Flame of Resistance

by Tracy Groot

  No, she had not been this happy since Paris.

  How could he kiss her like this unless . . .

  She pulled away. No, Brigitte, she told herself gently. It is a ruse. He is not Jean-Paul.

  I don’t want him to be.

  “I didn’t see this coming,” Colette said mildly—for her, as gracious a comment as if she’d just offered a bouquet of felicitations. She sat on Claudio’s lap near the radio. Claudio’s face, always dark with a five o’clock shadow, was hard to read. His wary attention was on Cabby.

  For that matter, despite her civil comment, Colette’s face seemed to mirror Claudio’s wariness. Brigitte could read Colette better than Claudio; there seemed to be a trace of doubt in those hazel eyes. Doubt about what? Did she doubt their engagement? Did she doubt Cabby?

  “Let’s get to know your man!” Marie-Josette cried. She waved them over to the couch. She and her soldier brought over chairs. Simone’s soldier, Bruno or whoever he was, was the only one unsure of what was going on and not happy about his uncertainty. He muttered something in a language Brigitte couldn’t place, something Slavic, got up from the couch and left the room. The back door slammed.

  “Oh, good riddance to that old sack of cheer,” Marie-Josette said. “He could depress Saint Peter.” She cleared the coffee table of magazines, just as Simone came in with a tray. On the tray were little glasses, a bottle opener, and the bottle of Badoit.

  “You are from Holland, Major?” Marie-Josette’s soldier asked Cabby with a glance at his rank patch. He said hopefully, “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

  “Nein, nur wenig,” Cabby answered, holding up a small space between his thumb and forefinger. “Ik spreek Nederlands. And English.”

  “He’s a blond Matterhorn,” Marie-Josette said in French, with a sly up-and-down look at Cabby. “You sure know how to pick ’em, Brigitte.”

  She and Simone handed out glasses, then Simone opened the bottle of Badoit. She threw the bottle cap at the ceiling, to a round of chuckles. “There—there’s your champagne, Marie-Josette.”

  “Occupation champagne,” Marie-Josette said merrily.

  Though Brigitte felt a trace of guilt that Simone had spent her saved bottle on them, it warmed her to watch Simone carefully divide out the precious sparkling mineral water. She caught Simone’s eye and kissed her fingertips to her. Simone smiled.

  Marie-Josette raised her glass. “To Brigitte and Kees!” and Brigitte called out, “In English, please, Marie-Josette!” Marie-Josette gave a charming little nod, and continued in English. “To Brigitte and Kees! To love in the middle of war!”

  “Hear, hear!”

  “To love in war!”

  Glasses lifted, clinked, and the happiness Brigitte felt should have been artificial. Cabby seemed to be enjoying himself, too.

  “Thank you!” he said to them all in Dutch-accented English. “Brigitte tells me of the good people here. I am honored.” He gave a little bow of his head. He and Brigitte took a seat at the couch, while the others sat in a semicircle of chairs. Colette resumed her position on Claudio’s lap.

  “Tell me about yourselves,” Cabby urged. He took a sip from his glass, eyeing Colette. “You must be Colette. Brigitte tells me she knew you in Paris.”

  Colette summoned a smile. “I worked in a flower shop across from the Hôtel de Crillon. She worked at the US embassy nearby.”

  “What is Paris like, eh?” Cabby said wistfully. “I have not been. I want to see the Eiffel, very badly.”

  She glanced at his rank insignia. “You cannot manage a transfer?”

  “Oh, do not be fooled,” Cabby said. “I am Dutch Nazi, not German Nazi. They regard my party, but not yet my blood. May as well be corporal.” He glanced at the bridge soldier. “No offense.”

  The soldier looked to Marie-Josette to translate. When she did, he waved in a broad gesture of goodwill. He spoke rapidly to Marie-Josette in German. She translated, “Yes, there is prejudice, and that is regrettable, but it is not for long. Soon all will be regarded as one blood for the Reich.” It softened a little of her cheer.

  “Where are you stationed?” Colette said.

  “Rommel stationed me,” Cabby said proudly. “Oh, I do not mean to—what is word?—boast. My mother says watch my pride.” He cracked a little smile. “But to confess, it is an honor, ja?”

  Brigitte watched Claudio’s attention sharpen at the name Rommel. He glanced at Colette, who translated since Claudio didn’t speak a word of English. He told Colette to ask where Rommel had stationed him.

  “I am to interview Dutch conscripts at Rousseau Cimenterie. I am to . . . detect. Understand? I am to detect if they work with Resistance.” He shrugged. “But now the owner himself is . . . How do I say it? . . . Detected. Perhaps Rommel was right, ja? Something funny going on there.”

  “Rommel himself . . . ,” Colette said, her tone impressed. Or was it confused?

  “You want to see papers?” Cabby said, eagerly. “I take them out just to look. To confess—” and here he gave a slight shrug—“I have not met him. It is a wish like Paris.” He took them from an inner jacket pocket, produced them, pointing to the signature with pride. “I will keep these orders, ja? I will show my grandchildren.”

  Colette and Claudio leaned forward. The other three crowded in. Cabby pointed to Rommel’s signature. Respectful murmurs came, especially from the German soldier who now regarded Cabby with something bordering on awe, but it was Colette and Claudio whom Brigitte watched carefully. And she did not miss the subtle exchange of glances as they resumed their seats. But what was in that exchange? It seemed as though each felt doubtful of something. That had to be good.

  “Is Tommy Dorsey, ja?” Cabby said, pointing enthusiastically at the radio. “Wat prachtig! Is wonderful to hear! The place where I stay—no radio!” He groaned and clapped a hand over his heart. “Forever since I hear good music!”

  “And now you can hear it all the time, darling,” Brigitte said, smiling at him. She looked at the others. “Ladies, I must tell you—I have invited Kees to come live with us for a while. Just until the unpleasantness is over at the Rousseau Cimenterie.” She leaned against Cabby, walked her fingertips up his arm. “Mon cher, you have music to your heart’s content.”

  “I had music the day I met you,” Cabby answered, settling his hand over hers.

  She smiled a genuine smile, simply because this was fun.

  They were looking into each other’s eyes, sharing amusement, when Colette’s voice came clear.

  “Tom.”

  The word launched like artillery into the air, rained down invisible freezing fallout, for everything froze—their eyes, the smiles on their faces, Brigitte’s heart.

  How to pull out of this, how to act naturally, yet even as Brigitte’s mind raced for the proper reaction, she knew it was too late. She felt a squeeze from Cabby’s hand, to encourage, to comfort, to steady. To console.

  They searched each other’s eyes, and both knew the game was over. Both, as one, looked over at Colette.

  The tension in the room snapped and popped like a downed electric wire.

  Colette’s face was flushed, triumph in her eyes, and yet a triumph that seemed to frighten her. Her eyes were on Cabby, but they flickered once to Brigitte; what was in it? She could not tell. Brigitte tried to take in both of them at once, and it was Claudio who had her dread attention.

  The triumph did not frighten him. He grew with it. His eyes glowed as if a bonfire leaped high. And the way he looked at Cabby made Brigitte want to throw herself between them.

  Claudio and Colette rose. He seized her hand, and they walked out of the room.

  “What just happened?” Simone said, perplexed, holding her glass.

  Brigitte sat at an angle where she could see into the hallway to the back door. And the silly little thing she noted frightened her most of all: Claudio took his Milice hat from the top of the coat tree, put it on his head, and left—without checking his reflection in the mirror.
r />   Brigitte breathed, “Something awful has happened.”

  It was past midnight. Not long after Colette and Claudio left the room, Tom and Brigitte left too.

  Where had Claudio gone? Was he going straight to the Milice? Though they heard occasional crescendos of music from the room below, the rest of the house was silent.

  They sat on the bed. Tom wanted to put his arm around her, calm her fear. He would not allow himself to touch her. Not here, not when he needed her this much, not when she needed him.

  “What do we do?” Brigitte said softly, her tone as hollow as Tom felt.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must leave. Sooner the better.”

  “Where do I go?”

  “I could take you to the chapel. But I do not know if it is safe. I do not know if they trust me enough to bring someone like you. You could be shot before we make it to the steps.”

  “I have a password. They will trust it.” He shook his head slowly. “Where’s the leak? Did it come from Flame? Wilkie? He didn’t sell us out, did he?”

  “No, wait! Not the chapel—Colette knows I go to the château when I am upset, and maybe she knows why. After all, she knew your name is Tom.” Her voice dropped to a hush of incredulity. “What is she? A spy? Colette?” Then she said, very softly, “Who kissed me? Tom or Kees?”

  “Kees,” he lied.

  A gentle tap came at the door, and before either could move, the door opened. It was Marie-Josette.

  “Brigitte . . . ,” she whispered, then stepped aside. Behind her was Rafael.

  After a staring moment of astonishment, Tom sprang from the bed and pulled him into the room. Marie-Josette withdrew into the hallway, drawing the door closed.

  “Rafael, what—?”

  “Rousseau did not want me to come,” Rafael said, his face lost, his voice toneless. “He did not want you to know. But we owe you the truth. Clemmie has been arrested.”

  Tom took a few steps back. Brigitte came to his side.

  “Where is she?” he said hoarsely.

  It took some time for the question to register, and when it did, Rafael shook his head, still lost. “Some jail in Cabourg. It does not matter.”

  “It doesn’t matter? You mean you’re leaving her there? That’s all Clemmie gets?”

  “You don’t understand. There is nothing to be done.” He lifted his hands in a hopeless gesture and let them fall. “They will transfer her to Fort de Romainville in Paris, with the three Jews. We learned it from Rousseau’s secretary, not an hour ago. Rousseau is . . . in a state.”

  “Wait a minute, wait—all the men she’s saved? All the, the, the—pilots? The gunners? You won’t even try? If she goes, the whole war goes! The whole war!”

  “It is an SS jail, Cabby.”

  “My name is Tom!”

  “Please keep your voice down,” Brigitte pleaded.

  “Michel told me what they did to Jasmine.”

  “They won’t do it to an old woman,” Rafael said.

  “Who in this country can convince me of that?” Tom shouted.

  “Tom, please!” Brigitte hissed. “They will hear you.”

  He shook her off. “It’s too late—you know it.”

  Brigitte gave three stamps and a shriek of frustration. “We are wasting—”

  Marie-Josette burst in. “They are coming! The Milice and the gendarmes!”

  “It’s too late,” Tom said, numb.

  “It is not too late, but now it is twice as difficult,” Brigitte growled. “Come with me. Both of you.” She snatched Tom’s coat and hat. To Marie-Josette, she said, “Tell them I took him to the château! Quickly!”

  Marie-Josette nodded, face white, and started to leave.

  “No!” Tom said sharply. “Send them anywhere but there!”

  Marie-Josette nodded, then fled.

  Brigitte grabbed Rafael’s arm, pushed both men into the hallway. She hurried them to Colette’s room.

  Colette’s room had been Brigitte’s when she came to stay with Grandfather as a child. It had a decorative window ledge that led to the corner of the gable. From there, though they couldn’t go down, they could go up and over the gable. On the other side of the gable was a drainpipe that ran from the eaves trough to the ground. The drainpipe was outside the front room. The pounding she heard was in the back.

  Brigitte had done it many times when she was a girl. Whether the drainpipe would hold the weight of one the size of Tom, she did not know. They had no choice but to try.

  She yanked open Colette’s door—and in the darkened room was Colette, pressed to the window like a peering sentry. She whirled.

  “What will you do now, Brigitte? They are right at your door!”

  “Oh, Colette. Why couldn’t you take me for a friend?”

  “You betrayed Jean-Paul!” she spat. “Do you know how many times he came in to buy you flowers? You did not deserve them! He would have died for you, Brigitte! The least you could have done is lived for him. With every single customer, you have betrayed him.”

  Brigitte stared.

  “How many men come along like that?” Colette said, lips trembling, tears rising in the hazel eyes. “Forty-seven times, Brigitte. He bought you flowers forty-seven times. I’ll bet you didn’t even know.” She put her arm over her face.

  Oh, Colette.

  Storm-tossed, uncomforted.

  How could I know you were in love with him, too?

  Pain seared her heart, grief for Colette, and Brigitte squeezed her eyes shut. Oh, God—please . . . let me land on the side of humanity. “You are right, Colette,” she whispered. “I betrayed him. I did not deserve him.”

  Whatever Colette expected, it wasn’t that. A little despairing sob escaped, and her lips parted, but she said nothing. She quieted. Her arm came down. She looked at Brigitte, and Rafael, and then Tom. She said in a dull monotone, “Don’t go to the château.” She walked out of the room.

  Brigitte yanked up the window and leaned out to look down. She heard Marie-Josette’s voice at the back door. She turned to beckon them. “They are at the back door. Get to the corner of the gable. Go up and over. There is a drainpipe on the other side.”

  Rafael went first, carefully finding a foothold before they watched his fingers slip from the casement. They heard the muffled brush of his progress along the wall, and soon a scrabbling overhead. Then they heard a soft and short whistle. Brigitte turned to Tom.

  “Go up the road toward Le Port. Go right at the Mairie. A shop called La Broderie is on the left, just before the café near the bridge. Tell Madame Bouvier Brigitte sent you.” She added, “Use the code ‘Lieutenant Kirsch.’ Go!”

  He started to duck through the window, then paused and looked back. “I kissed you.”

  And he was gone.

  It was 1:15 a.m. The clock on the mantel ticked, the only sound in the room other than the occasional pop and rustle in the fireplace.

  Michel and Charlotte sat in his father’s end of the room in the chairs by the fireplace, watching the glow of slumbering embers. Charlotte’s husband, Gerard, paced along the bookshelves, hands behind his back.

  “You should go,” Michel said, surprised at the sound of his voice. He had fallen into some stupor.

  “We will not leave you, Monsieur Rousseau,” Charlotte said.

  “Clemmie is in trouble, not me. Braun took mine away. I think he is a good man, Charlotte. Hard to tell, with Germans.”

  “I know he is.”

  Michel looked over and saw her for the first time since she had arrived more than an hour ago. She had turned on the lights. She put a coat about his shoulders. She made coffee. Gerard started a fire.

  His eyes wandered the room. Father sat in that chair. François cleared out the cabinet for a hiding place. Wilkie sent and received transmissions. Rafael received orders. He and Braun played whatever game they played, and Charlotte took dictation, did the payroll, ran errands—and coordinated a Resistance cell called Sept. Seven. “It
is the number of times a righteous man falls, and rises again,” she had told him an hour ago.

  Sept specialized in information, the printing and distributing of underground newspapers. The name of her newspaper, printed by Gerard on an old printing press in the boiler room of a church, was Les Sept Fois. The Seven Times. Michel had read it often, never knowing its anonymous pen was that of his secretary.

  During the early days of the Occupation, the first efforts of those who felt compelled to do something generally focused on providing the French public with truthful, accurate information on what was going on with the Allies and the Axis. The information connected them and gave hope. Speeches from de Gaulle, unheard at the beginning of the war by those who had had no access to the BBC—and that was most of the public—were printed in its pages. Speeches from Churchill, from Roosevelt; words of hope from Catholic priests and Anglican ministers; advice columns on how to resist without looking like you were resisting; practical information on how to use fuel more efficiently; recipes to make food stretch or taste better—it was all in Les Sept Fois, and had been for years.

  “I should have known,” Michel now said.

  Charlotte gave a small, acknowledging lift of her brow. Her lined face, sliding past middle age and heading to elderly, was weary. Yet a satisfied sparkle shone in the deep brown eyes.

  “Some things sounded familiar,” Michel mused.

  “Some came straight from your mouth.”

  “The idea to make coal balls out of coal dust and newspaper . . .”

  “That was you.”

  “It was actually Marie, François’s wife. And you quoted a woman as saying, ‘Defeat we can accept; collaboration, never.’ It surprised me. I was encouraged to see others felt the same as I.”

  “I liked it coming out of a woman’s mouth.”

  “What did you do with the book?”

  “I was going to burn it,” she admitted. “But then I thought, if things go very badly, then someday, years from now, people need to know. They need to find it in an attic, read what your father wrote in the margins. Have some idea where the madness began.”