The Cyclist Read online

  ‘Not him again? What’s he done now?’

  ‘Claude arrested him.’

  ‘What for this time?’

  She smiled and said, ‘He caught some rabbits. He stood outside the prefecture and was shouting for people to buy them. He was drunk.’

  ‘Well it’s no crime unless he was selling at exorbitant prices.’

  ‘No, he was shouting they were “as fat as Göring”.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘As fat as Göring. Claude arrested him in case the Germans heard him. He’s a fool.’

  ‘Yes, always drunk. What did Claude charge him with?’

  ‘Disturbing the peace.’

  ‘Well at least it wasn’t for sedition. He’d be deported for that.’

  ‘Claude wondered if we could keep him in the cells for a week and then let him out. He’s harmless you know.’

  Édith stood.

  ‘Yes, yes. I hope he learns his lesson.’

  ‘I’m going home now. The keys are on my desk.’

  She opened the door again.

  ‘Édith?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She smiled and left. The click of the door as she shut it seemed to echo in his head. Had it not been for Édith, he would have felt an utter loneliness at work. He missed the time when he was a real policeman. A solver of crimes, a true detective. And now? All he did now was persecute people he had known or to whom he had once been close. The townspeople hated him for it. He felt as if he hated himself too at times.

  Without Odette to come home to, he would have left the country long ago. She kept him sane. It was a sanity he needed, for he had begun to feel the world was mad. All sense of proportion had gone, its departure leaving behind an emptiness, a potent emptiness, consuming him, spilling over into everything he saw and did.

  2

  Auguste pulled the door shut behind him. He sighed, as he felt in his pocket out of habit. No cigarettes. He could do with a smoke. He wished Odette was less persuasive and he was still able to smoke, but she insisted. He pictured the packet of Gitanes in his hand and the light tap, tap as he knocked the tiny fragments of tobacco from the tip. He reached the stairs and in his mind he was lighting the cigarette as he stepped down.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the telephone in his office. Damn, he thought. Should he leave it? The sound was insistent; intrusive. It might be important.

  He relented then and reentered his office crossing the floor-space fast.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Auguste.’

  ‘Major Brunner.’

  ‘I have bad news, my friend.’

  ‘News?’

  ‘Someone shot Meyer, right in front of our offices, from the shoe shop.’

  ‘Yes, I know. My men are out searching the streets, making enquiries.’

  ‘Shot in the face. What do you think?’

  ‘Terrible.’

  ‘I’m afraid there will have to be consequences. I have requested assistance from the Wehrmacht. They are sending troops and will be active north of the town. I expect the killer to be found, you hear?’

  ‘I am doing everything I can. You said the shoe shop?’

  ‘Yes, the murderer must have been there for days. He was a professional; it would have been a difficult shot even for a German soldier. The owner unfortunately was shot trying to escape or we would know more. Looks as if the killer escaped over the roof and ran or cycled away. No one saw a car.’

  ‘That much, my men know already. There is nothing we can do now. In the morning…’

  ‘We need to talk anyway. I will send a car tomorrow. You know poor Meyer had a wife and two daughters?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know him well. He and I never got on.’

  ‘I have had a very distressing phone-call. She became hysterical.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘He was a very valued comrade. I will ask the Mayor to erect a statue to him. It may comfort his family to know he is still remembered for his efforts by the loyal French here.’

  ‘A very good idea. I’m sure it will be well-received,’ Auguste lied. The thought of a statue to a German SD officer adorning the market square amused him. It was ironic. He had a vague feeling it was funny. He wondered if he was becoming hysterical.

  ‘Tomorrow then?’

  Auguste said, ‘Yes, perhaps we will have more news then.’

  The telephone clicked off and he replaced the receiver. He stood looking at the shiny black resin machine and cursed to himself. He wondered who Brunner would choose now to run errands for him. He had never like Meyer, the man picked on people and as happens to all bullies, someone must have borne a grudge. Not surprising in a world where reprisals for one German could mean twenty innocent farmers and villagers shot.

  He tapped the desk with his fingers. He slowed his breathing. He had something to do now and although he recognised it was his duty, a trace of reluctance delayed him. He felt tired and as he left the office, he sighed. It seemed to him as if he trudged up a hill and each time he reached the summit another appeared before him. There was no end to this cycle of killings, reprisals and grief. Worse still, it dragged him and his men deeper and deeper into a mire of complicity with the Germans. He had to cooperate with them but he was finding it more difficult by the minute.

  3

  The rain came in sheets as Auguste left the Prefecture. He nodded to the desk sergeant as he closed the tall oak door behind him. The grey, stone steps echoed to the clack of his black boots as he descended and drops of rain pattered on his flat-topped hat. He crossed the square to his battered Citroën. Squatting, he checked under the vehicle.

  Finding nothing attached beneath, he got in but did not start up. He sat a moment looking straight ahead. All registered Jews. It meant hundreds of people from Bergerac alone, a mammoth task. He knew he possessed the manpower. They were never short of recruits these days, since Vichy had come to power. President Pétain ensured funding for the police continued to escalate despite the German plundering.

  Twenty francs to the deutsche-mark he was thinking. It was like downgrading everything in the land. You might as well give exports away, not that there was any food to export these days. Even if food was available, the food tickets limited the quantity to a mouthful.

  He pressed the starter. Nothing happened. He swore. On the fourth attempt, the Citroën coughed then began chugging. It screeched as he put it into gear. He set off, double de-clutched into second, and turned left towards the bridge. Crossing above the swirling brown waters of the Dordogne, he turned left again and hit the main Sarlat road out of town. The windscreen wipers squeaked in the rain and he could only see a short distance ahead. He knew the way well enough: he had cycled here hundreds of times in his youth.

  Passing through a gateway, he drew up outside a white-rendered farmhouse. It was a large building, wooden steps leading up to the porch, a pine rocking chair soaking in the rain on the left and a pile of logs on the right of the heavy wooden door. Raindrops dripped from a mature clematis plant, growing at the end of the porch and a dog barked somewhere inside. He knocked.

  Presently, a man his own age opened the door. It creaked as it came ajar.

  ‘Huh, it’s you,’ Pierre said.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Being discreet? You wouldn’t want anyone to see you visiting a Jew would you?’

  ‘No secret. My car is here. Everyone knows my Citroën even in the dark.’

  ‘Yes, you’re the only one who can afford gasoline.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Come in then.’

  Auguste entered a large room, the floorboards creaking underfoot. An intricately designed Turkish rug quietened his footfall as he approached the middle of the room. Royal Danish china decorated the dresser on the opposite wall and some matching plates adorned the wall above. To the left was a French window, the door open a crack and Auguste could see the muddy green grass falling away to a stream a hundred yards from
the doorstep. Memories of two boys fishing in summer sunshine came into his head.

  No fire burned in the grate and the illumination depended upon a small oil lamp set on a low table in front of a chaise-longue. Portraits hung on the walls adding an air of family history to the room. He noticed little of this, for he was familiar with this room. The roots of half his childhood memories were here, after all.

  ‘Wine?’ Pierre said.

  ‘You have wine?’

  ‘Yes. No law against it, is there Inspector?’

  ‘No Pierre, no law. I just wondered how you could afford it.’

  ‘Homemade. Have you forgotten?’

  ‘No not forgotten, just...’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You broke the curfew this afternoon.’

  Pierre frowned. He was a tall, dark-haired man, broad in the chest and muscular. His face seemed created around his nose, with wide-spaced eyes and a broad balding forehead. Auguste pictured him laughing and could almost hear the deep cavernous sound in his head. He had not heard it for years.

  ‘Come to arrest me have you?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I came to warn you, that’s all.’

  ‘Warn me? Like you warned me to register at the police station? Like you warned me to wear this?’

  ‘The yellow star is as distasteful to me as it is to you. You know that.’

  ‘No I don’t know that. You’ve forced so many others to wear them they must be a favourite decoration for you and your German friends.’

  ‘I didn’t come for this.’

  ‘And what did you come for then? To gloat?’

  ‘What did you do it for? This cycling I mean.’

  ‘A man has to have some courage. He has to fight sometimes, not just capitulate, cooperate and collaborate like you.’

  ‘Pierre, however much you want to fight them, you can’t. Think of Monique. If the Germans had taken you today, you would both be beaten and shut up in Drancy with wrongdoers and criminals.’

  ‘This isn’t why you came,’ Pierre said, pouring a glass of dark red wine. He proffered it to Auguste who took it, sniffed and sipped.

  ‘Nice,’ he said.

  ‘It’s filthy stuff. All I have. I haven’t tasted a good wine since the year Murielle died. What did you come here for?’

  Auguste paused and stared into the half-empty glass. He felt abandoned. He felt like a man alone in a hospital bed, surrounded by strangers, and all of them wanted him to die but he was refusing. He was a stubborn man. Looking up, he saw the candlestick on the mantel, nine candles. The photograph of a young woman in its silver frame, smiled back at him. It tugged at his memory. All those years.

  ‘Pierre, help me. What can I do? If I refuse an order, they will throw me out, maybe even try me for treason. Odette; my little girl.’

  ‘You come here bleating for absolution. You come here because you want me to say, “Don’t worry Auguste, we still love you! Don’t worry Auguste, it will be all right”. Well we don’t love you. It won’t be alright. The Germans plan to exterminate every Jew in Germany, Poland and France. And you? You close your eyes. You talk to me about workers’ camps and good conditions. You’re a fool.’

  ‘Brunner told me...’

  He knew it sounded lame. He knew telling his old friend an SD officer reassured him, was of itself, a kind of proof. It demonstrated the truth of what Pierre said and the emptiness returned.

  Auguste said, ‘Where is Monique?’

  ‘I sent her to Murielle’s mother in Beynac. I couldn’t witness the treatment she receives here any longer.’

  ‘And then you break the curfew?’

  ‘What have I to lose? Will you arrest me?’

  ‘Of course not. I came to warn you.’

  ‘Very well, you’ve warned me. I won’t do it again, Assistant Chief of Police.’

  ‘No. Not that. I received a memo from Lyon today. It requires all Jews to be interned in Drancy.’

  ‘So it has begun.’

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘You Nazis are all so predictable. Every Jew in France has known since last year when they rounded up the Paris Jews. What did they call it? The Vel’d’hiv round up? Thirteen thousand men, women and children. Where are they now?’

  ‘I don’t know. They were deported to work camps.’

  ‘And now all Jews go to work camps. It’ll get a bit crowded won’t it?’ What do you think they will do with all of us?’

  ‘I came to warn you Pierre. Nothing more. You must take Monique and go. Switzerland maybe. You can make a life there, they are neutral.’

  ‘With no papers? With a nine-year-old? You’re mad.’

  ‘The papers may not be a problem.’

  ‘Not a problem? Maybe not for you…’

  ‘I can get you papers. Letters of transit.’

  ‘You would do that?’

  ‘Yes, of course. We are old friends.’

  ‘And the others you round up? Will you do it for them too? Maybe I should refuse?’

  ‘Don’t be a fool. I’m offering you life.’

  ‘So you admit it then?

  ‘What?’

  ‘You admit the prospect of death for me and my child?’

  ‘I have no proof.’

  ‘Wake up Auguste. Can’t you smell the blood on the wind? The stink of death, borne on a tide of hatred and prejudice.’

  Auguste said nothing.

  Pierre raised his glass to his lips; his brown, sharp eyes levelled at Auguste.

  ‘That’s all?’

  Auguste said, ‘I will return tomorrow. If I can get the papers, you must promise me you will go. First to Beynac and then avoid Sarlat, there is a garrison there. It may take you three weeks walking. Use the papers at the border. If you keep under cover, take plenty of food and hide your yellow star, you have a chance.’

  ‘Suppose I choose to fight?’

  ‘You will die. We’re overrun with German soldiers and secret police. They have informers everywhere and there is no resistance. Be sensible. Think of your family.’

  ‘And what about the families of all the others? These internment camps are like funnels—huge amounts go in but there is only space for a few. What do you think will happen to them if they don’t fight?’

  Auguste put down the glass. His fist clenched, his jaw tightened.

  He said, ‘Pierre, do you remember the day when those boys tried to take our fishing rods?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There were six of them. Older than we were. You wanted to fight. I pulled you away. It is the same. The time for fighting is over. We have lost the war and the Germans occupy our country. We have to cooperate or die.’

  ‘In my case cooperation is death.’

  ‘Perhaps. I don’t know if what you say is true but if it is, then what I’m suggesting must make sense to you.’

  ‘I will consider it.’

  Auguste smiled for the first time since entering the farmhouse. It was a thin transient smile but real enough.

  ‘Tomorrow then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Pierre...’

  ‘What? Forgotten your way out?’

  ‘I just wish things could be different. Between us I mean.’

  ‘As long as you serve those killers, how can it be?’

  Auguste shivered as he descended the wooden stairs. He suspected Pierre was right. He was a police officer however and there was no proof. He spent his whole working life seeking proof. Without proof and evidence, life was nothing to him. It had been as basic as examination to a doctor or the law to a judge. But if his friend was right, there would be a thousand other men like Pierre out there and he would be responsible for their internment. Was it possible the German State wanted them all dead? Rational thought said no, but inside he wondered. The thought made him clench his jaw until it ached.

  Chapter 2

  1

  It was still dark when he awoke. H
e lay with his forearm under his head and his body wrapped around Odette. His left arm lay as if from habit, on her hip. He felt his erection and knew he needed to empty his bladder but he enjoyed the feeling of closeness and nuzzling into her, he stroked her hair and cheek. He did not intend to wake her but he felt gripped by a strange loneliness; he needed her. His drowsy mind kept replaying his talk with Pierre. The conversation droned on and on in his mind. He puzzled over the fate of his friend and his daughter. He wished he could change things, but like any man, he felt encumbered by his family, his responsibilities. He dared not take a risk, dared not gamble with their world; it was the world of the only people whom he loved, who would suffer if he did anything to cause official disapproval.

  He looked at his watch. The glowing dial told him he was half an hour early. Sleep would not come back and he sighed, perhaps too loud.

  ‘What time is it?’ Odette said, her hair a sleepy mist on the pillow.

  ‘Half past six. Go back to sleep.’

  ‘How can I go back to sleep with you making such noise and prodding me with that thing. Go to the toilet.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m just worried.’

  ‘Look, I have a busy day. I need to sleep,’ she said.

  ‘I saw Pierre last night.’

  She turned, sleep dissipating.

  ‘Pierre? Is he alright?’

  ‘Yes. He’s sent Monique to Beynac.’

  ‘Well she’s better off there. This place is getting worse.’

  ‘He wants to fight the Germans, the police, even me.’

  ‘Fight?’

  ‘I don’t know what he means. I’m going to try to get them papers.’

  ‘Papers?’

  ‘Yes, letters of transit. If I can get Brunner to sign them they will get Pierre and Monique across the border to Switzerland.’

  ‘You realise how far it is? Are you giving him our car?’

  ‘No. They will have to walk, sleep rough, avoid police. Lyon wants all the Jews interned in Drancy.’

  She sat up. ‘I give up. I can’t sleep now. Drancy? All the Jews? What in the love of Christ for?’

  ‘Pierre thinks it is so they can kill them. I don’t believe it. It surely isn’t possible?’

  She said nothing. The first dull light of a February dawn began to bring the floor and walls back into their lives and Auguste got up. He felt dizzy as he stood up and he wrapped himself in his dressing gown to keep out the cold.