The Children of Freedom. Marc Levy

be arrested. How I miss the presence of my little brother, and it’s now impossible for me to go to bed at night without thinking of him. If he’s taking part in an operation, I’m no longer informed. So, stretched out on my bed with my hands behind my head, I search for sleep but can never find it completely. Loneliness and hunger are rotten company. The rumbling of my stomach sometimes disturbs the silence that surrounds me. To think about something else, I gaze at the light bulb on the ceiling of my room and soon, it becomes a flash of light on the canopy of my English fighter plane. I’m piloting a Royal Air Force Spitfire. I fly over the English Channel. All I have to do is tilt the plane and at the ends of the wings I can see the crests of the waves that are running away, like me, to England. A scant few metres away, my brother’s plane is purring; I glance at his engine to check that no smoke is going to compromise his return, but already we can see the outline of the coast and its white cliffs. I can feel the wind entering the cockpit, whistling between my legs. Once we’ve landed, we’ll enjoy a delicious meal around a well-laden table in the officers’ mess…A convoy of German lorries passes by my windows, and the grating of their clutches brings me back to my room and my loneliness.

      As I hear the convoy of German lorries fading into the darkness, despite this confounded hunger that gnaws away at me, I finally succeed in finding the courage to switch off the light on my bedroom ceiling. I tell myself that I haven’t given up. I’m probably going to die but I won’t have given up, in any event I thought I was going to die a lot sooner and I’m still alive, so who knows? Perhaps in the final analysis it’s Jacques who’s right. Spring will return one day.

      

      In the small hours I receive a visit from Boris; another mission awaits us. While we’re pedalling towards the old railway station at Loubers to go and fetch our weapons, Maître Arnal is arriving in Vichy to plead Langer’s cause. He’s received by the director of criminal affairs and pardons. This man’s power is immense and he knows it. He listens to the lawyer distractedly; his thoughts are elsewhere. The end of the week is approaching and he’s anxious to know how he’ll occupy it, if his mistress will welcome him into the warmth of her thighs after the fine supper he has in store for her at a restaurant in town. The director of criminal affairs swiftly skims the dossier that Arnal begs him to consider. The facts are there in black and white, and they are grave. The sentence is not severe, he says, it is just. The judges cannot be criticised in any way, they did their duty by applying the law. He has already made up his mind, but Arnal continues to persist, so – since the affair is a delicate one – he agrees to call a meeting of the Pardons Committee.

      Later, before its members, he will continue to pronounce Marcel’s name in such a way as to make it understood that he is a foreigner. And as Arnal, the old lawyer, leaves Vichy, the Committee rejects the pardon. And as Arnal, the old lawyer, steps aboard the train taking him back to Toulouse, an administrative document also follows his little train; it heads for the Keeper of the Seals, who has it sent immediately to the office of Marshal Pétain. The Marshal signs the report, and Marcel’s fate is now sealed: he is to be guillotined.

      

      Today, 15 July 1943, with my friend Boris, we attacked the office of the leader of the ‘Collaboration’ group in the Place des Carmes. The day after tomorrow, Boris will attack a man called Rouget, a zealous collaborator and one of the Gestapo’s top informants.

      

      As he leaves the courthouse to go and have lunch, Deputy Prosecutor Lespinasse is in an extremely good mood. The slow train of bureaucracy finally reached its destination this morning. The document rejecting Marcel’s request for a pardon is on his desk, and it bears the Marshal’s signature. The order of execution accompanies it. Lespinasse has spent the morning contemplating this little piece of paper, only a few square centimetres in size. This rectangular sheet is like a reward to him, a prize for excellence granted to him by the State’s highest authorities. It’s not the first Lespinasse has hooked. As early as primary school, he brought back a merit point to his father each year, gained thanks to his assiduous work, thanks to the esteem in which his teachers held him…Thanks…Yes, thanks to him Marcel would never obtain a pardon. Lespinasse sighs and picks up the little china ornament that has pride of place on his desk, in front of his leather desk blotter. He slides over the sheet of paper and replaces the ornament on top of it. It must not distract him; he must finish writing the speech for his next lecture, but his mind wanders to his little notebook. He opens it and turns its pages: one day, two, three, four, there – that’s the one. He hesitates to write the words ‘Langer execution’ beneath ‘lunch with Armande’, as the sheet is already covered with meetings. So he contents himself with putting a cross. He closes the diary again and resumes writing his speech. A few lines and here he is again, leaning towards that document, which sticks out from underneath the ornament. He opens the diary again and, in front of the cross, writes the number 5. That’s the time he has to arrive at the gate of the Saint-Michel prison. Finally Lespinasse puts away the diary in his pocket, pushes away the gold paper knife on the desk, and lines it up, parallel with his fountain pen. It is noon and the deputy prosecutor is now feeling hungry. Lespinasse stands up, adjusts the folds of his trousers and walks out into the corridor of the courthouse.

      

      On the other side of town, Maître Arnal sets down the same sheet of paper on his desk; the sheet he received this morning. His cleaning lady enters the room. Arnal gazes fixedly at her, but no sound emerges from his throat.

      ‘Are you weeping, Maître?’ murmurs the cleaning lady.

      Arnal bends over the waste paper basket and vomits bile. The spasms shake him. Old Marthe hesitates, not knowing what to do. Then her good sense takes the upper hand. She has three children and two grand-children, does old Marthe, so she’s seen quite a bit of vomiting in her time. She approaches and lays her hand on the old lawyer’s forehead. Each time he bends towards the basket, she accompanies his movement. She hands him a white cotton handkerchief, and while her employer is wiping his mouth, her gaze lights on the sheet of paper, and this time it is old Marthe’s eyes that fill with tears.

      

      This evening, we’re at Charles’s house. Sitting on the floor are Jan, Catherine, Boris, Emile, Claude, Alonso, Stefan, Jacques and Robert; we all form a circle. A letter passes from hand to hand; everyone searches for words but cannot find them. What can you write to a friend who is going to die? ‘We will not forget you,’ murmurs Catherine. That’s what everyone here is thinking. If our fight leads us to recover freedom, if a single one of us survives, he will not forget Marcel, and one day he will say your name. Jan listens to us, he takes the pen and writes in Yiddish the few phrases we have just said to you. This way, the guards who lead you to the scaffold cannot understand. Jan folds up the letter, Catherine takes it and slides it inside her blouse. Tomorrow, she will go and give it to the rabbi.

      Not sure that our letter will reach the condemned man. Marcel doesn’t believe in God and he’ll probably refuse to have the almoner present, as well as the rabbi. But after all, who knows? A little shred of luck in all of this misery wouldn’t be too much. May it ensure that you read these few words written to tell you that, if one day we are free again, your life will have counted for a great deal.

       7

      It is five o’clock on this sad morning of 23 July 1943. In an office within the Saint-Michel prison, Lespinasse is slaking his thirst along with the judges, the director and the two executioners. Coffee for the men in black, a glass of dry white wine to quench the thirst of those who have worked up a sweat putting up the guillotine. Lespinasse keeps looking at his watch. He’s waiting for the hand to finish travelling around the face. ‘It’s time,’ he says, ‘go and tell Arnal.’ The old lawyer didn’t want to mix with them; he’s waiting alone in the courtyard. Someone goes to fetch him, and he joins the procession, signals to the warder and walks a long way in front.

      

      The morning alarm bell hasn’t rung yet but all the prisoners are already up. They know when one of their own is about to be executed. A murmur builds up; the voices of the Spaniards melt into