Chapter 52
FIFTY-TWO
MARGOT
She went back down the stairs with Theo, her heart pounding as she opened the door – just enough to see the red face of the SS officer standing in her garden.
‘Monsieur?’ she said, trying to sound innocently surprised, and hoping he wouldn’t demand to come into her home.
‘All residents to the square,’ the officer told her. Suddenly, the sound of a baby crying split the air and the German’s eyes flitted up towards the top floor. ‘And I don’t want to hear any excuses about staying at home with your baby; bring it with you. It’ll be a valuable lesson for the child.’
There was no choice. Protesting would only make the SS soldier suspicious, and there were twenty people in Margot’s basement waiting for the boat.
‘All right, we’ll go and get her,’ Margot said.
‘I will wait to be sure you do,’ said the soldier.
Margot closed the door and together they climbed the stairs up towards the flat where Daniel and his daughter were sheltered. When Theo opened the door, Daniel was already tucking the grizzling baby up in her basket with her toys. He looked stricken.
‘I heard them at the door,’ he said. ‘I know you have to take her.’ He kissed his fingers and touched them to the little girl’s cheek. ‘You be good now.’
‘We’ll be back in time,’ Margot promised, hoping against hope that they would. ‘Don’t worry.’
She put on her coat and picked up her handbag. Even though her hands were trembling, she managed to tie her scarf round her neck.
Isabelle creased up her face and wailed all the way down the stairs as Theo and Margot carried her basket between them.
It was heavier now, loaded with Isabelle’s clothes under the mattress, but Margot didn’t take them out.
There might not be much time after the book-burning to pack everything again.
‘Shhh, it’s all right, my little girl,’ Margot whispered, trying to soothe her.
She opened the back door, where the SS soldier was waiting for them. No one spoke as Isabelle cried and the soldier brought them up the alleyway and into the street.
Margot spotted Joséphine and Beatrice, who were being herded to the bonfire as well.
‘Evening,’ Margot called to them.
‘Good evening!’ Joséphine called in reply. They were all doing their best to appear normal. ‘Is that your little niece you’re babysitting? She’s a bonny thing.’
Joséphine took off the fur stole that was round her shoulders and arranged it around Isabelle in her Moses basket. The baby cooed gently, cosy and warm despite the autumn air; Joséphine’s presence must have calmed her.
As they headed towards the square, Margot’s feet felt as if they’d been weighed down with lead. She didn’t want to go, and she was furious that she was being forced to witness something that went against everything she believed in.
The entire village was here. Margot’s neighbours, leaving their houses and joining the throng in the street, were unsmiling. It wasn’t like the people of Cordeval, who were friends with everyone they met. But their own village was no longer theirs.
As they walked, Elodie Masson weaved her way through the crowd towards Theo and Margot. She fell into step alongside them for a few seconds, humming a melody that Margot recognised.
Clair de Lune.
Elodie leaned into the Moses basket and murmured, ‘Such a beautiful little girl.’ As she stroked Isabelle’s cheek, Margot saw her slide a folded piece of paper down beside the mattress. Then she gave Margot a neat nod and melted back into the crowd.
They arrived at the square, where German soldiers were standing, their mouths set in straight lines, just as they had been when they committed murder just a couple of days before.
Sleek Mercedes staff cars were lined up along the edge of the square, small swastika flags proudly flying from their bonnets.
Where the van had been two days ago there was now a tank, glowering over the village square.
Margot had never seen anything like this killing machine that the Nazis had brought to their sleepy corner of Normandy.
It seemed as if all of Cordeval was already there as well, and Margot had never heard such a quiet crowd.
Nobody dared so much as speak. There was just the occasional cough, and the sound of muted footsteps.
They were all looking towards the centre of the square, where a huge pyre stood, ready, in the glow of a huge flaming torch held by one of the SS soldiers.
Margot saw broken crates and smashed packing cases, and what looked like fresh planks of wood as well. And tucked into the pile, she saw books. Volume after volume, poking out from the firewood.
The stench of petrol filled the air, and Margot shivered, pulling her scarf tighter.
A platform had been built, the kind she’d seen in the square before on Bastille Day, when the trees were draped with tricolour medallions.
On the platform she could see Lauterborn, and on one side of him Monsieur Delafosse, the mayor.
His waxed moustache had been curled neatly and he was wearing his tricolour sash of office.
He looked very pleased with himself. On Lauterborn’s other side was the hulking figure of Hermann Goring.
His medals and insignia gleamed in the light from the torch.
Surrounding the platform were the uniformed soldiers, their faces set like stone, their rifles held close to their bodies as they stood to attention.
‘Heil Hitler!’ Lauterborn exclaimed, as he held up his hand in the hated salute.
The soldiers and stormtroopers responded with their own sharp salutes and the square rang with their response. ‘Heil Hitler!’
Margot glanced around at the people of Cordeval, wondering if they were expected to reply with a salute of their own.
Around them, she saw wide, frightened eyes, and realised she wasn’t the only person to wonder.
Then Delafosse raised his arm and saluted as well.
The sight pulled Margot’s stomach into knots, and behind her in the crowd she heard someone tut, a tiny protest that few would hear. But Margot had, and it warmed her.
‘Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring is my guest this evening as I give you all a warning,’ Lauterborn announced, his voice ringing around the square.
‘All acts of resistance will be met with reprisals. Let everyone here know that this will no longer be tolerated.’ He held up his hand and in it Margot recognised one of the wrapped books from the Resistance Book Club.
‘The books on this bonfire are those we have seized throughout Normandy. This is but one more, which someone in this village has seen fit to use as their own protest!’
A ripple ran through the crowd. Margot stared straight ahead. She would stand firm. She would be brave.
‘And if Chevalier stands among this crowd, let him know that we will root him out!’ Lauterborn gazed around the crowd, his eyes piercing through the dusk. ‘We will root all of you out, in the name of our Führer!’
At his side Goring gave a stately nod. In the basket Isabelle began to gripe, and Theo did his best to shush the little girl, humming a gentle tune to her even as Lauterborn’s voice bellowed across the square.
He and Goring descended from the platform to the edge of the bonfire, where one of the soldiers held a torch that burned with a bright orange flame.
He went to hand it to Lauterborn but, with a smile and a gesture as though he were asking the Reichsmarschall to go through a door ahead of him, he deferred to Goring.
Margot tensed in every limb as the stack of banned books seemed to shiver in the dancing light of the flame. She closed her eyes.
‘It is an honour to visit your beautiful village,’ Goring said with a smile as he took the torch.
‘And an honour to bring the Führer’s message of friendship to you all.
I know that, under the stewardship of Obergruppenführer Lauterborn, you will all be well cared for.
As well cared for as I have been by all of your friends in Clarenville-sur-Mer.
For the glory of the Third Reich, let the flames burn as bright as our future! ’
And he touched the flame to the bonfire.
A blue flame rushed across the stack of wood, burning through the petrol, then the bonfire itself was alight.
The covers of the books curled in the sudden heat, and the pages behind them blackened in seconds as the paper ignited.
Delafosse was clapping, and down near his feet Tesson, his assistant, was cheering.
In the crowd, Margot heard the voices of other locals joining in.
What had happened to her village? This wasn’t Cordeval.
As book after book turned to ash, Tesson and other local men tore off the newspaper wrappings and hurled more books into the fire. The flames leapt in the darkness as they were thrown on, their pages spread like the wings of helpless birds as they desperately tried to fly away from their fate.
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 held her close and, in the light of the bonfire, Goring 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 Goring 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.