by Tracy Groot
“I don’t know.” He amended and said, “She didn’t know.” Then he muttered, “I made an idiot of myself.” Some of the same belligerence as when he arrived came to his face. Michel slowly took a sip.
“I hate it when you people talk yourselves down. So far, I’ve seen a lot of brave stuff. From Clemmie, from you, from Rafael. Sure, every country has bad eggs, some more than others. But there’s good, and she—it was wrong, what she was saying. No pity, no one caring. It was like spitting on Clemmie.” Tom looked up. “Claudio Benoit. He’s moving into the brothel.”
Michel sat back. First a panzer division on the move, now this. “When?”
“She doesn’t know. Soon. It means she’s being watched. What’s the deal with him?”
“He was in prison in Paris, on pimping charges. The Milice got him released.”
“What exactly is Milice?”
“It started as a Vichy police force to maintain order in the Unoccupied Zone. Now it’s nothing but French Gestapo. A man named Joseph Darnand is in charge. He’s a zealous fascist. He drove the Milice to become what they are today. All they represent is authorized pillage, murder, and rape. They give convicted felons a choice of enlisting in Milice rather than serving a prison term. Things are even worse now than they were a year ago. The Milice have license not only to arrest, but also to interrogate. Above everything else they are determined to crush the Resistance.”
“And they are French,” Tom said contemptuously.
“They are French. Perhaps you can understand Brigitte a little better, regarding how she feels about her countrymen.” Michel sighed. “I am sorry the work is not as . . . satisfying, surely, as flying your plane.”
Tom didn’t answer.
“We play what we’re dealt, Tom. Some are dealt an ugly hand. They play it best as they can.” How do I play this one? Do I keep Tom on the job, with a Milice over his shoulder?
“I’ve had a good hand. Flew a beautiful plane. Blew things to smithereens. Went back to England to have a beer.” He raised his eyes to Michel. “What happened to Clemmie’s granddaughter?”
Michel studied his coffee cup. “I cannot talk about it.”
“I’m sorry I asked,” Tom said quietly. He finished his coffee and pushed back from the table. Before he got up, he said, “In the bathroom, there is a dish with little soaps in it. Paper-covered soaps. Would it be all right if I took one?”
“Take two.”
There’ll be bluebirds over . . .
“I’m sick of that tune,” Colette complained. She was fixing a shirt for Claudio. “Does anyone have a thinner needle? This material is too thick.”
“You can use my thimble. Or you could go to La Broderie,” Marie-Josette said, adding slyly, “Wait—they don’t serve sluts.” She giggled and took another sip of wine.
“They do now,” Brigitte murmured, holding a pillow to her growling stomach. “Thanks to your German soldier.”
Marie-Josette lowered her wineglass. “What of him?”
“He broke the owner’s foot,” Colette said with relish so discreet it was worse than if she’d triumphed openly. She loved to tell bad news. “He said he’d break the other if she put slut on her sign.”
Marie-Josette’s amusement faded. “Stefan did that?”
“She had it coming,” Colette said.
Brigitte groaned, “Colette, you are such a—” but she pressed the pillow over her face and told it exactly what she thought of Colette. Marie-Josette giggled. Then Brigitte yanked the pillow off and snapped, “Why don’t you grow up, Colette? You can be such a—” and she buried her face again.
Marie-Josette giggled again, then suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, oh! You should have seen him, Colette! Ooh la la, what a pastry.” She rolled her eyes and fanned her face. “What’s his name, Brigitte? Your own German soldier?”
Brigitte yanked off the pillow. “Cabby,” she spat, glaring at the now-content Colette. Always playing her sick little game. When could Brigitte tip her from the fence into humanity? Do not make me give up on you!
“Cabby,” Marie-Josette sighed.
“Cabby,” Colette said, pausing with the needle. “What an odd name.”
Brigitte’s stomach lurched. Panic raced hot in her veins. Calmly. Calmly. “Or was it Kees,” she mused. “Something with a K.” She snapped her fingers. “Yes, that’s it, Kees. Major Kees, with a long and ridiculous last name. And he’s not German; he’s Dutch.”
“Did you see him, Colette?” Marie-Josette said dreamily, resting the glass on her cheek. “I’ll trade you for Stefan, Brigitte.”
“I’m not interested in oafs who stomp on old ladies’ feet.”
Marie-Josette drew herself up. “He is not an oaf. He believes in my dreams.”
“Dreams.” Colette smirked. She pulled the thread taut and bit it off.
“Even you must have a dream, Colette,” Marie-Josette said.
“I dream of a foreigner-free France. No Communists, no Jews.”
Marie-Josette lifted an eyebrow. “Finally, the ice queen has an opinion all her own. Or is it Claudio’s?” She raised her glass. “Sounds like vintage Milice to me.”
For answer, Colette gave Marie-Josette an odd look. Her eyes had a strange light in them, and she gave a vacant little smile. The playfulness in Marie-Josette’s face faded, and she took a sullen sip of her wine. Then the look slid to Brigitte, where it seemed to want to go in the first place. Such a strange, considering look.
She resumed sewing.
By the feeling in the room, Colette had fallen from the fence and had not landed on the side of humanity.
Three days later, Major Kees Nieuwenhuis knocked on the back door, and soon two heads nearly met over a chessboard. The table was small for a game table. The tray with the tea things lay on the braided rug.
They fell easily to discussing business over something as distracting as chess. It helped to avoid looking at the bed, that big centerpiece of the room, which provoked disruptive thoughts.
Captain Fitz was a chess player and taught Tom to fight for the high ground, which, he said, was the center of the board. Apparently Brigitte knew of this strategy, too. She’d lunged for the high ground from move one. He glared at her two pawns, a knight, and a bishop, neatly entrenched in the center. He wished one of his pawns could lob a grenade, wipe out the whole smug squad.
“When will he return to duty?” Tom asked of Private Tisknikt, keeping the frustration from his tone. He wanted intel. Something he could squeeze in his fist, something worth this awkward charade. Nothing like playing chess at a teeny tiny table next to a great big bed with history.
“Soon. He’s doing better. But I do have news. One of my customers is an engineer stationed at Douvres-la-Délivrande. It’s a radar station about ten kilometers west of the bridges.”
“That’s a long way to come for a brothel,” Tom commented. “Don’t they have any closer?” He hesitated over his knight, then moved it.
“Not this kind,” Brigitte said. She immediately took his knight with her bishop.
“What kind?” he asked, scowling as his knight joined the other POWs. He didn’t care for the game because he liked chance better than strategy. Then he could blame it on a poor roll, not a poor choice.
“Will you let me finish? I learned something from him. He’s talkative, like Alex. I said something about the twenty soldiers stationed at the bridge, that they didn’t bring me much business, and he said, ‘Twenty? Not anymore. That garrison’s been beefed to fifty.’”
He looked up from the board. “That’s a big change. What do they know that we don’t know? Did they find something out? A panzer division on the way. Now this?”
“My thoughts precise.”
“Anything else?”
“No. But Alex will be back soon, and I have a ruse with him. He wants to get in good with his commander, so I told him I would pass on any information if I heard the Resistance is up to something. That way I can fish for more information.” She presen
ted a proud, charming little smile. “Pretty good, don’t you think? I’ll make a spy yet. It seems they’re more afraid of the Resistance than the invasion.”
“Well, they’re certainly preparing for it.”
“You can’t move that—it blocks your king. You will be in check. They seem to think it will come east of here. That is what Alex said. That is how they are prepared to defend. Do you think it will come from the east?”
“No idea. The Pas-de-Calais area is closest to England, easiest to resupply. But that’s why we won’t invade there. Too obvious on our part, too heavily defended on theirs.” The ratty little pawn was what he wanted to move, but her hateful bishop pinned it to the king.
“Where do you think they will come? We’ve talked of nothing else for two years.”
Now this was the kind of talk he liked. “Well, thinking like a fighter pilot . . .”
He picked up the chessboard and carefully put it on the floor. He took a spoon from the tea tray and held it up. “Here’s the coast of France.” He positioned it on the table and took another spoon. “And this is England.” He placed it parallel.
“I’m air support, right? I not only do target missions, I escort bombers. B-24s, B-17s, troop transports.” He picked up a pawn and a queen, flew them side by side over the spoons.
“But I don’t have the fuel supply the bombers do. They won’t invade where we can’t fly back and refuel, and this kind of invasion has to be the whole shebang—air, ground, and sea. Once we get that foothold on the Continent, we’ll refuel from there, then support an overall press for Germany. But we must get that foothold. Flying from England, my range is from about here—” he pointed with the pawn to the tip of the France spoon, indicating the tip of France’s west coast—“to about here.”
He brought the pawn far over and tapped the imaginary map. “The west end of Germany. Now. The Allies are not gonna risk an invasion there, too close to the Luftwaffe bases. And on the other end, too much chance to get bombarded by Atlantic storms. That’s why this whole area is the hot spot.” He moved his finger along the middle part of the France spoon. “Stoutly defended, sure. But here we can give the Allies strong air support.”
He gave a quick glance to see if she was with him, then looked again. Her attention was so keen, he looked at the spoons to see what she was seeing.
“It is really coming,” she said, incredulous. She lifted her gaze to his, brown eyes full of disbelief that sorely wanted to believe.
“Yes,” he said simply, putting as much as he could into that little word. “Yes, Brigitte. It is.”
She looked at the spoons. “Tell me more. Tell me true things. There is a buildup.” The coast within eyesight, yet they were so isolated. They were so duped, they were so . . . jailed. An entire country imprisoned.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” he said earnestly. “The number of personnel is getting close to a million.”
“A million,” she breathed. “That’s not just English propaganda?”
“I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Acres and acres of tanks, and jeeps, and trucks, and planes, and . . .” He didn’t mention the piles of coffins he’d seen at one camp. “Crate after crate of ammunition, tents, blankets . . .”
“All ready to come here.”
“Ships like you would not believe, putting into harbors all over England, ready to haul it all over. I wish you could see what I’ve seen, Brigitte. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers just over that channel, ready to light up the whole earth.” He suddenly dug for coins in his pocket. He held one up. “See this? This one coin—ten thousand men. Ten thousand, picture it.” He placed it behind the England spoon. Then he showed her the rest of the coins in his hand. “All of these? Ten thousand men each.” He slowly drained the coins onto the table, onto England.
She drew upon the sight, discovering the armies the coins represented. She picked up a coin and held it even with her eyes, studying it. Then Tom saw the truth take hold and felt a little thrill.
She looked past the coin to Tom. “I believe it now. Not from the BBC, not from rumors.”
“You can listen to the BBC?”
“The Germans like their music. When they are gone, and when Claudio is not around, we listen. We hear messages of hope, that the invasion is coming, and it helps some. But after four years, we are fed up with hope. We need action, Cabby. We need it for the sake of our souls.” She looked at the spoons. “Where would you invade?”
Tom didn’t hesitate. He put his finger on the center of the French spoon. “This is that nice little chunk of peninsula called Cherbourg. I’d put my money for a foothold right here. It’s three times the distance to Calais, but still in easy range for our planes. It must drive Hitler mad, wondering where and when.”
The talk had invigorated him. He put the spoons on the tea tray and carefully replaced the chessboard. He rubbed his hands together and settled into the stance of a chess-winning man. “That’s it. I’m gonna win.”
Brigitte squared herself, too, and took to the board with such fierce focus, Tom chuckled. She smiled, eyes testing out potential moves. “Too late. The invasion is coming. I am revived.”
“Anything about Benoit moving in?”
“Colette hasn’t said and I haven’t asked. He was here the other day, but didn’t stay. He gave me a nasty, superior look, though. And Colette’s in a better mood, which I don’t trust. Who is the remarkable woman?”
Her eyes narrowed as she tested a move, and he took the chance to study her face. Smooth, sloping cheekbones, brown and bright eyes, lovely, full lips. He couldn’t stop the sudden image of men kissing them. Lots of men. He shook it off. How could she do it? She was so reasonable.
Then the words reached him. “What remarkable woman?”
“The one you yelled at me for. It’s your move.”
“Clemmie. She hid me in her house when my plane went down. She’s hidden lots of airmen. She had a granddaughter who worked for the Resistance, in the cell I’m with. The cell we’re with. Flame.”
“Flame,” Brigitte repeated. Then she said softly, “Did she die?”
“Yes.” Then, “The granddaughter, not Clemmie.”
“Rafael said a woman died. I wouldn’t move there, you’re two moves from checkmate. You can still save yourself.”
Tom scowled, scratched his head, and then placed his rook on the same rank as Brigitte’s queen.
“Good. Now you will make me think.” She put her chin on her fist.
“What’s it like, living in a jailed country?”
Brigitte lined up her captured pieces alongside the board. “It surprises me what you get used to. I can hardly remember life without queues. Or the worry that they will run out the moment you make it to the front. Yet I am used to it.” She rearranged the pieces by rank, and then, as if it had helped, reached for her queen on the board and decisively plunked it down. “Voilà. You are in trouble. I never thought I would get used to ration coupons. Even then, you have to be on good terms with the butcher or the fishmonger for even a carp’s head. Prostitutes aren’t on good terms with anybody. Except soldiers. And they don’t bring carp.”
Tom wrinkled his nose. “What do you do with a carp’s head?”
“Soup. Always soup. We are supposed to get one liter of wine every ten days, but only if the store has been supplied. Some of our ration coupons are worthless.”
“What’s the worst about it all?” He left off studying the board. He rested his head on his fist.
She considered the question with surprise. “It seems rolled into one. Hunger, I suppose. After that, loss of freedom. But food first, since really, the only real freedom we have is to die of hunger. I think when you are filled up, you deal with things better. Food gives perspective. I am grateful to get whatever I can, when such a notion would not have brought forth any such gratefulness before.” She smiled wryly. “The Occupation has taught me to be glad for what I do get. Before, I was never grateful.”
“Are you always h
ungry?” he asked, wishing he had brought something from Michel’s.
“Not always. But I miss not having to think about it. It can be very distracting.” She tilted her head to one side, in a movement Tom was coming to know. “Every now and then you have panic, but . . . What is the English . . . ?” She snapped her fingers, summoning the word. “I cannot think of it, but you take charge of yourself and say, ‘This is how it is, chou-chou. Have courage; it will not always be this way.’ Sometimes—” and her face went sly—“you save up your food, enduring the hunger so you can spend it on one gorgeous meal, knowing you will be magnificently full.” Her eyes sparkled, and she kissed her fingertips to the ceiling. “Sick with food.”
He smiled. The expressiveness reminded him of Clemmie.
“I have an excellent imagination when it comes to food. Weak beef broth becomes beef stew. A piece of bread sprinkled with sugar becomes a fine pastry from the best patisserie.” She leaned forward and said, “I can put chocolate on it with my mind.”
“What food do you miss the most?”
“Butter!” she exclaimed. “Not the fake stuff, this margarine. It is a devil invention. Butter is . . .” Her expression went dreamy. “Voluptuous.”
He’d never heard the word applied that way. He couldn’t help a chuckle and, before he had to explain himself, said, “It helps to drink a glass of water before you eat.”
“Pfft. I don’t want what helps. I want food to fill my belly, not water. That is where imagination is—” her fingers fluttered for the word, and she brightened when she found it—“my ally. You see, in the beginning of the Occupation—” she warmed, eager to talk about it, something he’d noticed about Clemmie—“less food was taken with far more courage and dignity. It was a novelty in the beginning. The ration coupons were a novelty. As it went on, we were less amiable to endure hardship; less patient with the food queues, more suspicious of others. There is anger and envy when you know your neighbor eats better than you because of her connections.
“Hunger shows the Occupation best, because you deal with it every day, and it tries your character. You don’t always deal with the cold, or the fear, or the feeling of chains; you can dream yourself away from some of that. You can stand under the stars, because there is always the free expanse of the sky, and that freedom will lift your heart if you let it, sometimes sail you over the white cliffs of Dover. But you cannot dream hunger away. Not until you develop a stupefying imagination.”
