Flame of Resistance

by Tracy Groot

  The Gestapo had dumped her into the street naked. Someone had the decency to drag a tablecloth from one of the café tables and cover her with it. A small bluish foot stuck out, toenails gone, bloody crust where they had been, blackened creases between the toes. Rafael had knelt beside Rousseau, resting his hand on his shoulder, gathering courage to pull aside the tablecloth to reveal her face.

  Maybe things would be different today if Rousseau had responded not with desolation but instead with what leaped in Rafael upon that first sight of her—rage. The lovely face was hardly recognizable, lumpy from contusions, mottled purple and gray, spotted with burns. Hand shaking, he drew the rest of the tablecloth aside.

  Protestations erupted from the crowd at the sight of the brutalized body. Some clamped their hands over their mouths to prevent themselves from crying out. Some did cry out, in shock and in anger, some called upon God, a few rushed away to empty their stomachs. Men cursed. Women wept and pulled in children to shield their eyes.

  Rafael was careful to note every violation done to the petite woman, and he spoke those violations out loud so everyone in the crowd could hear. Resting his head on the train compartment window, his eyes filmed over as images came back. He had no luxury of emotion, then. He had to be a witness, he had to be thorough, and he had to be strong for Monsieur Rousseau. He made himself open her mouth. He made himself open her eyes. He made himself inspect every inch of her body, every private place, front and back, and as he did so, he swore in his heart the deepest oath he could conjure that one day, whoever did this would pay. All the while, he reported to the crowd what he found.

  “Stop it!” one woman pleaded.

  Another shouted, “No! Let it be known what these animals have done!”

  Someone had removed the cardboard notice strung from her neck by baling wire. In French, it said, “This is what happens to the swine Maquis.” The notice had been torn in half.

  A year earlier, the notice would not have been removed, the body left untouched until picked up by French police. A scalded, fearful feeling of “See what happens if you get involved? You play, you pay . . .” would have prevailed. But something was happening in France, this spring of ’44. Whatever your own conscience dictated for personal conduct during the Occupation, no tolerance remained for acts like this, no matter what your political makeup. Fear of reprisal, this spring of ’44, began to grow thin. Acts like this . . . incompatible with France.

  After enumerating every violation, he gently rewrapped her body in the cloth, covering her face with its edge. Monsieur Rousseau hadn’t moved from her side, and some whispered, “Is he her husband? Is he her lover?”

  “He is her employer.” Rafael straightened from his gruesome task. “He is Monsieur Rousseau, owner of the Rousseau Cimenterie.”

  A hush swept the crowd. Some Bénouville residents worked at the factory in Ranville, some in Caen. One thin middle-aged man came forward and helped Rousseau to his feet. Another came and put his arm about Rousseau, murmuring softly. He said something about serving with his noble father at Verdun. A woman came and touched his arm, weeping. “God bless you, monsieur. God bless you for my son.”

  “They think to manage us with such monstrous acts?” one bespectacled young man in the crowd shouted. He leaped to a café tabletop. “Does this exalt their cause? It only proves why we should resist!”

  They looked for German reaction, but the Germans were curiously absent. The only soldiers on duty at the bridge that day were conscripts, soldiers forced into service from conquered countries: an Austrian, a Ukrainian, two Poles, a Czech—few would know their nationalities, but Flame knew. They looked upon the scene with interest from their posts, but did not leave them. Rafael wondered if the Gestapo was watching for reactions close by, writing down names. He wondered about collaborators in the crowd, for surely they were there. He already feared for the brave and foolhardy man on the tabletop.

  “What was her name?” he called down to Michel. “We will remember this, Monsieur Rousseau! We will remember her! Tell us her name!”

  Rafael quickly glanced at Rousseau. His face was utterly desolate; he was not really there. This loss of composure meant he could blurt out her nom de guerre—and more than ever, Rafael was convinced the Gestapo was watching. All Rousseau had to say was “Jasmine,” and they would know him for Flame.

  Before Rousseau opened his mouth, Rafael quickly called out the first name that came to him: “Marianne! I think her name was Marianne. She worked at the Cimenterie.”

  “Marianne!” the young man shouted, raising his fist in the air. “Her name was Marianne!”

  The crowd tentatively picked up the name, and soon it rolled and reverberated. Some murmured the name with tears coursing down their cheeks, some crossing themselves. Little children chanted it, glancing up at the adults. Then the French police came, along with toughs who were surely Milice. Yet the people did not disperse as they would have a year ago. They stood firm, chanting the name, and all the while, not a single German soldier to be seen.

  “Marianne! Marianne!”

  The young man jumped down from the table and knelt beside Jasmine’s body. He laid his hand over her cloth-covered head as if in blessing, in benediction. His lips moved, and then he said aloud, tears in his eyes, “We will remember you, Marianne.”

  Days later Rafael realized the name he had instinctively blurted was the name of the national identity of France, a persona that stood for the republic. Michel Rousseau had been Marianne to him—invincible, proud, irreconcilable to the evil surrounding him.

  Rafael sat upright.

  “He blames himself for her death,” he whispered, dumbstruck. Why hadn’t it been obvious? It was the only reason Rousseau would insist on training the American himself.

  Rousseau stood at that window, looking down on the courtyard below, and spoke things Rafael had not known. He didn’t know how hard it was to tolerate Braun. He didn’t know how hard it was to keep his first self separate. It was the unfolding of a man, and he suddenly had an eerie feeling Monsieur Rousseau didn’t have much time left.

  Much time before what? Before he truly slipped to Braun? Or before someone else in Flame was captured and tortured and revealed the identity of G? All he knew as he listened to Rousseau was that he wanted him to stop. Such honesty would surely attract evil. Framed in that window was a man as suddenly vulnerable as if he’d stepped in front of one of Rommel’s panzers. He was a good man, for all the cunning that made him Greenland, and this goodness seemed to beckon evil, perhaps as France had beckoned Hitler. France, naïve in her apple-blossom freedom, flaunting any danger from the East; Hitler, rising all the while like a black lecherous beast.

  Framed in that window was an innocent man, unaware of and made very small by the lecherous looming black. At one point Rousseau hummed a few bars of “La Marseillaise,” an eerie, skin-raising counterpoint to the darkness.

  Rafael pounded his knee. Why didn’t he think to remind Rousseau how dangerous it was to hide anyone at his apartment? It was safe in the early days—until the Gestapo moved into the courthouse two blocks over. He’d been so shocked at Rousseau’s commandeering the mission he couldn’t think straight.

  Rousseau had always been cheerful in the face of Braun’s arrogance. He’d always moved apart from the oppression of the Occupation. He’d always diminished Rafael’s fears with constant encouragement of the imminent Allied invasion. Now he seemed to think and act out of that which surrounded him. Darkness had finally infiltrated the great Greenland.

  Rafael’s throat tightened, and he felt tears rise. Let not the darkness consume you. You were never meant for chains, not you, my friend. You have shown me France.

  He watched the landscape slip by. And then another new thought about Rousseau presented itself.

  Monsieur Rousseau had been in love with Jasmine.

  “No,” he whispered in disbelief. Yet all at once, everything made sense.

  The way he sat, forsaken, at her side. The way
he began to act around her before her capture, stiff and awkward. Rafael had thought it was because Jasmine kept flashing little signals that she was in love with him, which was no secret to anyone; he thought the awkwardness meant Rousseau was trying to let her down gently, trying to maintain professionalism. Rousseau was not only Jasmine’s boss at the Cimenterie, but her commanding officer in the Resistance. Rafael was sure he was too busy for love, too caught up in the affairs of the Cimenterie and the Occupation and the Resistance, too uptight. Could it really be that old Rousseau, who had to be at least forty, had fallen in love?

  Then Jasmine’s death had compromised him. Until now, he’d never commandeered an operation. When a person clamped down with more control, that person was in fear of losing it—and if Rousseau feared losing control, then Flame should fear losing Rousseau.

  Could they get him to leave the country, convince him he could be of great use to the Resistance directly under de Gaulle? When Gestapo infiltration licked hot as hell’s flames, some agents left the country for London. Yet even as he thought it, Rafael’s heart sank. Rousseau would never leave the cement works. He sheltered too many conscription dodgers, forced labor dodgers. Communists, Jews, resistants. He’d never abandon any whom his influence might save. It was no great wonder why Jasmine had fallen for Rousseau.

  We will remember you, Marianne.

  But who would remember Rousseau?

  Who would remember the one who had shown him France?

  “Where are you going?” Colette said from the kitchen, when she saw Brigitte take her coat from the peg near the back door. Colette leaned against the kitchen counter, smoking a cigarette. Brigitte had her alibi ready. She dug into her pocket and produced a brass button.

  “I need a match for this. I’ll also check and see if there is meat.”

  Marie-Josette staggered from the bathroom, one hand clamped over her eye. “You’re going to La Broderie? Get me some lace, will you? Battenberg. Enough to finish my pillow.”

  “What happened to you?” Brigitte asked.

  Marie-Josette removed her hand to reveal a red and swollen eye. “I used the ear drops instead of the eyedrops.”

  Brigitte clicked her tongue in sympathy. “Too bad. At least you won’t get an earache in your eye. If they don’t have the lace . . . ?”

  “Tell them I’ll spend my money in Caen if they can’t stock decent lace.” She went off to fetch her purse.

  “As if they care about your money,” Colette called after her.

  “Shut up, Colette,” Brigitte said automatically. “How much is the Battenberg?”

  Marie-Josette came back from her bedroom, rummaging in the purse. “Cheaper than a kilo of potatoes.” She examined several coins in her hand with the good eye. She counted some out, frowned, and then threw in another and handed the money to Brigitte. “If you can’t get it for that, spit on them and leave.”

  “If they don’t spit on you first,” Colette said with an amused little smile, putting the cigarette to her lips.

  “Oh, shut up, Colette,” Brigitte said. “The doctor will be here at four. I should be back by then if there is no hope for the meat.” The doctor came from Ranville every Friday. The doctor in Bénouville had refused.

  “Where is the money for him?” Colette said.

  “Perhaps he will barter,” Marie-Josette quipped. When Brigitte rolled a look at her, she shrugged. “He smells nice. Better than a soldier.”

  “I’ll pay him when I get back. You should have him look at your eye. Wake Simone before too long. It’s her day to go to the farms. I’ll leave the bicycle for her. Remind her of the farm near Ouistreham. I got a few apples last time.” Shriveled, waxy apples to be sure, at the price of tinned goose liver, but it was food. Marie-Josette made what passed for a tart that day, minus the butter, eggs, cream, and Calvados. An Occupation tart. It was a testament to the times that it actually tasted good. It was another testament to the times that they even ate the waxy apple peels.

  “You can’t get that far anymore,” Colette said importantly. She held the cigarette with the feminine grace of a Parisian coquette. Of the four girls, Colette was easily the prettiest. Hazel eyes, sandy-brown tousled curls, and a silky cream complexion. Smoke curled delicately from her nostrils. “Too close to the beaches. Claudio said the area is now restricted.” How could she manage to say it with satisfaction in her voice, with some sort of silly triumph; did it not affect her too?

  “What about the residents?”

  “They’re kicking them out.” Again, the little ring of triumph.

  Brigitte had learned not to show anger over this sick little game; it only gave Colette some perverse satisfaction. Sometimes Colette was so past figuring out that Brigitte didn’t know whether to treat her kindly or slap her silly.

  “I miss the ocean,” Marie-Josette sighed. “To think it’s only a few kilometers away. May as well be Paris.”

  “I miss the chance to lay my eyes on a free country,” Brigitte said.

  The English Channel separated a country held in a Nazi vise from a country clinging to freedom. Last summer they could still go to the lovely beaches on the Normandy coast. They could gaze with envy at the distant contours of Europe’s last holdout, still free, still fiercely hanging on. Just looking at England managed to inspire hope. Some went to the coast to forget the war for a bit and find comfort in the ocean’s immensity; Brigitte went to find comfort in England. She sometimes whispered strength to it, and sometimes whispered pleas. Once a strong gust of wind blew south from England; she closed her eyes and filled up on the wind, because it came from freedom.

  Strange to think Berlin was farther away than Portsmouth. Yet all of France strained at Berlin’s leash, choking on it.

  “Remind Simone to keep a lookout for firewood,” Brigitte said. Anywhere they went, they looked for dry sticks for fuel. The country was combed clean, but sometimes they got lucky. Coal coupons were useless. There hadn’t been a chunk of coal in Bénouville for months. “Back by four, at the latest.”

  Brigitte knew she’d left far too early, but she was too excited to wait any longer. Her life was about to change in ways she could not begin to imagine. She’d heard of the things the Resistance did; she’d seen them. The Milice had the contempt of the French people, while the Resistance had their respect. A wary respect, she allowed, but respect nonetheless. Acts such as blowing up railroad ties to disrupt enemy transport of troops or fuel or weapons might be publicly condemned, but in whispers they were celebrated. To think she was about to—No! And she laughed out loud; she had already joined the Resistance! She was already part of the great underground movement to free her country.

  She strolled up the avenue, light on her feet, positively inflated with all the things she imagined she could do in the Resistance, and she could do a lot. She could make a place to hide an Ally in the shed—she clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a giddy laugh. Right under German noses! There was an empty coal bin in the back of the shed, too filthy to use for storing anything but coal; it was as large as the modern bathroom Grandfather had put in the house in ’38. It was certainly large enough to hide an Ally.

  She could type. Perhaps they would assign her to one of the underground newspapers—Combat, or Libération, or Les Sept Fois. She was good at organizing. She was good at economizing. She wished she knew more about the operations of the Resistance to play with them in her mind. Perhaps she would write about it someday; perhaps she could document the struggle against Germany. What if they assigned her to the Maquis? She thought of the Maquis as sort of the military arm of the Resistance, but she wasn’t afraid to learn to use a weapon. In fact, the thought rather thrilled her. Did the Maquis allow women to bear arms? Why not? A woman could die for her country as easily as a man. Wasn’t that what she committed to when she joined?

  Such a clarifying thought.

  Soon she came to the crossroads, but instead of turning right at the Mairie, Bénouville’s house of government, which now housed Ger
man soldiers, she continued on. She had plenty of time to make believe she was on a stroll to Ouistreham to visit the sea.

  The beautiful old church in the tiny village of Le Port, not a kilometer down the road from the Mairie, was the church Grandfather took her to when she was small. Mother was buried in the church graveyard. She had not visited Mother’s grave since she’d arrived, more than a year ago. Well, she had no real compunction to. It wasn’t Mother she remembered. But Grandfather’s grave was there.

  Brigitte’s mother died of tuberculosis when she was three or four. She’d never known her father. He ran off before she was born. Grandfather raised her by himself, with the help of his sister when a woman’s influence was needed. That wasn’t very often; Grandfather was a quiet, intuitive man, who had already raised Brigitte’s mother after his wife died giving birth to a son, who died at the same time.

  She strolled slowly past the gated graveyard, trailing her fingers on the chipped black paint of the iron bars. She could not yet visit his grave.

  She passed the entrance to the church, then paused at the bell tower, a tall structure on the left of the church building. The bell had not rung since she had been in Bénouville. The new German government forbade it.

  “A pity, is it not?” came a kindly voice at her side.

  It was the priest, Father Eppinette. He would not remember her, but she remembered him. He was a small man, eye level with Brigitte. The hair under the fedora now had more salt than pepper. The eyes behind the filmy glasses were kind, if a trifle preoccupied. Hands clasped behind his back, he gazed at the bell tower.

  “I have not heard it since June of 1940,” he murmured. “How I miss that sound. I miss ringing it. Always made me feel like a little boy.” He smiled sadly, then looked at her. “May I be of service, mademoiselle?”

  “Oh, no, Father,” she said. “I am on my way to meet someone.” She looked at the church. “I haven’t been here since I was a girl.”