Flame of Resistance

by Tracy Groot

  Last fall, Michel was supervising a delivery to a site for a long-range artillery battery when he met Marshal Erwin Rommel, strolling along in deep discussion with Hauptmann Braun. Braun stopped and introduced him, and though he only briefly shared their conversation, he clearly saw not only the respect Braun had for Rommel, but also that which Rommel had for Braun.

  Michel touched Rafael’s favorite paperweight. Not long after Rafael and Brigitte left for lunch, Charlotte came in with the distressed look she wore all too frequently these days. She had learned from Wilkie’s sister-in-law, Lily, who worked for Charlotte’s cell, that the forger Flame had often used was missing. His nom de guerre was Diefer. There was no sign of forced entry at Diefer’s apartment. No one had seen anything. It did not look as if he had gone on a trip. He was simply gone. Diefer lived alone and was a loner. No one could guess how long he had been missing. Maybe a few days, maybe a week.

  Twenty-five minutes. Thirty. Michel got up and went to the window. He clasped his hands behind his back, but after only a moment he pulled himself away. He could not think of Tom. He could not think of any rescue plan. He had not the heart. A visit to the window, which often shaped his thoughts, also invited the shapeless. Fear ever crouched on the periphery, and doubt, fear’s companion, ever to wither thoughts and ideas, ever to smother hope.

  He came to his senses at the desk, could not remember sitting down. He was so exhausted of late. It used to be the darkness merely pressed him down; now it came from all directions. He could almost feel the wind of its passing.

  “Truth,” he called for thickly.

  He needed truth to steady him, and the truth was that every resistant agent knew sooner or later his work must end in disaster. Michel relaxed a little, feeling a little warmth. Facing truth was clarifying. The resistant agent knew he was already dead; to prolong burial, now, that was the game entirely.

  But warmth began to fade. Death wasn’t the worst anymore, not his own death, anyway. Tom was not an agent. Tom had been talked into it. Clemmie’s death was easier to bear than Tom’s arrest. She was a resistant; she knew she was already dead.

  Back to the beginning, his mind urged weakly. Go back to the—

  Nothing there was strong enough, and this the hardest truth of all, that Michel Rousseau had abandoned leadership of Flame. He had given in to François, and in that moment he had abdicated authority. The most important thing his father ever taught him about leadership was, quite simply, to lead.

  Your one weak moment will cost a man his life because you said yes to François when you knew, you knew in your heart, you should have said no.

  One weak moment? No. There were many. Flame’s current state of impotence might have been a matter of attrition. Perhaps, as the Occupation continued, he had gradually allowed Flame to tatter away into nothing but an empty suit of armor.

  He used to be good at what he did. He did not stay disciplined of mind; he’d let up bit by bit. One could not let up for one second under this kind of oppression.

  Did you think yourself so strong?

  What a grand reputation the great G enjoyed in London, respected by MI19, trusted by de Gaulle—and Clemmie dead. Jasmine dead. Diefer missing. All Flame had left was Michel, Rafael, Wilkie, and two others, Tom and Brigitte, conscripted to service as surely as if seized by Germans. Wrested to the cause by Greenland.

  He fell back in his chair. He’d spent the last four years sheltering conscripts. Now he made them.

  “Dear God,” he whispered in wonder. “I am no better than a Nazi.”

  “Monsieur Rousseau!” Charlotte cried. “Come quick!”

  Brigitte, Rafael, and Charlotte stood in a half ring about Charlotte’s desk, gazing at something upon it. Michel shouldered in—and stared.

  No one spoke. When Michel finally ventured a comment, his tone was unsuitably loud. He quickly lowered it. “So it is true.”

  “You see that it is,” Rafael said, mesmerized.

  “Shh,” Charlotte admonished reverently.

  A newspaper lay on the desk. It had a bold headline.

  The office door opened, and in came Hauptmann Braun. All four at the desk gave him no more than a vague glance and turned back to the newspaper.

  The newspaper had a bold headline nobody saw, for upon the newspaper was a proclamation bolder yet, harking back to gentler days and civilized times.

  Braun joined the gathering at the desk and looked over their heads to see. He finally ventured, “It’s cheese.”

  “It is Camembert,” Rafael breathed.

  The glorious wedge, rimmed in chalky white, sat upon a plate that began to receive the satiny ooze from the recently cut middle. Michel had unconsciously placed his hand on Rafael’s shoulder.

  “I have Red Cross crackers in my purse,” Brigitte said faintly.

  “I have a knife,” Rafael whispered.

  “Saucers,” Charlotte said. She went to get them.

  Michel reverently swept his fingertip along the top of the cheese. The chalky rind was silken, downy, like talcum. There were tiny red flecks in the silken shroud, and the slow ooze of the center meant it was perfectly ripe, and at perfect room temperature. He touched the chalk to the tip of his tongue and closed his eyes.

  Charlotte appeared with five saucers. Rafael pulled out his knife and scored the wedge into five small parts.

  “No, no,” Braun protested. “I couldn’t possibly—”

  “I assure you, Hauptmann Braun, we sin against God and country if we share not this . . . miracle with you,” Michel said.

  “Come,” Rafael said, motioning to Michel’s office.

  Rafael hastily arranged chairs near the fireplace, positioning the two wingbacks, dragging over Michel’s chair and the desk chair. He hurried to the corner for the little foldout chair Charlotte sometimes used, then with a flourish indicated the wingbacks to Braun and Michel. He set the tiny chair in front of the coffee table. Charlotte came, bearing the Camembert as if it were a crown nestled on a velvet cushion. Brigitte brought the saucers. She produced the packet of Red Cross crackers and laid them on the table.

  Charlotte centered the plate perfectly, stood back to gaze, hands clasped to her chest. She lowered herself into the chair next to Braun, who, with a small smile, gazed with equal mystification at the cheese and the awestruck people around him.

  Rafael straddled the tiny chair. He produced his knife. He squared his shoulders, then began to slice the cheese along the scored lines. He transferred each wedge to a saucer with the flat of the knife. Brigitte nervously opened the packet of crackers. She counted out three crackers to each saucer, with an extra cracker for Braun. She took the saucer and handed it slowly to Braun. She handed out the rest of the saucers and settled down with her own.

  No one spoke. Each gazed at the cheese on his or her saucer, Braun occasionally glancing at the others.

  “Beaujolais,” Michel murmured fondly, eyes glowing as softly as if he were staring into a hearth fire.

  “Bordeaux,” Brigitte sighed.

  “Calvados,” Rafael said, as if it couldn’t be anything else.

  Each small wedge began the outward bulge of ooze. Michel looked around, and something happened.

  A little shiver ran through him—anticipation, yes, of this fine cheese peculiar to Normandy, but something more attended this gathering, something greater. And now other looks went from saucers to faces, as if yes, they felt it too. How extraordinary, this gathering: the German, the businessman, the secretary, the courier, the prostitute. A tiny snapshot of humanity. How capricious, this otherworld attendance, for there came to the room the presence from the train, the stirring of the pool, one had but to fling himself in . . .

  He gazed at this cheese, this form of communion, surely on the brink of transubstantiation. This thing of earth, this substance, it bound them together in some holy enchantment, Braun no less in its thrall than Charlotte, Rafael no less than Brigitte.

  Communion. Community. Every plot of God, always ab
out people. He looked at the faces looking at him and felt a swell of love, felt caught in God’s plot for humanity, God’s scheme to bring human beings together, and Michel wanted nothing more than to aid and abet God. And he felt a great swell of pleasure, as he knew in this moment that he had aided and abetted the scheming God of humanity, and felt, in fact, God’s pleasure with him.

  And he could not tell them of nearby angels stirring the pool, of the joyous ache in his heart. They would think him mad.

  They waited for Michel. He took a cracker and scooped some of the cheese sliding from the wedge center. He waited until the others had secured the same.

  He lifted the cracker, for it was wine as well as bread. “Absent friends.”

  The others murmured in kind, including Braun.

  Not a word was spoken as they ate. When the last crumb was gone, still they lingered, no one desirous to disturb the mood.

  At last, Rafael stirred them to their immediate and varied realities with a fitting farewell to what they had shared: he slid his saucer onto the table, looked them round, and then laughed.

  Michel stared in wonder. He had never heard the young man laugh, not this kind of laughter. It was a sound sent forth from a moment of pure happiness. Soon Braun chuckled, too, and Brigitte began to laugh. Charlotte, hand ready at her mouth as if to suppress something irreverent and unbecoming, finally dropped her hand, gave in, and laughed.

  The contagion welled around him. Michel joined in, and when Braun’s chuckle fanned to outright laughter, theirs became all the merrier for his.

  When it finally subsided, and tears were wiped from eye corners, and the room at last became quiet, Charlotte let loose a traitorous titter. Laughter revived in a common burst, and all was silly, glorious hilarity.

  “What nonsense,” Braun said at last, wiping his eyes. A smile lingered, along with an inward glow. Then he declared, “Weihenstephaner.”

  “That doesn’t translate,” Michel said, wiping his own eyes.

  “My favorite beer. I think it would go nicely with the cheese.”

  “With the Camembert,” Rafael corrected, considering Braun with a far less restrictive eye. “What is it like, this Wei . . . ?”

  “Weihenstephaner. It is very refreshing. I like it cold enough to hurt my . . .” He pointed at his mouth, unsure of the French word.

  “Teeth?” Brigitte asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Fillings?” Michel asked.

  And Braun snapped his fingers and said, “Yes, yes, fillings.” Trying out the word, he said again, “Fillings. I shared it last with my son Franz, before he went to North Africa.” The inward glow dimmed a fraction.

  In the first personal question she had ever asked the man, Charlotte ventured, “How many children do you have, Hauptmann?”

  “Two sons,” Braun said brightly, rousing himself. “Franz was in Tunis until ’43. He was transferred to a division in Italy, the Fourteenth Panzer Corps. We last heard from him at Monte Cassino. My youngest, Erich, is still in school. He is fifteen.” Braun smiled a little. “Oh, how he wants to fight. His mother won’t let him. It is a strange twist of fate, Erich the fighter who cannot fight, Franz who can, who would far rather build things. We sent him to the States to study architecture at Taliesin, in Wisconsin. Frank Lloyd Wright’s school. He was there only three months when recalled to serve.” Braun’s smile faded.

  “You must be proud of him, Hauptmann Braun,” Charlotte said.

  He glanced up, appearing a trifle bemused at such a sentiment from a Frenchwoman. “I am. He is a good boy.” He added dryly, “A good man. Only yesterday, he was a boy.”

  “I wish him the best,” Brigitte said suddenly. She seemed a little surprised at her own outburst. Cheeks flushing a little, she said, “I admire him for going all the way to the States to learn.”

  “He loved it. I hope to send him back one day.”

  “How goes it for him, where he is in Italy?” Brigitte asked.

  Braun noticed the saucer he held. He absently dabbed at cracker crumbs with his fingertip, touched them to his tongue.

  “He was wounded at Monte Cassino in January. We last heard from a field hospital in Pontecorvo, which has since relocated to we know not where. Someplace remote. As we say, Dort, wo sich die Füchse gute Nacht sagen, where foxes say good night.” He slid the saucer to the table. He rubbed his hands together, and for a moment, his expression was vacant. “His tank took a direct hit. Franz was a loader. All four of the rest of his crew were killed. His injuries were . . . extensive. When last we heard, he was . . . What is the French? Im Koma. He sleeps.” His hands stilled. “I told you, Rousseau, that I went to Berlin because my wife had a kidney operation. It is not true. . . . Lisette is at a sanatorium on Lake Geneva. She and Franz are very close.” He suddenly flashed a quick and tight smile. “But he is alive. Yes? We will take what we can get. Yes?”

  He had left his first self, back to the Braun with whom Michel was most familiar, all clipped and hearty sentences. “And what of you, young lady? Where are you from? Do you have a beau?”

  But Brigitte did not answer.

  Michel felt a twinge in his chest. A gravely wounded son, a broken-down wife, all with Rommel’s relentless cement campaign for the Atlantic Wall.

  He gave him all he could give, a piece of honesty that would cost something. “The girl who died, Hauptmann Braun,” he found himself saying. “You asked if she was my lover. She wasn’t, because I was too late. We shared a kiss, and the next time I held her, she died.”

  Braun rustled in his seat. He looked at Brigitte and said, hearty and false, “Come now, answer my questions, young lady! Where are you from? Do you have a beau? Lovely girl such as yourself? They must camp on your doorstep.”

  But Brigitte did not want Braun to transition any more than Michel did. She leaned forward in her chair and rested her hand on Braun’s arm. His lips parted, he blinked. He gave a tiny movement as if to pull away, but remained, submitted to her concern. She gave his arm a gentle squeeze and, after a moment, withdrew. A raw vulnerability came to Braun’s face, and Michel dropped his glance.

  “I wish the best for your son,” Rafael finally muttered. He added wryly, “It is the first time, and likely the last, that I will wish a German well.”

  “Then it is a potent wish,” Braun said gallantly, with a smile less false than it was brave, “and will do my son good.”

  The Camembert gathering had come to a close.

  Brigitte began to gather the saucers. Charlotte took the plate. Rafael pulled the two desk chairs back. Braun and Michel stayed in the wingbacks.

  “Back to our worlds, and what we do in those worlds,” Michel murmured.

  “Yes,” Braun said, a little distractedly. He watched Brigitte carry the plates from the room, following Charlotte. “Who is the girl?”

  It was unexpected, and he had nothing ready. Rafael was folding the little chair. He glanced at Braun. “She is my girlfriend. Brigitte.”

  “Hang on to her, André.”

  Alarm surged in Michel’s stomach at the mention of Rafael’s real name. He had become so comfortable with the Camembert gathering, he could have easily slipped and called him Rafael. Michel glanced at Braun. He’d never seen him so thoughtful. Not even when they’d talked of Mein Kampf and Braun told of Clemmie’s arrest.

  Rafael had replaced the fold-up chair, nodded first to Michel, then to Braun, even giving him a small smile. He left the office, pulling the door shut.

  “André despises you less,” Michel observed.

  “Camembert will do that.”

  “You were late today,” Michel said. “And even now you are distracted.”

  “Camembert will do that.”

  “You have never been late. Not once in the course of our association. What happened?” Michel dared to ask.

  Braun wore an impenetrable frown. Folded hands rested in his lap. His gray eyes were somehow icy and hard and vulnerable at the same time. So very still, so very au
stere. He could have been posing for a portrait painter.

  “I was detained by a matter that has brought to my attention a distressing . . . What is the word . . . ?” But instead of conducting a word search, he seemed to come to a decision. “There is a man who seeks Greenland, and he is a man not unlike Klaus Barbie. You have heard of Barbie?”

  “The Butcher of Lyon,” Michel said unhesitatingly.

  “Schiffer seeks to rival him. He seeks a prize and will find it in Greenland.”

  “Why should this concern me?”

  “He thinks to find Greenland through a young man he is currently interrogating.” Braun’s distant look found Michel. “A man who has been linked to the Rousseau Cimenterie.”

  He did not know how long he looked into Braun’s penetrating gaze.

  Long enough for Braun to see things. Long enough for Braun to come to private conclusions. Heaviness came to his handsome features, and he looked away.

  Time passed. Both men sat motionless in the wingback chairs, staring into a cold fireplace.

  “How is he?” Michel asked thinly.

  “She didn’t say.” He hesitated. “She was, however, upset.”

  “He was a mistake.” The atmosphere felt repressive, unwilling to receive truth because unused to it; it wanted to keep the words unheard, push them back, but there was no going back. “He is innocent.”

  “I do not wish for you to say any more.”

  “We both know it is too late for delicacy.”

  “It’s all going to be over soon. You just had to wait it out.”

  “Such conflict in this air . . . ,” Michel murmured. “Do you feel it?”

  “Why couldn’t you wait it out?”

  “Oh, I think you know the answer. You who could not read the book, any more than I.”

  Braun rustled in his seat.

  “He is innocent,” Michel said.

  “That depends on your point of view,” Braun snapped.