,” Kamille admitted, stopping within a few steps from him and fighting the desire to greet him with a tight embrace as well. Despite their relationship, they still maintained decorum, at least in front of Violette, even though Kamille had long suspected that her savvy little girl was more than informed about the true nature of their ‘friendship.’ “I haven’t even started making dinner…”

  “Don’t worry about dinner.” Jochen put Violette down, planting another loud kiss on top of her head, causing the girl to giggle. He rubbed Coco behind the ear and straightened, positively beaming. “Horst is bringing something for us to feast on. We stopped at the café nearby and ordered some food to take home with us. I thought that some real red meat would be most welcome in this cold.”

  “You’re in a good mood,” Kamille noticed, rushing to help him remove his overcoat.

  “I’m in a great mood,” he agreed cheerfully. “We got our terrorist, at last!”

  “You did?” Kamille breathed out with relief, almost as elated with his success as Jochen himself. “That’s great news!”

  “Indeed.” Jochen caught her hand in between the folds of the overcoat when Violette couldn’t see and pressed it in the most affectionate manner. “My superiors are most satisfied.”

  “Everything will be back to normal now?” Kamille’s voice was a mere whisper, full of hope. Maybe, if he were in a better mood than he had been recently, he would overlook her little ‘church trips.’

  Jochen only nodded his reassurance and moved away from the door, when his adjutant walked in, carrying two heavy paper bags which produced a mouth-watering smell.

  “Good evening, Madame Kamille.”

  “Good evening, Monsieur Horst.”

  “Good evening,” Violette chimed in with her high voice and outstretched her arms in an attempt to offer the young man help with one of his bags.

  “No, no, it’s far too heavy for a young lady like yourself,” Jochen protested and took the heavy burden from Horst himself. “You better go help you mother set the table instead, and I’ll go get a decent bottle of wine from the cellar for us to celebrate.”

  “What are we celebrating?” Violette’s natural curiosity showed itself once again, despite all of her mother’s reproaches, calling it un-ladylike behavior.

  “Monsieur Jochen and Monsieur Horst caught a very dangerous criminal today,” Kamille explained, placing her hand on her daughter’s shoulder and nudging her towards the dining room. “Go put a tablecloth, the red one, on the table, and I’ll go fetch plates and silverware.”

  The two officers waited with infinite patience while Violette carefully smoothed all wrinkles out of the rich, cherry-red tablecloth.

  “What did he do? The criminal?” the girl inquired, pulling one end of the tablecloth down so it would be perfectly in line with the other end. She observed her job with a critical eye and smiled at the men, inviting them to place their bags on the surface.

  “He attacked our soldiers together with his comrade,” Jochen explained, taking the heavy dishes out of the paper bag. The seductive smell intensified.

  “Why?”

  “He…” Jochen pondered his reply for a few moments. “He wanted to sabotage a major operation for the German army. And, so, he attacked the soldiers who were in charge of this operation.”

  “Did he kill them?”

  Horst snorted softly, apparently finding this little interrogation rather amusing. Jochen shot him a glare, and the young man doubled his efforts in taking care of the food platters.

  “No, he didn’t. But he did… damage our property.”

  “Why? Aren’t we friends now?”

  “Friends?”

  “Well, yes. We signed the armistice, didn’t we? So we’re supposed to be friends now, the Germans and the French. That’s what our new maître says.”

  “Your new maître is right,” Kamille joined in, returning to the room with a stack of plates, folded napkins and silverware neatly laid out on top of them. “We are friends; only some people refuse to acknowledge it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they don’t like the occupation. Enough questions, Violette, you’re being rude,” Kamille lowered her voice in reprimand.

  Violette nodded with a solemn look. “I know. Some people are just being mean for no reason. Just like Jacques, that boy, who tore my drawing apart,
just because Monsieur Horst helped me draw it. But I like Monsieur Horst…”

  “How can you not like Monsieur Horst?” Jochen replied jokingly, making his adjutant chuckle. “He’s an absolute charmer.”

  Violette nodded her agreement and climbed into her chair after the last plate was set.

  “What are you going to do to him now?”

  Kamille thought of chiding her daughter once again for her questioning, but she was curious herself.

  “Nothing.” Jochen shrugged, after sending Horst for a bottle of wine. “I’ll try to question him myself tomorrow, but if he refuses to speak about his reasons or accomplices, I’ll have to hand him over to the Gestapo.”

  “Giselle’s tenant will be delighted at such a prospect,” Kamille tried to hide a bashful smile after her little jab at the Chief of the local Staatspolizei.

  “Oh, he called me already on the terrorist’s account.” Jochen picked up a steak knife and started cutting into the thick, bleeding cut of meat. Violette wetted her lips, pulling forward in her chair.

  “He did?” Kamille repeated.

  “Mhm. Quite a… friendly gentleman.” The sarcasm in his voice was more than obvious. “So amiable that the least I deal with him, the better. So, I’ll just let him have his terrorist and return to my usual duties.”

  Horst returned with a bottle of red wine and popped it open with a practiced move. Kamille raised her glass in toast together with the two men, only for some reason Violette’s voice kept repeating her questions over and over, the questions that only children had the courage to ask. The parents preferred to seal their lips when it came to the occupation and to pretend that they indeed were “friends.” Suddenly, at the thought of that “terrorist’s” brave, even though foolish, actions, the steak tasted foul in her mouth, just like a gag that the Germans were trying to impose on the whole nation. Had she indeed become one of them now? A collaborator, eating from the enemy’s hand and allowing the same enemy to offer one of her countrymen for execution at the hands of the brutal Gestapo? Kamille stabbed another piece of bloody meat with her fork, angry at her own impotence. Even Giselle seemed a lesser collaborator to her than her reflection, accusingly staring at her from the mirror across the room, framed by the two uniform-clad men. But what could she do, really? She was under occupation as well.