Read Monsieur le Commandant Online
Authors: Romain Slocombe
Ilse woke up before I did. When I opened my eyes, she was leaving the room with the little ones, on her way down to the breakfast room.
On the return journey – all the way to Paris, where I had business to attend to – my daughter-in-law barely unclenched her teeth.
Her most coherent statement was to the effect that, with the academic year coming to an end, she had decided to pull Hermione out of school immediately, and that the child would stay with her in Paris. I did not protest, but the decision saddened me. We stopped at the villa to pick up the little girl’s things.
As I drove, I pondered the reasons for her hostile attitude. Did Ilse regret her night of abandon? Did she think I had trapped her into it? That I was, in the final analysis, a reprobate who could not even be trusted with a little girl? Was she thinking of Olivier and feeling remorseful? All of that would have been natural and plausible. But was Ilse also afraid that, in the panic brought on by her anxieties and terror, she had said too much about the Jews of the Occupied Zone and the yellow star to a kike-hater like her father-in-law?
And yet, I had done my best to reassure her. It had even been my promise of protection that, alongside the recollection of her brother, had thrown her into my arms.
In any case, I was uncertain how to deal with the unexpected change in our relationship that our night together had precipitated. My love, now more intense than ever, was tinged with embarrassment and fear. What would happen when Olivier returned to France at the end of the war? Would his wife and I be able to look him in the eye?
Above all, would that which had come to pass in the inn on Mont Saint-Michel recur soon? Or ever again? How would my daughter-
in-law
behave on her next visit to Andigny? And should I, one way or another, suggest that she join me in my room? Or would I be expected to join her in hers?
Ilse provided me with an answer of sorts upon our arrival at Rue Richer by jumping out of the car, grabbing her bags and her children and vanishing into the courtyard without inviting me up for a cup of tea or a nightcap, as she usually did.
I took refreshment on a café terrace on the Boulevards, strolled through the neighbourhood – where I noticed the abundance of yellow stars – and went for dinner with Ramon Fernandez on Rue
Saint-Benoît
, in the company also of Drieu la Rochelle and Sonderführer Heller, before returning to Normandy that same night, in grim humour and even more heavy-hearted than I had been before our travels.
Having decided to let time do its work and to wait for my
daughter-in-law
to come round, and too distraught to return to high-minded authorship, I devoted myself to simple journalistic projects that, whilst allowing me to express my unvarnished opinions, served incidentally to continue shielding my family from suspicion. I wrote a second article for
Le Journal d’Andigny
along the lines of the first. I reproduce this piece below – you read it at the time of its publication, for I recall your complimenting me on it, as did Dr Hild – in order to prove, if proof were needed, that whilst I may have been harbouring a Jewess within my family, for reasons well known to you, I also never hesitated to publicly denounce the Jewish threat. I entitled the article ‘Andigny Must Set an Example!’
What great things have the Aryans produced? They have given the world the concept of the State, the law, public
administration, the arts, science, philosophy, poetry. In short, the very essence of what we call civilisation.
And the others?
To the Arabs we owe numbers, to the Chinese, the compass.
And to the Jews?
The black market!
As of Sunday 7 June of this year, the Jews of the Occupied Zone have finally been compelled to wear the yellow star. In the capital – whither I go at least once a week, if only to attend the meetings of the Academy, whose work on the Dictionary has been regrettably delayed by the fact that so many of our colleagues remain in the Southern Zone – the abundance of Jews on the streets has opened the eyes of even the blindest among us. My Sunday stroll yesterday was surprising and shocking. Especially on the Boulevards where the stars began to come out in the early afternoon. Alone or in little groups, our Hebes strolled along, all walking in the same direction – westward, towards the Champs-Élysées. Their numbers swelled by the minute. There are swarms of them! They are a veritable multitude, which the real Parisian can only gaze upon in amazement.
But what has this to do with our pleasant little town, where the only stars one sees, at the weekend or during the summer, are worn by a few fortunate owners of second homes?
My work on the Town Council has allowed me to learn that we have among us a certain Amédée Lévy, who has been appointed as the official caretaker of the town cemetery. He is 100 per cent Jewish, a childless widower with no military record who has never appeared on any list qualifying him
for employment in a reserved occupation. He was given the job even though French veterans wounded in the Great War – of whom I am one myself – have been left to moulder on those selfsame lists.
How is it, moreover, that this person should have been sworn in even before he had been naturalised? His naturalisation, too, could well be ascribed to certain connections within the former republican regime. In any case, his presence on the public rolls is highly suspect. His insolent swagger is a disgusting challenge. He has been summoned to the town hall on several occasions because of his status as a Jew, but the man, cunning like all of his race, has always ‘fallen on his feet’.
By dint of what secret influence?
Amédée Lévy managed to obtain a veteran’s certificate, no doubt fraudulently, but he has been stripped of it. In the meantime, his case cannot drag on forever. This individual’s file must be fat with surprises. The police or the gendarmerie would be well advised to look into it!
That is why I demand that a thorough investigation be launched of this person, who is occupying a public post that is not his by right. We need to know now by what authority he is exempt, as he claims to be, from having to wear the Jewish insignia.
I find it alarming that exceptions are made for every bit of scum that has washed up on our shores from foreign ghettos since the days of the Popular Front. Enough is enough – people will tolerate this no more! And yet the solution to the ‘Jewish problem’ is simple. Until they can be sterilised or exterminated, the Jews should all be sent to labour camps. Real Frenchmen wish to see the Jews
stooped over French soil, mattock in hand.
Let us rid the cities of France of their Jews! Our
sub-prefecture
has given refuge to one single Jew. Kick him out!
In setting such an example of public health policy, Andigny would become the first town in France without a single Jew!
I signed it: ‘Paul-Jean Husson, member of the Académie Française, Officer of the Légion d’Honneur, veteran of 1914–1918, decorated for bravery, war-wounded, Collaboration Group registration No. 50-144-H, literary section.’
Having had no news from Rue Richer in ten days, I called. The phone rang for an unusually long time, and then Hermione answered. We exchanged a few words, and the child told me that her mother had a migraine and couldn’t speak to me. I said that I wished her a speedy recovery and that I would call again the following day.
Jittery and anxious, I couldn’t bring myself to do it, but called back two days later. Hermione again answered the phone, and informed me that her mother was out. But I briefly thought that I heard Ilse’s voice in the background.
I lost heart, and did not call again for several weeks. Happening to pass by Rue du Buet, where Amédée Lévy, the cemetery caretaker, lived, I noticed that the shutters were closed and that the brick walls were covered in graffiti, written in forceful vernacular, strongly encouraging our Yid to pack his bags for Palestine if, among other unpleasant options, he did not want to find himself ‘in the oven’. Tickled by the eloquence of certain colourful expressions, I wrote them down with the idea of reusing them in my reportage. I had the opportunity of doing so in July, when a mass round-up of foreign Jews, first housed at the Vélodrome d’Hiver and later in the camp at Drancy
– ultimately to be transferred to the labour camps in the East – proved that our French police had finally decided to take serious measures.
July passed without any contact between me and my family in Paris. I was also concerned for their health, as I knew that the material circumstances of city-dwellers were in continual decline. Food was growing scarce, disappearing off the shelves. Artichokes and tomatoes were now available only with ration tickets. At dawn, hours before the shops opened, women gathered in long queues on the streets, monitored by police officers, in the hope of obtaining a bit of salad or a pound of rotten fruit. As for me out in the country, living quite well on the generosity of our farmers, I vegetated, my heart stricken, wounded, plunged into an abyss of confusion and sorrow. I understood that I would have to give up on Ilse; that our wonderful night would never be repeated; that in burning my bridges I had unwittingly cut myself off from my love for good and all; and that the Lord had judged me severely for the sin of having lain with my son’s wife and, worse yet, a Jewess.
On 5 August came the attack in the Jean-Bouin stadium. Hidden behind a hedge like cowards, three men hurled grenades at a group of some fifty German soldiers who had been training on the track. Eight were killed and thirteen wounded, and the criminals escaped.
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All that morning, I was told, soldiers patrolled the streets, sub-machine guns at the ready, arresting passers-by at random. In reprisal, General Oberg, your Higher SS and Police Leader, had eighty-eight hostages shot, only eighteen foreigners among them. Many of the French citizens sacrificed that morning on Mont Valérien had committed no direct action against the occupying forces, and had been jailed on minor offences. I was deeply upset at the thought that a bunch of Bolsheviks, Jews and Gaullists had caused innocent French blood to be spilled once again, and that the policy of Collaboration between our two great
peoples was again under threat because of an act of abject terrorism.
On 19 August, the Anglo-Americans attempted a landing at Dieppe. Your Wehrmacht easily repulsed them after a few hours of fighting. But this sharp clash gave us a good idea of what to expect if France’s ‘liberators’ managed to gain a foothold on terra firma. Our territory would become a battlefield, our cities and villages reduced to ashes, our monuments razed, our population decimated. Two days later, Monsieur de Brinon sent a telegram of thanks to Marshal von Runstedt on behalf of Maréchal Pétain, congratulating him on having so quickly foiled the enemy’s advance.
A few days later, during the afternoon of the 27th, I heard the rumble of an engine and then the crunching of gravel on my drive. It was a very hot and lovely day. Although Monsieur de Brinon had invited me, I had not attended the high Mass at Notre Dame, followed by the military parade at Les Invalides in celebration of Legion Day, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the departure of our first contingent of volunteers to the Eastern Front. I went down in my shirtsleeves, having been upstairs writing in my office. The gardener had left the main gate open, and a black Citroën saloon had taken the opportunity to pull up willy-nilly at my front door. Two strangers, both in hat and trench coat despite the heat, were standing beside the car and gazing up at the villa’s gables. I went out. One of the men asked to speak to Monsieur Husson.
They looked like policemen, and I thought they might be on the trail of my son. I told them that Olivier was abroad. The one who had spoken first corrected me. ‘No, we’re looking for Paul-Jean Husson.’
‘That’s me.’
He took out his card and showed it to me. He belonged to the national police force, there was no mistaking it. I ushered the two officers into my drawing room.
The first introduced himself and his colleague.
‘Deputy Chief Inspector Sadorski. And Special Detective Cuvelier. General Inquiries,
12
Third Brigade.’
They sat. I asked the maid to bring them something to drink. I joined them in a cognac – I felt the need for one, because something told me that the visit boded no good.
We drank in silence. Special Detective Cuvelier seemed fascinated by the Boilly painting, the intertwined group portrait
Amour familial
.
‘We’re here to take custody of the Jew Lévy, the cemetery caretaker,’ Deputy Chief Inspector Sadorski explained to me. ‘You see, the Feldgendarmes picked him up at home at dawn, and it’s our job to take him to jail in Paris. I had a look at his file, and saw the article you wrote in it. Bravo, and congratulations. Without it, the chicken would have flown the coop. The Yid’s in for it now!’
I heaved a sigh of relief. The police, it seemed, were only interested in my denunciation. They had come, no doubt, to take my testimony.
‘We were told that you spend your time in town these days,’ the inspector went on. ‘So this is a lucky break. Your name is not unknown to me, as it happens.’
Assuming that the officer had heard of my work, I asked him if he had read any of my books. He seemed amused.
‘No, I don’t have time to read. You can’t imagine how much work we have to do. My group specialises in bagging Jews.’
I was unfamiliar with the expression; Inspector Sadorski explained it to me.
‘Our section is on the “public areas” beat, assigned to non-terrorist Jews and foreigners. We have about fifteen detectives. We sometimes get a hand from the youngsters in the PPF,
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sometimes from the IV-J Division of the Gestapo security service. We mostly work the railway stations and public places. For instance, yesterday at the Gare d’Austerlitz, I see two young girls about to board a train, carrying little
suitcases. Look like Jew girls to me … I can tell them straight off. I have a good eye for it. Names I might forget, but faces, never. And even those who don’t look Jewish, I
know
they’re Jews. I’m wrong once in a thousand times. Me and my colleague, we ask for their papers. They’re sisters; they hand us their identity cards, which I’m surprised to find are not marked “Jewess”. But their foreign surname looked kikey to me, even if their first names were as French as they come. I ask for their parents’ Christian names. The older one answers quick as you like, “Bernard and Pauline”. We search their bags, nothing suspicious, just clothes.’