The Collaborators (23 page)

15

Three months after Sophie Simonian’s train had crawled into the east, the rescued children stood on a cold, windswept platform of the Gare de Lyon and prepared to journey south. Once more their destination was the home of their Aunt Mireille in the Ain, and this time the journey made even less sense to Pauli than it had in 1940. Then at least their mother had been going with them.

Towering over the children on the platform, one huge hand resting on each small head, was Michel Boucher. With his beard and locks tousled by the wind, he looked like a red-headed Moses giving them his benison. To protect Janine, not to mention his own interest, Günter Mai had suggested that Boucher be given the credit for obtaining the Drancy release order, and it had made sense to maintain the deception when it came to the children’s permit to travel into the Free Zone.

While Boucher had been delighted to play the role of benevolent provider, he hadn’t omitted to use the occasion to his own advantage. The children needed an escort, at least as far as Lyon where his sister would meet them. He knew just the man. And there was no need for Mai to worry. He, Boucher, would supply all the necessary identification papers if the German could arrange the
Ausweis.
Although feeling he was being sucked from bending the rules into active illegality, Mai finally agreed, and the result was Monsieur Roger Corder, commercial traveller who stood there, wan-faced, anxious-eyed, in a grey fedora and an astrakhan coat.

Boucher had said, ‘For God’s sake, Maurice, dump that coat! It’s a dead giveaway. You look like a mad poet heading south to die of consumption!’

‘Do you know how much this coat cost me?’ replied Melchior passionately. ‘Nothing! Do you expect me to give up so easily something which was a gift from God?’

Janine had been more than relieved to learn that Melchior was travelling too. Worried at the thought of the children having to make such a long trip by themselves, she had been tempted in many ways to obey Jean-Paul’s harsh instruction and Mai’s gentler urgings to go with them. But her greater fear was that if she made the trip, she would not have the strength to come back.

She looked at her husband now, so much slighter, so much less flamboyant than Michel Boucher. But to those close enough to feel it, the intensity of passion and menace emanating from that still body made him the group’s dominant figure.

He had taken the news of his mother’s deportation with the same terrifying immobility of feature. She’d kept it from him as long as possible, waiting till he got some of his strength back. That night, he rose from his sick bed and went out, returning hours later with no explanation. But she noticed that the toes of his heavy boots were stained brown and the backs of his hands were scored with scratches such as a woman’s long nails might make trying to loosen a strangler’s grip.

Next day there were red and black notices everywhere announcing heavy reprisals for the brutal murder of a German sergeant. Not mentioned, because not thought significant, was the fact that he had been killed at the apartment of a blonde Pigalle prostitute, and that the woman had been throttled so violently that every bone in her throat was shattered.

Since then Jean-Paul seemed to have settled into a creature of stealth, as though acknowledging that to take unnecessary risks might cut short his chosen career of destroying the enemy. Janine and the children he either ignored or looked at with baffled despair like a man watching birds through a barred window.

There was danger here, she could feel it. For herself, she did not mind. But the thought of having the children brought into peril again became too much and finally she had embraced the lesser pain and opted to send them away.

Jean-Paul had not reacted to the decision, but when she added the lie that Boucher was arranging the
Ausweis,
then he reacted.

‘That Nazi-loving bastard? No! He’s having nothing more to do with us. I don’t want his dirty hands getting near anything of mine, do you understand?’

‘What do you suggest then? If
we
apply, we just draw attention to ourselves. I want the children safe, not arrested again!’

‘I’ve got friends now. We can get them out,’ he said.

‘Without risk? Do you guarantee that?’

When he didn’t answer she called, ‘Pauli.’

The boy came from his bedroom, rubbing his eyes. It looked very convincing, except that the speed of his response suggested he’d been listening rather than sleeping.

‘Pauli,’ she said. ‘We were just talking about what it was like in the Vél d’Hiv and those camps. Your father hasn’t heard. Would you like to tell him?’

‘Yes, maman,’ said the boy.

She hated herself for doing this, but she was determined that the danger to her children was going to be minimized, and that meant travelling on the train with Mai’s
Ausweis
rather than wandering round the countryside with any of Jean-Paul’s new wild friends.

Pauli described his experiences and his words were all the more powerful because of their matter-of-fact tone.

When he had finished, his father did not speak but turned away, his face working with grief and rage. Then he took the boy in his arms and pressed him close to his chest saying, ‘They’ll pay, Pauli, that I promise.’

But he no longer objected to Michel Boucher’s involvement.

Now at last the time had come for the train to leave. Melchior had gone ahead to claim seats, causing a considerable disturbance by assuring the passengers opposite that if he were not allowed to travel with his back to the engine, he would assuredly vomit on them all the way to Lyon.

Now the children joined him. Whistles blew, flags waved, steam jetted sideways, smoke billowed up. Slowly the locomotive began to move.

Distantly two pairs of eyes observed the scene but did not observe each other. They saw Janine run helplessly a little way after the train, saw the small pale faces of the children, their arms stretched out and waving; saw above them a large adult arm languidly flapping a pale-pink kerchief; saw Jean-Paul turn away like a soldier on parade and begin marching towards the barrier, saw Janine squeeze Boucher’s arm then set off after her husband.

The watchers turned away also, Alphonse Pajou because he did not wish to be seen, Günter Mai also because he did not wish to see the pain that must be scored on the woman’s face.

He didn’t go far, however, and when Michel Boucher came off the platform, whistling a bravura version of
Lili Marlene
full of trills and grace notes, Mai fell into step beside him, though it involved two of his steps to one of the red-head’s.

‘Lieutenant! So you did come. Hey, listen, come and have some champagne. I’m a father! How about that. The loveliest little girl you ever saw. We’re calling her Antoinette. Classy, eh?’

‘Very,’ said Mai. ‘Congratulations. How was everything? On the platform, I mean.’

‘Oh, it was fine. That Pauli’s cool as a butcher’s slab and as long as he’s OK, the little girl will go anywhere. They’ll make fine cousins for my Antoinette.’

‘And Janine?’

‘Well, what do you think? Upset naturally, but she’ll be OK. She’s got strength, that one. No, the only fly in the ointment was that husband of hers. Could hardly talk to me, and after all I’ve done for the family! I reckon that Boche bullet’s left a permanent hole in his head, poor devil. Now, what about that drink?’

‘Later,’ said Mai. He hesitated then added, ‘Perhaps a lot later. Look, Miche, I’ve got to leave Paris. I’ve been posted…’

‘Jesus Mary! Not to the Russian Front?’ said Boucher with an alarm which made Mai smile.

‘No. I’ll still be in France. And I hope to get back here eventually. I just wondered if you’d mention it to your uncle and aunt. I’d hate them to think I was taking my business elsewhere! And to your cousin too, of course. Tell her the file is cleared. She’ll understand.’

It was self-interest not sentiment that had made him erase Janine’s name from his records, he assured himself. If his successor got interested in what precisely this female agent was doing for the Reich, explanation would not be easy, whereas anyone could explain a small gap in the files.

‘Good luck,’ said Boucher. ‘I’m really going to miss you.’

They shook hands and he walked quickly away.

There, it was done. Perhaps after all it would be better if he never came back to Paris, but he knew that Zeller had been furious when the official notice of his posting came through. It had been rather flattering to hear his superior swear he wouldn’t rest till he had his lieutenant back in his section once more. Mai sometimes suspected that Zeller sat on his promotion to keep him close. Well, this time he’d got it. Captain Mai. And with it the highly responsible job of helping to set up a new
Abwehr
centre in Toulouse.

Toulouse. That was why he didn’t wish to give the news of his posting to Janine himself. She was bound to ask why it was that he was being posted into the so-called Free Zone to which with his aid she’d just despatched her children for safety.

He could have lied of course. In fact, as an officer of the
Wehrmacht
he was duty bound to lie to an enemy alien. But he’d have had to tell her; and he hadn’t the courage to be the man to give her the news which he himself had only learnt the previous day.

Four days hence on November 11th, the twenty-fourth anniversary of that painful armistice, a second Army of Occupation would sweep south to secure the Africa-threatened Mediterranean shore.

The Free Zone and its comparative security would cease to exist.

PART FIVE

March-December 1943

La jeune fille poussa un petit cri: ‘Oh! il m’a piquée sur le menton! Sale petite bête, vilain petit moustique!’ Puis je lui vis faire un geste vif de la main. ‘J’en ai attrapé un, Werner! Oh! regardez, je vais le punir: je lui - arrache - les pattes - l’une - après - l’autre…’ et elle le faisait…

Vercors,
Le silence de la mer

1

Day broke, grey and cold.

Janine watched it as she had watched many days break that winter. This was her time of despair, but by an effort of will she had not thought possible, she had contrived to make it also a time of renewal. The despair was unavoidable, waking her despite all soporifics between the Gestapo hours of four and five. Recognizing that it was going to destroy her, she had ceased to flee it and had started instead to face and embrace it, squeezing every scrap of inner blackness into a single ball and hurling it away with the sun.

It was far from easy, especially on days like this when there was little promise of sunlight. She lit a cigarette. Previously she had smoked only occasionally. Now she smoked twenty or thirty a day. It was a bad time to acquire the habit but Miche got round this as he got round most shortages. She needed something to massage her taut nerves and did not care to put her control at risk with alcohol.

She was rarely disturbed in her early morning vigils. These days Jean-Paul slept soundly, like a man satisfied with his day’s work, or else he was not at home to sleep. Outwardly their relationship was now fairly stable but it was a stability she got little satisfaction from. In the months since the children’s departure she had realized just what a softening effect they had had upon their father, just how much of a buffer they had been between herself and Jean-Paul. Sophie’s deportation and the children’s departure had confirmed him in a role which left only a subordinate place for her. She had accepted it unquestioningly at first. Let nature take its course sounded the best advice. There was even the renewal of their sexual relationship to give further hope. He had come home late one night, flushed from exertion and smelling of cordite, and had taken her before she was hardly awake. This had set the pattern for all subsequent couplings, short, savage, purely physical, a far cry from the slow tender love-making of their early years. From the start she had sensed that there was no path here back to the way things once were, but what other choice did she have? And even now the gleam of his old smile, a brief relapse into his old manner, could set her heart pounding with renewed hope and give her the strength to hold on till dawn when next her terrors roused her early.

Such a moment came unexpectedly this morning.

‘Got one of those to spare?’ said his voice behind her.

She turned. He had come silently into the kitchen where she was sitting. She had no idea how long he had been watching her.

‘Of course,’ she said passing over the packet.

He took a cigarette, lit and drew in the smoke with a sigh of pleasure.

‘Classy weed this,’ he said. ‘None of your barber’s floor sweepings.’

Often such a comment would have been the prelude to a sarcastic attack on her collaborationist cousin and his blackmarket empire. This morning it was accompanied by a smile of shared enjoyment.

‘You’re up early,’ she said. ‘I’ve put some coffee on. Like some?’

‘Please,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go out shortly, that’s why I’m up. I was watching you sitting here.’

‘Oh, were you?’ she said busying herself at the stove.

‘You looked, I don’t know, as if you were…well, you certainly didn’t look happy.’

‘Didn’t I?’ she said lightly. She felt at the same time full of happiness and full of tension.

‘What were you thinking about? The children?’

‘Yes,’ she said to keep things simple. ‘I miss them so much.’

‘I miss them too,’ he said with just the faintest hint of surprise. ‘And I worry about them.’

‘You don’t think they’re not safe?’ she said, fearful that he had heard some news she’d missed about the situation in the Ain. There’d been a period of combined rage and fear when the Boche had occupied the Free Zone so soon after the children’s departure. Günter Mai would have suffered if she could have got near him at that moment, and when Miche told her of his posting, it had seemed to her like flight. At first she had wanted to fetch the children home but had been dissuaded. Whatever happened in the old Free Zone, the dangers in Paris hadn’t changed, and next time things went wrong there was no Günter Mai to offer his ambivalent help.

Letters from Mireille had reassured her that the German presence in the countryside was minimal and the children were getting on OK with her three boys and at school. It was safer and healthier down there. Why didn’t she come to join them?

Paradoxically travel was rather easier now there weren’t two zones, but she delayed making even a short visit in case it unsettled the children. Also, to be honest, in case it unsettled herself too much. She didn’t trust her strength to make the return. And if she weakened and stayed, what would there be left of their relationship to return to?

‘Oh yes, I’m sure they’re safe,’ he said. ‘It’s just that they must miss you too, Jan. Why don’t you join them?’

Here it was again, the pressure. She felt her moment of happiness slipping away.

‘And would you come too?’ she asked quietly, pouring the coffee with a steady hand.

‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I have work to do here.’

‘Your precious Fishermen, you mean?’

And now the moment was gone completely.

‘What do you know about the Fishermen?’ he demanded.

‘Nothing specific. But I’ve heard you and Henri talking. Am I supposed to be deaf or something? Or stupid? Or not to be trusted?’

The thought flashed unwanted across her mind that it was easy for her to wax indignant about trust with Günter Mai safely out of the way. She stared defiantly at her husband, expecting anger. Instead he reached to her and took her hands.

‘One thing I’ve learned since coming back is who I can trust,’ he said. ‘You, Christian, Henri; after that I take care. But I don’t want you involved in this any more than I want Christian involved. He leads his own life, serves in his own way. That’s what I want for you.’

Only the awareness that this was as close as he’d yet come to expressing real concern for her soothed her irritation at being lumped once again with Valois in his affections.

‘I’m your wife, whatever you may or may have not forgotten,’ she said. ‘While I live with you, of course I’m involved.’

‘Yes,’ he said nodding, as if she were agreeing with his argument. ‘You see what I mean then. Jan, when all this is over then there’ll be a time to sit at leisure and mend things. Just now there’s no time for ourselves, no time for
personal
relationships. We can’t afford to divert energies.’

Before she could respond he looked at his watch and said, ‘See what I mean? Now I’ve got to go. You’ll think about what we’ve said?’

He was gone with a swiftness which was typical, leaving Janine holding the percolator from which she had not yet filled her own cup.

Well, at least it had been a real conversation, even if the net outcome was that he wanted her to leave. Perhaps she was wrong and everyone else was right. Perhaps he would be better off, safer even, in Paris by himself while she took care of the children at Mireille’s.

These thoughts stayed with her as she got ready and set off for the boulangerie. She had tried to get a job after the children went but there was little call for her skill of pastry cooking in these days of shortages. So she helped in the shop and the bakehouse first thing in the morning. There was very little to do there either and she knew it was simply a device by which her parents could subsidize her. Jean-Paul seemed to have other sources of subsidy. Les Pêcheurs. The Fishermen. Such a childish name. She could only guess the kind of work they did. Sabotage, theft, disruption. Perhaps it needed to be done but it seemed to have precious little effect on the stranglehold the Boche had on Paris.

She was on foot. Jean-Paul had taken the bicycle they shared. Despite the fact that spring was officially here, the morning was gloomy and a thin cold rain had begun to fall. Normally she would have walked to the shop but today the weather drove her into the métro. The nearest station to the bakery was in the Boulevard Raspail, not far from the Lutétia. She thought again of Mai. There was no reason why they should ever meet again so she could look objectively at the relationship. On balance she had profited largely from it, there was no doubt of that. On one side, her husband and her children safe; on the other, one act of sex and the threat, since removed, of having her name on an
Abwehr
agent list.

‘Janine!’

Alarmed by the sudden summons she halted uncertainly. She was just off the boulevard in a side-street. A man was standing in a doorway at the corner. He leaned forward slightly out of the shadows and was instantly recognizable as Miche Boucher.

‘Miche. What are you up to?’

‘Saving your life mebbe,’ he said. ‘Do you always wander round in a dream?’

‘I’m on my way to the bakery,’ she said, piqued. ‘What are you hiding from, Miche? The flics?’

The gibe stung.

‘Listen, lady, can’t you get it into your head that I’m on the side of the law now?’ he said indignantly.

‘Hiding in doorways?’

‘On watch,’ he corrected. ‘We’ve had a tip that some bunch of terrorists are planning to hit a staff-car. We’re here to clear up the mess.’

He opened his expensive jacket dramatically and showed her a Luger in a shoulder holster.

‘You mean after they’ve attacked the car? Why don’t you just warn the men in it?’

It was a good question and one which Boucher had put to Pajou.

‘Because one of the guys in the car is that jumped-up
Abwehr
poof, Zeller,’ Pajou had said with relish. ‘Basically old Fiebelkorn don’t mind how many
Abwehr
shits get hurt so long as we sort out these terrorists afterwards. Why do you think it’s us lot on this job? Whatever happens, Fiebelkorn gets all the credit and none of the blame.’

Boucher didn’t try to explain any of this to Janine.

‘Never you mind, just move on quick. This won’t be a safe place to be very shortly. Oh, shit.’

In a window overlooking the boulevard a man struck a match to light a cigarette. This was the signal. The staff-car was in sight. Grabbing hold of Janine, Boucher drew her roughly into the doorway.

‘Stay there,’ he ordered. ‘Keep back.’

As the car approached their intersection, a cyclist wobbled out of a narrow entry on the other side of the road. He looked like a workman on his way to work. His dirty old raincoat was sodden wet and over his shoulders was a canvas tool bag.

He seemed to be having trouble with his brakes and slid sideways on the greasy road right into the path of the German car. It skidded to a halt alongside the fallen cyclist. The driver leaned out of the window and began shouting. The two officers in the back looked unconcerned. The cyclist rose with difficulty and started yelling back at the driver.

And then another cyclist appeared, a gendarme. Attracted by the commotion, he halted on the other side of the car, saluted the officer and started asking questions.

‘What the hell’s that idiot doing?’ groaned Boucher. ‘Never around when you want the buggers but the moment you don’t…’

The gendarme addressed the workman, who grumblingly stooped and picked up the bicycle. Another salute to the officers and the two cyclists moved slowly away alongside each other. The car started up and set off in the opposite direction.

‘Trust the flics to cock everything up,’ groaned Boucher stepping out of the doorway and looking desperately for some signal to indicate the next move.

And then in the same instant two things struck him.

The workman no longer had his tool bag. And there had been something dragging along beneath the car.

He opened his mouth to yell, but his words were drowned by a huge explosion followed by the scream of tearing metal and a second flash as the petrol tank went up.

The two cyclists stood on the pedals and raced away up the boulevard. But now the trap was sprung as Pajou’s men came out of a building ahead of them and began blazing away with machine pistols. The gendarme was hit instantly and went flying over his handlebars. The workman wrenched his bike round, the front wheel rearing as though he were riding a horse. He held himself low and bumped up the pavement to give himself the protection of the lampposts. Windows shattered alongside him as the stream of bullets whiplashed in pursuit.

Boucher’s Luger was out. The fugitive was being driven straight towards him. Janine had come out of the doorway and was standing close behind, watching with horror.

‘Right, you bastard,’ said Boucher raising his gun.

And Janine cried, ‘Miche! No!’ and flung her arms around his body, as the cyclist went hurtling past them down the side-street and out of view.

Shaking himself free, Boucher turned to Janine and said disbelievingly, ‘That was him. That was your husband, wasn’t it?’

She nodded, hardly able to speak from the shock.

‘Did you know, Jan?’ demanded Boucher. ‘Quick. Tell me!’

She shook her head and gasped, ‘No, Miche, I swear it.’

Men came running up, among them Pajou.

‘What the fuck are you playing at, Miche? You must have been within spitting distance of him.’

‘Spit was all I could do,’ said Boucher. ‘Bloody gun jammed.’

‘Yeah? Did you get a look at his face?’

‘Not much. He was all muffled up.’

‘Great.’ His eyes turned suspiciously towards Janine.

‘Who’s this?’

‘My cousin, Janine. She works close by. I saw her and told her to keep her head down.’

Another man joined them.

‘The one we got’s dead,’ he reported. ‘Also the car driver and one of the officers. The other one’s still alive, the major. But he’s all smashed up. Burnt too. He’ll be lucky to make it. Or maybe not so lucky.’

‘That should please the boss anyway,’ said Pajou. ‘Better get back and report. Coming, Miche?’

‘I’ll catch you up.’

He waited till his companions were out of earshot then said disbelievingly, ‘Look, Jan, are you sure you had no idea what Jean-Paul was up to?’

‘Of course I had some idea,’ she retorted. ‘But I didn’t realize…’

‘That it involved blowing people to pieces?’ Boucher completed the sentence for her. ‘One thing’s sure; he’ll get caught or killed sooner or later. Get out while you can. The Gestapo won’t believe you’re not in it too. Join the kids at Mireille’s place and sit the war out there, that’s the wise move.’