Children of War (38 page)

‘It’s alright, we’ve got him,’ came the
Procureur
’s voice.

Bruno scrambled to his feet and joined the
Procureur
and the soldier as they hauled Deutz back over the battlements. A long, keening cry came from just along the wall, where Momu was leaning out and staring down. His face ashen, Deutz crumpled in the arms of the two men who held him, trembling and panting as if he’d just run a race.

‘Can we get a doctor here?’ the
Procureur
cried.

Telling himself he had saved the wrong man, Bruno turned to the battlements and looked over at the sprawled and broken body in the courtyard nearly thirty metres below. Soldiers were running to the place where Sami lay, one of them the medic with his Red Cross armband. He kneeled down, careless of the blood spreading from Sami’s head, and after a moment looked up and shook his head.

From behind him, Bruno heard a short bark from Balzac and then, for the first time, the tone turned into the full-hearted,
deep and mournful bay of an adult dog. As he continued looking down and saw the soldiers drape a blanket over Sami’s corpse, Bruno felt a cool wind on his face and the sky darkened. The sun had finally set.

It was a cold, grey November morning and the German sky seemed ready to rain when the small passenger jet with the US Air Force markings landed at the Ramstein airbase. The three congressmen filed off first with their escorting officer and Bruno brought up the rear. A minibus in Air Force blue waited on the tarmac as their baggage was unloaded and they all climbed aboard, Bruno squeezing in beside a large man wearing a stetson and a blue turquoise jewel at his collar instead of a tie. Bruno had learned he was a congressman from Arizona, who seemed to know Nancy and described Bruno to the others on board as ‘the French cop who saved the life of Jeff Sutton’s little girl.’

The call from the embassy in Paris had told him to board the plane at Bergerac, where it was making a special stop for him on its journey from a NATO conference at the French naval base at Toulon to Ramstein. Another US military aircraft would take him back to Bordeaux airport that evening, he had been told, along with some American sailors who were doing an exercise on maritime patrols with the French navy.

The minibus took them to the Landstuhl medical centre. There the congressmen each gave Bruno a crushing farewell handshake as they left with an Army colonel who commanded
the three thousand personnel who ran the biggest military hospital in Europe. A young lieutenant with a clipboard came up to Bruno, who was wearing his full-dress police uniform as instructed, and asked, ‘Chief of Police Courrèges?’

He led Bruno into a large concrete building, functional and rather depressing with its blocks of grey and slits for windows, and into a lobby with a bewildering array of signposts, most of them using acronyms. Bruno’s command of English was adequate to help lost tourists and record details of mislaid passports but the jumble of speech coming from the tannoy and the brisk American voices left him lost. He followed closely behind the lieutenant as people around them, some in military uniform, some in green or blue medical clothes, stared at his French uniform. Only the receptionists seemed to wear white.

‘This facility is one of the biggest organ donors in Europe,’ the lieutenant said. ‘And we average two to three births a day.’ Bruno murmured a polite acknowledgement. They took the stairs up to a long corridor as the lieutenant explained they preferred to reserve the lifts for wheelchairs and stretchers. They entered a lobby area with potted plants and soft music. Bruno thought it was quite a contrast to the grim French military hospital where he’d been taken after Sarajevo. Suddenly they were out of the fluorescent lights and walking past windows into a corridor with doors on each side like an apartment building. A reception desk guarded the way but it was unoccupied. The lieutenant sighed, consulted his checklist, and started looking for numbers. He stopped at 174-A and knocked.

‘Agent Sutton,’ said the lieutenant, opened the door and showed Bruno inside. ‘Your visitor, Ma’am,’ he said, touching
his cap, and left, closing the door behind him.

Nancy used a cane to rise from an easy chair by a large window that looked out onto a lawn and some trees. The light coming from it was behind her and bright enough that Bruno could hardly see her face. He advanced, saying something bland about how well she looked to conceal his nervousness, and kissed her on both cheeks.

‘I don’t think that will do, Bruno,’ she said, and kissed him warmly on the lips. ‘I have a memory of you talking endlessly about kissing me and me thinking why doesn’t he just shut up and do it.’

‘I didn’t think the medic would have approved, given your condition.’ He helped her back into her seat and pulled up a smaller straight-backed wooden chair to sit beside her. She smelled of toilet soap and shampoo, almost austere amid the scents of flowers in the room. Her hair had been recently done and she was wearing make-up, which she had never done at the château. It reminded him of the time he’d first seen her at the airport in Périgueux, when she’d looked coolly elegant and Parisian, and rather forbidding. She was wearing a dark blue silk dressing gown. She stretched out her legs, revealing ivory-coloured silk pyjamas and red velvet slippers.

‘You look wonderful, like the queen of a literary salon receiving her admirers. How do you feel? How long before they let you out of here?’

‘I’m well enough to get through dozens of layers of bureaucracy to get you here. How did you like the congressmen?’

‘Very impressive handshakes, less self-important than our own politicians. They seemed to know my name.’

‘Yes, I made sure of that, and of what you did. And thank
you for the flowers you sent.’ She gestured around the room where every flat surface seemed to hold a vase, each with an impressive bouquet of roses, carnations, lilies and some exotic flowers he didn’t recognise.

‘I don’t think I sent all those,’ he said, embarrassed. His own modest offering now seemed very much less than adequate.

‘Those roses are yours,’ she said, pointing to a smaller vase with roses that were long past their best. ‘I refuse to throw them away. The brigadier sent some, and Isabelle. Most of the others are from Maya and Yacov. They send a new batch every week. What’s in that bag?’

He’d almost forgotten, putting it to one side as he’d drawn up the chair. He felt confused by her presence, not sure what to say, nor what he should ask about her wounds and her future. The drama that had drawn them together in St Denis and in the Rolls-Royce seemed a long time past.

‘Foie gras, a fresh baguette, a bottle of
Chateau de Tirecul
Monbazillac that we ought to chill, and a bottle of my own
vin de noix
to build you up.’ He forced some jollity into his voice. ‘A glass each night as you go to bed and you’ll sleep well. At Bergerac airport I thought they might not let me onto the aircraft with them. A congressman from Arizona told them not to be so foolish.’

‘He’s a friend of my dad, who sends you his regards and thanks. It was kind of you to call him. You beat his official notification by two days so he was here the day after my first operation.’

She gave a nervous smile and asked if he’d like some coffee or a soda. Like him, she seemed to be on edge, wondering how
this reunion might go.

‘I keep expecting one of the nurses to drop by,’ she said, with a laugh that sounded forced. ‘They’re very curious about this dashing French visitor of mine.’

‘How many operations did you have?’ He deflected her compliment.

‘Four, one to put some reinforcement grafts on my artery and the rest on my knee. But I was lucky to have you and the medic on the chopper and to have Fabiola work on me when we landed. The doctors here were impressed with what she’d done. The artery is fine and they’ve given me a new knee. I can stand and walk and it gets better every day. They say I’ll soon be almost as good as new except that my skiing days are over. I’m doing physio and swimming every day and they promise to have me home with the family for Christmas. I’ll even be able to dance.’

‘And then?’ He swallowed, thinking he sounded pathetic. He’d spent the flight composing far more eloquent speeches and now he could barely summon a single word.

‘Three months convalescent leave and then back to the embassy in Paris. They want to capitalize on my new reputation with the French. Apparently the Brigadier is being unusually helpful. But tell me about St Denis. I heard about poor Sami. How are Momu and Dillah?’

‘They’re well, still grieving but they send send you their best wishes. They know Sami thought of you as a friend. They miss him but I think they’re resigned. They know that there could never have been a normal life with Sami. Momu is back at work, Dillah helps Rashida with the grandchildren. And Fabiola is blossoming now that Gilles has moved in with her
while he works on his book. That solemnity she always had seems to have lifted.’

‘That’s good. When does Deutz go to trial?’

‘Next month. He’s had one hearing that confirmed he remains detained but they’re having trouble finding a place secure enough to keep him alive. Word seems to have spread about him among the Muslims in prison. He knows it, too. I saw him at the hearing and he’s lost weight, looks haunted and grey. He seemed to be years older.’

‘Just as important, his fate seems to have helped discredit those damn techniques of his. My dad went ballistic when he learned Deutz had freed one of the guys who shot me up. What happens to Deutz now?’

‘The Procureur is going for the maximum sentence, ten years.’

She nodded slowly and they fell silent, looking at each other. Suddenly each one started to say something simultaneously and then stopped. ‘Go ahead,’ she said.

‘I was going to ask where you were spending your convalescent leave.’ He paused and she raised her eyebrows.

‘January and February, I’ll go to my uncle’s place in Florida and get some sun. It’s a condo, right on the seafront at Long-boat Key, one of the best beaches I know. It’s just a few minutes from Sarasota airport. Have you ever been?’

He shook his head. Palm trees and beaches in mid-winter, he felt a touch of envy. ‘What about March, before you start work at the embassy again?’ he steeled himself to take the risk. ‘You’d have a hero’s welcome if you’d like to come to St Denis. I was wondering if I might see you again. Don’t forget
that I promised you a dinner.’

‘I haven’t forgotten and I’m going to take you up on it,’ she said, and took his hand. ‘In the meantime I’d like to try some of that foie gras.’

He let go of her hand to rummage in the bag, then looked around for a knife and plate. She pointed to a small cabinet that held everything he needed including glasses, a corkscrew and a bucket of ice. As he began opening the bottle of Monbazillac, she cleared her throat.

‘You’ve never cooked for me yet, and Isabelle said that’s a treat not to miss,’ she said. ‘I was wondering if you’d like to spend some time with me in Florida. My uncle has a very sophisticated kitchen.’

He handed her a glass, kissed her lightly on the lips and said, ‘That sounds wonderful and I’d love to cook for you. But the kitchen is not the attraction.’

‘So you’re coming for the palm trees and the beach?’

‘No,’ he said. And he kissed her again.

This is a work of fiction and all living characters are invented, although as always their inspiration owes a great deal to my genial neighbours and friends in the enchanting valley of the river Vézère. There are, however, references to a number of historical characters involved in the Resistance and in saving Jewish children from the Holocaust. I have tried to stick with the known facts of their work, knowing that no words of mine could hope to do justice to their nobility and their courage.

Although the tale of David and Maya Halévy is invented, their experiences were not uncommon for those Jewish children in France who survived the Second World War. The round-up of July 1942 at the Vélodrome d’Hiver did take place and the heroic efforts of the Jewish Scouts under Robert Gamzon to save the children are exactly as related here. The Protestant communities of southern France played a noble role and the old Huguenot village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon found refuge for more than 3,000 Jewish children. The woman I call Tante Simone existed; the name Simone Mairesse is inscribed among the names of the righteous. The town and Simone and many other heroic figures were finally given the honour they deserved in their homeland by President Jacques Chirac at a ceremony at the Panthéon in Paris in January 2007.

The two battles of Mouleydier in June 1944 took place much as I describe them, although there are confused and contradictory accounts in the various memoirs of those who took part. These disputes reflect the bitter political antagonisms between the rival Francs Tireurs et Partisans, mainly Communists, and the more conservative and Gaullist Armée Secrète. I relied on the memoirs of René Coustellier, leader of the Resistance Group Soleil; on Guy Penaud’s
Histoire de la Résistance en Périgord
; Pierre Louty’s
Histoires Tragiques du Maquis
; and on Christian Bourrier’s
La Résistance en Pays lindois
. As so often, I am grateful to my friend Jean-Jacques Gillot, a distinguished local historian, for his invaluable encyclopedia,
Résistants du Périgord
. André Roulland’s
La Vie en Périgord sous l’Occupation, 1940–44
was of great help in reconstructing the lives of David and Maya on the farm. I would also like to thank several friends in the Périgord, including Jean-Pierre Picot, Colette and Joseph da Cunha and the Bounichou family of Lalinde for sharing with me their recollections of those heroic but tragic days.

For the story of Sami, I read widely in the available journalists’ accounts of modern Afghanistan, but I have not visited that harsh, magnificent land for over twenty years. Abdul Salam Zaeef’s memoir,
My Life With the Taliban
, and the more recent
Facing the Taliban
, the memoir of Anoja Wijeyesekera, a Sri Lankan woman who worked for the United Nations, were informative. My account of the horrors of the Algerian civil war is based on a number of sources, including Derradji Abder-Rahmane’s
Concise History of Political Violence in Algeria
; Hugh Roberts’s
The Battlefield: Algeria 1988–2002
; and the Amnesty International report
Algeria: A human rights crisis
; Mohammed Samraoui’s
Chronique des Années de Sang
and Habib Souaïdia’s
La Sale Guerre
, an extraordinary memoir by a member of the Algerian special forces.