March 1942
St Antonin
It was icy cold, a
hard crunchy rime covering the slippery stones on the narrow alleyway which was
the Rue de la Treille. Karin stood on the ground floor step of her apartment
building, wrapping her warm black coat securely around her and pulling her
black cloche hat down over her ears and new blonde curls.
Last night, she had used her last bottle of
the precious peroxide. She had been eking out the solution as best she could,
but it was no use; the inevitable brown roots could not be left any longer. The
dark sections were already one and a half inches long and were becoming harder
to hide. It was important that every section of hair was thoroughly soaked, so
she made sure she did as good a job as she possibly could. She didn’t know when
she might get another opportunity. God, the stink! She knew that the smell would linger for some time in her bathroom,
so she made sure the door was closed securely, with the top sash of the window
open. For once, it was useful having a poky room right under the eaves of the grenier. Not even the most determined burglar
would be able to scale up to that height, and in any case the bathroom window
overlooked only a dark and moss-covered yard below.
Now successfully re-blonded, she felt
confident to continue with the rest of her mission. Her warm black coat was
still doing its double duty as both raiment and security store for the
remainder of her vital francs. As such, these days the coat was as much in
‘code’ as she was.
The morning mist was still hovering at
upper-window level as she pulled the handlebars of her bicycle away from the
wall and dropped a small overnight bag into the basket on the front. Her
bicycle had proved invaluable during her stay, and had more than paid its way
since she had exchanged some of her precious francs for it. She looked around,
and was relieved to see that the early-morning streets were still deserted.
She turned right at the corner of the Rue
de la Treille, past the church on the right and further up the steep, narrow
alleyway towards the Place de la Halle at the top of the slippery hill. There
she paused briefly, legs straddling either side of her bicycle, as she took in
deep gulps of the crisp morning air. She looked up to the heavens, as if for divine
inspiration, as she noted with pleasure the scene all around her. In pride of
place stood the ancient covered market place which, in times of peace, was full
of local produce. Today it was a mere shadow of its former glory, as its stone
pillars stood unspeaking, unyielding to the current follies of man. Its very
impassivity spoke volumes, as did the grimacing gargoyles high up on the
ancient buildings opposite: Today may be grim, but
tomorrow… Just wait and see… We will return as good and vibrant as ever… Just
be patient… Be patient… Be patient...
She had a long journey ahead of her, so
she’d better get on with it before she changed her mind. She had memorised by
heart the words of Gwendoline’s short missive before destroying the crinkled
slip of paper in the dying flames of last night’s fire. The words had been
short but succinct.
Imperative we
know date when Germans take over unoccupied zone. Take whatever means to find
out, and report back soonest. Gwendoline.
After leaving the café last night, with the
slip of paper still secreted in her coat pocket, she had nodded to the old
women in their usual chairs in the Place du Bessarel, taking their daily airing
in the dying rays of the sun. You could always tell when the weather was
getting warmer, by their very presence. She had perched herself on the stone
wall alongside them and adopted a relaxed, chatty air with them.
“It’s a terrible time, a terrible time,”
she said soberly to them.
“Oui, c’est
terrible,” they agreed, nodding their heads sagely to each other, as
if only the old like them could possibly appreciate all they suffered.
“At least there are no Germans here…” she
remarked casually.
The old woman nearest to her shook her
head.
“Ah, but my brother Frédéric says he has
seen some not far away. It was last Tuesday, or…” she scratched her head,
“maybe it was Wednesday… I know it couldn’t have been Monday because even now
the shops are always closed on a Monday...”
The other women all nodded in agreement.
Karin tried hard not to look impatient, as she waited for the old woman to
continue.
“Anyway, he saw two soldiers in Laguépie,
you know, the village twenty kilometres down the road. He was doing some
business there – you know what Frédéric’s like…”
Her colleagues cackled, knowing all too
well that Frédéric was probably up to no good – probably bartering something
for nothing, as usual.
“Anyway, there, large as life, sat two
German soldiers. Frédéric couldn’t believe it, but there was no doubt. He
listened, but couldn’t understand a word they said. Such a barbarous language.
But they seemed to have plenty of francs on them… Frédéric especially noticed
that.”
Her colleagues laughed. In truth, these
days there was not much to laugh about.
“Anyway,” she repeated, “they were sitting
having coffee in the café in the square there.”
Karin assumed an air of unconcern as she
chatted with them for several more minutes, agreeing with them about the
difficulty of living these days. How could one live if the shops had nothing to
sell? Eventually, after a while, she stood up and stretched her bones.
“I must be getting old,” she said to them.
One old woman replied, as Karin knew she
would, “Ah, you young ones don’t know what it is to be old. Do you know how old
I am?”
Karin suggested a ridiculously low number.
The woman looked pleased. “I’m
seventy-five,” she said, preening herself.
“Never!” said Karin courteously as she
waved goodbye to the ladies and wished them “Bonne
Soirée”.
Back in her own flat, she worked out a plan
of action based on this latest information. Maybe she could cycle to Laguépie
and take a look. It was a long way, but it was just about manageable if she
took some breaks along the way. Basically, it was one long cycle ride along the
river and the old railway track, so she felt sure she couldn’t get lost.
There definitely seemed to be a shift in
allegiance amongst the locals around her. Although they still revered their
beloved Maréchal, hero of Verdun, they
hated this armistice with the Nazi regime. Most ordinary people didn’t know
which way to turn in search of a better life. There was still a deep strain of
anti-communism running through the country, and that had been the reason for
many at first to say “Better Hitler than Stalin.” But now those same voices
seemed to be increasing all around her in favour of an alliance with the
British and the Americans.
If I
go over to the occupied zone now, she thought, I would almost certainly be
arrested. Well then, there’s only one thing to do – cycle to that village which
the old woman mentioned, and try to find out something from those German
soldiers.
A small voice resonated deep in her brain. Are you crazy? The Germans will know you from what you did
in ’38 and ’39. You’d be throwing yourself into the lion’s den.
But then she thought: Ah, but I’ve changed
my appearance and name since then. I am no longer Karin Schmidt, the brunette
singer and dancer who worked as a Kabarettartistin
at the Schweizerei at Scheitnig Park. I
am now the blonde Monique LeGrand with an important job to undertake for the
Nazis… Yes, she thought, more to reassure herself than anything else, that’s the only plan I’ve got. And it had better be good;
otherwise I’m well and truly sunk.
The following dawn strengthened her
resolve, so now having caught her breath in the Place de la Halle, with a
resolute straightening of her shoulders she turned her bicycle round the
right-hand corner and cycled along the country lanes in the general direction
of Laguépie. Eventually she came to the main road outside the small village of
Lexos.
At last she saw a
sign welcoming her to Laguépie – at least, the lettering said Bienvenue, but the peeling paint and chipped
woodwork told another story. Alongside ran the railway track, iron rails
rusting from the combined effects of southern heat, winter rain and
all-too-infrequent trains. Around the corner, spanning this section of the
Aveyron, was the bridge which acted as the gateway to the town. She saw that
there was a general square to her right, so she gratefully stepped down from
her bicycle and wheeled it around the corner and down the hill to the square.
She looked up at the sky. A sudden glimmer
of a returning sun told her that spring was well on its way. She took it
thankfully as a good omen for what lay ahead. She certainly needed it.
The waiter from the café facing the square
was wiping over the few scattered tables and chairs outside, drying his damp
hands on the front of his long white apron before preparing to return inside. Karin approached him hopefully.
“Pardon, Monsieur. Est-ce que vous avez une chambre pour la
nuit?”
The man looked surprised, but, evidently
pleased at this unexpected source of income, said, “Oui, Mademoiselle, bien sûr,”
before waving his arm airily up above the café premises.
Like most of the buildings in the town, the
residence was old and crumbling, but with several storeys always available
these days for accommodation. Karin wheeled her bicycle round to the back of
the building and parked it in what she hoped would be a safe place, securing it
temporarily to an old tree. Lugging her bag from the front basket she retraced
her steps back round to the front and went inside to the gloomy interior. The
man was nowhere to be seen, so she followed a sign to some stairs at the back
and began to climb up. On the second floor, a door stood ajar. She poked her
head around and saw a woman making up a single bed. The woman looked up, stretching
her aching back muscles, with both hands on the back of her hips, in a grimace
of pain.
“Bonjour,
Mademoiselle,” she said politely. “Entrez,
entrez.” She indicated a pink wicker chair by the only window in the
room. Karin entered, depositing her bag on the floor. The woman finished making
up the bed and showed her where the bathroom was situated, across the corridor
behind a none-too-private curtain hanging from a rail above. But there was also
a small washstand in the room, so that would have to do. Once the woman had
finished, Karin dropped a few coins into her hand and she departed, smiling.
Karin walked over to the window and glanced
out. The window looked right over the main square, giving her a bird’s-eye view
of all the comings and goings. It was perfect.
She looked at her watch. Six o’clock. Time
for a rest before moving on to the next stage in her plan. She threw her bag on
to the chair and extracted a few things that should suit her purpose, before
flopping down on the too-soft bed. There was a hollow in the middle where the
springs had obviously given up the ghost, creaking in annoyance at this
unwelcome weight on their rapidly failing inner tension. She didn’t care. Arms
behind her head, she closed her eyes and thought through what she must do.
Her mind went back to Fritz Jürgens and the
Schweizerei back home in Breslau. How
long ago all that seemed now. But for now, as Karin lay back on her
uncomfortable bed in Laguépie, she hummed La Vie en
Rose whilst working out her next plan of action. If she was to find
out what she needed to know, it would be necessary to bring all her stage
talents to the fore to succeed. Madame from the café had told her earlier that dinner was served from
19.30. Karin had difficulty getting used to the twenty-four hour clock that the
French used, preferring the English style, but she was getting there, petit à petit. She pulled on the
clothes she had set out on the chair: silk stockings, a skirt that was a little
too tight, and a low-necked blouse that showed a little too much cleavage. She
peered at herself in the cracked mirror, manoeuvring her face either side of
the rusty brown fissure which ran diagonally through the glass. She leaned
forward, rouging her mouth a little more, pressing her lips tightly together to
seal the imprint. Yes, she thought, turning first one way then the other. Just
tarty enough for my purpose. All that remained to complete the ensemble was to
pull on some high-heeled shoes. Parfait.
At 19.45 she click-clacked down the stairs
and wandered outside to a table facing the square. She sat down as elegantly as
she could on the wobbly metal folding chair, crossing one silken leg over the
other. She pretended to study the menu for a long time, whilst surreptitiously
sizing up the passers-by.
The waiter came over, notebook in hand. He
apologised for the paucity of the fare.
“C’est le blocus, Mademoiselle. Qu’est-ce qu’on peut faire?”
Karin
smiled sympathetically. “Un petit pichet de vin
rouge, s’il vous plaît, Monsieur, et une salade verte.”
“Oui,
madamemoiselle.”
Just as he finished noting down her order,
she asked him conversationally, “Monsieur, est-ce
qu’il y a des allemands en ville?”
His expression changed at the mention of
Germans, indicating even as she spoke two soldiers who had just come into view.
There was no doubting that they were German. Even if they had not been wearing
the hated dark uniform, she could have identified them from the way they
walked, and the fact that they laughed and looked so happy. She thanked the
waiter and poured herself a glass of water whilst she waited for her order.
Outside in the square, a few drops of
squally rain had started to fall, splattering onto the striped awning of the
café before squeezing off the ends onto the cracked, sunken cobbles beneath.
The two Germans looked up at the heavens, as if disbelieving the inclemency of
the weather here in the southern zone, before rushing under the awning and
slouching down at a table alongside hers.
One of the soldiers noticed Karin and
raised his cap.
“Guten Abend,
gnädiges Fräulein,” then, evidently realising his mistake, “Ach… Bonsoir, Mademoiselle.”
His colleague guffawed at his gaffe, saying
something particularly crude against the female sex. After all, this young
French woman couldn’t possibly understand what they were saying. What did it
matter now anyway? The Third Reich had overcome their country, and it was about
time all these peasants learned how to speak a proper language.
Karin looked sideways at them, nodded coolly,
then glanced back at her menu, suddenly very interested in every word it
contained. The waiter returned, setting a small brown jug of red wine onto her
table, followed by a plate of green salad. He apologised again for the lack of
olive oil and vinegar dressing. She smiled up at him. “Pas
grave.” It was of no consequence.
She poured herself a glass of wine, then
started to pick at her salad with the fork. She knew she wouldn’t have to wait
long. Suddenly, there was the scraping of chairs
on the slippery cobbles. Karin ignored the noise and continued to pick at her
food.
“May we join you, Mademoiselle?” one of the
Germans asked, in excruciating French.
She lifted an arched eyebrow.
“May I introduce myself. I am Kurt, and
this,” he pointed to his colleague, “is Hans.”
“Si vous voulez.” She nodded towards the two
vacant chairs at her table with a disinterested shrug.
That was all the introduction they needed.
They walked over and plonked themselves down, spreading their legs wide around
the small spindly table legs.
“And you, Madamemoiselle?” they asked.
“Quoi? Alors, je m’appelle Monique. Monique LeGrand.”
“Enchanté,
Mademoiselle. We are very pleased to make your acquaintance,
Monique.” They called the waiter over.
“Two beers, please. And make it snappy.”
The waiter grunted and turned on his heel,
his feelings very evident by the sullen expression on his face.
“Well, Monique. What are you doing in this
rundown part of the world? I’ve never seen such a place so lacking in modern
facilities,” said the presumptuous one. His colleague merely looked at her
sardonically, his feelings about her already apparent from his heavily-lidded
gaze.
“Oh, it’s not so bad. I don’t live here,
but am merely visiting. I have a grandmother who lives over there.” Karin
pointed airily across the square in the direction of the Mairie, just across from the old church.
“And what do you do with yourself,
Monique?” said the loquacious one, eyeing her up and down in an insolent way,
and looking for all the world as if he had already made up his own mind.
Karin was saved from answering this
difficult question by the sudden arrival of a group of local men, for whom this
place evidently was their local bar. They pushed past the outstretched legs of
the two tall Germans, provoking a grunt from the silent one. It was clear that
the locals weren’t going to let the presence of two Nazis stop them from
enjoying a glass or two. They had little enough to cheer them as it was. The waiter came over, sullenly banging down
two beers in front of the Germans, the froth slopping over onto the table.
“Here, watch it, can’t you?” said the vocal
one, starting to rise with annoyance. He was stopped by his colleague, who
restrained him by pulling on his sleeve.
“Calm down, Kurt,” he said in German. “It’s
not worth it. They’re only ignorant peasants, after all.”
Kurt calmed down, sitting back down again
with a “Hmmpf.” They slurped at their beer.
Karin calmly continued with her salad, and
finished the last dregs of her wine. That done, she pushed her now empty plate
and glass away from her, wiping her rouged lips carefully with her napkin.
“Well, it’s been nice meeting you two
gentlemen,” she said, scraping back her spindly chair, as she called the waiter
over to pay her bill. But Kurt stayed her arm.
“We’ll pay for that, won’t we, Hans?” He
winked at his friend, before throwing a few coins down on the table for the
waiter to scrabble together.
“That’s most kind of you both,” simpered
Karin, patting her blonde coiffure into place. “I don’t know how to thank you.
It’s so difficult to live nowadays…”
“Perhaps you would like to join us at a
club we know in Montauban?” said Hans, lifting an enquiring eyebrow.
“Oh, I don’t know. Is it very far? I’m
afraid I don’t know the area very well…” breaking off in apparent hesitation.
“No,” they both said together, and Hans
added, “Not very far at all. We have our vehicle right over there. We could get
there in no time.” They both laughed at their apparent luck.
Karin excused herself, pleading a need to
go to the ladies’ room at the back. Once there, she looked at herself in the
mirror, steeling herself for what might transpire. She opened her bag, rummaged
for her lipstick, and applied another layer of bright red. Satisfied that she
looked right for the part she had forced herself to play, she shrugged her
shoulders and thought, What the hell. In for a penny, in for a pound. The end
would jolly well have to justify the means, however sordid. I’ve done it before
and I can do it again… As she returned from the ladies’ room, she
passed the counter where the bartender was wiping up some beer spillages. He
glanced up as she passed.
“Is everything all right, Mademoiselle? Do
you need any help?”
“No. Thank you, Monsieur. I know what I’m
doing…”
He shrugged and returned to his cleaning-up
operation, as she click-clacked outside onto the cobbles again and forced
herself to smile brightly to the two soldiers. The local men inside the bar
looked at her briefly in evident disgust, before they too shrugged their
shoulders and stared again into their mugs. They didn’t know what the world was
coming to.
Inside the inevitable Volkswagen, parked in
the Place du Foirail opposite the café, Hans took the wheel whilst Kurt
struggled, grumblingly, into the back. Karin had pleaded mal de mer, insisting that she must sit in the
front where she could look right ahead. She had no intention of being pawed all
the way to Montauban, thank you very much. Before they left, she asked if she could
please take her bicycle with her. “You never know who might steal it,” she said
to them knowingly, all the while aware that it might be the only way of getting
back to her lodgings again. That’s if I’m still in one piece, she thought
wryly.
Grumbling, Hans agreed, the two men cursing
as they struggled to tie the bike onto the roof using an old rope. But Hans
evidently thought it was worth it, not wanting to miss this chance of getting a
woman for the night.
“Thank you,” she simpered. “That’s so good
of you.”
Hans took the wheel again and they skidded
out of the Place, and up to the bridge
spanning the confluence of the Aveyron and Vaour rivers. It was now dark, the
sky black velvet with a few twinkling stars shining down from the abyss to give
her what little comfort there was. Precious little, she
thought, but I must go slowly. I can’t give the game away too soon or I’ll be
well and truly sunk. Petit à petit, pas à pas… Little by little, step by step…
The car motored its long way from Laguépie,
past the picturesque bastide villages of
Varen, St Antonin, Penne and Bruniquel, before reaching the long, straight
roads leading to Montauban. There seemed to be an endless succession of
tunnels, one after the other, bored deep through limestone rocks. At each
tunnel, the wind outside seemed to change its tune, whistling high then low as
the outside conditions reverberated against suddenly damp, mildewed walls, then
outside to dry air again. Up above, either side of the road which snaked
through the river valley, were the tremendous rocks and caves of the Gorges du
Aveyron.
Then, at last, they were in Montauban. She
asked the time. It had only taken them an hour, but it seemed like a lifetime.
Hans grumbled that they would soon be out of fuel, so he parked the car in
front of the first likely place. It was a bistro, which was advertising a
cabaret that evening.
There must be more Germans who’ve arrived
down here, Karin thought. They surely wouldn’t get many locals able to afford
either the money or the time for such frivolity…
They stretched their legs, glad to be out
of the confinement of the Volkswagen, before making their way to the bistro.
“I used to do an act in a place like this
in Paris,” she ventured, trying to continue the part she had set up for
herself.
“Ach,
I thought you looked like a showgirl, didn’t I, Hans?” said Kurt, taking her
arm possessively.
They went inside. The foyer was dark, lit
here and there by soft red lamps. Karin thought wryly that it looked like a bordello. She hoped it wasn’t.
They walked through into the main
auditorium at the back. There were a few tables and chairs, and some accordion
music was filtering through to lighten the atmosphere. A few men were sitting
about, cigarette smoke billowing and hanging in a heavy cloud around the bar.
They ordered sparkling wine from the local Gaillac region, Kurt laughing loudly
as the cork finally burst out of the bottle and nearly knocked senseless the
unfortunate man sitting near the entrance.
Karin looked at them both from underneath
her lashes, thick with mascara. Yes, she thought. Now that they are both
relaxed, this is as good a time as any.
She plucked up courage.
“So, Kurt?”
“Jawohl,
my dear?” He leaned his head towards hers. He was already fairly intoxicated.
“I don’t really understand what is
happening. I’m only a woman and it all seems too much for me. What I mean is…
Why exactly are you here?” She hoped that she sounded suitably ditzy.
Kurt smiled at her, cupping her chin in
his.
“My poor baby. All too much for you, is
it?” He patted her head as if she were some kind of puppy.
She smiled up at him adoringly.
“Well, you see… How shall I explain it for
you? Your country has signed an agreement with ours because you needed our
help. There are some terrible people across the water in England who will stop
at nothing to fight us. If we didn’t help you, they would be here already,
taking over every bit of Europe. So, you see, sweetling, we are here to protect
you. Yes, that’s it. We are here as your protectors. You don’t have to worry
about a thing now we are here. And, soon, there will be a lot more of us.”
Here was Karin’s opportunity, and she
seized it with both hands.
“But, Kurt dearest, we will need many more
of you down here. When will all your friends be arriving? I so much want to see
them all.” She pulled his head down onto her shoulder.
“Oh, shouldn’t be long now,” he replied
sleepily. “By mid-November at the latest, I would have thought.”
Hans shook his colleague sharply. “That’s
enough, Kurt,” he snapped in German. “You talk too much!”
“Oh, you worry too much,” replied Kurt,
also in German. “She’s only a silly Kabarettmädchen,
after all. What would she know?”
“Walls have ears, you fool.” Hans drained
his glass and stormed off to get replacements.
Suddenly there was a drum-roll and the
curtains fronting the stage opened to sporadic applause from the auditorium. A
troop of girls ran onto the stage and started a dance routine, swirling their
skirts about to the immense enjoyment of those gentlemen sitting immediately
below them.
Much the same routine as the girls back
home in the Schweizerei, thought Karin,
as she planned her exit route.
She leaned over to Kurt, whispering that
she needed the ladies’ room. She picked up her bag, kissing him lightly on his
balding head.
“Won’t be long,” she said, blowing a kiss
from the heel of her hand as she wandered drunkenly towards the back of the
auditorium.
Near the door she looked back briefly. Kurt
and Hans had their backs to her, and were waving their glasses in time to the
music as the girls swung into their raucous finale.
“Auf
Wiedersehen, meine Freunde!” she whispered, as she unlatched the
exit door and fled out into the night. Outside, a light rain was drizzling down
onto the greasy pavements. She quickly kicked off her awful tarty shoes and ran
over to where they had parked the car. Reaching up, she desperately scrabbled
to untie the knots in the rope surrounding her bicycle. Just as they appeared
to be loosening, two men suddenly appeared and asked if they could help.
“No,” she replied breathlessly. “It’s
alright. I can manage.”
A voice, suddenly awfully familiar, shouted
out in surprise:
“Karin? It can’t be you? Karin Schmidt!”
Her worst nightmare. There was no doubt.
She was looking up into the suddenly murderous eyes of Fritz Jürgens, her
ex-boyfriend, the Nazi soldier she had jilted and betrayed back home in Breslau
in 1939.
Oh my God.
The game was up – right at the final hurdle.
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