Flame of Resistance

by Tracy Groot

  “Did it begin with Hitler?” Michel wondered.

  “Perhaps not. His is not a unique evil. Just a very old one.”

  The remarkable thing about Charlotte was that she was, in fact, unremarkable. The diminutive woman was plain of face and quiet in manner. She was even a bit boring. She used to be plump in pre-Occupation years, and she wore her new thinness with a forbearance of spirit that Michel suspected she rather enjoyed. Some undertook to endure the indignities and inconveniences of the Occupation with grim relish, and Charlotte was one of these. Yet nothing in her stoic manner so much as hinted at the unlawful events that lay beneath, much less the acumen that flowed from her unlawful pen.

  She noticed a tiny spot of some offense on her blouse, brushed at it, examined the results, and glanced at the clock on the mantel.

  “Charlotte, please,” Michel protested. “Go home. Get some rest. Gerard, take your wife home.”

  “You think she listens to me?” Gerard grunted.

  “I wonder how it went with Rafael,” Charlotte mused.

  Charlotte’s role was still quite new to him. “You don’t even call him André. I told him not to go.”

  “If I were the pilot, I would have wanted to know.”

  “Me, too,” Gerard said.

  Michel shook his head. “He would have been happier. It would have been mercy.”

  Rafael was at the office when Michel had returned from sending Tom away to Bénouville. The boy had learned about Clemmie in the worst way possible: he had been there.

  The B-17 had a catastrophic landing, no parachutes, no survivors, and in fact had killed an unknown number of civilians when it plowed into a farmhouse outside Houlgate. After being hit inland, the pilot had come about and seemed to have made a valiant effort to ditch into the sea. Rafael came to the site as neighbors sifted through the smoldering wreckage for survivors. There was nothing to be done, so he decided to visit Clemmie on his way back to Caen.

  For the first time, the kitchen curtain was drawn over half of the window. Had it been fully drawn, it would have been safe to go in. Rafael nearly did not check. When he did, incomprehension froze his feet. There could not be trouble with Clemmie. Anyone but Clemmie. It was impossible.

  He ducked across the road into a hedgerow and waited for hours, watching the home. Just when he was ready to come out, armed with a good tongue-lashing for Clemmie’s lapse in protocol, he caught a glimpse of a German soldier through the front window. There was no lapse. Clemmie was taken.

  It was so unthinkable, he could not remember how he made it back to Caen, only that, by the time he did, word had already reached Wilkie that Clemmie and the three Jews had been arrested.

  The telephone jangled, and all three jumped.

  Michel rose and hurried to his desk. “Hello.”

  “Rousseau?” It was Braun. “You are still there.”

  “I am here.”

  There was a pause. Michel gripped the receiver.

  “I am afraid I have bad news. The grandmother is dead.” He added quickly, “She died of a heart attack. Or perhaps a stroke. Natural causes, Rousseau.”

  The telephone nearly slipped from his hand.

  So goes a rose of France.

  The wind came and took her away, bore her to a place where her beauty could be unveiled. Yet how sorely they needed her beauty here.

  “Rousseau?”

  Michel found his voice. “You are sure she is dead?” He was vaguely aware of a stifled exclamation from Charlotte, Gerard hurrying to her side.

  “I am just from the hospital. I saw her myself. She was to be transferred to Paris in the morning. Before they finished the paperwork, she had a heart attack.”

  She had not suffered as Jasmine had. Yet she was dead.

  Rafael would take it very hard.

  “Any news of the other three?” Michel asked.

  Silence. Then Braun said in cold anger, “Is it not enough that I saw to the old woman? Is it not enough for you?” A moment passed. He hung up.

  Michel replaced the receiver and said softly, “Oh, Tom.”

  When the blond behemoth appeared at her door, Madame Bouvier believed her time on earth was up. Was this how the Christians in the Colosseum felt after living in the dark in the catacombs, hunted down, seized, thrown for sport to gladiators and lions? Relief that it was finally over? Exhilaration that they would soon be in heaven? Fear of the pain of getting there?

  “I must consult with Father Chaillet,” she had said crazily.

  Then she saw the face of the comparably tiny Frenchman behind the behemoth. She knew that face. It was he who, on that terrible day, had called out the wrongs done upon the young woman thrown into the street. It was he who took tender care of Monsieur Rousseau.

  “Kirsch,” the behemoth said breathlessly. “Lieutenant Kirsch.”

  “Please let us in, madame,” the Frenchman said, with a backward glance.

  That was an hour ago.

  Gisèlle Bouvier spoke little English, and because she hated to do something unless she did it admirably, she chose not to speak it at all. She ignored the handsome young pilot and kept her attention on Rafael. He explained the situation, and a terrible one it was. Somehow she was not surprised Brigitte was at the heart of it.

  The pilot sat at a bench in the kitchen, head in hands. He pulled from his melancholic stupor to rattle something in English, then sank into it once more. Gisèlle looked at Rafael.

  “He is worried about Brigitte. He does not know what they are doing to her.”

  “Nonsense. She can think on her feet. Tell him her reputation is not all mirrors on the ceiling.” At Rafael’s wondering look, she said crisply, “I stayed at a brothel in Paris last year. They hid me for two days. They had mirrors. Brigitte will be fine; it’s him I’m worried about. Look at him.” She shook her head in grave respect of Greenland’s now sadly defunct plan. This man was cut from the fabric of Germany like Hitler never was. “Hide him under a bushel, no . . .”

  “But he needs a place to hide until we hear from the BBC.”

  “He has it, God help me; but do you suppose, with the Gestapo next door, that I can use a radio at my leisure? A daft mother can answer many things, but it cannot cover the sound of a radio.”

  “We will listen. We will bring word as soon as we hear anything.” Then Rafael said, “We are grateful, madame.”

  The pilot said something. Wearily, Rafael nodded and, at Gisèlle’s look, said, “He is very worried about Clemmie. The old woman who hid him in Cabourg. Her home was raided. She was arrested.”

  “That is too bad,” Gisèlle said gently. “I am sorry.”

  The pilot rose and began to walk the kitchen floor. He said something, to which Rafael responded sharply.

  “Gentlemen, you will have to keep quiet. My crazy mother has not yet begun to speak English in a man’s voice.”

  The pilot seemed to pick it up, quieted. He spoke urgently to Rafael, who argued strongly back. The pilot declared something quite vehemently; Rafael flung his arms in an angry gesture, then, face dark, fumbled in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. He offered one to Gisèlle, who took one only because they were Lucky Strikes. While they sat at the table and smoked, the pilot continued his restless prowl of the kitchen, back and forth, back and forth.

  “He wants to go tonight and break her out,” Rafael muttered. “He says he can do it with his rank.”

  “Perhaps he can.”

  “You do not understand. He looks the part, but cannot play it. He would be arrested.” He chuckled bitterly. “That is why we are here. He gave himself away. It was not his fault. I . . . We did not have enough time to train him. He would have done well, I think. He is angry because I will not guide him to Cabourg.”

  After a moment, Gisèlle said, “Tell him I can at least inquire about Brigitte. Word has spread I have undertaken to convert her.” She glanced ruefully at her wrapped foot propped on a chair. “Tomorrow I will go to the brothel with my Bible, and it will not b
e questioned.”

  Rafael passed it on to the pilot, who nodded gratefully, looked directly at Gisèlle, and said, “Merci.” But he resumed his restless tour.

  “What can be done about this Clemmie?” she asked, watching the unhappy man.

  Rafael pulled on his cigarette, jerked his shoulder. “I lied and told him we would figure something out.” He spoke rapidly, she knew, so that if the pilot did have any French, he would not pick it up. “But it’s over for her. She will be sent to Paris. The Jews will be sent to Germany.”

  “Jews?”

  “She hid three. They were taken.”

  Three. It had to be three. “Was it a mother and two children?” Gisèlle asked faintly.

  Rafael glanced at her, shook his head.

  Perhaps God forgot confessed sins, as Father Chaillet suggested; Gisèlle Bouvier had a better memory than God. She had no right to forget.

  It was 1942, July. Paris, the Vélodrome d’Hiver—the bicycle racetrack and stadium. A year earlier, Gisèlle had turned in her Jewish housekeeper and the housekeeper’s two children. They were sent to Paris, and then, Gisèlle was to learn, they were sent to the Vélodrome in the Jewish roundup.

  Hannah had brown corkscrew ringlets. Mother had made a wide satin bow for her hair. She loved Mother, and Mother loved her. She was three years old.

  “This cannot be my Hannah,” Mother had said of the photograph on the front page of the underground newspaper Les Sept Fois.

  But it was.

  She stood in a group of children behind a chain-link fence. She was not the smallest child—no, little Hannah was holding a baby, a real baby. Who the baby was, Gisèlle did not know. Where Hannah’s older sister was, Gisèlle did not know. The caption read, “Jewish children taken from their parents.”

  Mother knew her by the bow. Gisèlle knew her, and every child in the photograph, by the monstrous guilt.

  For a time, Gisèlle Bouvier went a little crazy.

  To this day, she could not remember how she got to Lyon, seven hundred kilometers away, in Vichy territory, the Unoccupied Zone.

  “Formidable!” Mother sang appreciatively of the young Allied pilot, arms outstretched as if to conduct a song.

  She shuffled into the kitchen, slippers flapping, dressing gown quite open with no clothing beneath. Not a stitch.

  “Rafael, my foot hurts. Could you . . . ?” Gisèlle nodded at Mother.

  Rafael, mouth sagging in horror—and who would not be horrified, Gisèlle thought; please, God, take me before I am a walking prune—roused himself and went to the old woman. He put his cigarette in his mouth and, holding himself back as far as he could, awkwardly pulled Mother’s robe together. He found the sash and tied it.

  Mother had rapt attention only for the pilot. After waiting for Rafael to finish the trussing, she went straight for him. Gisèlle hid a smile.

  Age-filmed eyes dancing, the tiny old woman stopped in front of the pilot, who had stopped, too. She gazed with her head far back, as when Gisèlle had taken her to the Eiffel Tower. She was as delighted now as she was then. She clasped soft and wrinkled hands to her cheeks, then beckoned the pilot down.

  He bent low, and Gisèlle saw the deep anxiety in his face, fear like a fog within. At the old lady’s admiration, he mustered a smile and began to withdraw. But Mother wasn’t finished, as Gisèlle knew she was not. She took his cheeks in the soft, wrinkled hands, and declared in her high trill, “Do not be distressed, my dear! So goes a rose of France, to the bouquet from which she came!” Beaming, she patted the cheeks, and the pilot withdrew to his height. “This one is a keeper, Gisèlle. I’ll have Eloise set another place for tea.”

  “Tell him she talks nonsense,” Gisèlle said, pleased that the pilot’s face was a trifle less worried.

  Rafael spoke to the pilot in English, then asked, “Who is Eloise?”

  “She was our housekeeper. Mother thinks every ‘guest’ is a potential beau.”

  “You let this one go, and you are crazy,” Mother declared.

  “I won’t, Mother,” Gisèlle reassured.

  “You will have huge babies,” Mother said thoughtfully. “I worry about your milk.”

  “Don’t translate that,” Gisèlle said with a stiff smile.

  “Don’t worry,” Rafael muttered.

  It was closing on 5 a.m., and Brigitte was so tired. She pressed a cold, wet cloth to her bloody lip. She would not let her eyes close. The last time she did, the man hit her.

  They were assembled in the kitchen, Brigitte seated at the kitchen table, Colette across from her. While Tom and Rafael had crept over the roof in front, the squad of Milice had burst into the door in back. They’d acted as though they’d raided a Resistance headquarters full of weapons, instead of a home with four women.

  “I don’t know what else we can do here,” the man who’d hit Brigitte said to Claudio. “Do you want this to go all the way up to Rommel? Not me.”

  The man’s name was Laroche, a brisk, authoritative man with streaks of gray in hair so thick it stuck up from his head like a bristle broom. “If we pursue it, that is where it will have to go. Is it worth it?”

  “But it is true,” Brigitte said plaintively. “He worked for Rommel himself! Please don’t look at me like that, Colette. I am sorry I did not tell you everything. I am in love.”

  Colette said nothing.

  “He did not tell you he is working with the Allies . . . ,” Laroche said once more.

  “No! I told you, I do not know why he left. Is he guilty of something? Perhaps. We all are, I think. But I make no excuse for how I feel.” She drew herself up, declared passionately, “So what if he is guilty of something? I am in love!” Suddenly she gasped, then clapped a hand to her cheek.

  Laroche said quickly, “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” Brigitte said.

  “I can even out your mouth, my dear,” Laroche said.

  “It is nothing, it is ridiculous.” Then, unwillingly, in a small voice, “His motorcycle. He says he borrowed it . . . but now I wonder . . .”

  “Borrowed it from who?”

  “Rommel.”

  “Rommel?” Laroche barked, incredulous. He turned to Claudio. “You say his papers were signed by Rommel? He was assigned to the Cimenterie by Rommel? And now he borrows a motorcycle from his best friend, Rommel?” He frowned. “I wonder if we are dealing with a simple lunatic. Certainly the papers are forged. Maybe he stole them from someone. Perhaps his only crime is that he is a braggart who wants to impress a whore.”

  “Oh no, monsieur, he is on very good terms with Rommel,” Brigitte assured.

  “Terms?” Claudio exploded. “He said he never met him! Didn’t he, Colette? He said he’d pass his papers on to his grandchildren! He’d never met him.”

  “That is not true!” Brigitte hotly declared. “He told me he is Rommel’s confidant!”

  Claudio swooped in, pushing his face into hers. “He knew he could lie to you, but not to us.” He withdrew, leaving a sour wake of wine-coated breath. He turned to Laroche. “I’m telling you—”

  “Enough.” Laroche had the look of a man who had figured it all out. He put his hands behind his back. “If we go to the Cimenterie, we will find there never was a Major Kees Nieuwenhuis. Perhaps he is the very Dutch conscript he was sent to ‘investigate,’ just a man who filled himself with grandiose thoughts.” He shrugged. “You are enslaved on the wall twelve hours a day, what else can you do? Your country is flattened by the Reich, you have lost all pride . . . you imagine yourself to a better place. He is nothing but a con man.”

  “What about the name Cabby?” Claudio demanded.

  “Yes—and when have you ever cared about the transcripts, Benoit?” Laroche turned a glare on him. “I know what you do with them. You use them to wipe your backside. How many times have we handed them out, hmm? You read one transcript and suddenly you are an expert on Allied evasion tactics.”

  “It was her idea,” Claudio said, pointing at Colette. “She
read it and—”

  “She read the transcript?” Laroche demanded, voice high. “You pass out the weeklies to your friends?”

  “It was just sitting on the table with—”

  “What else has she seen, hmm? Oh—perhaps I should be talking to Mademoiselle Colette, here. Maybe she should have your job!”

  “But the way he looked when she said, ‘Tom’—”

  “The way he looked,” Laroche mocked. “He probably looked the way I would have: ‘Why is this crazy broad calling me Tom? Doesn’t she know my name?’”

  “What transcript?” Brigitte asked.

  “Go ahead. Show her. Everyone else has seen it.”

  Grimacing, Claudio reached into his back pocket. He unfolded a piece of paper and tossed it on the table. Brigitte reached for it, smoothed it out.

  —Angel flight this is lead. Rolling in. One and two take targets on the right three and four

  —Captain we got movement.

  —Mayday this is Angel three I’m hit I’m hit.

  —Angel three can you make it back?

  —Pressure gauge says no flight lead. I’m going in.

  —Copy. We’ll cap the area. Good luck Tom.

  —Good luck Cab.

  —Guts and glory Cabby.

  “It was part of a transmission intercepted at the radar station at Douvres-la-Délivrande,” Laroche said. “Benoit believes your man is this pilot. Yet I have questioned everyone, Benoit; all say he was Dutch, no question about it—especially Private Müller, and a German should know, in particular one who lived near the border of Holland.”

  The paper sat in Brigitte’s hands. It was supposed to mean nothing to her.

  “I have had enough of this. I am sorry I struck you, mademoiselle. You were falling asleep. It was rude.” Laroche’s look lingered on Brigitte, and his eyes narrowed. He turned to Claudio. Half to himself, he said, “Could it be that you are jealous?”

  “What? Me, jealous? Pfft. I can have her anytime I want. Trust me.”

  It was supposed to mean nothing to her.

  Mayday this is Angel three I’m hit . . .

  “You never brought me flowers.”

  Attention went to Colette. It was the first time she’d spoken since Laroche had questioned her in the sitting room hours ago. Brigitte saw a fleeting look: the hazel eyes went from the transcript to Brigitte. They flashed away to land full upon Claudio.