The Cyclist (4 page)

Zara smiled and drank the buttermilk. The bread and honey were a treat for her and she munched with an irrepressible smile as Auguste sipped his pseudo-coffee. He grimaced at the bitterness and put a hand out to stroke his daughter’s hair.

‘Ma fleur,’ he said.

Odette said, ‘You must get ready for school now, my little one. Let’s get you washed and dressed and then we can do your hair.’

Odette glanced at Auguste but it was clear in her look there remained much unsaid. He knew what was coming. They needed to talk.

It was not until the neighbour whisked Zara away to school they were alone and Auguste began.

‘Pierre has to leave. There is no other way,’ he said.

‘Monique told me she was leaving you know.’

‘Yes?’

‘She said the children at school picked on her because she had to wear that filthy yellow star.’

He said, ‘Even her school friends? She’s never done anything wrong.’

‘Open your eyes Auguste. Our world has changed. You are no longer a police officer in a quiet town in the Dordogne. You have become an instrument of an evil political force. The SD arrests anyone they wish and they come back beaten. Some never return.’

‘These are mainly communists and spies. Troublemakers, who cause damage to property and cause loss of innocent lives. Monique has done nothing, she’s a child.’

‘She is Jewish.’

‘She and Pierre can only get into trouble by breaking the curfew or running away.’

She placed a hand on his cheek. ‘Dear Auguste. There is an unstoppable force here threatening to devour us all. Now it is Jews. How long before it is Frenchmen? Orthodox Christians? You cannot work for them. It is not your nature.’

‘How can I stop?’

‘Please. You have to.’

‘Perhaps I can pretend to be ill. Dr. Girard will sign me off sick perhaps.’

‘Promise me you will try. We could leave the country.’

‘If I am sick, how can I leave?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t...’

She slapped a flat hand on the table and he saw tears forming in her clear blue eyes. He understood why he was still so attracted to her. Her face with its rounded cheeks, small nose and high cheekbones made her look ever youthful, child-like almost. Her figure sagged a little here and there but it was all since the birth of their daughter and he knew he loved every inch of her for it.

He crossed to the opposite side of the kitchen table and took her in his arms.

‘Something will come up. If I am not here, they will replace me with another and who knows what injustices we would see? The SD might even put in one of their own men. At the moment, I have to stay. I am the law and even the Germans respect the law.’

She put her arms around his neck and said, ‘You are a fool. Nothing you can do will make a difference. Don’t you see?’

‘I must go. I will be late as it is and I have those papers to organise.’

Their kiss was tender but brief. Auguste had to focus now on another day and there was much to do.

2

The night-rain left deep brown puddles straddling the road. The Citroën chugged its way through them, splashing showers onto the cobbled pavements in the Bergerac streets. The grey, uniform cloud above did nothing for Auguste’s mood as he drove along the embankment towards the market square. He reflected there would be a market tomorrow and he needed to be early or the short food supplies would be gone. Of course, in the country, people often caught game and reared their own food but it did not stop the German garrisons plundering and taking anything they wanted, from wine and brandy to food or women. No wonder there were shortages.

He parked his car at the south end of the market square without thinking why, but he felt he wanted to walk despite the grey weather. Movement, any motion at all, meant he had less time to think, less time to understand what his life was becoming. His daily existence was now a mire from which escape seemed impossible or at least, dangerous.

His mind in turmoil, he turned to his beliefs as the only solid foundation he possessed, but he could not help but question where his Jesus was now, in this miserable world where he found himself. Where was his all-forgiving Lord in this travesty of human life? If the Nazis truly believed in God how could they consider killing Jews, any more than they would consider genocide aimed at Frenchmen? Odette was right, but what could he do about it? Nothing. He had to mark time, wait for an opportunity to escape. First, he had to ensure Pierre and his family would be safe.

He trudged toward the tall oak doors of the Prefecture. He was toiling to get there to begin another day of obedience. Another day chipping away at his soul, his beliefs and his will.

Still he could not reconcile his religious perspectives. Where was the Sacred Heart? Was his work really about death and assisting evil? The schism of his belief and his work puzzled him still. It was his job to believe in the things he could prove. Despite that, he still believed in Christ, in the Holy Trinity and an all-forgiving Father in heaven. These two facets of his life seemed such a contradiction, though he recognised it as the true meaning of faith. He bit his lip as his boots snapped and clicked on the flat paving stones but it brought no relief from the torture enveloping him.

Reality came soon enough. A black Mercedes crouched outside the Prefecture. Black was the colour of doom and death. He knew who had sent it. He knew too, it would be a summons. SD had no rules of etiquette or consideration. The swastika flags on the wings of the car told all. He even realised who they had come for. They had come for him.

He paused to look into the dead bakery window. The shop was closed, barren and desolate. Auguste stared at the empty shelves. No flour was available of course. Flour was an import and seemed a sad disappearing promise of a distant past − a time when apple tarts and croissants were available, cheap, pleasant and satisfying. Auguste felt a tightening in the throat and noticed his eyes were moist. Moist like a young girl’s. Moist like a river, a river he realised now, soon would flow with Jewish blood.

He strolled now resigned. Level with the Prefecture, he waited outside long enough for a man to emerge from the black car.

The idiot who emerged began with a salute.

‘Heil Hitler,’ he said, raising his straight right arm.

He was a young man by SD standards. Auguste knew the uniform, it was SS. The SD used them and took them in and gave them new green uniforms, but they were all the same. A wisp of blond hair escaped in an errant journey from beneath the flat, black cap and the thin, bony face was one of meanness and corruption. Auguste knew the face, the thin lips, the pinkness of the cheeks, the blue eyes. He had seen it a hundred times before, a thousand perhaps. He recognised it for a face of anger and jealousy. If you do well in life, beware of such young men he thought. They will do anything to bring you down if you show ability.

‘Major Brunner presents his compliments,’ he said.

‘Indeed,’ Auguste said, ‘is there a problem?’

‘You will come with me.’

‘Well, that’s fine, but I have things to do this morning. Will you wait for twenty minutes?’

‘My instructions are you should come now.’

‘Well, tell Major Brunner, I have important matters to attend to and I will come in twenty minutes.’

‘But he said...’

‘You are?’

‘Scharfürer Linz.’

The young man began to raise his right arm once more but Auguste had positioned himself close and there was no room for the gesture. The Frenchman looked, inches away, straight into the young German’s eyes.

‘When I say twenty minutes, I mean twenty minutes. You will wait, do you hear me Scharfürer?’

The young man seemed to have difficulties deciding who had senior rank. In the end, he decided to capitulate. He turned and went to his vehicle.

Auguste entered the Prefecture. He nodded to his sergeant and ascended the stairs, his mind turning over the events of the last day. He had done nothing even suspicious but the paranoia bred by the presence of the SD would make any man, even an innocent one, quake. He neared his office door and began to wonder what the word “innocent” meant in his own mind. Then he thought, ‘am I guilty of nothing?’ He knew he was responsible for rounding up and interning thousands of men and women, even children. Would they be slain by these Germans? He had no way of knowing, but his suspicions were enough to make him hate himself. Political duties had become a betrayal of its own and he felt like a drowning man, desperate to get to some surface to allow him air and time to breathe.

‘Édith,’ he called as he fumbled the lock of his office door. ‘Édith.’

She came before he had even seated himself behind the pine desk.

‘Auguste?’ she said as she entered.

‘I need some letters preparing immediately.’

‘Letters?’

‘Yes, letters of transit for Pierre Dreyfus and his daughter, Monique.’

‘Where to?’

‘Anywhere, everywhere, just out of this damned country.’

‘Auguste, they will not be valid unless signed by you and countersigned by the German authorities,’

‘If you type them now, I will ask Brunner to sign them. He has sent for me. I have fifteen minutes.’

‘I will do it now then.’

‘Good. Oh, by the way, get their names off the register.

‘How?

‘I don’t care but get them off the bloody Jewish register or they can’t get out.’

‘I need to know the destination.’

‘Destination? Well Switzerland will do, I suppose. Hurry.’

Auguste sat waiting. Édith was resourceful. If anyone possessed the ability to do as he asked, she did. He failed to understand why he felt nervous. He wondered if it was because it was the first time in his life, he had used his position to transgress the law. But what kind of law was it he flouted? This was not French law. It was a law of occupation and as a Frenchman, he could surely not feel pangs of conscience about breaking these foreign-forced laws?

He thrummed his fingers on the blotter amid the doodles and scribbled telephone numbers, and noticed he was sweating, although the office was cold. He thought perhaps he was contracting ‘flu or something similar. He hoped Brunner would get it too, perhaps even pneumonia he thought.

He wrote a memo by hand. The orders for the internment were clear.

Presently, Édith came in. She held the documents in her hand. Auguste took them and began to read. He signed them and folded them with care, placing them in his pocket, before leaving the building.

Outside in the street, the black car waited.

3

They took over the Mairie within weeks of entering the town. They called it “requisitioning”. The sad, old, building stood on a small square facing the cathedral. The cobbled surfaces between the buildings glittered wet and grey as Auguste stepped from the black Mercedes. He looked up at the double wooden doors, framed in their decorative archway. He felt like a man entering church having forgotten his clothes. They would all see him, point and laugh as he realised his mistake. He crossed the square to the doorway, thinking how he had been there many times before under happier circumstances. The invasion of the Mairie forced the Civic Council to shift all civil functions and procedures to an office block two streets way. The SD converted the eighteenth century building, with its lofty ceilings, its panelled walls and decorative ceiling plaster, for their purposes. Auguste saw it as an abuse of the building’s former grandeur.

He had seen the cells in the basement, the new furniture and the busy secretaries, recording, typing and scurrying along the airy corridors. The once proud building became a hive of German activity and he often wondered what they did, these busy workers. He questioned too what there could make them so busy. Begerac was a quiet, friendly place; no one here caused trouble.

 He had walked past shelf upon shelf of files, records of people, ways of tracking Jews, criminals, homosexuals. He had felt as if his own criminal records office had shrunk. Compared to the SD information system, he had nothing to compare. He often joked with Claude that the SD recorded every fart in Bergerac. He wondered now if perhaps he was right. The SD had no powers of arrest in official terms but depended upon Auguste to make the arrests for them. They still sent SS men to arrest and investigate anyone they wished, so Auguste had never understood why they needed French police officers to help.

Climbing the stone steps, he waited outside the frosted-glass door while Linz went in. Auguste could hear the clack of leather heels and the Reich salute. In moments, Linz opened the door and gestured for him to enter.

Major Brunner sat behind his desk; he did not get up when Auguste entered. The Major smiled. He was a man in his fifties, his hair a yellow-grey swept back from a round, white, balding forehead. Auguste reflected Brunner must have once been a good-looking young man, for traces of his handsomeness remained. Time however leeched it away and what remained of it was a ghost, vague and insubstantial. He had a furrowed forehead and bushy grey eyebrows. The nose was long, almost aquiline and pink, plump lips framed his wide mouth above a square chin.

Auguste was determined to control his inner feelings and work with this man. He smiled back, hiding his feelings and said, ‘Helmut, enchanted to see you again.’

Auguste held out his hand and Brunner took it with a damp limp grip. The informality seemed clear to Linz who wrinkled his nose in distaste and left the room.

‘I’m so pleased you could make it,’ Brunner said.

‘No uniform today Helmut? I thought SD Majors wore uniform all the time at work.’

‘My rank as Standartenfürer is only equivalent to yours, you know, but it means I do not need to wear uniform except on formal occasions, like the last time we met, at the Mayor’s party. Sit please’

Auguste sat in the seat opposite the desk.

‘No, not there. Here, please.’

Brunner gestured to a chair at the side of the desk and Auguste was obliged to move closer. There was something distasteful in the correction, which made Auguste realise his position in the order of things. He wondered if it was some psychological technique to rob him of his confidence. To put him at his ease and then create tension and ensure he never relaxed. Brunner did not know him if he thought such techniques would be effective. Auguste was as experienced in interrogation as any senior policeman could be.