Her Darkest Hour: Beautiful and heartbreaking World War 2 historical fiction

by Sharon Maas

  ‘Bonjour, Madame! How are you?’

  ‘I am not well, chérie, who could be well on a day like today? This cursed war has finally come to Colmar.’

  ‘Yes – we watched them marching in, Grandma and I. It was shocking.’

  ‘I never thought I’d witness a day like today. Not after the last war. I thought humanity had learned its final lesson. I was wrong.’

  ‘Yes, but, Madame, do you know what happened, here at the Mairie? My friend Marie-Claire works here, and…’

  But Madame Bélanger was already shaking her head.

  ‘The Nazis took possession of it even before the soldiers marched in. I don’t know how they got inside but they did. They simply swarmed through the place and owned it. Later when the employees began to arrive, one by one, they were sent home. They were told to return tomorrow. I know this because my nephew also works there. They will all lose their jobs, including your Marie-Claire. Colmar will now be a town administrated by Nazis. You can see how they have already decorated it in their stirring colours.’

  She gestured towards the building, not looking.

  ‘I can’t even bear to look at it. Our beloved Mairie, festooned in swastikas. It’s a tragedy. So Marie-Claire will have returned home?’

  ‘I expect so. But what about you, my dear? Your grandma?’

  ‘I want her to leave, to go and stay with Papa. She doesn’t want to go, but she can’t stay here alone.’

  ‘Quite right. I’m glad you’re looking after her. It’s different for me: I will stay, my whole family is here, my husband and sons and daughters. We will keep Colmar alive and French. But Hélène should go back to Maxence. You are at university, aren’t you?’

  Juliette nodded. ‘Yes. But I must move on – I’m just on my way to the post office to ring Tante Margaux and ask her to come and get us.’

  ‘Give her my regards, and your father, when you see him.’

  ‘I will. Au revoir.’

  They parted, and Juliette moved on. She couldn’t help it, however; she looked once more at the Mairie and shook her fist at it, a gesture of utter disdain and defiance. Which did not go unseen.

  She had not taken five further steps before two officers in greatcoats stepped into her path.

  ‘Guten Tag, Fräulein; where are you headed?’

  Absolutely none of your business, she thought, but pride must now take second place to sagacity. There was no point in invoking Nazi ire. The words she spoke, clearly, confidently and curtly, were:

  ‘To the post office. To make a telephone call.’ No wasted words. Eyes glazed, looking straight ahead, not down, not meeting theirs.

  ‘Papers.’ A gloved hand, held out. She pushed her own hand into her coat, brought out her ID card, student card. Shoved them into the black glove. The officer took it, read it, looked up. Looked down, at the photo, and up again. It was a good likeness, but he pretended to doubt. This time she did meet his eyes, but made sure hers gave nothing away. No emotion. No fear, no irritation. She held his gaze, and he looked down again at the papers.

  ‘You live in the rue Courvoisier?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With your family?’

  A slight nod. ‘My grandmother.’

  His eyes narrowed, and dropped to the thick plait that fell over her shoulder, long and black. He reached out and gave it a flick with his fingers.

  ‘Such dark hair. Are you Jewish?’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  He shook his head as if doubting her, then finally handed back the papers. ‘You may proceed. Do not loiter.’

  She retrieved her documents without a word and only a slight flare of the nostrils, turned away, walked a few metres and spat on the ground. Hurried onwards.

  ‘Fräulein!’ She stopped abruptly. Pushed her hands deep into her pockets because they were trembling furiously, uncontrollably. Did not look back. Held her head up. Waited for the officer to stride up from behind and once again plant himself in front of her on the pavement. She met his eyes with a cold stare.

  ‘I will have you know,’ he barked, ‘that I have the authority to arrest any citizen who does not comply with my orders, or who in any way resists allegiance to German authority. You have been warned. Go on your way.’

  It took all her strength to hold back the retort straining at the tip of her tongue, but she did. She nodded, and since he did not budge but simply stood there blocking her path, she walked around him. Her pocketed hands still trembled and did not stop shaking until she reached the post office.

  There was a long queue for the telephone booth; it seemed that many Colmar citizens had similar needs to hers. The waiting people spoke among themselves in hushed voices. Snippets of conversations reached her ears.

  ‘Do you think…?’

  ‘Did you see…?’

  ‘We are leaving as soon as we can.’

  ‘…the next train. Down to…’

  Many of them greeted Juliette with a friendly word.

  ‘Bonjour, Juliette, how’s Madame Dolch?’ said M. Bordeleau, her grandfather’s former tailor, as he joined the queue behind her.

  ‘She’s well, but I think it’s better she leaves Colmar. She’s on her own now so she’ll go to live with Papa.’

  M. Bordeleau nodded. ‘That is a very good decision. Colmar is no longer what it was. France is no longer what it was. Seeing as how les Boches simply marched into France and took over… well. Terrible times. And now they are here in Colmar too.’

  ‘Living as we do on the border to Germany, it was only a question of time,’ put in Madame Coulon, who had just joined the queue to stand behind Juliette.

  ‘So much for the Maginot Line,’ said M. Bordeleau. ‘The Boche simply ignored it.’

  ‘Well, they might think they own Alsace but they don’t. They never will. Alsace will stay Alsace.’ Juliette’s voice was defiant.

  ‘There’s Alsace Français, and Alsace Allemand,’ said Madame Coulon. ‘Back and forth, back and forth. A tug of war, which has now literally come to pass. You of course are too young to remember the last time we were German. Do not underestimate the damage that can be done. Why, your own name, Mademoiselle Dolch, is a testimony to that, a German name. When the Germans come they mean business. Everything will change: our names, the language, everything.’

  Juliette merely nodded; she’d heard it all before. She was now at the head of the line; the person inside the booth was shouting into the mouthpiece, gesticulating as he spoke as if the person on the other end could see. Juliette rapped sharply on the glass, pointed to the long queue behind her, shrugged a question mark. The man understood. He slammed the receiver into its holder and stormed out of the booth.

  Juliette entered, dialled Margaux’s number. She picked up right away.

  ‘Juliette! Thank God… are you all right? We heard the news on the wireless. I hoped you’d call… How’s Hélène? What’s going on?’

  ‘We are all right, Tante Margaux, but Grandma’s a bit shaken as you can imagine. I think it’s best she move in with Papa for the time being.’

  ‘But of course! It’s what I’ve been saying all this time. And you want me to come and get her?’

  ‘Yes, if you have the time.’

  ‘For you, always; I just hope the traffic isn’t too bad. I’ve heard everyone’s fleeing Colmar, and the roads are packed.’

  ‘But the roads coming in to Colmar should be free, don’t you think?’

  ‘Who knows? It is terrible, terrible.’

  ‘But it was only a question of time, wasn’t it. If they can take Paris, they can take Strasbourg and Colmar. We are just small fry after Paris.’

  ‘Not at all! Colmar and Alsace: they are precious to Hitler and to Germany. It’s more than just a small town in their eyes, chérie – for the Germans, Alsace is the crown jewel of France. But we will discuss all that later. I’m going to look after the animals and as soon as I’m finished, I’ll come for you both. Adieu, ma petite.’

  ‘Adieu, Tante Mar
gaux, and thank you.’ She hung up the phone, left the booth, nodded goodbye to M. Bordeleau and Madame Coulon as she walked past them – many more had by now joined the queue which now snaked out into the street – and headed for home.

  Tante Margaux was, of course, not her real aunt; she was, in fact, her father’s employer, but more than that, a good old friend of the family. Margaux’s vineyard Château Gauthier-Laroche produced possibly the best wine in all of Alsace – an arguable estimation, the subject of many rigorous discussions in many a public house in all the Alsatian towns and villages between Thann in the south and Strasbourg in the north.

  But a wine is only as good as its winemaker, and it was Juliette’s father Maxence who worked the magic that transformed Margaux’s Riesling, Pinot Gris and Gewürztraminer grapes into the wine people called nectar of the gods. Once, half of the Gauthier-Laroche vineyards had actually belonged to Maxence, but Max was a bad businessman and hard financial times and sloppy accounting had forced him to sell – on condition that he remained as winemaker. Margaux had been only too happy to form that alliance, because if her wine was indeed nectar of the gods, then Maxence was the magician whose wand performed that divine miracle of transubstantiation.

  But to Juliette, Maxence was simply Papa. Her adoration was complete, and it was mutual, and as a child she had loved nothing more than returning ‘home’ in the school holidays, to frolic behind her father up and down the rows of vines; to learn from him, to cuddle on his lap of an evening while he read her to sleep beside the fireplace or, in summer, beside the outdoor fire he and Jacques made and on which they roasted their sausages and potatoes. Life on an Alsace vineyard was idyllic.

  But close behind Maxence and Jacques, and Grandma and Grandpa – the Dolch clan – came the Gauthier family: Tante Margaux and her brood of children: Marie-Claire, Lucien, Leon and Victoire. They had all grown up together, in and out of each other’s homes, all the parents and grandparents parenting all children, all the children like brothers and sisters.

  Adolf Hitler was a living threat to all that. For years the province had lived under fear, fear of the looming menace just across the river, behind the Maginot Line and the River Rhine. Of what would happen should Nazi boots cross the Rhine and the Line. And now they had.

  On the walk home Juliette noticed that already every single lamp post carried a swastika poster, and even more tanks were lined up outside the town hall. Even more soldiers walked smartly in and out of it, carrying briefcases and boxes and an aura of brisk efficiency. They had wasted no time in claiming ownership of her hometown. She walked past them all with her head held high, but bristling internally.

  She arrived home, to the terraced house on the shady street she had played in as a child, only to find that there was no escape. The Germans were here too. Her front door stood open, and as she walked up the drive the very same officer who had stopped her earlier in the day, who had demanded her papers and asked for her home address, that very same officer stepped out.

  ‘Ah, Fräulein Dolch!’ he said as he saw her. ‘Good that you have returned. We have decided that this house and all its furnishings shall be requisitioned by the German Army. Ten officers have been billeted here and shall be moving in by 6 p.m. today. You and your grandmother are free to stay, or to vacate. It is entirely up to you.’

  Two

  Margaux arrived a few hours later; by that time several army vehicles, all liberally plastered with swastikas, were parked along the street so that she had to park the van around the corner and walk back to the house. It swarmed with soldiers, the front door wide open, men in uniform walking in and out as though they owned the place. Margaux, striding into the hall, ignored them all.

  ‘Coo-coo! Juliette! Hélène! Where are you?’

  Juliette returned the call. ‘We’re here, in the kitchen!’

  Margaux pushed open the kitchen door and entered. She found Hélène sitting at the central table calmly sipping tea; Juliette, who had been marching back and forth, unable to contain her nervous energy, rushed towards her, grabbed Margaux by the hand.

  ‘Tante! Thank goodness. We’ve been waiting ages.’

  ‘Sorry I took so long – Marie-Claire came home in hysterics; they’ve invaded the Mairie, chucked out all the staff… what’s going on?’

  ‘They’re throwing us out! Out of our home!’

  ‘Not quite true.’ Hélène’s voice was calm as she rose to her feet to greet Margaux. The two women kissed each other in greeting. They were an incongruous pair: Margaux, tall and strong, buxom, even, with a dishevelled head of pepper-and-salt hair, dressed for farm work in tired overalls and a bulky pullover, her face carved with lines drawn by life; Hélène, petite, elegantly attired, now, in a prim grey woollen skirt and a dusty-pink cardigan buttoned up to the neck, not a hair of her neat chignon out of place, her face porcelain-smooth (not without the help of an expensive cream or two), her lips finely drawn and accented with a discreet pink lipstick, perfectly matching her cardigan. A single string of pearls circled her neck.

  Hélène shrugged, and gestured towards the four packed suitcases standing against the wall, along with several baskets packed with food. ‘They gave us the option of staying; I could have kept my bedroom and shared facilities – bathroom and kitchen – with them. I’d have been happy to do so. These thugs don’t scare me and I won’t be thrown out of my own house. But I suppose my will doesn’t count. She wouldn’t allow it.’ She gestured towards Juliette.

  ‘Oh, Grandma! It’s nothing to do with me allowing you or not. You know very well you can’t live in a household of – well, thugs you said, and thugs they are. Tante Margaux – she can’t possibly stay here, can she?’ Her eyes pleaded with Margaux. Support me, agree with me! I’ve been arguing with her for hours!

  ‘I should think not,’ said Margaux briskly. ‘But I don’t understand. Why you? Why this house in particular? I don’t see them in any of the other houses?’

  ‘That may happen yet. It’s my fault. I think I annoyed one of the officers this morning and it’s a sort of revenge.’ She related the incident on the way to the post office. ‘I suppose provoking them didn’t help. They must have come straight here. I had to give him my address.’

  ‘That was a silly mistake, chérie. But you are young; you do not yet know that it is easier to catch flies with honey than with pepper. You will learn.’

  ‘You should have seen them, Tante, marching in lockstep, right past the house. It was horrible, horrible! I wanted to kill them!’

  Margaux placed an arm around her waist, hugged her close. ‘We all want to kill them. But tell me – have they yet discovered the cellar?’

  ‘Not as far as I know,’ said Juliette. ‘I haven’t seen them go down. They’ve been up in the bedrooms, mostly, carrying up boxes. It looks as if they’re going to be setting up offices as well as accommodation. Why?’

  ‘Well, you know what is down there! Do I have to spell it out?’

  Hélène shrugged. ‘Who cares about a few bottles? They’ve got the house. My family home, the house I grew up in. It can’t get much worse than that.’

  ‘What sacrilege! It’s a good thing your good husband isn’t around to hear those words! But, you know, it has gone quiet outside – let me check.’

  Margaux cautiously opened the kitchen door, peered around it. Seeing no one, she stepped into the hall, walked to the front door, opened it a crack; opened it wide, stepped out onto the front porch, looked left and right, up and down the street, and hurried back inside.

  ‘Vite, vite, ils sont partis. They’ve gone. I’ll go and get the van. Juliette, Hélène, run down and prepare a few crates. We’ll save as much as we can. They’ll get my best wine over my dead body.’

  Hélène shrugged again, but did as Margaux requested, and walked towards the cellar stairs; why not save what one could? Juliette understood better; she sprang down the stairs ahead of Hélène and by the time Margaux returned with the van the two of them had packed several crates of Max
ence’s wine. Saving the best wine was a futile gesture of revenge, perhaps, especially as it must go unnoticed if it were to be effective, yet still it granted her a small prick of satisfaction. A tiny notch of one-upmanship, a minute victory.

  The three women hastily loaded the van with wine crates and suitcases. Juliette slammed the front door shut with a resounding bang. She had no idea, nor did she care, whether or not the invaders had a door key. She and Hélène climbed into the cabin, and Margaux edged herself in behind the steering wheel.

  ‘On y va!’ she said. ‘Let’s go!’ The van stuttered a little before jumping into activity. Margaux slammed down the accelerator, and they roared off as if a tiger was behind them.

  * * *

  It took almost three hours to cover the twenty-five kilometres between Colmar and Margaux’s chateau, nestled in the hills behind Ribeauvillé. It seemed that many other people had the same idea: the roads out of town were like snakes of metal, vehicles almost touching as they crawled along at a stop-and-go pace as the townspeople sought refuge in the villages or further afield. Juliette brought Margaux up to date on the events of the day, Hélène filling in some of the details.

  ‘I have to say, that for Germans, they were extremely polite,’ she said.

  ‘Polite thugs? Tell me another!’ scoffed Juliette. ‘In the end, they told you they’re moving into your house, throwing you out. Try saying that politely.’

  Hélène shrugged. ‘You are young and impetuous. We older ones are not so easily thrown off balance. We’ve been German before, before you were born, right through the great war. How do you think Grandpère got that awful name, Dolch, dagger?’

  ‘I know, Hélène,’ said Margaux. ‘Maxence has told me that story, many times. Max thinks it’s funny.’

  The family name had been Coûteaux, a traditional French surname, but the Germans responsible for renaming the citizens mistook it for Couteau, knife; Dolch was the German for dagger.