When We Were Brave - Suzanne Kelman Page 0,123
lie to you, our time with the Germans was not a pleasant one, but hope kept me alive, in the most desperate of times. Hope of seeing my family again and also the fact that knowing you were out there doing what you were called to do. I knew France had a chance with you on their side.
We were released unexpectedly, ahead of what appears to be the Germans preparing for evacuation. I want you to know we are all well, if not a little thinner and a little scarred by our experience, but we are in good health. Yvette has even talked about planning her life as a designer now the Germans are leaving France. We found out after we were released many of the underground from the cell you worked for had been captured, something must have gone terribly wrong. I just hope you made it out.
We all send you our love and thanks, we will never be able to pay the debt this has cost you, but know we are eternally grateful and hope one day to see you again. Yvette will leave this letter at the door of one of the cells she knew of and we hope a kind person will be able to pass it on.
Much love,
Pascal Renoir
After he wept for a while, Marcus knew what he had to do – he had sacrificed enough, it had cost him everything. Returning to work he went straight down to where he knew they were holding Vivienne’s body, no one having the time to bury the corpse of a traitor. Reverently, he entered the cold, darkened room. And when he finally saw her there, he let himself howl, holding her frigid hands, kissing her wax-like cheeks, tears streaming down his face as he told her again and again how much he loved her and how he would tell her family how brave she was. He gave her the letter, placing it in her stiffened fingers.
‘They made it, my love, your family. They made it, you can sleep easy now.’
Drying his tears, he rushed back to his office and removed all the files of Vivi he could locate, trying to hide her work for the Nazis. He also changed her burial instructions so she might rest where other soldiers were, and so she would get proper burial rites, and in all the chaos he hoped that no one would check on it.
Placing all the other documents into a briefcase, he made his way out into the chaotic streets of Paris.
He headed for Brittany. It took over a day to get there. It was pandemonium everywhere, but he didn’t care. His duty was done. All he could think of now was reaching her family. He owed that one last thing to Vivi.
Finally reaching Morlaix, he sought to commandeer a car to get him to the coast, but no one wanted to help him, everyone standing up to him, emboldened by the attack. Marcus could have forced them, held a gun to someone’s head, but he was tired of this war and no longer wanted to play this role.
Eventually, someone informed him a person wanted to help him at the other end of town. He was halfway there, walking through an alley, when he heard someone call his name. He turned and peered through the darkness.
‘Marcus Vonstein,’ the woman spat out again with sheer animosity, the outrage and hatred clear in her tone. Marcus couldn’t see her face. What he could sense was the pistol that was pointing right at him.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded.
‘Never mind who I am. Let me tell you who my brother was. You maybe knew him as the Terrier. He was brave and fun-loving and a patriot, and you were part of the group that murdered him. When someone informed me you were looking for a car, I knew I would be murdering a Nazi today.’
Marcus placed his hands in the air. ‘You don’t understand. I have something I need to do. I’m undercover for SOE. I’m not a Nazi.’
‘Of course you aren’t,’ she scoffed, laughing sarcastically. ‘You’re all running like rats caught in a trap. Where’s all your bullying and bravado now?’
‘You don’t understand,’ he implored, opening up his briefcase and removing the file he had on Vivienne. ‘Please read this. Please, before you shoot. I have some crucial evidence I need to get to England. I have to put the record straight.’
‘I don’t want to hear your lies,’ she spat. ‘I know you murdered my brother and I know you’ll say anything so that I don’t kill you.’
Without hesitation, Anne-Marie lifted the gun and fired three bullets straight into Marcus’s body; one hit him in the shoulder, one in the leg and one in his stomach. The pain ripped through his body, and his legs buckled, slamming him into the ground in absolute agony.
He struggled desperately to hold on to Vivienne’s documents, her life, her work, her bravery, and crushed in his hand her photograph pinned to the top of her file. The proof of all she’d done. Desperately he tried to hold onto it all. He had to get it to England, to her family. Marcus started to black out; the pain was now so intense he thought he might be sick. As he heard the echoed footsteps of the woman leaving the alley, the life started to leave his body and his fingers began to fail him.
All at once, a wind whipped its way down the street, towards him, the walls of the passage creating a wind tunnel that ripped the documents from his hands. Marcus watched helplessly as the file emptied into the wind, creating a paper trail of Vivienne’s patriotism that swirled, twirled, danced above his head, taunting and teasing him until finally a second blast took it all up and out of his sight as it separated onto a thousand different journeys. Marcus felt desolate. It was all she had asked of him, and he couldn’t even do that one thing for her. That stung more than the pain tearing through his body.
As he watched the last piece spiral away, the only thing that consoled him was knowing, even though he was in agony, that in a few moments it would be over and he would once again be reunited with his love, and they would be together again forever. He closed his eyes, listening to his breath that now came in ragged spurts, the smell of his own blood filling his nostrils. Sweat soaked his face and hands as the pain in his body became insufferable.
To sooth himself, Marcus closed his eyes and pictured her face, her laugh, her eyes reflected in the moon from the balcony on the nights when there were no raids. Nights where she’d told him stories of swallows and bravery, where they had imagined a world where they could be together, forever, where there was no war, no evil, no sacrifice. In his mind’s eye he glanced down from the balcony onto the street. There he could see two people sauntering through the streets of Paris, on a perfect spring day, a couple madly in love, hand in hand, finally being able to enjoy the end of a very long war.