Nazi-occupied France, 1941. A novelist, Adeline Beaumont was forced to billet a German Officer, Wilhelm Von Müller in her house. Since his arrival, she refused to speak to him as the resistance effort against the occupier. Yet, the barrier between t...
Someone was knocking at the front door softly. Adeline could hear it in the air of silence. She looked out and saw Gisele Courteau standing on the doorstep. She was a dressmaker and her classmate in high school. Her round face and rosy cheeks made her look younger than her age. Adeline greeted her cordially.
"Is the German officer at home now?" Gisele asked.
"No, he hasn't come back. Come inside."
She went in and sat on a brown linen sofa. Adeline poured mineral water into a glass. She handed it to her. She took a sip from her glass of water and then put it down on a square coffee table.
"The day before yesterday I saw a woman berating a grocer because she didn't get the egg ration after standing in line for more than an hour. Everyone has gone mad from hunger and exhaustion."
Adeline sighed in restlessness, "Poor French people."
"Yeah, everyone is going through such hard times."
"You know a key ring is the same weight as the daily meat ration. How is it possible to fill us up?"
Gisele laughed, "It's a good joke. At least a sense of humor was some relief for an empty stomach."
They burst into laughter.
"By the way, my brother is still keeping his hunting rifle in our house."
The expression in Adeline's eyes was shocked and fearful, "It's dangerous! What if the German sees it? You and your family will be arrested!"
"He keeps it in a small hut where turnips were stored. Straws are also there so it's out of the German's sight," she gave her a reassuring look with her brown eyes.
"I hope so."
"Does the German officer treat you badly?"
"He behaves well. I guess it's a mere show of politeness."
"I've seen him once near the Château. He was with a viscount and a high-ranking German officer. He acted as an interpreter for his superior. I guess that's the reason he's stationed here."
"It's been a month since he lived in my house but I never say a word to him."
"I do feel for you. Living alongside the enemy is very hard. You lose your freedom like a slave." After thinking for a moment, she reverts to speaking resentfully, "We all are like slaves. They force us to submit to them. They forbid us to keep any firearms, have a radio, refuse German currency . . . moreover, you'll be sentenced to death if you get caught aiding British spies or citizens of countries which were their enemies."
"It's abominable."
The shutters were still open. The living room looked out onto the street. From Adeline's windows, they saw the gray-uniformed soldiers passing by: their light-colored hairs, their rosy complexions and their sharp facial features. Beneath the wonderful June sky, the Germans marched in formation, singing a song with an excellent voice:
Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein Und das heißt, Erika
Behind their backs and above their heads, curious faces appeared at all the windows. They were bemused by this unfamiliar choir. The young women just looked at them for a long time. The mothers of prisoners or soldiers killed in the war drew their curtains so they didn't see them. Far from it, behind one of the shutters was a disabled war veteran, watching the enemies' move and yelling at them, "I hope they drop dead!"
The singing voices and the footsteps of the conquerors faded into the distance.
Adeline and Gisele stepped out of the house. They walked along the cobblestone street, side by side, passed the half-timbered houses and the tall green trees. A horde of people gathered near the main building. Their eyes fell upon a poster on the wall. Adeline and Gisele tried to peer through the crowd. They saw a propaganda poster depicting a Jewish businessman dressed in clothing with symbols of America, England and the Soviet Union was being chased away by a local worker and a German soldier. In this poster, the Germans claimed that the Allies were tools of the long standing Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world through their control of international finance.
"The Germans keep convincing the locals of the threat posed by the Jews through their propaganda," Adeline said.
"They seem to be their mortal enemy."
They left the crowd, walked through the winding lanes and then arrived at the River Cher. It nestled between two villages which was then also a part of the demarcation line set up by the Germans which split France in two parts, a free zone in the south and an occupied zone in the north. They stood at the edge of the river, leaning over the parapet to watch the water flowing beneath the arch of the bridge. Above it, there was the checkpoint; two armed German soldiers were guarding between a barrier gate and a sentry box. Everyone had to show them a travel pass to enter or exit from the occupied zone.
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Gisele's eyes flitted to Saint-Aignan which was in the free zone and said, "The French from the free zone accused Parisians of consorting with the Germans. On the other hand, Parisians criticized them for blatantly showing off their egoistical satisfaction at not being occupied."
"The occupation and the division of France into two zones deepened the ill feelings that separated the French from one another."
Gisele pointed to an arch of the bridge and then said, "Do you still remember the moment the French soldiers blew it up to hinder the invasion of the Germans in Saint-Aignan?"
"Yes, I do."
Their minds raced through time and space. They could relive the stressful event in June 1940; a multitude of German soldiers came to Noyers. They filled the village square and the streets - more and more of them, endlessly. From the Blois road, they bombarded Saint-Aignan with the shells of the artillery. The torrent of the shells hit some of the French soldiers, the tower of the castle and other buildings; roofs caved in, walls crumbled, everything caught fire. The explosion sent out a horrible echo through the air. It drowned out the thousand sounds of the village. The gunfire between the French army and the German army broke out. Bullets sped along the air, striking walls and piercing human fleshes. The French blew up the arch of the bridge to prevent the German advance in Saint-Aignan. They keep putting up a resistance against the enemies and managed to do so for twenty four hours.
