Chasing Ghosts

by Madalyn Morgan

  Claire washed and dressed quickly and went downstairs to the kitchen where André and Pierre were sitting at the table drinking coffee. ‘Pierre! It is good to see you,’ she said, falling into her old comrade’s arms.

  ‘And you, ma chèrie,’ Pierre said, patting and rubbing her back as if he were burping a baby.

  ‘You have brought my suitcase from Édith’s?’ Claire said, seeing the case by the door. She cuffed a tear from her cheek. ‘Thank you, Pierre.’

  ‘My mother has told Pierre about Alain,’ André said. ‘When you’re ready, he will drive you into Gisoir to meet her, and she will tell you when and where to meet the man who will take you to Orléans.’

  ‘That’s wonderful.’ Claire looked at Pierre. ‘What are we waiting for?’

  ‘You! You are going nowhere without food in your stomach.’ André took a large omelette from the oven where it had been keeping warm. ‘It should not be dry. I made it only seconds before you came down.’ He divided the omelette into three, sliding one portion onto Claire’s plate and one onto Pierre’s. The remainder he left on the tin oven-dish for himself. He pressed the edge of his fork into the soft cooked egg and lifted a sizable chunk to his mouth. Then, seeing that Claire wasn’t eating her food, he said, ‘Eat! That is an order.’

  The three friends sat at the kitchen table eating and drinking, as they had done many times in the war. When Claire’s plate was empty, Pierre drained his cup and stood up.

  André made a performance of looking at her plate. ‘Now you can go,’ he said.

  Claire laughed, saluted the man who had been the brave leader of the Gisoir Resistance cell and said, ‘Comrade!’

  ‘Those were the days,’ André said. ‘They called me a hero then. Now?’ He raised his eyebrows, ‘I wear a pinafore.’ He lifted the sides of the tea towel that he had tucked into the waistband of his trousers and danced a jig.

  Claire put on her coat and picked up her handbag. At the door, she turned back to André. ‘Poor Cinderella left at home to wash the ugly sister’s dishes,’ she said, and pulling a hideous face, shouted, ‘See you later.’

  Claire and Pierre met Édith in Gisoir. She told them that a Resistance member who had been a courier in the war and was part of the group that brought Alain home to Gisoir ten years earlier was now a travelling salesman. ‘He will take you to Orléans where you’ll be met by another resistance veteran who will take you on to Paris.

  ‘Thank you,’ Claire said, with a catch in her voice.

  ‘What is it?’ Édith asked.

  ‘Three years ago, when Alain and I were here, we strolled happily hand in hand through the town with not a care in the world. I was so happy. I had my man and he was safe. I didn’t think about the Germans, the SS, or the Gestapo. All that pain belonged in the past. This year,’ she said, ‘it is as if I have gone back a decade. I am looking for my man again.’ Claire gave in to her tears and broke down.

  ‘Come,’ Édith said, leading her to a bench in the square. ‘Sit for a while and then we will go to Café La Ronde, ask the proprietor if he has seen Alain. If he is retracing his steps he may have been to the café.’

  Claire looked around the small square. The statue of Napoleon that the Germans had ripped from its plinth when they marched into the town had been replaced. Claire could see the market stalls. Beneath colourful canopies, wooden tables were stacked with produce. Further along the street, the patisserie’s window, no longer empty, displayed a variety of cakes and bread.

  ‘It’s good to see the town so busy,’ Claire said. Bringing her gaze back to Café La Ronde her eyes settled on the section of street where the Gestapo officer had arrested and had Mitch beaten, before he was dragged off to Gestapo Headquarters.

  Emotion very nearly getting the better of her, Claire took Édith’s hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. She was only alive today because of Édith’s youngest son, Frédéric. He had stopped her from going to Mitch’s aid. And thank God he had. She was pushing her way through the crowd when a black Mercedes pulled up. She turned as an SS Waffen Captain wearing a green field uniform, with a highly polished death mask on his peaked hat, stepped from the car and strode across to the pack of grey uniforms. Claire recognised the officer. She had seen him several times in the Café La Ronde. He once asked her if Alain was her lover. When she laughed, wrinkled her nose, and said no, he had asked her out to dinner.

  She was at the edge of the gathering when Frédéric appeared at her side and dragged her back into the crowd. He put his arms around her and told the men who had left their beers and coffees in the nearby cafés and bars to see what the commotion was about that Claire was his woman. He joked with them saying she was a tiger, and he wished she was as passionate in bed as she was about a stranger being arrested by the Germans. The men had laughed and made lewd comments. Frédéric had held her so tightly she could hardly breathe, and all the time he was talking her down. Claire looked at Édith. Her youngest son had saved her life that day. Not long afterwards he had lost his own.

  The Café La Ronde, like all the other cafés and bars around the square, had been packed with Germans, mostly officers, during France’s occupation. Claire greeted the proprietor with a smile when she and Édith entered. He lifted up his arms and tilted his head in a welcoming gesture before walking from behind the counter and shaking her hand.

  ‘What a pleasure it is to see you again, Madame,’ he said, to Claire. ‘Édith?’ He kissed Édith Belland’s hand. He showed them to a table at the back of the café. While he was taking his notebook and pen from his top pocket, Claire sidestepped into the booth where she and Mitch used to sit. ‘Ah… You remember, Madame,’ he said to Claire beaming her a smile.

  ‘Coffee and slice of almond cake,’ Édith said.

  ‘And for Madame Mitchell?’

  ‘The same.’ Claire started to ask him if he had seen Alain recently, then stopped. Instead, she nodded her thanks and watched as he moved deftly between the blue-and-white checked table-cloths on the small tables back to the counter.

  The café’s door opened and Claire half expected to see Jacques the Resistance wireless operator come in. He wouldn’t of course. Jacques had been killed when his house was singled out by a German surveillance van with radio search equipment on the roof. The Germans had smashed down Jacques’ door, seized the wireless, and Jacques was never seen again.

  That night, while she slept, Claire saw the face of the SS officer who had asked her out. She had often wondered whether it was because she had turned him down that he had Mitch arrested. She woke up in a panic, breathing heavily with her hair soaked in sweat, stuck to her head. She looked around the familiar room, the room where she and Mitch had slept when they last visited Édith. She put on her dressing gown, went to the window, and sat on the sill looking out. A ribbon of light on the horizon to the east told her it would soon be dawn. She leaned into the recess between window and wall and lifted up her feet.

  The first time she and Mitch stayed with Édith Belland they had a dangerous mission to perform with the local Resistance movement. Before the end of their work in France Aimée was born, and later they were married. Claire’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.

  ‘Claire, are you awake?’

  ‘Yes, Édith. Come in.’

  ‘André called. He has gone to pick up your new passport and identity papers.’

  Claire felt butterflies stirring in her stomach. She inhaled and let her breath out slowly. She felt no calmer. ‘Did he arrange for me to travel by motorcar?’

  ‘Yes. He is seeing one of the men who brought Alain on the last leg of the journey after he had escaped from prison. Bernard is his name. You may remember him? He was a member of a cell in Orléans.’

  Claire shook her head. She might remember his face when she saw him, but she had known several men named Bernard and it was a long time ago. ‘It was Eddie and Antoinette Marron who brought Alain to Orléans from Paris,’ she said, as much to herself as to Édith.
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  ‘It was,’ Édith said. ‘Those dear brave women brought Alain all the way by ambulance.’

  There wasn’t a day went by that Claire didn’t think about her friend Eddie and how saving Mitch’s life got her killed. ‘I know the leader of Paris Centre, the Paris Maquis, Thomas Durand,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘I know it was a rogue cell, but he was highly respected, all the members of the cell were. Monsieur Durand might know where Alain was taken after he was shot.’

  ‘Someone must know.’ Édith said, thoughtfully. ‘Someone somewhere took the bullets out of Alain’s leg and nursed him until his leg had healed. Monsieur Durand might know people who can help,’ Édith said. ‘Anyway, Bernard will take you wherever you need to go tomorrow. But before that, André will be here with your papers.’

  ‘I wish there was time to visit Therese and your granddaughter,’ Claire said.

  ‘There will be plenty of time when this nonsense about Alain being a traitor is cleared up.’

  ‘Then we will visit as we had planned, with Aimée.’ Claire had every intention of jumping down from the window. Instead, she slumped back. ‘You must think I am a terrible mother to leave my child in England with my sister while I travel halfway across Europe looking for Alain.’

  Édith went to her and, holding Claire’s face in her hands, said, ‘I think no such thing. You must do what you have to do, child.’ Claire hung her head. ‘Look at me?’ Édith said. And when Claire looked up at her old friend, she said, ‘You will find Alain. You found him once before - and that was in the middle of a war - you will find him again.

  ‘Come now,’ she said, helping Claire down from the windowsill. ‘Get washed and dressed and come down for breakfast. André will soon be here with your passport and papers. I should like us to have eaten and cleared away before he arrives.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Wearing Édith’s brown walking shoes, a dark brown and gold flecked two-piece beneath a bottle-green belted coat, and sandy coloured scarf and beret - a mismatch of colours that Claire would never wear - she climbed into Pierre and André’s friend Bernard’s Renault pick-up truck. She was grateful for the old coat. Unlike Pierre’s warm motorcar there was no heater in the truck.

  The journey from Orléans to Paris was less comfortable than the drive from Gisoir to Orléans had been. Not only because Pierre’s car was new, warm, and had soft seats, but because Pierre thought it best that Bernard stuck to the country roads that he normally took when he delivered produce to the market towns. Many of the narrow roads were in disrepair and Claire felt every bump and pothole the truck drove over.

  Bernard was a man of few words. Claire tried to engage him in conversation several times, but a grunt and a nod, or a tobacco-stained toothy grin were as much as she got out of him.

  ‘Smoke?’ he said, taking a roll-up of brown paper from an old dented tobacco tin.

  ‘No, thank you.’ Claire was about to say I don’t mind if you smoke when he put the torpedo-shaped cigarette in his mouth and flicked open the lid of a battered old American lighter.

  ‘GI gave to me this lighter.’ Bernard lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘Very good,’ he said, loudly, enunciating every syllable. Suddenly he began to cough. ‘Argh!’ he shouted, took his hand off the steering wheel, made a ball of his fist and beat his chest.

  As the truck weaved its way along the road, bumping the grass verge several times. Claire looked at the handbrake, ready to pull it on if necessary. ‘Yes,’ he gasped, when he had finished coughing, ‘it is very good.’

  Within seconds the cab was filled with smoke, so when Bernard said he was hungry and suggested they stopped for lunch at a small café he knew, Claire agreed. She had smelled some strong French cigarettes in the war - Mitch had occasionally smoked Gitanes and Gauloises - but never in all the years she had lived in France had she smelled anything as pungent as the cigarette Bernard smoked.

  He swung the truck off the road onto a patch of waste ground, bringing it to a halt in front of a small roadside café. ‘Very good,’ he said, miming putting food in his mouth.

  She smiled. To Bernard everything he said to her he said loudly and finished with Very good. Perhaps it was because he knew she was English. ‘I am feeling peckish, but not hungry,’ Claire said, in perfect French.

  Bernard replied, ‘Very good,’ and led the way along a narrow path of loose gravel to the shabby café with grey threadbare curtains at its two filthy windows. As he opened the door and stood aside to let Claire enter, a combination of cigarette smoke and burnt cooking oil filled her nostrils. She had swapped one smoke-filled space for another.

  Bernard swaggered into the small café to jokes and leg-pulling because he had a female passenger with him. He put up his hands, ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, puffing out his chest. He was secretly enjoying the attention, Claire thought. ‘This is my good friend André Belland’s cousin, so mind your manners.’

  ‘Then welcome,’ said one man, ‘A good man, André Belland,’ said another. ‘The best! Give my regards to Madame Édith when you next see her,’ another said, pulling out a chair for Claire to sit down.

  Bernard nodded that he would sit in the chair opposite her. ‘But first I shall order lunch.’ Claire glanced along the table: there was no menu. She looked at the other tables in the prefabricated cabin. No menus on them either. But above the gas stove where the cook was frying steak was a blackboard. She read down the list of dishes. Soup of the day, some sort of steak, which Claire thought must be a local dish, pork chop and fillet of fish. She was just about to tell Bernard that she would like soup when he returned and sat down.

  ‘It will not be long,’ he said, grinning. ‘The steak here is…’ He put his fingers to his mouth and blew a kiss into the air, making a smacking noise with his lips, ‘very good.’

  ‘Steak?’ Claire said, ‘delicious. Thank you, Bernard.’

  The steak was indeed delicious. And, thank goodness, not too filling.

  During the last part of the journey Bernard smiled at her every now and then but he was no conversationalist. ‘How are we doing?’ Claire asked. ‘Have we made the halfway mark yet?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and twenty kilometres.’

  ‘That’s good. We’re over halfway to Paris.’ Claire looked out of the side window. They had left the country lanes behind and the road they were now travelling on was straight and wide. She supposed it was a new road that had been built since she and Alain were last there. Her stomach churned at the thought of her husband with another woman. She tried to concentrate on the landscape but at this time of year there was nothing much to see. She closed her eyes and was soon asleep.

  Claire woke to Bernard shaking her by the shoulder. ‘If you would like to change your clothes now, the toilet is round the back of the café. I shall fill up with petrol for the return journey while you are getting changed, yes?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Bernard.’ Claire opened the door and jumped down from the cab of the truck. Walking in the direction of the toilet, she noticed a road sign. It was old and some of the letters were worn, but she could make out the words: Paris Centre: 20 kilometres.

  She wondered if the vehicle taking her to Paris was already in the parking area. She screwed up her eyes and searched the windscreens of several parked cars. None had a driver at the wheel. They probably hadn’t arrived yet. She entered the lavatory, which was used by both men and women. Trying to ignore the stench coming from the holes in the wall, she went into a narrow cubicle and closed the thin wooden door. There was hardly room to turn round, let alone change from one set of clothes to another, but at least there was a window ledge to put her bag on.

  She turned to lock the door, but there was no lock. Avoiding the hole in the floor, Claire held her breath and quickly took off the thick clothes she had worn as a disguise and put on a smart grey costume. Kicking off the brown brogues and thick socks one at a time, she slipped her feet into a pair of classic black court shoes. Changing from socks over stockin
gs to only stockings took Claire’s breath away. The difference in warmth was unbelievable. After checking her hair in the broken mirror, she wrapped the shoes and socks in the clothes she had taken off and took them outside.

  There was no one on the road but she and Bernard had passed a dozen, probably more, men and women trudging through mounds of snow that had built up on the verge along the side of the main road leading into Paris. They looked half frozen as they trailed along one behind the other. December had been recorded as one of the coldest in France for a decade. It felt to Claire as if January would soon be taking the record.

  She left the clothes on the top of a stack of crates in full view of the road. Hopefully, one of the women she’d seen earlier on the road would pass by, see them, and change from their wet clothes to dry ones. She looked up. Snow clouds hung heavily in what was otherwise a bright blue sky. She hoped the clothes were found before the next snowfall.

  ‘It is bitter out there, Bernard,’ Claire said, climbing into the cab of the truck and slamming the door. ‘What time did you say the person taking me to Paris would be here?’

  ‘Anytime now,’ he said, consulting his watch.

  ‘And how will we know him, or her?’

  ‘We won’t, he or she will know us.’

  The situation reminded Claire of her time with the Resistance in the war. Except it wasn’t nearly as dangerous. A black Citroën pulled up on the driver’s side of the truck and Bernard said ‘A man,’ as he wound down his window.

  Claire slid down in the seat. ‘Is it him?’

  ‘I don’t know. If it is he will know my name.’