Paris: The Novel

Eiffel Tower rose gracefully into the sky, as though she were the guardian of the city’s spirit. The three men stared at it.
    “They still haven’t fixed the cables,” Thomas Gascon remarked with satisfaction. He nodded. “I’ll go up and attach the Tricolor to the top of it before long.”
    Nobody contradicted him.
    Max Le Sourd looked at the two old men affectionately. Despite theirage, they were both useful. His father’s work on
Le Populaire
had helped drive the illegal paper’s circulation to amazing heights. As for Thomas, the indefatigable old man had insisted on coming on sabotage missions whenever it had been physically possible. It was he who had pointed out that instead of blowing up railway lines with explosives, it was far more effective to take the plates off and pry the rails apart where they were joined. He’d invented a simple way of doing it, and it had worked brilliantly.
    But now, at last, the day of which they’d all been dreaming was coming. No one knew the day exactly—unless General Eisenhower did—and no one knew the place. But it was coming soon. A huge invasion of Allied troops from the island of Britain. Liberation.
    All over France, the networks so long prepared were getting ready. A massive program of disruption would take place. German troops would find their trains unable to move, electric wires would be down, while a huge bombing of every kind of military target would come from the air. And in Paris, barricades, mayhem, guerrilla warfare.
    And something else.
    “The timing will be critical,” Max said quietly. “As the Germans are driven out, we shall need a fait accompli, but it can be done.”
    “A commune. The workers will take over Paris.” His father smiled.
    The National Council of the Resistance had already agreed, in mid-March, that the new French state would be a very different place from the France before the war. The workers and unions would be given power. Women should have equal rights, welfare be hugely increased.
    The commune was only a step further, a way to make sure that, this time, the revolution was fixed immutably in place.
    “I like it,” said old Thomas.
    “But is the FTP solid for this?” Le Sourd inquired. The Franc-Tireurs et Partisans, the communist resistance, Max’s boys. In the last two years, it was they who had taken the lead in most of the guerrilla attacks on Germans. Their numbers were large.
    “Moscow is against our plan,” Max said. “If Stalin wanted to please Hitler before, now he wants to please Churchill. Who knows? But I don’t give a damn. We’ll have a commune.”
    He paused. There was just one other subject he had to bring up. It was awkward.
    “The numbers in the Resistance are swelling dramatically,” he remarked.
    “Naturally,” said his father. “People can see which way the wind’s blowing. The rats will start leaving the sinking German ship.”
    “True,” Max continued. “And the Germans are making it worse for themselves. They’re so short of manpower that they’re trying to force the boys in the countryside into uniform to fight for them. Sooner than get caught in that trap, the country boys are running off into the woods to join the partisans.”
    “That’s good,” said old Thomas.
    “Yes,” Max agreed, “but there’s a danger. We never quite know what we’re getting. It’s easier for the Germans to plant spies and stooges in the Resistance now. We need to be very careful about who has information.” He had come to the point now. He glanced at his father.
    The older Le Sourd took over. Taking Thomas gently by the arm, he said softly: “Are you sure about your brother, Luc?”
    It was an instinct. Just a degree of uncertainty about his character. The Dalou boys didn’t trust him. There had been something not quite right, Max had always felt, about the way those two Spanish lads had been killed and Luc had escaped. Nothing one could pin down. But a concern …
    “He’s all right,” said Thomas.
    But he said it without the conviction for which Max was listening. Max knew he would trust old Thomas with his life. No question. But did Thomas feel the same way about his own brother? Max suspected he did not.
    “Don’t tell him anything,” he said. It was an order.
    Thomas nodded. He did not say a word.

    The previous winter had been a strange time for Marie. Normally, she and Roland would have spent the darkest months in Paris, but this year they had preferred to remain in the