Wolfsangel (16 page)

I hooked my arms around myself, hugging my elbows, and thought of L’Auberge.
I’d been bursting to get away, but once gone, those comforting scents seemed to call me home. Nobody could connect Céleste Roussel to an Antiquaille nurse who’d helped break out two prisoners, but Père Emmanuel was right and I should stay away for a time. Besides, Martin being away on leave certainly doused any urge to rush back to Lucie.

A lick of wind shifted the cloud from the moon, and the ivory face peered down at me from the blackness. The soft light streaming onto my face, I felt the anguish of the past weeks seeping from me.

I had no idea what would happen to Patrick and Olivier –– and to me –– from then on. And what of my future with Martin? That too, was foggy. But after such a harrowing day, all I could think of was the bliss of sleeping in peace for the first time in weeks.

***

Jacqueline and I stayed with Georges and Perrine four more days, nursing the boys back to health. Besides the farmer and his wife, we didn’t see another soul. On the fifth day, when Dr. Laforge came to take us back to Lyon, Patrick and Olivier were up and walking, their wounds healing, all traces of the typhus infection gone.

I walked down the porch steps, and across the grass that was knee-deep in a milky mist, to meet him.

‘All is well at L’Auberge,’ he said. ‘As Père Emmanuel predicted, the Gestapo went there, searching for your brother and Olivier.’

I imagined Maman, pottering along with her business as usual, certain she wouldn’t get away with it a second time.

‘I managed to see your mother before they got there,’ Dr. Laforge said, as if reading my thoughts. ‘She was prepared for their arrival.’

‘And my sister knows the boys are safe?’

The doctor nodded.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank you for everything. Félicité must’ve been frantic with worry. But I’d still like to see her. And the Faviers.’

‘Once the Gestapo discover Patrick Roussel has a sister at the convent, they’ll be all over Valeria, looking for him and Olivier.’

‘So I shouldn’t go to the convent?’

‘You certainly shouldn’t go as Sister Marie-Félicité’s sibling, or anywhere else as Céleste Roussel right now, for that matter.’

‘Couldn’t I be at the convent as Gabrielle Fontaine?’ I said. ‘Vaccinating the students or something? You know how much the Germans fear contagious diseases, ordering all the children to be vaccinated, and I’d really like to see my sister.’

‘Yes, that sounds like the perfect alibi,’ he said with a nod. ‘Put your hospital uniform back on. You’ll be at the convent as Nurse Gabrielle Fontaine, immunising the students against diphtheria. I’ll come back for you after I’ve dropped Jacqueline at the flat.’

Georges and Perrine came outside with Patrick and Olivier to see us off. My throat clenched at the thought of leaving that haven.

‘You’ve been so kind and generous,’ I said to the farmer and his wife. ‘Thank you.’

‘Our pleasure, mademoiselle,’ Georges said. ‘We’ll do whatever it takes to drive the enemy out and bring our sons home, where they belong.’

Perrine kissed me on each cheek. ‘Keep safe, Gabrielle.’

I turned to my brother and Olivier. ‘I can’t believe I won’t see you for so long. Promise you’ll take care.’

‘You too, Agent Fontaine,’ Patrick said, and I saw the vein ticking in his temple as he kissed both my cheeks.

‘See you soon, Gabrielle,’ Olivier said. ‘As soon as we’ve beaten the lederhosen off those Boche.’ He placed a palm on either side of my face and kissed me on the mouth.

I was startled but didn’t pull away. And I didn’t want him to stop.

28

I sat in the convent kitchen, jiggling Jacob up and down on my lap. He pumped his little hands together in glee as his mother glided, swan-like, across the tiled floor. Félicité and another sister sat beside us humming a tune, while a third sister strummed a battered guitar. We were so enchanted with Sabine’s graceful dancing that we barely noticed the car doors slamming outside.

Before we had a chance to react, to move or run anywhere, the great oak door flew open and the hallway was rattling with the noise of boots and snappy French voices.

The humming stopped. The nun flung the illicit guitar behind a wide cauldron. Sabine stood still, her eyes growing wide. ‘What shall we do?’

Félicité patted her arm.
‘Madame Favier’s papers are in order. You have nothing to fear.’

Sabine shrugged my sister’s arm off, pulled Jacob from my lap and ran out the back door towards the garden. Félicité and I did not budge from our chairs, and I noticed my sister’s hands turn white, as she gripped the table edge.

Four militiamen, revolvers in hand, burst into the kitchen. ‘Where is the Mother Superior? We’d like a word with her.’

‘Please, take a seat,’ Félicité said. ‘I will bring our Reverend Mother to you.’

Still cradling their guns, the militiamen all rose and dipped their heads as the Reverend Mother Madeleine-Louise swept into the kitchen.

‘How may I help you, sirs?’ the Reverend Mother said.

‘We’ve been informed that a relative of one of your sisters –– Sister Marie-Félicité –– has recently escaped custody, Reverend Mother,’ the militiaman said. ‘We simply wondered if the man and his accomplice might have taken refuge here.’

The other three stood, legs apart, their eyes darting about as if they might glimpse the fugitives dashing off into dark corners.

‘We also have reason to believe,’ the boss militiaman said, ‘you’re hiding Yids here.’

‘I would never permit such a thing, sir,’ the Reverend Mother said. ‘We’re all good citizens here and respect the laws of Marshal Pétain. But if you wish to search the school, one of my teachers will be happy to escort you.’ She nodded at my sister.

Félicité stepped forward. ‘Certainly, and I am Sister Marie-Félicité. Come with me, sirs,’ she said, one arm outstretched, inviting them to follow.

From beneath his wide beret, the one who seemed to be in charge frowned as I rose from my chair. ‘What’s this nurse doing here?’

‘Nurse Gabrielle Fontaine, sir,’ I said, automatically handing him my papers. ‘Here to vaccinate the students against diphtheria.’

‘So what are you doing in the kitchen, mademoiselle, instead of jabbing needles into children?’

‘I was just saying hello to the nuns,’ I said, ‘before I start work.’

I was getting so good at lying, my voice betrayed not the slightest quiver.

‘The girls’ health is our concern,’ the Reverend Mother said as the man examined my identity papers. ‘We want them to grow into healthy young women; strong childbearing women. Just as our Vichy government desires.’

‘All seems to be in order, mademoiselle,’ he said, handing my papers back. He waved his gun at Félicité. ‘Now, let’s visit your pupils. You three,’ he barked to the others, ‘check the grounds, the dormitories, the cupboards. No stone left unturned.’

He followed Félicité along the hallway, his boots clomping on the worn parquet. I scuttled along behind, at a distance.

My sister knocked on the first classroom door and opened it.

‘Please.’ She gestured the militiaman into the room, but remained in the doorway, more like a queen than a nun, in her long gown and the coif that concealed every last dark hair strand. My sister certainly did not resemble any kind of Resistance fighter.

I stayed behind Félicité, peering around her, through the open doorway. I couldn’t let Talia see me and risk her calling me “Céleste”.

The girls looked up, startled. The nun, who had been writing on the blackboard, stiffened, holding the chalk in mid-air as all the students rose to their feet.

‘Sit down, girls,’ the militiaman said in a friendly tone. ‘Don’t let me disturb you,’ he said to the nun. ‘I only want to know if any of your pupils are better at Yiddish than French.’

From where I was standing in the corridor, I couldn’t see the whole classroom but I could picture Talia’s pale, frightened face.

The girls stared wide-eyed at the man’s revolver as he toyed with it casually, the stamp of his boots on the floorboards falling silent as he stopped at each new desk. Nobody uttered a sound as he flipped the books open to the first page with the butt of his gun, and checked the name.

After several minutes of tense silence, he tucked his revolver into his belt, clicked his heels, turned and marched from the room.

I breathed easily, certain I saw my sister’s shoulders slump in relief.

Once Félicité had escorted the man back down the hallway and out the front door, I allowed myself a relieved smile. The Wolfs –– the Faviers –– were safe.

I stood beside Félicité, watching through a crack in the curtains as the militiaman strode back towards the waiting cars. He’d almost reached the convent entrance when two of his men appeared from the direction of the chapel.

‘You might want to see this, sir,’ one of them cried.

My eyes darted to my sister, whose hands flew to her rosary beads. A shadow distorted her serene features as we watched the two men drag a load of guns, grenades and clandestine newspapers from the chapel.

The one in charge hurried back to us and flung the door open again. Mother Superior came from the kitchen into the hallway.

‘So, this is your idea of abiding by the laws of Marshal Pétain, Reverend Mother?’ he said, jabbing his gun at the illegal items. ‘Though I suppose you’re all in on the nasty little secret.’ His pitiless eyes roved around the circle of frightened nuns who’d gathered in the hallway. ‘Hiding clandestine articles, weapons and ammunition?’

‘Nobody else knows anything about those things,’ Félicité said, stepping forward. ‘It’s entirely my doing.’

My head started to spin and I felt giddy; confused. How could she take all the blame when the other nuns, as well as the Mother Superior, must surely be aware of the cache in the chapel? Félicité would never have acted alone, putting the lives of others in danger.

For several, terrifying moments, the militiaman said nothing, his eyes straying across the wide-eyed faces of the nuns.

‘You’ll both come with us,’ he said, taking Félicité and the Reverend Mother by the arm.

I wanted to scream out, to tell him to let her go; that my sister was a good, godly person and didn’t deserve that. But she threw me a guarded look and I stopped myself rushing to her side. The two men hustled Félicité and the Reverend Mother outside.

The last militiaman appeared around a corner of the building, gripping Max by the shoulder. Sabine, with little Jacob in her arms, skittered along behind them.

The blood cut through my veins, cold and sharp as ice chips. I wasn’t the least bit religious, but I feared only some divine miracle could save the Wolfs.

‘Tells me his name is Favier, sir. Says they’re pure French. Him and his wife and kid.’

‘And?’ the one in charge said, looking Max and Sabine up and down as if appraising cattle at a fair.

Jacob started to cry and buried his face in his mother’s neck.

‘But when I asked the good Monsieur Favier to unbutton his trousers, I saw different - saw they were about as pure French as the great Führer himself!’

Sabine threw him a look crusted with more hatred than I could ever have imagined in such a sweet person. Max hung his head and said nothing, his breath fogging the spectacles.

‘The gardener and the cook, eh?’ The boss militiaman said, still clutching Félicité. ‘I suppose this is your doing too?’

‘Monsieur and Madame Favier have done nothing wrong,’ she said. ‘Please leave them. Just take me, sir.’

‘But we have orders to round them all up,’ he said. ‘All those wearing the yellow star and all those who
should
be.’ His mouth twisted in a nasty smirk at Max and Sabine.

As they started shoving Max, Sabine, Jacob, my sister and the Mother Superior towards the cars, Talia rushed from the building.

Oh God no. No!

I felt my insides shear apart with the pain.

‘Maman! Papa! Where are you taking them?’

‘Ha, another one.’ He gripped Talia’s arm. ‘Any more, sister?’

Félicité shook her head.

‘Where are you taking us?’ Talia shouted. ‘Leave us alone, we haven’t done anything wrong!’

‘Hush,
chérie
,’ her mother said. ‘Just do what they say, everything will be all right.’

Max gave his wife a miserable, defeated stare.

‘No, I don’t want to leave,’ Talia went on. ‘I can’t miss school; I’ll get behind in my lessons.’

‘You won’t need your lessons where you’re going, miss,’ the man said with a grotesque grin. ‘Come along now, stop making trouble.’

Talia threw the nuns a last wild look, as they stood motionless on the cobblestones, mumbling Hail Marys into their beads.

Stilled with the shock, the disbelief, I watched the militia bundle them all into the two cars and slam the doors.

As they drove away, the fog thickened, dropping over the convent; closing in like a stage curtain on the final act.

***

I had no idea how long I stayed in the courtyard. I didn’t know where else to go, or what to do.

By the time I forced myself to move, all the nuns had disappeared. The fog, thick and clingy as wax, magnified the sound of my wooden shoes on the uneven cobbles, and against the milky sky the skeletal tree branches looked even more bedraggled.

Some unexplained force propelled me towards the chapel. Perhaps, instinctively, I thought it was a place I might feel my sister’s presence.

Once inside, I inhaled the smells of stale incense and candle wax. With its high ceiling and damp stone walls, the chapel was even colder than the rest of the building.

I shivered, hesitating before the altar, regretting for the first time in my life I didn’t believe in any of it; that in my desperate hour, I had nowhere to turn. I knelt hastily and crossed myself as I’d seen Félicité –– Sister Marie-Félicité –– do, so many times. As if, in that brief foreign gesture, she would still be with me.

It wasn’t my sister’s fault our parents loved her more than me; that she wasn’t born a sickly blue infant. I might be proud of my recent Resistance success, but I would never have the good, selfless blood that flowed through Félicité’s veins.

The pain of her absence tore into me like a winter gale, and I shuddered at the sight of Jesus on the cross, the plain cloth knotted about his loins; the bare legs, one straight, the other bent, and the nail piercing the pink feet. I felt for my pendant, missing it more than ever.

From the great abyss of grief, I recognised that as the unexplained –– perhaps imaginary — powers of the talisman gave me comfort and strength, my sister gained the same force from the effigy of Christ. Even as the blood, dripping dark from the nailed feet, simply made my stomach churn, I felt great respect for my sister’s beliefs.

I slumped into one of the pews, wondering how I could help Félicité and the Wolfs, wherever they’d taken them. But I knew that alone I was powerless.

I rubbed my frozen arms as I hurried back to the main building and out to the small room Max and Sabine had shared with Jacob. I packed up the brushes and paints and rolled Max’s paintings into a thick scroll. They would be safe at L’Auberge behind the false panel in the attic.

I picked up the phone and called Jacqueline’s flat, then I sat, quite still, in the dim kitchen and waited for Dr. Laforge to return.