Aaron Elkins: Old Bones

She shook her head. "No, I want to; I’m fine." She breathed deeply and opened her eyes. She didn’t look fine. "Raymond, I think you know that in 1942 the Germans occupied this part of France."

"Yes. I’ve always been interested, of course, and I enjoy history anyway, so I’ve read just about everything I could find about the occupation of Brittany."

"Yes-" She dropped her chin, raised her eyebrows and studied him quizzically. " History? Do you consider the Second World War history? "

"Well, yes. It was ten years before I was born."

" Ten years? Good gracious, young man, when were you born?"

"Nineteen-fifty-three." He spread his hands. "I’m sorry."

"Nineteen-fifty-three," she repeated. "Do you mean to say we have college professors who were born in 1953? God help us."

From her other side Ben smiled across at Ray and nodded. Thank you, he was saying, for shifting her into a more Sophie-like gear. Ray smiled back, pleased with himself.

"Now then," Sophie said, quite businesslike. "You should know that Alain was also active in the Maquis -the Resistance-even before Guillaume was. He was a sector leader in the area around Ploujean."

A highly successful leader, she went on to explain; so successful that in January 1942 the SS descended on Ploujean to take control from the regular German army and stamp out local Resistance efforts. With their usual methods they found out about Alain, arrested him, and executed him in the basement of the town hall in Ploujean.

"I’m sorry," Ray mumbled.

Sophie made a small shrugging movement, staring over his shoulder and up the hill towards the back of the manoir. "They executed five others at the same time. There’s a plaque in the town square."

There was more to tell. The grieving, raging Guillaume somehow managed to get to the SS Obersturmbannfuhrer who had been responsible and assassinate him. The very next day.

"My God," Ray breathed, "they must have massacred the whole town in retaliation."

"No, somehow that didn’t happen, but of course Guillaume had to flee. He ran off to join the Resistance in the caves near Dol and he was quite a hero, they say. That’s how he got those scars, as I’m sure I don’t have to tell you. A bombed building collapsed on him, as I understand it. He certainly looked it."

Guillaume’s having been a Resistance hero came as no surprise to Ray. There was a rocklike, Olympian quality about his formidable relative that would have made anything credible. To have heard that he had wound up by Montgomery’s side at the very invasion of Normandy-or by Charlemagne’s at Roncesvalles-wouldn’t have amazed him.

Sophie returned her eyes to his. "Now you know."

"But I don’t understand. What was that you said to Claude Fougeray? How could he have been responsible for Alain’s death?"

"Claude," she said, and made a growling sound. "That worm. How he has the nerve to sit there in that house-!"

"Honey," Ben said, "I think I’ll tell this part of it." He went on before she could respond. "Claude worked at the mairie in St. Malo during the Occupation. He was a clerk for the mayor-which meant, of course, for the German military administration. Now, a lot of people had jobs like that, and it doesn’t necessarily mean-"

"Oh, yes it does," Sophie said with a snort. "Do you know how he got that job? He informed on a family that was hiding two Jews. That’s how he proved his heart was in the right place. The Germans shipped them all off together and then rewarded Claude with his precious job."

"Now, honey, that’s all hearsay; Nobody knows-"

" Everyone knows. It’s common knowledge."

"Well, anyway," Ben said to Ray with a sigh, "it wasn’t that Claude was responsible in any direct way for Alain’s death…Now, he wasn’t, Sophie; you know that." He waited for his wife to subside. "What happened, Ray, was that Claude was privy to some inside information. He knew there were going to be some SS arrests two days before they happened. Apparently he even knew Alain’s name was on the list, but he…well, he never warned anyone."

"He never…" Ray was shocked. "You mean to say he-he just…his own cousin…?"

"I know, but the Nazis told him if word got out they’d shoot everybody in Ploujean instead, and him too."

"So he said," Sophie put in bitterly.

Ben made a tck-ing sound, tongue against his teeth. "I don’t know; I can feel for the poor bugger. Things were hard."

"That’s not an excuse," Sophie said stolidly to her hands. "He could have done something. But he didn’t. And so there he is, sitting in the manoir, grosser, and fatter, and more disgusting than ever…And Alain and five other good, brave men have been dead for forty-five years." Her eyes shimmered with held-back tears. "Forty-five years, and nobody knows where they’re buried. If the damned Nazis even buried them."

In the quiet that followed, Ray reached out to pat her hands, which lay loosely clasped on the purse in her lap.

"Afterwards, Claude holed up behind the walls in St. Malo with his Nazi pals," Ben went on, "where the Maquis couldn’t get to him. When the Germans pulled out he ran too. Turned up in Avranches, near Mont St. Michel, where nobody knew him, and started a butcher shop. Now he owns a meat-processing plant in Rennes; the sausage king of Brittany, so they say." He smiled crookedly. "He started out to be a surgeon, if you can believe it."

"You’re not serious," Ray said.

"No, it’s true," Sophie said. "He studied medicine for a year or two, but the war put an end to it. It’s a family joke."

"A joke?"

"They say one profession was as good as another to Claude," Ben said. "He just likes the feel of raw meat. That’s always good for a laugh from Jules."

Sophie stood up and shivered. "The sun’s gone in. Maybe we ought to go inside. Guillaume’s probably back by now."

They began to walk up the patch towards the house. "There’s still something I don’t understand," Ray said.

Ben lifted an eyebrow in his direction.

"What’s he doing here? I mean, why would Guillaume invite him to a family council?"

"Well, I think that’s what we’re all wondering. But he’s actually Guillaume’s closest relative, a lot closer than Sophie or Rene. You’re even further off, and there isn’t anyone else in the family. So if there’s some sort of important business, I guess he’s got a right to be here."

"I don’t see why," Sophie said. "He’s only related because his father married Guillaume’s aunt."

"Only!" Ben laughed. "That just makes him Guillaume’s first cousin, that’s all! Way back when, he was next in line for the domaine, but when Guillaume got back after the war he cut Claude out of his will. Naturally enough."

After a few more steps Ben spoke to Sophie. "Did you see the way Mathilde jumped when you mentioned Alain’s name? I wonder if she’s still carrying a torch for him. Poor old Rene."

"For Alain?" Ray said. "Mathilde?"

Sophie nodded. "They were engaged. I suppose they were having an affair, although I was too young to know about it."

"But-but she-"

"Don’t look so censorious, dear. She and Rene weren’t a thing yet. And she was very beautiful, in a monumental sort of way."

"Yes, but she was only…How old could she have been?"

"Oh, about seventeen, I suppose. And Alain was in his early thirties."

Ray blinked, not with mere prudish disapproval-not entirely-but with astonishment. His straitlaced, comically stuffy Aunt Mathilde a teenaged beauty carrying on an illicit affair with the dashing Alain?

Sophie laughed softly at his expression. "As a matter of fact, that’s what I like most about her; that she loved Alain."

When they got to the top of the path, Ray said he thought he wouldn’t go in yet, but would stroll down the quiet lane toward Ploujean. Maybe he’d look at the plaque. They’d given him a lot to think about. He turned from them, walked a step, and came impulsively back to put his arms around Sophie in an awkward hug.