Page 27 of The French Wife

‘Truppenbewegungen,’ she said slowly. ‘Do you know what that means?’

Monsieur Gilles, sitting at a desk on the other side of the room, leaned towards her and cleared his throat. ‘It means: Top Secret – troop movements,’ he said. ‘But don’t go talking about it outside this room, madame. As the title suggests, that file is highly sensitive.’

Amélie felt her blood run cold as she stared at the page. She quickly realised that what she was holding in her hands was very valuable, very secret information. It dawned on her it was information the Resistance would take great risks to obtain.

She stared at the handwritten sheets for several minutes, her heart pounding, chills of fear coursing through her at the implications of what she was contemplating. She was acutely aware that this was a moment in which she would have to make a choice that could change her life.

She thought about the partisans who had been shot in cold blood out in the square, about the workers being marched away, imprisoned and beaten up by German soldiers for not having the correct papers, she thought about all the French soldiers being used as slaves in work camps in Germany, about all those innocent French citizens who had been sent there to work as indentured labour. She recalled the stories she’d heard about Jewish families being herded into camps all over both the free zone and the occupied zone, some of them even being herded onto cattle trucks and sent east to Poland. She remembered the terrible news about the round-up of Jews in Paris, where they were herded into the Vélodrome d’Hiver, the winter sports stadium, and kept for days before being deported. She knew all of that was bound to intensify and get worse now the Germans were in complete control of the country.

These notes she held in her hands would give her the opportunity to do something about all that. Something, albeit small, that could help in the struggle against the enemy.

So why was she hesitating?

Because of fear, she supposed. But her heart told her she really had no choice.

Briskly, and without giving herself any longer to think about it, she took a piece of carbon paper from her desk drawer. It was simple. She would make two copies of everything she typed for her new masters. The first copy she would give to the German officers, and the second she would slip into her handbag and take home. No one at the mairie need ever know.

She took two sheets of plain paper from another drawer, placed the carbon paper between them, rolled them into the typewriter and started to type. It was painstaking work and she made slow progress, reading out the letters to herself before typing them, struggling with the umlauts and the eszetts and the unfamiliar language. At first, she had no idea what she was typing, but as she went through the document, she began to have a vague understanding of what the notes actually meant. There were dates, the names of roads, towns, villages and regions. From that, she gathered it was a plan for the movement of troops in the province of the Languedoc for the next fortnight or so, starting the very next day.

When she’d finished typing up the notes, she pulled the document out of the typewriter and, looking around to make sure no one was watching her, separated the copy from the original. She realised she would need to find a way of hiding documents securely if she was going to be doing this on a regular basis, but all she could think to do at that moment was to fold the pages up very small and slip them inside her powder compact, which itself was kept in her makeup bag. She would just have to hope and pray she wasn’t searched on her way out of the mairie. For now the German command seemed preoccupied with their infighting, so she hoped it wouldn’t occur to them to search the staff.

‘I’ve finished typing the document. Who should I take it to?’ she asked Monsieur Colbert.

‘Take it to Hauptmann Bauer,’ he replied. ‘He was the one who brought it in this morning.’

She put the top copy of the typewritten document inside the file and carried it across the corridor to Bauer’s office. There were no angry voices coming from inside this time. In fact, when she first tapped on the glass and peered into the room, Bauer wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

She was about to return to her desk when she heard him shout, ‘Come in!’ She opened the door, stepped into the room and looked around her. It took her a few seconds to register that Hauptmann Bauer was standing on a chair against the far wall, his back to her, hanging a painting. It was one of a pair of watercolours in identical gold frames. The other one already hung beside it.

He turned and, seeing her there, his eyes lit up. ‘Come in, Madame Garnier. I won’t be a minute,’ he said. ‘What do you think? Is this one straight?’

‘Perhaps pull it down a little on the left-hand side?’ she suggested.

While he continued adjusting the frame, Amélie stood back and admired the two paintings. They were both landscapes. The one on the right featured a shimmering lake in the foreground, surrounded by soaring mountains. Gazing at the painting, she was instantly drawn into the scene. On the opposite side of the lake was a smallholding, with a pretty, white house and thatched barns surrounded by trees. Animals grazed on the lower slopes of the mountains in fields filled with wildflowers, but higher up, the hills were covered in evergreen forest. High above the trees rose the granite peaks of the mountains. She could almost smell the flowers in the meadows, hear the animals chomping the sweet grass, breathe the cool mountain air and hear the ripple of water on the lake.

The other painting, the one Hauptmann Bauer was in the process of hanging, also featured a mountain landscape, but this time the jagged hilltops were covered in snow and the forests on the lower slopes were dusted with ice. In the foreground, a little white church with an onion-shaped dome perched on a hill overlooking the valley. Just admiring it made her shiver with cold.

‘They’re beautiful,’ she said.

‘Oh, do you think so?’ he asked, smiling, jumping down from the chair and coming to stand beside her. ‘They are of Bavaria, where I come from. It is indeed very beautiful there.’

‘Do you miss it?’ she asked, before reminding herself that Hauptmann Bauer was an enemy soldier, that she wasn’t here to make small talk with him.

‘Of course. It is home. That’s why I’ve brought these pictures with me – to remind me.’

‘It looks lovely,’ Amélie said, forgetting once again.

‘Oh, but it is also very beautiful here in the Languedoc, is it not?’ he said. ‘This little town with its gorgeous abbey, these rocky hills, the river valley with its vineyards, the grey-green of the maquis. There is something… how do I say it… subtle and seductive about its charm.’

In spite of herself, Amélie smiled up into his eyes. She knew exactly what he meant.

Bauer straightened, seemingly remembering his role, and dusted off his hands. ‘So, what can I do for you, madame?’ he asked.

‘I have typed up your document,’ she said, handing the file to him.

He took it, opened the cover and skimmed the pages that she’d typed as he walked back to his desk. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It looks just about perfect. I take it you don’t understand German, though?’ He pulled out his chair and sat down.

‘Not a word,’ she replied. ‘I hope it doesn’t show.’