The Resistance Girl

by Jina Bacarr

  ‘Liebling! You look magnificent. Heil Hitler!’ Karl slurs his words as he makes the Nazi salute and – hard to imagine his short blond haircut looks askew but it does – makes a grab for me. ‘Come join us.’

  With the agility of an overfed, fat lion, he attempts to get to his feet, at the same time displacing the also drunk brunette from the divan and tossing her onto the parquet floor with a loud thump. She’s so shocked, she runs to the WC.

  I find the moment comical but resist the urge to laugh and go straight for my target – the very drunk SS officer, panting and desperate to get his hands on me.

  ‘Karl, chéri, what you need is another drink.’

  ‘What I need is you, Liebling.’

  I open the vodka and he guzzles it down straight from the bottle while he stares at my cleavage. His eyes bug out as I drop the strap, revealing the curve of my breast. He’s salivating, his eyes glued to my perky nipple pushing through the silk, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go.

  ‘Why don’t you finish the bottle, Liebling, then we’ll…’ I coax him with a promise I never intend to keep. Eyes glassy, tongue hanging out, Karl obliges me with the determination of a field general, but even the staunchest member of the SS can’t handle the amount of liquor he’s imbibed tonight.

  Ogling my bare back as I stand up and shimmy my hips back and forth until he’s dizzy watching me, the happy and contented lion exhales a long, heavy sigh—

  And passes out.

  So ends the strangest night of my life.

  Only the upper class of Parisian society have the funds to travel and pretend there isn’t a war on. In the weeks that follow after I secure Jock in my apartment in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, we do the same. We have no choice but to escape the city. It’s too dangerous for Bertrand to orchestrate the journey to the Spanish border.

  Although I find no joy in recent events, a part of me is secretly happy we have time together to pick up where we left off before the war. Also, it’s a time of respite for me after the grueling filming on my Versailles film.

  I talk Karl into allowing me the use of my red Bugatti, complaining about my bad back after my fall and telling him I need a rest in the country. He’s so smitten with me after what happened that night, he signs the requisition order without question. He regrets he can’t accompany me, but there’s some nasty business at a concentration camp he must attend to and he won’t be back in Paris for an indeterminate time. He admits he doesn’t remember every detail of that night. I have the feeling he’s convinced more happened between us than did. Since I have the feeling he became intimate with the brunette while I was gone and won’t remember who he made love to, I let him believe it.

  Of course, I don’t tell Jock that.

  We drive to Marly-le-Roi outside Paris to the same small hostellerie where we stayed before the war. I find our return here amusing since close by in St Germain-en-Laye is the head of the Nazi Wehrmacht. Throughout our stay here in late summer 1943, he never finds out an RAF pilot is right next door. I have fond memories of that time we spent here after meeting in Monte Carlo back in 1938. A fun, sensuous time when we carried on our love affair, yet knowing we could never marry because of our backgrounds.

  Him a royal. Me the illegitimate child of a prostitute.

  A sunny interlude brings us out on the restaurant terrace, a plate of local grown fruit, cheese rich and smooth from a nearby farm… you’d never know there’s a war on until the talk turns to what might have been. Jock creases his forehead. ‘I often wonder what would have happened between us if Hitler hadn’t invaded Poland.’

  ‘I’m not sure it would have changed anything, mon chéri. We’re from different worlds.’ I grab a handful of grapes. My eyes never leave his.

  He picks off a plump grape and swallows it, mulling over what he wants to say. ‘I had my bags packed and a flight to Paris booked when news of the invasion came.’

  ‘You never told me, Jock,’ I say in a hushed whisper. My throat is tight.

  ‘I kept telling myself the war would be over in a few months and we’d be together again.’ He leans toward me and cups my chin. ‘I love you, Sylvie, more than ever. I can’t think about being with anyone else.’ His expression of love changes to frustration. ‘My plans went to hell when my political cronies kept pressuring me to acquire a wife and family to complete my image as a peer in Parliament. So many times I wanted to toss it all away and come back to you. Then Mother took a turn for the worse and Winnie ended up marrying a Churchill cousin.’

  My heart cries for his maman and overflows with happiness for Winnie.

  His next words are sobering.

  ‘I couldn’t jeopardize my family’s position by seeing you again.’

  ‘All that’s in the past, Jock. All that matters is we’re together now.’

  ‘When the war is over, I don’t care where you come from and hang what my stodgy political friends think. I’m going to marry you.’

  ‘You really mean it, don’t you?’ I manage, struggling to contain the unexpected joy in my heart.

  ‘Yes. Winnie will insist on being your maid of honor,’ Jock tells me as we abandon the terrace for a walk through the wooded grounds across from the hostellerie named after the Sun King. ‘She adores you, Sylvie.’

  ‘As much as you do, Jock?’ I ask, squeezing his hand.

  ‘No one could love you like I do, mon bel ange. I regret I didn’t see sooner how wrong I was to keep to tradition, Sylvie. Forget all that pompous nonsense. These past few days have taught me I want to be with you, build a life together.’ He holds me tight, shielding me from the war everywhere around us, saying what he has to say to me before the day comes and he must leave Paris. ‘Promise you’ll marry me, Sylvie?’

  ‘This is my answer, mon chéri.’

  And here in the wooded forest where royals once romped and played games, kissed and flirted, I kiss my royal, not giving a damn if the whole German Army marches through here. It’s my turn. We’re betrothed like so many of the historical heroines I’ve played.

  Marriage. The thing I’ve dreamed about since Monte Carlo.

  Is it possible?

  Then a child… I sigh with pleasure, remembering everything passionate, thrilling, and wonderful about our nights together here. A dream fulfilled between satin sheets.

  Mais oui, a baby is very possible.

  Keeping Jock safe at my Faubourg apartment when we return to Paris opens up a new stage for me over the coming weeks. I become more involved in the Resistance. Delivering coded messages to my unit regarding German troop movements, names of political prisoners being transported out of Paris (Bertrand and his men saved a renowned French chemist from execution because I told them the route they were taking, thanks to an evening at a cabaret with Karl and a talkative colonel), even the hiding place of several pieces of art looted from a Jewish banker. I will always be thankful to Bertrand for trusting me that night to introduce me to his friends. They have no idea it’s Sylvie Martone who is privy to café talks with SS officers. I dine at the Hôtel Ritz, and I often eavesdrop on Nazis who’ve taken up residence in my Trocadéro neighborhood.

  The members of the Resistance don’t know where my information comes from, but my intelligence is good, my loyalty to France profound, and I can tell a whale of a story to keep them laughing.

  On the other hand, as Fantine, I can infiltrate places the actress Sylvie Martone can’t go. Shops where German military wives frequent. Cafés, hair salons, open markets. I pass on valuable information to the Resistance about the Gestapo’s nefarious comings and goings.

  That’s the part I can control.

  What I can’t control is Jock. He won’t stay put, wanders around Paris in his ‘French disguise’, making me fear someone will get suspicious and turn him in. There’s always an informer on every block, someone you can’t trust, and that worries me.

  He insists on becoming more involved in his own escape plans, so I put on my Fantine disguise (which he finds amusing
and keeps calling me madame) and introduce him to Raoul. He’s been helping Bertrand with hiding refugees and securing intelligence, with Halette acting as his courier. As the post-production on Le Masque de Velours de Versailles wraps up, I miss them more than ever, but we decide it’s best if Raoul and his daughter don’t return to Paris.

  I send them whatever information I can glean from Karl. I’m saddened by the news I deliver that Raoul’s brother-in-law was arrested by French police. He was out past curfew (eight o’clock for Jews) and rounded up. When the French police found out he was on the Gestapo’s wanted list, he was sent to a concentration camp. The man was a miscreant, but I regret not saving him. It never gets easier seeing anyone snatched up in the web of the Gestapo. Crew members, neighbors… disappearing without a trace. Jock tries to console me, saying it’s not my fault. Still, I swear I’ll help as many people as I can. I haven’t gotten over the roundup last year, mostly Jewish women and children. I’ll always wonder if there was something I could have done, what happened to them, where they were sent.

  When a reorganized escape line opens up, Jock wants to get back into the cockpit but he stays back to help secure passage to the Spanish border for his fellow downed fliers. RAF, Canadian, American. Then he receives word from London via a cryptic radio broadcast on London Calling Europe: ‘The duke and his friend the baroness are summering in France instead of returning to Cornwall’, code for meaning he and his French agent, Fantine, are doing great work and Jock is to remain in Paris.

  Even the best laid plans of spies can go awry…

  When my film Le Masque de Velours de Versailles opens in Paris in fall 1943, I receive word from Bertrand that Jock is in danger if he returns to my apartment in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine after his latest mission.

  I have to warn him right under the nose of the SS.

  28

  Juliana

  Those old, familiar Parisian places

  Ville Canfort-Terre, France

  Present Day

  I believe Sylvie’s fantastic story about how she joined the Resistance and created Fantine, about spies and counterspies, but will anyone else?

  I need to find someone who can corroborate her story.

  I confer with Sister Rose-Celine.

  The sister disappeared for a while this afternoon as I was listening to Sylvie’s story about how she and Jock put one over on the SS officer Karl. When she returned, the nun was smiling and beaming, her round cheeks pink and flushed. She mumbled she found something she’d lost. When I asked her what it was, she clammed up tighter than her wimple.

  ‘Is there anyone in the village, a daughter or granddaughter of someone who knew Sylvie during the war?’ I ask her. Someone who heard different stories than those circulated about ma grand-mère collaborating with the enemy.

  She nods. ‘Oui, Sylvie did receive one visitor,’ Sister Rose-Celine tells me. ‘Sister Vincent was nervous the whole time the young woman was here, the daughter of an old friend Sylvie knew from her days as an actress, she told me, and that I was to say nothing to anyone. She brought her daughter, who was about three years old, with her.’ She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Mon Dieu, could it have been—?’

  ‘Yes, it must have been Halette. She survived the war and had a child.’ I hug the sister and she smiles, holding her rosary close to her chest. She knows what’s on my mind and she’s praying for me. What the sister doesn’t know is…

  I have a secret weapon.

  Ridge.

  He has extensive connections in France at different film studios. It doesn’t take him long to trace the daughter of Raoul Monteux through official records and accreditations of film projects written by French film screenwriters. He’s certain she’s still in Paris, but won’t tell me where until he can verify the information. I’m hoping Halette’s daughter may have diaries, letters, anything that will help prove Sylvie’s innocence. ‘

  I’m off to Paris tomorrow to find her.

  ‘So, my taco-loving friend,’ I begin, calling Ridge on my cell when I arrive in Paris, ‘did you track down Halette?’

  It’s early in Los Angeles, but Ridge is expecting my call. I imagine he’s at the gym, which brings up a sexy image of him working out. I need to keep reminding myself we’re best buds, though my heart is questioning why I won’t admit I want more.

  I push my longings aside and grab the croque-monsieur I ordered at a sidewalk café. I had a chilling moment when I sat down, wondering if German soldiers sat at this table with Sylvie, ogling her and drinking beer. Whimsy on my part, but her story has affected me so I see her everywhere. Movie theaters, especially.

  ‘You sound cheery this morning,’ he teases.

  ‘I am. I’m talking to you.’

  Slow down, girl. Ridge will get the wrong idea.

  I become sober for a moment, reflecting on what I’ve learnt, seen, and heard during this strange journey with Sylvie. ‘Oh, if you only knew what the French people suffered under the Nazis. It makes me so grateful for everything I have…’

  ‘I have heard the stories. The camps, the starvation, the beatings.’ He takes a moment. ‘Your journey to unravel Sylvie’s past has changed us both, Juliana.’

  ‘The journey’s not over…’ I mumble something that won’t incriminate me because I’m seeing a new side of Ridge that warms my soul and I like it.

  We both leave so much unsaid. They’ll be time for us to reflect on what happened during the war. It means so much more to us now than before. I’m ashamed I was so ignorant of what went on during the Occupation of Paris. How the Jewish people suffered and the Resistance saved so many downed fliers. I hope I can find some way when I return home to pay tribute to Sylvie and everyone involved.

  I listen to what Ridge has uncovered about Halette’s exact whereabouts.

  ‘You won’t believe this, Juliana. After the war, Halette settled in at the apartment in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine where Sylvie once lived.’

  ‘No… that’s incredible. What happened to Raoul?’

  ‘No one knows. He disappeared in 1943.’

  A heavy sigh escapes me. ‘That’s around the time of the last recording I listened to from Sylvie.’

  I have a feeling when I hear more tapes, it won’t be good news. I don’t say it. Not till I know for sure.

  ‘Halette’s daughter still lives there,’ Ridge continues. ‘Sylvie made certain Halette received the deed in her name.’

  ‘I’m sorry, mademoiselle, my mother never talked about the war or Sylvie Martone.’

  Halette’s daughter, Denise, is in her seventies, a delicate-boned Frenchwoman with a silver pageboy bob.

  ‘Do you believe Sylvie collaborated with the Nazis?’ I ask her in French, grateful I find Halette’s daughter at home in the Faubourg. It’s exactly as Sylvie described it with the blue door, the ivy, even the swinging iron gate. I get chills just being here. When I showed her the glam photo Maman left me showing Sylvie in the white evening gown, she invited me in.

  ‘Why are you asking these questions, mademoiselle?’ Hands clenched, her mood is defensive. ‘Are you writing a book?’

  I sit for a moment, my mind stilled by her question, wondering if I’m doing the right thing by coming here, if this elegant woman will understand my urgent need to right what I believe is a wrong. If she’ll insist I don’t dig up the past and send me on my way.

  I have to take that chance.

  ‘No… I – I want to clear my grand-mère’s name.’

  ‘Strange you should say that.’ She relaxes, her fingers unclenching. ‘I often wondered when I was growing up what the real story was.’ Denise shuffles through books and magazines on her bookshelf and way in the back she pulls out a worn, deep blue scrapbook. ‘I was a teenager when I found my mother’s film star scrapbook filled with pictures of Sylvie Martone. I kept it along with other teenage souvenirs.’ She opens the book filled with the stories and photos from Ciné-Miroir Sylvie talks about on the recordings. ‘The captions written on the pages
never made any sense to me.’

  My heart stops. They do to me.

  I explain to Denise the captions written underneath the photos and stories from the magazines mirror the events Sylvie spoke about in her recordings.

  Notations about her movements as Fantine, though Halette didn’t know about her disguise. She knew only that Sylvie was helping the Resistance.

  ‘Dates, meeting places…’ I tell her, pointing them out. ‘For example, Aux Deux Magots 13 September 1943. Aux Trois Quartiers 21 November 1943. Then initials beside the dates. Code I imagine for the fliers they helped to orchestrate their departure from Paris along the escape line. Sylvie must have trusted Halette to enlist her help when she needed it, to keep this record for her where the Gestapo would never look, and then made her promise never to speak about it.’ I give her a grateful smile. ‘Your mother kept her word.’

  Denise insists I take the scrapbook with me and kisses me on both cheeks. I see her eyes grow misty as I thank her and we promise to keep in touch.

  I head back to the convent, thrilled I’m on the right track. I feel confident Sylvie’s story is true. A scrapbook filled with cryptic notations is helpful, but it isn’t enough to clear her.

  What now?

  29

  Sylvie

  Nine months… and counting

  Paris

  1943

  I’ve never felt so scared as I do that day in the Faubourg when I leave the yellow daffodils for Fantine, scared not only for Jock but for my baby.

  Because of my desperation to save him, I almost lose the child.

  I act carefree and happy like a glamorous film star should, strong and confident, not backing down when Karl tries to control me, but I’m merely acting the part. If the truth be known, that flighty woman in the red peplum dress and black Fedora I show to Karl, my Faubourg neighbors… everyone – is scared out of her wits. Everything is too crazy, too frantic, the danger coming at me when I’m most vulnerable, everything hitting me at once. I must keep up the ruse that Fantine is a real person I hired. It’s not easy being two people at the same time. Especially when we’re both pregnant. I keep putting off starting another film, telling Emil the stress of Herr Geller watching my every move and Karl making more demands on me is making me rundown, nauseous. For the first time in my life, I have no script to follow. I’ve always had a script in my head, a way of coping when I feet anxious, threatened.