Flame of Resistance

by Tracy Groot

  Yes, he was assigned to the Rousseau Cimenterie—by the Dutch underground, not by Rommel. He was Dutch, after all, and had never lost his love for the country. His parents stayed in contact with family and friends after emigrating, and when the Netherlands fell, they went into action. They set up a covert network of “Friends of the Netherlands,” an organization whose front was to aid the country after the bombing of Rotterdam; they actually worked with London to supply the Dutch underground with arms, forged documents, ration cards, guilders, and schematics for radar installations and other public works for Resistance targets.

  He smiled a little; his dairy farmer father would be surprised to know he was the head spy in a ring of spies. Code name for this Dutch Resistance group: the Indians. Father’s nom de guerre: Chief Joseph. Mother: Pocahontas. Ronnie, who would not be left out even in an imaginary scenario: Geronimo. Tom was Crazy Horse.

  The RAF and the USAAF had no idea he bled Orange—not even his pilot brothers. He had crashed his plane on purpose, parachuted to where he was collected by his contacts, and the plan was set in motion. Provided with papers and a uniform, he was to make contact with Dutch conscripts and see what he could do to get them free.

  He memorized the story, and interrogated himself as if he were Rousseau, until he could rattle off the details flawlessly. He even began to fashion his thoughts in Dutch, not English. When he spoke, though he spoke little, it was in Dutch. Every word.

  He paused in front of the building to gaze at the huge swastika hanging from the balustrade far above the steps. It was made of heavy material, and when the wind blew, it did not ripple as much as it rolled like an ocean swell. The pause earned him a shove, and he stumbled forward.

  He was taken through a large and busy reception area, under a portrait of Hitler to a hallway, through the twisting and turning hallway to a set of stairs, and finally to a basement, where a warren of doors lined both sides of a long corridor.

  The corridor jangled with noise. Groans, cries, snatches of conversation waxed and waned as he passed the doors. He figured a jail for a quiet place, the occupants pondering their fates. This place sounded as loud as an orchestra tuning up, and nothing came to resonance. One of his escorts unlocked a door and pushed him in. He saw a disheveled man sitting against the back wall, squinting against the sudden light; his face was reddened and shiny, as if it had been scrubbed raw. It was all the glimpse Tom had before the door closed, cutting off the light. He saw enough to know the cell had no window and was no bigger than a closet. Unless he sat where the other man was sitting, he could not stretch out his legs.

  I am sure Monsieur Rousseau mentioned that you are not to talk to anyone in your cell. He could be a Gestapo plant. It was one of the many carefully worded asides beginning, I am sure Monsieur Rousseau mentioned . . . that Rafael had slipped into conversations over the past few weeks. And most of the time, no, Rousseau had not mentioned it. Rousseau’s focus, now that Tom thought about it, always seemed to center on having his story right. In fact, Rousseau’s focus was always in a defensive posture, not offensive. Getting intelligence on the Caen Canal Bridge was not as important to Rousseau as a perfect alias.

  Tom wouldn’t have hesitated to see if the man was all right, to try to strike up a conversation no matter what the language might be, especially in extraordinary circumstances like these where two scared strangers were all each other had; yet he was Tom no longer—he was Kees Nieuwenhuis—and these circumstances transcended the extraordinary. He rested his back against the wall and, after a moment, slid down.

  It was cold in the cell, but the concrete floor was colder; he wished for his jacket to sit on. In Bénouville, they had stripped him of the jacket for his effrontery in wearing a German coat with rank insignia. They’d taken away his belt, his papers, and the picture of Ronnie. He had only the little button in his trousers pocket they had either missed or didn’t think worth taking.

  The cable handcuffs began to rub into his wrists. Maybe they forgot to take them off; a cuffed man in a locked room seemed redundant. His stomach growled. He hadn’t had anything to eat since yesterday, and nothing to drink except a cup of lukewarm coffee from one of the Milice.

  So far, things aren’t so bad, Tom thought, keeping his mind from the future. Deal with the now, and three small miseries he could handle: an empty gut, sore wrists, and a cold butt.

  One day atta time, Cabby, Oswald said with a wink.

  Out of the darkness came a hoarse, thin voice. “J’ai acheté au marché noir une bouteille de Bordeaux pour mon anniversaire. Une bouteille. Pour cela, ils . . .”

  Tom closed his eyes. He couldn’t understand a word, but any decent man would have responded in some way.

  “Une bouteille!”

  There was no need to translate the despair. Tom bit back a sympathetic murmur.

  “Je ne sais pas ce qu’ils ont fait à ma femme . . .” The voice trailed into thin, ragged sobs.

  We’re on our way, pal, with an army you wouldn’t—

  He caught himself and, with a vague pull of apprehension in his gut, shaped the thought in Dutch. We zijn onze manier, met een leger zou je niet geloven . . .

  The train did not run on the time-honored schedule it had in prewar days, and it no longer went to Ouistreham; Ouistreham was too close to the Atlantic Wall for German security tastes. It ran to Bénouville and to one station past, but only a few times a day. Brigitte had to wait at the little depot near the bridge for an hour before a train came. By the time she made it to Caen, it was nearly four o’clock.

  She asked for directions to the Rousseau Cimenterie office. It was only a kilometer from the depot, so she decided to walk.

  She had not been in Caen since autumn. Then, Allies had bombed an electric station, and the collateral damage was grave; errant bombs had fallen on a nearby neighborhood, destroying four homes and killing eleven civilians. She looked for recent damage to buildings as she walked along, but saw none.

  I have never been to a house of sin, the girl at the door said.

  She would never return. Let the Reich have her home, let them swallow it up. They’d not swallow her.

  When she came to the Rousseau Cimenterie office, with a placard announcing Todt Organization above the business sign, she brushed her suit free of city dust, arranged her hat, and firmed her grip on the little suitcase.

  The door opened to a bright, tall-ceilinged outer office where a rather dour, graying woman sat clacking away at a typewriter. She finished a word, untangled two keystrokes, and looked up. Brigitte gazed at the typewriter. How long since her fingers had poised over the keys at the embassy . . . Next to her typewriter, she’d had a little cobalt-blue vase, a gift from Jean-Paul. It always held a bud or two. Behind the vase was a photograph of her and Jean-Paul at the racetrack in Chantilly.

  “May I help you, mademoiselle?” the woman inquired.

  “I am here to see Monsieur Rousseau.”

  “You do not have an appointment . . .”

  “I must see him.”

  “I will see if he is available. Your name?”

  “Brigitte Durand.”

  If the name meant anything to her, the secretary did not let on. She got up and went to the door past her desk, knocked once and entered, closing the door behind.

  She was gone less than a minute. “He will see you. May I take your hat and coat? Would you like some coffee?” She added in a mildly conspiratorial tone, “Real coffee?”

  Sturmbannführer Ernst Schiffer pulled slowly on his cigarette as he looked over the file labeled Kees Nieuwenhuis. His secretary, Krista Hegel, noted there was not much in it. A thin, paper-clipped report that looked like a transcript, three pieces of identification, a school picture of a boy, and a paper with a few handwritten sentences from the Milice station in Bénouville.

  “You know Dutch, Krista,” Schiffer stated more than he asked.

  “I haven’t used it in a while. But yes.”

  “You will be present for the provisional in
formation interrogation, as well as any that follow. We will be clear on that now.”

  Krista did not answer. It wouldn’t matter if she protested. Worst of all, she had requested this assignment, never dreaming what it would mean. She had merely wanted to get out of Berlin; she wanted to see a little of the world. They sent her first to Italy, where she worked for a man who ran a camp in Trieste. After only two weeks, she was reassigned to Schiffer in Normandy, when he lost his secretary to tuberculosis. She hadn’t worked for Schiffer long before she figured his former secretary likely gave herself the disease to escape.

  As an interpreter and a secretary, she had to be present for certain interrogations—the “stricter” interrogations, Schiffer called them—to translate if needed and to take notes in shorthand, to be typed into a formal report later. Once she realized what sort of interrogations they were, she refused to be present for them. It was not a matter of translating; it was a matter of witnessing at close hand the torture of human beings, then writing down what was wrested from their brokenness.

  When she refused, Schiffer laughed in her face and told her a German woman had to be hard where enemies were concerned. But there wasn’t anything German about the way these men, and sometimes women, were treated—not the way Krista was taught and raised. And the more she saw of the SS and what had been unleashed upon the world, the more she clung to those precious things she had learned in childhood. Love your neighbor. Be gentle and kind. Help people.

  It was not Schiffer who persuaded her to obey, think what he might. It was a still, small voice that asked, Krista, will Schiffer’s cruelty be the last thing these wretches know? Will you not be courageous and offer what you can?

  The only way she could endure the interrogations was to pray in a silent, steady stream the entire time, and she made it her habit to begin the prayers with her first footfall in the room. Oh, God, if I can do no more than witness the atrocities that I may testify one day, then make me strong; and if I can do more than witness, then give me a chance to help.

  There were days she could not take it. She did her best to hide it from Schiffer, who loved to make fun of her “weakness.” But some days the cruelty made her weep long into her pillow at night. Yet she did not want reassignment. What if the woman who came after her was as cruel as Schiffer, like the secretary in Trieste? Would she take the opportunity to fetch the poor wretch some water when Schiffer went out? Would she whisper words of comfort or encouragement, sometimes destroy hidden evidence, or even take a message to a loved one?

  Would she offer last rites to an old woman?

  Krista was Lutheran. She was not Catholic, let alone a priest. Yet the old woman on the cot in interrogation room 3 had feebly called for last rites.

  “I see . . . you are not like him,” the old woman rattled, laboring for breath. “Soon I am gone. I need last rites.”

  Schiffer had left the room. One guard remained; the other had left to summon stretcher bearers from the infirmary. All knew the woman would not last the night.

  Krista had gone to the old woman and knelt at her side. She glanced at the guard, who averted his gaze, then whispered, “I am sorry—I am not Catholic. I do not know what to do.”

  “I need . . . I do not know English word,” the woman fretted, clutching her sleeve.

  “A priest?”

  “I need—I do not have the word! Dieu, je t’en prie, give me the word . . .”

  “Absolution,” the guard quietly supplied.

  “Oui!” the woman cried, pathetically grateful. Her head moved in the direction of the guard, but Krista doubted she could see him. Schiffer had taken away her glasses.

  “Have you been so very wicked that you need to be absolved?” A tear slipped down Krista’s cheek. Today was a bad day, and today she was very weak. She pushed away the tear with a fist, wishing, dear God, she could push away all misery. “You confessed that you hid people. You helped people. You fed people.” She touched the bruised, swollen face. “For which of these should you be absolved?”

  “Did you hear . . . the French I spoke?”

  Krista nodded.

  “I called him . . . bad things.” The old woman smiled a swollen smile.

  Krista smiled, too, and another tear slipped down. She caressed the old woman’s brow. “For this, I will not absolve you. No priest would. Jesus our Lord would call him whatever you did.”

  “Humor me,” the woman whispered, her smile fading, her eyes losing strength of spirit. Krista had seen it too often. The woman was not long for the earth.

  “I absolve you,” Krista said softly and, not knowing what else she should do, drew the sign of the cross on the woman’s forehead. Relief came to the battered face.

  “Do you know the Lord’s Prayer?” Krista asked.

  “Certainement,” she said faintly, with a rustle of indignation. “Always seems to . . . surprise you Protestants.”

  Krista took her hand. “Let us say it together.”

  The woman did not live past hallowed be thy name.

  Krista had rested her head on the edge of the cot, too full of despair to move.

  God trusts me with this terrible job, she told herself, sobbing into her pillow that night. He must trust me very much.

  Mother, may they know your kindness through me.

  Mother, may they know a different Germany through me.

  Mother—did you ever imagine you would raise your daughter to witness such things?

  Krista picked up the school picture of the little boy, then looked sadly at the blond young man in the identification booklet. He looked nice.

  “Brigitte Durand,” Charlotte announced.

  Michel looked up at Charlotte. It took a moment to recollect the name, and then he had to stifle a groan.

  He tossed down the pen. It could only mean something had gone wrong. What new unforeseen misery would he learn? Rafael had stopped in earlier to report that Tom was safe, if unhappy, at Gisèlle Bouvier’s home—and then he launched into an idea for a rescue attempt for Clemmie, and Michel had to break in and inform him that Clemmie was dead.

  Michel rubbed his temples. Why so many feeling people in this Resistance? Why could they not unplug all feeling until the war was over? Was it not enough, to labor under this cloud? Rafael had wept, and Michel had, too, for the tower of strength in Cabourg who had fallen.

  And now, Brigitte Durand, the child he had stolen to the Cause. Foreboding plundered his heart, a discordant measure of “La Marseillaise” plinking in some darkened corner.

  “Send her in.” Michel, he sternly told himself, take charge.

  The door opened. He rose, summoned a smile, and came around the desk. Charlotte announced that coffee was on its way and slipped out.

  Michel shook the woman’s hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mademoiselle Durand. A pleasure and an honor.” He showed her to the chair in front of the desk and went to take his own.

  The woman’s fair face was grave.

  “How may I assist you?” Michel asked, when she did not speak.

  She glanced around the large room as if sure to find someone to overhear. “It feels strange . . .”

  “I assure you, it is quite safe,” Michel said. “And my secretary is with us.”

  The young woman’s uncertain gaze came back to Michel, and her face seemed to clear. “By now you have heard the news,” she said tentatively. “I am here to help. I’ll do anything, Monsieur Rousseau. Anything.”

  He tilted his head slightly. “You refer to the news of Clemmie . . .”

  She shook her head. “I know of her arrest. It’s—”

  “No, mademoiselle,” Michel cut in gently. “She is dead.” At her shocked expression, he added, “We learned it very late last night.”

  “I am sorry. I did not know her, but—” she added quite softly—“but Tom did.”

  “Yes. But you must not tell him. Not now; it would be most unwise. Once we get him to England, we can send a message through—”

  “
But, Monsieur Rousseau,” Brigitte exclaimed, “Tom was arrested this morning.”

  Michel stared.

  “I thought you would have heard . . .”

  He found his voice. “Where is he being held?”

  “Right here in Caen. He was transferred to Gestapo headquarters from Bénouville this morning.”

  The door burst open, and Rafael rushed in, Charlotte behind him. Michel rose.

  Rafael stood breathing hard, sweat shining on his face. It was a face that knew what Michel had just learned. It was a face stone cold with decision. He walked slowly to the desk, eyes hard on Michel. “Not him.”

  Brigitte rose. Her self-possession faltered. Though her voice was steady, her lips trembled. “A piece of the sky cannot be caged.”

  “Not him,” Rafael repeated, daring Michel to tell him differently.

  “We would risk . . . everything,” Michel said heavily. Did it mean to them what it meant to him?

  “Sometimes you must,” Charlotte said quite clearly. “Stop being so responsible, Michel.” She turned on her heel, muttering about extra coffee.

  The interrogation room was not spread with a drop cloth. There would be no blood for the PII, the Provisional Information Interrogation.

  The prisoner sat with bound hands folded on the table. When Schiffer and Krista came in, he looked up with the same expression Krista had seen dozens of times. She’d seen it on the faces of the French, the British, the Americans, the Belgians, the Italians: the same fear, the same determination, the same courage, the same alarm, all schooled to one expression Krista had come to call the Provisional face.