The Lyon Affair: A French Resistance novel Page 9

  “Why the personal appearance? What happened to the flower arrangement?”

  Right from her early days in the Resistance, Jules had warned Blanche not to loiter around the photoshop without any apparent reason, as it might attract unwanted attention. And so, it was decided that as soon as Blanche returned from her trip, she would place a potted geranium in her bedroom window that overlooked the street. This would be the signal for someone from the cell to stop by the church in the morning to see that everything was fine. Hoping not to raise Margot’s suspicion, Blanche shifted from one foot to another.

  “Nothing. Just need to talk to Jules in person. Is he in?”

  “Is everything all right?” Margot looked at her with suspicion.

  “Yes,” Blanche lied with a bright smile.

  Margot grunted under her breath and disappeared behind the velvet drapes, leaving a grayish cloud of smoke to hang in the air. Blanche waved her hand in front of her face, somewhat clearing the air.

  Jules was also seemingly surprised to see her judging by his look.

  “What’s wrong?” he demanded instead of greeting her properly.

  “Nothing. Can I speak to you alone? Oh, bonjour.” Blanche switched her attention to a young man, who appeared from behind the curtains as well.

  “Bonjour.” The handsome young man replied cheerfully, quickly shook Jules’s hand and excused himself, passing Blanche on his way to the door.

  “Who was that?” Blanche asked as soon as the man was gone.

  “No one you should know about.”

  Blanche’s cheeks flared at Jules’s dismissive attitude and how he always managed to find new ways to put her in her place. The young man who had just left was obviously a recruit, and she had been working with Jules and his cell for over three months now, and yet she still hadn’t seemed to have earned their trust. Nevertheless, Blanche wisely decided not to show that she took offense as she followed Jules outside; it was not a good time and place, especially with the news she was about to announce to him.

  The two walked in moody silence along the street, careful not to step into puddles of sleet along the way. The sun had recently graced Lyon with several days of weather that were unusually warm for the end of February, prompting the early snowdrops to peek their heads from under the ground, and chestnut trees to turn their bare branches towards the azure sky, bathing them in the generous sunshine. Blanche unraveled her scarf and unbuttoned her coat, also giving in to the early spring day. Jules remained as somber as always, his hazel eyes behind his metal-rimmed glasses fixed steadily on the ground and his face still partially hidden in his scarf as if imitating one of the underground posters that had started to appear on the walls of the back streets just recently: Comrade! Say nothing. You never know who’s listening.

  Blanche was surprised when he eventually uncovered his face as they occupied a corner table in a café that advertised real coffee, and not the chicory version. The only other patron was finishing his late breakfast at the bar, but Blanche still eyed the establishment suspiciously.

  “Is it safe to talk in here?”

  “Yes. The owner is our man.” Jules had shed his jacket and sat in front of her with his hands clasped. “Well? What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure myself,” Blanche admitted, picking at a splinter of wood at the edge of the table, with her eyes lowered. “Maybe, it’s nothing, a coincidence only…”

  Jules pulled forward.

  “What happened?” he repeated in an even quieter tone but with an intonation that made Blanche swallow a nervous lump in her throat.

  She took a deep breath, collecting herself, bit her lip and finally lifted her eyes.

  “There was a Gestapo officer on the train to Dijon. Not the Gestapo even… What was the name that he said? The SD. Yes, that’s what it was, but I don’t remember the full-on title. He told me in German, and it’s some kind of unpronounceable word. Well, long story short, as soon as he entered the train car he noticed me and offered for me to share his private compartment with him. I was so terrified that I couldn’t say no and I went with him… I thought he was going to apprehend me and arrest me but all he did was just talk to me, that’s all. We parted ways as soon as we got off the train in Dijon. And I watched my back closely not only in Dijon but in Nîmes and Marseilles, too. I didn’t see anyone following me. I think it was just a coincidence, yes. But I thought I would tell you anyway, just in case.”

  Jules rubbed his neatly trimmed beard while scrutinizing Blanche.

  “Whether it was a coincidence or not, is not for you to decide. Was he alone?”

  “No. He had two other soldiers with him.”

  “Was it an ordinary paper check-up?”

  “No, no, they weren’t checking papers at all. He was traveling to Dijon from… Oh, he never told me where he was traveling from. He came in during one of the transit stops, so he could have been coming from any place.”

  “Why would he enter a common train car then? They all usually travel in the front.”

  Blanche nodded and smiled gratefully at the bartender who had appeared with their coffees. At least it delayed the dressing down that she would most certainly receive after she told Jules the truth.

  Jules waited patiently for the bartender to go back to the bar and then bore his eyes into Blanche, silently demanding her reply. Even stirring her coffee, she felt his glare.

  “He did enter the front car,” she admitted, at last, her downcast gaze still glued to the steaming liquid in front of her. “It’s just… I rode in the front as well.”

  “Merde!” Jules hissed under his breath and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to get a hold of his emotions so as not to start yelling at her openly. “What the— What in the bloody hell were you doing in the front train car?!”

  “It’s less crowded in there than in the back. Everyone knows that the Germans like the front cars. Everyone is afraid to ride with them, so there are always free seats, and no annoying children crying,” Blanche muttered in her defense. “And if I ride at night, it’s impossible to sleep sometimes, with all those babies wailing. Have you ever tried riding a common train car at night?”

  “Yes. Yes, I have. I was the courier before we entrusted you with the responsibility. Mistakenly so, as I see now!”

  “Jules, please, don’t assume the worst about me! It was just one little slip, and only because I wanted to see if it was safe to ride in the front. It was merely a coincidence that he happened to get on the train that day, I tell you! If he suspected me of something, don’t you think he would have checked my papers?”

  Jules sat with his arms crossed, virtually seething with fury.

  “It was nothing, Jules, really. Just a stupid mistake of mine, and it won’t happen again, I swear!”

  He was silent for a moment, and then spoke quietly, “Do you know what happened to a friend of mine who made the mistake of underestimating the Gestapo and the Boches in general? And his mistake was a far less stupid one than yours, mind you.”

  “What?” Blanche asked warily, already guessing the answer.

  “He got shot. Together with his brother and his father.”

  The clock on the wall chimed a quarter to eleven. Blanche dug into her pigskin purse and took out a wrinkled handkerchief to dab her eyes with her shaking fingers. Jules remained unconcerned with her distressed state.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, finally getting a hold of herself.

  Jules shook his head and picked up his cup.

  “Did he introduce himself?”

  Blanche nodded with a timid smile, sensing his tone softening a little.

  “Yes. He said his name was Jürgen Sievers.”

  “Never heard of him. What about his rank?”

  “I’m not good with their ranks,” Blanche admitted.

  “What kind of insignia did he have? The high collar with the SS letters on one side and knobs on the other?”

  “Mm, no.” Blanche shook her head
, recalling the officer’s attire. “He had a black uniform on. It was more of a regular jacket with a white shirt underneath and a black tie. I think he had a single oak leaf on each lapel.”

  “Bordel.”

  Blanche had never heard Jules utter such crude curses before.

  “Is that bad?” she asked in a tremulous whisper.

  “Yes and no. I’m not sure yet.” He went silent for a moment. “I don’t think that high-ranking officers like him would personally hunt minor couriers like you. Maybe, you’re right, and it was just a coincidence.”

  For some reason, Blanche wasn’t so certain that Jules believed his own words.

  10

  Father Yves ran his fingers over the text, let out an exasperated sigh at the words that seemed to escape his attention and blend into nonsense that evening, and slammed the Holy Book shut. Perhaps he had never learned to read the Bible when in need of spiritual guidance after all. He possessed a phenomenal memory and could effortlessly, and with envious ease, pull out a verse that was required for an occasion from the depth of his mind; and yet, when he needed it for himself, the words lost their power and sounded so miserably pathetic that he felt he had insulted the Holy Book by his inability to relate to its wisdom. And so, he would put it away, and returned to polishing his gun with graceful, practiced movements. He found it rather disappointing that such form of a meditation felt much more natural to him than one that his vocation demanded from him.

  Ten years a priest, and he apparently still had little clue what to do with the Bible just as on the very first day when that kid Simone had thrust it into his hands against his will. Father Yves smiled and shook his head at the memory, the young and eager face of the boy still alive in his mind. Simone was most unfitting for the gruesome setting that circumstances had put him in, with his golden locks, too long for a young man of his age, and eyes too honest and unbearably blue in the midst of all that dirt and blood in the trenches. It surrounded them one endless wall after another, but that worn-out, well-read Bible felt as soft and golden as the skin of a peach once it was pushed into his grasp.

  Simone had been an utmost mystery to Yves, a walking miracle, the only one of their regiment who didn’t seem affected in the slightest by the endless nightmare of dreadful shelling, which would cease only to be replaced by deadly fumes creeping up towards them in vicious clouds, and then off they went to yet another offensive, bayonets secured on their rifles, like grim reapers who would take the lives of those who failed to take theirs. Then, as soon as they dragged their depleted bodies back to the dirt of the trenches, to fill their bellies while they could and to drink themselves into oblivion until the rum had run out, Simone would sit away from everyone, as serene and unaffected as ever, whispering verses under his breath from the utterly useless book that Yves despised.

  “Useless?” Simone beamed at him with such a radiant, natural smile when Yves confronted him once about his spiritual inclinations that Yves scowled, finding it difficult to resist his sincere charm. “It got me through three years of this war. Without it, I would have long been dead.”

  Yves sneered with all the contempt he could muster and patted the wooden handle of his rifle affectionately. “This got me through three years all the same.”

  With those words, he took another hearty swig from his canteen, filled with rum instead of water that evening, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and pointed at the new medal, shining proudly on his chest.

  “One eighty-four confirmed ones. How about that, eh?”

  Simone only glanced at Yves, his rifle and his medal with pity, and said in a quiet voice, “Don’t brag about the lives you’re taking. War is a dirty business as it is and one must kill to protect his land, but that’s one thing. It is something else entirely to feel proud of killing.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Yves glowered and squeezed the butt of his rifle tighter.

  Simone only shrugged in response. “They’re not targets in the Platz. They’re people. Someone’s husband, son, father, brother, and comrade. Men who will be missed dearly. Men, like us.”

  “Bullshit! They’re fucking Boches! They deserve to be shot, each and every one of them!” Yves shouted, his nostrils flaring with an anger that even he couldn’t explain.

  Simone simply shook his head and lowered his eyes to his Bible, paying no more attention to Yves. That maddened Yves even more. He grabbed the young man’s Bible and threw it in the mud under his feet.

  “If you’re such a Boche-loving nancy boy, why don’t you go and fight on their side then?! Well, go ahead, trot along! I’ll even warn the sentries not to shoot you while you cross the front line. Well?! Go ahead, I said! Boche-lover!”

  Simone sighed with infuriating calmness, reached for his Bible, brushed it off carefully and, as soon as his gaze picked up the line where he had left off from, he was back to his angelic self, too clean and innocent for this world and too good for arguments with the likes of Yves. Yves snorted his despise, and couldn’t resist kicking Simone on his leg before he walked away, muttering more curses under his breath. By the next evening, the boy was dead.

  Yves had lain in his foxhole, his trained eye searching for an unwitting target to claim as soon as the shelling started and the Boches had nowhere to run from the shell-holes they had jumped into – their only salvation from the enemy shrapnel hissing, screeching and blowing up dirt into their pale, terrified faces. Yves spotted his target, a young German about his age, not more than twenty years old, with tears and mud smeared across his face, crawling on his stomach towards one of the shell-holes, his foot, barely attached to his leg by a thin string of flesh and mangled bone, dragging after him. Killing him will be doing him a favor, really. Put him out of his misery. Yves’s finger hugged the trigger like the gentle embrace of a lover, and he had just started pulling it when another figure jumped into the periphery of his vision.

  “What are you doing?” Yves whispered incredulously, observing Simone fall onto his stomach after his run, crawling towards the German with fearless determination. “Merde… Leave him, you fool!”

  Simone didn’t hear him of course. And even if he did, he wouldn’t have abandoned the injured man, Yves realized with painful clarity. He was dragging him towards the hole as if his own life depended on it, yelling some words of reassurance that the Boche couldn’t have possibly understood, pulling the German’s clothes and covering him with his body as the artillery redirected its aim and started pouring its lead-filled torrents onto the small figures scattered all over the battlefield.

  Yves’s finger dropped off the trigger as his target stopped moving. Just as the golden-haired boy next to the German went still also.

  He stumbled out of the trench after the ceasefire and walked unsteadily among the bodies, with their glassed-over eyes staring at the sky and their mouths open in silent plea; an image that would remain in Yves’s memory for the rest of his days. He finally approached the two figures, so frighteningly similar despite the different uniforms. But even the colors of their uniforms started blending into a picture of desolation and death, blood-soaked and no longer distinguishable.

  No one uttered a word about Simone’s heroic deed. They put him together with the rest of the dead men their regiment lost that day, leaving the German where he was for his kin to take care of. For an endless hour, Yves sat at the foot of the mass grave that evening, pressing the crimson-colored Bible to his chest. The captain wanted to bury it with the boy, but someone told him Bibles weren’t meant to be put in graves; so, Yves took it. For an endless hour he sat, sober for the first time after such a brutal offensive, and then opened the book and started reading out loud some passages that he knew nothing about, but doing something that he felt deep inside would please the dead boy, and that would let his soul find its way to his Creator that he loved so much. That night, while all his comrades slept soundly, huddled together, Yves crept out of the trench, found the German’s body, dragged it towards the nearest shell-hole
and buried it with his bare hands, digging into the ground with force, trying to fix something irreversible that he still couldn’t quite comprehend…

  A knock on the door from the first floor made his senses snap to attention. Once a soldier, always a soldier, his captain used to say, and, unfortunately, he was right. Father Yves hid the gun in the pocket of his black robe, opened the door of his room, descended the stone stairs soundlessly and moved the heavy bolt to let the night visitor in.

  “I’m Patrice,” a man who he didn’t recognize said. Half hidden in the darkness of the night, with the meager light coming from the hallway illuminating his stern and noble features, he nodded to Father Yves. “My comrade told me you agreed to help him accommodate a couple of our friends?”

  Father Yves motioned him inside, but the man stayed in the shadows. A woman stepped from behind his back, holding a young girl firmly by the hand.

  “I better be going. No need for me to be seen loitering by your quarters, Father. No offense. And thank you.”

  With that, the mysterious Patrice was gone. Father Yves held the door wider for his guests as each party looked at the other apprehensively.

  “Shall I do something before we go inside?” The woman spoke, at last, pulling the ends of her shawl closer to her face. “Shall I cross myself? We’re Jewish. I wouldn’t want to insult your church in any way.”

  “You don’t have to do anything.” Father Yves’s lips gave way to a gentle smile. “Please, do come in. You must be cold and starving. My name is Father Yves. I’ll be taking care of you for now.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you enough, Father Yves.”

  In the dim twilight of the only lamp hanging above their heads she looked like one of the saints from the ancient frescos: gaunt, desolate and with onyx eyes full of unshed tears. A masterpiece of suffering embodied in one woman, with a gaze that was as full of pain as his own heart was. Father Yves found himself mesmerized with the riveting, yet heartbreaking, look in the woman’s face.