In This Hospitable Land (56 page)

“I’m sorry, darling,” Denise apologized. “It’s the Germans. They mustn’t see us.”

“Will they come
here
?” Christel fretted, snuggling up to her mother. “I’m scared.”

“It’s all right.” Denise stroked her brow. “It will all be all right.”

Looking up toward the Route des Crêtes, she tried to make out any movement. Would the troops go into Le Salson and make free with the houses there? How awful it would be to return to a home Nazis had eaten and slept in.

Ida came over and silently sank into a huddle with her family. They all found emotional relief in being so close at this moment of peril.

The constant circling of searchlights added to the surreal scene. Outlined by the powerful lights, dozens of German soldiers stood alert and at the ready in an uneven line, rifles pressed against their shoulders pointing menacingly at unseen enemies. Though hardened by war, these young men suspected the Maquisards might attack from vantage points only they knew. Realizing this made Denise worry for André and Alex wherever they were.

“Are the bad men going to come over here?’ Christel asked, filling with fear again.

“I’m sure they won’t,” Denise said. “I doubt they know we’re here.”

“But what if they do?” Ida asked anxiously.

Denise answered quietly, “We’ll have plenty of time to move into the woods. I’m sure the good people here know the right places to hide. I promise we’ll be all right.”

She encircled Ida and Christel with her free arm and drew them closer still. Then she offered wordless prayers that her promise be fulfilled.

German soldiers’ voices floated across the valley. They kept turning their trucks on and off for no apparent reason. The generators powering their searchlights also made loud, unsettling sounds.

“Maman, I’m hungry,” Christel said, trying not to whine.

Mamé reached into her sack. “Here, my precious one. A little bit of bread and cheese for you. You too, Ida.”

The children thanked her and gobbled down their snacks. As other families began to eat too, the cemetery took on an oddly festive air.

After a while Christel said, “Maman, I need to stretch my legs.”

Tante Irene said, “I think it’s all right if she walks around a bit.”

“All right,” Denise agreed. “But be careful and come back quickly.”

Christel proudly strolled about the graveyard on her own. It helped that lots of people were there. She was careful not to trip over anyone.

The lights went around and around overhead. It kept getting quieter and quieter. Suddenly Christel noticed two men who seemed much younger than the others. They carried rifles as they walked from one group to another. Though frightened by the rifles she trailed behind them at what she judged a safe distance, drawing close enough to catch snatches of what they said:

“Have you seen…?”

“Do you know Madame Roux or her daughter Irene?”

With a squeal Christel recognized the voices: “Papy! Oncle Alex!”

Lifting Christel into the air, André felt a rush of joy and relief. For one moment he stopped worrying about the Germans with whom he and Alex had been playing a deadly game of hide-and-seek all day. He felt certain that the cemetery was well-enough hidden by wall, trees, and dark to make Christel’s wail of excitement an inconsequential lapse rather than a serious breach of security.

Back on the ground, Christel led him and Alex away. A wave of anticipation swept over André as they approached huddled children and adults.

“Over here,” Denise called in a loud whisper.

It was a wonderful reunion.

“Papy!” Cristian called excitedly.

André could have cried as he lifted the boy into his arms and kissed him. It was the first time he had ever heard Cristian speak.

When Ida and Christel hugged their father tightly, Denise called hoarsely, “Children, remember we need to stay low.”

“Well, we’re here,” Alex said, sitting down beside the others, his back against the wall like theirs, his rifle balanced carefully across his knees. “But it wasn’t easy.”

Without needing any prompting, he reported how he and André had been standing in a field at Le Tronc drinking mugs of ersatz coffee when Léon spotted the Nazi convoy up on the crest and told the brothers to go inform their compatriots while he warned the family. Careful to keep under cover, the brothers laboriously made their way to their most recent Resistance camp in Vimbouches.

“Vimbouches?” Denise interrupted. “I thought you’d been staying at Les Bouzedes!”

“We changed camps in February,” André explained, “after Les Bouzedes was betrayed by a colloborateur.”

“Of course the Maquisards at Vimbouches already knew about the latest German movements,” Alex resumed.

“They were about to send someone out to warn
us,
” André added.

“Eventually we heard people were hiding here and came looking for you.”

Then all caught up on their doings over the winter. André and Alex had spent much of it going back and forth between Resistance camps serving as messengers—which kept them from their families. They had only gone back to Le Tronc quite recently, hoping and expecting to see everyone again soon.

“Have you heard anything of Geneviève?” Alex asked Denise abruptly.

“Not a word,” Denise responded softly. “But I’m sure she and the children are fine.”

“I miss her so,” Alex said thickly.

All subsided into silence. André mused that despite the lurking German troops this was the most peaceful moment he had experienced in memory and the longest stretch he had been able to spend with his family since leaving La Font more than a year before.

All at once Christel cried out, “What’s that?”

Alex leapt to his feet, rifle in hand, certain Christel must have spied a German soldier. Instead the little girl pointed to a nearby grave and the strange blue vapor rising from it and curling up into the sky. Other similarly odd blue, green, white, and rose-colored apparitions appeared throughout the graveyard, swirling, twisting, and disappearing into the night.

“I don’t like it,” Christel whispered into mother’s ear.

“Are they ghosts?” Ida asked her father, unable to conceal her terror yet transfixed by the extraordinary sight.

André said quietly but dramatically, “It’s just the spirits of the dead escaping.”

“Papy!” Ida chided, giving him a little push. “What is it really?”

André was reluctant to convey the details of the chemical breakdown of a corpse—especially one buried in the simplest of wooden coffins and covered with just enough dirt to make a proper grave in the rocky hillside. Instead he said, “It’s the kind of thing you’d see if you spent most every day in a cemetery. Nothing to worry about, though it’s eerie.”

Alex sat back down and gave a little shiver. “I suppose there aren’t many of us who’ve spent a whole night in a cemetery before. It’s nothing I ever aspired to.”

“I still don’t like it,” Christel said sullenly.

“Why don’t you girls close your eyes and try to get some sleep?” Denise counseled.

“But the Germans are over there,” Christel complained. “I want to stay awake so I’m ready to run!”

“Me too,” Ida echoed, not to be outdone in bravery by her baby sister. “I’m not tired.”

“Why don’t you all get some sleep?” André recommended, passing his already sleeping son back to his wife. “Alex and I will stay up and keep watch.”

“You want anything to eat?” Ernestine asked thoughtfully. “We only brought a little but you’re welcome to it.”

“Thank you, no,” André said, gingerly pushing the proffered sack back toward its owner. “You keep it. In the morning when we can see better and determine precisely where the Germans are, we’ll go out to get food for everyone.”

The brothers patrolled the perimeter. Soon all the villagers had drifted off to sleep. Though Christel had nodded off briefly, she awoke again and whispered to her passing father, “If the Germans come up here will you and Oncle Alex shoot them?”

“Don’t worry,” André said caressing her. “We’ll protect you. You’ll be safe.”

After a few minutes, Christel was once again drawing the deep, even breaths of sleep. If only André’s concerns could be allayed half so easily.

About four o’clock in the morning, to judge by the moon’s position in the sky, Denise awoke, uncertain how long she had slept. How oddly peaceful the cemetery seemed with almost everyone asleep and dreaming. In the dead of night would the dead protect her? The thought gave her chills.

“Hello,” André whispered, crouching by her feet, pointing his rifle away. “Alex thought one of us should get some sleep. Me.”

“I’m glad,” Denise said. “But be careful not to wake the children.”

André gingerly positioned himself to one side of Christel. “This is a most peculiar way to spend the night together.”

“You must be hungry. We still have a little bread in that sack.”

André broke off a piece, popped it into his mouth, and chewed thoughtfully. “Homemade. A treat. Ever since New Year’s the bread in the camps has been adulterated with sawdust, inedibly hard grains, and just plain dirt. Even so it’s precious.”

Denise asked whether he ever ran into Max Maurel anymore.

“Our paths haven’t crossed in weeks. He’s in great demand because of his medical training and travels between camps even more than Alex and I do.”

“It’s funny that they use outsiders like you as messengers.”

“I thought that too. But so many resistants know even less of the Cévennes than we do. And since we’re older, well-traveled men with a certain sophistication, the camp commanders trust us to handle unusual, sometimes delicate situations.”

“And you both blend in now.”

André laughed lightly. “After three long years we almost pass for natives.” Then he grew serious again. “I think you should get your identity cards reauthorized. Max had us do that some time ago.”

“Funny,” Denise said. “We had ours stamped again in July.”

André nodded and then became even more thoughtful than usual. “Would you and the girls sometimes be willing to carry messages for us?”

“André!” Denise was plainly shocked. “The children?”

“They wouldn’t be the first. And I think the girls are big enough now to carry hidden slips of paper from one camp near Le Salson to another not far away. Why, Ida walks greater distances to and from school every day. And Christel would enjoy tagging along. It would be a great way for them to feel they’re fighting back against everything they fear.”

“André,” Denise said severely, “you’re acting as if the Nazis aren’t right across the valley camped out on the Route des Crêtes.”

“This really is an anomalous situation,” he replied soothingly. “For all intents and purposes we’re practically liberated already.”

“I’m sitting in a cemetery with searchlights circling over my head. I don’t feel liberated in the slightest.”

“Because you don’t get around as much as I do. Because you haven’t had access to the information I’ve been privy to these last few months.”

“Such as?”

“At the end of last year Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met in Tehran to coordinate operations against Germany and to plan an Allied invasion of France. It’s coming soon. They’ve placed all the Allied Expeditionary Forces under American General Eisenhower. They sound quite confident.”

“I’m sure that’s very nice but…”

“Listen, my dear. Things really are going our way. Since the beginning of this year air warfare over Europe has been dominated by the Allies. We’re wreaking untold damage and destruction on German cities, transportation systems, and all the industries that produce war machinery throughout Germany and German-held territories. Even Hitler’s Chancellery was mostly destroyed after a direct hit during an RAF raid on Berlin.”

“Francis!” Denise gasped. “I worry about my brother every day.”

“Then relax. The Americans have taken over most big bombing raids. They’ve even begun attacking German positions in northern France to soften them up for the invasion.”

“You sound so convinced I almost believe you.”

“Believe me, Denise. De Gaulle has consolidated power over the Free French forces and the Resistance grows bolder every day. Just last week we sabotaged and halted production at a ball-bearing factory and at an aircraft components plant near Paris. It’s all coming together.”