The Indigo Rebels: A French Resistance novel Read online

  The Indigo Rebels

  A French Resistance novel

  Ellie Midwood

  Contents

  Book One in the Indigo Rebels Series

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Find Ellie online:

  Book One in the Indigo Rebels Series

  1

  Paris, June 1940

  Giselle made a nearly impossible effort to open her eyes, but only managed to squint at the breaking dawn outside, groaned, rolled to the other side, hid her nose in her Pekinese’s fur and fell back into slumber. All that crowd outside, her fellow Parisians, wouldn’t let her sleep for a third night in a row; panic-stricken, disheveled, yanking their crying kids’ hands and shouting at their wide-eyed husbands to mind the suitcases better, for “all that horde outside surely couldn’t have been trusted,” never mind that they belonged to the very same horde.

  Parisians, so arrogantly waving off their neighbors’ concerns just three days ago, stating haughtily that their capital would never be taken, that the Germans would never make it here just because someone’s Gustave was with the army, and he alone would teach their Prussian lot how to wander into countries they had no business with… After all, didn’t we show them what’s what in 1918? And so we will again, mais oui, of course, we will! Every such speech was always followed by pursed lips and up-and-down looks, which asked the silent question: You aren’t one of those, are you? The defeatist type? Because here in Paris we don’t stand for that, Madame.

  Every time Giselle became an unwilling witness to such conversations in the café nearby or getting her new press in the kiosk on the corner, she could barely restrain herself from snorting with laughter and rolling her eyes at the women next to her. Unlike them, she hardly suffered from overly patriotic feelings and even more so from high hopes for their French army, which was retreating so fast that it seemed on certain days that the Germans were playing chase with them, and losing at that.

  Giselle was more than convinced that the Germans would not only enter Paris any day now but would most likely stay for quite some time until they found a new country for them to conquer. Their celebrated Wehrmacht was probably already bored of France, which was far too easy to take. Giselle knew men a little too well for her thirty years of age: both in love and in war, it was the chase that they liked, the hunting element, the fight that their “prey” should put up. France fought off their advances with the reluctance of a farm girl, who only slaps her fellow farm boy’s hands just for show, but then lets herself fall onto the hay with a contented sigh. And yet all these women – mostly the mothers of those poor boys fighting now at the front – shouted their protests as soon as someone dared to voice their doubts concerning the fate of their country.

  “It will never come to that! I will rather die than see those brutes walk the streets of my city!”

  “Evacuate? Never! What our son, the hero of the war,” (every son was the hero of the war, at least in these women’s eyes) “what would he say if he comes home, and his parents have run off like rats off a sinking ship? No, Monsieur, Adolphe and I are staying in Paris and waiting for our Jean, and that’s the end of it.”

  Giselle almost laughed when she woke up one morning alarmed by the shouts reverberating through the opened windows, climbed out of her bed, disturbing her dog who grumbled her discontent, and, leaning out of her window in her night slip, found all her patriotic fellow Parisians screaming their prices at the taxi cabs outside, begging them to take them to the closest train station because “the Germans were going to be here any minute now and slaughter them all!”

  After nearly three days of panic, constant shouting and waves of refugees abandoning their city with more possessions than they could possibly carry on their backs, Paris fell silent for the first time. Last night was the worst one, when the last wave of the exodus, which consisted of the most obstreperous Parisians who tried to wait out until the last minute (for the train tickets were too expensive, or maybe hoping that the Germans would miraculously change their route and leave their city unmolested, just like a lava stream spares a condemned village at the last moment), they realized at last that the miracle wouldn’t happen and tried to make it out of the city, keeping Giselle awake all night and Coco, her Pekinese, growling and barking at the commotion outside, all the while pressing her trembling, well-fed body into her mistress’s thigh.

  At eleven o’clock in the morning, Giselle, even though she had slept hardly more than four hours, finally willed herself to kick the crumpled, sweaty sheets off her legs. She exhaled tiredly, rose from her bed and padded barefoot to the window to assess the situation outside. Paris had transformed into a ghost town overnight, completely devoid of any traces of life. Iron shutters sealed abandoned houses, restaurants and shops; no cars were honking outside, lifting the clouds of grayish summer dust which would grind like sand on the teeth; no children were playing in the deserted streets; no aroma of roasted chestnuts wafted through the air, tantalizing the senses of the passers-by.

  And yet Giselle sighed again, only this time blissfully, like a cat who had been forgotten in the rush of a family hurrying to their vacation at the Midi, and who now had all the place to itself. After all, domestic cats, contrary to their masters’ firm belief that their pampered creatures wouldn’t last a day without proper care, managed perfectly well on their own and even preferred the newly obtained freedom to that of a golden cage to which they were ordinarily confined. And just like a cat, Giselle squinted her green eyes at the breaking day outside, raked her fingers through her short blonde hair leisurely and, purring a song under her breath, went to the bathroom to ready herself for the day that awaited.

  Kamille was braiding her daughter’s hair absent-mindedly, numbed by the silence of the big house, abandoned by both the maid and the cook, and pillaged by her in-laws. They appeared at the doors merely a day ago, swept through the house taking with them everything that was of a value – including the exquisite china set, table silver, two family portraits, fine embroidered linen – and left in their overstuffed car, not forgetting to throw a scornful look at Kamille and little Violette, as if saying: “You should be grateful we aren’t throwing you out into the street!”

  The truth of the matter was that the Blanchards were too busy fleeing the city just like everyone else, and dealing with their “no-good” relative and her offspring (“who probably wasn’t even our Charles’s” as the matriarch of the family, Madame Blanchard, loved adding each time she spoke of her granddaughter) was the furthest thing from their minds. Kamille took all the looks and scorn as she always did, lowering her eyes compliantly and trying to stay as mute and invisible as possible while hiding her little daughter behind her leg.

  She was used to such attitudes from the family that Kamille knew she hadn’t been welcomed into from the very first day she had met Charle
s’s parents. They met on the day when Kamille’s father threatened to spread the scandal all over Paris if Charles didn’t do “the right thing.” Charles, with a sour face, had announced to his family that he and Kamille were getting married. Kamille, a docile girl of eighteen with sad blue eyes and porcelain cheeks that tend to blush too often, was two months pregnant at the time.

  Charles, the only – and very spoiled – child of a wealthy, upper-middle-class family, cursed the day when he spotted Kamille at a picture gallery opening, of which his father was the benefactor, and to which Kamille’s father had been invited so he could later write an article about the event. He wasn’t a famous journalist at all, Monsieur Legrand, Charles knew it very well; nothing like his oldest daughter, who already had seven highly praised novels under her belt, a very good (even though somewhat scandalous) social standing and a nice sum in her bank account – an almost unspeakable thing for a single woman! That’s who Charles would have loved to have gotten his claws into, but Mademoiselle Legrand, with her somewhat contemptuous sneer and cat-like eyes, was far above his reach, and Charles decided that Kamille, with her always frightened expression but very appealing body and luscious curves, would do nicely instead. Little did he know that Kamille was a virgin, whom he would have a misfortune to get pregnant during the short month that she thought they were dating, when, in reality, she was merely one of the many women Charles amused himself with, taking advantage of his handsome, fresh face and young age while he could.

  Now, alone in their spacious house, which Charles rented right after their wedding, Kamille was recalling the eight years of their marriage with bitter-sweet emotion. She did love her husband endlessly at first and had tried her best to become an agreeable wife for him. But all her efforts were met with the same indifferent, distant and impenetrable expression, averted eyes and a dismissive shrug of the shoulders. Kamille blamed herself that Charles felt so trapped within the walls of his own family house, and not even once reproached him for not showing up at home for several nights in a row, or leaving before dinner dressed in his finely tailored tuxedo; for showing no interest in their newborn beautiful daughter who had his warm brown eyes and rosy cheeks; for snubbing her in their family bed, muttering under his breath that he was tired and that her perfume was making him sick. Kamille would only swallow more silent tears, alone on her side, feeling hurt, abandoned and ridiculous in the new chiffon nightgown that she bought so he would finally notice her, and for buying the same perfume that she smelled many times on his clothes after his nights in the city, in fruitless efforts to arouse his interest. Who was she trying to fool after all? She wasn’t one of those women he liked, the mysterious, dazzling and frivolous women who would dance all night and drink champagne with the men who showered them with adoration and expensive gifts. Her sister was one of those women, but Kamille had never been like her.

  Eventually, Kamille gave up on both Charles and their loveless marriage and concentrated on Violette, a lively little girl who thankfully didn’t take after her, but more after her father, or her aunt for that matter. It was always easier for people like them to survive in this world. They didn’t love anyone besides themselves, and therefore no pangs of conscience would stop them from enjoying their life, thought Kamille. Just look at Giselle – she isn’t even living like the rest of the gray mass around her, but flying like a butterfly from flower to flower instead; from one party to another; from one affluent aristocrat to an even wealthier foreign diplomat; and still she somehow manages to write her scandalous novels in between entertaining her high-class guests in her penthouse facing the Champs-Élysées. Giselle…

  Kamille glanced at her reflection in the mirror, in front of which she was braiding Violette’s dark tresses and sighed. She’d always been the golden girl, her oldest sister; she’d always been looked at with a mixture of awe and reverence by her parents for her defiant spirit and contagious laughter, as if Monsieur and Madame Legrand couldn’t quite understand how it was possible that they, modest and God-fearing middle-class people, could possibly produce such a bright and fearless creature, who was nothing like them in her almost greedy love of life and all the pleasures it could possibly give, if one, of course, was bold enough to outstretch their hand and grab it. No, Kamille was nothing like her. If only she could pretend to be like her, for one day only even. If only someone would look at her with the same feverish adoration with which they looked at Giselle. If only someone loved her, actually loved her for one day only… She would die happy then. Yes, she would. Only, even her husband was dead now, killed in an air raid somewhere in the North where he used to vacation with his numerous mistresses before the war had started. So, it was her and Violette now, left to the empty, hostile, frightening city outside the tightly closed shutters.

  Marcel pulled his legs up to his chest and squeezed his eyes shut, begging himself not to give in to the panic and to not start running, which would most certainly give him away to the enemy, passing by within mere steps from him. Pressing himself into the walls of a ditch under the road, on which German boots stomped the ground sending dust and small pebbles his way, Marcel willed himself to stay motionless until the whole regiment had finally passed, and the warm velvet night covered his hideout with a dewy blanket of musky June air.

  Marcel slowly rose, probing and rubbing his arms and legs that had fallen asleep after being almost entirely devoid of moving for several hours. He threw an apprehensive, wide-eyed look around and, finding himself completely alone and one on one with the pearl of a moon in the sky, he slowly stepped away from the road. With the uncertainty of a newborn lamb, he made his first several steps on legs which were still shaky from both fear and lead-filled muscles, and then, as if it dawned on him at last that they were far, far away by now, far ahead of him and his scattered division, Marcel started moving faster and faster across the wheat field, trotting and then running as fast as he could, laughing at his newly gained freedom.

  Even though the Germans didn’t even bother taking prisoners of late and mostly did away with their French lot just by taking their rifles away and telling them to get lost, Marcel still didn’t wish to find out for himself how many of these rumors were true. The war for France was lost, that much he had already admitted to himself, but being taken prisoner after the defeat seemed rather unjust for the young man; after all what was the point of surviving the war, even though it had been a short one, surviving the shelling, air raids and the whole approaching army if he would end his days in some stalag, in some German forest. No, he would shed his uniform at the first chance and go…

  “Now where should I go?” Marcel stopped in his tracks and looked around once again, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings.

  He was not far from Paris; he even knew this road, as it was one his family always took when going up north to the little farm where their distant cousins lived. They were children back then of course, and those family outings stopped taking place many years ago, but Marcel still remembered how Giselle always rolled her eyes, moaning all the way along the road that they should have just left her home alone, that she wasn’t a child anymore at twelve and that she hated countryside and had nothing in common with her cousins whatsoever… Marcel chuckled inaudibly, wondering if his older sister had left Paris together with the rest of the townsfolk or stayed in her apartment, shrugging off the whole German invasion like she always did with all the troubles in her life. Marcel had always admired that quality in her, and quite often wondered how Giselle would handle herself in his place, on the front, with a rifle in her hands – the rifle that he threw away as soon as he saw the first German tanks appearing at the bridge where Marcel and his comrades were stationed – he wondered if she would have run as well. No, she wouldn’t. Giselle never ran. She would meet the whole squadron of the Wehrmacht with a smirk on her face in her assigned position, squinting at the sunlight reflecting off their helmets and buckles. Now, Kamille, she would run. Unlike her God-fearing family, Giselle for some reason didn’t bel
ieve in death.

  Giselle was the first person who came to his mind when Marcel contemplated where he should hide out before everything settled down. He had no doubt that his sister would help him with shelter and clothes, and maybe even temporary papers; with her connections – high standing lovers if he would call a spade a spade – she could get anything. But, then again, her social standing and her home being a sort of social club for both her literary friends and the Paris elite, might indeed pose a problem for his hiding arrangements.

  Kamille and her in-laws, who came and went as they pleased, were out of the question. His own parents? Knowing them, Marcel dismissed that idea as well, knowing that they had most likely fled the city. The young man lifted his head towards the sky, which was unusually quiet without Messerschmitts cutting through the butter of clouds with their low, menacing roar, and patted his pockets looking for cigarettes. Remembering that he didn’t have any left he headed to the nearest farm house on the other end of the field, its roof being his beacon as it reflected the luminous moonlight, luckily spared so far by the enemy air raids.

  “There won’t be any more air raids,” the farmer’s wife declared the following day, pouring fresh milk, still smelling of cows and grass, into Marcel’s mug. Her two sons were both soldiers too; only her husband had been spared from the army this time after his right arm had been shredded by shrapnel during the Great War. It was their oldest son’s clothes that Marcel was currently wearing. “The armistice has been signed, they say.”