J. Janes - Hunting Ground

‘The son of an important family. You have to remember the boy’s growing up. Jules can’t have been all that bad or you would never have married him.’

‘Women make all kinds of mistakes this Occupation only reinforces.’

He added another dry stick to the tiny fire he’d built among some screening boulders. There was no possible warmth except for the mind and soul. ‘What will you do?’ he asked.

‘Lie low for a while. My SS guards watch me all the time. Neumann has been repeatedly eyeing the contents of the house and has made another list of his own: the small things that can be easily taken. He’s edgy, Tommy. It can’t have been easy for him having that train robbed. He’ll be worrying about the Russian front just like the rest of them.’

‘Was Schiller really sent there?’

There were so many things we didn’t know. One guessed simply because that was all one could do. ‘Maybe yes, maybe no, but deep inside me, I have to feel he’s near.’

‘And Dupuis?’

‘Just like Schiller, he believes I was involved in the robberies, but more than this perhaps, that I’m the key to the rest of you, so they both tolerate a modicum of freedom for me as they wait to see what I’ll do. I can’t become involved again, Tommy. I mustn’t. I don’t want to be the one who leads them to you and Nicki and the others.’

‘Marie seems very reliable.’

‘She and Jean-Guy argue vehemently. For days on end, she won’t speak to him, but when I ask, it’s always some stupid thing, never the real reason.’

‘Could she take a message into Fontainebleau?’

‘No! I absolutely forbid such a thing.’

‘I have to contact Matthieu and through him, Paul Tessier. We’re moving over to the offensive. Now that America’s in the war, it’s only a matter of time until the Allies invade the Continent.’

Pearl Harbour-yes, I’ve forgotten to mention it-7 December 1941. But you do see how small our war here really was? We learned of this tragic event both from the BBC French broadcast and the German-controlled Radio-Paris. We also knew that as Tommy had said, it would only be a matter of time.

‘We’ve a parachute drop in ten days, Lily, near that abandoned airfield.’

The caves and my mother’s farm.

‘Just hang on for a little longer. As soon as the drop’s done, we’ll clear off and leave you out of it. Some of the arms are to be smuggled into Paris. Marcel is working for us.’

‘You’ll all be arrested!’

‘Somehow I’ve got to contact Tessier. He’s the only one who can teach the others how to handle the explosives that will be dropped.’

‘I’m not hearing this. I’m really not! And where, please, do you intend to hide stuff like that?’

‘As far from the caves as possible. The loft of Clateau’s slaughterhouse probably.’

‘ Ah, nom de Dieu, why? Barbizon is a little place that’s crowded with Germans and collaborators!’

Not only had he a place in mind, he let me say it: ‘My coach house, among the crates.’ Aghast that he should even think of such a thing, I offered an alternative: ‘The Poulins, Tommy. Yes, we must take it to their farm. Henri and Viviane will help us. It’s far enough from the drop zone and won’t arouse suspicion.’

Me, I knew he had planned it all along, for he finally said, ‘We’ll have to check the location out.’

I remember nodding with dread at this while gazing into the fire, remember saying, ‘You want me to go there tomorrow to ask them, and if I do, Marie must take a message to Matthieu? That restaurant of his is so full of the enemy, Tommy, the French ones especially will know who the hell my daughter is!’

‘But she runs errands for you? The post office, the shops, eggs even to the mayor.’

And he’d done it again. Led me straight to where he wanted. ‘All right, I’ll ask her to take Matthieu some eggs first thing in the morning. Jean-Guy can take five to the mayor, so as to divide the responsibility and silence the argument.’

‘Nicki will go to the Poulins with you.’

‘And yourself?’

‘Will be watching your backs.’

The surface of the millpond is dark and still, the geese tightly flocked before the door where Viviane used to feed them. They question, they wait, they crane their necks in expectation and complain to one another as I lean the bike against a tree and walk towards them. Me, I know what I’m about to find. Even so, I don’t take chances. The Luger is in my hand, the Schmeisser Matthieu got for me in the carrier basket beneath a blanket that hides it.

The geese see me and crane their necks my way. They fidget-the whole flock moves in unison, eddying in uncertainty only to flow right back to the doorstep as a burst of autumn sunlight makes their feathers a starker white against the russet hues of the fallen leaves and the chalk-white of the stucco.

Rubbing the glass of a windowpane, I peer inside. Grey-haired and tied to a chair, Viviane sits before a cold stove, and I know Schiller’s cut her throat.

The geese move towards me only to ebb, then wait. They’re in a constant state of flux, the poor things. Finding the pail of feed in the barn, I toss them handful after handful, throwing it towards the pond until the racket of them is more than I can bear and they’ve parted enough for me to see Henri.

Mired in their puddled excrement and feathers, he lies face-down. Though I’ve seen far too much of this, I bite my knuckles to stop the tears, for it’s not just that they’re gone. It’s all my fault and I know this. Am I softening, or is it simply my memories of this place and the pond that once held so much for me and the others?

The water’s cold, and I know I can’t go bathing, but on that spring day in 1942, it was deliciously warm in the shallows, and through the spray I could see and hear Tommy laughing at me. He had such a good laugh, strong and full, such a wonderful body. We came together-splashed-chased one another until we fell into each other’s arms among the tall grass and wild flowers, me touching his hair and his brow, and thinking of Henri Poulin who might be watching, though the pond seemed empty of his punt when I sat up to look.

‘Tommy, I’m worried about Marie. I must get back. It’s crazy for me to stay here like this,’ but he lay on top of me, and it felt so good to have him there.

‘Nicki and Dmitry are on the lookout. We’ll be okay.’

A wren flitted nervously among the flowering dogwood, and in the distance I could hear the geese. Viviane would be feeding them again; Henri would be …

‘It’s been ages, Lily.’

Halfway between the millpond and the village of Milly-la-Fôret there’s a place of much beauty called the Trois Pignons, the Three Gables. It’s a plateau of uplifted little escarpments that have been cut by gullies and strewn with scattered boulders.

Always when I come here, I feel wild and free, able to climb to the highest parts, breathless while looking out over the surrounding terrain. It’s windswept up here in the late autumn, open to all weathers, and I can’t resist the temptation to stand out and let Dupuis and Schiller see me holding that Schmeisser if they’re nearby.

Me, I wish I was wearing the brown beret, rucksack, Norwegian trousers, and boots that I used to have hidden with the Poulins, you understand. Ah, oui, oui, I always took precautions-everyone did. When things got tough, I had places to go to, but please don’t misunderstand. The Forest of Fontainebleau was far from wild and empty. During the Occupation, there were times when the Germans would come like tourists to hike or simply wander about, and times, too, when Parisians and others had to get out of the city, if allowed, to scrounge for mushrooms, acorns, and berries, or attempt to buy things from the surrounding farms.