Wolfsangel (11 page)

‘Take care, Céleste,’ Sabine said.

‘Thank goodness Max has his painting,’ I said as my sister closed the door behind us.

‘
I think it’s become more a crutch to him than the hobby it once was,’ Félicité said. ‘But he paints with such a reckless kind of frenzy these days that I’m not certain it gives him much pleasure at all. It’s simply a way to escape what’s going on around him and what might happen to them. As you probably noticed, he barely talks anymore. Not even to Talia.’

‘I can’t imagine how awful it is,’ I said. ‘And I know Sabine’s cheerful face is nothing but a mask for the children but at least it’s more comfortable here, and safer, than our attic.’

‘More comfortable perhaps, Céleste, but terrifying all the same. Gestapo men were here only the day before yesterday looking for a child –– a little girl of five whose parents had been deported. They couldn’t account for the daughter and somebody had informed them we were hiding her here. Thankfully she had false papers and they failed to identify her.’

‘But what harm could a five-year old do? And what would they’ve done with her?’

‘What they do with them all, Céleste –– send her to one of their special camps.’

‘We’re hearing so many rumours,’ I said, ‘but what really happens in the camps?’

Félicité’s eyes met mine and I noticed something odd about my sister’s face –– a darkness that was not hers; a shadow across the features that had always given the impression everything would be all right.

‘Nobody knows for certain,’ she said. ‘But I’m sure we have only God to thank that our friends have not yet been sent away.’

18

On that Saturday market day, the mist obscured the Monts du Lyonnais and clung low and tight about the bare lime trees. With the shop doors closed against the cold, there were none of the usual smiling faces of Lucie’s artisans, and a joyless chill hung over la place de l’Eglise. It seemed more forlorn without the chatter and laughter of Patrick, Olivier, Marc and André, lounging around the fountain. It even seemed odd without the freckle-faced Gaspard Bénédict. I longed for the day to be over; for tomorrow to come, when I could return to Montluc Prison.

‘It seems we’re not the only ones with so little to sell,’ Maman said nodding at the other stall holders hunched beneath their tarpaulins, wearing their desperation like brands on their thready woollen coats. ‘Since the German swine are requisitioning more and more food. Not to mention the disastrous harvest. The farmers are the only happy ones these days,’ she went on, straightening her apron. ‘People like Olivier’s uncle, demanding ridiculous prices from the Germans instead of saving stocks for their own kind. I believe Ghislaine’s father’s playing the same game, flogging his meat on the black market.’

‘Well they obviously don’t have a choice,’ I said. ‘You do keep reminding me these are hard times, and we’re all just trying to get by.’

‘Still, it’s not right,’ Maman said, her face turning sour as she watched Rachel Abraham setting up her stall. ‘Unlike us, no drought, storm or German requisition seems to affect
her
.’

‘Why do you hate her? Madame Abraham is such a sweet old woman.’

‘Wherever did you get that notion, Célestine? I don’t despise her at all. Sweet she may be, but it just doesn’t seem right, all of us suffering with the weather … this
occupation
, while she goes on making a tidy living as usual.’

‘Madame Lemoulin sells antiques,’ I said, unpacking the winter stocks Maman had taken to selling: her terrines
, pâtés
and
saucisson,
all made from last winter’s pig. ‘Of course the weather doesn’t bother her.’

Maman mumbled something incomprehensible and turned to greet our first customer.

I made myself busy, serving several people, but at the first chance of a break, I sidled off to Au Cochon Tué.

The stale odour of wine and tobacco assaulted my nostrils as I entered the empty bar, which would only fill with noisy banter and cigarette smoke when the market was over.

As I reached the alcove behind the bar area, Denise Grosjean scuttled from the toilet and almost barged straight into me.

‘Oh, Céleste, what are you doing here?’

‘Er … what do you think?’ I stared at Denise’s tomato-red cheeks, and at Fritz Frankenheimer, strutting out behind her.

‘Good, well have a n-nice time,’ Denise stammered, swiping at clumps of hair that had fallen across her face. Fritz scuttled after her, his huge thighs and fat bottom threatening to split his breeches.

They left the bar separately and the simplest dimwit could’ve guessed why the German’s face had the satisfied, defiant look of a fat cat purring by a stove. I shook my head, shocked at the flagrant risk Denise was obviously taking. At least I kept my “fraternising” humble and hidden.

I bolted the door, reached behind the cistern, the skip in my heartbeat surprising me as my fingers closed around the scrap of paper.

Four more days until I see you. It will seem like four years. M.

I felt a quick pulse of something I could not define and I was aware of a strange feeling growing within me; an intense mixture of fright and tenderness, something like stroking a wild animal. I flushed the bits of paper away and struggled to compose my face as I weaved my way back through people and animals.

As I approached our stall, I saw Karl Gottlob standing, with majestic ease, before my mother, as if the power of all Germany reflected on him.

I edged closer. Maman was jabbing her finger at Karl and shaking her head as if chiding him. That wouldn’t surprise me, Maman giving the enemy a good telling-off as if she, rather than Karl Gottlob, were the occupier. But I couldn’t catch a word, so brief was their conversation.

As I took my place beside her, Karl gave me one of his ogling looks, as if the cat-eyes were stripping my clothes from me. He marched off, empty-handed.

‘I can’t imagine what he’d want to buy from us,’ I said, as Karl disappeared into the crowd, ‘when they get all they need from stripping every home and farm in Lucie. Whatever did he want?’

‘None of your concern, Célestine. Merely a … he simply wanted advice about a medical problem.’

Maman fussed about transferring our takings to her money tin, and since people were staring at us, I sensed it wasn’t the moment to press her for details.

Besides, since her release from prison and Patrick’s arrest, my mother had grown ever more peculiar. Always gruff and unrelenting, she’d become so distanced from me –– from everyone –– as if she no longer inhabited the same world. She barely spoke, going about her daily tasks with ordered efficiency until the twilight stopped her and she sank into her Napoléon III armchair and assaulted her knitting, her brow creased low over the savagely clicking needles.

The only conversations she had were with the trickle of people who climbed the hill to L’Auberge
for castor oil to purge their systems, or cod-liver oil to encourage their children’s growth. They came with their respiratory troubles, for her
ventouses
and leech treatments, and for the poultices she made from flax and mustard seeds. They bought bottles of her famous
eau-de-vie
, the miracle remedy she made from leftover fruit, which she claimed banished every last germ. A splash in the morning coffee for the elderly, she advised them. A drop in the ear for infections, and a dash in the children’s morning milk.

The girls kept coming too
.
Not only young girls, but married women –– mothers who, with the rising ravages of war, could barely feed their children, let alone a newcomer. There were others also, whose husbands were prisoners or voluntary workers in German camps, who didn’t want to have to explain a fair-haired toddler when their spouse finally trundled home. I overheard their hushed excuses, their whispered justifications, as they made the sign of the cross and spread their trembling legs.

But still, after her arrest, and more so with the guillotining of the
faiseuse d’anges
Marie-Louise Giraud, it was hard to comprehend why Maman kept taking such a risk. Surely she could find another, legal, way to earn a living?

‘Célestine!’ she snapped. ‘Stop your dreaming.’

I jumped to attention.

***

The bells of Saint Antoine chimed midday and as the stallholders began packing their goods back into boxes, I glimpsed Fritz Frankenheimer and Karl Gottlob marching into Monsieur Dutrottier’s butcher shop. My eyes flickered across the square but there was no sign of Martin with them.

I hurried to the butcher’s shop. Did Karl and Fritz know something about Marc and the others? Or –– God forbid –– had someone informed them we listened to the BBC on the Dutrottier’s radio?

I peeked around the doorway. The Germans were saluting Ghislaine’s father with their exaggerated, almost insolent politeness. They spoke in low tones. I caught Ghislaine’s eye. She gave her head a quick shake and I moved away, back out onto the square.

I kept one eye on the Dutrottier shop as I helped Maman pack up our stall. Minutes passed, and Karl and Fritz stomped from the shop. There was no sign of the radio, or of a handcuffed butcher.

‘Back in a minute,’ I said, hurrying away to the shop before Maman could argue.

Ghislaine was standing behind the counter counting the takings. I caught a glimpse of her father out the back, scrubbing his giant cleaver.

‘Did they come about Marc?’ I said.

‘No, I think that’s strictly Gestapo business. Someone informed those two my father is trading his meat on the black market; that he sells it at a great profit to rich city people.’

‘But the Germans get enough to eat,’ I said. ‘Why would they want your father’s meat?’

‘Oh they don’t want to
eat
it,’ Ghislaine said. ‘They want to flog it to the rich city people themselves. They’ll denounce him to the authorities if he doesn’t sell the lot to them from now on.’ The blue eyes narrowed. ‘Trading with the Lyon people was the only way poor Papa could make ends meet these days.’

‘I suppose it could’ve been anyone,’ I said. ‘Informing on him. My mother keeps telling me we can’t trust anyone; that people are only interested in protecting themselves and would tell the Germans anything, if it suited them.’

‘Yes,’ Ghislaine said. ‘Times are harsh and people are doing what they have to, to get by, even if it means tattling on their friends and neighbours. I’ve also heard people are accepting presents from the Boche, in return for information … things about people; about our resistors. Personally, I’d rather die of starvation or cold before I accepted a single thing from any of those creepy soldiers.’

I had never given Martin the slightest speck of information, but I couldn’t stem my guilty flush, or the fear that rose inside me.

‘You never know what odd things people will do,’ I said. ‘Especially in a war … or occupation.’

‘Besides,’ Ghislaine went on, ‘the Germans are a bunch of bores. What
could
a girl see in them? Oh yes, in the beginning we all thought of them as handsome Nordic super-warriors but now we’ve realised they’re just a bunch of dreary, heel-clicking morons who go around snapping “Heil Hitler”.’

‘Oh yes,’ I said, trying to keep the quiver from my voice. ‘Just a bunch of old bores.’ I glanced back at our stall. My mother was frowning at me, one arm held high in a beckoning gesture.

‘I have to go, Ghislaine. The general is ordering me back to my post.’

As I passed Madame Abraham’s stall, I almost tripped over my feet. Karl and Fritz were looming over the old woman.

‘
Ihre Papiere
, madame,’ Karl said, standing stiffly beside Fritz, who was fingering the antiques, turning them over and sniffing each one.

My breath snagged in my throat as Madame Abraham pulled her papers from her handbag –– the papers that identified her as Madame Marguerite Lemoulin, childless widow of pure French origin.

‘Stop your gawping, Célestine,’ my mother called. ‘It’s time to go.’

I sidled back to our stall, one eye still on the Germans and Madame Abraham.

‘Anyway,’ Maman went on, as we packed our boxes into the trap. ‘What was all that about, the flitting around and secretive muttering?’

‘Nothing. It’s just I … I can’t keep still, or stop worrying about Patrick and the others.’

As we climbed into the trap and she gathered Gingembre’s reins, I almost blurted out the firing squad sentence. Did I really want to share that burden with my mother, or was I simply yearning to provoke some sort of emotion from that seemingly soulless woman? But my promise to Père Emmanuel –– not to worry her, perhaps unnecessarily –– stilled my tongue.

We rode away, and I twisted back to the two Germans, still hovering about Madame Abraham, Fritz inspecting every one of the antiques, Karl frowning over her papers. Why were they taking so long?

As Gingembre clomped up the hill, I feared next time I came down to the village Madame Abraham-Lemoulin would be gone.

19

When I arrived at the Montluc Prison gates I saw some of the same women from my first visit. They must have recognised me too, as a few smiled and nodded.

‘Why are you standing in the line for packages?’ a woman in a tight beige skirt and matching pillbox hat asked. ‘Aren’t you allowed to visit your man?’

‘You should go to court and insist on your rights,’ another woman said.

‘I’m not married to any of the prisoners, but one of them is my brother, the others are close friends.’

‘Don’t worry, someday all this will change,’ the beige-skirted woman went on. ‘The Boche swine and that Vichy mob won’t always be in charge.’

‘D60!’ the duty guard shouted. I came forward and handed him the parcel of clean clothes and a few slices of
saucisson
from Maman’s dwindling supplies. He threw me the bunch of dirty clothes.

‘But …’ I frowned as I started shovelling the smelly garments into my tapestry bag. ‘There are only two shirts, two sets of underwear. Four socks. Where’s the rest?’

The guard shrugged. ‘Next!’ he shouted, not giving me another look.

‘There are only clothes from two men here,’ I insisted.

‘How should I know, girly? Move right along, others are waiting.’

I ran my quivering fingers over the collars and cuffs, and when they slid over the pills and the note, it felt as if my heart dropped to my feet.

‘Where are the rest of the clothes?’ I asked again.

‘Look, mademoiselle, information is only given to family.’

‘I
am
family. I’m one of the prisoner’s sisters. Please, I have to know.’

I pulled the wrapped slices of chocolate cake from my bag –– the cake made from real eggs and Maman’s secret stock of chocolate –– and pushed them at him.

The guard snatched the cake, let out a bored sigh and said, ‘They already shot two of them, that’s why … firing squad.’

‘Sh-shot?’ The shock numbed me so, my words stuttered out. ‘But w-why?’

‘Because they were criminals. Terrorists who deserved nothing better.’ He spat a gob of green-stained spit onto the pavement. ‘Next!’

I lifted a grimy garment to my nose, trying to identify Patrick and Olivier’s special earthy, horse scent. I smelt only crusty blood and filth, and a bitter, vinegary taste surged from my gut, up into my throat.

‘Which two were shot?’

‘That I can’t say, girly. But what I can say is the other two are scheduled for the next line-up.’

I couldn’t help myself, and grabbed the lapels of the guard’s jacket.

‘W-when? Tell me,’ I hissed. ‘I’ll get you anything you want. More chocolate cake, butter, tobacco, whatever you need. Just tell me when it’s going to happen.’ I wanted to shake the guard long and hard, and slap his ugly face.

He shook me off with an annoyed frown, dusting down his jacket as if brushing off vermin.

‘I couldn’t tell you that either, girly.’

***

‘Your stop,
n’est-ce pas
?’ the ticket officer said. ‘
Hé
, you dreaming, mademoiselle?’

I hitched the bag onto my shoulder and scurried off the train. I didn’t recall walking away from the prison, getting on the tram or the train trip back to Lucie. I felt like some ghostly thing gliding through the dead leaves, as if my feet were hovering above the damp ground. I had no sensation of cold or warm, or if a wind blew, or rain fell. I couldn’t think or cry. I felt dead.

I headed towards la place de l’Eglise and the sound of the church bell droning into the pearly mist made me think of Père Emmanuel. He’d know what to do, or Dr. Laforge. They’d know how to find out who’d been shot, and surely they’d have a plan to try and save the others. I started running.

In my agitated haste I ran straight into Miette’s mother and her two younger sisters, coming around the church corner.

‘Sorry. Oh, sorry,’ I said, trying to catch my breath. ‘Did I hurt any of you?’

‘We’re all fine, Céleste,’ Madame Dubois said. ‘What’s wrong? Is it the boys? Has something happened to them in that dreaded Montluc place?’

I shook my head, not surprised Miette’s mother knew the boys were in Montluc. News moved faster than a bullet in Lucie.

‘No … no, I don’t know. I’m just so worried about them. Sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

‘We’re all sick with worry for those poor boys,’ she said, clicking her tongue.

‘I have to go,’ I said, hurrying off with a hasty wave.

I paused at the steps of Saint Antoine’s, tucking my hair back under my hat. Someone was shaking my arm.

‘Are you all right, Céleste? Is it your brother?’ I swivelled about to Madame Abraham-Lemoulin, her blinking eyes like two brown pips from a last season’s apple.

‘Yes, I’m all right thank you. I’ve just had a bit of a shock but really don’t worry about me.’

‘You should go home and have a lie down,’ she said. ‘Ask your maman for one of her magic potions. That’ll fix those chattering teeth.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, thank you. I’ll do that.’

‘Take care, my dear,’ Madame Abraham said, shuffling off towards the bakery, her shopping basket over her arm. ‘We must all take great care these days.’

I started to climb the steps, a strange murmur humming in my brain. I twisted back around.

‘Wait,’ I called.

Madame Abraham turned back. ‘What is it?’

I wanted to tell her how glad I was Karl and Fritz believed she was Marguerite Lemoulin; how pleased I was to see her still in Lucie. But I simply dropped my arm. ‘It’s nice to see you,’ I said. ‘Good day to you, Madame Lemoulin.’

‘
Bonne journée
to you too, Céleste.’ She smiled and waved a gnarly hand.

At least I’d learned one happy thing on that terrible day.

***

I slipped into the confessional, glanced up at the crucifix and spoke into the grid. ‘Forgive me, Father for I have sinned.’

‘What is it, Céleste?’ Père Emmanuel said, his voice hushed.

‘Two of the boys are dead. Shot. The guard wouldn’t tell me which two. The others are scheduled to be shot sometime soon, I don’t know exactly when. I can’t bear it, Father, I have to know. We have to get them out of there!’

‘I’ll inform Dr. Laforge and the others, Céleste. We’ll make a new plan.’

‘When? When can we make a plan? There’s no time to waste. We have to act now!’

‘We’ll meet tonight,’ the priest said. ‘In the cellar of Au Cochon Tué. Use the back entrance. Behind the portrait of Marshal Pétain there’s a false panel, which will give way if you push on it. That will get you down to the cellar without having to pass through the bar itself.’

***

I raised the lid on the kitchen stove. Maman had already laid the fire so I held a lighted match to the crumpled papers and interlaced twigs, and fanned the rising flame with the bellows. I placed a few pieces of coal on top and when the fire was hot, I poured boiling water into the tin washtub and threw in the prison clothing.

Whose clothes was I washing? Did they belong to Patrick, Olivier, André or Marc? The boys’ destiny seemed as fragile as those houses of cards the old men of Au Cochon Tué fashioned –– one small, clumsy gesture and the whole pyramid would collapse.

Stained with dried blood, streaked with dirt and crawling with lice, the garments gave off a foul stench. My stomach lurched but I had to ease my frantic mind; there was nothing more I could do to find out about the boys. So I scoured away at the stubborn stains, swiping at my cheeks where tears and sweat mingled and dribbled into the pot.

I didn’t look up when my mother came into the kitchen, which I supposed was enough to tell her something was terribly wrong.

‘What’s happened to them, Célestine?’

My arm ached but I persisted working at a brown stain.

Maman came and hovered beside me and started fidgeting with her chignon, patting it and smoothing her hair behind her ears. Her herbally smell made me nauseous and I sidestepped away from her.

‘I have a right to know what’s happened to my son.’

I spun around to face her. ‘They shot two of them. I don’t know which ones.’

I caught my mother’s strangled breath, and her eyes took on a glaze of panic as a fresh stream of tears gathered behind my eyes.

‘God, let it not be Patrick and Olivier,’ I said, scowling hard to calm the flow of tears. ‘It’s not that I want the others dead, but please, not them.’ I kept plunging the garments into the steaming water –– lift, plunge, lift, plunge. ‘And now I have to wash these filthy clothes and go back there and try and get them out.’ I couldn’t stop rambling, telling her far more than I wanted.

‘Get them out, you?’ She let out a humourless shriek, which set my spine prickling, as if a legion of spiders were marching down my back. ‘However do you propose to do such a thing?’

‘You don’t need to know how … only that I’m doing my best.’

Maman narrowed her mouth into its habitual, dour line. ‘Sit, Célestine, I’ll finish the clothes.’

I sank into a chair, turned the hourglass upside down and fixed my eyes on the trickling sand.         

‘Good God, armies of lice.’ My mother’s mouth twisted in disgust as a trail of black insects scrambled from the scalding water. ‘I’ll have to get them with the hot iron.’

‘I’d say lice are the least of their problems, Maman.’

‘If we don’t want that vermin infesting our entire home, I’ll have to get rid of them,’ she said, as she wrung the clothes out and hung them on the line over the stove.

I kept my eyes on the moving sand. Maman removed the washing apron, clamped on a clean one and busied herself at the stove. Steam soon curled from the pan, reaching like urgent fingers for the ceiling beams.

She ladled out two bowls of carrot and chicory soup and pushed the bottle of cod-liver oil and a beaker of red wine in front of me.

‘Eat. Drink,’ she said, taking her place opposite me. ‘We need to keep your strength up if you’re to save anyone from the firing squad.’

I looked up sharply. Was that a streak of warmth; a glimmer of some primitive, long-forgotten love in a corner of her thorny green eye?