Page 23 of The Mademoiselle Alliance

22

The Animals Are Ill With the Plague

Marseille, December 1942

Léon delivers a note to Magpie telling him to take Bla to an empty building on the Corniche where Léon, Rivière, and Lucien will be waiting. Monique fetches me as soon as Bla’s secured.

“He thinks Eagle and Wolf are from the Vichy police,” she says flatly. “He keeps giving them a number to telephone, saying they’ll be ordered to free him. The number…” Her mouth twists. “The number is for Gestapo HQ in Paris.”

Bla carries the telephone number for the Gestapo in his pocket. A cold, hard rage that I want to train on Bla like a gun pours through me.

I sit by Monique’s side on the trolley car even though I have a rule that Alliance agents aren’t to travel in the same carriage. But she’s weeping for Vallet. The young woman who wants to keep romance alive is about to come face-to-face with the man who destroyed hers. All I have to give her is my hand, which is small and weak, where Vallet’s is large and strong. But she takes it.

Tonight, the sky is punctured not with stars, but with sharp, white teeth. I can’t smell the sea even though it’s right beside us, can’t taste cinnamon and cumin; can only scent the flayed bones of rotting fish and the garbage that’s stacked in skyscrapers along the street.

Marseille is the city of my birth, but it holds a traitor within its walls.

When I push open the door, there is Bla’s clean-shaven face. There is his mouth, smiling at Léon as if he thinks he’ll win again.

I clear my throat. Bla turns.

Terror floods his eyes.

“You haven’t been arrested by Vichy police.” I pull off my gloves and advance into the room, which, bare of furniture and lit by one bare bulb, looks like a gangster-noir set piece.

The place where men come to die.

I toss my hat onto a chair and stand in front of our first traitor.

Almost worse than being in the room with Bla is thinking that word: first . As if I know there will be more. That I’ll stand in another room like this one.

But will I be the interrogator or the one under arrest?

Tonight my skin is made of tin, and a hundred cats are scraping their claws on it. But I will not shiver in front of this man.

“You’re the person I was looking for,” Bla says with a shrug. “You’ve won.”

He’s so cavalier, as if he thinks I haven’t the couilles to bring this to an end.

Léon’s clenching his fists, Rivière, too. But nobody will touch this man until he tells me exactly how far he’s tried to ruin us.

“Stand up,” I tell him. “And start talking.”

“I’m working for Mosley’s British Fascists,” he says, perhaps having realized there’s nothing to gain from staying silent. “I worked my way into British Intelligence, then won the confidence of your agents, and had them arrested. Except you,” he says, regret so obvious that Léon takes a step forward and I hold up my hand, not sure if even that will stop him from punching Bla in the face.

Léon curses but halts.

“Where’s your radio set?” I ask.

“At the Abwehr headquarters in Paris.”

My inhale is audible. “And the transmissions it’s been sending to London?”

“I sent them,” Bla says cheerfully. “London can tell if a different operator is using a radio. So I sent information MI6 already had, along with a little bit of false information. That was fun,” he says with a sigh, as if the only thing he rues is that he’ll no longer be able to mislead the Allies into wasted operations. As if Vallet and the others in prison are things he’s played with and disposed of as casually as cigarettes.

I want to be sick.

Bla talks and talks until his body is swaying from standing. I think he’s so exhausted he’ll give me the names of his London handlers so MI6 can arrest them, but every time I ask, he says, “Nobody.”

Eventually I leave the room and brace my arms on the kitchen counter. They’re shaking, so I fold them across my chest. “I need to tell London we have him,” I say to Léon, Lucien, and Rivière.

Léon accompanies me to headquarters, where a reply comes straight back.

Confirm execution order

“Stay here,” Léon says. “What happens now doesn’t concern you.”

I shake my head. “I have to be there, for Vallet.”

“If Bla is in Marseille,” Léon says grimly, “it means the Gestapo know you’re here. I can walk the streets, but you can’t. Don’t make a mockery of Vallet’s silence and sacrifice by getting yourself arrested.”

Is it cowardice or the formidable weight of responsibility to the network that keeps me at HQ, prowling the rooms, ears straining for the slightest sounds until finally the first trolley car of the morning clatters up the hill? When Léon enters, he collapses on the sofa, as if the air is so heavy it’s crushing him.

This is what it does to a man to kill someone.

“We put one of the cyanide capsules from London in his soup,” he says, voice stripped of emotion. “Three hours later he was still alive. We put the next one in his tea. Two more hours and nothing. He’s still alive. ”

I slide to the floor, back leaning against the sofa. Eagle has shot down men’s planes in the thick of battle. But cold-bloodedly executing a man is something his honor chafes against. A man like that is someone I want to spend the rest of my life with.

It’s not something we ever discuss. After the war. What will happen. I don’t know if he’ll ever meet my children, give me his last name, grow old by my side.

But I know that I am la patronne. I know that Bla must die. It’s my job to encourage Léon to kill.

Help me, God.

“This is our battlefield,” I say into the dawn darkness. “Temporary houses and landing fields, letterboxes and bars. Manning those battlefields are people who haven’t seen their families for months, who might die because of what they’re doing. Bla is standing on a battlefield and he’s an enemy who’ll never lie on a sofa and let his conscience talk him out of killing any one ofus.”

Léon reaches for my hand and we hold on, hold on, hold on.

—

When Léon returns, I know it’s done and that he will never tell. He’ll carry it in the deepening creases in his forehead, in the faint shadow in the backs of his eyes. All he says is, “He had some last words.”

Premonition, like a Locrian scale of lunatic shadows, plays over my bones. “What?”

“He said the Germans are invading the free zone on November11.”

“No.” I reject the very idea. “No.”

If the Nazis occupy the free zone, then there’ll no longer be a part of France where the French police are still technically in charge. Instead, the Gestapo will be on every street corner slicing butter and throats with their daggers.

Today was supposed to be a good day. The Allies are landing on German-occupied territory, near Rabat, Casablanca, and Algiers. The battle for France has begun, but now…

“Do you believe him?” I ask.

“I think I do.”

In front of me, Léon looks so tired. He’s been awake for two days. And he’s dealt with Bla. So I’ll deal with this.

“Go take a shower,” I tell him. “Rest before you throw yourself back into everything.”

He squeezes my hand gratefully.

I go into the operations room. If Bla’s right, we need to move HQ. Tonight. Soon we’ll be like Moroccan nomads carrying tents on our backs.

I code a message to MI6 about the Nazis invading the free zone and Magpie begins transmission.

“No response,” he says after ten minutes. For the first time ever, I hear something other than calm in his voice.

I keep my eye on the clock. We have to stop transmitting within twenty minutes; otherwise, we risk being tracked by the Nazis’ detector vans. And if the Allies have landed in North Africa, the Germans are going to be more gimlet-eyed than ever. “Change frequencies,” I tell him.

Monique, who’s just come in from buying supplies, interrupts. “There are men walking up and down the avenue out there.”

My prickles rise. It’s so quiet today, the mistral absent, the city slumberous. I cross to the windows. The sun is ghostly bright, the kind only Schaerrer could look at.

“Got them!” Magpie calls.

Morse tap-dances into the air. Then an earthquake tears HQ apart.

“Police!”

We leap like the animals we are.

Magpie grabs a lighter and burns the last message. A man with a revolver hurls himself on Magpie, so I hurl myself on the man, shouting every insult I’ve learned over the past two years. I sound like a hellcat and I fight like one, too. The policeman or gestapiste —I have no idea if he’s French or German—picks up a chair and holds it in front of him like a terrified schoolboy. It gives me the break I need to dart into my office, take out the tiny paper balls I scribble my messages on, and stuff them into my mouth, wishing to God I’d used MI6’s dissolving paper.

I’m gagging when the man who’d tackled Magpie appears and shouts, “She’s swallowing papers!”

He must be the leader of this pack.

Another man rushes in and grabs me by the throat. It’s impossible to breathe, let alone swallow. I claw at his hand, shouting, “Dirty Boche!” and hoping Léon will hear and escape through a window.

“Get them out of her mouth,” the leader snaps at his lieutenant before he returns to the ops room.

The minute he’s gone, my attacker’s grip slackens. “I’m French,” he whispers. “On your side. Keep shouting.”

I have no idea whether to believe him, but my choices right now aren’t even limited—they’re nonexistent.

“I hate you!” I scream, playing my part for all it’s worth, searching this man’s face to see if it’s just a trick to make me talk.

“They’re only allowed to detect radio signals,” he says urgently. “They’re not allowed to touch papers or people until we hand you over. I’m Goubil and my friend Pierre is on your side, too. Tell me what I can do. And hurry.” He holds out a handkerchief.

If I spit the papers into the handkerchief and he takes them to his leader, we’re done for. But if the Gestapo are here, we’re probably done for anyway.

I spit, braced for treachery. Goubil tears the papers up.

“Hide the folders on my desk,” I tell him. “And there are more people arriving soon. Can you warn them?”

Goubil flings the documents on top of a cupboard. He summons Pierre and tells him to go down to the gate and warn away anyone who tries to enter. Then he tucks my arms loosely behind my back and leads me into the operations room.

Magpie, no longer a British gentleman, is facing off against the gestapiste, who’s holding a piece of paper that lists the locations and call signs of all our transmitters. It’s the one piece of paper that will cripple our network if it falls into German hands. Heedless of the Nazi’s revolver, I lunge.

The gestapiste’s gun lifts.

I’m one second away from being shot.

Thankfully Goubil, my guardian angel, says to the Nazi, “Calm down. I’ll put it in a sealed envelope.”

Into an envelope it goes, thankfully in Goubil’s hands.

Once the Nazi’s gun is re-holstered and his back turned, I indicate with my head that I want to see what’s happening on the next floor. I’m desperately hoping my Eagle has somehow flown.

Goubil pushes me upstairs.

But there in the bathroom is Léon surrounded by young French policemen. Inexplicably, he’s shaving. Hanging on the hook behind him, in all its glory, is his air force commandant’s uniform. On the jacket are his two Croix de Guerre, one from the Great War, one from Morocco. Arrayed beside are the rest of his medals, a glittering parade of courage, honor, and service to France.

Standing there, Léon has never looked more like the man who’s fought for years for his country, a man the French police officers don’t want to arrest. Indeed, one of them is weeping.

Léon gives me a shrug at his small piece of necessary theater.

Somehow, in the middle of being arrested, I mouth, I love you .

If men like him ruled the world, what a world it would be.

—

Thank God the name on my identity card is Claire de Bacqueville. The police don’t know who I am—yet. My only other relief as we pass through the gates of La Pinède is that I see Elephant lurking in the shadows, meaning he’s still free and can get the British to transmit the message: In the south of France the animals are ill with the plague.

It’s the signal to all our sectors to go into hiding.

Monique, Léon, Magpie, Bee, Lucien, and I are taken to l’évêché, a living cliché of a prison. There are rats scampering over the floors. It’s colder inside than a Nazi’s smile, but the warden advises me to take off my goatskin coat unless I want it to walk out by itself, carried away on the backs of lice.

“Lice or frostbite; which to choose?” I joke, trying to keep up everyone’s spirits, trying not to think that Josette is going to kill me when she finds out her son is in prison.

At least we’re in a French prison in the free zone. But if Bla told the truth, this zone is free for only three more days. If we’re still here when the Nazis occupy the entire country, we’re as good as dead.

It’s time to escape from prison.

We’re split up, placed in separate cells. Mine contains only a plank attached to the wall, barred windows ten feet off the ground, and a toilet that sputters like a tubercular cough. The only way out is through the locked door or down the drain, and I swear loudly, the sound echoing back at me.

All night I smoke and think.

When Goubil unlocks the door in the morning, he tells me that the Allies have just landed in North Africa. Despite being in jail, I can’t contain my smile. I know the Germans’ military might in Morocco and Algiers is less than it could have been because Alliance has warned the Allies about the ships and airplanes headed there, and they’ve been blown up before they could reach their destination. I know the Allies have detailed information about the concentration and location of the troops they’re facing because we gathered that intelligence for them. I know—the same way I know we need to get out of here before November 11, just two days away—that the Allies will win over there.

And they’ll land in France next.

“The Vichy government wishes to see your commandant friend,” Goubil says, and my smile disappears.

The police might think I’m Claire de Bacqueville, but they know exactly who Léon is. And of course Laval wants to see Léon Faye, the air force commander who once launched a coup in North Africa and who’s now been found consorting with rebels.

“Don’t let him go,” I plead.

“I can’t prevent it, Madame. Monsieur Faye believes that because of the Allies’ landing in North Africa, Vichy might now take some action against the Germans. Especially after he tells le maréchal Pétain…”—he eyes me questioningly—“that the Germans will invade the free zone.”

“Léon is too honorable for his own good!” I cry. “Yes, the Germans are going to invade the free zone. But Pétain won’t care if the Nazis break every promise in the armistice agreement. He’ll never stop them. And he’ll kill Léon if you let him go to Vichy.”

Along the corridor come two policemen marching Léon before them. His face shows an implacable calm as he stops in front of my cell.

“For once,” I beg him, “care more for yourself than you do for France.”

“Pétain is French,” Léon insists. “He won’t want the Germans taking over the whole country. It’s my duty to tell him. I swore an oath to France, Minerva. That’s a sacred thing.”

Despite the fact I’m in prison and the man I love is preparing to go willingly to see the people who’ve locked us up, I laugh. Hysterically.

Why is it that the things we love are the things we come to fear in the end? My husband adored me. He adored me so much it was like a spell, bewitching me into not thinking about what lay on the other side of adoration. I’ve always known that Léon’s sense of honor is like his heart—essential to keeping him alive. But now it’s the thing that’s going to get him killed.

He sees so far into wrong, but he still believes that right will win.

My laughter turns into shaking, convulsive sobs.

“We’ll meet again, Minerva,” Léon whispers. “In the safe house in the Dordogne. I promise.”

Then he’s dragged away by the police, off to plead for France’s soul with the men who gave it to the Nazis.

—

The night is long and terrible. My chilblains ache. And my ears are attuned to the distant echo of menace, the dies irae I can feel coming for us all. Pétain will throw Léon into a worse prison than this—if he isn’t already dead—and in the early hours of tomorrow morning, the Germans will take over the free zone. Then the Gestapo will be in charge of this prison and my life. Lucien’s life. Bee’s and Monique’s and Magpie’s, too.

Dawn is breaking the sky apart when Goubil comes into my cell, solemn-faced. “Pétain arrested Commandant Faye,” he says.

“Is he still alive?” My voice is so thin.

Goubil nods. “The Nazis want all of you and the documents I took into custody.”

“If you do that,” I say furiously, “you’ll be responsible for murdering dozens of people. By tomorrow morning, the Nazis will have occupied the free zone and you’ll be made to arrest more French men and women. Is that why you dreamed of becoming a police officer? To serve Nazis?” I practically spit the last words at him, terrible things to say to someone who’s helped us. But if Léon’s going to be a blazing warrior for right, so will I.

“They want you moved to Castres,” he says before walking out.

Castres is a stopping station en route to being deported to Germany.

I have ten cigarettes left in my pack. I’ve smoked eight of them, all in a row, before Goubil returns, saying, “I radioed Lyon and Vichy. If the Germans were going to take over the free zone, they’d need to bring in troops. There’s no evidence of troop concentrations coming this way. I’ve done what I can.”

“Unless you’re behind a locked prison door or dead, then you haven’t done everything you can,” I say coldly, thinking of dear Lucien, a boy who’s never even had a girlfriend—and who will die in Castres or Germany before he can.

Goubil storms out.

Hours pass. Hours ticking down to November 11 and Gestapo everywhere.

I have no cigarettes left. No more ideas. But so much anger. It drives me, almost maniacally, to keep my head high and meet the gaze of every officer who passes until Goubil returns, looking weary as he says, “We heard from Moulins. German troops are massed at the demarcation line. You were right.”

“Where’s Léon?”

“Already in Castres.”

My hip wants to cast me onto the floor. I will not let it, not in front of my jailer.

Then Goubil says to me, “I destroyed the documents they took from your headquarters. And I warned your men of the route our van will take to Castres. They’ll ambush it. I won’t work for Nazis.”

I take his cheeks in my hands and kiss them.