Wolfsangel (14 page)

‘I will take great care of it, Céleste.’

‘I know you will. I just need to think of a reason for not wearing it … I always wear it, people will notice.’ I linked my arm through his as we hurried away from the river’s rising chill.

‘How will you let me know when you’re back?’ I said. ‘And what about my Gestapo meeting with this Barbie person?’

‘I will write you a note explaining everything,’ he said. ‘In the usual place in the bar. Perhaps when I return you can show me some of your paintings?’

‘Paintings?’ I frowned. ‘Oh yes! My paintings. But really, they’re not very good. Terrible actually.’ I almost laughed aloud –– I wouldn’t know one end of a paintbrush from the other.

At the top of the riverbank slope, where Martin had hidden his motorcycle, I unhooked my arm from his.

‘See you next time, my love,’ he called as he straddled the motorcycle.

I lifted my arm in a wave, inhaling a last whiff of his scent of starchy cloth and fresh apples, and watched him ride away, his hair blown back, his lean figure disappearing into the fog-warped valley.

Once he was gone, I swelled with a sense of loss. It hadn’t been enough. I wanted more; wanted it never to end.

Love.

The word chimed like a child’s lullaby. So this was real love. It had never felt like that before, not in the fierce loyalty for my father, brother and sister, not in the resentful affection for my mother, nor in the fondness for friends like Olivier, Ghislaine and Miette.

I felt the ache of loneliness –– an empty place from where I’d mislaid some vital part of me, and wondered how I could have doubted Martin; how I could have contemplated never seeing him again.

I finally knew what love meant –– understanding, caring for someone, sharing their joy and sorrow. I wanted more of it, and I bit my lip in desperation. I reasoned that whether or not you were married, losing your virtue didn’t really matter as long as the person understood you –– that someone you didn’t have to share with anyone else.

I headed back to L’Auberge, feeling as if I’d stepped outside my normal little world into some far more exotic place. I felt I was astride a gleaming mare, riding high on the warm throb of that new love; the Céleste who loved the enemy and would be severely punished, perhaps killed, if caught. And I felt it clanging against another, cooler beat –– the Céleste who was an active Resistance fighter –– and it gripped me with alternating spasms of cold, lightness and fear.

***

Maman pointed her fork at me. ‘Where have you been all afternoon?’

Her voice startled me from my fearful thoughts of the boys; my tremulous thoughts of Martin Diehl.

‘Just around … around the village. Nowhere.’ I stabbed the fork into my
paupiette
.

‘Do you take me for a fool, Célestine?’ she said, the green eyes sharp and bright. ‘How long did you think you could keep it from me? How long, in a place like this?’

‘Keep what from you?’

‘I know you sneak off to see him, your German officer. Down at the riverbank, I imagine. I saw the way you looked at him at the Harvest Festival. I can even
smell
him on you, girl.’ She shuddered. ‘Oh don’t give me that look of yours.’

She swiped her chunk of bread across the plate in short, sharp bursts, removing every trace of gravy. ‘You do know what happens to girls accused of horizontal collaboration –– those
filles à Boche
?’

‘I am not collaborating. I’ve never given him a scrap of information, ever!’

‘They arrest them,’ she went on, as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘Shave their heads and parade them to crowds who maul them.’ She slid her chair back and stood over me, her arms folded across her apron. ‘And don’t think your German is any different.’

‘He’s not my Germ ––’

‘They’re all the same. All brutes, every one of them. War, yes, we all know war is terrible. But occupation is worse. Far worse, because people get used to each other; they become friends. Much more than friends! They tell themselves the others are just like them, but they are most definitely not. We’re two irreconcilable species; enemies forever. And you’re a fool if you think otherwise. A silly fool of a girl.’

My mother shook her head, one side of her mouth hitching up in scorn. ‘You always were such a naïve, exasperating child.’

I wanted to shout back at her and say Martin Diehl was different; that he did care about me, unlike my own mother. I wanted to tell her he loved me for myself, and had never tried to use me to discover any sort of information. And in the same breath I wanted to demand she tell me why they let her out of prison with not the slightest punishment, and why she insisted on continuing the abortions in the face of such danger. And why she had a liberal supply of real soap.

But her words, her battle-decisive accusations –– the realisation that my dark secret was out –– shocked me into silence. So I simply planted my elbows on the table, which she despised, and shook my head.

‘Whatever happened to make you like this, Maman?’

‘And tell me, Célestine, whatever did I do to deserve a daughter like you?’

The Rubie clock
tock-tocked
into the silence that followed.

Gabrielle Fontaine
Winter 1943 – 1944

24

It was still early, stripes of sunlight struggling to reach the narrow entrance of Dr. Laforge’s sister’s flat.

‘This is, Jacqueline,’ Dr. Laforge said, as his sister came to greet us. ‘She teaches history at a local high school.’

‘
Bonjour,
Gabrielle.’ It sounded strange hearing my new name for the first time.

Jacqueline Laforge ground out her cigarette and gave my hand a brief, serious shake. She looked around thirty, ten years or so younger than her brother, and had the same heavy black eyebrows. Like the doctor’s, her features were handsome, and she seemed a bit man-like with the peaked cap perched on her cropped hair and a shirt tucked into slim-waisted trousers.

Jacqueline handed me a bag. ‘Here’s what you’ll need for your hospital mission, Gabrielle.’

My mission.

I might have swelled with my own importance if I hadn’t been so impatient to see Patrick and Olivier and move along with the rescue operation.

I peered into the bag at the nurse’s gown. ‘Should I put this on now?’

‘Not here,’ Dr. Laforge said. ‘You’ll dress at the hospital, in the toilet. Now I’ll go through the instructions with you again.’

Jacqueline led us into a cramped living room with peeling floral wallpaper and served her brother and me
café Pétain
. She poured herself a half-tumbler of red wine and waved me towards the faded sofa.

‘Right,’ Dr. Laforge said, taking a sip of coffee. ‘The most plausible way to get them out is for some German police –– fake of course –– to come and demand they be taken for interrogation. But for that we need the right kind of transport, which we should have in a few days.’

‘A few days?’ I slumped into the sofa. ‘What if they’ve been sent back to Montluc before then? Aren’t we getting them out today?’

‘Patience, Gabrielle. Our contacts at the hospital will ensure they look sick enough to remain there several more days. So today,’ the doctor went on, ‘you’ll locate the prison section at the hospital and sketch a map, showing access to where the detainees are. Our contacts with the cars will study this map. Oh, and don’t forget to be friendly with the guard outside the prisoners’ room.’ He swallowed another mouthful of ersatz coffee. ‘Now, you’ve learned your new identity by heart?’

I patted my canvas bag containing the false papers. ‘I know Gabrielle better than I know myself.’

‘Because that’s the most difficult job of all,’ Jacqueline said, the eyebrows knotting like her brother’s. ‘The art of taking on a new identity, of assuming it so completely that every trace of your old personality is lost. You might think it’s easy, Gabrielle, rather fun even, like dressing up or playing charades, but it’s extremely difficult. It must be full of imperfections, because if you answer questions too quickly, too glibly, it will sound suspicious.’

‘The Gestapo are shrewd, trained interrogators,’ the doctor said. ‘And should never be underrated. It will be mentally exhausting, living these lies day in, day out.’

‘And if you get caught,’ Jacqueline said. ‘We can’t do much to save you.’

I nodded. I didn’t need to ask from what they couldn’t save me.

Dr. Laforge stood and shook down his trouser legs. ‘I’ll be off then. You remember where to meet?’

I nodded again. ‘I’ll leave in five minutes, as you said.’

‘
Merde
, Etienne,’ Jacqueline said –– the “good luck” wish.

Her brother left the flat and I swallowed the dregs of my coffee. ‘Thank you for your help, Jacqueline.’

‘We have to help each other,’ she said, with a brief clasp of my hand. ‘Until we’ve sent those pigs squealing back to Germany. Or got rid of them all.’

Got rid of them all.

It struck me then, and I wondered why I hadn’t thought of that before. If France did win the war, they’d surely imprison Martin, or send him back to Germany. Perhaps even shoot him. The only way we could stay together was if Germany were victorious, which I certainly did not want. But I couldn’t dwell on those unsettling things, I needed to concentrate on my mission.

I left the flat, reminding myself not to hurry. I breathed evenly to calm my jangling nerves as I jumped onto the trolleybus, and made the slow ascent of Fourvière hill to the Antiquaille hospital.

***

Gabrielle Fontaine’s bag slung over one arm, I marched into the hospital as if I was perfectly at home. Amidst the efficient bustle of people coming and going, nobody took the slightest notice of me, and I did feel less exposed.

I found the toilet, where I emptied my pressing bladder and slipped on the white gown. I took a deep breath and walked out, making my way towards one of the general medical wards.

‘
Bonjour
,’ a passing nurse said, showing no sign of surprise.

‘
Bonjour
,’ I replied with a casual smile.

I spotted Dr. Laforge standing at the foot of one of the twenty beds of the medical ward. I strolled over and stood beside him.

‘
Bonjour
, madame,’ I said in my brightest voice to the elderly patient. She didn’t answer. Except for the shallow rise and fall of the sheet, she looked dead.

We conferred in low tones, flicking through her medical chart, the doctor pointing out where and how everything was noted: temperature curve, date of admission, diagnosis, frequency and name of medications.

‘
Au revoir
, madame,’ I said, as Dr. Laforge and I moved on to another patient.

I left the ward two minutes after the doctor and headed down to the ground floor, where he’d told me they housed the sick prisoners.

I walked the length of the corridor, feeling so close to Olivier and Patrick that I could almost smell their working-day scents, and my heart beat hard.

I strode past the guard, who was slumped on a chair mid-way down the corridor. ‘
Bonjour
, monsieur,’ I said with a pleasant nod.

He nodded back. ‘Mademoiselle.’

Good, no accent. Far easier to strike up an acquaintance with a Frenchman than a German. I almost laughed aloud, at the irony.

Neither the guard nor the busy nurses paid me any attention. In these needy times for working hands, there were so many extra nurses about that nobody questioned a new face.

I could easily have poked my head around each doorway and located the boys. But I resisted the urge and limited myself, as instructed, to a single stroll up and down the corridor, eyeing the entry and exit.

***

At lunchtime I left the hospital and strolled into the city, to meet “Pierre”, my male nurse contact.

Lyon was one drab bulk of greys and browns. Hunched over in their coats, the people had a thin, haggard look about them as they hurried along the street, weaving between trolleybuses, trams, Wehrmacht vehicles and bicycles. The swastika flag flapped arrogantly from windows and everyone seemed defeated by the weather, the war and the occupation that seemed to be going on forever.

There was a comforting feeling of security amongst the crowd, with my simple excuse of being just another worker on her lunch break, yet a persistent discomfort shadowed me. Jacqueline had warned me it was easy to be followed without detecting it and, amongst many people and temptations, to forget the safety rules. She’d said that was how so many agents were caught in the big cities.

The queues outside the shops seemed longer and bleaker than the first time I’d seen them on my way to the mortuary. Clutching their precious ration coupons, the people seemed to sag like their shabby clothes and worn shoes, desperation pocking their faces.

As I stopped to cross a street, a long list of names pasted on the wall caught my eye and I almost cried out: fifteen Frenchmen and patriots who had, that very day, been shot as
terroristes
for acts of sabotage against railway lines and other structures.

I pulled my coat around me against the chill as I scanned the names of the martyrs who’d died to help rid our country of the occupier. I knew none of them but at the same time, I felt I knew them all. My heart heavy for those brave people, I crossed the street, aware that each step I took was a little more dangerous than the last.

I found the café indicated by Dr. Laforge, the sign in the window spiking another chill in me: NO DOGS. NO JEWS.

I sat at a window table and picked up a menu.

‘I’ll have the
coq au vin
please,’ I said to the waiter. Too nervous to swallow much at breakfast, my stomach was growling.

‘Sorry, mademoiselle. We have no
coq au vin
.’

I nodded to a table of Germans in the corner. ‘But over there … I can see it.’

The waiter’s expressionless face didn’t change. ‘We have no
coq au vin
.’

I sighed and shook my head. ‘The lamb then.’

‘No lamb either,’ he said. ‘Only asparagus soup.’

‘Right. I’ll have the soup.’ I felt the knot in my stomach tightening; the ache to eat something that didn’t taste like watery cabbage.

My soup arrived as a young man in a beret strolled in and sat at the table next to mine.

He draped his coat over the back of the chair, ordered the soup and pulled out a cigarette. ‘
Excusez-moi
, mademoiselle,’ he said. ‘Can I trouble you for a light?’

‘Certainly.’ I pulled the box from my bag and struck a match.

Pierre bent close to me and lit his cigarette. ‘Room 6,’ he mumbled.

‘Are they all right?’

‘We’re dragging it out as long as we can. You’ve got two days at the most.’

Pierre waved the cigarette at me as he sat back down. ‘Thank you, mademoiselle.’

I nodded, and glanced over at the table of Germans in the corner. So busy enjoying their
coq au vin
, swilling it down with wine, they hadn’t raised a single blond eyebrow at us.

As I finished the soup, with bread that tasted as if it was made from birdseed, I hated them even more. All of them besides one, whose precious photo I’d had to leave back at L’Auberge.

The Germans patted their stomachs and got up, retrieving their caps and overcoats. Most of them left the bar, with their cackling, throaty laughs. The two who remained started moving amongst the lunch patrons, demanding their papers.

‘Ihre Papiere bitte
,’ one of them said, his pale bulk towering over me.

The hand holding my spoon began shaking, soup dribbling across the table.

I fumbled in my bag for my identity papers and handed them to the officer. How sickening it was to have to submit to inspection by those people when all I wanted was to get on with my job.

‘Name?’

‘Gabrielle Fontaine.’

‘Occupation?’

‘Nurse.’

‘Date of birth?’

‘October 20, 1920.’ The first part was true, at least. My false papers made me three years older. Dr. Laforge reasoned that twenty-three seemed more likely for a trained nurse.

It had been easy enough to tell my cover story convincingly but seeing the details of my masquerade set out coldly and officially in the hands of a German gave me a shock. My photograph and the fine purple etchings of my fingerprints stared at me from the printed card as if it all said, “One Big Lie”.

‘Why are you shaking so, mam’zelle?’ he said, with a malicious grin. ‘What have you got to be nervous about?’

‘I’m not nervous. It’s nothing. It’s just …. I’m late. I need to get back to the hospital. There are patients who need me.’

‘You’d better get a move on then,’ he said with a sneer, handing me back my papers.

I resisted the urge to spit in his face, paid my bill and walked out of the café.

***

I spent the afternoon alone at the hospital. Dr. Laforge said it would look suspicious if we were seen together too often. There were far more visitors to the hospital in the afternoon, and fewer medical teams, and I understood why the doctor believed it would be safer to carry out the escape operation in the afternoon.

At 3.50 pm I went to the ground floor, recalling my instructions.

Shift change at four pm. Nobody there for a few minutes while they smoke a cigarette together before the new guard takes up his post. Check exactly how long post remains unmanned.

I nodded at the same guard as the morning, seated close to room 6.

‘How’s this assignment?’ I said, in a friendly voice. ‘Not too boring?’

He gave me a rueful grin. ‘Could be worse.’

The man seemed pleasant enough; the type who probably had a wife and children waiting for him at home, and it was hard to accept I might have to kill him. I wasn’t convinced I could murder anyone at all.

I entered room 6. Eight beds.

When I saw Patrick and Olivier’s battered bodies; their skin blistered with grime, I clamped a hand over my mouth and stopped myself from rushing to them. Their blackened eyes and the smears of dried blood trailing from their noses –– swollen to twice-normal size –– told a tale of torture. Teeth were missing from mouths that resembled open wounds. I wanted to bundle them up right then and take them home. They managed thin, bewildered smiles as I approached.