by Vic Robbie
Lily liked her mistress. Alena smiled when they met and was open and friendly unlike so many in the castle that were fearful of every sound and nuance. The mistress even took an interest in her mundane life and sometimes gave her an item of clothing as a gift although Lily always worried someone would suspect her of stealing. She liked her son, Freddie. Mischievous like all small boys, he was always happy to see her and often sat on her knee while she told him stories about dragons and princesses, and his eyes would widen the more bizarre they became. And the mistress would appreciate it, looking on with an adoring smile. Lily wondered if maids told stories about princesses, did princesses tell stories about maids.
Her mistress appeared to crave female company, a friend even. For most of the time, she and Freddie were alone, yet when the master visited she noticed the mistress became more withdrawn and there was a look of distrust in her eyes. She couldn’t understand their relationship. The mistress didn’t want for anything and soldiers ringed the castle protecting her from an unseen enemy. Or was she being kept a prisoner like a bird in a gilded cage? There were stories, of course. Every one of the castle staff and even some in the village shared gossip from behind a protective hand and always after checking over their shoulders to ensure no one else was listening. And then they looked as if they wished they hadn’t said anything. Even Lily found most of the stories fanciful.
Time to go to work. She went into the master bedroom and opened the voluminous brocade curtains and pulled the blankets off the bed. She threw open the mullioned windows and glanced out at the gardens before gathering up the bedclothes and shaking them out the window.
The rest of the apartment – the sitting-room, dining-room, the boy’s bedroom and the two bathrooms – had to be checked to assess the amount of work facing her. There was no sign of her mistress or the boy yet she hadn’t seen Alena downstairs and she hadn’t heard Freddie’s excited squeals and endless chatter reverberating about the place. Perhaps the mistress had gone out although, as far as she knew, Alena had never left the castle grounds in all the time she’d known her.
No matter, for now she could perhaps enjoy herself. Who could deny her a quantum of pleasure? She went out to the hall and set the bucket and broom against the door so anyone entering would dislodge them and alert her. Sitting down at the Queen Anne dressing table, she surveyed her image in the mirror and dabbed perfume on the back of her hand. In an instant, the scent transported her far away from her drudgery to a grand ballroom where she was waltzing with the handsomest man there. And, almost in a trance, she reached for a hairbrush and ran it through her hair. Fortunately, her hair was almost the same colour as the mistress’s so she never left any visible evidence she’d used the brush. The reflection in the mirror of the doors to the dressing-room interrupted the rhythm of her brushing. She wondered. Dare I? The excitement made her tingle all over and overruled the guilt and the fear of what the consequences might be. On occasions when she knew she had the time, she would select a gown and put it on and choose matching shoes and parade around the apartment in her finery. It was the closest she would ever get to becoming a princess. Every time she did this, she warned herself never again; it was too risky.
Once again the temptation proved too great to ignore and she convinced herself she wasn’t doing anything wrong by taking just one look. The dressing-room was an Aladdin’s cave of fashion. Clothes hung by sections – summer and winter dresses, ball gowns, suits, casual wear, coats, jackets and above them boxes of hats and on one side almost endless racks of shoes and boots. She knew all her mistress’s clothes and sometimes Alena would discuss them with her almost as if they were equals and occasionally she sought her advice. It was at times like these she knew she would do anything for Alena.
She ran a hand along a rack of dresses and suits like a collector caressing their works of art and checked them off, pushing them aside one by one. Sometimes she stopped to remove an errant thread or hair or to straighten a garment.
Then Lily realised something was wrong.
5
‘PAPERS,’ the corporal requested in a bored voice with a veneer of officiousness flitting across his ruddy face. ‘What have we here?’ He had enlisted to fight for the Fatherland, not to be a gatekeeper, and he believed it gave him the right to bully anyone not wearing a uniform.
‘Just delivered vegetables to the castle,’ said the farmer repeating what he’d told them when he arrived and he’d first handed over his papers. He extricated a packet of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and offered one to the corporal who discarded his own roll-up and accepted a real cigarette.
The corporal threw the papers to his underling as the farmer flipped open his lighter and leant in towards the driver’s window to catch the flame. His body stiffened as he stared over the farmer’s shoulder into the dark recesses of the van.
The farmer froze, holding his breath as the lighter flame flickered in the breeze.
‘What are those?’ barked the corporal.
‘Just sacks.’ The farmer’s voice cracked as the words stumbled out.
The soldier turned to face him, his lip curling in disbelief. ‘Sacks?’
‘For the potatoes...’
The corporal narrowed his eyes to focus on the mound of hessian and he grunted and exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke into the farmer’s face making him cough. ‘Why?’ He stared as if he could drag a confession out of him.
The farmer laughed nervously. ‘Why what?’
‘Why should I let you go?’
‘I - I don’t understand.’
‘I could lock you up and have your van impounded. And we could question you – we’re very efficient at that – and you would tell us all about your neighbours and so-called friends who are against this war.’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong, sir, I swear it.’
‘Since when did innocence make you free of guilt?’
The farmer clenched a fist in an attempt to hold back the panic.
‘Get out,’ the corporal ordered him.
The farmer hesitated.
‘Get out, now.’
He almost fell as he climbed out of his cab.
‘Why did you offer me a cigarette?’
Unable to lift his eyes to the soldier’s enquiring look, he shrugged.
‘Something to hide, perhaps?’ The corporal’s eyes never left his face.
‘No, no, no.’ He bit his tongue and felt blood on his lips.
‘Well?’ demanded the corporal.
‘Nothing, I’ve done nothing.’
‘I know your game.’
‘No, no.’ He felt the ground disappearing beneath him. ‘I –’
The corporal turned away swearing under his breath. He was enjoying exercising his power, but it was wasting time. ‘Look in the back,’ he ordered the soldier and pointed to his belt. ‘Use the bayonet.’
The private handed back the papers to the driver and detached the bayonet from his belt. Fixing it to his rifle, he made his way to the rear of the van, his boots crunching on the gravel.
‘Well, we’ll see,’ said the corporal in a reasonable voice and dragged long and hard on the cigarette so it almost all turned to ash. ‘The bayonet will soon tell us. If there’s nothing there, you’ll just have a few torn sacks, and if you’re hiding something, it’ll be of no use to you because it’ll be damaged beyond repair.’ He fixed him with a stare searching for any reaction.
Priming his rifle, the soldier pulled open the double doors. The smell of vegetables and a cloud of dust and dried mud filled his nostrils and forced him to recoil. He cleared his throat with a guttural growl and spat on the gravel, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
All her training had prepared her for this. They’d told her not to fear death as an enemy but to welcome it as a friend. Death would be a relief, an end to her suffering. It was some sort of consolation, perhaps, although not for her son whom she’d put in danger. Why should he have to pay for her mistakes? Anger churned up inside her. And now
she had no option other than to end his life. His death would be her final act of love because she feared all the unspeakable things they would do to her son if he survived.
6
LILY shook her head and returned to the bedroom and in the background the voices of the soldiers at the front gate drifted up to her. Something was missing. She went to the boy’s bedroom. Hurrying back to the master bedroom, she opened the jewellery box on the dressing-table, and now she was beginning to understand. Going back into the dressing-room, she realised what was missing.
She still heard raised voices from the front gate and the realisation of what might be happening flooded through her like a drug invading every corner of her body and her stomach cramped and her bowels turned to water. She flopped down on the bed, trying to work out a story, a defence. Would they believe it had nothing to do with her? They were like surgeons. If there were a cancer, they’d not just cut out the tumour but everything around it so it wouldn’t flare up again. She could finish her cleaning and go home as soon as possible although they would still come for her. There needn’t even have to be a suspicion of her having helped the mistress.
Everyone in the village knew what was happening and why people, sometimes entire families, disappeared overnight. A family would just be gone and the rest carried on with their lives as if nothing had happened, afraid to talk about it in case they would be next. They’d still torture her until she’d implicated her fellow innocents. When she was of no further use, they’d shoot her and throw her into a deep pit. And in the night soldiers would come again for her family. Someone who knew about these things said fathers, mothers, grandparents, brothers and sisters were forced at gunpoint to lie in the pit with their guilty relation before being buried alive in quicklime and earth.
She smelled the sweet-sour stench of fear and under her breath she begged her mistress’s forgiveness. She had no choice. She must warn them.
Stumbling to the door, she kicked aside the bucket and broom and stepped out into the corridor. Now the suits of armour didn’t trouble her. She quickened her step as the panic rose within her, moving faster and faster before breaking into a desperate run.
‘Help.’ Her voice echoed down the long corridor. ‘Help me.’
7
SWEAT ran down philippe bernay’s neck, and he didn’t like to sweat. The collar of his shirt was damp and it made him feel dirty forcing him to change into a fresh one. Fear was making him sweat and the realisation that he would face execution if his plans were discovered. Without the hint of a wind to bring relief from the enervating heat of the morning, it felt as if the whole of Paris was holding its breath with the elements a witness to the tragedy about to unfold. He knew the days ahead promised only pain.
As he prepared to leave for his office at the Banque de France, his fellow citizens were focused on their own fears. The German army would invade the city within days, and outside on the Rue de Berri people were fleeing, joining the tide of humanity escaping south. Stories of the invading Nazis’ atrocities to even women and children added fuel to their panic. Those who stayed had their reasons. Although most viewed the arrival of the Nazis with foreboding, there were some who believed things might not be as bad as they’d been told, but they refrained from sharing those opinions. His concerns were compounded by his own plans, which he doubted the more he thought about them.
As he’d done for twenty years or so, Stefan, the doorman with a face as red as his uniform, stood at his post outside the elegant apartment building. Some of the locals called him the ‘grande tomate rouge’ although they couldn’t deny an upright bearing that betrayed his military background. He wasn’t one to run nor was he the kind to panic. He’d be the last to desert as long as he could still button up his tunic.
Stefan made a final check. The car was in place by the kerbside and, after a glance up and down the street, he was satisfied there were no pedestrians likely to impede Monsieur Bernay’s progress.
It was 8.30 am.
As punctual as ever, Bernay stepped out onto the street.
‘Bonjour, Stefan.’ For once he didn’t smile. ‘So you’re still here?’
Disappointed that Bernay thought he might have considered the option Stefan touched his cap. ‘M’sieu, I’m not running away like so many of our fellow Parisians.’
An acid look flickered across Bernay’s face as if he’d touched on an unpalatable truth, and Stefan, regretting he had made the remark, stuttered. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to –’
Bernay raised a hand acknowledging the apology. ‘My wife and daughters wanted to stay with me, but I sent them away for their safety.’
‘Of course, of course.’ Stefan turned and with his right hand ushered him to his car.
‘M’sieu, the love of your life awaits you.’ Stefan bowed with a conspiratorial smile.
Perhaps it wasn’t how a doorman would be expected to address a director of the Banque de France. But it had been their ritual for many years and the director more often than not responded with a quip sparking genuine laughter. This morning, though, Bernay was more preoccupied than usual.
They’d got the gold out only days before. That would anger the Germans and it filled him with a gnawing concern as to what the Nazis might do to him once they found out. Under the tightest security, the country’s gold reserves had been removed from the bank’s underground vaults and smuggled to Brest on the coast and shipped out to Dakar and Canada. Although the Germans would still find gold at the Banque de France, it wouldn’t be France’s. As they swept through Europe, the Germans were frustrated at every turn as the invaded countries sent their gold to Paris and for those countries this was the end of the line for their bullion.
His work wasn’t finished. There was still one vital task to be completed to thwart the Germans and it was down to him alone. There was no one else.
The Derby Bentley was the love of his life after, of course, his wife and two daughters, who had left Paris days earlier. The British racing green coachwork gleamed in the morning sunlight attracting admiring glances from passers-by. Just sinking into the pale blue leather seats surrounded by the dark stained burr walnut wood trim and hearing the expensive clunk of the door closing behind him and the rumble of the engine was usually enough to lift his spirits from even the darkest pit of despair. Once behind the wheel anything seemed possible. Here was an extension of his personality and testament to all his hard work. Wherever he drove, heads turned and onlookers knew this was someone at the top of his profession.
Several years earlier on a trip to England he’d driven a Bentley around the Brooklands circuit, marvelling at the smoothness of the ride. Even at 70 mph the car was quiet, earning the soubriquet ‘the silent sports car’. He wanted one of his own and as soon as he returned home he instructed the French coachbuilders, Carrosserie Franay, to build his Bentley.
Today, not even the Bentley could raise his spirits. Now all he’d worked for and achieved was no longer of any consequence. Soon he would have to part company with the car forever and his own future, like everybody else’s in the city, would be in the hands of whatever gods the Nazis worshipped.
The Bentley’s bonnet stretched out before him like a gigantic green phallus, its polished bodywork reflecting the few clouds in the bright blue sky as he pointed the flying mascot at the Champs des Elysées. Waiting for a break in the traffic before turning left, a sudden zephyr caused two attractive women’s thin summer dresses to rise above their knees and in their embarrassment they stopped and turned to look at him. One said something to the other and they both giggled.
He failed to suppress a smile. In his late fifties, he welcomed any show of interest from the opposite sex although he doubted what he’d do about it if they ever offered anything more than a smile. Unlike many influential men of his age in France, he’d avoided taking a young mistress although there was no harm in fantasising.
He turned east on La plus belle avenue du monde as all Parisians believed it to be. The trees were in full
bloom and the white flowers of the horse chestnuts acted as a counterpoint to an avenue ablaze with colour. He loved the scent of the blossom combining with the aroma of strong coffee. As well as the women in their colourful summer dresses, the pavement cafes with their bright awnings and umbrellas added to an almost unreal air that was perhaps a last hurrah of defiance. The anticipation of what was to come was so palpable it swam in the atmosphere like swirling mud in a pond, so thick he felt he could part it with his hand. Soon the apparatus of war would overtake all this and the colour would be drained and replaced by uniform grey.
The German Army, spearheaded by Rommel’s panzer divisions, had torn a hole in the defences of Western Europe with its Blitzkrieg tactics. Taking the Low Countries in a matter of weeks, it was now flooding through France annexing the crucial coastal towns and even forcing the Allies into retreat from the sands of Dunkirk. Nothing, it would seem, could stop the Wehrmacht’s war machine. Days earlier General Weygand, the Commander-in-Chief of the French forces, decreed Paris was not to be defended; it was an open city so it was only a matter of time before it fell to the invaders. Paris stood before them like a naked virgin with nothing to defend her dignity.
For perhaps his last drive in his beloved Bentley, and maybe the last of his life, he forced any dark thoughts to the back of his mind. He guided the car down the Champs des Elysées and across the Place de la Concorde. Cleopatra’s Needle, the 75-foot tall obelisk taken from the temple of Ramses II at Thebes, dominated the square, its pink granite glinting in the sunshine. And he wondered if the Nazis would ship it to Berlin for Hitler’s edification.
