Flame of Resistance

by Tracy Groot

  “So. Your big head heals. I will take out the stitches in a few days. My scalawag Rafael says they have plans for you.” She didn’t look happy. The mole disapproved. “What are they?”

  Tom adjusted the pillows behind his back. “I don’t know, but it’s not too hard to figure they’ll pass me off as a German. My buddies call me Cabbage—”

  Her finger came up. “‘Little cabbage’ is fond title. En français, c’est ‘chou-chou.’”

  “—because I won’t let them call me Kraut. Maybe we’ll raid a jail and break someone out, maybe a fellow pilot. Wouldn’t that be a kick?”

  “You are in no condition for mischief. He wasn’t sure you didn’t break your skull,” she said of the doctor who came by, a man who was active in Resistance work—mostly in the treatment of anyone who couldn’t risk going to the hospital. He’d operated on Uncle Anton’s hernia last spring, in this very room. Clemmie had assisted and said she had the time of her life. “How will I explain this to your mother?”

  In the ten days he’d been at Clemmie’s, he had learned she held fast to some secret agreement with the mother of every man she helped.

  “She will send a grateful letter one day. She will not be grateful if I let you get involved with Rafael. This has not happened before.”

  “Everything will be fine, Clemmie. I get a chance to do something more than blow things up.”

  He had a chance for payback he never dreamed, certainly not the day he came home and found his mother on the kitchen floor, next to the stove with a letter in her lap.

  His mother had a gentleness he’d not seen in anyone else. Even the weeping was gentle. He was so astonished to see her on the floor that he stood frozen in the doorway. She looked up, and he’d never seen her like that, blue eyes red, face dripping. Her anguish took his breath like someone slammed him onto concrete, and had raised a stone-cold fury he’d kept in his back pocket ever since. It hardly mattered what the news was. Someone made his mother cry.

  “My sister is dead, Tom,” she had whispered, words staggering. “Her husband. Her children. They are all gone.”

  He could remember no other image of her, not from the day his parents saw him off at the train that would take him to basic training at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis. Not when they came with Ronnie to see him off on the troopship in New York. He could not see her, except on the kitchen floor beside the stove.

  And now he had a chance to kill a Nazi with bare hands, handed over on a bright shining platter. It was an utterly unexpected wonder, and the prospect made him warm as whiskey. He put his hands behind his head.

  “Don’t you smile,” Clemmie declared. “I am angry. How will I face her if her boy doesn’t go home?”

  “He’ll go home. After he takes care of important business for the war effort. You have important business of your own.”

  “Yes, and it is you.” She leaned to thump his chest. “And you have made it difficult. Oh.” She raised a finger, face clearing as a bright new thought came. “You will have company. I get a new boy today. He went down over Le Havre. Rafael will bring him.”

  He’d spent the first days at Clemmie’s sleeping. The week that followed was broken only by a few visits from Rafael, far more interesting than the excruciating work of piecing together a conversation with the “aunts” and “uncle” with his phrase book from the Great War. Boredom began to gnaw his nerves. No music. Nothing to read. Not even visits to the outhouse—he had to go in a bedpan and bear the humiliation of Clemmie emptying it. He could only go out for fresh air when it was dark, and then only if it was cloudy, and only if he did not stray more than two feet from the side of the house. Rafael’s visits were bright spots. He was growing fond of the swaggering little fellow.

  “You can talk American with him,” she said, pleased.

  “English. When will he be here?”

  “Sometime after midnight.” Her bright expression dimmed.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “My scalawag is not himself.”

  “Rafael?” Tom shrugged. “He seemed fine the other day.”

  She eyed him. The mole threatened. “You know him so well? I know him well. He was not himself.”

  He’d had plenty of time to wonder about this woman who put herself in danger every day she housed an enemy of Nazi Germany. Since he was forbidden to go downstairs in case anyone came by, she came upstairs when she could. Sometimes they played cards, a French version of rummy, which Clemmie played with ferocious intensity and won with enough gloating to shame Oswald.

  Mostly, they talked. She was hard to understand at first, but even if he wasn’t learning French, he was learning the accent, and comprehension of her English came easier. The accent was deeply charming, and she filled it with animation as if animation would make the point if words didn’t. He didn’t care what she talked about; he just liked to listen.

  Sometimes it was angry animation, when she spoke of the latest indignity brought upon the French people by their occupiers; sometimes the animation was intent and patient as she gave Tom the current political lay. It seemed important to her that he, as her Ally, should understand everything the French were going through, as if she expected him to report back to a tribunal of commanding officers. Half the time, though the things she told him were serious enough, he had to make sure she didn’t see how much her conversation charmed him.

  She wasn’t talking now, but he didn’t have to fill the silence. He could sit with this foreign grandmother and feel as easy as if he sat with Fitz or Smythe or Ozzie. War was crazy. If he’d ever pictured himself behind enemy lines, he sure hadn’t seen this.

  When the silence grew longer, he looked to see the first expression of real worry he’d seen.

  He said lightly, “Hey—you said you’d tell me about your granddaughter. You said she’s beautiful. Will she date a soldier? Tell her I’m a pilot. Girls like pilots.”

  “She will not date a German,” Clemmie answered. “You are too German.” She seemed to realize what she said. She pushed herself heavily from the chair, stood for a moment at his side. “An injured Ally is the worst guest I’ll have.” She took his empty glass and returned it to the tray on the dresser. For a moment, she rested her hands on the dresser.

  “Because we’re a pain in the a—ah, keister?” He tried hard not to swear around her. Not an easy habit to break after enlistment in the armed forces. He didn’t grow up in a swearing family, but after two enlisted years the words came as naturally as sitting down. Clemmie considered her obligation to save him from corrupt communication to be just as pressing as saving him from the Nazis. Every corrupt word earned a head flick; every near-corrupt word, a glare.

  But she was in a different world. She came and fingered the bandage on his head and smoothed his hair. She smiled absently, then went to the door and slipped out, pulling it shut behind her. Her footsteps creaked at the top of the stairs and all the way down.

  “You want me to what?”

  Rafael had arrived with the American crewman at midnight. Tom had no more time than to learn that his name was Vince Calabrese, a waist gunner from a downed B-17, before Rafael pulled him upstairs to let him know the plan.

  Rafael helped himself to the whiskey on the dresser. He glanced inquiringly at Tom, who shook his head. He replaced the stopper on the decanter, started for the chair, then went back for the decanter. He put it on the floor next to the chair.

  “Become a customer for a brothel.” Rafael shrugged. “What is so difficult?”

  “A brothel.” The word dropped like a wooden mallet to the floor.

  “Don’t you have them in America?”

  “Not in Jenison.” His mind raced at the same time his cheeks warmed. He couldn’t think clearly. “Listen, am I supposed to . . . ? Will I have to . . . ?”

  “Of course. It’s your duty.” Then Rafael grinned, though it did not touch his eyes. “I knew we would have fun with this. Relax, Yank—you are to pose as a customer. Though I think it m
ight do you good.” He knocked back the whiskey. “It’s a Germans-only brothel. You’ll pose as a German officer so you can come and go without suspicion. Brigitte will pass on whatever information she gets from the soldiers stationed at the Caen Canal Bridge in Bénouville. You’ll pass it to me, I’ll pass it to my leader; from there it goes straight to London. The war will be won in no time. Home by Christmas.” He poured another shot.

  Only halfhearted wisecracking, and given the subject, Tom knew he could’ve had a field day. Dark circles under the eyes made his face appear even thinner. And Tom had never seen him take more than one glass from the decanter, out of respect for Clemmie’s desire to save it for her boys.

  “Why are you drinking?”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Rafael muttered, peering into his glass. “Your blue eyes do strange things to me.”

  Tom grinned. “What’s up, Puny?”

  Rafael glanced uncertainly at the ceiling.

  Funny, the expressions that didn’t make it over the Atlantic. He rephrased it. “What’s the matter?”

  Rafael looked through his glass to the oil lamp on the nightstand. “My boss is in trouble.”

  “Your boss being . . .”

  “Leader of our cell. He is . . . I do not know the English word. I am too tired to think for it.” He brought the glass to his eye, then lowered it.

  “He’s in trouble with the Gestapo?”

  “That will come. He is . . .”

  Tom pulled his pack from beneath the bed, rummaged through it, and handed Rafael the French phrase book. He thumbed through it, shook his head. “This is no good. It goes from English to French.” He paused at a page, wrinkling his nose. “There are no soul words here. What kind of book is this?” He glanced at the cover. It said Simplest Spoken French.

  “A nurse back home used it in the First War. It was meant for American soldiers and medical staff. Has a lot of medical terms.”

  Rafael frowned as he paged through it. His expression cleared as he read over a few words. He flipped back a few pages, put a few words together. “His heart has descended. Do you comprehend?”

  After a moment, Tom answered, “I comprehend.” Mother on the kitchen floor flashed to mind.

  Rafael handed back the book. “Four years living where things are upside down, even the best get worn out. Yet I am surprised to see his cracks. I am surprised to see he is human; do you comprehend? You do not think it will happen to you. But it does. Even I feel it, and I am superhuman. It is in the air, you see. The air is soiled. We breathe the same air as Nazis.”

  Tom was getting an idea of what the French had lived through. Things he’d given no thought to were huge issues here. Warmth, for one. Food, for another. His family had gone through hard years, trying to make a farm operate at a profit with a depression on, but being here, in Occupied France, he finally knew what hunger was. The food Clemmie brought never filled him up. He had plenty of time to wonder how she managed to feed her Allied airmen with a coupon ration book designed to allot only twelve hundred calories’ worth of daily food. Tom didn’t know how much food twelve hundred calories looked like, but he was sure it filled only one plate.

  Clemmie kept a tiny garden some distance from the house, in a field behind Renard’s home. She had to hide it from the German soldiers, who were as hungry as the French. She told him she hadn’t seen real butter in over a year. Often the coupons were for food that wasn’t even available. Constant quotas had to be filled for the German army, off fighting Russia. Germany had stripped France starving. Hidden plots of vegetables supplemented a starvation-coupon diet—if the Germans didn’t get to them first.

  It was one thing to be at an air base in England, feeling occasionally sorry for the luckless French in the Nazi vise; it was another to be in it himself. He’d never again complain about powdered eggs and Spam.

  “From what you’ve told me, your boss sounds tough enough. Don’t worry about it. He’s just going through a dry spell. He’ll find his stuff again. Truth is, I didn’t have a lot of respect for the French. I see things differently now.”

  Rafael’s face darkened and his lip curled. “You haven’t seen enough.”

  “I’ve never met anyone like Clemmie.”

  Rafael rubbed his thumb on the crystal glass. He said softly, “I am afraid he will . . . I do not know the word. Take what is within, and show it without.”

  “Expose himself.”

  “If he does, it is all over. He will be caught; he will be tortured. I do not think he will talk, but . . .” He shrugged. “If they suspect he is Greenland, they will not stop until he talks or he is dead. This happened to a great man, Jean Moulin. You have heard about Jasmine?”

  “No. Clemmie doesn’t talk about the Resistance. Who is she?”

  Rafael looked at him, surprised. Thoughtfully, he reached for the decanter and poured another round. “She was an agent with Flame. They tortured her, dumped her in the street. She died in Rousseau’s arms. I think maybe he was in love with her. I think that is part of why he is in trouble. Jasmine used to escort the Allies, and now it is I. Far more dangerous, since she could pass herself off as a girlfriend going for a walk with her lover. Couples are far safer.”

  “Easy enough: pass yourself off as my girlfriend,” Tom suggested, but Rafael didn’t even smile. “I can’t promise I won’t get fresh.” Nothing.

  “I used to study the missions. I worked out a plan, you know, and I executed it. That is my job. I am good at it. But my boss has taken over this mission. That is . . . I do not know the word . . . shameful, maybe. But far worse, it shows he is afraid. I have observed a thing when a person is afraid: he reaches for more control than he should. Jasmine died. He does not want you to die.”

  “Well, there’s a pleasant thought. That makes two of us.”

  “Three.” Rafael shrugged. “I would miss your eyes.” He smiled a little when Tom chuckled.

  “Listen, Puny. Whether it’s you or your boss figuring things out, don’t worry. I’m a quick study, and the Army taught me to take orders. But I’ll tell you something right off. Your plan is no good.”

  “What do you mean?” Rafael said, in a refreshing switch to indignity. “It is a great plan.”

  “Don’t make me German. Make me a Dutch conscript. Make me some Nazi Dutch sellout who turned in his countrymen for cash and is now in the German army. I know Dutch, not German. I get caught, it’s far easier to fake being a conscript than a Kraut.”

  Rafael tilted his head. For the first time since he arrived, a low light kindled in Rafael’s eyes. He nodded slowly. “Oui. There are conscripts posted at the bridge.” He settled back in his chair. “I knew you were no ordinary dumb American. Have you thought about your nom de guerre?”

  “Call me Cabby.”

  “I was thinking Jenison, after your hometown.”

  “Nope. Cabby.”

  “What does it mean to you?”

  “A God-given chance to get even, mon petit frère.”

  Rafael appraised Tom with new interest. “I cannot push you around, with this face.”

  He had decided he would kill four Nazis, one each for his aunt and uncle and cousins. He thought about adding one more because they made his mother cry, but he’d not take a drop more blood than he had coming. Four was fair and just. God was watching, through his mother.

  “You must promise me something,” Rafael said. “Make Rousseau believe you can pull it off.”

  “Of course I can.”

  “No, no, I mean it. Make him believe it. He has to believe, and then he will be okay. It is belief he has lost, belief in the good he is doing. It is one thing to be devoted; it is another to believe. Devotion without belief is . . . something ugly. It is religion that is empty.”

  “What is devotion with belief?”

  He rested the glass on his forehead, rolled it back and forth. “There must be a beautiful English word for it. I am too tired.” He regarded the empty glass, then got up and took the decanter an
d glass to the dresser. He put on his beret and stood near the door. “I’ll be back in a few days to bring you to Caen. You will stay at his apartment. He will train you not to look like an American, and the mission will begin.”

  “I thought I looked like a German.”

  “He will train you not to act American. Americans jingle change in their pockets. No European does that. You hold your cigarettes a certain way; you walk a certain way. You whistle. You are too used to freedom. The smallest detail can give you away. It is easier to work with the Brits.” He put his hand on the doorknob, twisted it back and forth. “Jasmine was Clemmie’s granddaughter. Don’t tell her I told you.” He opened the door and left.

  Brigitte heard laughter in the sitting room below. The sitting room was a pleasant place that Brigitte had modeled after those USO clubs she saw in movies, a place where soldiers could relax and enjoy conversation and listen to music. Only in the movies the soldiers were Allies, not Germans. And USO clubs were not in . . . establishments such as this.

  She leaned toward the mirror and applied a last sweep of mascara. It wasn’t really mascara. It was a paste Simone had concocted of coal dust and water, and it actually worked. True, it came off gritty and turned the eyes red if too much was used, but real mascara could only be purchased on the black market. Simone was sure she had a product she could sell after the war was over. Brigitte let her use the woodshed out back to conduct her experiments.

  She freshened her lipstick and dabbed homemade rose water on her wrists and behind her ears. She adjusted the silver sash at the waist of her navy dress, then went downstairs.

  A staticky Vera Lynn played on the radio. Radios were forbidden, but not even a jealous, indignant neighbor would question a radio in a place frequented by Third Reich soldiers and the Milice. Simone sat in the corner love seat with a uniformed soldier, a dark, brooding man with a day’s growth of beard and a paunchy stomach. He took a sip from his bottle of wine. Simone curled up next to him, half-asleep on his shoulder. Her hair was dyed blonde, caught in a red scarf. She wore matching red earrings the shape of large buttons—in fact, they were buttons. Simone’s resourcefulness was something else.