The Punishment

By Paula Marais

A story of love, betrayal and the choices that define who we become.

If you loved Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale or Sebastian Faulks’s Birdsong, this novel is for you! Against the tumultuous background of World War Two France, an illicit love affair takes place between Frenchwoman Cédonie Boineau and German Kommandant Kurt Auer. Lurking in the shadows, however, are Cédonie's ardent admirer Thibault Bosch and vindictive rival Odette de Bary. While Thibault nurses his unrequited love for Cédonie along with his growing hate for the Boche invaders, Odette is gathering gossip that will change the town forever. So when the war is finally over and truths come to light, Cédonie will be left at the mercy of the town to face her punishment...

Author Paula Marais has woven a beautiful tale of the complex loyalties of the human heart and the surprising forms love can take in war.

Buy this book and find inside the link for a FREE copy of Paula Marais’s contemporary novel Love and Wine as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Logogog
• Release date: Apr 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9780987042460

Paula Marais

Paula Marais het ’n MA in skeppende skryfkuns, ’n honneursgraad in uitgewerswese, en ’n diploma in vryskutjoernalistiek. Vorige publikasies sluit When your blessings don’t count – ’n gids oor postnatale nood en The Punishment, ’n historiese liefdesverhaal in. Sy skryf ook taamlik gereeld vir Financial Mail. Paula kom oorspronklik van Johannesburg, maar woon deesdae in Kaapstad saam met haar man en twee seuntjies.

Book preview

The Punishment

A World War Two Romance

By

Paula Marais

First published in South Africa by Logogog Press, 2009

Copyright © Paula Marais, 2009

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

® and © 2009 Logogog Press. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The right of Paula Marais to be identified as author of this

work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78

of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Logogog Press, Cape Town, South Africa

ISBN: 978-0-620-42408-0

Epub ISBN: 978-0-9870424-6-0

This book is a work of fiction. All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Typeset by Kevin Shenton of Triple M Design

Cover design by Donald Hill of Blue Apple

Printed and bound by Interpak South Africa

To find out more about the author, visit her website: www.paulamarais.com

For Dave, always.

And in memory of Gwyneth Marion Kernick,

my fairy grandmother.

The Punishment

A World War Two Romance

By

Paula Marais

"Listen carefully, because it’s time to begin our story.

And when we come to the end of it, we shall know more than we do now."

From Hans Christian Anderson’s The Snow Queen.

Some Notes

Before you start…please take note:

Throughout The Punishment, Kurt will be referred to as Kommandant, or Monsieur le Kommandant. This is not an official rank within the German army, but simply means commanding officer and has been used for ease of reference, due to its similarities in both French and German. The K has been kept in both languages for continuity. Kurt Auer’s official title is, in fact, Major.

And here are some abbreviations you will need to know:

F.F.I.: French Forces of the Interior, which was the formal name Charles de Gaulle use for the resistance fighter in the latter stages of World War Two.

FTP: Les Corps Francs de la Libération (Liberation army located in this region)

ORA: Organisation de Résistance de l’Armée (French paramilitary organisation during World War Two)

MUR: Mouvements Unis de la Résistance, which actually changed its name to the M.L.N. – Mouvement de Libération Nationale in December 1943.This new name never caught on. It was another resistance movement.

STO: Service du Travail Obligatoire or Compulsory Labour Service

I hope you enjoy the book as much as I enjoyed writing and researching it. Do contact me on: [e-mail] or see my author page at the back of the book for more details.

Get your free book at: http://www.paulamarais.com/free_book.html

Dungeons and Dragons

The Prologue

In the chalky confines of the Château de Vicomte’s prison, Cédonie Boineau wishes she could smell the summer. If she stands on the bed, its greying sheets frayed to a patchwork, she can see a skimpy thread of light curling down to her from the arrow-slit window. She can’t reach it. Not really. Just as she can’t reach him. She wonders what he would think now if he could see just how far she had fallen. And who would he have blamed?

Curiously disunited by their common fate, the other women tire of her pacing.

Sit still, why don’t you? they snarl, their eyes unwillingly following her.

Odette, however, has no part in it.The conversation.The disagreement. Patting her naked head, she is curled away from them like a leaf. For once, it is Odette who is without edges, without substance, waiting perhaps for the petiole to snap.

Cédonie steps down from the mattress. The room is colourless and muted, the cold stone walls repeating in tedious patterns.And now, after this has happened, Cédonie looks exactly the same as all the others.

Large bovine stares. Fleshy gargoyles, their eyes protruding as their pupils suck in light. As their eyes adjust, they are getting accustomed to this near-darkness. Like everything else, it is constant.

A bed creaks; they have nowhere else to sit.

One of the women is crying. Hunched in the corner, her back pinioned in by the walls, she seems younger. Smaller.

"Chérie, her neighbour clucks, they won’t let us out here ’til the lynch mob’s satisfied.Tears won’t help any of us."

But what else is there to do?

Cédonie remembers the girl from the Place, just in front of the Commissionat de Police, as the crowd surged. It might have been the cream jacket, hanging on her fragile war-starved body that drew her attention.

La pauvre, Cédonie had thought, I could have taken it in for her and shortened the sleeves.

Now the jacket is stained.

Patches of glutinous red and slippery brown have turned the material into an angry canvas. And all that holds it together are nervous fingers, twisting and turning the oval buttons, as the cotton gradually gets weaker.

Cédonie studies Odette for a moment. She is shapelier than the rest of them.While the other prisoners communicate in angles, Odette is all curves. Gorgeous Odette has not been hungry – her porcelain skin and robustly hued cheeks attest to that. But today in this dank cell, even Odette is no longer beautiful.

Her self-assurance, however, is another matter.

Uncoiling her legs from beneath her, she steps to the metal grille and beckons to their guard beyond the barrier.

"J’ai froid, Monsieur," she trills, and even in her fetid state, Cédonie watches him respond.

Like a peacock primping, he adjusts the revolver in his bandolier, and rises quickly to meet her.

"So cold, Monsieur. Can you feel how cold I am?"

Her hand is against his cheek, her neatly painted nails and uncalloused palms the only vestiges of better times. And locked into her jade eyes, Cédonie knows he is unable to recoil from her, even if he wanted to.

"None of what they say is true, tu sais. You do know that, don’t you?"

The guard is silent as he considers her.

There’s a coat upstairs, he responds. Perhaps it will fit you.

It does. And now Odette is the only one of the six women in the sous-sols who is not shivering. The only one without goosebumps rising up along naked legs, where the hand-drawn stocking lines on calves have all but been rubbed away.

Cédonie stares at Odette defiantly, daring her to look back and acknowledge her from the depths of her warm woollen cocoon. Acknowledge, perhaps in the simple incline of her head, a common history between them.

Just one look, Odette, Cédonie thinks, and maybe I could forgive you.

But Odette seems increasingly distant. Her eyes remain pinned on the wrought iron trellis work of the window far above them, gripping like ivy across the dusty glass.

When the soup comes in a clamour of tin and disinterest, it is watery; the carrots bitter as arsenic. And though she needs it the least, for a crimson smile Odette is awarded the last piece of bread.

As the women spoon the unappetising liquid into their mouths, they are accosted by constant reminders of the world that they are missing.

Because they can’t help but hear it. The roar of celebration from the streets. A drunken delirium fed by resurrected bottles of bootleg liquor and hoarded champagne, by freedom and snippets of the Marseillaise. A season enriched by terracotta and green as the snow melts from the Pyrenees like ice cream off a cone in the sunshine. There is dancing. And music. Frantic coupling in the shadows, while the flags fly.

Overwhelmed by noise and worry, the prisoners will not be able to sleep tonight. As the empty greyness of the gaol seeps into their pores, their hearts beat faster with the question that seizes them in the darkness.

What happens to me next?

The soldiers fetch Odette in the morning.

You won’t be coming back here, they tell her, as the lock clangs and the iron door swings open. So say goodbye to your friends. They are not my friends, Odette responds, and I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to realise that.

Odette does not leave quietly. Instead, hers is a departure of pageantry and consummate showmanship. Swinging herself off the bed, she glides to where the guards beckon, dragging the coat like a cape. My husband, she says, he is waiting for me upstairs, I suppose?

Yes, they answer, he is indeed.

Odette does not look back as the door closes and the silence of the women left behind is only intensified by the clatter of her ascending heels. Eventually even that echo has faded away and the girl’s sobs are all that remain to replace it.

Odette, Cédonie thinks, always Odette, but what else had she expected?

Reclining on the mattress, the pillow lumpy against her bruised head, Cédonie captures a sigh in her throat. She swallows it whole, like an unstoned olive, tracing the path of her misery all the way down to her gut.

Though she may be helpless now, her resolve is complete – it will take a lot more than this to defeat her. More than the frightened eyes of her son being lifted away from her, buoyed on strong arms towards the banks of the Salat River where his grandfather protects him under the plane trees. More than the jeers of hatred and the slander from a vengeful mass. More, even, than the disapproval of her mother’s shaking head as her irises filled with shame.

For there has not been one moment since this has happened that Cédonie has not thought about what she has done.

But there has also not been one moment that she has regretted it.

The Glass Army (i)

Though some may find this conceited, Cédonie Boineau has a fascination for mirrors. The interest, however, stems not from vanity but from the compulsive need to stare at her reflection to confirm that she actually exists. She looks at herself, at her narrow face, her slightly bent nose and hazel eyes framed by eyebrows as thick as lawn, and she sees no particular beauty or elegance. Rather, she searches for proof that she is not a figment of her own creation, a sallow ghost drifting between worlds, between walls, hooting with a voiceless voice.

Mostly she thinks she will not find it.

Today, the eleventh of November 1942, is a day like any other, the memory of Hervé’s less-than-subtle preening growing increasingly stronger since his departure. And even when Cédonie is looking at herself, she thinks his image belongs there more than hers does.

Luc, who plays at her feet with a wooden train, is no stranger to this mirror either. Paraded in front of it since birth, his little legs balancing on either side of Cédonie’s right arm as she gripped him round the waist with the left, he has had time to get used to it.

Each birthday, Cédonie marked off Luc’s growth spurts with tiny notches on the wooden frame.

Look how tall you are today, Luc, she says as she points at the seventh and most recent one.

The boy in the mirror sticks his tongue at him and Cédonie knows Luc is wondering if he will still be there when he takes his hands away from his eyes.

There is a whole world of mirror-people hiding behind the glass. Luc thinks they come out at night, when he is fast asleep. Cédonie assures him this isn’t the case, but she isn’t quite certain herself that they don’t. Luc says the mirror-people float like fairies, their cloaks tipped with fur the colour of mercury, and when they pour themselves out of the glass, they leave silver snail trails on the floor. Hervé always said there was nothing there.

Nothing there at all.

It wasn’t all that hard for Cédonie to believe him – she often wondered if there really ever had been.

Moving Luc’s train to the side with her toes, Cédonie brings a stool to the mirror. Today, like most days, she is tired, a head of mahogany hair pulling heavily at the roots, her worries even weightier. At the level that she is sitting, Luc can just reach her, his own brush strokes matching her larger ones. It is he, rather than his mother, who sees them first.

Look Maman! he says. Look there.

Her eyes widen. Anointed not in silver, but in greyish green and clotted crimson, the new arrivals are parading across the glass. Perfectly synchronised, their soldier legs goose-stepping, their horses reined in, the figures are obscured momentarily by Luc’s face and then her own. They reappear again beyond her shocked expression.

Dear God, Paul was right, Cédonie says as the realisation dawns, her stomach constricting, the bile rising bitterly at the back of her throat.

In her fairy tale, she would defeat them now, shattering their image across the bedroom floor with a brutal thrust of her chair leg against the reflection. But reality intrudes like it always does and, hand in hand, Cédonie and Luc rush to the window overlooking Rue Villefranche to attest to it.

It is the end of an independentVichy France and just as her brother had predicted, they are powerless to stop it. Powerless, but for the unspoken pact of the crowd, who turn their backs to the approaching army, presenting it with a wall of rigid spines and stiff necks, then filter silently away, unbowed to the might of the occupying Germans.

The Steadfast Tin Soldier (i)

So it is that the frontier town of Saint-Girons must shelter its new inhabitants, and its residents must habituate themselves to the unwelcome intrusion. Some locals say that the Nazi flag flapping outside the Gestapo’s new headquarters of La Mosquée is an inflamed boil – the pus will need to be drawn out eventually. But they mention this quietly, between breaths and hesitations, because words are traded in the community like black market merchandise and who knows what others will get for them?Vendors and buyers alike are not as easy to identify as one would like to suppose. Faith is a tenuous link to the unknown, but trust is more fragile; it is a link to the well-known, and is therefore easily misplaced with tragic consequences.

Saint-Girons lies in the shadow of Saint-Lizier, the fortified town, which protected the area once from the Nordic invaders, the great army of the Visigoths. It seems, however, that despite the glorious magnitude of its cathedral and the silent grandeur of the Roman cloisters, appeals to higher powers have done little to keep these uninvited Germans out.

They are everywhere. Or so it seems. In the cafés, the boulangeries, the cinema, even les forges, where their expertly shod horses whinny uncertainly as they step onto the cobbles outside, before another mountain patrol. Rumour has it that the Germans have come from Bordeaux, and on the same day they arrived in Saint-Girons, they had fanned out, establishing customs posts at Seix, Ercé, Sentein, Orgibet, Couflens, Aulus, Castillon and Ustou. The Ariège air is tainted with Nazi breath, the rich mocha soil with the footprints of their hard leather boots. But the crystal green waters of the Baup, the Lez and the Salat Rivers, which gush from the feet, between the toes of the Pyrenees, will belong to the people of Saint-Girons alone, because it is here where they will empty their tears.

The Boches have positioned themselves at useful vantage points for their purposes. Kommandant Kurt Auer, who heads up the customs section, the douane, is pleased by his placement at the Château de Beauregard. This leaves him strangely, and fortuitously, disassociated from the menace of the Gestapo. Furthermore, he has a balcony with a view south towards one of the Zones Interdites, and this means south towards the Pyrenees. Kurt is a mountain-child. Born forty-two years before in the village of Garmisch, now Garmisch-Partenkirchen, he learnt to ski as early as he learnt to walk. If he concentrates hard enough, the view will transmute into the Bayerische Alpen, and he will be home again – away from this pointless war and the unwanted duties associated with it.

But for the moment, Saint-Girons is home to all the Germans stationed here. And all are relieved by the presence of the hotels – the Grand Hôtel de France and the Grand Café de l’Union, as well the villas abandoned by their wealthier French occupants, who have fled south to Algeria and Morocco. Since there are fewer soldiers here than in other parts of France, all are spared the discomfort of being billeted to a Frenchman’s home. None of them wish to endure the false cordiality, the underlying coldness of enforced proximity of the Occupied to the Occupier.

♥

It is early on a Thursday morning that Kommandant Kurt Auer finds himself on the steps of Cédonie Boineau’s home on Rue Villefranche. Conspicuous and uncomfortable, he positions himself in the shadows, his hand half protecting his cheek. Two women pass by, talking animatedly until they notice him. And though they scurry quickly away, the wheels on the pram rolling fast enough to wake the baby into a squall, he can feel their barbed glances penetrating his back like poisoned darts. The Kommandant shivers, the hairs on his nape spiking in ineffective response.

Is this how it feels to be victorious, he wonders, his hand still shaking as he moves it from his face to the door.

♥

Standing quietly in the vestibule, Cédonie is not sure whether to respond to the knock at the door or to ignore it. The banging of fist against wood has authority in it, but that is what scares her – it reminds her of Hervé.

Cédonie is not expecting visitors.

In her adulthood, Cédonie finds it no less difficult to make friends than she did as a child. She is not adept at circling the social milieu, offering cups of coffee, or pruneaux soaked in eau de vie. She remem- bers how that was always up to Hervé, his eyes darting from woman to woman, measuring each up in a second, the men left strangely untouched by his gaze.

The knock sounds again, increasingly insistent. Louder.

Cédonie runs her fingers down her cotton skirts, then fumbles with the lock of the front door, her free hand burrowing self-consciously into her apron pocket.When the door finally swings open, she realises she is holding her breath, and finds then that this is warranted.

Before her is a German uniform no less intimidating than the man who towers within it. Erect, the soldier’s blonde head almost touches the entrance archway, the left half of his face marred by a diamond-shaped stain the colour of a fresh bruise. He blinks, focusing on her, then opens his mouth to speak.

What is it that you want? she says, interrupting his introduction

with surprising ungraciousness.

On the steps of the house entrance, she notices with satisfaction that the German flinches, then steps slightly away from her.

Well? she demands, buoyed by his response.

"Excusez-moi, he says, are you Madame Boineau?"

Yes, she answers, so what?

The soldier’s face is cocked at an angle, the right side forward, and his eyes avoid focusing on hers.

I am told you have a sister called Francine. She–

What have you done to her?

I have not done anything personally, Madame. But she is hurt and she is calling for you.

♥

On any given day, Francine Duclos presents an awkward figure on a bicycle. Though usually her physical imperfections are easily overridden by an exuberant personality, on a bicycle she seems even more out of proportion, her stubby legs inadequate support for her enormous bosom. Francine, however, is not one to let obstacles deter her. Short she may be, but slow she is not, proving this as she gathers the hillsides in her dress, shooting down the gradients from Les Chênes towards the bakery where she works.

If Francine had even so much as glanced at herself in a window, she might not have bothered to spend every day’s first waking hours styling her hair into a wave, for it has flattened into nothing more than a ripple by the time she reaches Saint-Girons. But Francine isn’t looking into windows; she is much too distracted by the vision of the German soldiers gathered along Rue Villefranche, milling like maggots. Squirming blonde maggots, but some less squirming than others, she acknowledges, as she deftly avoids a patch of ice on the road, thereby colliding with a shutter that has swung open overnight.

♥

Cédonie follows the loping gait of the Kommandant, vaguely be- mused that it is he who has bothered to call her. She wonders why he did not send one of the soldiers. He is so tall, he reminds her of a circus bear walking on its hind legs. She would have found this fact both amusing and rather frightening, had she not been thinking about Francine lying defenceless in the road, with only the Boches to watch over her. Cédonie has wrapped her own coat around herself. It is of navy wool, with large triangular buttons extending from her throat to just below her knees. She shivers despite this.The clouds are grey and pregnant with a storm. And judging by the gusts angling up around her feet, the contractions have started.

It is immediately obvious to Cédonie where her sister is lying. A purposeless crowd of soldiers and villagers has gathered and she asks herself why she is surprised.

Isn’t one spectacle this week enough? she wonders.

Moving quickly forward, she notices the town priest. Ineffectual in all but the most spiritual of matters, he leans against the responsible shutter as he observes.

Madame Boineau, nods Monsieur le Curé, as though greeting her before mass.

Monsieur, she says, stepping past him, relieved to find Thibault

Bosc in attendance, his dark head bent over her sister’s limp form.

The nineteen-year-old is taking off his jacket to cover Francine, who is bleeding profusely from her temple, her left arm dangling.

It is surely broken, says the Kommandant.

Surely, says Cédonie, glaring at him. Has somebody thought to call the doctor?

I will go, says Thibault, gazing doe-eyed at Cédonie. "I will go immediately."

Thank you,Thibault! she says, as she bends to cradle her younger sister.

Though Cédonie and Francine do not share the same father, their mother’s blood courses through them both, bonding them in a friendship too complex to be unravelled.

The Kommandant and his troops are dismissed.

The Steadfast Tin Soldier (ii)

Cédonie is surprised by how little life actually changes on the surface with the arrival of the Germans. Theirs is not a large community and it seems inevitable that, despite hatred, despite resentment, the Boches will be absorbed into the rhythms of daily existence. To many, but definitely not all, their presence becomes familiar enough to be taken for granted. After the adjustments that must be made, the viewpoints corrected, some of the Germans take on identities of their own, detaching themselves from the anonymity of their uniform.

The Kommandant is one of these people.

Cédonie passes him by frequently as he walks towards the Café Balzac, where he has developed, it appears, a taste for ariègeoise cuisine. (There has been mention, in particular, of his affinity for confit de canard et pommes au riz.)

"Bonjour, Madame Boineau, he greets her in impeccable French, and how is Mademoiselle Duclos?" And each day’s salutation is decorated with a lavish display of heel tapping and bows from the waist.

"Bonjour, she returns after some hesitation, she is much better, thank you."

Francine’s arm is mending slowly. She wears it in a sling and already the plaster is a swirl of inky autographs from well-wishers. When Thibault is not in the mountains tending the sheep and the cows, he acts as her chauffeur. Francine’s bicycle skills have been rather curtailed by a certain accident, which she will not discuss other than to place the blame firmly on the shoulders of the fritz who should never have been there in the first place, n’est ce pas?

Thibault is rather lucky that the family car has not yet been requisitioned. It is required, the Boscs declare, for their sale of wool in Foix, although quite how the little Prima 4 "à gazogène" will function in this capacity is yet to be determined.The car runs off wood reserves, like most vehicles these days while petrol is unavailable, and is typified not only by its characteristic boiler attached to the back, but also by the terrible smell it emits in the street.

How that stinks! exclaims Francine, as she uses her free hand to block her nose with a handkerchief, backing away from the vehicle.

And as Thibault holds the door open for her, he looks up towards Cédonie’s window, hoping for her to acknowledge him. Sometimes she sees him, and smiles down from the balcony. He thinks the begonias in the springtime window box will match her lips.

The blood that spurts from Cédonie’s fingertip also matches them.

"Merde," she says under her breath, as she readjusts the thimble, then sucks the crimson drop away before it stains the material. Sometimes talent is no antidote for clumsiness.

Most of the time, Cédonie sews in the kitchen, next to the fire, as well as next to the window where the light is better. People who are uninitiated into the secrets behind Rue Villefranche are surprised by the vast expanse of garden