Chasing Ghosts

by Madalyn Morgan

  The driver of the Citroën, muffled up with the brim of his trilby pulled down against the biting wind, got out of the car. He stretched his legs, then took a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. ‘Do you have a light, Monsieur?’ he asked, looking up at Bernard’s open window.

  ‘I do, Monsieur. I was just about to have a cigarette, myself.’ Bernard closed the window and opened the truck’s door. Jumping down he shook the man’s hand before flicking the lid on his American lighter. He cupped his hands against the wind, lit the stranger’s cigarette and then his own.

  ‘Thank you, Bernard,’ the man said.

  ‘You are welcome,’ Bernard replied. Exhaling a long stream of smoke into the freezing air, he banged on the driver’s door. A signal to Claire that her ride into Paris was here. ‘Madame wishes to go to the 8th Arrondissement,’ he said, turning back to the driver of the Citroën. ‘From there she will take the Metro.’ The man gave one sharp nod.

  Claire arrived at Bernard’s side from the back of the truck. She put out her hand. ‘Hello, Monsieur, I am--’

  ‘Madame Belland! How do you do?’ A lopsided smile crept across the man’s face, as he took Claire’s suitcase and put it in the boot of his car.

  ‘Thank you for bringing me all this way, Bernard.’ Claire put her arms around the burly lorry driver and kissed him goodbye. ‘I am grateful to you for all you have done.’

  ‘You just find Alain. And when you do, bring him to Gisoir and we will celebrate.’

  The driver of the Citroën opened the car’s passenger door and Claire got in. She couldn’t see Bernard from the passenger side of the car, but she would put money on him standing beside his truck waving her off. And he was. When the car pulled away, she looked out of the back window and waved until Bernard faded into the distance.

  ‘So,’ the driver of the Citroën said, ‘you have lost your Canadian again.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘Thomas Durand?’ The driver of the car that was going to take her to Paris had been the leader of the Paris Centre, Maquis Resistance cell, during the war. ‘Oh my God,’ Claire said, ‘it is you.’

  ‘Yes, it is me,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye. And you must be Madame Belland?’

  ‘For the time being.’ Thomas Durand laughed. ‘It is not funny,’ Claire said.

  ‘No, it is not,’ Thomas Durand agreed.

  Neither spoke for a while, and then Thomas said, ‘I know something of the Canadian and, for what it is worth, I do not think he is a traitor. A womaniser?’ he said, laughing, ‘that is another thing. He is a man after all.’ Claire began to protest, but Thomas cut in, ‘I joke.’

  ‘Again, not funny,’ Claire said, as casually as her aching heart would allow.

  As they drove through Paris’s southern suburbs the two ex-Resistance members talked about the war; the successful missions to stop the trains transporting German troops to Normandy, the friends they had worked with, and the brave Resistance fighters that they had lost.

  ‘I know Antoinette Marron,’ Thomas Durand said, ‘from the University. Through her, I met your friend Eddie.’

  ‘Eddie,’ Claire said, tears welling up in her eyes, ‘was the best friend anyone could have. We were young WAAFs together. We learned French together, trained together, the SOE put us through our paces at the same time,’ Claire said, sniffing back her tears. She shook her head. ‘Eddie was killed in Paris after she and Antoinette had smuggled Mitch out of the city in an ambulance. Those two brave women drove him all the way to Orléans.

  ‘When they got back to Paris, Eddie insisted she took the ambulance back to the hospital on her own and dropped Antoinette off at the house where she lived with her parents.’

  ‘Why did she risk driving the ambulance back to the hospital? She could have left it in a street nearby.’

  ‘Antoinette told me Eddie was worried that if there was an emergency during the night the depot would be an ambulance short, which could cost lives.’

  ‘So she took it back to the depot on her own?’

  ‘Yes. Apparently, everything had gone to plan. The ambulance was back in its bay when a side door leading into the hospital opened and one of the medics, who Eddie knew really well, came out wielding a gun. He shot Eddie at point blank range. After saving Mitch’s life, Eddie was murdered by someone she thought was a friend.’ Claire didn’t try to stop her tears, she let them flow. ‘That murdering-- was a Frenchman who was born and brought up in Paris.

  ‘But paid by the Germans,’ Thomas added.

  Claire nodded and wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand. ‘Poor Eddie. She was so full of life.’

  Thomas put his arm out of the window to indicate he was turning left and brought the car to a halt in a side street. He pulled on the handbrake but left the engine ticking over. ‘There’s a café,’ he said, pointing to the opposite side of the road. ‘I think you could do with a drink. I suggest brandy?’ he said, grinning.

  ‘But I need to get to the Metro or I won’t be at Antoinette and Auguste Marron’s house on time. They’re expecting me for dinner and I don’t want to be late.’

  ‘I’ll drive you to their house. Then you’ll be there in plenty of time. Come on,’ Thomas said, ‘what do you say?’

  Claire reached behind her and grabbed her handbag from the back seat of the car. ‘Okay, you win. It’s been a long day, I could do with a drink.’

  Weaving in and out of the slow moving traffic, Claire and Thomas ran across the street. ‘Mm…’ Claire said, entering the café, ‘smell that coffee.’

  Thomas ordered two coffees and two brandies and led Claire to a table next to the fire. ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘Yes, ravenous, but I’m not sure I could eat anything. My stomach feels like a coiled spring. Besides, Antoinette will have made dinner. I think I should wait but thank you.’ Thomas nodded, took a sip of his coffee, and began to laugh. ‘What now?’ Claire asked.

  ‘I was thinking about the first time we met. Do you remember?’

  ‘Of course, I do. I don’t remember the exact date, but it was outside Le Park Café on the Champs Élysées.’

  ‘You had an old map of the Metro underground and I had to ask you if you were a visitor to Paris.’

  ‘And my reply was something like, “Not exactly, I am visiting my grandmother, but I want to see the sights.” Then I asked you if you were a visitor and you said--’

  “‘No, I’m waiting for a friend, but she has not arrived.’”

  Claire hooted with laughter. ‘And that was my cue to leave. But before I could, I had to take the money for my coffee from my purse and leave it on the table. Then I had to put my wallet on the table, under the newspaper, without drawing attention to myself. It was the first time I’d delivered money to a Resistance cell and I was petrified I’d get it wrong.’

  ‘Is that why you waited on the other side of the avenue for such a long time?’

  Claire’s mouth fell open. ‘You knew I was there? You knew I was watching you?’

  ‘Well… yes.’

  ‘And there’s me thinking I was blending in with the crowd, that I was invisible. You must have thought I was stupid.’

  ‘Not at all!’ Thomas sat back in his seat pretending to be shocked. Nor do I think you would blend in with a crowd,’ he said. Claire rolled her eyes. ‘No,’ Thomas said, ‘I assumed you had your reasons, though I couldn’t think what they were.’

  ‘Fear and doubt that I had got it wrong, that’s what my reasons were.’ Claire laughed. ‘There was a fortune in that wallet. I had never seen so much money. Carrying it from Gisoir to Paris was a huge responsibility, never mind about meeting up with the right person and handing it over,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t until you picked up the newspaper and I saw the wallet had gone, that I dared leave.’

  ‘The Paris-Soir.’

  ‘That’s right!’ Claire laughed. ‘What a memory.’

  ‘Some occasions and some people are hard to forget,’ Thomas said.

/>   Claire felt the blush of embarrassment creep up her neck to her cheeks. She took a drink of her brandy. Was this handsome Frenchman with curly, slightly-too-long hair, rugged complexion and smiling eyes flirting with her? Or, was he still joking?

  By the time they had finished their drinks it was dark outside. And when they left the café it was snowing. Shielding Claire from the snow, Thomas draped the left side of his long coat around her shoulders and huddled together they ran across the road. He unlocked the passenger door and Claire dropped onto the seat. When she was safely in the car, Thomas closed her door, and ran round the front of the car to the driver’s side.

  ‘Next stop 65 Avenue St. Julien,’ he said, jumping into the car and slamming the door. The engine popped and spluttered a couple of times, then fired on the third press of the ignition. Feeling even colder after the warm café, Claire pulled up the collar of her coat and hugged her handbag. Only a short time passed before Thomas turned on the heater. Tepid air at first, and then warmer air blew onto Claire’s legs. She relaxed back in the passenger seat and looked out of the window.

  They drove alongside the River Seine for some time, crossing by the Austerlitz Bridge. The last time she was in the area it was summer and the sun was shining. She strained to see out of the window but the snow made everywhere look the same. The streetlights came on, but it was still too dark to see what was written on the street signs.

  ‘Rue de Lesseps,’ Claire said, as they cruised along the familiar wide tree-lined street. ‘We must have been in the 8th Arrondissement for ages, surely we are almost there.’ Thomas turned the steering wheel to the left and Claire whooped with excitement. ‘Look. Three-storey townhouses. And look,’ she said again, ‘that one has a tall arched window. We are here.’

  Claire stepped out of the car and caught her breath. From the street, she hardly recognised the Marron house. New white shutters adorned the windows where during the German occupation the old shutters had been pulled off their hinges to make the house look as if it had been abandoned, and so deter looters. And the lower balconies, which had been purposely ripped out of the wall so thieves couldn't climb into the house through the downstairs windows, had been replaced to match those at the upper windows, giving the house symmetry and balance.

  When Claire had last been inside number 65 Avenue St. Julien, it had appeared derelict. If anyone had broken in through the front door and had ventured beyond the leaking entrance with rotting floorboards to the main hall, which was bare but for a smashed mirror and several empty boxes, they would have assumed the house had already been stripped of its valuables.

  She stood frozen to the spot. The white stone townhouse, with its tall upstairs windows and black wrought iron balconies, was nothing like the house Claire remembered. She turned at the sound of Thomas slamming the boot of his car.

  ‘After you,’ he said, arriving at her side with her suitcase. Unable to quiet her heart Claire climbed the steps and stood at the front door. ‘It’s green,’ she said, beaming a smile at Thomas who frowned and shook his head. ‘The door,’ she said, ‘in the war it was green. The paint was chipped and flaking off when I was last here but it was green. And it is still green,’ she laughed.

  Thomas reached past her and rang the bell. The door opened immediately.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘My darling Claire.’ Antoinette put her hand up to her mouth. ‘I have longed for this day.’ Antoinette threw her arms around Claire and rocked her. ‘Come, it is cold out here. Hello, Thomas.’ Taking one of Claire’s hands, Antoinette held out the other to Thomas. ‘Come in, my dears, come in.’

  Claire looked around, amazed at what she was seeing. The hall was no longer run-down. Where previously there had been bare dull floorboards, there was now a beautiful red Turkish carpet. And around the edge, eight or nine inches of highly polished wood between the fringes of the carpet and the wall.

  ‘Auguste?’ Antoinette shouted. ‘Auguste, look who is here,’ she cried when her husband, Claire’s old mentor, Professor Auguste Marron came ambling into the foyer.

  ‘Claire!’ he said, taking Claire in his arms. ‘It has been a long time.’

  ‘Too long,’ Antoinette added, as she and Thomas followed Auguste and Claire past the main salon and along the passage to the living rooms at the back of the house.

  Instinctively Claire looked across the room, expecting to see Antoinette’s mother and father in their armchairs on either side of the fire. She wasn’t surprised the old couple weren’t there. They had been elderly when Claire knew them in the war. They had probably moved to a smaller house, or an apartment, somewhere on one level that was easier for them to manage. Even so, she felt a strange sadness at their absence.

  ‘Mother passed away in the autumn,’ Antoinette said to Claire.

  ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘Without her, father-in-law doesn’t want to go on,’ Auguste said.

  ‘We’ll see about that!’ Antoinette looked sternly at Auguste. ‘He had the flu in December, which wouldn’t clear up. We were worried that it would turn into pneumonia. Our doctor agreed with us and we had father admitted to hospital. He is better now. He is recuperating in a residential home for elderly people.’

  ‘The residents are mostly ex-military men from the 1914-18 war - and a good percentage of them are Jewish.’ Auguste laughed. ‘He’s having such a good time with all the other old boys, he doesn’t want to come back here.’

  ‘I do not think it is that, at all,’ Antoinette said to Claire, ‘It’s more that he doesn’t want to be here without my mother.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ Claire said.

  ‘Yes,’ Antoinette said, wistfully. ‘I can too.’ She gazed at the empty chairs by the fire.

  ‘This room, well the whole house, looks very different to the last time I was here,’ Claire said. ‘The room is hardly recognisable. The light in the centre of the ceiling is on and the curtains are still open. Something that would not have been possible during the war.’

  ‘And not a dust sheet in sight,’ Antoinette said. ‘I shall show you the rest of the house later. You won’t recognise it.’

  ‘If it hadn’t been for the tall arched window that Eric told me to look for before I came to Paris the first time, which has stayed in my mind, I wouldn’t have recognised the outside of the building with the new shutters and balconies at street level.’

  ‘And not one broken window,’ Antoinette added.

  Their reminiscing was interrupted by a young woman carrying a tray with coffee, cups and saucers, and a cake. Antoinette introduced her as Gabrielle, the daughter of a friend from Marcheroux in the Loire Valley. ‘Gabrielle is staying with us while she is at the Sorbonne.’

  Gabrielle laid the refreshments on the table, said how do you do, and shook Claire’s hand. Turning to shake Thomas’s hand, she blushed scarlet.

  ‘She insists she must help Antoinette in the house when she isn’t studying,’ Auguste said.

  ‘To earn her keep,’ Antoinette added, ‘as if she needed to.’ She smiled at the pretty girl.

  ‘We have lost our daughter to the Université de Genevveat. Mélanie will be there for another two years, but we have gained Gabrielle.’

  ‘And thank goodness we have. With Éric working every hour God sends at a hospital in the city, and Auguste lecturing at the university, I would become a lonely old spinster.’ Gabrielle smiled. ‘And,’ Antoinette said, ‘with the study-work she brings home, she keeps me on my academic toes.’

  Gabrielle looked at Thomas and blushed again.

  ‘So, Éric works at the hospital?’ Claire said. ‘I should love to see him. Will he or Mélanie be home while I’m here.’

  ‘Mélanie doesn’t travel back from Geneva often, but Éric occasionally comes home at weekends.’

  Over dinner Claire told her friends how erratic Alain had been, how he was eventually diagnosed with shell shock, and how the doctor on the aerodrome in England suggested he went to Canada to a hospital that specia
lises in nervous disorders. ‘Apparently,’ Claire said, ‘shell shock is not uncommon.’

  ‘It is a mystery why some otherwise strong men are affected, others not at all.’ Auguste shook his head. ‘What Alain must have suffered…’

  ‘And seen,’ Claire said. ‘He didn’t talk about the Gestapo prison much, but… Anyway, the base doctor referred him to a Swiss psychiatrist named Professor Lucien Puel.

  ‘At first Alain seemed to be getting better. He responded well to Professor Puel’s treatment, but then he began to go backwards.’ Claire told them about his nightmares, and how he often called out for Simone in his sleep. ‘It is Simone I’m here to find,’ she told them. ‘Find her and I might find Alain.’

  ‘Simone is a popular name in France,’ Thomas said. ‘Finding this woman will be virtually impossible.’

  ‘What if I told you she had been a member of the Resistance?’

  Thomas raised his eyebrows. ‘That would make it easier. Do you know which cell?’

  ‘No. And it gets worse.’ Claire looked from Thomas to Antoinette and then to Auguste. ‘In the letter Professor Puel wrote to Alain’s commander he said there was a German agent in the prison, a woman, and her name was Simone. The professor said it was his professional opinion that the German agent known as Simone had turned Alain during the time they were together.’ Claire took a faltering breath. ‘He said Alain was suffering from guilt, not because he had to leave the woman behind, but because he had betrayed his fellow prisoners by divulging details of their escape plan to the Germans.’

  Neither Antoinette or Auguste believed Alain would work for the Germans. But it was Thomas who made the best argument in her husband’s defence. ‘Captain Mitchell was shot. He could have been killed--’ Thomas stopped speaking mid-sentence, put his forefinger to his lips, and deep in thought looked into the middle-distance.

  ‘What is it, Thomas?’ Claire asked.

  ‘There was a woman, a German spy whose code name was Simone. But she was not in the prison at Saint-Gaudens when Captain Mitchell was there.’