The Americans had landed in Normandy in June, but they hadn’t reached the area around Lyon yet. At the end of the month, they liberated Cherbourg. At the beginning of July, the British and Canadians captured Caen, and in mid-July the Americans reached St. Lô, and ten days later took Coutances. The Allied advance was slow and steady, and they had the Germans on the run. They took Avranches on the first of August and two weeks later invaded southern France. Gaëlle completed her last mission for the OSE in mid-August, spiriting a six-year-old boy to safety, and a few days later the commandant told her they were leaving. She had forty-nine major works of art hidden in the shed by then, and promised him again, when she saw him for the last time, that she would return them as soon as it was safe to go to Paris. He had done a very major feat for France. And by the time his colleagues discovered that the paintings of the commandant and his friend had disappeared, they would have bigger problems to deal with, and he could tell them they had gotten lost in transit. All he wanted to know was that they were in the right hands, and he was convinced they were with Gaëlle.
“Thank you for helping me,” he said, the night he said goodbye to her. They were leaving in the morning, retreating from the area, and going back to Germany. The Allies were only days or weeks away, and none of the German forces wanted to risk getting caught by them. They were anxious to leave. And there were reports of a Resistance uprising in Paris.
“It was a very good thing for you to do,” she said quietly the last time she saw him, and they shook hands as he thanked her and wished her well. The truth was very different from Apolline’s accusations and insults, assuming she was having sex with the commandant when she went to his room. Apolline never dreamed that Gaëlle was smuggling priceless works of art out of the room in loaves of bread. Apolline’s contempt for her knew no measure, and she would no longer even speak to her, even after they were gone.
Gaëlle tried to explain to her mother that the Germans had left and the Americans were coming, hoping to raise her spirits, but she no longer cared. She had nothing to look forward to, nothing to live for. Her husband and son were dead, and the years of Occupation had taken too great a toll.
The last days of the war for them were sad and eerie. The country had been pillaged, so many people killed or sent away. So many wonderful young people had died in the Resistance, and so many dreams had died with them, but somehow Gaëlle had survived. The war had made her stronger and more mature, particularly the missions she did. Having no one to care for her and protect her had rapidly turned her into an adult. Her dreams of going to university at the Sorbonne were over, it made no sense to her now, and she lay in bed at night, thinking of the children she had helped to save, wondering where they were now. Almost all of them were orphans, but at least they were alive.
By the end of August, the Americans had arrived. They washed across the countryside like a flood of clean water, bringing hope and victory with them, as people hugged them, kissed them, and threw themselves into their arms. Paris was liberated on the twenty-fifth of August, there was music and dancing, the GIs gave candy and chocolates to children and smiled at all the pretty girls. And in the ensuing days, city after city was liberated. The nation was exhausted, but in a final burst of energy, they celebrated the arrival of their saviors. France was free again at last!
Chapter 6
When the dancing in the streets, parades of tanks and troops, and atmosphere of jubilation began to slow down, the final reckoning came for the people in the villages, towns, and cities all over France. In most cases, everyone knew who the traitors were, but here and there were surprises, and treacherous citizens who had betrayed their country in secret were denounced by their relatives and friends.
The mayor of the Vichy government was driven out of town, and a new one was named. He had been loyal to France, a member of the Resistance who had committed extraordinary acts of bravery. People began filing in, demanding justice, and often taking it into their own hands.
Apolline was one of the first to go to the town hall, when the new mayor was named. He had been in the same Resistance cell as her son, and she denounced Gaëlle for sleeping with the commandant, selling her body for food and sometimes just a loaf of bread. There was a group of citizens to list the villagers’ complaints, to determine if they were war crimes or just acts of infidelity to France. Most of those denounced were women who had slept with German officers and enlisted men, lived with them, had babies with them, and had consorted with the enemy, but not been spies. They had betrayed themselves more than all else. And Apolline proudly submitted Gaëlle’s name for the list. She wanted to see her publicly vilified for what she’d done.
A band of outraged hooligans and local citizens dragged the accused into the street, roughed them up, shoved them around, slapped them, beat them up in some cases, and then shaved their heads and forced them to parade through the streets to exhibit their shame to the entire town. People booed and jeered them, threw things at them, rotten food, garbage, empty bottles, whatever was at hand. It was a scene of total humiliation, and most of the women tried to weather it bravely, but it was an ugly scene with many minor injuries.
They found Gaëlle in the courtyard of the château, and dragged and pushed her to the main street, where men slapped her and women hit her with broomsticks. When it was over, Gaëlle went back to the château with a bruise on her face, a black eye, her shaved head, and a deep cut on her arm where someone had thrown a bottle with a jagged edge at her. She had foul-smelling garbage stuck to her clothes, and a look of devastation in her eyes. She was brokenhearted by what they’d done. There was no vindication or justification, no one to defend her. The workers of the OSE had gone back to Le Chambon and Marseilles, where they had loose ends to tie up, and the families of children to trace. No one came forward to acknowledge what Gaëlle had done for almost two years. No one knew of the paintings she was hiding to return to the Louvre, and she had promised not to tell anyone until she returned them, so they wouldn’t be stolen, which seemed wise. She had millions of francs of the national treasure in her hands, and she didn’t want them taken. She had to endure her undeserved shame in stoic silence, and went home sick and devastated after she was paraded through the streets. Even the American soldiers watching had jeered and hissed. No one liked a traitor, when the locals had explained who they were, and what they had done.