The Siren of Paris (21 page)

April, 1943
Paris, France

“M
arc, should we be arrested, you think they would question us about the game?” Jacques asked calmly. Jean and Georges sat around the table, each holding a hand of cards.

“Perhaps, but likely not,” Marc said, his tone cold.

“Let’s get on with this. We have work to do,” Georges complained.

“I have made contact with another house just south of the city. She can take up to two birdies at once,” Jean said.

“We have lost another house, but he could only take one, so we are at least ahead,” Georges continued.

“What happened? Do you know?” Marc asked with concern.

“He was not arrested but deported for the force labor call-up. He was twenty-three years old,” Jean said.

“But Marc, about arrest—how did you deal with this before?” Jacques asked.

“Safe houses? We were it, and still are. Sometimes they stay with the doctor, and sometimes I have one in my home,” he paused. “R has always set up the arrangements south, so I do not know them, but we have never had this many at one time.”

“Tomorrow morning, then, we will be by,” Georges said to Marc.

“The mornings are working out well. Everyone else is up and going about, so they blend in perfectly.” Marc paused and said, “We must avoid evenings because the assumption is to stop you. I was stopped just the other night and it was not even dark.”

“But what about arrests? How have you dealt with the problem of when you lose someone to arrest, is my question,” Jacques asked for a second time.

Marc grew somber. “It has only happened once, back in ’41. I will just say it was a real lesson.”

“And?” Jacques continued to press.

“I was lucky. I was meeting with Boris Vidal and Angus from the university, and then they were gone. I did not know all the details, but I do now. It was an early paper,
Resistance
, and stupid. Some of us were just lucky, but too much risk and arrogance over courage.”

“Did you have to run?” Jean asked next.

“No. I changed nothing. I went to work and kept to my routine. I have been told if they are watching, they want to see if you react, because that means you must know.”

“That could be a problem because we are each other’s routine,” Georges said.

“We may need our own safe houses?” Jean asked.

“Perhaps, but fear will only stop us,” Jacques said. “The reason I asked is because something is coming up soon. Marc, would you be able to help on the morning of Bastille Day?” Jacques asked.

“What is the game plan?” Marc asked cautiously.

“It will be our largest circulation to date. We are printing up 250,000 copies of the
Defense de la France
and will be distributing them in broad daylight on corners of the city. It is our two-year anniversary,” Jacques said.

“What if you are arrested?” Marc asked in disbelief.

“That is what I am asking about. We are going to be distributing under armed guards, but we also need watchmen. We need eyes set apart and away that can give us time if they should come,” Jacques said.

Marc thought carefully about the request and it made sense to him. His personal risk was low, and he aided others taking a greater risk for all. The idea of 250,000 papers in broad daylight, he found inspiring.

“Yes, I can do that,” he said, “but you realize this is going to cost you. They will see and they will search after that,” he said.

“Yes, we know, but we promised ourselves this goal,” Georges said.

“We will have plans, of course, Marc,” Jean said.

“Put me down for watchman and safe house if it comes to that. What is the date?”

“July 14,” Jacques said.

“Bastille Day,” Marc said.

“The date our paper began,” Jean said.

“Gentlemen, this has been an outstanding game of cribbage. You are incredibly gifted players of the game.” Each laughed out loud. Marc then took up his tea and made a toast, “To Boris and Angus, watch over us fools.” He then took the board from the table and replaced it in his satchel.

September, 1940
Saint-Nazaire, France

“I am not ready to go yet and, besides, not sure where,” Marc said to Joan.

“Well, at some point you need to come up with a plan. I can’t pay you to work at the hospital,” she said. “I barely have enough for supplies.”

“That is not it. Besides, I have a few francs now from digging,” Marc said.

“Why are you helping him?” she asked.

“The officer? What choice do I have? Either I help him or I am going to be sent off to some camp, or sent south. What am I supposed to do?” Marc answered back, his voice tense with surprise.

“I hate him. I think …” But she did not get far.

“You asked him for graves, and he got the graves. You asked him for a funeral service, and there was a service. You have been sick every day now and barely up and around. A German, not a British, and not a Frenchman, but a German organized and set up the service for nameless bodies that floated up on the shores here. What more do you want? He is no more a demon than the men who decided to overload that ship,” Marc said indignantly.

“He did that? I thought you did that?” Joan turned to Marc, her face perplexed.

“I cannot do that alone. He sends me because they will listen to me. I am an American. You know the French. It does not matter how well you can speak, but where you are from. The only reason they listen to me now is because I am not British, and I am not German and I am not French.” Marc smiled and said, “At least not French enough for them to distrust.”

“I know some people in England,” she said as she tried to sit up in the bed.

“So do I, and I think if I can get a fisherman to take me, then maybe I can stay with him. I probably would’ve made it over there with him if I had not been so sick, but that is the past now. And after a bit, I can get up to Glasgow and get home,” Marc’s voice cracked.

“Why, Lazarus, you could just walk upon the waves?” she said.

“What do you mean?” Marc asked, perplexed.

“Lazarus sur Mer, that is the name the nurses gave you. You were dead, but then rose again from the sea. They believe you are blessed.”

“Blessed by an angel.”

“Oh, and what angel would that be?”

“You, the Angel of Saint-Nazaire.”

“Who calls me that?

“I do, because, had it not been for you, I would’ve still been in the sea floating dead. Officer Sean never fails to remind me how you saved me.”

“Do they know yet?” she asked, sitting up in the bed.

“Yes. I got word back,” Marc said.

“How?”

“Officer Sean had a friend call for me down at Vichy. So, at least they know I am well, and not dead someplace.”

“Maybe you are right about him?” she said, and then a new wave of cramps overcame her.

April 1943
Paris, France

Marc stood looking at the board of messages in the market, walking past the German guard who stood by the board. “I am looking for the ‘W’ family. Missing: good friend. Looking for father: missing from depot. Looking for brother: he left last on Feb 12.” None of the messages he read were of people he knew.

“Marc, Marc! Is that you?” he turned and ran straight into Marie.

“Oh my God!” she gushed. “What are you doing here? I thought you would be gone by now.”

“Marie, I don’t know what to say. You look great, by the way. It is good to see you again.” Marc replied. He did not have an answer for why a wall went up inside him just then. He heard his response and voice, and it rang cold in his head, which conflicted with the fact that he had proposed to this woman in the spring of ’40.

She hugged him and then said into his ear. “I am so glad to see you. I have missed you so much.” Marc melted and his formality fell.

“It … it …” he stammered. “Marie, I really have missed you as well.”

“Where are you staying? I have so many questions but, first, what are you doing for dinner?” she asked him next.

Marc then remembered why he was at the market in the first place and that, again, he had found nothing suitable to eat. She seemed different to him, but he pushed it aside in his mind, just as he tried to forget the war.

“Well, not sure yet. I am looking for anything but cat,” he said with coldness suddenly in his voice.

“Come to my place tonight for dinner. I have some rations. Not much, but enough. And I have so much to tell you.” She studied his contours and features. “You’re so much thinner. I have some work to do to get you up to weight again. But you are still so handsome.”

“Are you at the same place?” Marc asked.

“No, well, close. I am close.” She got out some paper and wrote down the address. Marc looked at it and realized he knew the building.

Marc saw her shoes. They were new, with leather soles. “No wonder I did not hear you walk up. You have leather shoes. Where did you get them?” he asked.

“Well, where do you think? The black market, of course,” she raised her eyebrows at him.

“Did they have men’s shoes? Do they take trade? How many francs?” Marc’s mind focused upon salvation from his hated wooden-soled shoes.

“I can see.”

“It is just so hard to get any leather these days because, you know, they take it all away.”

Over dinner, Marc explained how he did not get home. He talked about the ship, and the people aboard, the hospital and Officer Sean in St. Nazaire. Marc talked with Marie without any guard for the first time in almost two years.

“Are you in?” she asked him.

“In what?” he asked, perplexed by the question.

“The movement, silly. Are you doing any work with the heroes?” she said, her eyes bright.

Marc stopped cold and was not sure how to respond next. He studied her. Her question suddenly seemed to wake him up. Marc seemed to forget the world for a moment, how he’d been talking about all these things that had happened to him. He never actually thought of how it all related to Marie.

“No, Marie, I cannot get involved with that. I’ve already been interned once. When America entered the war, they arrested us all. The only reason I’m back here is due to the hospital work.” He then remembered and said, “Oh, and the strange fact the Germans have no idea what to do with someone who is both French and American. Otherwise, I would be working with the others.” He thought to himself,
I cannot tell her the truth because I cannot protect her from it.

“I am,” she said in a proud tone.

“What? What do you mean by ‘in’? In exactly what?” Marc pressed with a mixture of concern and suspicion in his voice.

“It is why I have come back to Paris. I am here to work, to help with the papers,” she said, as if he should have known this fact. She looked down as though hiding something else from him. “And a few other things. You know, whatever is needed.”

Marc crossed his arms, and his face set with fear. In his mind flashed the faces of others he had know who had disappeared. In addition to the random arrests that have taken place, there was the round-up of Jews at the ice rink in the summertime, the occasional round-up of innocents at the Metro who would be executed in reprisal for attacks on the Germans. His skin started to burn with nervousness that Marie could be next. His dream of sharing a life with her was shattered by the fear inside him that she, too, might be arrested, rounded up, or shot, that she could simply disappear in the night.

“You should stop. It is not something you should be doing or even talking about. It is not safe at all,” Marc said in a low, hushed tone.

“Nothing is safe, Marc. I cannot just sit by and watch my country slip away. Nothing is safe,” Marie said.

Marc realized she was right, and that she had changed. He feared her, but for a different reason than the guards or checkpoints. He feared her courage. To him it meant she would soon be dead or missing like the others.

A sudden wall of disconnection descended in his mind. Marc hated to face the ultimate fear of such work. Without any words to describe it, he retreated emotionally, yet still listened to her as she continued on. He had only remembered her as the scared girl at the movie back in May 1940, hating that she would become those people in the newsreel. Now, she seemed to jump at the chance to join the newsreel. Marc’s stomach was sick, as if he had swallowed a bowling ball.

“I know the risk, but I couldn’t live with myself if I did nothing at all,” she said. She blazed with courage, and Marc burned under it in fear. He searched for some escape from the conversation.

“Do you have a bike? You will need a bike,” Marc said next, trying to stir it away.

“I can take the Metro, and walk,” Marie answered back, perplexed.

“Take the bike. The Metro is not that safe. If something should happen, they pick up the hostages from the Metro trains. Or, they set up spot inspections in the Metro. You will need a bike, Marie. I have an extra one.”

“Marc, what do I do with my Metro tickets, then? Can you use them?” she asked.

“I never ride the Metro, and you need to live further out, but maybe they will not take your bike, being a woman.”

“Take my bike?”

“If you can walk to work, or take the Metro, and if the Germans stop you on a bike, they could take it from you because, technically you should not need a bike.”

“Things have changed.”

“Yes, Marie, they have,” Marc said, expressionless. All the desire he’d had to make love to her left him that night as a tide of fear over the future rushed onto the shore of his soul.

June, 1943
Paris, France

“I
t is too early,” she said to the agent.

“Does he trust you?” the agent asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Yes, of course. That is not the problem. The problem is that things have shifted. Time has gone by.”

“He likely is involved. It is just a matter of how and with whom,” the agent suggested to Marie.

“I agree, and this is why it is going to require time. If you just want to arrest someone, anyone, then sure, I likely can move this along, but,” she paused and considered her next words, “if you want to get an entire ring, and how they do business on the front and back end, then this will be an investment of time.” She looked at him. “But worth it because it will be above and beyond all the other small little fishes you have caught.”