Cold Lonely Courage (Madeleine toche Series Book 2) (2 page)

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CHAPTER
FOUR

The Sirocco gusted over the small groups of mourners scattered throughout the hilltop graveyard. The hot wind drained their strength and made their shoulders droop under the weight of their grief. The bright blue Mediterranean pounded the rocky shoreline, the sound of its waves a fitting dirge accompanying the minister’s words.

The minister was brief and he left the Toche family shortly after his final words. Once he was gone, Madeleine stopped to grab a handful of dirt, dry and hard in the middle days of June. She slowly released it from her hand. “Goodbye Yves, be with God,” she said. Her mother and father stared down onto the top of the casket as they dropped their handfuls of dust and rock. Turning, they took Madeleine’s hand and started walking down the hill.

Jean-Pierre sat among a small group of men in the shade of an old plane tree that dominated the patio of Chez-Toche. Each of the friends owned businesses or worked at the port and had known one another for many years.

“How has business been, Jean-Pierre?” Marc Lefevre said as he picked up a small pitcher of water and poured a thin stream into his glass of Pastis. The strong licorice liquor clouded as he swirled the glass.

“As good as it can be since the battle for France is over and that turncoat Petain surrendered,” Jean-Pierre said.

“Paris was occupied and our ‘Hero of Verdun’ signed the armistice a week later,” Lefevre responded, giving a mock salute.

“I was in a hospital bed the day General Petain started his artillery barrage and pushed the Germans back during the first war. I just don’t know why he gave up so quickly this time,” Jean-Pierre answered, lighting a cigarette.

“What could we do? The British evacuated at Dunkirk and left us to fight alone,” Lefevre said. A few of the other men nodded in agreement.

“I wonder how long it will be before we see a full garrison of German troops in town,” Jean-Pierre said, flicking his ash as he looked around the table.

“And how long it will be before we can force them out,” another man said.

“America’s not in the war yet,” Jean-Pierre responded, trying to sound hopeful. As he spoke, Madeleine walked up to the small table carrying a tray of cheese and a loaf of bread. The men smiled and greeted her cordially as she replaced the now empty bottle of Pastis with a fresh one, flashing a smile in greeting as she hurried away.

Once she was out of sight, Lefevre said, “I expect Madeleine is one of the reasons your restaurant will be popular with the Germans.”

“The young ones try to speak to her and are mostly well behaved, but she just goes about her business and stays away from them,” Jean-Pierre said. “It’s those SS Bastards that cause the most trouble, always demanding and condescending, treating us as if we’re beneath them.”

“That and they are asking questions about Jewish families in the area,” Lefevre answered. “I don’t like it at all. This is a different Germany than we fought, Jean-Pierre.”

“With half of France under their puppet government in Vichy and the other half under their direct control, the whole thing is a sham,” Alain Moreau said, raising his glass to his lips. “I’m starting to think it’s time to sail my fishing boat to friendlier waters.”

“That or you could join the Resistance and fight,” Jean-Pierre said.

“I’ve heard whispers about groups beginning to organize,” Lefevre said. “But that’s for younger people. What are old men like us going to do?”

“That’s not something I’m going to discuss with Madeleine,” Jean-Pierre said. “She’s headstrong and quiet. She doesn’t go out with her friends anymore and rarely even speaks about Yves. I’ve lost one child already. She’s not going to do anything if I can help it.”

“We’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” Lefevre said.

“I just hope we don’t have to wait too long,” Jean-Pierre answered to a murmur of agreement.

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CHAPTER
FIVE

Madeleine carried a wicker basket as she walked along the narrow forested area at the edge of a cliff that overlooked the sea. Mechanically she stopped and picked up another mushroom and placed it in the basket next to two round balls of dirt hiding black truffles. She raised the basket to her face and smelled the strong aroma, trying to focus on her tasks and enjoy a few moments away from the restaurant and the worried looks of her parents.

I just can’t help it, she thought. I can’t get Yves and those German pigs out of my mind. I have to do something. I can’t hide and pick mushrooms for the rest of the war.

Madeleine stepped to the edge of the cliff and looked down into a calanque and watched as a group of soldiers lay on the beach drinking wine and splashing around in the cool water of the inlet. A few families sat well apart from the men trying to enjoy the azure beauty of the sea and the warm sun in the presence of their occupiers.

Madeleine frowned as she watched. We’ll never get them out of France if we just let them enjoy the hospitality of Provence, she thought.

Turning, she started down the path towards the town and the market, steeling herself for the watchful eyes of the Germans.

“Madeleine, here’s money for the meat and cheese we need. And the list for the rest,” Jean-Pierre said sliding a stack of bills and a scrap of paper across a heavy work table, pushed to the side of the kitchen. Pots and pans, scorched and seasoned with the cooking fires of thousands of meals, hung from racks dangling down from the ceiling. Others were stacked in orderly piles next to the heavy iron grill. Baskets of fruits and vegetables sat on the counters that surrounded the prep area waiting for the afternoon meal.

“At least they pay,” Madeleine said referring to the constant flow of hungry soldiers. “But I’d like to see more of the old customers.”

“Customers are customers, whoever they are. Yves would be the first to say so. For now we’re stuck and I want the restaurant to stay open. It’s our home. We have no choice.”

She stiffened when her father mentioned Yves. “Papa, I have to do something. I have to get away before I get relocated to some German work camp. I hate this. I hate them looking at me like a piece of meat, smirking and laughing under their breath as they walk by.”

“You’re a beautiful young woman. Soldiers are always going to look. Besides, we all have to endure in our own way. For now you’ll just have to accept it and be patient. As long as the war goes on, we wait. Besides, there’s nothing you can do.”

“We’ll see,” Madeleine said as she tucked the money into the pocket of her skirt, kissing her father on the cheek as she got up from the table.

“At least talk to me before you do anything,” Jean-Pierre said, squeezing her hand as she passed by.

“Of course, papa,” she said with a disarming smile.

“Why don’t I believe that,” Jean-Pierre muttered as Madeleine walked out the back door into the alley.

Madeleine pushed the cart out of the alley behind Chez-Toche and out into the busy street towards the market. People she knew smiled or waved as she made her way down near the square where the vendors gathered. The permanent shops were open selling what meat and cheese was available. Farm produce was abundant along with a wide variety of fresh fish harvested by the fishermen a few hours earlier.

Madeleine walked through the market towards the bakery, steering the cart carefully around shoppers haggling with the merchants or those idly milling around. A few German soldiers were interspersed with the crowd and smiled or tipped their caps as she walked by.

I wish I could be invisible on days like this, Madeleine thought as she felt the eyes of the young soldiers on her. At least they seem harmless enough. As she approached the edge of the busy area of the market she noticed a German staff car parked near the entrance to the bakery. It bore the insignia of the SS, Hitler’s most fanatical soldiers. An officer leaning up against the side of the car was dressed in full uniform from his polished black boots to his hat bearing the skull and cross bones. What is he doing here? Madeleine thought as she tried to pass by unnoticed. There’s nothing in La Ciotat to attract their attention. She was on the steps of the bakery when the officer turned and spoke.

“Bonjour,
mademoiselle,
how are you this fine morning?” He said smiling.

Madeleine paused and slowly turned. “I’m fine Captain,” Madeleine said feeling the man’s eyes look at her slowly top to bottom. She repressed a shiver as she glanced into his eyes, cruel and mocking in contrast to the seemingly genuine smile.

“Don’t you want to know how I am this morning?” He continued, lighting a cigarette.

“I’m sorry, I’m very busy,” Madeleine said, gesturing to the door of the bakery.

“No matter, I’m just trying to be friendly. My name is Hans Hirschman. What is such a beautiful young woman doing pushing such a large cart around the market? A little thing like you couldn’t possibly eat that much.”

“My family operates Chez-Toche, I’m shopping for supplies,” Madeleine said looking away.

“I will have to try it out. I’ll bring one of my French girlfriends there one evening,” he said. “It’s too bad you’re so busy, perhaps I could take you out.”

“I don’t go out,” Madeleine said. “Now I really must get going.”

“Or is it that you just don’t like Germans?”

“Not when they’re occupying my country.”

“Well, you had better get used to that,” he said, the smile dropping into a malevolent smirk, as he turned and walked away.

Madeleine hurried up the stairs and into the bakery, relieved that her encounter with the officer was over. I could wash for hours and not scrub the sickness of that man off of me, she thought as she approached the front counter. He looked at me like I was selling myself on a Paris street corner.

“Bonjour,
Madeleine,” a thickset man in a flour-covered smock said as he selected various loaves of bread from the display shelves behind him, wrapping them in thin paper into a large bundle.

“Bonjour, Monsieur
David. The market is busy today,” Madeleine said sarcastically.

“Yes, you’re right. Especially that SS officer camped outside my door, scaring all my customers away and trying to flirt with my old friends,” David said kindly.

“Not by my choice,
Monsieur.
I can’t stand any of them, but really wish the SS would go away, especially that one.”

“I agree. They even treat the regular German soldiers with contempt. The SS are the true believers that Aryans are the master race,” David said flashing a rude gesture. “Steer clear of them. They’re fanatical,” he said as he walked around the counter and placed several baguettes in Madeleine’s cart.

“I will,
Monsieur
David,” Madeleine said, putting several bills down on the counter. “The bread looks as good as ever. And I’m sure we’ll be doing business long after they’re gone.”

“God willing, Madeleine. Say hello to your parents for me.”

“I will,” she said, glancing through the window, looking for the SS officer. Not seeing him, she pushed the cart down the short steps and walked back into the crowd.

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CHAPTER
SIX

“We’re running low on lamb,” Jean-Pierre said, leaning out the back door of the restaurant, squinting into the sun as Madeleine opened a utility shed. She pulled out a cart, wheeling it onto a brick patio behind Chez-Toche that usually served as a courtyard where garbage bins and extra furniture were stored. Little breeze reached the area and the overhead sun made it uncomfortable. Jean-Pierre pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow.

“Papa, as I’ve told you a thousand times, I do the shopping so I always know what we need. When have I forgotten to get something? Besides, if you want to go out in the sun and get the groceries, I could just as easily do the books,” Madeleine said, taking her hands off the cart and turning to walk back towards the doorway.

“Oh no,” Jean-Pierre said holding up his hands in defeat. “I’m just making sure. If you forget, I’m the one who gets in trouble.”

“Maybe I should forget something and see what Mama says.”

“Oh God no. She remembers every single thing I’ve ever missed, forgotten, overcooked or spilled,” Jean-Pierre said, laughing.

“We’ll just have to look out for each other, then,” Madeleine said with a jaunty wave as she pushed the cart out into the alleyway towards the front of the building. She felt cheerful and was pleased that her father’s mood had lifted as things at the restaurant fell back into a normal routine.

Her usual route to the market was a shortcut that took her down a neglected alley, behind a closed factory. The Nazis had requisitioned its machinery and employees and relocated them somewhere to the east. What had been a thriving business was now an empty building, its doors shuttered and its windows broken. Remnants of packing material and papers drifted around her feet as small gusts of wind stirred the heavy air. Madeleine looked through the broken windows of the factory. The darkness behind them stretched into the cavernous interior.

Madeleine scowled as she glanced at the broken windows. The Nazis were despoiling her town the way they had decimated her family.

From the corner of her eye she saw a dark blur of motion. She turned towards it only to be hit, hard, by a black-gloved fist. Twin lightning bolts on a black collar winked in the sun as the SS officer gripped her by the hair and yanked her into the dark factory.

Madeleine fell to the stone floor, scraping her hands and knees painfully as she scrambled back, away from him. It was the officer who had accosted her in the market and he was pointing a gun at her.

“What do you want?” she cried.

“Shut up, bitch.” Hirschman waved the gun at her. “Show me what’s under that skirt and maybe I won’t shoot you like the stinking whore that you are.”

Madeleine stood, shaking, and wiped her bleeding palms on her skirt. The gun was aimed at her heart, but as she looked at it, she thought of Yves. He, too, had faced guns, and he had died with honor.

Her chin lifted. “Shoot me, then,” she told him.

His ugly face contorted in anger and he swung the gun, striking the side of her head. The world receded. Only vaguely aware of what was happening, Madeleine fell backwards against an old metal desk.

Hands tore at her clothes, Hirschman’s weight crushed against her, and a fierce pain pulled her back to reality. Hirschman was panting sour alcohol breath in her face. The cold muzzle of his gun pressed against her jaw, preventing her from turning away from him. Madeleine closed her eyes, I must live, she thought. I must live, and take revenge.

He finished with an animal grunt and lifted off of her. Madeleine rolled off the desk, pulling her torn clothes around her.

“Now you’ve been with a real man,” he said as he holstered his pistol and ran his hand through his sweat streaked hair. “You must have liked it. Usually they cry and beg for their lives.” He chuckled. “The next time we do this, you’ll be very nice to me. And there will be a next time, any time I want you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Captain.” The smug look on his face sickened her. She looked at the floor.

“If there’s any trouble, if you tell anybody, some of my friends and I will come to your restaurant and do things to your mother and you in front of your father that will make today seem very pleasant. Then you will all disappear and no one will care.”

Hirschman walked to the door, straightening his uniform. “Remember what I said.” He stepped through the door and was gone.

A flood of pain washed over Madeleine as she winced with the effort to stand. She sat back on the desk as the flood of tears that she had been holding burst forth. She sobbed and held her head at the shock of what he’d taken from her. “Oh my God, oh my God,” she whispered as she hugged herself and rocked slowly back and forth, she could still smell the stink of him on her. What am I going to do? she thought as her anger receded into cold emptiness.

The Germans had taken the people who had worked in this thriving factory; they had taken her beloved brother, and now they had taken her honor. Cold rage began to seep into her, replacing her fear and shock. She imagined Hirschman as a mangled corpse, burned and dismembered. The thought of his death was pleasant, and became a visceral need. Drying her tears, she embraced the power that came with that dark vision.

Madeleine made her way back to the alley, smoothing her hair and torn clothing. Her palms and knees were bloody. She could not go to the market this way. Grasping the handle of the cart, she started from home.

Madeleine walked fast as a plan formed in her mind. I will kill him, she thought as she embraced the prospect of revenge. That bastard will pay in blood. I swear it on my brother’s grave; I will avenge my honor and Yves’ death.

“How were the prices today?” Jean-Pierre said as Madeleine walked back into the kitchen. He didn’t look up from his cutting board until Madeleine sat down. Jean-Pierre paused and looked over at her. She was sitting quietly, her eyes on her hands.

“Madeleine, what’s happened?” he asked, setting down his paring knife, seeing her torn clothes and scraped hands.

“I have something to tell you Papa, but you have to promise to listen before you do anything.”

“I promise,” he answered.

“The SS officer that spoke to me at the market, the one I told you about?”

“I remember. What’s this about? Did he insult you again?”

“Papa, you have to listen to me. I can only tell this once. I can’t tell Mama. The officer assaulted me in the old tire factory. He grabbed me out of the alley and forced himself on me. I thought I was going to die, Papa. But I didn’t.”

“I’ll kill him, Madeleine. I’ll walk up to the pig and shoot him in the street and as many others as I can before they get me,” Jean-Pierre said, his face twisted with rage.

“No Papa, it has to be me. He raped me. If you do it, they’ll come and drag Mama and me out in to the street and shoot us after they’ve raped us both. He promised me that would happen. I was terrified but now I’m enraged. I have to kill him or I’ll never be able to live with myself. He’s the enemy and they killed Yves. I don’t care, I can’t stand it anymore, whatever I do I’m going to kill them and I’m starting with him.”

“No Madeleine, I can’t lose another child. You’ll be caught. I’ve killed many men. One more won’t make any difference,” Jean-Pierre said, putting his arms around Madeleine. Tears of anguish ran down his face.

“Papa, I was so scared I thought I’d never see you again. I don’t want to live that way. If I die fighting, then at least it will be defending my home. I need to learn how, and I need help killing that man. If you don’t help me, I’ll find someone who will. The army’s gone. Only the Resistance can do anything and they’re not going to act just because I got raped. It could take weeks to contact them, even if I knew where to start. I need your help. You were in the war when you were my age. Teach me how to shoot and we’ll find a way to get him alone.”

Jean-Pierre closed his eyes and slowly lowered his head as the truth took hold of him. She’d follow this path, the same path he followed as he went to the trenches full of youthful expectation and vigor, he thought.

“Then you need to know what you’re running towards, Madeleine Toche. I’ve seen it and if I’m going to help you, I’m going to tell you what it is. But not here, not right now. We can’t tell your mother. I won’t be able to stop her. She’ll go to the police, and they’ll do nothing but pretend to investigate. The Vichy Police serve at the pleasure of their German masters. They’re supposed to protect us and enforce the law, but they won’t care. Then they’ll burn us out or arrest us and we’ll end up in a camp or dead in an unmarked grave. We have to be patient. I can teach you to shoot my pistol out at the old farm. I’ll tell you what you need to know. But until then, remember this, the first time you look into a person’s eyes as you kill them will terrify you. After you have killed dozens or hundreds you will see their faces in your dreams because they will never leave you. You’ll walk on the edge of madness at times and it will only be your will to live that keeps you killing, listening to their screams as they beg for life and an end to their pain. You may make decisions that get innocent people killed, and still you must go on killing, because finally that’s all you have left. And then one glorious day, the killing stops,” he said, a hard edge entering his voice.

“Just teach me how to shoot that pistol.”