Danny and Tim in occupied France, and how they fight back. (NC-17)

AU Danny/Tim, placing them and a lot of other people in Occupied France in
September 1942. Conspiracy, explosions, mention of underaged sex, m/m sex, and
sarcasm. Any mistakes about Paris and partisan life are mine. No attempt was
made at depicting safer sex practices (though I know VD was a concern back then,
just not HIV) or depicting actual lubricants in use during WWII.

This is a work of fiction, historic, mind you, incorporating some biographical
details, but still fiction.  I mean, they were born nowhere near the vicinity of
World War II

I don't know if Messrs Elfman and Burton are or were seeing each other, I doubt
it, but if they are, mazel tov, guys. I also don't know if they 'employ girls or
boys,' and I doubt I will get the answer.

My German and French are via Babelfish, feel free to correct it. Anny Levy
Latour is a real person (though I don't think she told folks where to find
resistance groups, just fronted them fake ID papers), but the rest of the folks
aren't.
 
 

"Don't scream too loud, we don't want anyone to hear us, Daniel."

I wince and hiss at Johann, "Yes, but you're not the one who just got shot in
the leg by some fucking Vichyssois no-account." And I was just there to see if I
could pass some working papers as legitimate. Now, someone else will have to
'test.'

Richard, damn him, just smirks, "Maybe if you don't call him 'a sad, stupid
bastard,' you won't be in some much pain."

"And you would have resisted the urge to?" Richard turns away. He has as big a
mouth as I do, he's subtle about his contempt, however. He would have made a
good lawyer, if the Nazis didn't make the law school Judenrein.

How did I get to this? I was just a rootless youth who wrote songs at a
cabaret, then Leon Schneiderman got rounded up and so many other threats. I
didn't do this out of some desire to be a hero (get in trouble, maybe).

I just wanted nothing to happen to my friends and family. Yeah, even Richard.

And Tim, who just walks in, trying to hide worry in those sleepy eyes. I don't
think he expected to be part of this either. Timotheé, fellow watcher of Murneau
movies, just a young Left Bank kid who thought it would be a great idea to
design the sets, then we had to run out of a restaurant after a prank I pulled.
Didn't think I'd fall in love, and not that hard. Now, he is still gentle and
full of light. I'm getting to be as dark and sharp as Sergeant Ellison. Or maybe
I would if Tim wasn't here.

Tim walks in and sits beside me. "Do you need company, Daniel?"

I blink. "Yes, if you aren't afraid of blood."

He nods and lays his hand on mine. "I'm only afraid of losing France." He then
bends down to kiss me. "And you."

I could feel Johann digging in with the forceps, trying to pull the bullet out.
I shut my eyes, maybe from the pain, maybe just the memory of pain. I feel
another
pressure, and open to see Tim holding my hand. "Squeeze if you need to."

So, I do, and wait as I feel less the stinging pain and more hollow, feel
bandages and salve on the wound.

"Rest," Johann advices before washing his hands again. I relax my hand in Tim's.

I won't leave, not yet.

A small woman, blonde and pixie-like, runs in the room. "I bring you gifts." It
was preserved fruit, jams, salted meat, clown paint and firearms.

Rabbi Asimov sits in his study as the sun sets, making him a shadow against the
vast orange light. His gabbai, Nehemiah, brought in a note.

"Issac,
I have not failed you.
Sincerely,
L. Cohen."

I'm in the grammar school, deep in the basement. I haven't eaten for days, but I
forgot to count how long its been. Never mind I could count to one thousand,
making my parents laugh.

I know why I'm here. The teacher mixed up the past and present tense of penser.
I corrected him, and was caned, then tossed in the basement. I'm down here until
I tell the entire class I was wrong. But I wasn't wrong. Mama taught me French
before I came to this school. I want to see Mama again. I want out, but I don't
want to lie and say I was wrong. Papa always told me it was wrong to lie.
It's so dark, and I wonder what will happen. I learned the word 'death' when I
saw Richard's bird stiff, not ruffling its feathers, singing its song. I loved
to whistle tunes to the bird, listen to the bird try to imitate me. Mama told me
the bird's soul is in Paradise, Gan Eden

No-one will get me out. I will join that bird. I'm so hungry . . .

I wake up with the start. Richard would laugh at me if he know about this dream.
He takes great pleasure in mocking Herr Doktor Freud, that dreams are somehow
significant, not just odd images that you see in sleep. So, I never tell Richard
I have been having this nightmare since I was nine.

Oh yes, I survived. Mother and Father pulled me out and demanded to know what
happened. The thing was, the teacher knew he made a mistake, but me correcting
him marked me as someone who 'needed his will broken like a stubborn mule.' The
basement was meant to teach me to 'obey my elders.' Father did not like his
youngest son being compared to an animal.

I do not want to give the impression my parents did not discipline me when I did
something wrong, but they often used words instead of their hands. Somehow, they
thought compassion was a higher ideal than obedience, and wanted me to know
that. I don't know if they succeeded.

Tim walked by the door. "You're awake?"

"I just woke up. Come in, I will need to call the others too."

He walks in, tangled dark hair, baggy work shirt and dirty denim pants. "I can
do that."

I shake my head. "Later, I haven't been alone with you since two days ago."

He gives me a shadow of a grin and kisses me. I squirm when he touches me, with
pencil-callused fingertips over bare skin. When I reach for him though, the dull
pain of the wound sears through me.

"Rest," Tim says, as he continues the little caresses on my neck and wrists.
Easy for him to say, I can only thank whomever runs these things my erection
didn't make these pants too tight.

The Héloise and Abélard monument: that's where Tim kissed me. We ran out of the
restaurant, after my act as Count Orlok got out of hand, frightening the
patrons. I didn't mean it, I just was demonstrating how many times I have
watched Nosferatu. He was the one who asked to dine with me, since he pulled me
over to show me sketches. So many good ideas for backgrounds, so shy, so content
to listen to me, but when he talked of the days he'd wander through Paris
between classes at ENCAD, sketching, he was quick, fluent, big brown eyes
shining. Wait, am I thinking of him that way? If I wanted that, there are plenty
of alleyways to wander down.

Does he . . . of course not, what about the girl who he kissed goodbye before
walking to the restaurant with me? Lovely little thing too, pale, silky dark
hair, just full-enough lips and just big-enough eyes. Her name was
Louise-Marguerite. Lovers, most definitely.

"Sorry I did that. I got carried away." I felt embarrassed, which is good, since
that means I am not stupid drunk from the wine.

He shook his head. "Don't mind. Good night to walk. But don't want to go home
yet."

"I'm in no mood for cabaret."

"I have another idea."

I have no fear of cemeteries, even Christian ones. So when Tim lead me to
Père-Lachaise, I treated it as if we were walking through the park. He gestured
to some point, hands flapping. "Like to sketch here . . .and here, oh here too."
He stabbed his finger at the Héloise and Abélard. "I love here especially." So
then, we walked. Strange that he briefly touched me on my back . . .
"Know what I like best about here?" Tim whispers in the shadow of the chapel.

I looked at him, wondering, wondering if this is 'artistic eccentricity.'
"What?"

He leans closer, tilting his head down just looking in my eyes, his face
reflecting in my pince-nez. "The history." Then his lips just touch my forehead.

I must be reading him wrong, or reading him just right, I cannot tell anymore.
"What about the girl?"

"Louise-Marguerite is my best friend. Grew up together, was my model. We made a
pact once. We cuddle, we talk, but we could take into bed anyone we wanted.
Maybe for the night. Maybe forever. Maybe more than sex. Louise-Marguerite and I
will stay friends."

He smelled like coffee and a trace of merlot. "I fell for you when I first saw
you, singing in the cabaret. The way you moved . . .I don't understand German,
but I loved your voice in that one song, what is it, 'Ich Liebe Madchenen?'"

I snorted. That song got me death threats from people who understand German.

I looked up at him. "Do you want me for the night or forever?" Maybe it was
unguarded for me, but part of me worried, wondered if I was just going to be
used for his pleasure, like a certain classics professor I knew.

"I want you until you get tired of me." Then he leaned closer, so close to a
kiss.

"You don't want me, if you think that scene at the restaurant was mad, just
watch me when I am angry . . ."

"Daniel?"

"Yes?"

He put his long finger against my lips, leaned down, and kissed me. So warm, so
pure, his fingers tangle in my hair . . .I pulled away.

"Do you know how old I am?"

He pursed his lips. "Eighteen? That's not too bad, I am seventeen."

"Tim, I'll be twenty-two in a few days."

He kissed me again. "Doesn't matter."

"One more question?"

"Yes?"

"Could we go to your apartment? My brother's wife is sensitive to noise and I am
not sure the dead would like us fucking near their graves."

He smiled. "That would be rude, wouldn't it." Then we went to his home.

Tim breaks the reverie by touching my thigh. The pain from the wound now mingles
with anticipation, confusing the hell out of me. He trails his fingers along to
my stomach, then lays his hand on just where I want to be touched. I wanted to
get up, grab him in my arms and kiss him deep while grinding hip against hip.
But all I could do is wait.

He smiles shy and dark and opens one pants button. He pulls out my work shirt,
touching my exposed abdomen. I stop trying to figure out pain and longing.
Tim stays calm, looking with dispassionate hooded eyes. He then trails along
my hip, making me shudder.

Then we hear footsteps. He buttons my pants back, kisses me on the lips and
whispers "Later."

Never love a simple lad,
Guard against a wise,
Shun a timid youth and sad,
Hide from haunted eyes.
--Dorothy Parker

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
- Sylvia Plath

So much music, so much color, so much light. Ever since expulsion, I have been
going to the cabaret every night. If I do not feel like music, I go to the
moving pictures theatre. There was also some new innovation in the moving shadow
and light like a painting in motion. I need all the light I can, I feel like I
lost it after expulsion.

I am seventeen, and I fell in love with a man ten years my elder. Herr Professor
Acker, the classics instructor, we would sneak around to kiss, to touch, for him
to play with my hair. Red hair fascinated him, drove him crazy. "Fairy blood,"
he'd murmur just before moving his tongue down my stomach, over my abdomen,
taking me inside his mouth. In Paris, I came to know people who could not come
without a whip, a pair of silk pants, an object. A fetish, Herr Professor saw me
as a fetish. I didn't see it back then, I thought we were entranced by each
other.

When he announced his engagement, I thought little of it at first. I knew boys
who would get a fiancee while still fooling around with certain people, men or
women. Then he told me he couldn't see me anymore. Herr Professor Acker made a
big deal of ethics and the union of a man and a woman being like Christ and the
Church. The fool realizes I don't give a shit about Christ. I was the fool for
thinking we were a union.

I take up with Isolde, I start drinking, stopped, but my marks were falling. Is
the Herr Professor connected? I don't know, and somehow, I feel alone, even with
Isolde. What do my parents see of this, a son who could have been an pianist, a
doctor, or orchestra violinist? I wasted my talent, never got the Abitur I
worked so hard for before, while Richard is arriving in law school early. Hell,
if he could, he would be a conductor, perhaps join a moving pictures studio and
learn how to use the camera.

Months later, the Nazis set up so many restrictions, the cabarets and motion
picture theaters are no longer much fun. Isolde's parents forbade her to be seen
around me, just didn't want to invite trouble. Mother and Father are fired from
their jobs and take a friend's invitation to move to Sweden.

Alone, I move to Paris. Three months after I get my work permit, I am no longer
considered a citizen of Germany, along with others people of the faith of Moses.

Somehow, I am renewed. I play violin in orchestra pits, in the streets, getting
enough for a small room and smaller meals. Sometimes, in the summer, I get a job
as a dishwasher, sweating out poisons and trying to remind myself I am a goddamn
artist and this was no disgrace. Then Richard is kicked out of law school and
comes to live with me. I tired of the selections, tired of working, was finding
myself composing my own music, setting poems I've written as a schoolboy,
writing new poems.

"So let's start our own cabaret. I set aside money when I clerked at the law
firm. I would love to set up acts, coordinate songs. You could compose, set up
an orchestra, find singers and acts!" I saw a new side of Richard, one that
longed for art, but banked on respect. When he lost respect, for something that
he could not control, he decided art was the way to go.

"But where will we find such a place, Richard?"

In the six arrondissement was an abandoned publishing company. Dark, quiet, with
small hidden rooms. A shipping floor is made into a stage. We make dressing
rooms out of curtains and screens. The secretary's pool is now the orchestra
pit. Now we find a band.

Outside of Paris, the world is ablaze or struggling, and people have come to
find one safe place. Stefan Bartek the Czech as strings, Juan Avila and Juan
Hernandez, otherwise known as Vatos, the Spanish Republicans as a double bass and
drums, and Leon Schneiderman the Pole with the saxophone. Three Americans came
for the horn section, Dexter, Sluggo and his girl Jane, whose name would always get
mispronounced. Michel played piano. Helene was a cellist, Christine was a fifteen year
old farm girl who ran away from home and took up cigarettes, occasional cross-dressing
and poetry, Marie Pascale did trapeze and recitation. Tatiana was a daughter of Russian
refugees who sewed and designed the costumes, while Johann was a Bohemian in
both senses who took up a life of an iteriant doctor after medical school and a
stint in Senegal.

We had a nice group.
 
Les Clowns de la Mort. Our true name. The partisans will use it, if they aren't
tight-assed Reds (then we're the Onze Arrondissement Memorial Band), the Nazis
will not. No special name is needed for partisans.

It turns out that Richard is coming in with today's take, along with Christine,
Vatos and Johann. The rest are already coordinating their schemes, and we only
know about them when they're done.

As is custom, they come with their instruments after a day of busking. Christine
has her guitar, Richard his accordion, Johann his red and blue juggling balls
and Vatos his top hat (his thing is magic tricks). We could get salaries from
the High Command, but we leave no paper trail, no detectable connection to other
partisan units, a convenient way to communicate without being noticed and we can
track movements of the Nazis and their French counterparts. No one pays
attention to a busker if they're very good.

Timotheé hands me some rough crutches and I get up. Vatos speaks first. "A hotel
in the premier arrondissement is hosting Luftwaffe, setting aside special
amenities for them. We want them to understand that they cannot bow to those who
want to break France."

"Break France? Are we talking about a country or a woman with bone troubles?"
Richard retorts. The problem is less that they don't agree on how much they hate
the Nazis, but that Vatos talks like revolutionary and Richard talks like a
cynic.

"I remember seeing the Nazis cart away paintings, painting I learned to sketch
from." That was Tim's way of saying he agreed with Vatos.

Christine brushes her dark brown hair out of her face. "Isn't that a little
foolish? There might be trains to derail, people to hide."

Vatos won't give it up. "The hotel owners are collaborators with fascists, and
we cannot let them think they will not be hurt by it."

Richard is still not convinced. "Rhetoric's no reason to risk our lives by going
there."

Vatos has one last card. "Okay, how's this? One of the amenities is oompa
music."

Richard looks at him in mock horror. "My God, Hernandez, why didn't you say
something before? Let's torch the place!"

Johann shakes his head. "Not torch, maybe a small bomb, even a grenade."

"So how do you get there," Christine asks.

"I--busboy--in the hotel--some maps . . ." Tim breathes. "I drew some maps of
the hotel. Metro station. An exit route."

Richard considers. "Much appreciated, Tim," Richard says. He's convinced.

My turn. "Okay, whose going?"

Christine shakes her head. "Not me, I think I got followed the last time I
delivered a message."

Richard laughs, "Yeah, but they probably are looking for a young man with big
green eyes and dark hair." She still dresses in male drag for courier
assignments.

"I could go," Vatos suggests.

Johann is not convinced. "I think you're on the wanted list for your activities
in Spain, not good. I don't think I can go, my French is not so great."

Richard nods. "I got some meeting with a possible new recruit with Dexter. Wish
me luck."

Tim shrugs. "Not good at speaking."

Normally, I would stay in the background, coordinate and plot. But the people
mentioning explosives made me impulsive. "I'll go."

Richard looks at me confused. "I know you and your explosives factor in the old
country house, but you realize how easy it would be to describe you, should you
get sighted? You're a short redhead with glasses. God help you if they figure
out you're not 'Aryan.'"

"Blind hallways, found some doors." Thanks for the information, Tim.

"What he said."

"And the leg?," Richard continues.

"He should be careful of sharp corners, but he is fine, in my opinion," Johann
says.

Richard sighs. "It's your funeral, little brother."

I shrug. "Like opposing the occupiers aren't ours?"

Dinner came and went, some folks left for the night, I stay at the abandoned
cottage until morning. I'm alone and waiting for sleep.

I hear the creak of the door and see Tim walking in. Thank God I saw him before
I could reach for my pistol. Hell, despite preferring bare feet, I wear unlaced
boots in case I have to get out.

He smirks lopsided and comes to the side of the bed. "Does it still hurt," he
whispers.

I nod. "Not as badly as it did."

"Oh," and those damn fingers are on my cheek. I haven't shaven in a while, and I
am sure that my hair is close to my collar. He just strokes the side of my face,
not minding.

He leans down to kiss me, and slides his fingers down to the side of my neck.
The longing from earlier came back, and so did the frustration.

He stops stroking my neck and starts unbuttoning my shirt. I stop him. "I can do
it myself. I want to see you take your own clothes off."

He shakes his head. "Or I can take yours off while you take mine." That just
might be a good idea. So he started popping off my shirt buttons and I tried to
beat his record from where I was lying.

Tim then slides under my blanket, taking care to kneel over the uninjured leg.
He lies down kissing me while I rest my hands on his back and pull him in. We
have this ritual of rubbing body parts affected by daily busking. I work on his
wrists and fingers, since sometimes they can get tense from holding a pencil.
After that, he massages the right side of my cheek, my chin, my shoulders and my
arms, places most affected by violin playing.

Nights that I have free and I am going out for a mission are hard. I want the
both of us to forget our troubles for an hour or more, drown in mad passion, but
worry it will be too fast, too mild. If this was the last night with Tim I am
ever going to have, what should I make this night the best goddamn night I can?
Or maybe I am thinking too hard? Isn't the small pleasures best done without
expectation? Damn, I ought to stop thinking.

We straddle each other's leg, rubbing against each other. The kissing becomes
more frantic, and I stopped caring that someone will hear. At this point,
though, any murmurs and groans are stifled by our mouths.

I pull away, and start unbuttoning my pants. Tim is startled at first, then
seeing what I was doing, followed in kind. "I kinda wanted to build up to that
point earlier, but then . . ."

"I know," I reply, "I guess I am feeling a little agitated tonight."

Tim grabs at my boxers, making me twitch. "A little?," he smirks.

"No, that's from earlier."

He smirks even more. "I seem to have that effect on you the first time we met."

"I seem to have an effect on you too. You would still be in school."

He shifts his eyes down. "Actually, you were the reason I wore the yellow badge.
Remember? You and your brother wouldn't go anywhere because of it."

"Almost forgot about it."

He nods, and speaks like a child telling about a fight in school. "I was angry
that you wouldn't go to the moving picture theatre with me, I swiped an old
classmate's badge and wore it when I took the bus home. After getting yelled for
breaking curfew by some gendarmes, they looked at my papers and figured out I
wasn't Jewish. That threw them off, which was the idea." He pauses. "They never
did return that Poe book they confiscated."

That I didn't know, and now my lust is somewhat interrupted, and feeling ready
to begin again. I have one more question, though. "So, why did you drop out of
school?"

"Oh, I was a few months away from graduation, but apparently there were some
changes to the schooling. I was given a lecture from the student advisor not to
sketch in Père Lachaise and from 'degenerate artists.' Focus on bringing joy
through art. Emphasis on form, beauty, and the life-force. In short, sketch
muscle-bound blonds and don't admit that everything changes and dies." He sticks
his tongue out in disgust. "I am not even interested in blonds. Okay, Helene is
pretty, but that's not the point. I came to school to learn how to draw what I
want, not take orders on what to draw."

Oh I understand, so it wasn't love that drove Tim from school, it was someone
trying to dictate to him what his creations should be like. Sounds familiar.

He shakes his head, pillow-flattened curls flying. "Who gives a fuck right now?
It's done. If the stupid bastards ever leave, I would go back."

"Um. Yes, there are a lot of things I would do after this is over, but I want to
do one thing right now."

"Me too." He finishes unbuttoning his pants and underwear and hops out of the
bed, sliding them off. I take advantage of the space to take mine off. After a
few seconds, I decide to just kick off the boots. I'll take my chances with the
cold ground; never liked shoes anyway.

We hop quickly back in, the autumn air making us chilly. After minutes of
rubbing against each other and kissing, we warm up. Then Tim sits up and leans
over me and I heat up. He thrusts his hips against my stomach, making sure
that the head of his dick is just between the cleft of stomach muscle. I myself
am finding out I can rub against his solid left inner thigh.

Then he stops and slides down, his chin stopping at my chest. "Radiant," he says
smiling.

"What? Me?"

"The moon . . .on your skin, makes you look like a sculpture. Like a
masterpiece."

Flatterer. I don't mind. The moon is doing interesting things to him too, making
his skin more intensely milk-pale, the shadows on his face making him both like
an angel and an imp. What if someone sees us? I can always reach for my pistol
if someone tries to stop our fun. Killing while fucking. I almost like the idea.
Just what the hell is wrong with me?

He slides down further, underneath the blanket, then straddling. I almost want
to continue fondling and rubbing. I forget that when I feel warm lips and tongue
on the head, the shaft, then the whole thing. Didn't think he'd try that. He
starts to hum, and I really didn't expect that. Especially not the humming of
"Minnie the Moocher." Ha ha, Timotheé, but I'm too busy gasping.

He lets go with a wet sound and leans down to the edge of the bed. My eyebrows
go up; what am I getting from you? He pulls out a long bottle filled with some
amber-colored liquid. Somehow, my mind is enough in the gutter to put it
together.

"Tim, if you wanted that, we could always use se--"

"No, want to come while you're inside me."

"There's a petrol shortage, you know."

"Not that." He hands me the bottle and won't tell me anymore.
I sigh and sit up, with Tim kneeling still. I pour a drop on my fingers:
slippery and vaguely spicy-scented, not making me itch or burn. Okay, I guess
somehow Leonard's gang got some weird connections and somehow Timotheé found
out. Just when I think he's this little innocent lost soul, he surprises me.
 
I poured some on my hands, coating my dick enough, watching it mix with saliva
and precum. I pull Tim close to me, trying to keep a steady grip. My coated
fingers slip around the crevice, then around the opening, then inside stroking
the prostate. Tim still kneels, whimpering, looking impatient, like a hungry man
in a rations line.

With my hands guiding him and his own blind instinct, he perches on my lap,
taking me inside him. When he finally lands, I think I lose all thought.
Now it is a matter of Timotheé rocking on his hands and pulling me further
inside the encompassing heat, and me trying to hold out longer than he does. I
cheat a little; I wrap my arms around him until we are close together, skin on
skin.

I guess he decides to cheat too, touching the wound through the bandage. I
twitch in surprise, jerking from the mix of pain and arousal. In a sort of
vengeance, I wrap my hand around his dick. He pleads with desperate, dilated
eyes, "Not yet, please."

"I don't want to stop right now either." So I let go and place my hands back on
his back. I then slow the thrusts, squeezing my eyes shut to keep myself steady.

Tim kisses me again, pressing his dick more against my stomach. Just hold on,
hold on . . .don't want to get too close to coming, even my nerves ring out and
I get harder.

My hands slide from his back to his hip, which had the nice effect of making him
squirm. Then the squirming becomes gasping and jerking hips. He shivers when he
comes, like he's in midst of a fever dream. The moment he bares his neck, I
pounce, biting as he finishes the last of his orgasm.

It takes longer for me to come, but not much longer. I could taste his sweat as
I groan into his skin, as I constrict and pour and burn . . .

It is over. I am an empty jug. All I can do is let go of his neck and lean
against his chest. Soon I will have to let go of him and fall back down into the
bed. Not yet.

"Mein Königreich und Ort von Verlust, sehen Sie nie das Wasser zu fließen."

Where did I hear that line before? Once when I was in Berlin . . .

I wake up and find myself cleaned of last night, but still naked under the
blanket. Tim is gone, but I still have to get dressed, get on the road, then on
the Metro. Grenades are hidden in the tote bag, and I shall look as
inconspicuous as possible.

I wear a clean shirt, clean underwear, the same pants as I wore yesterday, a
frayed gray coat and a riding cap, tucking in my hair. Yes, I haven't been
identified yet, but I feel my hair is a big curly red sign say "Arrest me!"
Funny I pay more attention to my appearance than my speech.

If Tim wasn't making set backdrops, I wasn't writing music and we weren't having
argumentative discussions on what backdrop went when, we were necking and more
in his apartment or in my apartment when my sister-in-law was taking baby Louis
on walks. It was a good year, despite war and little work, we had acts, we had
accolades, we even occasionally used the money for something other than the
cabaret.

I dislike summer (pale skin and longer days means sunburn) but the summer of
1940 was the worst. I stayed in the house when the Nazis marched in Paris,
drinking water and wondering if I should run or hide.

Then I heard the bad news: one of the conditions of the armistice is the
internment of German Jews and dissenters who fled to France. I don't think being
naturalized would protect Johann, Richard and me from deportation. Marie might
be affected. Heinrich Ellison's last letter warned of deportations and work
camps. He suspects something worst, but isn't sure. Fuck.

So, Richard and I talked about it, argued about it. Everyone had reason to fear
the new order, and God help us if we took them all down with us. The plan was to
sell the cabaret and use the money for passage to England. Meanwhile, I would go
back to dishwashing, Richard would box again (that hobby of his during
university just might save us) and Marie would clean houses (only work
available). Johann can baby-sit Louis during days. After announcing the
dissolving of Les Clowns de la Mort, the rest wander away to school, to
construction jobs, to busking, to a circus and to bread lines.

"Will I see you again," Tim asked me at the last meeting.

"I don't know." I thought I never would.

After that, I got into the routine of working from dawn to dusk, sweating water
out and reminding myself this was no disgrace and no one has asked for my papers
before. After, I would spend time at Tullières, watching but not wanting the
attractive people milling around, then lock myself in my room and finish the
compositions I kept putting off. I didn't sleep much. I didn't want to lie there
and be afraid of being taken away in the middle of the night.

Self-sufficiency. Emotional distance. I tried to do that when I first moved,
still sore from rejection. Women thought they would be the ones to heal my
wounded heart; men thought I would be a guilt-free distraction. Former was
wrong, and somehow, I no longer want to be that for the later.

Then Leon, looking for work, signed up with some newly created government
organization called UJIF. I wasn't sure about this. I never really got a chance
to find out what came after losing citizenship in Germany. I don't know if I
wanted to know.

I find out from Marie Leon never came to visit her. Coming to the border of his
neighborhood, he saw the ring of gendarmes and found out Leon and his sister
Gittel was arrested and deported for being foreign-born.

"Who do the Schneidermans have to spy for, the rabbits in the field? Leon and
Gittel made the decision to live and work in France. There is nothing for them
in Poland. They're not even Communists."

"The gendarme told me he was following orders."

Fans saved my life. Two lycée girls, regular matinee attendees at
the cabaret, worried about my safety. Through a series of violet-scented notes
and hastily arranged meetings, I came to know Anny Latour, born Austrian, a
naturalized Frenchwoman, a Jewish woman in hiding. She offered me a choice:
false work papers for France, or false passport and papers for England.
Then my big mouth got the best of me. "I don't want to leave here, I loved it
here, I loved it as it was, with all the players and my friends, even when I had
no money, the customers sucked and no one liked the music. I want to stay but I
am surrounded by oblivious kiss-asses who have every reason to denounce me and
the people I care about. I left Germany because of this shit." I stared down at
my cup of tea. "I don't want to take anyone down with me. One of them is gone
already, at Drancy, I am told. I want to fight this fucking regime but I don't
know how. I'm no solider, I'm just a funny man who can write music. Now I have
no voice."

Anny looked at me. "You are not the only one who feels this way, Daniel. There
are many people, French and immigrant, Christian and Jewish, who are sickened by
Petain's surrender. You know it is dangerous to stay here, but you may find a
way to get your voice back. I can only make it less likely you will be
deported."

"Where do I find these people?"

"You might be surprised."
 
I zig down streets, zag into alley ways, and find the hotel just as Tim drew it.

There is a service entrance around here, according to this other map. I look at
myself, deciding I look more like a dishwasher than a guest. Fine, my cover
story, business is still brisk thanks to their Nazi-catering. One more
dishwasher will not be noticed.

On a rare free night, I went to a lecture at L'Museé de l'Homme. Indonesian
instruments, demonstrating and comparing. In between, there were subtle digs at
the racial theories of the Nazis (and the French government fucks helping them).

Nervous, I decide I wanted to talk to the lecturer, find out if there is work I
can do to refute said theories. I was walking up the hallway to the lecturer
when I saw a familiar figure sitting in a bench. Thin, in black, holding a
sketch pad . . .

"Tim?"

He bolted up and looked at me. "I wanted to find you, but I wasn't sure if they
took you away or you ran off to another country and I didn't want to tip off
anyone so I would go to cafes when I had a free period and wait for you where
were . . ."

All I wanted to do, all I did was to scoop him in my arms and hold him. He
whispered in my ear, "Don't scare me like that again."

I grab a laundry cart, stuff my jacket in there and just walk down the hallway.
The hat stays on, though. I wind down the hallway with the cart, when I hear it.

The thud of drum and tuba. Yes, oompa. How to get the grenade in there and not
get noticed?

I had a whole speech planned for Richard, Johann and Marie: I know someone who
can get them passage to England, who gave me reliable working papers, but I am
staying in Paris, working in some way toward liberation. Okay, I'm writing
poetry for an underground newspaper and leaving mimeographed sarcasm in Metro
stations, but it is a start. I might get deported, maybe die in prison, but at
least I will be with people I have come to know and care about in this city.

Then, in the small kitchen late at night, Richard spoke. "I am staying here.
Marie has roots here, Johann has taken the whores of Paris under his wing again,
and even with boxing, I don't think I have enough to get to England or Canada."

"Richard, I know someone who can give you working papers. I also want to show
you some stuff I wrote."

"You're not leaving?"

"No."

"We actually agree on something."

"Should we put up a brass plaque?"

"Feign great indifference but maintain secret anger. It will serve you well."
--from "Advice to the Occupied," an essay written by Jean Texcier and secretly
circulated through France

"What is to be done? Be present everywhere. Stand up."
--from Que faire?, a tract written by David Knout and circulated to the Jewish
communities in France

The door was just where Tim drew it. From what I gathered, it lead to the
balcony, then back stage. The trick is to throw the grenade in an empty room,
and get away fast from both the blast and the chaos.

I turn it experimentally. Unlocked. I walk in, looking like just another hotel
employee.

"So what can we do?" I asked that question to Richard, Marie, Johann, Tim and
Louise, as we sat around the table, drinking stolen seltzer water with black
market peppermint syrup. Louis was on Marie's lap, looking out at all of us.

"I mean," I continued, "we're not soldiers. None of us have ever fought in a
war."

"I almost enlisted when the Hitlerites invaded," Richard added, "but that year
in the German army was grounds for refusal. I don't understand. I just cleared
brush and swept floors before my final year."

"Look at it this way, I would be trying to release you from POW camps if you
did," Marie said in a practical frame of mind.

"We're not ideologues. We only paid some attention to elections, except when
there was something absurd going on," Tim added.

I shrugged. "I became a little obsessed with politics after leaving Germany. I
guess I didn't want to be caught up in fleeing a country I thouht I was part of
again."

Richard nodded. "A lot of that happening. These days, the news just makes me so
angry."

"English lessons, again," Marie smiled. That's their little term for Richard
listening to the BBC.

Richard shook his head. "French lessons. Or rather, lessons in propaganda. Poor,
put-upon Hitler, coming in to save us all from French decadence, from jabbering
politicians, from the dark plots of Jews and Freemasons . . ."

"I'm destroying civilization. Hurrah."

"You always take all the credit, Daniel."

"It must be the Freemasons only, because if you ran France, we'd have a bigger
apartment," Marie said.

"Yes, yes, the point is that if you just go by what the radio is telling you,
the Germans were sent by God Himself to restore order and discipline and that
sound you hear is not Napoleon spinning in his grave," Richard continues.

"Listen to the quavering voice of Petain and all will be well," Marie said.

Johann had a thought. "Well look at us, we are not soldiers or politicians, but
at least some of us have lived in Germany. We have seen the street fights, the
fracas between the parties, the no direction. We seen at least some of what the
Nazis intend: disfranchisement of the Jews, banning of 'degenerate art,' all
sorts of things that the newly occupied should be worried about. I have some
experience with their 'racial theories.' I have read their scientific opponents.

I treated Senegalese, French, Jewish, Arab and German patients. I can tell you,
they are all part of the human race, they all bleed red. "

Marie added, "I hear gossip, rumors. Most are saying the party line, but sooner
or later, there will shortages, and it will be the doing of Nazis and the
Germans who help them."

Tim looked a little nervous. "I can draw. I write poems, sometimes. I want to
help. I'm no Chauvinist, you'll never see me waving the tricolour, but I want to
protect jazz singers, dadaists, people who print Poe." He fell back in his chair
and smiled.

"I know some law, I can listen to English radio and translate. It will keep my
nose from getting broken again." Richard was indoors not just for that, but
because some boxing matches were being watched by the Germans.

Louise was the last to speak. "I know girls from drama classes who can help. I
can deliver. I can recite."

Richard looks at me, "And what about you?"

Now, I wrote some of the more political skits for Le Clowns de la Mort. At some
point, I made fun of Fascists, Communists and Germany. Mama told me that the
Bolsheviks killed or expelled the French teachers from other countries during
the Revolution, so I never really liked Communists, but I hated the Nazis even
more.
Sometimes the crowd loved it. Sometimes, some Red screams swears at me when I
dress
up as Trotsky, and some people didn't appreciate me mocking the purge of the
Communists while Germany was invading Poland and the Netherlands.
Now, songs would probably be too obvious. I have got poems, Richard gave his
opinions,
but it isn't enough.

I did have a suggestion, though. "I still have letters from Heinrich."

"That old bastard is still alive? I'd think with him working for that socialist
newspaper, he'd be deported," Richard said.

"He sent me his last letter a few days before, literally. He has gone into
hiding, since they are stepping up their round-ups of leftists."

"How did an old Army general become involved with leftists?"

"They were willing to print him."

Richard looked at the rest of the group, who were looking confused. "Sorry, a
word about Heinrich Ellison. See, when we were staying at the cottage for the
summer, Daniel discovered firecrackers." I think I blushed at this point.
"Well, Heinrich caught him, then made a deal with Mother and Father. He would
supervise Daniel with the firecrackers. Over time, they started on explosives.
When he got put in another school, you know, one with competent French teachers
and no dark basements, they started writing."

"About right. After I left for Paris, he wrote about changes in the government
and the edicts against different people. Over time, we had to contact a black
marketeer to deliver the letters. A lot of it was him commenting on the
declaration of war and the fighting with France, detailing that they had enough
material, but not enough faith in the Third Republic. I could translate it and
print them."

Richard nodded. "I'd like to look at them, but good idea."

With that settled, I concluded, "So, counter-propaganda. Well then, we have a
typewriter from my place, you think someone will loan us a mimeograph machine?"
 
There were indeed several technically empty rooms, filled with furniture and
dust. I dawdle, mentally calculating if there will be enough noise and little
damaged.

A plan of action fell into place quicker than we expected. L'Museé  de l'Homme
had a mimeograph machine, and we went with Louise as our liaison. The finished
product got slipped into park benches, subway cars, books for sale, and other
places. With what was left of our old wardrobe, we would scrawl graffiti around
public posters.

Then old friends started to trickle in. Richard was asked by Helene to do
'interpreting work.' Turned out Helene, Christine and Tatiana were running a
safe-house and an escaped English POW needed a guide. Marie met up with Avila
and Vatos before curfew and gave them an alibi after they cut some telephone
cables. Tim and Louise met Bartek and Michel on the Metro, all of them going to
the war memorials on Armistice Day, in defiance of a ban of such things. After
they were all released from jail before Christmas, they wrote up their accounts.
Finally, Jane, Sluggo and Dexter met up with Richard to smuggle foreign
newspapers. Les Clowns de la Mort were back, but for a different purpose.

Our first big prank was printing De Gaulle's infamous June speech and putting it
in three-fourths of a sales flyer. Then came Johann and Richard, with Christine
dressed a schoolboy tagging along, ordering the rest of a Gestapo birthday
banquet to be transported to different neighborhoods. If it weren't for the
costumes, they would have been so arrested.

It all went bloody fast, with us transmitting information by song sheets,
starting to track movements by busking, getting a new mimeograph machine after
the people at L'Museé  de l'Homme were betrayed and arrested, hiding prisoners,
French Jewish facing round-ups, listening to word of the United States entering
war, working with different Resistance groups (even the Communists). We gained
members, lost members, survived reprisals and watched innocent people being held
hostage and shot because some people didn't want to live in a conquered country.

And now here we are, with guns we haven't learned to use, wondering when to
fight.

One room is large and unfurnished, with just a closet. Wonderful. I go in and
squinted around. Then, over the oompa music, I could hear footsteps. I slide
against the wall, hoping the shadows will hide me.

Then the muttering and footsteps come closer. Thinking ahead, I slide into the
closet and close the door. The footsteps and mutters go away, and it is all
quiet. So, I turn the doorknob. It is stuck.

That is when I start shaking.

Take deep breaths, Daniel, you are twenty-six, not nine. Think. What can you do
to get out? The room is empty, anyone that could arrest you can't hear you over
the oompa music. Look around.

It is so dark. So narrow . . .

Come on, relax. You took in your duffel bag. Of course. I feel my way in the
darkness, grabbing the handles of the bag. I unzip and grope around the assorted
items.

A paper bag with bread and dried fruit. I won't go hungry, good. A dull knife
for the bread. The grenades. A torch? Oh, supplies from the British, of course.
I grab the torch and flick the switch.

Still works. I can see the torch shake in my hand still.

I shove the dried apricots and raisins into my mouth, then gnaw on the bread.
There, no longer hungry. I set down the torch and grab the butter knife. It is
flat and sturdy enough to press the door latch down, letting me out. My hands
still shake, though.

All the thoughts that terrify me come back. The school basement; the beatings by
older boys; the hearing where I was officially expelled for academic decline; my
questioning before the High Command.

"If Timotheé was caught betraying the group, would you kill him?"

My answer was, "He'd not only betray me but the other people he loves. So yes, I
would."

So easy to say. I wonder sometimes if I could really do it. Have we been
together four years? How is it I am still so charmed and soothed by him,
sometimes even surprised? What would make him break it apart? What about me?

There are three other couples in our little group. Does Richard, taller than me,
but still just as red-haired, wonder about slender and dark Marie-Pascale? Does
Jane, curvy and small with dark brown curls, wonder about tall, broad-shouldered
Sluggo? Johann just got together with Helene. What about them?

Am I the only one who doesn't trust the one I love?

All right, all right, Daniel, calm down. Carrying the torch in the left and the
butter knife in the right, I scuttle to the door. The shakes continue. Think
good thoughts. Soothing thoughts.

Tim and I took the Metro from the graveyard to some station in six
arrondissement. In the small, dark apartment he shared with Louise, their
'bedrooms' were two small beds divided by a curtain.

At the doorway, I kissed him, first soft, then hard, trying to kiss the air out.
I had the idea of leading us to his bed. I thought about touching and tasting
him and being touched and tasted, all nice and slow. Then I felt him push me
against the door frame, managing somehow not to bruise me.

"Hey, that was a little fast."

"Yeah. I want you. A lot." His hips pressed against me. He turned from gentle to
forceful.

"You didn't seem to be very strong."

His hands slided down to mine, his fingers on my wrists. "I lift canvas that are
half my weight. I'm not completely helpless."

He kissed me on the nose. "I won't hurt you. No."

That wasn't soothing at all. It did, however, stop the shaking. I slide the
butter knife between the door and the frame. Patience and effort rewards me with
a click and an open door. I stand up, grab the bag and walk out the closet, then
out the room.

I had just one more task. Oompa music still going, I back against the hallway.
From there, it was a matter of pulling the pin, throwing it quick and running
the hell away.

After going through blind hallways just like Tim drew, I was out in the sunlit
world. All around, gray people milled around, German soldiers window-shop and
the country keeps sliding into collaboration like a hot bath filled with razors.

Sooner or later, they've got to wake up.