Voices on the Wind (18 page)

She said coolly, ‘With Dulac. That's my base now.'

There wasn't a flicker in the eyes when he heard it. ‘Meet me at the Café de l'Europe on the Place de La Liberté. I'll be there from seven o'clock onwards. Unless he forbids you.'

She faced him, their voices low. ‘Why should he?'

He shrugged. ‘Why should he, you're right. He wouldn't be jealous of me. So I'll wait for you, Cecilie. I've had word from London. Something special they want you to do.' He moved away, someone blocked her view for a moment and when it was clear he'd gone.

She went up to Dulac, touched his arm. ‘I'll make my own way,' she said. ‘I want to do some shopping. Don't worry if I'm late.' She hadn't imagined she would lie to him either.

One by one they dispersed; on foot, by bicycle, Janot making a long detour to where his van was parked. Beatrice was beside him. She was silent while they walked and during the drive back to her shop. He made up a load of empty boxes and set off for Valbonne as usual. Beatrice watched him go through the back window. It was grey with dirt and her face was a dim shadow behind it.

A neighbour's daughter was sitting with the baby. She was a pleasant, slightly retarded child of fourteen. Simple, but reliable. Beatrice gave her a bag of fresh vegetables as payment. Louis Cabrot. She said the name to herself as she lifted the baby and it began to whimper and then cry at full strength. ‘Cabrot agreed to work for them.' The smelly brute with his black hands, spitting on the floor by her feet! Poor Louis, whom she'd known since they were at convent school together. He and her dead husband had been boyhood friends. A poor man with terrible health; a wretched job that scraped a little money together for his wife and the two children he adored. He had worked for the Resistance without a thought for his own safety. ‘If Cabrot was a traitor he got what he deserved; if he wasn't, he was a hero who died for France.' She was concentrating on the words of the Maquis leader because she hated him. She had slammed the door of memory on what Dulac had said. But little by little it was coming open. She gave the baby its bottle and settled down to feed it. She thought of the lawyer who had helped her and so many like her. Janot's mother was only one of many widows who were in his debt. Such a kind, gentle man: strong and wise and dedicated to the cause of French liberty. She had often thought she would have died for him, if the test came. Believing in him and working for him had kept her from ending a life that had no meaning. The child was not enough. Sometimes her crying was a torture that she could barely stand. What had he said about Cabrot? ‘I dealt with it.' She put the baby down hurriedly and ran to the sink. She had eaten so little that it was impossible to be sick.

‘And what was the message from London?' Paul Roulier asked her.

‘There wasn't one,' Katharine Alfurd answered. ‘He wanted to be sure I'd go. I nearly got up and walked off, but the place was full of people, lots of German soldiers drinking beer and picking up girls. I didn't want to draw attention to myself, so I did nothing. I let the swine talk. I let him buy me some coffee and pretend it was a normal conversation. I'll never forget that evening.'

‘Why, what was so special about it?'

She gestured with one hand, impatient at the question. ‘I'd come up against reality for the first time,' she said. ‘A poor devil with consumption hauls me through a bloody minefield on a beach and gets me safe ashore and the next thing I know he's been “dealt with” because he's under suspicion. I couldn't believe it; I didn't want to accept it. I didn't, now that I think about it. I deliberately shut it out of my mind and if I hadn't met Pierrot at that café, I might have kept it out.'

‘A lot of people had to make decisions like that,' Roulier suggested. ‘Dulac was no exception. He was a sensitive man, it must have been terrible for him. But you realized that later, didn't you, Madame?'

She sighed. ‘Of course I did. I learned quickly not to judge. Not to ask too many questions. I was in love, you see. But not blind. I knew when Dulac was wrong, and I tried to tell him.'

‘But he wouldn't listen,' Roulier prompted.

‘Why should he?' Katharine countered. ‘What did I know, fresh out from England? Anyway, that was what Pierrot wanted. He wanted me to use my influence and stop Dulac from attacking the convoy. Do you mind, Monsieur Roulier, I'm terribly tired and I'm not thinking as clearly as I should.'

‘Of course, I'm so sorry.' He got up. ‘I can come back tomorrow?'

‘Why don't you stay the night? I always keep the spare bedroom ready.'

He didn't undress at once. He heard her come upstairs, calling the terrier. The English were so unhygienic. No animal would have been allowed into his bedroom at home.

It was a very still night; he opened the window wide and leaned out. The scent of the garden drifted up to him: the cottage lily, named after the Madonna, with its sickly perfume that reminded him of funerals; the musical chime of the church clock. He could see the spire silhouetted against the sky in the moonlight. Such peace and timelessness: so much passion and turmoil inside the little cottage, locked into the memory of one woman. She had a gift for making the past real and the dead alive. He could see them as she talked, caught up in the re-enactment of her own life. She had made him smell the places she described: the stuffy French kitchens, their walls impregnated with the smell of food; the body smells of working people, of frightened people who didn't know they sweated; attic rooms, where the pine trees whispered outside the window in the light breeze after a hot spring day; the grocer's shop and the sad little baby whimpering in her cot. He undressed and lay on the bed smoking. Katharine Alfurd's spare room was typical. Rather spartan, faded chintzes, a watercolour hung far too high on one wall, an old-fashioned double bed with the luxury of down pillows and linen sheets. So very English. How had ‘Cecilie' endured it for so long – it wasn't her true setting, this cosy cottage in the over-pretty village. How she must have suffocated at times, playing the role of the Colonel's wife. Living with a man who had buried his own past and forced her to do the same. Roulier wasn't tired. He lay and finished his cigarette and thought about Katharine Alfurd. He wished he had been born when she was young.

How well she remembered that meeting in the café – better than she would ever tell the Frenchman. For the first time she saw the other side of Occupied France.

There was a three-piece band playing popular dance music inside the restaurant; the tables were full of people drinking and talking at the top of their voices. The punitive curfew had been lifted and the town was reprieved. The German soldiers and the girls were what surprised her most. Not the jackbooted thugs of the SS, but young men enjoying themselves, playing the eternal sex game with girls of their own generation as if there were no war at all. She had been shocked and Pierrot said,

‘This is part of life too, you know. It isn't all secret meetings and terror. Life has to go on, and for most people it's trying to be normal. I know what you're thinking. Look at them. Fraternizing with the enemy … after what happened the other day, how could they?'

She said in a low voice, ‘That's exactly what I'm thinking.'

‘Then you shouldn't,' he said. ‘Don't judge; that's the first thing to learn here. Don't judge them and don't judge Dulac for having Cabrot murdered. He had to do it.'

She turned away. ‘I don't want to talk about it. I didn't want to come here in the first place. Now you tell me it was just an excuse. No message from London, just a lie. Why did you bring me here?'

He moved his coffee cup aside. ‘You've got to stop him attacking the convoy and kidnapping the German officers. It's obvious there's something between you – so put it to good use, Cecilie. This plan is a disaster. London knows it and said so. But he's determined. Talk to him, try and get him to see that it can't possibly succeed.'

‘Why can't it?' she demanded. ‘He's got the Maquis to back him up, plenty of ammunition, and if you can get him the timing, it should succeed. And how else is he going to stop the Gestapo carrying out their threats to shoot people and deport them unless he has something to bargain with?'

Pierrot said quietly, ‘All he will do is play into Eilenburg's hands. The Gestapo won't care if German staff officers are killed. Especially some of these officers. It will give them the excuse to treat Nice as they treated Lidice after Heydrich was murdered. They'll lay waste here and all over the Midi. That's what this man wants. He's set out to provoke the Resistance and divide them from the civilian population by reprisals. Cecilie, Dulac's a great man in his way and a patriot. But he's a fool to be led into this. For God's sake try and make him see sense. Otherwise the whole thing will end in tragedy.'

She looked at him in silence for a moment. So difficult to see the real man and the real motive. The low monotonous voice threatening disaster could have been telling the truth or, just as easily, lying.

‘Why are you so sure it'll go wrong?'

‘Because it will be betrayed,' he answered. ‘That is what Eilenburg is waiting for; that's the reason behind the ultimatum to the Mayor. Someone will come forward to save themselves and the town. Now, I think we should go. Will you meet me here the day after tomorrow at the same time and tell me if you've had any success? I beg of you, try!'

That night, lying in Dulac's arms, Kate tried.

‘You're influenced by London,' he accused.

‘That's not fair,' she countered. ‘I sent the message and I backed you all the way. Darling, what if Pierrot is right? Supposing someone cracks and tells the Gestapo?'

‘Who?' he countered. He pulled her closer to him. ‘The Maquis is solid. Jacques knows how to cope with anyone unreliable. And apart from his people there's our own council. Beatrice and Janot and Ma Mère, Gaston and Marie.'

Lying in the shelter of his arm, Kate said, ‘And there was Louis Cabrot.'

He said gently, ‘My darling, nobody can be blamed for what happens when they're arrested. But you're talking about deliberate betrayal. Cabrot didn't go to the Gestapo. Nor will anyone else.'

‘Did he have to be killed?'

‘Yes.' The answer came without hesitation. ‘Too many lives were at risk. The agony for me was making that decision and sending someone else to do it. It's not the first time, either, but that was the worst. Poor devil, he didn't even know me, but I knew him. That was the night I came to you. I needed you so badly … you'd no idea.'

No, Kate thought, I hadn't. I made love to you and you were the first lover in my life and you'd just sentenced one of your own men to death.

‘They won't be able to find out in the post mortem, will they?'

‘No.' He sounded low. ‘Do you still love me?'

Kate turned and took him into her arms. In the light that burned beside the bed she saw how tired and drawn he looked and burdened by what he had done.

‘I shall always love you,' she said. ‘And you mustn't think about it any more. Come to me, my love, and let me show you.'

They fell asleep at last.

In the apartment at Beaulieu, Pierrot was dressing, careful not to make a noise. He paused to make sure his wife was resting peacefully and then slipped out and down the stairs. The more senior of the Abwehr officers let him in.

‘Sorry I'm so late,' he said. ‘I couldn't get away before now.'

‘So what's the news?'

‘Not good, I'm afraid. I could do with a drink.'

In the luxurious bedroom at the Negresco, Eilenburg was the first to wake. He pressed the light switch. She lay curled up beside him, one arm above her head. She looked very young and vulnerable, the brown hair damp and curling, and dark shadows under the eyes that were so like Minna's. He could look into her face, sleeping or awake, because he wasn't afraid of what he'd see. It was a very odd sensation for him, this feeling of pity, even tenderness for a girl who wasn't Minna. Only a resemblance, he insisted, covering her naked breasts with the sheet. A trick of the imagination that turned the blaze of sexual encounter into something more significant. He got up, moving carefully so she wouldn't wake. He went into the bathroom, got under the shower. It was cold and he grimaced. What was he washing off, he thought in surprise? The sweat of a fierce lovemaking, or the guilt of his emotional betrayal? He wouldn't see her again, he decided. He'd give her some money, issue a permit for extra rations – she was far too thin and delicate from overwork and poor food – and tell her to keep away. Move to another hotel. That was the best. Quite a sum of money, so she would be well set up if she didn't find work straight away. He came back into the room and she was sitting up. She smiled at him and the big brown eyes were soft and shining.

She didn't say anything but just held out her arms. He came to her.

5

The Mayor held a conference; he called in the prominent businessmen, the parish priests and the owner and editor of the local newspaper. They gathered at the Town Hall at eleven o'clock on the following morning. He spoke to them briefly. Nice and its inhabitants were under a suspended sentence. They were all faced with an impossible dilemma. He paused and looked at certain people. The Resistance had been very active in the last two years and the Gestapo had been unusually lenient in its attitude towards the town. Albert Stohler had been approachable. He coughed at the word that meant bribeable and hurried on. His successor seemed determined to provoke a violent confrontation. His threats were compatible with his reputation. He also had his name to make in that part of France. Questions were asked then. What was the alternative? Had anyone approached the military authorities? What about representations to the Vichy Government?