Wolfsangel (24 page)

41

When my mother returned from her gathering, I was crouched back in the washing tub.

‘What in God’s name has happened?’ she said. ‘The hens, the goats and Gingembre are gone.’

‘B-boche.’ My voice was no more than a husky whisper.

She dipped a hand into the tub. ‘This water’s stone cold. And you’re all a shiver, Célestine. Look at your arms, they’re raked raw.’

She didn’t say anything more as she hooked her arms beneath mine and half-carried, half-dragged me into the living room and lay me gently on the sofa.

‘Vile pigs,’ she said, the rage in her eyes matching the venom in her voice. She covered me with the crocheted blanket that always sat across her Napoléon III armchair and dabbed disinfectant on the bloody grazes streaking my arms.

She tucked my arms back under the blanket and as she bent to pull it up under my chin, I caught her homely scent of musky lavender, peppermint and wild thyme.

‘Stay put, Célestine, I’ll be back with tea.’

‘What is it?’ I said, as she lifted my head and held the steaming cup to my lips.

‘Camomile, an age-old herb. Used for virtually everything that is wrong with you.’

‘Even this?’ I said, sipping the warm infusion.

‘It will help for now,’ she said with a sigh, ‘but later, when you’re feeling strong enough, you’ll need to come upstairs to my bedroom.’

‘Your bedroom? God no, not that.’

‘Preventive treatment,’ she said, as she placed the teacup on the table and held a beaker to my lips. I tasted the bite of cognac.

‘Better to be on the safe side,’ she said. ‘Besides, it will give you a good clean out; help rid you of the demon filth of those monsters.’

‘I’ll never be rid of their filth.’ A single tear ran down my cheek, which I swiped away.

My mother’s lips narrowed into the firm line. ‘Don’t let them destroy you,’ she said. ‘You must not let them destroy you, like they destroyed …’

‘Like they destroyed what?’

Maman had lowered her eyes, and held her fisted hands in her lap.

‘Like me?’ I said. ‘You were going to say, “Like they destroyed me”?’

She refused to meet my questioning eyes.

‘Is that what happened to you?’ I said. ‘The terrible, secret thing?’

She didn’t move, her gaze still fixed beyond, on the peaks of the Monts du Lyonnais, a nauseous olive green in the afternoon sun, and when she finally spoke, it seemed she was reaching far into her past, seeing and feeling it all again.

‘It was 1914,’ she said with a sigh, as if emerging from the trenches; as if she’d run out of fight, and was ready to relinquish everything to the adversary. ‘The Great War had just begun. There was a young man, a boy really, though he seemed like a man to a naïve sixteen year old.’ She took a breath. ‘Axel, his name was, and after he fought in the bloody battle of the Marne he could no longer bear the war. He deserted from the German army … ran away and, somehow, ended up at L’Auberge. I found him hiding in the barn, exhausted, starving and wounded.’

‘Weren’t you scared? I said. ‘To find a German soldier here?’

‘Of course I was, but when he spoke of the terrible bloodshed, violence and savagery he’d witnessed, I was no longer afraid. I felt sorry for him, pity. So I hid him in the old witch’s hut in the woods.’

‘You know about the hut?’

‘You’ve grown; matured so this past year,’ she said, with a small, sad smile, ‘but sometimes I find you still such a child. Generations before you knew of that hut.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘So what about Axel?’

‘I took care of him,’ she said. ‘Used the skills my mother taught me to tend his wounds. I fed him and kept him warm.’

‘And you fell in love,’ I said.

She nodded. ‘I did. And I thought he did too.’

‘But he didn’t?’

‘One morning, when he was fit and strong again, he attacked me, brutally, without warning. I didn’t see it coming. Just like those German pigs did to you. Then he disappeared. Scarpered off and I never saw him again.’ She fell silent for a minute.

‘That’s the thanks I got for hiding him; for risking my life –– my family’s safety –– to take care of someone. And look at the price I paid –– what it made me! –– for falling in love with the wrong person. I’ve never been able to … to shake it off, it seems. The bitterness, the resentment.’

I wasn’t conscious of it, but my hand had crept from beneath the blanket and I laid it over hers, which was still locked into a fist.

‘Not even when you married Papa?’ She didn’t pull her hand away.

‘Your father has been a good husband, Célestine. He deserved better than me. There could never be any real romance. No passion. I think he only married me because he thought I’d make an efficient wife.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ I said.

‘When I said anything –– a single word –– against your German officer, it only drove you deeper into his arms, Célestine. Didn’t it? Isn’t that why it all started in the first place, simply to defy me?’ I thought I saw a glint of madness in the grey flecks of her green eyes. ‘I could never accept you and him.’

‘I didn’t feel anything for him in the beginning, but he seemed to admire me,’ I said and I told her, then, of Félicité’s plan.

‘Your
sister
suggested such a thing? I can hardly believe that of Félicité.’

‘Well she did, and I failed my mission. But now I know it can’t go on. There are other things … far more important things I must concentrate on. But all the same, Martin
is
good to me, and kind. He’s not like other Ger ––’

‘They’re all the same,’ she snapped, pulling her hand away and fidgeting with her chignon. ‘The devil’s blood flows in every one of their veins. Just don’t let them crush the life from you too.’ She gathered up the teacup and the cognac beaker and turned to go back to the kitchen. ‘Now you’d better come upstairs. Best to get it over and done with.’

Over and done with. I feared, as with Maman, that thing would never be over and done with.

***

‘Go to your room and rest now,’ Maman said, coiling her tubing into the empty bowl on the stand next to her bed. My insides full of soapy water, my body still stiff and raw, I could barely move.

‘If you hate the Germans so much,’ I said, nodding at the bar of soap she was storing in its special box. ‘How come you’ve got proper soap, when nobody else has any? We don’t have money to buy things like that on the black market so you must be getting it from the Boche. And why do they let you keep up this business when they obviously know about it?’

My mother sat on the bed beside my outstretched legs. ‘After Axel’s betrayal, I thought I was rid of the Germans, rid of them forever. But no, back they came into my life, and this time they took your father to work for them –– to work
for them! I understood immediately, that if they weren’t to break me again, I had to beat them at their own game.’

‘Their own game?’

‘All I do is feed them harmless information,’ she said, ‘in return for things I need, like soap, and to keep my business going.’

I shook my head as if I hadn’t heard properly, searching her unflinching eyes.

‘It was
you
? You told the Boche about Madame Abraham’s false papers? And that Monsieur Thimmonier made anti-German remarks, and Raymond Bollet and René Tallon were hiding guns? It was you who sent them to raid Robert Perrault’s wine cellar?’

I took a breath, couldn’t stop myself shaking. ‘You told them about Uncle Claude hiding horses and slaughtering his pigs to sell the meat? I can’t believe you’d do such a thing to our friends; to Olivier’s uncle.’

She started pulling at her apron, straightening it. ‘As I’ve told you countless times, it’s a matter of survival, Célestine. Those nasty little extortionists –– Gottlob and Frankenheimer –– simply use the information to claim objects or money from these people for themselves, and to send back home. Don’t think they’re any better off in Germany than us. They have nothing there either.’ She sniffed. ‘Besides, whatever I say, no real harm comes to those people.’

‘No harm!’ You can’t truly believe that? You denounce friends, people we know. And what about Ghislaine’s father?’

‘It was a tragedy the poor man took his life,’ she said. ‘But I was not responsible.’

‘Maybe not directly,’ I said, ‘but he’d lost his wife, the war took his son, his daughter. Having to close his shop –– because of what you said –– was the last straw.’

Maman kept on as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘Madame Abraham’s antique shop is still open. She’s still here in Lucie, not in some camp ––’

‘They steal her best antiques!’ I said. ‘They go back every week, demanding more and more. Miette told me the poor woman lives in terror, fearful she won’t be able to satisfy their weekly orders.’

‘Giving up useless knick-knacks is far preferable to being deported, Célestine. Haven’t you heard what they’re doing to her kind in those camps?
Death
camps, that’s what they are.’

I caught my breath, thinking of the Wolfs. ‘Yes, I’ve heard but nobody’s certain. We have no proof.’

She tugged at her apron again. ‘
Times are hard, Célestine, which makes people hard. We live in a dark era, where stocks of compassion have run out and there is no more generosity. Each for himself or for the few people he cares about. We’re all wearing masks; all engaged in bluff and counter-bluff.’ She pushed at invisible meshes of hair. ‘You are well aware I despise the Germans, and now you have my reasons for this hatred, but I absolutely need their cooperation if we are to get through this occupation; if we, and L’Auberge, are to survive the war.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘That also explains why they released you from prison so quickly, with no punishment, and why they didn’t send you to the guillotine like Marie-Louise Giraud.’

‘What would have happened to you, and this farm, if they’d sliced my head off?’

‘Oh I don’t know, Maman, I really don’t. I pushed her aside, stumbled from her bedroom and across the landing. ‘I’d like to be alone now,’ I said, and shut my bedroom door.

***

I lay on the bed for the rest of the afternoon watching the sky darken over the hills. Dusk eventually washed the light from the fields and covered the woods in a sinister navy shade.

I’d missed my meeting with Martin, but I couldn’t bear to see anyone, especially a man.

My mother, informing on the people of Lucie. It made me angry; a rage that confused and exhausted me, though part of me could understand. Survival. Playing the game. Things with which I could identify.

I closed my eyes and saw the frightening woman of my childhood, hidden behind her laundered grey aprons, her dusting cloths, and her old-time remedies –– a woman who lived by hard work and a spotless home. Only forty-six years old, but a stolen girlhood and many seasons of harsh farm labour had stooped her shoulders and creped the skin around her eyes. Her face had shrunk like an old apple, and the hair she stretched into the taut bun was more grey than chestnut.

I saw her scouring away at us children with pumice crystals and camphor, applying the same fierce energy as she did to cleaning the farmhouse, so I’d felt like just another thing that had to be scrubbed. I understood, then, just what stubborn grime she’d been trying to shift.

In an ideal world I was certain my mother would never collaborate with the enemy but, as she said, ours was no ideal existence. Like fish trapped in a net, all we could do was writhe about and hope to wriggle through the mortal threads.

I tried to think of other things, anything to blot out the horrifying images; the pain of Karl and Fritz stealing their terrible pleasure. But sleep defied me as my fury grew, ebbing low at first, then swelling like a great wave until it consumed my mind and obliterated every other thought.

My eyes snapped open. I grabbed my pendant from the bedside table and clutched the broken chain. How dare they rip it from me, and fling it aside like some insignificant object; as if they were discarding every spirit L’Auberge des Anges had known.

My knuckles turned white, gripping the broken chain. I knew I did not want to become the same cold and bitter mother I’d had to endure. So I too, would have to play the game. Karl Gottlob and Fritz Frankenheimer had to pay. An eye for an eye.

As I drifted into a fitful sleep, an idea began to leach into my mind. But for something so diabolical, I would need time, and precise planning.

42

In the weeks following the attack I stayed close to the farmhouse. Martin would be wondering what had happened to me, but I still didn’t feel up to facing him. I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing anyone until I’d punished Karl Gottlob and Fritz Frankenheimer; until I could I free my tortured mind.

My mother made little conversation. I think she sensed the rage smouldering inside me but knew I would no longer discuss what had happened. Perhaps she imagined I was still angry with her too, but Maman’s collaboration with the Germans had paled almost to insignificance, against the vengeful thoughts that clotted my mind.

She nourished me as best she could from our dwindling supplies, and coddled me with potions from her herbal room stocks: peppermint tea to unravel the knots in my stomach, St John’s Wort for emotional shock, and Vervain infusions to combat nerves and sleeplessness.

One morning she pushed my hair aside to fasten the angel necklace around my neck. ‘I had the chain fixed,’ she said.

‘I thought you hated this pendant … that you couldn’t bear to touch it?’

‘My own mother gave it to me,’ she said. ‘The very day Axel …’

Her fingers, grappling with the clasp, prickled my nape. ‘I thought of it as bad luck; some cursed bit of old bone. Which is ridiculous, I do see that now, but …’

‘I’d probably have thought the same,’ I said.

‘I’m pleased you wear it though, Célestine; that you’ve been able to feel the courage and strength it’s given to generations of L’Auberge women … something I could never give you.’ She patted the chain against the back of my neck. ‘There, good as new.’

‘Can anyone be as good as new after …? But yes, I’ll be all right. Soon, I’ll be all right.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘You’re strong; determined enough to be right again. And then, so will I.’

I almost smiled at the irony; the absurdity that for my mother to free herself from the binds of her mental prison, it seemed her own daughter had had to suffer the same violence.

I moved across to the small mirror of the Rubie clock and stared at the reflection of the angel pendant. Martin’s gold chain was pretty to look at, sitting against my pale throat, but still I couldn’t help seeing it as some sort of foreign object; an alien intruder.

‘But I did believe,’ she went on, ‘that the leather was as much a part of this heirloom as the angel carving itself. It doesn’t seem quite the same, without it.’

I imagined the fingers of all those women who’d touched the worn leather thread; those to whom it had given comfort before me, and recalled how Martin Diehl –– the German –– had discarded it like something meaningless. He may have simply wanted to please me with the sparkling gold chain, but that only showed how he didn’t really know me; how he never could have known me.

‘No, Maman,’ I said. ‘No, it’s not quite the same.’

A rap on the door startled me, and my mother went to answer it.

Dr. Laforge strode into the kitchen, and Maman crossed to the stove and started brewing coffee.

‘Ah, Céleste. I haven’t seen you around the village for a while. I wondered if …’ He nodded at my mother. ‘If you and Marinette were all right?’

The doctor raised the single eyebrow at me. My eyes flickered to Maman, her back still turned to us.

‘My daughter’s been ill with … with some kind of affliction,’ Maman said, setting three cups of coffee on the table.

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ He swallowed a mouthful of the barley mixture. ‘Are you certain I can’t do anything to help? Perhaps she needs some … some particular medication or treatment?’

‘I had everything she needed here at L’Auberge thank you, doctor,’ Maman said.

‘Right, well yes, I’m certain you have everything she needs, Marinette.’

‘I’m fully recovered now,’ I said.

Dr. Laforge swallowed the dregs of his cup and stood. ‘Thanks for the coffee but I must rush off. As always, plenty of ailing people to call on.’

‘I’ll see you out,’ I said, scurrying down the hallway after his brisk strides.

‘I’d like to go back to Lyon,’ I said, as I opened the door for him. ‘But I can’t, just yet.’

‘Nothing you need to tell me about, Céleste?’

I shook my head. ‘No, no … nothing to do with our work.’

‘Right, well come down to my rooms when you’re ready.’

I watched him hurry down the steps, two at a time, and across the courtyard.

Soon I would be ready. Yes, very soon.

***

By late May I felt strong enough to return to the village; to face people again. I propped the bicycle against the fountain wall and crossed over to Au Cochon Tué, keeping a stealthy eye out for Martin.

I called cheery greetings
to Robert and Evelyne Perrault and the card-playing men, as I hurried through the bar and into the toilet.

I bolted the door and bent down, my fingers curling around the slip of paper.

Sorry you didn’t come. I waited all afternoon. Please come next week.

I tore the paper up and flushed the scraps away. Next week, and the one after, had come and gone but I scribbled a message, asking Martin to meet on our usual day –– two days’ time.

I walked back across
la place de l’Eglise and onto rue Emile Zola, and stood across the road from Ecole de Filles Jeanne d’Arc. From my years as a schoolgirl, I knew every nook of the place but still I needed to go over it all one final time.

I could hear the Germans carrying out their manoeuvres –– the rhythmical
tap-tap
of boots on pavement, the bark of an order, the clatter of weapons. Nobody was supposed to watch them goose-stepping about in their high black boots, but I sidled up to the wall surrounding the school and put an eye to a gap in the stones.

The soldiers stood, their heads held high, before the officer on horseback in command, as the music began, soft, like something was holding it back. As it sprung into magnificent, solemn notes, the soldiers began moving their lips in song.

I glimpsed Karl and Fritz amongst them, and the anger snapped at me again. Their uniforms looked brutally smart, their rigid bodies confident –– an arrogance I would take the greatest pleasure in shattering.

Amongst the many skills I’d acquired from the Resistance, I’d learned patience and discipline. I couldn’t bear to wait much longer but I wasn’t about to let any hasty moves destroy my plan.

‘
Achtung!
’ the commandant barked, and I jumped back a step.

The soldiers started whistling as they finished grooming their horses. They left them to munch on the green shoots of the trees and marched off towards their canteen.

When I saw Martin and the other officers leave the barracks for lunch in their billets’ homes, I drew away from the gap and looked around me again. Still nobody in sight. I hurried around the corner, into the alley with its small copse onto which the Community Hall backed –– the place I’d been alone with Martin, at the Harvest Festival. The perfect place to conceal myself.

I strolled back down rue Emile Zola towards the square, alongside gardens bordering the road where men in shirtsleeves and corduroy trousers tilled, sowed and watered.

‘
Bonjour, bonjour
,’ I called to each of them as I passed by their homes.

They all tipped their straw hats and smiled back at me.

I didn’t know why I climbed the steps of Saint Antoine’s. Perhaps I thought the church would, somehow, give me some kind of benediction for what I was about to do. Or I simply hungered for the friendly voice of Père Emmanuel.

‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,’ I said, as I sat in the confessional.

‘It’s nice to see you, Céleste,’
Père Emmanuel said
. ‘The doctor told me you’ve been ill.’

‘Nothing serious, Father. I’m well now, thank you. Ready to continue our battle.’

‘I’m glad to hear that. Still no word of your father or your sister? Or the others?’

‘Not a word, Father. I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll ever hear from them again. And I’m so afraid for Patrick and Olivier. We both know the Maquisards’ success –– their survival –– depends on the food and silence of people like your brother, Georges. But with all the reprisals –– German
and
French –– the locals are becoming too afraid to help them. Did you hear, just the other day the militia shot fifty-five civilians in cold blood?’

‘I certainly am aware that punishing civilians for acts of Maquis sabotage is becoming more and more savage,’ the priest said, ‘but we can’t let that threat put us off. Besides, Georges and Perrine won’t let them down. Keep faith, Céleste. And keep fighting. I feel the end is near. Everyone’s talking about the Allied invasion, discussing it, making bets and … and hoping.’

‘Yes, thank you, Father, I know we must keep hoping, and fighting.’

I walked out of Saint Antoine’s and back across la place de l’Eglise. I rocked my angel pendant back and forth along the gold chain, and ran the plan through my mind again.

I could not detect a single flaw.