She began to cough, and Nora passed her a tissue, asking if she was all right. Marie-Louise nodded, and after clearing her throat, continued to speak.
“Did you know fear has a smell?” Marie-Louise’s voice was quiet but unwavering. “I have never forgotten it. I couldn’t describe it if I tried, but I would know it anywhere. It gets into everything.”
Her words lingered in the air, heavy and inescapable. Nora felt them settle over her like a weight. How sad to understand what Marie-Louise had experienced.
“I took my job as a courier seriously. Some teenagers helped adults in the Resistance. They knew what I did and let me in on a scheme they had, although I knew no details until much later. All I knew was that I was to pretend to trip and fall in front of a drunken soldier—a heavy drinker who had been targeted by the Resistance. Then I was to go home, taking an indirect route, and tell no one what I did. I was scared but bold.”
She said it wasn’t until the war ended that her friend and neighbor, Emil Gagnon, told her the entire story.
Marie-Louise stopped talking. Nora asked if she was in distress, and the older woman said she needed a moment to collect herself and asked for a glass of water. Yvette appeared with one immediately. After a few little sips, Marie-Louise continued. Her voice was clear and strong.
“The neighborhood boys had been asked by the Resistance to steal a German uniform. German soldiers liked to eat at certain restaurants. The boys targeted one on a very dark street. A waitress kept flirting and refilling the wine glass of a soldier sitting by himself. I was pretending to be playing in the street and when he staggered out, I tripped right in front of him on purpose. When he stumbled over me, the boys hit him over the head with bricks. They dragged him into the hallway of a neighboring building and closed the door.”
She paused again for another sip of water. “I saw none of that, as I was already zigging and zagging my way home through alleyways. I could only walk so I would not attract attention.
“Monsieur Chartrand had given them a bottle of ether and a cloth. It knocked out the soldier and then the Resistance fighter garroted him. The instructions said they didn’t want any blood on the uniform. Garrote… I didn’t learn that word until later.”
Nora couldn’t fathom how a little girl had the courage to act as she did. She was learning how fear and hatred could instill courage.
She sat frozen, unable to speak.
Marie-Louise continued without faltering.
“Emil said they stripped the German to his underwear and shoved him into the basement where they rolled his body into an old, unused well. The man from the Resistance took the clothes in a sack and disappeared. It all happened in minutes.”
She looked off into space for a moment, seeing something that was visible only to her. Nora felt ill.
“The next morning, the Germans yelled for everyone to come out on the street. They said someone killed a soldier, so they were going to shoot one of us in return. We were all terrified. But Emil Gagnon, I can still see him clearly, told the soldiers he saw a drunk soldier go down a cramped passageway with a hooker. The soldiers took off in that direction and for whatever reason never came back. We were lucky. Others might have shot us.”
Nora took both of Marie-Louise’s hands in hers. Their four hands were strong together. She looked deeply into the old woman’s eyes with respect and admiration. “You helped. You were brave. You did something important. That is what you need to remember. It was more than most people could do.”
“I know. I’m not sorry. I never allowed myself to think of the German soldier’s humanity. Whether he was a father or not. He was certainly a son. But he was doing evil. He represented evil. I was a child, yet I helped kill him. I needed to say it out loud before I die, and I have. Now I do not carry it alone.”
“No,” Nora said. “Never alone again.”
Marie-Louise wasn’t finished with her recollections. “One more thing colored the remainder of my life, after the war ended, and after I had been in England for a few months. I could not stop thinking how one word felt burned into my soul. The word was hate. I had grown to hate so many things. The Germans, whether they were soldiers or not. The starvation. The fear. The suspicion. The hate. I hated the hate.”
She looked at Nora, pursed her lips, and shook her head. “That hate—resentment for collaborators, accusations, revenge, ideological differences—kind of exploded in Paris in the days after the war ended. The joy of the liberation and the arrival of the Allies was not really the end for the French. Not yet.”
Marie-Louise dabbed her eyes with a tissue. Her face creased with pain.
“Next came l’épuration sauvage, the wild purge. A need for revenge. The government had an official épuration, but the citizens had their own. It was horrid and, in some ways, as terrifying as the Occupation.”
“Thousands of people accused of collaborating with the Germans were publicly executed without proper trial. Women suspected of treason had their heads publicly shaved and were paraded through the streets to be spat upon and have garbage and other unmentionable things thrown at them. It was so scary because it was French killing French. Neighbors accusing neighbors. It was mob justice, and I remember hiding in my mother’s arms from the shouting and screams.”
Nora could only shake her head. She felt so inadequate in offering consolation, but knew Marie-Louise wasn’t looking to be affirmed or reassured.
“So all that hate affected the remainder of my life. I banished the word from my vocabulary, and I worked with organizations to help create peace in the world, at least in the small part of the world I could reach. We took our messages into schools and supported others hoping to achieve similar goals.”
There was silence. Nora sensed Marie-Louise was searching for words, then she said in almost a whisper, “I wish I did not have to say this. Today I see the wordhatecoming back into society, and it is heartbreaking. How can the world not have learned?”
Fatigue began to show on her friend’s face. It had been an emotionally draining afternoon, and Nora felt relief at reaching an end to their discussion.
“I know you are returning to Canada soon, dear Nora. I shall miss your company. But I am so grateful to you for drawing these memories from me. I want my family to know what I and so many other children experienced in our early years and why we grew up to be the people we are.”
Nora didn’t mention she would be staying longer. She would tell Marie-Louise in due course.
* * *
