Someone knocked at the door. Claude was lying on the bed. His eyes fixed on the ceiling, he behaved as if he hadn’t heard anything; anyone would have thought he was listening to music, but since the room was silent I deduced from this that he was sulking.
As a security measure, Boris walked towards the window and gently lifted the curtain to glance outside. The street was quiet. I opened the door and let Robert in. His real name was Lorenzi, but among ourselves we were content to call him Robert; sometimes we also called him ‘Death-Cheater’ and this nickname was in no way pejorative. It was simply that Lorenzi had accumulated a certain number of qualities. First, his accuracy with a gun; it was unequalled. I wouldn’t have liked to find myself in Robert’s line of fire, since our comrade’s margin for error was in the region of zero. He had obtained permission from Jan to keep his revolver permanently on him, whereas we – because of the brigade’s shortage of weapons – had to give them back when the operation was over, so that someone else could have the benefit of them. However strange it may seem, everyone had their own weekly diary, containing, for example, a crane to be blown up on the canal, an army lorry to be set on fire somewhere, a train to be derailed, a garrison post to attack – the list is long. I shall take advantage of this to add that as the months passed, Jan imposed an ever-faster pace upon us. Rest days became rare, to the point where we were exhausted.
It’s generally said of trigger-happy types that they’re excitable, even to an excessive degree; it was quite the opposite with Robert – he was calm and level-headed. Much admired by the others, with a warm personality, he always had a friendly, comforting word, which was rare in those times. And also, Robert was someone who always brought back his men from a mission, so having him covering you was really reassuring.
One day, I would meet him in a bar on place Jeanne-d’Arc, where we often went to eat vetch, a vegetable that resembles lentils and which is given to livestock; we made do with the resemblance. It’s crazy what your imagination can dream up when you’re hungry.
Robert dined opposite Sophie and, from the way they were looking at each other I could have sworn that they too were in love. But I must have been wrong since Jan had said that partisans didn’t have the right to fall in love, because it was too dangerous for security. When I think back to the number of friends who, the night before their execution, must have hated themselves for respecting this rule, it makes me feel sick to my stomach.
That evening, Robert sat down on the end of the bed and Claude didn’t move. One day I shall have to have a word with my little brother about his character. Robert took no notice and stretched out a hand to me, congratulating me on a mission accomplished. I said nothing, torn by contradictory feelings, which, on account of my absent-minded nature, as my teachers said, instantly plunged me into the total silence of deep reflection.
And while Robert stayed there, right in front of me, I mused that I had entered the Resistance with three dreams in my head: to join Général de Gaulle in London, to join the Royal Air Force and to kill an enemy before I died.
Fully comprehending that the first two dreams would remain out of reach, the fact that I had at least been able to fulfil the third ought to have filled me with joy, particularly since I was still not dead, while the operation was now several hours earlier. In reality it was quite the opposite. It gave me no satisfaction to imagine my German officer who, at that time, for the needs of the investigation, was still in the position where I had left him, stretched out on the ground, arms at right angles to his body on the steps of the staircase, with a view downwards to a public urinal.
Boris gave a little cough. Robert wasn’t holding out his hand to me in order to shake it – although I am certain he would have had nothing against it, with his natural warmth – but by all accounts he wanted his weapon back. The barrel revolver I had lost was his!
I didn’t know that Jan had sent him as a second line of protection, anticipating the risks linked to my inexperience at the moment of the killing and the getaway that was to follow. As I said, Robert always brought his men back. What touched me was that Robert had entrusted his weapon to Charles the previous evening so that he could give it to me, when I had scarcely paid attention to him during dinner, far too absorbed as I was by my share of the omelette. And if Robert, who was responsible for my rear and Boris’s, had made such a generous gesture, it was because he wanted me to have the use of a revolver that never jams, unlike automatic weapons.
But Robert mustn’t have seen the end of the operation, nor probably the fact that his burning pistol had slipped out of my belt and landed on the road, just before Boris ordered me to get the hell out of there.
As Robert’s gaze was becoming persistent, Boris stood up and opened the drawer of the room’s sole piece of furniture. From a rustic wardrobe he removed the long-awaited pistol and immediately handed it back to its owner, without a word.
Robert put it back in its proper place and I took advantage of this to learn the correct way to slip the barrel under the belt buckle, to avoid burning the inner thigh and having to deal with the ensuing consequences.
Jan was happy with our operation; we were now accepted into the brigade. A new mission awaited us.
A guy from the Maquis had had a drink with Jan. During the conversation, he had committed an involuntary indiscretion, revealing among other details the existence of a farm where a few weapons parachuted in by the English were stored. It drove us crazy that people were stocking weapons with a view to the Allied landings, when we went short of them every day. So apologies to the Maquis colleagues, but Jan had taken the decision to go and help himself from their stocks. To avoid creating pointless quarrels, and to avert any blunders, we would leave unarmed. I don’t say there weren’t a few rivalries between the Gaullist movements and our brigade, but there was no question of risking wounding a ‘cousin’ partisan, even if family relations could sometimes be a bit strained. Instructions were therefore given not to resort to force. If we blundered we’d clear off, and that was that.
The mission was to be conducted with artistry and savoir-faire. What’s more, if the plan Jan had devised worked without a hitch, I defied the Gaullists to report what had happened to them to London, at the risk of coming across as real twits and drying up their source of supply.
While Robert was explaining how to proceed, my little brother behaved as if he didn’t give a damn, but I could see that he wasn’t missing a single word of the conversation. We were to report to this farm, a few kilometres west of the town, explain to the people there that we had come on behalf of a guy called Louis, that the Germans suspected the hiding place and would soon turn up; we had come to help them move the goods and the farmers were supposed to hand us the few cases of grenades and submachine guns they had stored there. Once these were loaded onto the little trailers attached to our bikes, we’d do a bunk and the whole thing was in the bag.
‘We’ll need six people for it to work,’ said Robert.
I knew quite well that I hadn’t been wrong about Claude, because he sat up on his bed, as if his siesta had just come to an abrupt end, there and then, just by chance.
‘Do you want to take part?’ Robert asked my brother.
‘With the experience I have now in bicycle theft, I suppose I’m also qualified to nick weapons. I must have the face of a thief for people to think of me automatically for this kind of mission.’
‘It’s quite the opposite. You have the face of an honest lad and that’s why you’re particularly well qualified. You don’t arouse suspicion.’
I don’t know if Claude took that as a compliment or if he was simply pleased that Robert had addressed him directly, offering him the consideration he seemed to lack, but his features instantly relaxed. I think I even saw him smile. It’s crazy how the fact of receiving recognition, however tiny it may be, can hearten a person. In the end, feeling anonymous among the people you’re with is a much greater