beaches against an Allied invasion, and drive them into operations against the
Maquis deep inside France. The Gaullists wanted to arm the Maquis and to build
the Resistance into a force that could claim to have liberated France, thus
saving Frances honour after the humiliation of defeat and Occupation. But the
Gaullists also wanted to mould the Resistance into a political movement that
would be able to govern France after the war and prevent a seizure of power by
their rivals, the Communist Party. On occasion, Gaullists and Communists fought
it out with guns, usually in disputes over parachute drops.
The Milice and their German masters crafted a new strategy to crush the
Resistance in key areas. Specialist German troops, anti-partisan units, were
shipped in from the Russian front, and from Yugoslavia where they had become
experienced at battling similar guerrilla forces. But the real key to the new
strategy was to starve out the Resistance by terrorising the farmers and rural
people on whom the Maquis depended for their food. Rural families whose sons had
disappeared were raided, beaten, sometimes killed and the women raped. Crops and
livestock were confiscated, farms and barns were burned. This reign of terror in
the countryside was carried out by a unit specially recruited for the task, the
Force Mobile. In the Périgord, it was based in Périgueux.
Sitting in Pamelas peaceful home, Bruno read on, rapt and appalled. He knew
that the Occupation had been rough, that many in the Resistance were killed, and
that the Vichy regime became engaged in a civil war of Frenchmen killing
Frenchmen. He knew about atrocities like Oradour-sur-Glane, the village to the
north where German troops, in reprisal for the death of a German officer, had
locked hundreds of women and children into the church and set it on fire,
machine-gunning any who tried to escape the flames. He knew of the small
memorials dotted around his region: a plaque to a handful of young Frenchmen who
died defending a bridge to delay German troop movements; a small obelisk with
the names of those shot pour la Patrie. But he had never known about the Force
Mobile, or the wave of deliberate brutality inflicted on this countryside he
thought he knew so well.
The Force Mobile in Périgord was commanded by a former professional footballer
from Marseilles called Villanova. Oh, sweet Jesus, Bruno thought as he read the
name hed so recently come to know. Villanova brought a new refinement to the
rural terror. He believed that the French peasants would be even more
effectively intimidated if the reprisals and rapes and farm burnings were
carried out by North Africans, specially recruited for the job with promises of
extra pay and rations, and all the women and loot they could take from the farms
they raided. Villanova found his recruits in the immigrant slums of Marseilles
and Toulon, where unemployment and poverty had provoked desperation, and where
he had many acquaintances in the local football teams that included young Arab
immigrants.
Bruno shivered as he realised where this was leading. He would have to pursue
the hypothesis that his murder victim, Hamid al-Bakr, war hero of France, had
also been Hussein Boudiaf, war criminal and terroriser of Frenchmen. Christine
was right. He would have to go to Bordeaux in the morning, and gather the
evidence about the Force Mobile, Villanova, Boudiaf, and other members. This
theory, which had seemed as obvious to Christine as it now did to him, was
indeed dynamite. The evidence for it would have to be complete and unassailable.
They would also have to research the names of the victims of the Force Mobile in
order to identify the families who had suffered and who had every reason to
want vengeance against any of Villanovas North African troops still living.
They would certainly have the motive to kill an old Arab whom they recognised
from those dark days of the war.
And what of Momu? What would it do to Momu, to Karim and Rashida, if they were
to learn that their beloved father and grandfather had been a war criminal, a
terrorist in the employ of the puppet Vichy state, acting under Nazi orders?
What kind of shock would it be to learn that the man you respected as a war
hero, as the brave immigrant who established his family as Frenchmen with
education and prospects and family pride, had in reality been a beast who spent
the rest of his life living a lie? How could the family stay in St Denis with
that knowledge hanging over them? How would the rest of the little North African
community in St Denis react to this revelation?
Bruno could scarcely bring himself to think about the French public reaction to
the North Africans once all this became known, or to imagine by how many hundred
votes the Front National vote would swell. He bent forwards in his chair, his
head in his hands, biting his lip as he tried to cudgel his brain into rational
thought. He had to make some plans, talk to the Mayor, brief
J-J
and Isabelle,
and arrange to go to Bordeaux in the morning. He must talk to Christine, get
some advice on how on earth he could prepare his town for a bombshell such as
this.
Are you all right, Bruno? Pamela had come in to the room. Christine said you
would have some pretty grim news and you would need a very stiff drink, but you
look quite devastated. Youre as white as a sheet. Here, have some whisky its
not that Lagavullin you tried the other night. Its plain Scotch, so take a big
gulp.
Thanks, Pamela. He took a hefty gulp, and almost gagged on the fire of it, but
it made him feel better. Thanks for the drink, and for being normal. Im afraid
I have been in something of a nightmare, reading about these horrors of the
Occupation. Its a relief to come back to the present day and to life in a
pleasant home.
Christine said she thought it was somehow related to Hamids murder, but she
didnt give any details. Its funny how the past never quite goes away.
Youre right. The past doesnt die. Maybe it even keeps the power to kill.
Look, I have what I need now. Ill take these books and leave you in peace. I
have to get back to my office and get to work.
Are you sure, Bruno? Dont you need some food?
He shook his head, picked up Christines books and took his leave. As he drove
away he looked with new eyes at this placid countryside that had known such
events, and known them within living memory. He thought of smoke in the sky from
burning farms, blood on the ground from slaughtered fathers; he imagined French
policemen giving the orders that deployed military convoys on the country roads
convoys packed with Arab mercenaries in black uniforms, with licence to rape,
loot and pillage. He thought of half-starved young Frenchmen, hiding in the
hills with only a handful of weapons, helplessly watching the reprisals
unleashed against their families and their homes. Poor France, he thought. Poor
Périgord. Poor Momu.
And, Bruno wondered, whatever can we do with the Frenchmen who took their
long-delayed revenge against one of their tormentors? At least now he knew why a
swastika had been carved into Hamids chest. It signified not the politics of
the killers, but the real identity of the corpse.
Once back in St Denis, Bruno drove immediately to the Mayors house by the river
on the outskirts of town, showed him Christines books and the photograph of