Page 27 of The Resistance Book Club

Lucy stared at the white-haired lady in amazement. ‘You called it the Resistance Book Club? As in, the French resistance? So did you do more than argue about novels and eat biscuits?’ she said. ‘Yes, Beatrice – please show me. This is just amazing!’

As they strolled, Beatrice said, ‘We didn’t know where to start. It’s such a story, we didn’t know how to tell it.’ Her eyes sparkled. ‘And as the years went on, we wondered if we’d really lived it at all. How was I ever a little girl, playing in bombsites and carrying messages for the resistance? I held more secrets in me by the time I was eleven years old than I ever have in the eighty-odd years that came after the war.’

‘I can’t imagine having a childhood like that,’ Lucy replied. She thought of the photos of Cordeval’s harbour after D-Day’s fierce barrage. ‘It must’ve been terrifying.’

Instead of turning towards the street where the bookshop stood opposite Jojo’s, Beatrice guided them into the square. The linden trees offered pools of shade for Papi’s friends sitting on their usual benches. There were shops and houses around the square, apart from one side where the town hall stood, its thick, cream-coloured window blinds down as if it had fallen asleep.

‘Arielle and I used to sit here at the café, making eyes at thelocal boys. We courted our husbands here.’ Beatrice smiled. She looked towards a building and through the windows, Lucy could see that the café had become a hairdresser’s in the years since. ‘We lost it when Victor retired.’ She patted her neat white crop. ‘But we gained a good salon.’ She strolled on towards one of the tallest trees, beneath which the sun was gleaming from a polished plaque. ‘This is part of our story.’

Lucy had seen it before on her visits to Cordeval, but it was only now that she looked at it properly. The Cross of Lorraine, the symbol of the Free French and resistance, stood at the top.

IN MEMORY OF THE BRAVE FIGHTERS OF THE FRENCH RESISTANCE WHO WERE EXECUTED HERE: 14 NOVEMBER 1941.

HEROES OF THE REPUBLIC. CHILDREN OF CORDEVAL.

Lucy swallowed and took off her sunglasses. She looked again around the square, which looked so innocent in the sunshine. It didn’t seem like the kind of place where anyone could die so brutally.

She wished she’d taken proper notice of this memorial before and had asked Mémé or Papi when they were still around to tell her.

‘Who were they, Beatrice?’ Lucy asked, her voice as hushed as if she was standing in a church.

‘They were brave people. They sacrificed everything,’ Beatrice replied. ‘The Nazis dragged us all out here to watch them die, one by one. People we all knew. Our friends, our families. One of them was a member of our Resistance Book Club. But we would’ve all laid down our lives, Lucy; every last one of us would’ve died to free France.’

The strong sunlight seemed to dim as Lucy’s mind peopled the peaceful square with soldiers in uniforms dragging peopleout of their homes. She heard crying, pleading, shouts of despair and vicious, barked orders. She thought of Beatrice, only a child, being forced to watch, and her head swam with the horror of it all.

Sébastien came out of the bar carrying a tray laden with glasses of beer. He greeted the two women with a tight nod as he strolled to a table where a trio of men waited for their drinks. Beatrice gave him a bright smile, then drew in a sigh.

‘We met in the shop at midnight,’ she said. ‘Whenever I see a candle flame now, I go back there. Those brave women, wrapping their books one day and passing codes the next. Folding maps was the worst; they were so important but so unwieldy. I could never seem to get them to fold down small enough. They were given out to escaping prisoners or Allied airmen, anybody that needed to find their way through the warren of lanes around here. So many people were picked up from the beaches around here; some of them had travelled the length of France to meet the boats at Cordeval.’

Lucy’s mind was whirring. ‘That crate of books I found, it must be all that’s left of the Resistance Book Club. Beatrice, will you tell me everything you remember about it?’

She wondered who the other members of the book club were, besides Margot and Beatrice. She glanced back at the group of Papi’s friends on their bench, and it occurred to her that their mothers or sisters might have been in the book club too. But the occupation was such a painful memory that it wasn’t something older people easily talked about.

Beatrice hadn’t said a name, and she didn’t want to press. But who from the book club was murdered in this very square, on that dark day?

SIXTEEN

MARGOT

1941

The heavy atmosphere in the candlelit cellar had changed to one of astonishment. Margot gasped and excited chatter ran around the circle.

Esther, her friend, a widow who took in sewing and looked after a baby all on her own, was a resistance fighter. And her husband wasn’t dead at all.

‘You’reChevalier?’ Brigitte exclaimed. ‘Both of you? And Daniel’s still alive – thank God! But where is he? We all thought…’

‘Esther, this is just extraordinary,’ Margot said. ‘None of us had any idea. I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I am that Daniel’s alive.’

‘They got too close,’ Esther explained. ‘Daniel was sure they were about to identify us and put our baby in danger. I told him he had to get away so we could go on with our work. So we came up with the idea of saying he was lost at sea. And two weeks later, Isabelle was born.’

Margot glanced down at the sleeping baby in Esther’s arms, her long eyelashes lying softly against her cheeks.

‘We’ve spoken on the radio, but he’s never met his little girl,’ Esther continued. ‘We had to put the resistance work first. We’ve been getting people out, you see. People the Nazis would kill. People like our little family.’

‘What a hero!’ said Margot. ‘And you too. Esther, itwon’tgo any further than this room.’ Steel had entered her voice, but she was sure there was no one in this circle who’d betray them. ‘What do you need us to do?’

‘We need maps. Desperately,’ Esther explained. ‘We have people here who don’t know the region. Downed airmen, agents running for their lives. The coastlines around here are so remote, they make excellent pick-up points for rescue, but the lanes…it’s like a labyrinth. The people we’re helping need to find their way. I can pay, Margot, but we need all the maps you can lay your hands on. And we need to distribute them, just as we do the books already. I can tell you where the drop points are.’ She looked around the room at all their faces. ‘If any of you don’t want to help, I won’t blame you. I know it’s asking too much.’