Wolfsangel (12 page)

20

The same evening, under cover of autumn’s early gloaming, I hurried along the alleyway behind Au Cochon Tué and slipped into a small back room via the rear doorway. I felt around the wall behind the portrait of Marshal Pétain until the false panel gave way, and squeezed through the opening into a broom cupboard. I pushed the cleaning things aside and opened another door, which gave onto a stone staircase.

Au Cochon Tué had been Lucie’s bar for as long as anyone could remember, handed down through generations of Robert Perrault’s family. Papa would tell me stories about his own father taking him there when he was a boy after a hard day working the wood, to gather with the other men for card games.

Besides drinking, the villagers sang and danced to piano tunes, while others tried their hand at any musical instrument someone happened to bring along. That was before the war though, when singing and dancing were allowed. But during the occupation, the Germans came to Au Cochon Tué to guzzle our wine and beer and, it was said, to entertain their city whores.

The chill settled beneath my skin as I hurried down the uneven steps. The dun candlelight outlined several figures seated on upturned crates. All around them, on makeshift shelves lining the walls, sat piles of newssheets, guns, flashlights, rope, and things that might be grenades.

I stared at my friends Ghislaine and Miette. ‘What ––?’

‘Dr. Laforge believes my German language skills might be useful,’ Miette said.

‘And Papa said I could help find out about my brother and André,’ Ghislaine said.

I sensed my friends were as anxious about the boys as I, so I simply nodded and sat on the empty crate beside Dr. Laforge.

‘Père Emmanuel has told us everything,’ the doctor said. ‘We’ve devised another strategy.’

I stayed perched on the edge of the crate, kneading the cold from my hands, crossing and recrossing my legs. I looked around at them all, sitting there with Miette and Ghislaine: the priest and the doctor, Simon Laforge the pharmacist, Robert Perrault, Monsieur Dubois –– Miette’s father –– and Ghislaine’s father, Monsieur Dutrottier. The men fiddled with their berets, which they held between their knees.

I looked at Dr. Laforge. ‘So, what are we going to do?’

‘You’re to return to Montluc with more clothes, Céleste.’

‘Take in more clothes?’ I said with a frown. ‘What good ––?’

‘Not only clothes,’ he said. ‘More pills. This time we’re going to make them sick with typhus. The Germans are terrified of contagious infections and will want those boys out of Montluc and into the hospital quicker than they can fire cannon.’

‘It’s true,’ Simon Laforge said. ‘The Boche do fear infectious diseases. We were inundated at the chemist when they ordered us to vaccinate all our children.’

‘Besides the few who said they’d rather have a handful of sick kids,’ Dr. Laforge said. ‘Hoping that might scare the Fritz away.’

‘But it didn’t,’ Monsieur Dutrottier said. ‘The Germans are still here.’

‘Won’t they just shoot the boys as soon as they get ill?’ Monsieur Dubois said. ‘Why bother to send them to hospital if they’re due to be executed?’

Dr. Laforge shook his head. ‘If they were going to execute all of them, they’d have done so by now. They must believe the ones still alive are withholding vital Resistance information. They’ll want to keep them that way to force it out of them.’

‘How will you get this typhus thing?’ Robert Perrault asked.

‘A colleague at the
Institut Pasteur
laboratory in Lyon has a cultured specimen,’ Dr. Laforge said. He leaned forward, pulling a cellophane package of
La Marquise de Sévigné
sour balls from his pocket. ‘It’s a form of typhus I’ve injected into these boiled sweets.’

‘The sweets are wrapped in transparent paper,’ Père Emmanuel explained, ‘so the guards won’t suspect they contain a message, or anything else.’

‘What if your typhus makes them really sick and they die?’ Ghislaine said.

‘I won’t let them die,’ the doctor said. ‘I am aware of the right dosage just to make them feverish and ill.’

‘We’ll have to trust the good doctor, Ghislaine,’ her father said. ‘Besides, as he says, what other choice have we?’

***

Dr. Laforge thought it an extra safety measure if we all attend the Au Cochon Tué
soirée
, in case the Germans spotted any of us in the back alley. The meeting over, we left separately, via the same passage through the broom cupboard.

In twos and threes, we doubled back along the alleyway and entered the bar via the front door. Beneath the copper ceiling lamp –– polished by so many generations of Perraults that its original pink glow had become the pale yellow of a crescent moon –– the
soirée
was in full swing. The room was awash with smoke and the smelly, greenstick odour of tobacco laced with dandelion leaves.

Maman had always forbidden me to go anywhere near the bar after dark, but she’d made no move to stop me that evening. I think she sensed it was her only chance of learning the fate of her son.

‘What about curfew?’ I said. ‘Why do the Germans let people stay out?’

‘And what of the dancing ban?’ Miette said.

‘My father says the Boche ignore curfew and the ban on dancing when it suits them,’ Ghislaine said.

She nodded towards the group of Germans who’d sauntered in with an entourage of rouge-cheeked women –– city women, I supposed. They sat down in a fug of smoke, clanging heavy guns and helmets onto the table, which crashed against their belt buckles. They were soon swilling beer and wine, and singing loudly with the joyous racket of proud people, drunk with their power over us.

Trink’mal noch ein Tröpfchen!

Ach! Susanna …

They draped their arms casually over the shoulders of the rouge-cheeked women, who wore fur stoles and sipped drinks from cocktail glasses –– the types my mother called “fallen women”. 

‘And of course,’ Ghislaine said raising her eyebrows at the whores, ‘
they
are allowed out after curfew every night.’

I recognised Fritz Frankenheimer and Karl Gottlob and craned my neck, looking around for Martin. Yet even if he was there, I knew I couldn’t approach him, or breathe a single word in his ear.

I hadn’t seen him in the village for four days and I’d begun to feel his absence as a physical ache; the same dense pang that made it hard to breathe when I thought of Patrick and Olivier.

Etienne and Simon Laforge, Bernard Dutrottier and Monsieur Dubois joined several men at a table. They were soon laughing and chatting with the other revellers as if they’d come to Au Cochon Tué for nothing more than an evening of merriment and relaxation.

‘Isn’t it funny to think of those Germans up here,’ Miette said. ‘Completely ignorant of our plans downstairs?’

‘What better cover than right out in the open?’ Ghislaine said. ‘The stupid Nazis wouldn’t think to check under their noses. And my father told me there’s more going on at Au Cochon Tué the Boche don’t know about,’ she went on. ‘He says Robert Perrault’s head of a trafficking ring bringing Burgundy wine down here. Robert buys it for ten francs a bottle and sells it to the Boche for fifty-five.’

‘Good for him,’ I said. ‘If the Germans are willing to pay ridiculous prices, all the better for us.’

We sipped our wine and stood around the piano, on which Père Emmanuel belted out Jean Lenoir’s
Parlez-moi d’amour
. It seemed odd, hearing music. I heard it so rarely –– the organ at Mass, trumpets and drums on Bastille Day and the Great War commemoration. Amidst the festivity of piano music, dancing couples and happy voices, I tried to forget the plight of Patrick, Olivier, Marc and André, if only for a few moments. But despite the flush of wine, it kept clamping me like the sharp cogs of a giant wheel.

Ghislaine leaned in, speaking close to our ears. ‘I saw that Nazi in the post office,’ she said, nodding at the Germans. ‘You know, the fat one who’s always with the skinny one? Anyway the fat one –– I don’t know his name –– gave Denise a parcel.’

‘Fritz Frankenheimer,’ I blurted out.

‘How do you know?’ Miette said.

‘Oh, I just heard it somewhere,’ I said, my shrug casual.

‘But taking parcels is Denise’s job,’ Miette said.

‘She didn’t put the package in the bin with the others,’ Ghislaine said. ‘I’m sure I saw her slide it into her own basket.’

‘A present from this Fritz, you think?’ Miette said. ‘Come to think of it, I’m sure I have seen Denise wearing real nylons. And lipstick.’

I bristled again.

‘Well someone told the Germans about my father selling his meat on the black market,’ Ghislaine said nodding at Karl and Fritz. ‘We’re barely getting by now he has to sell it all to them.’

‘Yes, it might be Denise,’ I said, and told them about seeing her and Fritz, coming from the bar’s toilet.

‘And remember Uncle Claude’s hay harvest?’ Ghislaine said. ‘Denise knew about those boys hiding on his farm to escape labour service, and then the police arrested them.’

‘None of us would’ve denounced them,’ Miette said.

‘Everybody knows that girl is desperate for a man,’ Ghislaine said, ‘but surely she wouldn’t stoop so low as to give away our secrets to the Boche?’

‘And that might explain what happened to my neighbour, Madame Abraham,’ Miette said, with a glance about us. ‘Just this morning those same two –– the fat one and the thin one –– knocked on her door.’

‘They didn’t find out her real name, did they?’ I said. ‘And arrest her?’

‘Well, they do know she’s not Marguerite Lemoulin,’ Miette said. ‘But they didn’t take her away. When they left, I went over. The poor woman was shaking so much she could barely speak. She said someone told the Boche about her false papers.’

‘So why didn’t they arrest her?’ I said.

‘It seems those two have taken a liking to her fine collection of antiques,’ she said. ‘The pieces her dead husband spent his lifetime collecting. They left with a stack of valuable items –– loaded them into a wheelbarrow and just wheeled them away.’

‘But they could’ve done that anyway,’ Ghislaine said. ‘And still arrested her.’

‘Yes, that’s what they do,’ I said. ‘Take what they want then round the people up.’

Miette shook her head. ‘Madame Abraham told me as long as she keeps supplying the Boche with valuable items regularly, they’ll say nothing about the false papers. They said they’d be back every week for new things.’

‘Blackmail,’ Ghislaine said, shaking her head. ‘Just like Papa.’

‘My mother says it’s happening to other villagers too,’ Miette went on. ‘Someone told them the grocer’s been cheating them on weights and prices. He’s to pay them for their silence. She also said Monsieur Thimmonier was heard making “anti-German” remarks in church. Under the threat of arrest, they’ve ordered him to carve fancy wooden boxes for them to send back to Germany as presents. And my father said someone told them Raymond Bollet and René Tallon were hiding guns in their hay lofts.’

‘Bastard pigs,’ I said. ‘Everybody knows we cheat the Boche; that people keep their guns instead of handing them in at the Town Hall.’

‘All I can say,’ Miette said. ‘If it is Denise, she’s taking a big risk for a few silly presents from an ogre like that Fritz. And if the villagers find out she’s seeing a Nazi, they’ll shave her head, or do what they did to Gaspard Bénédict.’

I felt my face blanch with fear and wanted to rush from the bar to hide my guilt. But I could hardly do that, so I lifted my wine glass and lowered my eyes.

I was on my third glass of wine when the motorcycle pulled up outside. I watched through the window as two people got off. The woman was still squealing in delight from the night ride, her straw-blonde hair curved into one of those low movie-star rolls. Her eyebrows were plucked into thin arches, her lips a glistening cherry butterfly of lipstick, as she gazed up into the man’s eyes. The indigo eyes of a heavenly dawn.

21

They strutted inside, the woman wobbling on her heels and hanging off Martin’s arm, laughing at something he said. I was too stunned to speak; too shocked to think. She shrugged out of her coat, which Martin took, and I saw she was wearing a sheer red dress and nylon stockings with a seam running up the back. They were the perfect match, both tall, slim and fine-boned, except the whore’s face was covered in paint, making her look like some garish puppet, and the blonde hair was obviously dyed.

Something nasty unwound from deep in my gut; a horrible thing like a cobra uncoiling itself. It spiralled into my throat, cut off my breath, and made my head spin with the lack of air.

I gripped the side of the piano with one hand, the other clutching my glass. I didn’t understand, couldn’t grasp the strength of it; of how Martin Diehl had warped my feelings. And, in that instant, I hated myself. I swallowed the rest of the wine in a single gulp.

Martin hadn’t seen me. Of course he’d never expect the frumpy Céleste Roussel to be at an Au Cochon Tué
soirée
. I watched from the corner of my eye as they joined the table of Germans. The bone-haired whore sat down and I caught a glimpse of her stocking top and the garter of black lace that held it.

I tried to look casual, to keep singing along with Ghislaine and Miette but my voice faltered and inside me burned a red-black rage. The bitch was still grinning, showing off her straight white teeth, one long-fingered hand draped around a wine glass. I wanted to kill her. And him.

Martin stood, took the woman by the hand and started to dance with her. He held her close, their lips almost touching. With a trembling hand, I poured more wine from the pitcher, slopping it across the table. I was vaguely aware of Ghislaine and Miette hovering about me, and of Père Emmanuel thumping out another tune on the piano.

Martin and the whore waltzed closer to the piano. He glanced up over her creamy shoulder and saw me. His eyes widened for an instant, his lips moving in a quick, hesitant twitch. Then he turned away.

I clung to the piano to stop myself marching up and slapping both Martin and his whore across the face. I wanted to scream at him, ‘How could you do that to me? How could you?’ I wanted to spit in the violet-blue eyes. But I couldn’t let anyone notice my incomprehensible fury; the hurt that was splitting me in two, so I breathed deeply, trying to calm my speeding heart.

Martin and the whore sat back at the table where the city women were still throwing their coiffed heads back and screeching like peacocks at every word the Germans spoke.

Sweat peppered my forehead and my belly heaved. I knew I’d throw up if I didn’t get out of the smoke-filled, airless room.

I left the girls around the piano and weaved through the suffocating crowd, bracing my stomach. I flung the door open and stumbled outside. I started to run, but as I reached the alleyway at the back of the bar, I bent over and vomited into a pot of dead geraniums.

I straightened, leaned against the wall and took in great gulps of air. The cold stung my cheeks and revived me a little and I lurched on, anxious to be far away from Au Cochon Tué.

The shadowy figures of a couple approached. I ducked into the alley, and made out a ribbon in flowing hair, a gleaming boot and a belt buckle. I heard the rustling of her skirts, and the man’s laughter.

‘How do you say that in French?’ he said.

‘
Je t’aime
.’

‘Oh yes,
je t’aime
.
How pretty.’

I started off again but a movement in the darkness stopped me. A straggly tomcat was sidling up the alley, his back arched. He raised his head and meowed a long, harsh cry. I let out a breath of relief and walked away from the cat.

Two more figures approached the alley, staggering drunkenly through the fog. Fritz Frankenheimer and Karl Gottlob. I ducked back again, cowering against the damp wall. Perhaps they’d simply pass by without noticing me.

I held my breath, which only made my head spin more.

Karl muttered something to Fritz in German and, to my horror, turned into the alley. I backed up a few paces, further into the darkness, and flattened myself against the wall. Close by, the tomcat let out a frustrated little cry of desire. I jumped, my hand flying over my heart.

Karl staggered towards me, and stopped so close I could hear his ragged breath. He farted twice, undid his trousers and pissed a long, hard flow up against the wall. The sickness rose again, and I couldn’t stop myself gagging and retching.

‘Who’s there?’ Karl said the whites of his eyes flashing as he shook off the last few drops and did up his trousers.

Certain he’d see me any second, I took my chance, shoved past him and shot from the shadows.

‘
Ach, ach
,’ Karl slurred, grabbing my sleeve. ‘If it isn’t Céleste, the farm-girl. She seems ill doesn’t she, Fritz?’ He looked me up and down, through the tight slits of his feline eyes. ‘Poor child. Too much wine,
chérie
?

‘Leave me alone,’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’

‘You don’t look fine from here,’ Karl’s voice grated out. ‘Besides, what sort of a man would leave you here, a sick girl alone in the cold and dark?’

Fritz was nodding and grinning. ‘Anyone could come along and take advantage.’

I tried to twist from Karl’s grip.

‘Try and run, or utter the slightest sound,’ Karl hissed, ‘and I’ll put a shot into your dizzy head.’ He pulled out his weapon and levelled it at my temple.

I cowered, one arm covering my head, the other grappling for my angel necklace. My fingers wrapped around the old bone and like a cornered animal I stayed still, mewling small, pathetic whimpers.

The blood thumped in my head, so hard I imagined my skull might explode. I was too numb to speak, watching in terror as Karl unbuttoned his trousers with one hand, the other holding the gun steady.

‘Me first if you don’t mind, Fritz,’ he said, still in the guttural French. He pushed me to the ground and pressed his hard frame on top of me. ‘Sloppy cunts are such a turn-off.’

I felt the cold barrel pressed against my head. I thought I would die with the fright. I wished he’d shoot me right then. In that instant I envied the dead.

‘My pleasure,’ Fritz said, his chubby cheeks stretched in a grin. ‘Besides, half the fun will be watching the show.’

Karl yanked my skirt above my waist and jerked my legs wide apart. I didn’t dare move or scream for help. I felt his hardness pushing against me. I clamped my buttocks tight, trying to close my legs.

Oh God no. No!

‘Bit of a fighter isn’t she, Fritz?’ Karl said with a cackle, and I smelt his foul beer-stained breath against my cheek, and heard the clatter of his gun as it fell to the cobblestones beside us.

Another sound rapped out from the darkness. I didn’t understand the German words, but I’d have recognised the voice anywhere.

Brandishing his gun in one hand, Martin yanked Karl off me with the other. He snapped more words at them, nodding at me, as he grabbed Karl’s pistol from where it had fallen. He dragged him upright and pointed both guns at the two sub-officers.

Of course I still couldn’t understand, but I could imagine what Martin’s steely words signified.

Karl and Fritz held up their hands in a gesture of surrender, muttered something and backed away. Hanging onto each other, they lurched off into the darkness.

I was still unable to move from where I lay on the cold, damp cobbles.

‘Did they hurt you?’ Martin wrapped his arms around me and lifted me upright. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine, just a bit shaken.’

He lit two cigarettes and handed me one. My hand trembling, I took a deep drag and coughed into the fog.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘I will not let anyone hurt you, Céleste. Ever.’ He started smoothing my tangled hair with his long fingers.

I remembered then, and shoved him away. ‘Where is she, your city whore?’ I spat the words out and shifted further back. ‘How could you do that? I thought it was me you loved. That’s what you said.’

Martin stepped towards me. ‘She is nothing. Just a stupid whore to make me look like a normal German officer. So nobody suspects us.’

‘Well Karl and Fritz probably know about us now,’ I said, flinging the cigarette onto the cobblestones and stamping on it.

‘They know nothing,’ Martin said. ‘And they are drunk. They will not remember a thing tomorrow.’

I fell silent for a few seconds.

‘Why should I believe you, Martin? And how did you know what was happening out here?’

‘You looked ill and I saw you run outside. I came after you, to see if you were all right.’

‘Where is she now, your whore?’ I said, stamping off across the square.

‘I do not know, or care. Come back to me, Céleste.’ He caught me and took my arm with one slim hand –– the hands I realised, despite my firmest will, I’d so desired. Yet all I felt was overwhelming disgust with him. And with myself.

He drew me closer, the cold buckle of his uniform pressing into the cleft below my breasts.

‘Don’t you dare touch me after that … that
woman
. Just get away from me, and leave me alone.’

I moved off again, the clomp of his boots hard on the cobbles behind me.

‘Please, let me walk you home, Céleste. We can talk … discuss this, away from here, where people may see us.’

I ignored him and kept walking, and as I climbed the hill towards L’Auberge
,
he drew alongside me, and took my arm again
.

‘Stop. Talk to me,’ he said. In the stream of moonlight, the elegant features seemed distorted with hurt and anguish.

I clamped my arms across my chest. ‘You know, Martin, at first I suspected you’d only taken up with me in the hope of getting some sort of information ––’

‘Information?’ he frowned. ‘What information?’

‘Oh I don’t know … about Resistance activities in Lucie, which I haven’t a clue about.’

‘You suspected me of using you?’ The brow pleated in a deeper frown.

‘Yes, at first. But I cast those suspicions aside, and I did come to trust you. I couldn’t think of you as my enemy, as one of the foreign invaders we despise so. But now ….’ I shook my head. ‘I wonder if I didn’t get it all wrong –– all terribly wrong from the beginning. I can’t believe I was that stupid, to imagine it was real.’

‘Please, Céleste, you are being silly.’

‘Don’t “please Céleste” me! Anyway, why should I waste time caring about you? I’ve got more important things to worry about. My brother and Olivier might be dead.’

‘What? How do you know? I mean, you are sure?’

‘No, I’m not sure,’ I said, and told him what the Montluc Prison guard said.

‘
Mein Gott!
I am so sorry for you. Perhaps I can help?’

‘Help? Why now, Martin, when you didn’t help me before?’

‘I had no chance before, but I might be able to organise a meeting for you with SS Obersturmführer Barbie. You could perhaps plead their cause. Though what cause, I do not know. Besides, I imagine you must want to find out which two are still living?’

‘I hope to know that soon.’ I hugged my arms around myself against the chill, my mind racing with Dr. Laforge’s plan –– our only chance to save whoever was still alive.

We walked on, and reached L’Auberge des Anges, stopping beneath the sign dangling above the wooden gateway.

‘Will I see you in three days then … at our usual place?’ he said, hunkering into his greatcoat and sliding the black-gloved hands into his pockets.

‘I don’t know, Martin. After this I really don’t know what to think.’

‘I will count every minute, my love, and hope you will come.’

He strode away, the blond wisps around his cap gleaming gold in the moonlight. I kept staring down the hill long after he was gone, trying to push aside my self-loathing for letting things get so out of hand. They’d all been right to be wary of me; Céleste Roussel was not up to any sort of Resistance mission.

I knew I should heed Félicité’s warning and stop everything right then. I should take a knife and gouge Martin Diehl out of my head and my heart. But it seemed he had bewitched my every thought and move, and as much as that enraged me it only made me want him more.

My clogs slid across the dew-damp cobblestones, and I imagined my sister’s disappointment –– no, her horror –– if she discovered I’d not only lost the game, but that I’d crossed into no-man’s land and fallen into the gulf of enemy love.

I trudged up the steps, the sobs swelling in my throat.