Beyond Revanche, page 22
They might have stood in wonder for hours like tourists at Notre Dame looking upwards at the gift from heaven, but Mathieu bellowed, “Get to it. Now.”
Every hand was needed to load the produce into trucks and out of the district before too many alarms were raised. But a further wonder confronted them. Behind the stacked crates on the left hand wall closest to the railway sidings, a second door lay hidden, crudely covered by a giant make-shift flag. It led to a much larger, cavernous building next door to the official Mission. Jean-Jacque’s mouth fell open. He beckoned to Mathieu and started to shake his head. The hall must have been at least three times larger than its neighbor’s with one essential difference. It was empty. Well, almost empty. At the far end the rear entrance appeared secure but on the floor, petrol spillage, burst packs of flour, discarded tins of dried fruit and damaged produce were spread around like abandoned waste.
“ This was the main store and they’ve cleared it out. Somehow they knew we were coming but didn’t have sufficient time to move it all. How? Who tipped them off? And if what we are left with is the smaller part of the entire haul?” Jacques was astounded. “what is going on?”
* * *
Unanswered questions had to be left till later. there was still a job to be done. For four hours the undercover policemen, security agents, and city workers did their utmost to clear the lesser hall. The five trucks were loaded and sent to five different depots across the city. More returned and guards were set on the main street to forewarn the team of the retaliation to come.
“I’m surprised. There’s no reaction in the street.” Jacques alerted the drivers to a possible barricade further along the rue. “What do you think these two know?” He thrust his head towards the confused captives. The two prisoners had not been arrested. In fact they were neither questioned nor cautioned. Blindfolded, hands roughly tied behind their backs, gagged, and double-bound back to back, they were dumped in an inlet on the far side of the hall. All they could do was listen to the noises around them. Mathieu remained close by as they whispered their confusions and an occasional threat.
“Who are these people?”
“Surely they know who they were dealing with?”
“Is that a Corsican accent? How many are there?”
Dozens of voices called across the emptying hall.
“How many lorries do they have?”
The larger of the two broke wind to the annoyance of his companion who had no option but to suffer. Both wore caps, one faded brown, and the other possibly green. Their long coats were thin and stained. Whatever their origins, they belonged to the lowest rung of this particular food chain. Unshaven, hair matted with the sweat, they were either recent recruits or army deserters. The smaller of the two shook violently. He whispered, “Remember the names. Serge, or was it Serge le grand? Fignan. Jeune JP.”
“Remember the names.”
“How dare they move in on the Americans?” The language that surrounded them was tough, gruff, and incomprehensible. Occasionally Toussaint flashed a casual kick in their direction, adding to the tension of the moment. What next? Lorries came and went.
More bangs.
Doors slammed shut.
Engines powered into the night.
Silence.
Gone.
They thought they were alone. Mathieu watched as the two unfortunates squirmed in their wretched isolation, grunting undignified expletives. They wrestled and pulled at their bindings which made matters worse. They tried to stand up but the larger of the two failed to find strength in his legs. Condemned to a silent prison in a near silent world, they understood cold panic. The smaller began to retch in his own snot. Mathieu removed the gag on which his prisoner would have choked.
“Remember this,” he grunted from behind his right hand side, “we know where you stay and where you come from. Do not move for ten minutes or I will have the guard on the door blast you with a shotgun. Whoever asks, you say nothing. We will be watching you.” He cut their bonds with such a force that both whimpered.
“Ten minutes. Then take off your blindfolds and get out of Paris. You have till five o’clock before the Americans know your names.”
Raoul’s Story
The Sin of Madness
I was miserable. Depressed, probably. This should not have happened.
They said, yes, THEY said, I would be out of prison by Christmas, hailed as a national hero. And that was nearly three years ago. Do they appreciate how I languish in my misery? Doctors come and go, allegedly to assess my state of mind, which is, as ever, sharp. I’m nobody’s fool. But you know that, don’t you?
An unexpected hiatus shattered my routine. The door to my cell was thrown open by a swarthy unkempt moron of a jailor who was rude in the extreme. Squat and aggressive, always an unfortunate combination. To make matters worse he sported a cruelly-spread nose which had seen many battles and lost most. The acne from what must have been a tortuous adolescence scarred what could be seen of his skin but his hands were enormous. He threatened me with foul language, making it apparent that he believed I was a murderer and promised that there were dozens of other prisoners who would fight each other for the honor of slitting my throat.
“Pierre? Pierre? Who the fuck’s Pierre,” he laughed in my face when I asked where my faithful warder was. Only then did I remember that I called him Pierre without knowing his proper name. All these games we play.
“Warder Dupre, if that’s who you mean, is ill. Could be influenza, so don’t count on his return. Ever. Here’s breakfast.” He laid some tawdry mush on my table and said, “I’d check everything twice before I ate it. Especially the lumps.”
The bread was stale. It must have been baked yesterday. I sat down, pushed the inedible offering to one side, and composed three letters of complaint. One to the prison governor, one to the doctor, and finally a stinging protest to my lawyers. I made sure that they understood the subtext: I wouldn’t tolerate such treatment or keep my mouth shut for long. “Hunger and malnutrition weakens the strongest mind so that you may never be sure what you have just said,” I wrote pointedly. Clever, eh?
During the two day torment, I revisited the worst of all dreams. I met my mother. Not for the first time, you see, but it was a dream which tormented me beyond pain. Guilt spilled from my grief and stripped the skin from my nakedness.
For some reason it always began in a classroom where one of the Jesuit fathers invited me to sit beside him. Beneath the gaze of the Virgin herself, he appeared an all-knowing visionary.
“Do you understand madness, petit Raoul?” His black soutane drained all the color from the room, afraid that it might be chastised for frivolity.
I shook my head, eyes fixed on the cross he wore as a badge of office. Permission to pontificate. It dared me to disagree.
“Madness is a sin. It is caused by the torture a soul goes through when it knows wrong but pretends that it does not. Do you understand?” He pointed to a blackboard on which was written in capital letters. MADNESS IS A SIN. “And you must remember your mother has confessed to me.”
I wanted to shake my head and ask what kind of sin my mother committed, but I had absorbed enough catechism to know that a priest could not reveal such a thing. He would rather be slain or burned to death or eaten by lions than divulge the secret of the confessional. I’ve seen the holy pictures. I’ve heard the stories of the saints and their martyrdoms. He would not and could not disclose my mother’s sin. It took me almost twenty more years to appreciate the convenience of the parameters set by the committed.
I nodded in compliance. I was a clever boy and therefore had to understand.
“We have decided, myself, Doctor Proal here, and your father, that your mother must be kept in the diocesan asylum.”
“But why, Father? What has she done to deserve that?”
“Ah,” he said, “we must not judge Madame Villain. What she has done lies between her conscience and God. You see, my boy, she is not fit at the moment to bring you up in the faith, to look after the spiritual integrity of your brother and you, and of course, your good father. Her mind has weakened. She needs help. She is safe in the special hospital at Chalons-sur-Marne. She will be looked after and provided for by the nuns and doctors. She will be happy there because she is surrounded by prayer and holiness. And do you know how you can help?”
I looked into his eyes for the answer, dumbfounded that he thought I could help.
“You can promise me that you will pray for her every day. Will you?”
“I do , Father, I do. I pray for mother every day and every night.”
“Such a good boy.” He touched my cheek and I shivered involuntarily.
Then I was with her. She was standing by a window looking out over the river. I went to her and touched her dress and all shivering desisted. She turned to acknowledge my presence, quite perfect in the fresh light. She took my hand and bent to kiss me, but faltered.
“He is lying, Raoul. Look at me. Look how I am dressed.” Suddenly she was in rags, shredded and stained by injustice. “Where is my beautiful petticoat? They stole it from me Raoul, you know, to make robes for their priests.”
Every time she said my name I felt a warmth possess my body.
“Raoul, listen to me. There’s nothing wrong with me. Nothing. People said that your father’s mother, your grandmother, Emelie, was weak in the head. She was not weak. She was a strong-minded woman, and they did not like that, the men who run everything. I’ll tell you who’s mad. He’s mad. Your father. He has no soul. He does not love me, but he wants control of my inheritance.”
“No, Mama, that’s not true, please don’t…”
“Believe me, he is a cold, deceitful, wicked man. But you saw him, didn’t you. You saw what he did.”
Confused, I started to cry, but she did not comfort me.
“I have to get out of here. Why does no one ever visit? Why do you and your brother stay away? Have you forgotten me?”
“No, Mama, never.” But the strange fact was that while I could hear her, I couldn’t see her face. It was shrouded from me. Her breath smelled sweet, but her words were bitter.
“Listen to the doctors, not the priests.” Such a strange thing to say.
“Do they say you are…are…well, the doctors?”
“If you really love me you will get me out of here. Do you really love me, Raoul?”
“Of course, Mama.”
“Then get me out. You are a clever boy. You can do this.”
“But Mama…”
It was at that point that I broke down. Every time. I could not get past the fundamental fact that I had failed her. That the truth was, I did not know how to help her.
She painted a wicked landscape of betrayal in which everyone played their part. “They drugged me in the house and carried me off to this prison hospital. The nuns are corrupt. If I cry they shut me in a darkened room. They force me to take vile liquids, saying it will help me sleep. Why would I want to sleep, Raoul? There is no sleep.”
I fell into memories which made me so sad, so unwanted…so alone. Who could I trust? You? Are you a man of your word, my friend?
We both began to cry but she was fading fast. “Stand up for me, Raoul. Stand up for France. You are a good boy. And clever, too.” When I woke, my pillow was sodden. I had been left behind once more. She had gone.
Who to believe, eh? Dreams or harsh reality? Who would release me from my nightmare? They carried me into this prison and kept me here, but I never denied my so-called crime. It was not a sin to kill Jaurès. I’d stood up for France.
And then it came to me. I’d failed my mother.
No. No. Don’t think like that. She failed me. Say it. Say it out loud. “She failed me.” At the top of your voice. Shout. “SHE FAILED ME. SHE FAILED ME.”
Liar.
Have you ever done that, my friend? You know, lied to yourself?
20
January-June 1916
Chief Superintendent Roux gathered his senior officers in the Bureau gymnasium. The boxing ring had been replaced by trestle tables loaded with a cross sample of produce and foodstuffs taken from the American Mission. Such a sumptuous bounty. It was as if the Ritz had decided to sponsor a luxurious fete as a demonstration of excess.
“I want you to walk round and examine everything you see. Above all I want to know where it comes from and what it means. And I don’t mean America. To add to the takings from early this morning, I received this. Left at the front door by a middle-aged woman, apparently.”
He added another tin of Atlantic salmon to the pile. It had been wrapped in an old copy of a Belgian newspaper, La Libre Belgique. This time he turned the tin over so that everyone could see that the word Belgique had again been scrawled on the back.
“What is this Belgian woman, if she is a Belgian woman, trying to tell us?”
Jacques-Francois spun round and asked the company, “Does anyone know about this newspaper? La Libre Belgique?”
Julien Rioux, who had served in the Deuxième longer than anyone else in the room, cleared his throat. Quiet and unassuming, Rioux picked up the well-thumbed news sheet and held it aloft.
“Written by a hero of mine, Philippe Baucq. An architect to trade. Read by as many Belgians as can lay their hands on it. This is the free Belgian newspaper written to hearten the people trapped in Brussels by the German army. Brutally sarcastic about the German occupiers. Especially General von Bissing the military governor. A real morale-booster for the ordinary Belgians until…” He lowered the newspaper and continued in a voice quivering with emotion. “They rounded him up with a resistance group in mid-1915. Called it a spy ring, which arguably it was, and shot poor Philippe though he certainly wasn’t a spy. They say that von Bissing ordered it. One other person was shot, and it still doesn’t make sense. They arrested about seventy Belgians, tried half of them and shot two. The other was an English nurse, Edith Cavell.”
“I remember now, Rioux. Didn’t the Germans say she was a spy, too?” one of his colleagues asked.
“Yes. But there were a host of others arrested and tried, including minor royalty. But they shot the English nurse.”
Roux asked the question that everyone was thinking. “Because she was English, do you think?”
“Could have been. But why would some as yet unknown person, presumably Belgian, wrap this tin of salmon in Baucq’s newspaper?” Rioux looked around the company. “Anyone?” Silence. Some cast their eyes to the window, others, the floor, but no one answered.
Mathieu altered the approach. “Anyone know what the initials CRB and CNSA mean?”
Jubert knew. “In many ways they mean the same thing. The CRB is the Commission for Relief in Belgium under the leadership of the American Herbert Hoover. The CNSA is the Belgian wing of the same operation. Run by a ruthless banker, Émile Francqui. They literally supply Belgium and the occupied territory in northern France with food from all across the world.”
“I thought it was called American Relief.”
Roux interrupted. “It is. The funds come from America, we think, and are used to buy food from across the world. The Germans allow it to be unloaded in Rotterdam, transferred to barges, and taken to the occupied territories by river and canal. Apparently it is paid for by an immense system of fundraising in America.”
“And our government and the English government allow this?” Mathieu wanted confirmation.
“Apparently.”
“And the Germans, too? Why? Why does the Bureau not have all this on record. Or does it? Is it being suppressed?”
“It keeps the war going.” Rioux’s voice cracked with sarcasm.
“You could say that.” Pascal Girard’s tired reply made them realize that something was deeply wrong here.
“Thanks, gentlemen, that’s helpful.” Roux spoke for them all.
“We still don’t know how all this found its way to Paris.” Jacques-Francois had been invited to attend though he was not officially part of the Deuxième’s squad. He scratched his forehead as if the complexity of this conundrum irritated his wound.
Paul Dubois moved around the table picking up items to explain his point. “Last night I thought this was absolutely random; pineapples, apricots, beans, salmon, soups, meat paste. Only the flour and rice seemed like basics. But we are assuming that this haul was destined for the streets of Paris. What if it was purchased for the great hotels, casinos, embassies, and millionaires who can afford the outrageous prices? What if it was bought to order?”
“That crossed my mind,” Mathieu admitted, looking for inspiration from his chief superintendent.
“One thing you should know,” Jacques-Francois added. “There’s not a murmur on the streets about the raid on the warehouse. It’s business as usual. No complaint from the American embassy. It’s as though nothing happened. Not even amongst low-level black-marketeers.”
