Page 75 of The Resistance Book Club

Margot couldn’t look at the bonfire any more. Her gaze roamed the crowd instead. So many faces were orange in the bonfire’s light, but the expressions were empty. She saw Brigitte to one side, stony-faced, her doctor’s bag in her hand as if she’d been on the way to see a patient. Standing nearby was Sylvie, who was peering at the flames over a handkerchief, and Colette beside her, squinting against the smoke. Elodie Masson, the village’s schoolteacher, was coughing behind her hand as smoke spread through the square.

Towards the edge of the crowd Margot saw fishermen, still in their waterproofs, guarded by soldiers. She supposed they’d been marched up to the square from the harbour, and she saw Claudine among them, her mouth open as the books went on burning.

If they were caught hiding books around the village, the bookshop would be torched. Her shop, her home, all would be lost to ash, just like Theo’s cottage had been.

Everyone knew what would happen – Margot, and her book club friends too, would be marched into the square, blindfolded and bruised, and shot through the head. Just like Madame Guerin, their blood would run across the stones.

If her friends decided they couldn’t take the risk any more, then she understood. But Margot knew she’d carry on by herself if she had to.

As Isabelle began to cry again, Margot gathered her up in the fur and her blanket and lifted her from the basket. She heldher close and, in the light of the bonfire, Göring settled his gaze on the mother and baby. He gave them a bright smile, then mouthed exaggeratedly, so Margot could understand across the distance, ‘She is beautiful.’

Margot couldn’t move. It was as if all the blood in her veins had frozen to ice. If Göring had any idea who this baby’s parents were, neither of them would leave the square alive. She forced herself to smile politely.

Theo touched Margot’s hand gently and bent his head as if he was about to whisper something. Whatever it was was forgotten as the air-raid sirens began to wail.

FIFTY-THREE

LUCY

2025

Lucy had gone back to Sébastien’s cottage with her father, and everyone else seemed relaxed in the sunshine. But all she could picture was the bomb poking out of the rockery. If it went off, all those books that Mémé had so carefully chosen for the shop she’d left behind would go up in flames. The building would have to be torn down. And all those stories that still needed to be told – in the notebook, in the memory box – would be lost.

The thought of all those books burning to ash reminded Lucy of the old newspaper she’d found under the shop counter, reporting the book-burning in Cordeval. It’d been mentioned briefly in the notebook that Mémé and Beatrice had put together, but Lucy was curious, and wondered if Beatrice remembered anything else.

Beatrice was sitting on a bench by Sébastien’s front door, and Lucy slipped into the empty space beside her.

‘Bea, there’s something I’ve been wondering about…the bonfires of books, back during the war,’ Lucy began. ‘I know there was one in Rouen, then Clarenville, and finally rightin Cordeval. It’s hard to imagine something so barbaric. What was it like to see it?’

‘It was like hell,’ Beatrice said, closing her eyes for a moment. ‘Lauterborn was a lunatic, to light up the coast like that during the blackout. I don’t think Göring was very impressed by it. They might as well have painted a target on our heads. Nobody was surprised when the sirens went off.’

‘You must’ve been so frightened,’ Lucy said. ‘And to see one of the Nazi top brass in Cordeval must’ve been thoroughly unnerving as well.’

Lucy’s mind was taken away from her own anxiety as Beatrice swept her up in her recollections. She almost felt as if she was there, in the crowd forced into the square; she could see the silhouettes of books as they were hurled into the flames and she could smell the smoke. She could almost feel herself in the crush of panicked people as the sirens sounded.

But as she thought of the bombers flying overhead, she abruptly returned from the past.There was a bomb behind her shop, and it might still be live.

Lucy started biting her thumbnail like she used to when she was worrying as a child. She’d seen bomb disposal teams on the news before, and pictured the figures in their huge, padded outfits creeping through the garden towards the bomb.

Lucy looked up at her father, who was standing nearby talking to Sébastien. ‘I don’t know how much longer I can wait,’ she told Philip. ‘Do you think the police would mind if I went back? I could rescue the memory box and the notebook. I just can’t bear the thought of it all going up in smoke.’

‘They won’t let you back,’ Philip pointed out. ‘They’ve cordoned off the roads. Don’t worry, I’m sure they know what they’re doing.’

‘But what if the bomb goes off, Dad?’ Lucy said, fretfully. ‘I’ll never forgive myself – all the time that Mémé and Beatrice spent putting everything together; I haven’t had time to showyou any of it yet. It could all just be lost, and we’ll never know what Mémé wanted to tell us.’ She thought of Margot and Esther, she pictured Theo hiding the lullaby inside the piano. She thought of Daniel, who’d sacrificed being with his wife and their daughter for the sake of the nation. She wanted to know their stories.

And then she had an idea.

‘The tunnels.’ She brushed her hands together with purpose. ‘You said they’ve cordoned off the roads, so we could go back through the tunnels instead!’

Philip shook his head. ‘Lucy, no,’ he warned. He looked at Sébastian for support, but Sébastian had bent his head to listen to Beatrice. She was holding her grandson’s hand and whispering urgently.

‘Gran wants her photo albums,’ he said, earning a roll of Philip’s eyes. ‘Come on, Philip, you know what grans are like. As if you would’ve argued with Arielle!’

‘He tried that once in 1973,’ Beatrice teased. ‘Never again!’ Then she shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’m going to get my albums, Lucy. I’ll collect your box on the way. If the bomb goes bang, I’ve lived a lovely life.’

Lucy couldn’t let a woman in her nineties go through the tunnels and risk a bomb for her.

‘I’ll go, Beatrice, you don’t need to come too,’ she said. She tried to sound brave and unconcerned as she turned to Philip and Sébastien. ‘Margot and Esther and everyone faced far more dangerous things than a rusty old bomb. And besides, the tunnels are carved into the rock. They survived D-Day! I’ll be fine.’