One evening, Bergholtz didn’t appear when school ended; or the next day, either…
From then on, when school ended I and my little brother Claude would take the little train that ran along beside the Moissac road. In secret, we went to the ‘Manor’. This was a large house where around thirty children were living in hiding – children whose parents had been deported: Girl Guides and Scouts had gathered them together and were taking care of them. Claude and I went there to hoe the vegetable garden, and sometimes gave lessons in maths and French to the youngest children. I took advantage of each day I spent at the Manor, to beg Josette, the woman in charge, to give me a lead that would enable me to join the Resistance, and each time, she looked at me, raised her eyes to the heavens, and pretended not to know what I was talking about.
But one day, Josette took me to one side in her office.
‘I think I have something for you. Go and stand outside number 25, rue Bayard, at two o’clock in the afternoon. A passer-by will ask you the time. You will tell him that your watch isn’t working. If he says to you “You’re not Jeannot, are you?” It’s the right man.’
And that’s exactly how it happened…
I took my little brother and we met Jacques outside 25, rue Bayard, in Toulouse.
He entered the street wearing a grey overcoat and felt hat, with a pipe in the corner of his mouth. He threw his newspaper into the bin fixed to the lamp-post; I didn’t pick it up because that wasn’t the instruction. The instruction was to wait until he asked me the time. He stopped beside us, looked us up and down and when I answered that my watch wasn’t working, he said he was called Jacques and asked which of us two was Jeannot. I immediately took a step forward, since the name was definitely mine.
Jacques recruited the partisans himself. He trusted no one and he was right. I know it’s not very generous to say that, but you have to see it in context.
At that moment, I did not know that in a few days’ time, a partisan called Marcel Langer would be sentenced to death because of a French prosecutor who had demanded his head and obtained it. And nobody in France, whether in the free zone or not, doubted that after one of our people had brought down that prosecutor outside his home, one Sunday on his way to mass, no court of law would dare to demand the head of an arrested partisan again.
Also, I did not know that I would kill a bastard, a senior official in the Militia, a denunciator and murderer of so many young resistors. The militiaman in question never knew that his death had hung by a thread. That I was so afraid of firing that I could have wet myself over it, that I almost dropped my weapon and that if that filth hadn’t said, ‘Have mercy,’ this man who’d never had any for anyone, I wouldn’t have been angry enough to bring him down with five bullets in the belly.
We killed people. I’ve spent years saying it: you never forget the face of someone you’re about to shoot. But we never killed an innocent, not even an imbecile. I know it, and my children will know it too. That’s what matters.
At the moment, Jacques is looking at me, weighing me up, sniffing me almost like an animal, trusting his instinct, and then he plants himself in front of me: what he will say in two minutes will change the course of my life.
‘What exactly do you want?’
‘To reach London.’
‘Then I can’t do anything for you,’ says Jacques. ‘London is a long way away and I don’t have any contacts.’
I’m expecting him to turn his back on me and walk away but Jacques stays in front of me. His eyes are still on me; I try again.
‘Can you put me in contact with the Maquis? I would like to go and fight with them.’
‘That is also impossible,’ Jacques continues, re-lighting his pipe.
‘Why?’
‘Because you say you want to fight. You don’t fight in the Maquis; at best you collect packages, pass on messages, but resistance there is still passive. If you want to fight, it’s with us.’
‘Us?’
‘Are you ready to fight in the streets?’
‘What I want is to kill a Nazi before I die. I want a revolver.’
I had said that proudly. Jacques burst out laughing. I didn’t understand what was so funny about it; in fact I even thought it was rather dramatic! And that was precisely what had made Jacques laugh.
‘You’ve read too many books; we’re going to have to teach you how to use your head.’
His paternalistic question had annoyed me a little, but I wasn’t going to let him see my irritation. For months I’d been attempting to establish contact with the Resistance and now I was in the process of spoiling everything.
I search for the right words that don’t come, words that testify that I am someone on whom the partisans can rely. Jacques figures this out and smiles, and in his eyes I suddenly see something that might be a spark of affection.
‘We don’t fight to die, but for life, do you understand?’
It doesn’t sound like much, but that phrase hit me like a massive punch. Those were the first words of hope I had heard since the start of the war, since I had begun living without rights, without status, deprived of all identity in this country that yesterday was still mine. I’m missing my father, my family too. What has happened? Everything around me has melted away; my life has been stolen from me, simply because I’m a Jew and that’s enough for many people to want me dead.
My little brother is waiting behind me. He suspects that something important is afoot, so he gives a little cough as a reminder that he’s there too. Jacques lays his hand on my shoulder.
‘Come on, let’s move. One of the first things you must learn is never to stay still, that’s how you’re spotted. A lad waiting in the street, in times like this, always arouses suspicion.’
And here we are, walking along a pavement in a dark alleyway, with Claude following close on our heels.
‘I may have some work for you. This evening, you’ll go and sleep at 15, rue du Ruisseau, with old Mme Dublanc, she’ll be your landlady. You will tell her that you’re both students. She will certainly ask you what has happened to Jérôme. Answer that you’re taking his place, and he’s left to find his family in the North.’
I guessed that this was an open sesame that would give us access to a roof and, who could tell, perhaps even a heated room. So, taking my role very seriously, I asked who this Jérôme was, so that I’d be well-informed if old Mme Dublanc tried to find out more about her new tenants. Jacques immediately brought me back to a harsher reality.
‘He died the day before yesterday, two streets from here. And if the answer to my question, “Do you want to come into direct contact with the war?” is still yes, then let’s say he’s the one you’re replacing. This evening, someone will knock at your door. He will tell you he’s come on behalf of Jacques.’
With an accent like that, I knew very well that this wasn’t his real first name, but I knew too that when you entered the Resistance, your former life no longer existed, and your name disappeared with it. Jacques slipped an envelope into my hand.
‘As long as you keep paying the rent, old Mme Dublanc won’t ask any questions. Go and get yourselves photographed; there’s a kiosk at the railway station. Now clear off. We’ll have the opportunity to meet up again.’
Jacques continued on his way. At the corner of the alleyway, his lanky silhouette vanished into the mist.
‘Shall we get going?’ asked Claude.
I took my little brother to a café and we had just what we needed to warm ourselves up. Sitting at a table by the window, I watched the tramcar moving up the high street.
‘Are you sure?’ Claude asked, raising the steaming cup to his lips.
‘What about you?’
‘Me? I’m sure I’m going to die, but apart from that I don’t know.’
‘If we join the Resistance, it’s to live, not to die. Do you understand?’
‘Wherever did you dredge that up from?’
‘Jacques said it to me just now.’
‘So if Jacques says it…’
And then a long silence ensued. Two militiamen entered the café and sat down, paying us no attention. I was afraid that Claude might do something foolish, but all he did was shrug his shoulders. His stomach rumbled.
‘I’m hungry,’ he said. ‘I’m fed up with being hungry.’
I was ashamed of having a seventeen-year-old lad in front of me who didn’t have enough to eat, ashamed of my powerlessness; but that evening we might finally join the Resistance and then, I was certain, things would eventually change. Spring will return, Jacques would say one day, so, one day, I will take my little brother to a baker’s shop and buy him all the cakes in the world, which he will devour until he can eat no more, and that spring will be the most beautiful of my life.
