Wolfsangel (10 page)

‘Céleste,’ he said, walking towards me.

From the shadow that darkened his features, I guessed he knew something. It must be bad news.

‘You found out something, Father? Where are they? Are they all right?’

The priest took my hand and patted the back of it. ‘Go into the confessional.’

I climbed up into the small enclosure and sat on the stool, dribbles of sweat pocking my brow.

‘They’re alive,’ Père Emmanuel said.

I puffed my cheeks out. ‘Thank God for that.’

‘They’re in Montluc Prison, Céleste. You’ve heard of this place?’

‘Oh no! Yes … yes I’ve heard of Montluc Prison.’ The fear streamed back. We’d all heard the stories of Montluc: prisoners tortured with near drowning in ice-water baths, electric shocks and gruesome beatings.

‘They’ve been sentenced –– your brother, Olivier, André and Marc. Please don’t mention this to your mother, until we know ––’

‘Sentenced to what?’

Through the grid, I saw Père Emmanuel glance up at the large painting of Jesus nailed to the cross. He paused before he spoke.

‘Death by firing squad.’

16

I tapped on Dr. Laforge’s door. ‘It’s Céleste Roussel,’ I said, glancing around at the waiting patients. ‘Sorry I’m … I’m very ill. I need to see the doctor immediately.’

‘Take a seat, Céleste,’ he called. ‘I’ll be out shortly.’

Out shortly? What is he thinking? There’s no time to sit, or wait.

It seemed hours before the door opened, the patient left and Dr. Laforge beckoned me inside.

‘They’re in Montluc Prison, and … and they’re going to be shot,’ I said. ‘They’re all in together, cell D60 whatever that means. Père Emmanuel said to come and see you; that you could help. You said you would … said you’d help.’

Dr. Laforge nodded. ‘Yes, I know about Montluc, and of course I’ll help. But first, stop pacing and sit down, you’re no good to anyone in this state.’

I edged onto the corner of the chair, crossing and recrossing my ankles.

‘We have to think how best we can help them,’ he said. ‘But before we do anything I’m prescribing you a daily glass of red wine and a dose of cod-liver oil to fortify and calm you.’

‘I don’t care about cod-liver oil. Anyway, my mother already makes me take it. Please, what can we do?’

The doctor’s eyebrows merged into one. ‘I do have an idea. But I’m not certain you could ––’

‘I can do it. Please, I’ll do anything to help them.’ I lurched forward, almost sliding from the chair in my eagerness. ‘What’s the idea?’

‘People rarely escape Montluc,’ the doctor said. ‘Only one prisoner –– General Devigny –– has ever broken out. That Klaus Barbie monster tortured him for weeks and when he got nothing out of him, he told the General he’d be shot within days. I suppose that was motivation enough. But nobody else has managed it, and escape carries the utmost risk. They shoot fleeing prisoners on the spot.’

‘They’re going to shoot them anyway,’ I said. ‘But I’ve heard of sending big groups of resistors into prisons to break people out. Can’t we do that?’

‘We don’t have the strength of numbers to carry off such a raid, Céleste. And even if we did, the Germans would charge in from the adjoining fortress and from the Part-Dieu barracks before we ever found cell D60.’

‘So?’ I clenched and unclenched my hands.

‘There’s far more chance of escape from the Antiquaille hospital,’ Dr. Laforge went on.

‘Antiqu ––?’

‘The hospital where they send sick prisoners and where we have contacts, nurses who work with us.’

He opened a drawer and held up a glass bottle. ‘These pills will make the boys feverish. And when they’re ill, the guards will hopefully move them to the prisoners’ section of the Antiquaille hospital. We’ll have far more chance of breaking them out from there, rather than Montluc.’

‘You want to make them ill? But what if … if they die?’

‘Don’t worry,’ the doctor said. ‘It’s my job to know the exact dose needed to make them just a little off-colour. Now your job, Céleste, is to ensure they swallow the pills and act much sicker than they truly are.’

‘I can do it. But how?’

Dr. Laforge leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands in his lap. ‘I have a plan.’

***

I held a match to my bedside candle then sewed the pills into each of the boys’ shirt collars as per the doctor’s instructions. I wrote a note in the tiniest writing possible, folded the paper and sewed it into one of the wrist cuffs. I knew they wouldn’t know to look there, but Dr. Laforge said people often sent messages that way, something the boys would learn from other prisoners.

Once I’d prepared the clean clothes –– underwear, socks, a shirt each and a towel –– I dozed on and off, thinking about going to Montluc Prison, the fear welling in every nook of my mind. At five o’clock I flung the covers off, scrambled into my dress and rushed to my chores.

There was no sign of my mother when I carried a pail of water, and another of goat’s milk, into the kitchen. The Rubie clock chimed seven and I could hardly believe she’d still be in bed. I set the buckets down on the tiles, kneaded my icy hands together and trundled back upstairs for the prison clothes.

At the top of the stairs, I heard muffled voices coming from my mother’s room. Whoever would be with Maman in her bedroom at that hour?

I crept to her door, pressed an eye against the keyhole and caught sight of a bare leg. I almost fell backwards in disbelief.

I focused on the frightened face of the girl lying on the bed, and Maman’s taut bun, as she bent over, threading the tubing between the girl’s spread legs and pumping soapy water inside her.

Once the shock of what she was doing –– still doing –– subsided, I noticed something else: a bar of soap, sitting next to the bowl of water. Real soap. Two other bars sat on the dresser.

My mother made our soap from plant oils or animal fat and caustic soda. Everybody did, since there was so little of the proper stuff around. But there were three bars of real soap –– something you could only get on the black market, if you had the money, which my mother didn’t. I knew of only one other way to get items such as soap, lipstick and chocolate.

I crept back downstairs and sank into a kitchen chair, a quiet tremble humming through me. I lifted a bowl of leftover
café Pétain
to my lips, barely aware it was cold and stale. The Rubie clock
tock-tocked
away the seconds.

Footsteps on the stairs jolted me from my reverie. I bolted upright. There was no time to worry about my mother’s insane behaviour. I forced a gulp of cod-liver oil down and slathered
rillettes de porc
onto a slab of bread.

I finished wrapping the boys’ clothes in a brown paper parcel just as my mother and her young customer came down to the kitchen. I shoved the parcel out of sight, onto a chair, beneath the waxed tablecloth.

Without the slightest acknowledgement of me, Maman disappeared into her herbal room. The girl raised her eyes to me in a flushed glance. I threw her a quick –– hopefully comforting –– smile.

‘Go now,’ Maman said, pressing the sachet of herbs into her palm. ‘Expect it to happen in a few hours.’

‘How can you still be doing that?’ I said, as the girl skittered from the kitchen and out the door. ‘You must truly be mad. Oh I do realise you’re providing an essential service; a
vital
one, but still … the risk. You got away with it once, though I still don’t know why they released you so easily, but surely not a second time?’

My mother avoided my stare, untying her apron and lifting it over her head with unusual slowness. ‘Don’t concern yourself about the prison affair, Célestine, that’s my business. Supporting this family is the burden on my shoulders, not yours.’ She took a clean apron from the hook behind the door. ‘Besides, with your father gone, and now Patrick, I don’t see that I have a choice.’

She eyed the parcel, peeking from beneath the blue and white checked cloth. ‘What’s in the package?’

I said nothing but my mind whirled like the Vionne in a storm. Nobody was ever released from prison so easily, unless they had the Germans on side. I could never imagine my mother with one of them –– with
any
man. But how else had she got out?

There was the real soap too, but if I challenged my mother about bars of soap she’d know I spied on her. Though I suspected she knew I’d been watching her angel-making for years.

‘Célestine! What is in that parcel?’

‘Clothes for the boys. I’m taking them to Montluc Prison.’

‘
Montluc
? Is that where they are? How do you know?’

‘Someone, whose information can be trusted, told me. But please don’t concern yourself with this prison affair, Maman. It’s my business.’

‘I believe my son
is
my business.’

She lowered her stare to my legs. ‘And where did those nylons come from?’

‘Again, my business, Maman.’

I did not look at her as I shoved the parcel into my tapestry bag, took my coat and hurried out the door. 

17

The train clattered into Lyon, and I got off at St. Jean station, took the Charité-Monplaisir tramway once again, and stepped down on grande rue de la Guillotière. I continued on foot, clutching my coat lapels, my skirt whipping my calves as I crunched through brittle autumn leaves.

I was shivering when I finally reached Montluc Prison and joined the long queue at the gates.

‘Two lines,’ the guard repeated every few minutes. ‘Visitors in one, those with packages in the other.’

I kept smoothing down my coat and hitching the bag back onto my shoulder. I’d tried for the sophisticated look, with Martin’s lipstick and nylons. My dress of the mismatched bodice and skirt was concealed beneath my coat but I feared I still had the air of an awkward country girl.

It seemed they’d only have to glance at me to know about hidden notes and pills. I imagined everyone was staring at me as if the word “resistor” was carved across my forehead.

I was barely able to contain my impatience. The tram had been crowded, people jostling me, and my parcel had come loose. I pictured myself handing it over to the guard and the clothes spilling out, the pills bursting from the shirt collars and rolling across the ground. I tightened my grip on the bag and tried to concentrate on something else; on the game with Martin Diehl. The more I saw him, the less convinced I’d become that he was trying to use me for information. He seemed so caring and trustworthy, his declaration of love blurted deep from the heart.

The women in the queue all seemed perfectly at home standing in lines outside a prison, laughing and chatting amongst themselves as if gathered around the village fountain.

‘That one loves chocolate cake,’ a girl in a pillbox hat said, nodding to the guard at the front of the line. ‘Though getting cake of any sort nowadays is like striking gold.’

‘Make sure you take a silk scarf when you see the judge,’ another said. ‘For his wife. Otherwise your husband won’t have a hope of getting out.’

‘Silk?’ her companion said, with a laugh. ‘You’d have to shoot a parachutist down to get silk these days. But I’ve heard there are more and more of them, dropping supplies all over the countryside in the dead of night.’

The first woman nodded. ‘They bring proper coffee. Chocolate too and real tobacco, not that awful stuff made from dandelion leaves.’

It seemed those women knew everything about the occupation, the judges, lawyers and prison life. They were obviously experts in effective ways of handling the different guards too, and the tricks used to communicate with prisoners. My note and pills would barely raise an eyebrow.

By the time I reached the front of the line, my feet ached with the cold. ‘I’ve come to collect the dirty clothes from cell D60,’ I said to the guard.

‘Who exactly in cell D60, mademoiselle?’ the guard said, frowning as he consulted his long list. ‘There are four prisoners in D60.’

‘I have clean clothes for all of them. One of the prisoners is my brother.’

I licked my scarlet lips, giving him what I hoped was a charming smile, and reached into my bag for the smaller parcel containing my mother’s
pâté
.

‘Please would you be kind enough to make sure they get the clean clothes?’ I said, handing him the
pâté.

‘Wait there,’ the guard said, snatching the clothes and
pâté
without another glance at me. He turned back to the line and barked, ‘Next!’ to the woman behind me.

After about twenty minutes the guard bellowed, ‘Dirty clothes from D60!’

I stepped forward and he threw a bundle at me.

I walked off into the fog clutching the filthy garments –– proof the boys were alive, at least. Dead men’s clothes don’t get washed.

***

I stayed on the train as it passed Lucie, and got off three stops later, in Valeria. I hiked up the hill to the convent and as if she’d been expecting me, Félicité opened the door.

‘Patrick and Olivier are in prison, but they’re alive,’ I murmured, though even whispers sounded loud in that cavernous corridor. ‘There’s good news about Maman too.’

‘Come to my room, Céleste. You’ll tell me everything there. The visitors’ room is occupied right now.’ She led me up a wide staircase, a hint of stocking showing beneath her hem as she gathered her skirts. We reached another narrow corridor and I followed my sister to the end.

As Félicité bent to open her door, I glanced out the window. In the ordered garden below, a man was bent over, weeding a pumpkin patch.

‘That’s Max! How are they?’

My sister hustled me into her room. ‘Their new name is Favier,’ she said. ‘They’ve only kept their first names.’

‘Favier … that’s very French. How are the children? Can I see them?’

‘Best not to disturb Talia’s class,’ she said. ‘We shouldn’t attract attention to any one child in particular. I think Talia is happy, even though she understands a lot of what’s going on. But little Jacob is so young. We had to make a game of it, teaching him his new name. Fortunately he’s not old enough for school and can stay by his mother’s side in the kitchen most of the day. You know how attached he is to his maman.’

My sister poured two glasses of water from a pitcher on the otherwise bare dresser and came to sit beside me on the bed. I told her about Maman’s sudden, inexplicable release from prison, but avoided mentioning my suspicion of how that might have come about. Nor did I say the angel-making was carrying on as usual.

‘All the boys are in Montluc Prison, and ––’

‘Montluc!’ She laid a hand on my arm, and with the other grasped her silver cross. ‘And what? Tell me, Céleste.’

‘They’ve been sentenced to …’

My sister remained silent, but the skin about the edges of her coif flushed scarlet.

‘Sentenced to what?’ she finally said. ‘Death?’

I nodded. ‘But Dr. Laforge has a plan to break them out. I’ve just come from the prison.’ I explained about the pills and the note. ‘I have to wait a few days before I go back. You know, give them time to get sick enough to be transferred to the hospital. That’s if they do find the note and the pills.’

‘Be very careful at Montluc, Céleste. I know this work appeals to your sense of excitement and adventure, but it’s a dangerous place. If they have the slightest suspicion you’re trying something they’ll imprison you too. Or simply shoot you.’

‘You don’t have to worry about me.’ I fought to mask the agitation I felt when my sister lectured me. ‘I’m not a child.’

‘I’ll pray for you anyway.’

‘So, if I can’t see the children,’ I said, ‘maybe I could see Max and Sabine?’

‘I might be able to arrange a quick visit. Wait here.’

In a starchy bustle Félicité slipped out, and I peered about her room –– the place my elusive sister slept, prayed and dressed to hide her curvy body and her long dark braids beneath the grim habit.

I don’t know what I’d imagined, but I’d never pictured the narrow bed, the scuffed dressing table and wardrobe, and the single decoration –– a plain wooden cross above the bedhead –– the things for which my sister had given up everything. A life she’d relinquished for God.

Next to that barest and saddest of rooms, the centuries-old L’Auberge des Anges seemed a place of great homeliness and timeless comfort.

I plied the angel pendant between my thumb and forefinger. The worn piece of bone warmed me in that dim starkness, and I understood religion was not, as I’d presumed, simply a convenient escape route for Félicité. As I took my strength from the angel talisman, my sister took hers from God.

Félicité came back into the room, the rosary beads dangling from her belt
clack-clacking
softly as she sat on the bed.

‘We’ll see them in the kitchen shortly. It will seem more natural, in Sabine’s working place.’

‘You don’t ever regret it?’ I said, my gaze moving around the room again. ‘The convent, this religious life?’

‘I didn’t choose it, Céleste. God chose me.’

‘I wish something would choose me, and I could get away from Maman too.’

‘Don’t think like that. Imagine Papa’s relief, knowing you’re keeping the farm going without him and Patrick,’ Félicité said with her soft smile. ‘He’d be proud of you. I’m proud of you. One day you’ll get your chance to do what you want.’

‘We’ll see if that ever happens,’ I said. ‘But I always imagined a boy might come along and change your mind, and you wouldn’t want to be a nun anymore.’

‘It’s true,’ she said with a sigh. ‘The thought did come over me at times, but not now.’

‘When?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. When I was younger … on sad days. So, tell me how things are going with the German officer?’

‘Well, no more questions about the boys, so I’m fairly certain he doesn’t know anything about their activities, or that he’s trying to get information from me. It seems he likes me a lot in fact … that’s what he says.’

‘That’s reassuring,’ Félicité said. ‘If you believe he knows nothing about the boys. You’ve done your job well. So, there’s perhaps no point in seeing him any longer?’ She took my arm. ‘Come on, let’s go and see our friends.’

We stepped back into the corridor and I felt the unease stirring inside me, the same indefinable feeling I’d had since our riverbank meeting, which had my mind flailing about in confusion. There was, naturally, the fear I’d be caught with a Boche; the risk of playing with a lethal toy. There was the danger of being caught at our cat and mouse game too. But alongside all these things I felt a kind of gentleness and longing; a desire to lose myself in him and to forget the conflicts of my humdrum farm life with Maman.

I was so consumed with thoughts of the flaxen-haired German, I didn’t notice Félicité beckoning me to the window.

‘Look, there’s Talia.’

From the group of girls standing in a courtyard below, I picked out Talia’s dark frizz. In her pleated navy skirt and sweater, with its celluloid collar attached by buttons, she looked just like all the other girls. I went to crack the window open, to call out to my little friend, but resisted the urge.

‘Thankfully,’ Félicité said, ‘in these times of scarcity, kind mothers leave their children’s outgrown uniforms at the school.’

We watched the girls divide into parallel rows, holding their arms straight out until they touched their neighbour’s fingertips. They began their exercise session, soles squeaking on the paving stones with every jump, young bodies bending and straightening. The seats of knickers appeared and disappeared to the rhythm of the clapper, until the nun in charge blew her whistle and the girls fell into a double line and hurried back inside the building.

‘She does look happy,’ I said. ‘I’m so glad.’

‘She’s doing well in class too,’ Félicité said as I followed her down the stairs and along another sombre hallway. ‘Such a bright girl, and she’s painting more and more, like her father.’

The vast, shadowy kitchen stank of cabbage and rancid grease. We stood in the doorway, reluctant to disturb Sabine, dancing across the tiles. Young Jacob sat on the floor, his little head nodding up and down in rhythm to each of his mother’s steps, one hand clutching the toy soldier in the red coat.

‘Céleste!’ Sabine wiped her hands down her apron, rushed across and threw her arms around me. ‘We’ve missed you. How is your brother, and Olivier? And your maman? Are they all safe?’

‘Maman’s been released,’ I said. ‘The boys are still in prison, but they’re alive. How are you all?’

‘Your sister has the kindest soul.’
Sabine’s laid a hand on Félicité’s forearm.
‘I’m becoming quite the chef. Your mother would be proud of me.’

‘I doubt Maman is ever proud of
anyone,’
I said with a snort.

Max sloped into the kitchen in a pair of blue overalls, which on such a studious man looked like some comical party costume. He gave us a hesitant smile and slumped into a chair at the table in the centre of the room.

‘Papa,’ Jacob said, clambering onto his lap.

Sabine placed a bowl of
café Pétain
before Max. ‘And I think my husband’s acquiring green fingers,’ she said, squeezing his shoulder.

‘What about your paintings?’ I said. ‘I’d love to see them.’

Max removed the rimless spectacles and wiped the lenses with his handkerchief. ‘Perhaps next time, Céleste. They’re not that good, really.’

Sabine gave her husband’s cheek a peck. ‘Don’t be humble, you’re a master.’

‘Oh I know he is,’ I said. ‘And soon, after this war is over, everyone else will know it too, when they admire them in the gallery.’

‘Who can assure us this war will be over soon?’ Max said. ‘And that nothing will have happened to us, or our helpers?’ He gulped down his ersatz coffee, lifted Jacob from his lap and handed the child to his wife. ‘No one! Now, I’d best get back to the garden … can’t be absent too long. Thank you for coming to see us, Céleste.’

‘And I should prepare the beans and artichokes for supper,’ Sabine said.

I hugged them both and kissed Jacob on the forehead.

‘Give Talia a hug from me. I’ll see her next time.’