The Last Time I Saw Paris - Lynn Sheene [134]
The policeman pointed back toward the prison. He spoke, she heard nothing. He tapped his white armband. The letters FFI and a double-hashed cross of Lorraine were drawn in black. He squeezed her arm, his eyes shining. Vive la France, he mouthed, then rushed back toward the center of the courtyard.
Claire watched him join a group of fighters charging through the yard toward the doors. They were met by a surge of Waffen-SS with machine guns that poured from the building. The German soldiers mowed down everything standing then advanced toward the opening, toward Claire and Jacques.
She felt Jacques stir next to her. She clenched his hand. “Jacques, we have to go. Now.”
His eyes slowly focused on her as she tucked her shoulder under his arm. Her legs nearly buckled. “Help me, Jacques. I can’t do this alone.”
He gritted his teeth and pushed himself off the ground. She straightened and hefted him to his feet. Bullets whipped by them as they stumbled toward the opening.
More fighters scrambled by, coming, going, bloodied or whole, their faces were ferocious, shining. Half dragging Jacques, Claire stumbled onto the sidewalk. Bodies littered the cobbles. Overhead, rifle barrels jutted from windows.
They crouched behind a burning car. “We have to run,” Claire said.
He nodded, his face ashen. Arm in arm, crouched low, they half ran, half staggered up the street. An explosion roared behind them, and they turned onto rue de Surène.
Claire saw the imposing Greek temple façade of L’Eglise de la Madeleine ahead. “The church.”
He nodded, but his face was pinched and his shirt dark with blood. She took a step, his legs gave out, and they toppled to the ground. Gunfire sputtered as a truck gunned up the street toward them. FFI and the cross of Lorraine were drawn on the side of the truck in white paint.
“Jacques.” Claire pulled at his arm. She heard the brakes scrape as the truck stopped next to them.
“Hurry,” a low voice called. A teenaged boy leapt out, followed by a woman holding a rifle. “Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur,” the boy shouted out as he muscled Jacques into the back of the truck.
Claire crawled up behind them and the engine gunned. Two blocks later, when the truck roared past a burning German tank, Claire understood. The Allies were coming.
The FFI dropped them off a few blocks from the fighting. They holed up in a Resistance apartment in Saint-Germain. Jacques on the bed, Claire on the floor; she collapsed into sleep where she fell. A day and a night later, she woke to find him delirious and burning with fever; the bullet in his side infected. Amidst sporadic gunfire, patrolling tanks and milling crowds, Claire staggered with Jacques through the wounded into the Hospital Hôtel-Dieu next to Notre Dame Cathedral.
Two medics took Jacques; a nurse led Claire to a women’s room. After her cheek was flushed with a mixture that made her spit out farmyard curses, she was bandaged and ordered to rest.
When the nurse left the room, Claire located a small shaving mirror. Her face was swollen; a heavy bandage covered her cheek. Her eyes were puffy and black, her nose inflated, the bridge bruised. She stared for a few minutes, ran her hands lightly over the bandage on her cheek, imagining the wound below. Well, she decided, living had to count for something.
Tossing the mirror on the bed, Claire went looking for Jacques. She found him in a large room lined with wounded; his cot was next to a window overlooking the cathedral. Unconscious and fevered, he mumbled under his breath. The bullet had been taken out, the nurse told Claire, but he was very weak. Too weak, her tired eyes said. The nurse gave him an injection for the pain, muttered a prayer and moved on to the next cot. Claire curled up on the windowsill next to his bed. If he was going to die that night, he shouldn’t die alone. If he lived, well, even