The French War Bride (20 page)

1944

T
he Resistance became more organized and more effective as time went on. In large part it was because everyone listened to the BBC French broadcast from London. The Germans tried to scramble the signal, but they were never able to snuff out the broadcasts.

French citizens were not allowed to have radios, of course, but we all knew someone who had one, hidden in a washroom, a closet, or a pantry. The hotel had several radios for the Germans to use, and those radios always found their way to the French broadcast at night.

Over the airwaves, the British would send secret messages to the Resistance through the programming.
Jean has a very long mustache
might be a key for a southern pocket of the Resistance to block the train tracks in order to thwart a Nazi shipment of arms. The secret obscure messages became more frequent.

Acts of open sabotage against the Germans accelerated. The Boches retaliated by carting off large groups of French citizens, executing them and publicizing the punishment to halt further insurrection.

It did not stop us; it only made us more stealthy. We knew that the Allies were planning an invasion. The question was when, and where.

The Germans knew it was coming, too. They grew nervous and unsteady. Sometimes they ignored insults and bad behavior from the citizenry; at other times they responded with brutal force and twitchy trigger fingers.

I continued to serve as a courier. The need to get information to the Resistance had increased.

I met with Yvette less frequently. We were careful not to discuss specifics, but we shared general information. We usually talked as we walked along the Seine.

“The Germans are scared,” she told me. “They believe the Allies' invasion will happen any day now.”

“Mon Dieu, I hope it comes soon.”

“I believe we will be singing by autumn.”

I smiled. “So I have heard.”

The code that the invasion was two weeks away would be the first line of the poem “
Chanson d'automne
”—“Song of Autumn.”

“So tell me—how is your officer?”

“He is very sweet, actually.”

“A sweet Nazi?”

“He is not at all like the last.” She pulled out a cigarette and offered me one. I shook my head; I had only toyed with smoking, and now that everything was so scarce, I was glad I'd never taken to it. It was one less thing to yearn for. Bad enough to long for food.

Yvette lit a match and put it to her cigarette. “He is in love with me.”

“How could he not be?” I teased.

“No, I mean it. He truly loves me.” Her voice was very matter-of-fact, as if she were saying the sky was blue. “He loves me the way I loved Pierre.”

The mention of my brother's name was a little dagger to my heart. “Do you still?”

“No.” She lifted her shoulders and took another puff. “But perhaps I am still in love with the image I had of him as a little girl.”

“You had a crush on him when we were younger?”

She nodded, then looked away, uncharacteristically shy for a girl who was usually so bold and confident. “Remember when we used to play house?”

My thoughts slipped back. We couldn't have been more than six or seven years old. Pierre always played the father, going off to work and
teaching classes, and Yvette was the mother. Thomas and I were the children, relegated to taking orders, misbehaving, and being punished.

“I used to believe it could be that way. That we would be a couple like that we when grew up.”

I had not realized she'd harbored any such dream. I had thought we'd told each other everything. Evidently not.

“When we started writing, after he joined the army and went away—well, I realized I'd been waiting my whole life for him to notice me. I think I was only interested in other boys as a way to try to attract his attention.” She flicked away the ash of her cigarette. “But I was in love with a fantasy of Pierre instead of the real man. The real Pierre . . .” She broke off. “I shouldn't say bad things about your brother.”

“He is no longer my brother,” I said staunchly. “I have no brothers left.”

We walked a while in silence.

“What about your Nazi?” I asked.

“Dierk is not really a Nazi.”

Oh, no; she had gone over to the enemy!

My face must have looked as horror-stricken as I felt, because she grinned. “Do not look at me like that. It is not what you think.”

“Then what is it?”

“I have learned that not all German soldiers are Nazis.”

“You have been brainwashed.”

“No. Dierk is German, yes. He is a soldier, yes. But he does not believe the Nazi doctrine and is not a member of the Nazi party. He is as horrified as we are at what is happening to the Jews and Gypsies and crippled.”

“So why does he fight for them?”

“He fights for his fatherland, as his father and grandfather and great-grandfather and generations of family before him fought for their home. As our forebearers fought for France—for Napoleon, for example. If you recall your history lessons, he invaded other countries—countries who no doubt felt about the French as we feel about the Germans.”

She drew another drag from her cigarette. “Dierk has a good and
decent heart. Under any other circumstances, he would be an admirable man. His character—what he is like at the core—is steady and fair and intelligent, thoughtful and patient and, yes—I will say it—kind.”

“Now I have heard everything,” I said.

“German soldiers are just like French soldiers. They can be kind, they can be cruel. We all have both within us. It is a matter of what predominates. And in Dierk . . . he looks for the good in others. He wants to treat others well.”

“You sound like a woman in love.”

“No. I do not think I have it within me to love again. And I am well aware that he is the enemy. Even if he weren't, he is a married man—the father of three children, no less! Three children he adores—and he is cheating on his wife. And yet . . . he tries to give as much as he takes.”

“From whom?”

“From everyone. But especially from me.” She blew out a perfect circle of smoke.

“In the bedroom?” I questioned, frankly curious.

“Yes. Especially there.”

We had never had the frank conversation about this that I longed for. “So what is it like?”

“It is good. Amazing, actually.”

“Better than with Pierre?” What was I asking? I quickly added, “Not that I want details.”

“Dierk is a generous lover. He understands a woman and he knows what he is doing. He seeks my pleasure before his own.” Her hand arched gracefully as she tapped ash from her cigarette. “He is the type of man a woman could build a life with. He is not a perfect man, certainly, but he has many excellent qualities. I wonder if his wife knows how fortunate she is.”

“It certainly sounds as if you love him.”

“I enjoy his company. I like him. He gives me great pleasure. But all the same, I spy on him and his friends. I work to thwart his plans. I use him.”

“He uses you, too.”

“It truly does not feel that way. I have awakened to see him watching me when I sleep, his eyes full of tenderness.”

“Does M. Henri know that you feel this way?” I said sharply.

“He knows that Dierk loves me.”

“Does he know that you reciprocate?”

“I don't.” She frowned at me. “Truly, I do not. I fear that the part of my heart that can love a man has been crushed forever. The only emotion I feel for him is this: I am not as full of hate as I should be.” She tossed the cigarette to the pavement and ground it out with her foot. “That does not mean I will not kill him in his sleep if I am told to do so.”

“Could you?”

“Yes. I would regret it, but yes.” She sighed. “As I said, I am not as full of hate as I should be.”

“There are no hard-and-fast rules,” I said.

“But there should be, don't you think? There should be just a few. Simple ones, such as if you are French, you should hate all German occupiers. And I do hate them, collectively. It is on an individual basis that things become muddy.”

I turned this over in my mind long after we went our separate ways. Was liking an individual German officer any worse than despising a member of your own family?

In the eyes of God, perhaps they are separate sides of the same coin.

June 5, 1944

D
id you hear it?” Tante Beatrice asked the moment she opened the door for me.

“Hear what?” I stepped inside, the onions and sulphur in the poultice wafting around me like the odor around soft cheese. The new bowl inside the basket did not contain the smell as well as the previous one—or perhaps the warmer weather was to blame.

“The BBC broadcast.” The elderly woman's eyes gleamed with excitement. “‘Wound my heart with a monotonous languor.'”

I was certain that Mme Zouet had lost her mind.

“Oh, mon Dieu!” gasped Mme Molin. “At last, at last! It's really about to happen!”

“What's about to happen?” I asked, feeling like a child whose parents were talking above my head.

“The Allies are coming! ‘Wound my heart with a monotonous languor' is the second line of ‘Chanson d'automne.'”

My heart raced. About ten days ago, the BBC had broadcast the first verse: “Long sobs of autumn violins.” That was to put the Resistance on alert that the Allied invasion would happen within two weeks.

Mme Zouet had already taken my basket and was lifting my shirt to undo my waist packet. “You need to turn around and go right home.”

“What? Why?”

“Because Pierre Manquin rode by wearing a green shirt, and I heard
that the Curvaises had a green kerchief tied around the basket of acorns by their door.”

“Plan vert!” cried Mme Molin.

Again, I felt like the left-out stepchild. “Which is?”

“It's a signal for the Résistance to sabotage the railroad system.”

“Which railroad?”

“Only those who are to do it know. But you should get home as soon as possible, in case it is yours.”

“Perhaps I should stay here,” I said. The thought of tanks and guns and man-to-man combat—or of the Luftwaffe bombing the Allies, or the Allies bombing the Germans—seemed more terrifying in a city setting than in the country.

“No. We will need ears in Paris. You must leave now.”

“Won't people think it is strange if I leave as soon as I arrive?”

“Simply say that I have a contagious rash and you were afraid you would catch it.”

“That will work?”

“Like a charm,” said Mme Molin. “If there's anything the Germans fear, it's illness.”

Mme Molin drove me back to the station and I caught the first train back to Paris, hugging the knowledge to myself like a secret love. The Allies were coming! I wondered who else knew.

Right before the Toulouse stop, a small Frenchman from the side of the car ambled up and sat down beside me. “I love to sing in the autumn, don't you, Mademoiselle?”

I did not know if it was a trap. I kept my eyes straight ahead. For all I knew, he worked for the Germans. “I love music year-round,” I said carefully.

“Yes, but especially in the autumn,
n'est-ce pas
?”

“I do not know what you mean.”

“I see you on this train every few weeks.”

“I go to visit my ailing aunt.”

“Of course you do.”

I did not like the slyness in his eye. “What about you? Why are you on the train so often?”

“I go to the country to trap.”

With food so scarce, it was not an uncommon thing for Parisians to do. “What do you trap? Rabbits? Doves? Squirrel?”

He leaned forward as the train jerked to a halt. The motion of the train threw him into an intimate closeness. “Germans,” he whispered, then rose and bounded off the train.

I watched him go. Such boldness was dangerous to us all, yet I could understand the emotion that prompted it. Over the next twenty-four hours, I was almost feverish with excitement, sneaking away to see if the radio was on. I could not believe so many people could keep such a wonderful and momentous secret. I wondered if perhaps Tante Beatrice and the stranger on the train were wrong.

The next morning, the Germans were somber and talking low. I passed by the radio room, and was delighted to see it strewn with coffee cups and beer steins. Straightening it up gave me an excuse to go in and listen.

Several German officers were huddled around the radio, their arms folded, their faces stern. The radio was set to the BBC, which was blaring in English. I, of course, pretended not to understand a word.

One of the junior officers was translating the English broadcast into German for his grave-faced superiors:

Supreme Allied Headquarters have issued an urgent warning to inhabitants of the enemy-occupied countries living near the coast. The warning said that a new phase in the Allied Air Offensive had begun. Shortly before this warning, the Germans reported that Havre, Calais, and Dunkirk were being heavily bombarded and that German naval units were engaged with Allied landing craft.

I carried a tray of dirty glasses to the kitchen, trying hard not to smile.

I went by the radio room again at mid-morning. “
D-day has come
,”
the announcer said. I couldn't hear the next part because of the hubbub the Germans made following the translation. At length they quieted down, and I heard the following:

Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces, began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France
.

Again, an uproar obscured the broadcast. I picked up coffee cups that were closer to the radio.

The Allied Commander-in-chief General Eisenhower has issued an order of the day addressed to each individual of the Allied Expeditionary Force. He says, “Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped, and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely. But this is the year 1944. The tide has turned. The free men of the world are marching together to victory. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory. Good luck, and let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.”

I scurried from the room, my head down to hide my smile.

“What is going on?” Isolde asked me at lunch. “The Germans are all worried-looking and solemn.”

My mouth itched to spill the news. It should not to come from me, however. I could not risk it.

“Maybe the Allies have landed,” one of the assistant cooks said.

“Oh, do you think?” Isolde asked.

I hurried back to work, not trusting myself to keep my mouth buttoned.

Later that afternoon, I heard some high-ranking German officers talking in a meeting room as I swept the service hallway.

“Where was the führer during this landing?”

“Asleep at the Eagle's Nest in Berchtesgaden,” said the second officer. “He left orders not to be disturbed, and no one dared wake him.”

“I can understand. I would rather face hell itself than Herr Hitler's rage.”

“His rage
is
hell itself.”

“No. I fear hell is what is happening on the north coast—and what we are in for from here on out,” said the third.

“What of Rommel? He's there on the coast. He could have directed the armored forces into action.”

“He dared not,” the first officer said. “The führer is the only one with that power, and he was asleep.”

“We had units on hand that fought.”

“Yes, but it was not enough. All of the tanks should have rolled into action immediately.”

—

I sent word to Yvette to meet me. She, of course, had already heard the news. We hugged like giddy schoolgirls. “It has finally happened!” she said.

“It is just a matter of time now,” I said.

“Chérie, we must think of what we will do when the war ends.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, do you want to work at the hotel for the rest of your life?”

“Of course not!”

“I have an aunt in America—my mother's youngest sister. I think we should go live with her.”

“And leave France?” I could not imagine leaving my country, after working so hard to liberate her.

“Just for a while. Until things improve.”

“They will improve once the Nazis leave.”

“I will need a fresh start, Amélie.” She looked at me with somber eyes. “I will need to put this behind me.”

She was right, I realized solemnly. Yvette was likely to suffer reprisals for sharing a Nazi's bed, even though she had done so to help the
Resistance. She would benefit from a long voyage. No doubt I would, as well.

“When the Nazis no longer read our mail, I will write to her, and we will make our plans.” Yvette bounced on the balls of her feet. “Oh, it's so wonderful that the war is finally, truly about to come to a close!”

“It is not over yet,” I cautioned. “The Allies have only just now landed.
Il ne faut pas vendre la peau de l'ours avant de l'avoir tué.
”