Wild Lavender (51 page)

‘I can vouch for my family’s discretion,’ I told Roger. ‘And Minot and his mother are Jewish. Madame Ibert feels the same way I do about the Nazis. I think you might as well tell everybody what it is that you have to say. They will have to work together anyway.’

‘I’m Australian,’ Roger announced, and once everyone had got over their astonishment, went on to explain how he came to be stranded in France and what he was intending to do to build a Resistance network.

‘And I thought you were Simone’s fiancé,’ my mother said, a smile dancing around her mouth.

The blood rushed to my cheeks. I was sure I must be glowing like a lantern. It was ironic that my mother, who hardly ever said a word, especially in the presence of strangers, should come out with something so embarrassing. Roger shifted in his seat. Neither of us dared look at each other. The best I could do was to send my mother a reproachful glance.

Bernard came to my rescue. ‘Whatever we can do to assist France,’ he said, ‘I assure you that you will have our complete support.’

Roger studied each of the faces at the table carefully. There was no doubt that he had created a formidable team all in one afternoon. He had at his disposal a music hall star, a violinist, a lavender-broker, a theatrical director, two peasant women and an octogenarian.

Roger smiled and raised his glass. ‘We have a new cell in the Pays de Sault region,’ he declared. ‘Mesdames and Messieurs, welcome to the network.’

Although my mother and aunt asked us to stay longer, even another day away from Paris could mean losing an Allied serviceman to the Germans. Roger and I thanked them, but explained that we must return to Paris as soon as possible. It was decided that Madame Ibert would return with us, so that she could organise her apartment as a safe house.

I had become so attached to Chérie and the dogs that I was sad to leave them. But I saw how much they enjoyed running around the farm, and how much my mother liked them. I had intended to leave Kira too, but she rubbed against my legs and meowed so ardently that my mother suggested I take her with me.

‘I don’t think our work would be the same without at least one furry companion,’ agreed Roger, loading the cat cage into the back of Bernard’s truck, then climbing into the tray to sit with Kira so that Madame Ibert and I could travel in the front.

‘You shouldn’t be annoyed at me for saying he was your fiancé,’ my mother whispered to me. ‘He is nice and he doesn’t take his eyes off you for long. I don’t want you to be alone.’

I pretended I didn’t hear her. In another time and another place, I might have allowed myself to fall in love with Roger. But we were at war, fighting to save our countries. How could I involve myself in anything else?

Paris was sombre when we returned. The ingratiating farm boys of the first German advance had been replaced with more sinister officials and the true nature of the German occupation was revealing itself. Most of the shops around Gare de Lyon were open but there was hardly any food in the windows or on the shelves. Hardly any food for French people, that was. While Parisians had to stand in line for meagre rations of bread and meat, we saw one butcher loading up a German officer’s car with packages. The occupation currency had been pegged at twenty francs to one mark. Before the war it had been less than four.

‘A sophisticated way of plundering,’ muttered Roger, reading the rationing notice posted in a baker’s window. From other notices we learned that clothing and shoes were rationed too.

There were no taxis to transport us to the apartment. All the cars had been requisitioned for the German war effort. But there were too many Germans in the
métro
for us to feel safe. We were going to have to walk all the way from Gare de Lyon to the Champs élysées.

We were dismayed when we reached the Place de la Bastille and saw that the street signs were in German. The only spot of brightness that made us laugh was when we passed a shop with a portrait of Pétain in the window. Strategically placed next to it was a sign that read:
Vendu
. Sold out.

To our relief, we found Madame Goux at her desk in our apartment building, and no Germans living there.

‘I’ve been up and down the stairs every morning and night,’ she told us. ‘Turning lights on and off and shutting and opening curtains. But two doors down from us the
Boche
threw the occupants out of their apartments. They gave them receipts for their furniture—to be returned to them “at some future date”—and twenty-four hours to get out.’

‘Two doors down?’ I said, glancing at Roger. ‘Isn’t that a bit close?’

He shook his head. ‘Sometimes the best way to fool the enemy is to work under their noses.’

The next day, Madame Ibert, Madame Goux and I worked zealously to ready the apartments for our ‘guests’. We developed an elaborate series of signals, including crooked doormats, turned vases and taps on the drainpipes to warn of any German visits. Roger busied himself making contacts with the Parisian members of the network, and two days later we were sheltering eleven downed pilots. With so many able-bodied men coming and going from our apartment, we needed a good cover. Roger managed to find two doctors sympathetic to the cause and they set up their rooms in Monsieur Copeau’s apartment: a psychiatrist by the name of Doctor Lecomte, and Doctor Capet who specialised in treating venereal diseases. If there were two things the Germans were terrified of, they were mental illness and contagious diseases.

During those days I woke with a start several times in the night, sure there was a German standing over me or that I had heard an intruder downstairs. I would patter in bare feet up to the floor above where whoever was on watch would reassure me that all was well. Sometimes the guard would open the door so I could peek in and see that the men were there, peacefully sleeping. My eyes sought out Roger amongst the prostrate bodies. He had a habit of lying perfectly still, with his hands crossed over his chest like an angel folded into its wings. When it was Roger who was on guard, I would take a bottle of wine and we would drink a glass each and talk until the dawn.

‘Your mother is not the child of gypsies,’ Roger told me one evening. ‘She is the daughter of your grandparents.’

‘How do you know that?’ I asked.

‘She told me the day we went to visit your family. After you went to bed, we stayed up and talked.’

‘Hmm,’ I said. I had asked my mother for the truth about her origins dozens of times and she had always evaded me. What had possessed her to tell a complete stranger things she wouldn’t tell her own daughter?

‘Your grandfather was a shepherd and your grandmother was an Italian from Piedmont,’ said Roger, regarding my bafflement with amusement. ‘Your father met your mother at the Digne fair.’

I knew about the Digne fair; my father had told me. But what about the other things? No one had ever mentioned that my grandmother was Italian. ‘How do you know she told you the truth?’ I asked him. ‘My mother enjoys teasing people with mysteries.’

Roger reached out and touched my hair. ‘It would explain your colouring. You could be Italian, you know.’

The skin on my neck tingled. I turned, wondering if he intended to kiss me. But Roger was already standing by the window, looking at the dawn breaking across the sky.

‘We’ll go south today,’ he said, frowning. ‘The weather is bad enough for it. Maybe the
Boche
will leave us alone.’

Roger, Madame Ibert and I took turns to accompany the men south with forged papers. Because I was more conspicuous, I usually accompanied escaped French prisoners of war or bilingual British servicemen, preferably ones with some sort of theatrical talent in case we were called on to prove their cover stories. With so many different men passing through our hands, it took a lot of money to get them French clothing, train tickets, forged papers and to feed them. Because we were limited in rations, we often had to purchase our food on the black
market where items could be ten or twelve times the normal price. Madame Ibert and I were happy to give all that we could, but the Germans had limited how much money French citizens could withdraw from their bank accounts in any one month and, even though we resorted to selling our jewellery and some of our furniture, we were constantly falling short.

Although I would not perform for the Germans, I did do the shows at the Alcazar in Marseilles and in other cities in the unoccupied zone. I did my best to keep my cover as a big-spending star, while drinking ersatz coffee and eating soya-bean meat whenever I was alone so I could save money for the network. But as hard as I worked, it was never enough. By November it was clear that the greatest hindrance to the success of our mission, besides the Germans, was a lack of money.

In late November I was performing at a music hall in Lyon. One evening after the show, when I had put on my coat and boots to keep out the encroaching winter, I headed out the stage door and was startled to see a man standing near the steps. The streetlights were out but in the bluish glow of the sign above the door I could see his tall silhouette leaning against the balustrade. He was blowing out ghostly puffs of steam. My skin prickled. I knew the height and the lines of the figure but couldn’t recall where from. The stage door banged shut behind me and the man turned around. André.

‘Hello, Simone,’ he said, the light glinting in his sable eyes. ‘I saw the show. You were wonderful.’

I was so shocked to see him that the best I could manage was a mumbled ‘Thank you’, as if I were talking to a fan in the street, not the man I had loved for years. What was he doing here? Wasn’t he supposed to be in Switzerland?

‘Can I take you to dinner?’ he asked. ‘I am alone tonight and it would be nice to talk.’

The mention of food made my stomach pinch. I had been eating lavish lunches at Lyon’s best
bouchons
to keep up the appearance of a star, and skipping my other meals to save money. But it was hard to do a show a night and sleep in an unheated hotel room on so little food. Perhaps it was inappropriate for me to accept the invitation of a married man and the father of two girls, but I was so alone and tired from my work that I threw caution to the wind and nodded.

André signalled to a car parked on the corner. It was a Citroën with a uniformed chauffeur. The only Frenchman who would enjoy such a privilege was one in the pay of the Germans. My God, I thought, my mind turning black. André is a traitor.

‘It is strange that we should meet like this after all these years,’ André said, helping me from the car when the driver stopped in front of a bistro. Inside, the restaurant was full of French officials and seedy-looking types in flashy suits. The food on the menu was black market produce: artichokes, cured pork sausage and pike quenelles. Food most French people had not seen in months.

I watched André while he gave our orders to the waiter, trying to find the man I had known so many years ago in the distinguished figure sitting opposite me. His face was as beautiful as it had ever been but there were patches of grey above his ears. I remembered the ache in my heart the last night at the house in Neuilly and realised that a touch of it still lingered there.

‘I believe that’s the first time you have performed in Lyon,’ said André, turning to me. We made small talk about everything except the war—and our private lives. André and I were two spirits moving through a twilight world. The glittering France we had once shared was gone; the love we had once held for each other remained a subject too painful to mention.

‘And do you still have Kira?’ André asked, while the waiter filled our wine glasses. I laughed and told him that Kira was well and the conversation became easier between
us. The heat in the restaurant thawed out my bones and the Burgundy wine began to swim in my head. I pushed away my wine glass, reminding myself to be careful. I had known André intimately once but that had been in a different time and place. Nobody knew anybody any more: parents did not know their children; husbands did not know their wives. One clumsy word to André and I could betray the network.

‘So your factories in Lyon are still operating?’ I asked. ‘With the rationing I didn’t think there would be a market.’

‘I export to the Germans,’ André said. ‘I make uniforms for the army.’

His frankness shocked me. I found it impossible to hold his gaze. Was he so shameless? The André I had known would not have done such a thing. I glanced back at him and saw there were tears in his eyes.

‘It is the only way I know to help France,’ he said. He seemed to be turning something over in his mind. I realised with some surprise that he was contemplating whether he could trust me. He must have decided in my favour because he lowered his voice and said, ‘After the Armistice, it didn’t seem there was anything a man could do to erase France’s shame. At least this way I can keep my employees in jobs and save them from being sent to labour camps. The men who work for me have families to feed. The women have husbands in prisoner-of-war camps and hungry children at home. It is the only thing I can do to help.’

The quiver in his voice touched my heart. Relief rushed through me. It was as if we were the young André and Simone of our innocent days, back when I never doubted that I could trust him. I wanted to throw my arms around him. No, André hadn’t changed. The rest of the world had gone insane, but André was the same. The table next to us let out a howl of laughter. Their faces were flushed and their eyes glazed with drink.

I leaned across the table. ‘André,’ I whispered, ‘take my hand as if we are talking intimately. There is something I need to tell you.’

He looked puzzled but did as I asked, moving his chair so that he sat close to me. In revealing my secret, I could be condemning myself and the network to death. But without money, we wouldn’t be able to keep it going. I had to take the risk. Besides, when André took my hand, I felt the same comfort and strength I had felt in his many years ago.

‘There is something you can do to help,’ I told him. ‘I do not believe the war is over for France, that we are defeated. Have you heard of de Gaulle?’