Sisters of night and fog, p.34
Sisters of Night and Fog, page 34
“No!”
The men stop and look at her, surprised by her vehemence.
“No,” she says, more calmly. “I’m fine. Aspirin and elevation, and it’ll be good as new.”
The men stare at her until she continues forward, and they follow, making the rest of the walk in silence. But when they reach the main road through town, a wailing sound stops them. The noise is coming from up ahead, near the church. They proceed with caution until they get a good view of where a small crowd has gathered. A woman weeps and presses her hands to her heart while a sober-looking group of Maquis carry one of their own on a sheet toward a priest. The boy’s forehead is covered in blood from a gash on it.
Violette and her men hurry toward the group, where Alain stands on the fringe.
“Is he . . . ?” asks Violette.
Alain nods.
“What happened?” asks Clement.
“The boches?” asks Robert.
Alain shakes his head.
“Car accident,” he says, quietly. “Racing.”
Robert curses. Clement glares at Alain. Violette can’t take her eyes off the mother. She weeps and pulls at her hair, her grief radiating outward until Violette can feel it in her own mother bones.
* * *
—
THE NIGHT GIVES Violette no rest. She can’t get the sound of the mother’s weeping out of her mind. Violette knows that kind of raw grief all too well. She’d heard it from her mother, after Violette’s little brother Harry died. She’d embodied it herself when Étienne was killed. Each wail had ripped another layer of scar tissue off Violette’s heart, and now the wound is reexposed and burning.
Two days into her new mission, and Violette admits to herself that she regrets coming. She didn’t anticipate this. She never could have imagined how unsteady she’d feel. Regret and unease are foreign sensations to Violette, and she can’t get used to them. The thought of anything happening to her, and Maman again having to experience the grief of losing another child, is too much to process. The thought of Tania becoming an orphan— No.
Violette shakes her head and rises, washing in the basin in her room. The aspirin did little to help her ankle, but she takes more anyway. Dressing, she fastens a belt of secret money bags at her hips. Then she puts on a white blouse, a light blue suit, and flat-heeled shoes. She wonders if the virginal secretary cover might have been better, but it’s too late to rethink that now. She doesn’t have the papers for it, and she left her violet kerchief back in London, with her mother.
While she looks down at her emerald ring, a knock comes at the door. Madame Anna’s son, Pierrot, smiles when Violette opens it.
“Bonjour, ma petite,” Pierrot says.
It’s funny that a nine-year-old, who isn’t much shorter than she is, calls her by the name his mother has christened Violette, just like Jeanne in Rouen had. Pierrot places the breakfast tray on the sideboard and points to the bunch of wildflowers in a mason jar.
“I picked these for you,” he says, looking down at his feet.
“Oh, Pierrot!” she says. “You’ve done my heart good. Thank you.”
His ears turn red, and he runs from the room.
Violette raises her eyes to heaven, and thanks God for the boost in her mood. She was beginning to worry she might not be up for the journey.
At 0800, right on schedule, the men wait for her in the courtyard. She manages a smile for them and joins the meeting. While she and Clement go over the map, Jacques arrives. Clement barely acknowledges him and continues pointing out the best side roads to avoid the major known checkpoints.
“Jean Claude got word, Das Reich is on the move,” Clement says. “It won’t take them long to cross into the region. Don’t let down your guard for a moment.”
“Of course,” says Violette.
“If only the train lines were running. I hate to think of you cycling all that way, alone.”
“I can take her at least part of the trip,” says Jacques. “I’ve got business in Salon-la-Tour. Why don’t I drive her there? Then she can cycle the rest of the way.”
“No,” says Clement. “It’s too dangerous. You’re too conspicuous.”
“I take that route all the time. I have Maquis and family along the way.”
“Today is different. Every day after D-Day gets more dangerous.”
“We have a call system,” says Jacques. “They call village to village if they see any German movement.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” says Violette. “It’s a lot of ground to cover in one day.”
“No,” says Robert. “Not with the way you all drive. That boy died last night.”
“I know,” says Jacques, as serious as Violette has ever seen him. “And I take responsibility. I’ve set a bad example. I’ll take it slow.”
“It still feels like an unnecessary risk,” says Clement.
Violette’s ankle continues to throb. The thought of shaving off a third of the journey is a welcome one.
“Jacques knows the area,” she says.
“He’s got a price on his head from the Nazis, for God’s sake,” says Robert.
“So do you. And him,” she says, nodding at Clement. “And so do I, for that matter.”
Silence falls. Violette looks from one man to the next, until she arrives back at Jacques.
“Good,” she says. “It’s settled.”
Jacques gets to work, tying her bicycle to the passenger side of the car, its wheels resting on the running board. She sees a Marlin submachine gun on the passenger seat.
“That reminds me,” Violette says. “Since I won’t be on a bicycle, at least for the trip there, I want a Sten gun.”
“Why?” says Clement.
“Because I’m not going up against Das Reich with a revolver.”
“I don’t want you up against them even with a Sten.”
“What, are you turning into Miss Atkins? Get me one. And a couple of extra magazines.”
“Extra magazines?” says Robert. “Are you planning on taking on half the panzers?”
She gives him a look that makes him hold up his arms in surrender before hurrying to fetch her a gun from their stores. He’s back in no time, and Jacques is ready to go.
“You’ll be back in a day or two, oui?” says Robert.
“Yes,” says Violette. “I won’t even be gone long enough for you to miss me.”
“Miss you? Hardly! I’ll be able to go a full twenty-four hours without hearing you humming ‘I’ll Be Around.’ It’ll be heaven!”
She smiles and kisses him on both cheeks, followed by Clement.
“Bonne chance,” says Clement. “And you, Jacques, as a lieutenant, she outranks you, so you better follow her orders.”
“Yes, Major,” says Jacques.
“And hurry back,” Clement says to Violette. “I need you teaching the new boys to shoot.”
“I can cover that,” says Robert.
“I want the best instructor, not second best.”
Their laughter is music. It calls Madame Anna and Pierrot out to wish them farewell. It follows Violette until she climbs into Jacques’s car and they leave the village.
* * *
—
“GOOD THING I’M driving, with those clouds ahead,” says Jacques.
Violette doesn’t respond. She’s having a hard time conversing from the growing feeling of claustrophobia. Jacques strapped the bicycle to her side of the car, and she feels trapped. She holds the Sten gun across her lap, but it brings her less comfort than she thought it would.
“The boys are impressed by you,” says Jacques, oblivious to her desire to ride in silence. “They can’t believe a girl as pretty as you would get involved in a thing like this.”
She throws him a glare, but all it elicits from him is a wink.
I should have taken the bicycle, she thinks.
The road they travel is a single lane and winds through close rocky ledges, stretches of woods, and tight streets bordered by houses. Just when she thinks she’ll suffocate, the road opens to farmland. But all too soon, they’re again plunged into hedge-bordered country roads. After about ten kilometers, Jacques makes a different turn than she would have expected. She has memorized the best route, and this is not it.
“Why are you going this way?” she asks.
“I have to pick up a maquisard. My friend Jean. In La Croisille.”
“You didn’t mention any stops.”
“It’s mostly on the way. Don’t worry. There aren’t any Krauts in this little town.”
“I don’t appreciate changes to the plan. I wouldn’t have ridden with you if I’d known you had other stops.”
“This is it. I promise. And you’ll like Jean. Far more than you like me.”
When they arrive at a large, gray house crawling with ivy, a young man wearing glasses slips out of the garage and into the back seat. He pats Jacques on the back and nods to Violette.
“Jean, this is Corinne,” says Jacques.
“Very nice to meet you,” Jean says, with a warm smile.
Violette nods at him.
“What happened to Suzanne?” asks Jean.
“Nothing. Suzanne waits for me in Salon-la-Tour. Corinne is my . . .”
“Laundress,” she says wryly.
The boys both laugh as if what she said was hilarious, and Jacques continues on to Salon. Once they reach the open farmland, the boys start singing a raucous version of “La Marseillaise.”
“Should you roll up the windows?” Violette asks, shifting in her seat.
Her back sweats, and it’s not from the heat. She hasn’t stopped cursing herself since Jacques turned off to pick up his friend. And with every staring farmer they pass, it’s quickly becoming clear how badly they stick out in this vehicle. She should have listened to Clement’s first instincts.
The boys continue to sing French songs at the tops of their lungs. When they get to “La Madelon,” she feels that familiar stab in her heart. She thinks back to her wedding day, when they were all stuck in the bunker and Étienne had danced with her.
While struggling to control her emotions, she turns and looks out the window. The wind picks up and she realizes she’s squeezing the gun so tightly her hands are sore. After another twenty or so kilometers, she’s finally relieved to see signs for Salon-la-Tour.
Jacques starts blabbering about how he was born there and what a darling his girlfriend, Suzanne, is, when a flash of light, like a mirror in the sun, causes Violette to squint. She shields her eyes and tries to make out what’s at the crossroads. When she comprehends what’s ahead, she grabs Jacques’s arm.
“Stop,” she says.
He looks from the road to her and back, and slams on the brakes when he sees what she does. About fifty yards ahead, at a T in the road, a group of German MPs is setting up a roadblock. When the wheels squeal, the Germans look up. Two at the front lift their rifles and start toward them, shouting at them to get out with their hands up.
“Merde,” says Jacques.
“Sortez!” shouts one of the Germans, now forty yards from the car. “Maintenant!”
Violette feels a strange calm come over her. Everything around her falls away except her awareness of herself, her men, and her targets. They appear in her frame of vision like color figures on a black-and-white background. She listens to her own breath, to the beating of her heart, and readies the Sten.
“Jean, are you armed?” asks Violette, slipping the gun magazines from her satchel into her bra.
“No,” Jean says, voice quavering.
“Then, when I count to three, you’re going to have to run. We’ll cover you.”
“I can’t.”
“You must. Un. Deux. Trois.”
Jean throws open his door and takes off running. The first German shots burst forth. Jacques climbs out the driver’s side, crouches, and fires back through the open window, using the door as a shield. The Germans return fire, shattering the windshield. Glass raining over her, Violette feels a sting across her shoulder. She puts her head down and crawls across the shards to the driver’s side seat.
“Now, I’ll cover you,” she says. She crouches on the ground beside Jacques. “Go!”
Jacques takes off. Violette shoots—haphazardly to scare them, at first, but then she aims. The short MP with the thatch of black hair is her first target. She fires, sees him fly backward, and then aims for the man who has turned, running back toward the checkpoint. She fires and sees him fall face forward in the dirt. Two other German lorries squeal to the checkpoint, and dozens of men pour out.
She runs.
Jacques is at the edge of the wheat field, and fires cover shots while she races toward him. In her peripheral vision, she sees half the Nazis are on foot; the others run back to their vehicles to take the road running parallel to the fields. Her ankle throbs with white-hot pain, her shoulder stings, but she runs as she never before has.
Once she reaches the wheat, she sees an old woman step out of the barn between the fugitives and the Nazis. A soldier fires. The old woman staggers forward and lands on her hands and knees before collapsing in the dirt.
Nausea rises in Violette’s throat.
Violette aims at the shooter. She hits him.
“Go!” she tells Jacques, covering him as he races through the wheat.
As his footsteps recede, all she can hear is her breath, followed by the crisp blast of gunshots.
In, out. Shot.
In, out. Shot.
She hits one of the Nazis in the arm, a spray of blood shooting in all directions.
She runs.
The wheat moves around her and around Jacques, up ahead, swirling the way the wheat fields did on her drop night. A bullet whizzes past her head.
She listens to her own breath.
In. Out.
Jacques falls on his belly and crawls. She follows.
In. Out.
The wheat scratches at her hair and her legs. She can’t keep a good hold on her gun. She’s out of her first round. After a quick magazine change, she sees the edge of the wheat field open up to a field with low corn and no cover. Jacques waits for her.
“Run!” he says.
She takes off.
In. Out.
Shot.
She looks sideways and sees the lorries crawling along the road, the cowards keeping to their cars, afraid of a girl and a boy and their guns. While continuing to run, she aims at a tire on the first truck in the convoy and fires. It explodes. She reaches the gnarled brambles of a hedge and covers Jacques while he races to join her.
“Keep going,” she says.
Jacques breaks into a run at full speed until he reaches a grove of apple trees. He covers her and she takes off, seeing the woods rise high on the hill above them. They can lose the Nazis once they make it there. They just have to make it.
In. Out.
Shot.
In. Out.
Head up, she doesn’t see the divot in the field, the hole that swallows her ankle and pulls her down. She cries out in pain and has to crawl the rest of the way up the hill, to the apple trees. When she looks down, she sees her ankle already swelling. She didn’t need to see it to know.
“I’m done,” she says.
“No,” Jacques says. “I’ll carry you. We’re almost at the woods. We’ll lose them.”
“I’ll cover you. Keep going. Here.”
She removes the pouches of money from her hip bags, pressing them into his hands.
“Go,” she says. “Quickly. Back to my men. Tell them they don’t have to worry. I won’t break.”
“No, I won’t leave you, ma petite.”
A bullet whizzes past them. It hits the leaves above them. Violette thinks of her father shooting an apple off her head. She laughs.
“You’ll be all right,” says Jacques, crying. “I’ll carry you.”
The trucks get closer. Violette lifts her gun and shoots at a windshield, shattering it.
“We’ll accomplish nothing if we both get caught,” she says. “It’s every man for himself.”
“I can’t leave you,” he’s sobbing. “This is all my fault. I’m sorry.”
“Go! That’s an order.”
He looks at the Germans.
“Merde!” he cries.
He kisses her savagely on the cheek, looks at her a moment, and runs.
Violette maneuvers herself so the tree trunk is between her and the Germans. A quick scan reveals at least forty of them.
Sniper-style, she shoots at the Nazis. She aims for the gas tank of one of the lorries. The men pour out and advance, returning each of her shots with their own. Bullets whiz past the tree.
In. Out. Shot.
They return fire.
It’s a game.
An ungentlemanly game, she thinks. Ungentlemanly warfare.
She laughs.
In. Out. Shot.
In. Out. Shot.
In. Out. Click.
Aside from the sound of her breathing, there’s the gift of pure silence, if only for a moment, before the hard consonants on the German tongues get louder, closer. When the first Nazi reaches Violette, he drags her to standing and points at her. When the men following see what they’ve been fighting, they laugh. Then they drop their eyes, faces burning red with embarrassment.
The commander arrives, moving slowly toward her, regarding her as if she’s a dangerous animal.
I am, she thinks.
He bows to her, and his thick, rubbery lips curl into an ugly smile.
“Not bad,” he says, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket. “We have a few vacancies, if you’d like to turn coat.”
His men’s laughter rises, nervous, around him.
The commander notices Violette eyeing his cigarette.
“You’ve earned it,” he says.
