Final transgression, p.1
Final Transgression, page 1
FINAL
TRANSGRESSION
One Woman’s Tragic Destiny in War-torn France
HARRIET WELTY ROCHEFORT
Praise for FINAL TRANSGRESSION
In this gripping, beautifully written novel about love and betrayal, Harriet Welty Rochefort vividly portrays the ambiguity and complexity of trying to survive in Nazi-occupied France, where things are never quite what they seem. The story of Séverine Sevanot, a beautiful, headstrong young woman who returns to her hometown in southwest France only to be swept up in the violent score-settling of resistance fighters there, will grab your attention and keep you thinking for a long time to come.
–Lynne Olson, New York Times bestselling author of
Madame Fourcade’s Secret War
Harriet Welty Rochefort’s historically well-grounded Final Transgression starts with rural tranquility and accelerates to a shocking end as a young woman’s high spirits entangle her in the turmoil of Nazi-occupied France. A vigorous and compelling tale.
–Robert O. Paxton, author of Vichy France:
Old Guard and New Order
In her elegant and often moving book, Final Transgression, Harriet Welty Rochefort looks beyond the political and military headlines of World War II to probe individual lives and uncover how the German occupation of France poisoned friendships, shattered loves and forged bitter memories better forgotten.
–Alan Riding, author of And The Show Went On:
Cultural Life in Nazi-occupied Paris
In Final Transgression, Harriet Welty Rochefort has written a compelling novel of the cultural and political trials undergone by France during the first half of the 20th century. Her deep knowledge of France and intermixing of the events and the texture that defined the 1930s and 1940s—clothes, behavior, decor, everyday life in general—engage while subtly instructing the reader. Final Transgression succeeds admirably in edifying while moving its readers.
–Ronald C. Rosbottom, author of When Paris Went Dark
and Sudden Courage
This story lays bare the ugliness of war and what people resort to in wartime, but in fleshing out her characters with sympathy for human frailty, the author enables the reader to put himself or herself in their shoes. Final Transgression does a wonderful job of unraveling the complicated web of local factions that clashed under the Nazi occupation of France and the hotheaded heroine seemed almost doomed from the start - there were times I wanted to chime in and steer her away from her own actions as she hurtled headlong towards her fate. A great read.
–Lilianne Milgrom, artist and author of L'Origine
With her deep knowledge of France and the French, Harriet Welty Rochefort gives readers a fresh tale about the endlessly fascinating period of French history, the second world war. Through a cast of characters ranging from local nobility to a family of caretakers, Final Transgression gives an intimate portrait of French society, with its strict codes and class resentments. Set between Paris and a small town in the southwest of France, the story draws the reader into the intrigues of the war and its devastating effects on everyone, even the many who just wanted to get through it. The secrets that this murky time generated touch the lives of generations to come. Harriet Welty Rochefort paints this complex tableau with a fine brush and a great deal of humanity.
–Mary Fleming, author of The Art of Regret
and Someone Else
I found it easy to lose myself while reading Final Transgression, which begins with an apparently mundane television interview and quickly turns into an ultimate page turner. Harriet Welty Rochefort’s novel explores the overpowering and often paralyzing class differences that existed in pre-war France. The vivacious heroine of the story is oblivious to the earthshaking events taking place around her. Her sparkling sense of independence and refusal to make concessions propel her towards her inevitable destiny. Harriet Welty Rochefort has spent several decades observing the intricate details of French culture and is uniquely qualified to write this story.
–William Dowell, former Time magazine
correspondent and bureau chief
Also by Harriet Welty Rochefort
French Toast:
An American in Paris Celebrates the Maddening Mysteries of the French
French Fried:
The Culinary Capers of an American in Paris
Joie De Vivre:
Secrets of Wining, Dining, and Romancing Like the French
FINAL
TRANSGRESSION
One Woman’s Tragic Destiny in War-torn France
A NOVEL
HARRIET WELTY ROCHEFORT
UNDERSTAND FRANCE, PARIS
UNDERSTAND FRANCE, PARIS, 2020
Copyright ©2020 by Harriet Welty Rochefort. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations in a book review and certain other uses permitted by copyright law. Any other use constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.
This book is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, events and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Print ISBN: 978-2-9572444-0-9
ebook ISBN: 978-2-9572444-1-6
For Philippe
Contents
PROLOGUE
PART ONE - Paradise
Chapter ONE
Chapter TWO
Chapter THREE
Chapter FOUR
Chapter FIVE
Chapter SIX
Chapter SEVEN
Chapter EIGHT
Chapter NINE
Chapter TEN
Chapter ELEVEN
PART TWO - The Paris Years
Chapter TWELVE
Chapter THIRTEEN
Chapter FOURTEEN
Chapter FIFTEEN
Chapter SIXTEEN
Chapter SEVENTEEN
Chapter EIGHTEEN
Chapter NINETEEN
Chapter TWENTY
Chapter TWENTY-ONE
Chapter TWENTY-TWO
PART THREE - Paradise Lost
Chapter TWENTY-THREE
Chapter TWENTY-FOUR
Chapter TWENTY-FIVE
Chapter TWENTY-SIX
Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE/ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
GLOSSARY
TIMELINE OF HISTORICAL EVENTS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
Marnes-la-Coquette: June 1994
Félix Aubry pushed open the gate to his mother’s house. As he strode past the pink rose bush in full bloom towards the small flight of stone stairs that led to the main door of the charming little ivy-covered cottage, a familiar mix of smells hit him. He stood still for a moment, breathing in the heady combination of the delicate Antoine Ducher roses and the sweet summer smell of apricots. His mother must be cooking; she adored stewing fresh fruit. Laced in with that seductive odor was the faint and slightly acrid scent of oils. She was working on a new painting—perhaps a still life of apricots, he thought, although she’d spent her days as a copyist in the great museums. Caroline Aubry didn’t see a difference between the noble and the mundane. A bowl of apricots was as interesting to her as a portrait of a prince.
If he’d been alone, Félix might have sneaked up to the kitchen window, maybe give her a bit of a scare before bursting into the house like he used to when he was little. Caroline had loved the game then, reacting in mock horror to his scary face. Older now and more fragile, she would have been a little embarrassed to think that someone, even her own grown-up son, had been secretly observing her. Félix stopped, although he knew he could get away with just about anything as long as he showed respect. Respect, she had taught him, meant removing your hat when entering a house (he automatically took his off before getting to the front door), standing up when an adult enters the room, and other such prescriptions he had found ridiculous when young but was now happy to have acquired, especially when he saw the boorish conduct of some of his colleagues.
He turned to his companion, who had plunged his prominent nose into one of the pink roses. “Well, here we are!” he exclaimed.
“That smell—all those smells—delicious!” Kirk Morland said, laughing as he straightened up and threw his stylish linen jacket casually over one shoulder. Félix and Kirk had met a year earlier, covering events leading to the fiftieth anniversary of the D-Day landings. They had become almost inseparable despite their differences. Félix was a Frenchman of medium build, with sandy hair and blue eyes. Kirk was American, well over six feet tall, with dark eyes and hair that was almost black. He was the anchorman for a prominent U.S. television station, and Félix was a freelance cameraman who worked for a number of American news organizations. Félix admired Kirk’s professionalism and his fluent, if accented, French. Kirk, for his part, admired Félix’s sense of humor, his self-deprecating nature and perfect English.
When Kirk had told Félix that his network was scheduling a program about what ordinary French people had been doing on D-Day, Félix
“She lived through the war. She’s quite elegant, and she looks very French.”
Kirk had raised his eyebrows at the last comment—a lot of French people looked very French, it went with the territory. But since Félix had helped him whenever he’d needed to find out who was who in the tightly knit world of French politics, Kirk had readily agreed. Félix had gone on to tell him more about his mother: how she’d raised him alone; how she’d undertaken to teach him everything from painting to gardening to cooking and how, in spite of her age, she lived in the present, not the past.
The description he gave piqued Kirk’s interest. He told Félix that he’d very much like to hear her comments, and perhaps her reflections on what it was like to live through a war and whether it had changed her life. Seeing Félix’s look of discomfort, Kirk reassured him that they could always edit her interview if she went on for too long. Either way it would be fascinating material. Millions of viewers would tune in to hear real life stories from people who’d been alive during the war.
Kirk had been surprised when Félix insisted that his mother speak to him and no one else. Perhaps she was shy, or maybe too many other reporters had been pestering her. It was none of his business; he simply hoped that she’d be photogenic, and he’d get a few good anecdotes from an ordinary person who had lived through extraordinary times. He was pleased with this new angle: a novel subject, a good profile of a dignified French woman in her home, a bit of vicarious self-identification for the viewers as they wondered what they’d have done in her place. Wasn’t that the business of TV news? Maybe she would tear up—cry even. Emotion, that was the ticket.
The sound of footsteps interrupted Kirk’s thoughts. The lacquered green door opened, and a slightly built and slender woman stepped out into the porchway. She was perfect; her silver hair gave her a dignified air and her blue eyes sparkled with a lively intelligence. She hugged Félix and shook Kirk’s hand formally after the introductions had been made. As they all stepped into the small vestibule and began making small talk, Kirk transformed automatically into reporter mode, gauging how well her low and well-modulated voice, her quintessentially French appearance and demeanor (Félix had been right about that) would play. He knew immediately that she would play very well indeed.
Even at her advanced age, Félix’s mother stood straight. She smelled of an exotic perfume and was stylishly dressed in what looked to Kirk like a Chanel suit, although he employed a fashion correspondent to make observations like that. She was the kind of woman people describe as poised and elegant, Kirk mused. She’d have turned heads in her youth, and she still had that indefinable presence that would be perfect for the camera.
Kirk turned his attention away from Madame Aubry and looked around the small vestibule; every object in it seemed to have been carefully chosen. On the shelves were leather-bound copies of books by Racine, Balzac and Victor Hugo as well as a few objets and carefully framed photos. Madame Aubry ushered them into the main part of the house, and again Kirk was quietly impressed: it didn’t correspond to his preconceptions of old lady decor. He’d imagined dinginess, musty unpleasant odors and dusty, worn antique furniture crowded into small rooms. Instead, bouquets of fresh flowers from the garden perfumed the air. The walls of the ground-floor rooms were painted a refined and restful shade of pale rose; the sofas, which faced each other in front of the fireplace, were dove gray, and the only older pieces of furniture were a marble-topped console on which a group of silver-framed photos was aligned, and at one end of the sitting room a pair of chairs he couldn’t identify: Louis, probably, but which one? He’d have to ask Félix. He had the feeling Caroline was reading his mind as she indicated one of the Louis something-or-other chairs to him.
“Please do sit down, Mr. Morland. I have to apologize for my poor English,” Caroline said, looking Kirk directly in the eyes, but quickly moving her gaze to Félix. “I didn’t have the same opportunities as Félix—or, let us say, the war interrupted them. I wanted to go to England to practice my English and work as a governess when I was young, but you can’t always choose when real life intervenes, n’est-ce pas?”
She’s leading me right into my interview, Kirk thought. Does she know it, or is it something more instinctive? Either way, he felt himself warming towards her. Fortunately, Félix had begun filming the minute they sat down, so her first remarks weren’t lost.
“When you say that real life intervenes, Caroline… May I call you Caroline?
“Please do,” she replied. But she stiffened imperceptibly, a change that Félix noticed immediately because he knew her so well. Caroline was French and formal. But she was also kind, and would never want to embarrass her son’s friend. She and Félix exchanged a secret look of understanding and bemusement.
Kirk plunged ahead. “Are you saying that the war was real life for you, or was it more of a parenthesis, something to get through before your real life resumed?”
“Both,” Caroline affirmed, as she appraised her son’s friend. These Americans were so fresh-looking, so cheerful, so optimistic! How could they begin to imagine what it was like to live in an occupied country, scrounge for food, fear that bombs might land on you? She rarely watched TV programs about the war. But when she did, she sympathized with the interviewers who attempted to capture the complexity of the times. Not many tried. Generally, they always wanted a simple answer, a black and white description. She had decided that she would be black and white for this interview. Why waste the poor man’s time? Why bring up issues no one would understand?
It was only recently that Caroline had allowed herself to think or talk about the war at all. She was now, she knew, so old that she was free of her previous fears. She felt like a child at the water’s edge, afraid of the ocean yet letting little waves slide over her toes, becoming more relaxed each time they did. For years she had stopped at the water’s edge. She had the feeling she might soon swim out to sea, and this interview marked the beginning of the letting go.
“So, may I call you Kirk?” she asked, tilting her head and smiling. Caroline certainly knew how to charm, Félix reflected, watching her. He knew how much she hated instant familiarity, but he also knew how good she was about excusing foreigners who didn’t know any better. He assumed that his colleague probably wouldn’t pick up on the friendly tease, but he did, and he acknowledged it with a smile.
“Of course,” Kirk replied, instantly realizing he should have addressed her more formally. Once again, he’d caught on to something in French life when it was too late. So many nuances, so many codes. Perhaps he’d have a French wife someday who would help him sort them out, he thought, his mind wandering as he took in the carefully arranged but cozy room and the view of a majestic oak tree framed in the big picture window next to the fireplace.
“Where were you when the war broke out?” he asked, bringing his attention back to the matter at hand.
“We were in Paris. I was with my parents and my sister. When we heard the Germans were almost at the city limits, we did what everyone else was doing: we packed the valuables we could transport and hid the rest under the floorboards or other places it might take the invaders too long to find. Then my mother and sister and I started walking. We slept in an abandoned farmhouse, drank water from the well and tried not to think about our few possessions, most of which were sentimental. My father had stayed behind—he wanted us to be safe and out of Paris but insisted on remaining to watch over our building, where he worked as a concierge.
“When we returned ten days later, we were astonished to see that everything was as we had left it. Nothing had been stolen, yet it would have been so easy. We resumed our lives, but everything was different—and difficult.” She paused, feeling she was perhaps becoming one of those old people she so despised, telling their tales of woe.
“For example?” Kirk prodded her gently. He had a kindly face, and an encouraging expression that helped ease her self-consciousness.
“Oh, you’ve seen pictures of the bread lines, and I’m sure you know about the rationing,” she said. “That’s war—mostly it’s just a terrible waste of time. You’d spend most of your day trying to get food—in fact, I think if the French are now obsessed by food, the war years may be one of the reasons. We’re afraid of not having enough to eat—those of us who lived through the war, anyway.
