A Brittany trilogy. The end

Chapter 3: Lollipop

Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l’automne
Blessent mon coeur
D’une langueur
Monotone.

The slow weeping
Of the violins
Of Autumn
Stab my heart
With a monotonous
Lassitude

(Verlaine, 1844-1896)

May 13^th 1944. In less than a week, on May 18^th, I’ll be 18. Ha! I don’t think I’ll ever celebrate my birthday again after that. Not that this coincidence of turning 18 on the 18^th, should be a matter of great celebration. My mother has taken ill. We don’t have much money to buy medicines. There aren’t many medicines available anyway.

Doctor says it’s her heart. Food is scarce too. My parents’ cousins in Piré hardly have any food left. They’re farmers, so they’re a little better than us who live in Rennes, the “big” city. My father used to ride his bicycle there to grab a little food from his cousins, but, no, not’ny more. All, or most of the food, goes across the border. Last Autumn I would go to the woods near our house. Gathered as many chestnuts as I could. Not very nourishing, but now, there aren’t even any chestnuts left. We eat whatever my father can still grow on his garden by the railroad… Salsifis. Rutabagas. Roots. Mushrooms. Eggs from the 2 or 3 hens we still have. Whatever one can buy “under the counter” in that shop or the other.

Money? My father’s a mechanic at the State railroad. He doesn’t make much. Even before the war, we never had much money anyway, though we weren’t “poor”. Strange, isn’t it, what goes into people’s head? Now? Everybody is just about the same. Short on everything. My mother used to sell some clothes that she made. She’s a magician with her sewing machine. But everybody is trying to sell old clothes or even new clothes. Anything. But no-one has much money to buy anything anyway.

This war is endless. It seems like all I remember is the war. Will it ever stop?

Despite the absolute censorship on all French press and radio, we know that the Allies have landed in Italy. Just about anyone who owns a radio, listens to “Ici Londres” (“This is London, the French speak to the French”) at night. Volume turned low, even despite the constant jamming. Why low volume? Not all neighbours can be trusted. There are many anonymous denunciations. You have a row with someone? Careful. You can be signaled to the Nazis. Anonymous letters are so easy. Those who write the anonymous letters are called “Crows”. Ravens. Corbeaux. Plenty of “corbeaux” around.

With the radio, we do have a bit of information. Even if the news on “Here is London” are also censored. Or coded. Or, shall we say… arranged? For obvious reasons. Can’t give up plans can they? It seems the Allies are having a hard time in Italy… Sorry about Italy, but when are the Allies going to land here? In France?

On September 3rd, 1943, the Allies landed in Sicily to open a southwestern front.
Allied forces, including the US, the English, and the Free French forces
Met with strong resistance until the battle of Monte Cassino
From January to May, 1944
(The Pólemos Institute)

I dropped out of school to care for my mother. I don’t think I’m missing much. Classes were a mess anyway. Teachers missing. Either they crossed the Channel to Join De Gaulle’s Free French Forces or they’re in prisoners camps, or “drafted” by the STO, the Service du Travail Obligatoire (Compulsory Work Service) to work in factories across the border, since “their” men are here, occupying us… Ironic. I don’t stay at home all the time of course. Even I wanted to, my mother would shoo me away.

I’ve dropped the Breton Autonomists. Some were not very clear about which side they really were on…

I “mix” with another crowd now. I like them better. They’re much younger than the Autonomists to begin with. Some are with the Résistance. All very hush-hush. Like I said, you can’t trust anybody. You never know who can accuse you – of anything – just for revenge or to get an advantage…

My new friends are all right. Most are very young. Eager. I don’t know much of the “Big plans! They say “we need to compartmentalise.” So, nobody knows everything. Just in case. I also suspect they all think “I’m way too young.” It’s all right, I help as much as I can. Takes my mind away from the drab day-to-day.

I type a few messages. I took shorthand and typing last year at school. At least, “after the war”, if there is ever an after, I can get a job as a secretary. There’s always work for a good secretary. Men! They can’t type. Or won’t.

Sometimes I’m given a written message. Coded. To put in a dropbox. Under a bench. Or behind a tree in the park.

Many messages are extracts of poems. Those that I learnt at school. I write the poem in my school notebook. If I ever get caught, I can say: “That’s my homework.”

There are poems by Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Verlaine and others. There’s a lovely one by Verlaine that I’ll always remember:

Le ciel est par-dessus le toit
Si bleu si calme
Un arbre par-dessus le toit,
Berce sa palme

The sky is over the roof
So blue, so quiet
A tree, over the roof,
Swings a branch.

(Le ciel est par-dessus le toit, Verlaine)

It’s exciting to deliver messages. Even when my friends say:

“Nobody will suspect you. You look like a little girl.”

“Oh, really?” I say. I roll my eyes. And deliver the message. Doesn’t happen very often though. I don’t know whether they don’t want to expose me or they want to spread the risk between several people.

Tout suffocant
Et blême, quand
Sonne l’heure,
Je me souviens
Des jours anciens
Et je pleure;

Suffocating
And pale, when
The hour peals,
I remember
Bygone days
And I cry.

(Chanson d’automne)

*

Then come the bad news: my best friend in the “réseau”, the network, was arrested yesterday. Word came out immediately:

“Stop all contact. Don’t talk to anybody. Network’s dissolved. Split.”

This is a disaster. My friend is only 23 or 24… I have to do something. I don’t know what gets into my head. I’m going to get my friend liberated. I go to the Kommandantur. The German military headquarters.

I talk to the sentinel at the door of the Kommandantur, ask to speak to an officer in charge. Not easy. Most German soldiers don’t speak French. Most French, like me, only know a few words in German. Most related to “get out of the way” or stuff like that. No need to speak the language. Perfectly clear. Best not to argue.

Finally, after one soldier talks to another and another, I am ushered into a large office on the second floor, with large windows facing the street. A German officer stands up. Bows slightly. (He almost clicks his heels.) He says:

“Asseyez-vous, Mademoiselle, je vous en prie.” (Pray sit down, Miss.)

He speaks perfect French. Hardly a trace of an accent. Quite handsome. Early-thirties. Blonde, blue eyes. I remember thinking “blue eyes like my father.” But he isn’t my father. No, no. I am on dangerous ground but I’m so sure of myself. Do you remember when you were 17, almost 18? When you felt the world belonged to you, that you were invincible? And just a touch daft…

“What can I do for you?” he says. At least he has a green, Wehrmacht uniform, not a black SS uniform. He does not say his name.

He has a lollipop in his mouth. How odd. Maybe he’s trying to stop smoking. My father tried last year. He always has one of his ugly and foul-smelling Gauloises “papier maïs” cigarettes dangling from his mouth. Fortunately my father stopped “stopping to smoke” after a week, to every-one’s relief. There’s no ashtray on the desk here.

I start to explain that my friend has been arrested, that he’s totally innocent, that I’ve known him for years. That surely something can be done. Dropping the charges… I ramble, I ramble. The officer listens. Very carefully. His blue eyes deep into my green eyes. Sucking on his lollipop.

When I run out of arguments, and shut up, the officer takes the lollipop out of his mouth. Bends to the left of the desk, opens a drawer. Takes another lollipop out, hands it to me, and says in his perfect French:

“Miss, please take this lollipop. Stand up. Turn around and leave this office. Go down the stairs slowly. Leave the building. Don’t. Ever. Come. Back. Do not tell anybody you ever came here. Is that clear?”

I take the lollipop. Stand up. In silence. Leave the building.

My friend was executed the next day with a dozen others…

During WWII, the French Résistance
Counted with 150 to 200,000 members
Approximately 30,000 were executed or died in combat
(The Pólemos Institute)

*

Et je m’en vais
Au vent mauvais
Qui m’emporte
Deçà, delà,
Pareil à la
Feuille morte.

And I leave
To where the nasty wind
Takes me
Here and there,
Like a fallen leaf.
(Chanson d’automne. Autumn song. Verlaine.)

Author’s note. This is a true story. The last chapter of this “Brittany trilogy.” Three stories my mother told me over the years.

I had to reconstruct the stories of course. She never wrote them. Just told them a few times. When something jogged her memory. I had to find or re-construct details. Dates for instance. She never said: “On that particular day I went to pick up my cousin at the train station, I arrived just when the Americans bombed the station…” But with research, it is possible to draw a bridge between “Memory” and “History”. The station was bombed on a particular day. It is documented.

Some details I “fixed”? My mother’s cousin’s name in Morlaix. (Chapters 1 and 2) I don’t know or remember her name. Maybe my mother mentioned it once. But you how it is when you’re young – somewhat daft – and parents start with “their stories”. Maryvonne is my own cousin’s name. My aunt Marité’s daughter. Maryvonne was born around 1942, 1943. About ten years older than me. I still remember her from early visits to my family in Brittany. At her parents’ house in Saint-Gravé. I must have been 3 or 4. She had long black braids. Played with me and my sister like an older sister.

Why write those stories now? I don’t really wish to share my personal conclusions, I would like every reader to draw her/his own conclusions. Just a hint. Those stories are not really about WWII. Not about France, or Germany. I hold no grudge whatsoever with Germany or my German friends. We have all made our peace. On both sides. A good example to follow. And a important point to meditate.

Those stories are about today. And tomorrow. As War is coming back, in force, everywhere, I just wanted to share every detail, and I stress: “every detail” of these three stories. We cannot forget History.

My grandmother, Augustine, died in 1944. Of a heart condition. Deprivation. Lack of medical treatment. She was very ill for the last few weeks. Never said a word until she died.

Then came the Allied landing in Normandy. Verlaine’s “Autumn song” above was the code broadcast on the radio (June 5^th I believe) to advise the French Résistance of the coming landing. Rennes was liberated on August 4^th 1944 by a combined offensive of the Free French Forces of the Interior (Résistance) and Patton’s 8^th US Infantry division.

As I write this, I think of the German officer who let my “daft” mother go with a lollipop. I hope he made it alive till the end of the war. He was a gentleman. A gentleman with a lollipop.

Going back to 1944, (a bit long for an author’s note, I know, I know), after the liberation of Rennes, my mother joined the French Air force as a WAC (Women’s Army Corps). And eventually took “an unexpected trip”. If you haven’t read the story, click here:

An unexpected trip

Thank you all for visiting and reading. And let’s not forget History.

(c) Martin-Onraët & Equinoxio. Including the translation of Verlaine’s poetry to English.