from the editor’s blurb that appeared at the beginning of this story when it was first published in ADAM Magazine

Fate and the French Resistance gave him opportunity--- and choice---but his humanity were getting in the way

                                              THE ASSASSIN

                                                  a short story

                                                         by

                                                Patrick Breheny

     Andre was hidden behind garbage cans in the alley, and he sat in a puddle of slush, listening to hail pinging on the  precariously fitting lids on the stuffed cans. His legs had gone numb from crouching during the long wait, and he was so wet anyway that he finally sat on a folded newspaper.  He couldn’t see it  in the dark, but he knew well what was in all the newspapers these days,  that the Germans were France’s benefactors, they distributed food to the poor, provided clothing, medical treatment, in their efficient way saw to it that Paris ran smoothly They were under orders from the wise and kindly Fuhrher himself to behave as gentlemen, be polite to the locals they weren’t rounding up, act in a civil manner, to not rape or plunder as they did elsewhere, to take photos as if they were  tourists, to enjoy the cultural life of the music halls and live theater, the museums and  the fine  art of Paris (at least that which Hitler and Goebbels themselves hadn’t taken.) On directions from Hitler, the Weirmacht were what France had always needed, if you weren’t a Jew---or a Gypsy or a homosexual, or mentally or physically impaired.

     Andre’s rifle was cradled across his legs, and from between the cans he watched a German convoy moving down the darkened boulevard. He was waiting for the last vehicle, and he wondered if there was any end to the procession. He remembered headlines in papers like the one under him had also been about yet even more benign German soldiers coming to Paris to help solve the problems of the French. Not  involved himself at that point, Andre had  still thought, send more troops, get more resistance. It was a human equation.

     They were here now. He peered down the street sixty feet to the cellar door front of a boucherie, with a short iron railing intended to separate the beneath-street entrance from pedestrians, though there were no pedestrians tonight. No movement, no sound from the doorway; no hint of Marcel and Msr. Paul. Who would expect to find, under that drenched cardboard box, invisible in the dark, at the top of the steps, a positioned fifty caliber machine gun?  The military minds had ordered searched the buildings and cellars, and the doorways and the alleys, and then blackened out the neighborhood. And as the convoy rolled through moonless, starless gloom, two assassins emerged from a trap door in a sub-cellar below the basement storage room of Msr. Paul’s butcher shop, with the machine gun. The box, folded, was in the basement. Marcel the young student was with M.Paul, the rotund middle aged butcher. Andre himself had pushed back a manhole cover on an adjacent street, and reeking from the putrid sewer, bitten on the legs by rats, he had traversed alleys to get to the back of a selected restaurant, intentionally left unlocked. He went though it out to the recessed entry where stinking cans of  uncollected food waste had been checked and quickly left. Two other men, Msr. Jean and Msr. Pierre---no last names--- laborers in their sixties, had pushed back a vent and climbed out of an air shaft onto the roof of an apartment building that had been vacated of tenants yesterday by the Germans

.

     The old working men on the roof across the street had no ideology, nor did Andre. Marcel and Paul the butcher, teamed together, were socialists. Andre just wanted the Germans out of France. That was ideology enough for him, enough for Charles de Gaulle, leading the resistance in exile from London. Enough for Jacques, the young commander, Jeanette’s husband whom they had killed in front of her and her small daughter Mimi. Enough  for Henri, Jeanette’s father,  the gangster. Before there was an underground there was an underworld. Vice and corruption were as old as invasion.

    Mid-ranked Nazi officers were getting tired taking pictures, visiting landmarks. How many times can you see the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa? They couldn’t slaughter indiscriminately as they did elsewhere, were under directive from on high to be “nice” They were bored. And Henri could get them things they couldn’t find on their own, didn’t want known they got, under risk if disobedience to Hitler Some risked their reputations  as “officers and gentleman”, and therefore their lives, to sample Henri’s temptations---a little opium here, a little boy there, a little of this, a little of that, what would you like? And  to keep continued access to Henri, they needed  him safe. To keep their transgressions secret, they needed him satisfied. He received gratuities from them, while he inquired about their family’s welfare, their personal health, hoped they slept well---a little opium will soothe a guilty conscience---and as he catered to their dark wants, took the proceeds that were rendered to him and gave them to the resistance. Most gangsters joined the Carlinque, the French Gestapo, but then stopped being gangsters, they were Gestapo police, and while as Frenchmen they could do nothing about German misdeeds, they reported to the German Gestapo---the powerful and secretive miltary police, a force within the the Nazi force--- that could. Henri was bonded to Nazi officers in avoidance of detection, even as he channeled their money to have them killed

      Henri had preferred to remain a free lancer, a gangster who was still a gangster, somebody special , but now, in 1943, Henri went over, joined the Carlinqe,  giving his miscreant mid level Nazi officers what they needed most besides being a provider for their needs--- an insider who could cover for them, warn them. And being inside, Henri had information for the resistance, like this convoy movement tonight that was transporting a German general, and was thought to be secret.

      To Andre it didn’t matter if Henri was a patriotic Frenchman, or just upset that some other well organized gangsters had wrecked his operations. It didn’t matter that the mismatched pair in a doorway with the machine gun---a young student and a chubby middle aged butcher-- were communists. It didn’t matter that he, a young student, and the old codgers on the roof, had no ideology. It only mattered that they were united in getting the bastards out of France.

     Andre looked up at the tenement rooftop. It was his job, and the job of Msr. Jean and Msr. Pierre up there---after M..Jean and M. Pierre dropped the flares--- to draw fire to themselves, and of course their fire itself might do the job, but it was intended as diversion so the machine gun in the doorway could fire accurately. It was a suicide mission, and all five had cyanide capsules, with orders to take them rather than face capture.

     Andre ached for a cigarette. With a start, he realized he would never smoke another cigarette. Why can’t they hurry, he thought. Why can’t we get this over with? The street was all too familiar. He hadn’t known before they took up preliminary positions last night----his in that sewer--- that it would be this boulevard. You didn’t know ahead where you were going. He hadn’t imagined before joining that guerilla security could be so tight. He hadn’t known much about it at all. He had been naively excited by patriotism and potential glory the night he told Jeanette, and was shaken with dejection at the horror in her face. Still grieving for Jacques, who was executed in front of her and Mimi, and terrified for Mimi’s safety after their imprisonment together, she begged him to never come back to her house. That image was with him now, Jeanette clutching Mimi to her legs. He thought of how it would be in the morning, when she found out he got killed on her street. She couldn’t mourn him openly, but perhaps a private wake or memorial, certainly a prayer or two.

      This was his first mission, and was to be his last. He thought about how he got involved with the movement. It started the afternoon he ran into Marcel, the first time he’d seen him since the occupation. He and Marcel had been going to the university together before the Nazis came, as had Jacques and Jeanette. Andre had been a rival of Jacques’ for her, and Jacques won out. Young as they were, and still in school, they’d married and had a child.  Hernri’d had the means to see that they’d  get by and finish school, or he had UNTIL…

     He had heard whispered reports that Marcel was part of the resistance, and the day he met him on a street, Marcel invited him to a bistro for wine. When they were seated at a table with their drinks, and the garcon had left, Marcel asked,

      “So, what have you been doing?”

      Andre had been defensive. He knew the question wasn’t like Henri’s “How’s the family?” to the Germans.

.     “I’ve wanted to help. You know how quiet things are kept. I didn’t know how to go about it.”

     “I’m meeting some friends here, and I’ll introduce you. If you’re interested, this will be your chance..”

     That was how it happened. It seemed he had no choice at all. Msrs. Jean and Pierre and Paul arrived, all sizes, shapes, ages,. ideologies and absences of ideologies, economic levels, interests,  represented in an unlikely gathering at a bistro, as diverse as was the resistance. They explained their plan to him, in what seemed to be in  public but wasn’t-- the bistro was resistance, and therefore closed to anyone else at the  moment, unless the Gestapo happened by.

     Andre knew then he couldn’t back out. He knew too much, and if they didn’t kill him, they’d call cal him a coward and a traitor. He knew now there was nothing accidental about his meeting with Marcel but he had no regrets.  He would die for France, and the deterrence of a villain. And the resistance was growing. He’d heard that even some of the artists and intellectuals, who had been so accommodating at the beginning, were joining. A few, at least.

     The aching for a cigarette was hunger, he realized. He hadn’t eaten since last night, hadn’t missed it before, the stink of sewer on his clothes, and these foul garbage cans now, not piquing his appetite. How good some boulli would taste.  Boulli and a cigarette. He shivered along the length of his back with a trembling chill. Warmth and boulli and a cigarette. And Jeanette with Mimi hugging her legs, the line of her dress across her hips, with the incline suggested beneath the taut cotton, and the hunger was hunger and something else, and couldn’t they move that convoy faster, or was it really endless?

     Now he knew why field armies kept two men in a foxhole. He wondered if M. Jean and M. Pierre were whispering to each other on the roof, maybe talking about old campaigns in the first Great War. Certainly Marcel and M. Paul in the other doorway weren’t, but they at least had each other’s company. Another never occurred to him. He would never talk to anyone again. But he would. He would scream dying profanities at the murdering dogs. When it started. He wondered how it would be getting shot. Fast, he hoped. Cyanide was fast, but he also heard it was painful. Which would he worse?

     Maybe he could get away with a cigarette if he kept it covered. No, he couldn’t chance it. But if they couldn’t see him, he could insure they wouldn’t see his cigarette. He slipped one from his chest pocket, turned his back to the street, and lowered his chin to his chest. He struck a match in cupped hands, quickly lit the cigarette and blew the match out, keeping his hands over the glow. I could be shot for this, he thought, and almost laughed at the absurdity of it.

     His teeth chattered and his nose kept dripping. He was cold to his soul and feverish, and the cigarette brought on coughs and sneezes he almost choked stifling. He had rats here too in the garbage cans, and he wanted to shoot them for the ones that bit his legs in the sewer, trying to eat him alive. No wonder he was sick. Did he have flu or plague? What couldn’t you get from bites by sewer rats?  He had to urinate, and got on his knees in the slush, holding back so he wouldn’t make much noise. Releasing liquid reminded him his canteen was almost empty, and he was thirsty with illness. The cigarette tasted like rope, and he threw it under the torrent. I must at least have pneumonia, he thought, if not some viler disease, and tucked his penis away, wishing  he could use it while he still could for what Frenchmen were supposed to be famous, though, national reputation or not, he really hadn’t had  much experience yet with that.

     Jeanette only lived a block away. Andre had lived there, working for Henri, while she was being held by the Germans, and after she was released, continued to stay, sleeping on a cot in the basement---until he too joined the movement.

     That was in 1941, six months after the invasion. The Germans took her prisoner after they killed Jacques. Even if Henri’s daughter, she was the wife of a resistance fighter----he in charge of a unit of students and former students, men and women, all under his young command---though the Nazis, in their eagerness to execute all adversaries, never learned that, nor who they were. The officers who were Henri’s clients had to be careful with their own about showing any favoritism. Why was Henri’s son-in-law in the resistance? Misguided youthful idealism was the answer.  Free Jeanette and Mimi, and you’ll get her support. But Henri hadn’t been allowed to visit to tell her that. What was needed from Jeanette was a written and public oath of allegiance to the Vichy Armistice Agreement, a pledge that she could not contradict later, and a denunciation of the resistance and her late husband’s zealous foolishness.

     They kept her and Mimi together, and stopped feeding them. Mimi, smaller of course, would starve before Jeanette, and she’d have to watch that. Andre knew that for herself alone, with the grief for Jacques so fresh, she probably would not have given in, but she was a mother. Germans don’t last forever, and her small child’s life was just beginning. By luck, her specific assigned  interrogators were compromised by association with Henri. Her signature could mean a lot if it could be construed to deter recruitment in the resistance, and would justify freeing her. She had to say convincingly that she’d had a change of heart. The Nazis were good, they were civilized and kind, and France had always been in need of them. Every time she wanted to change an outrageous paragraph, the captain awaiting her signature placed food in front of her hungry child, but physically restrained her from eating it.

     She signed to keep Mimi alive. Andre learned about her ordeal during conversations in the parlor in the evenings, after he’d eaten dinner with her and Mimi. He didn’t want to feel attraction to her, she was still a grieving widow, she was a victim, she had chosen Jacques over him---but it was there. He just couldn’t indulge it. Not yet, he thought, when he lived there. Too soon after Jacques.And then he’d become resistance and had to leave. And now---never. He remembered the scent that was always with her, the sweet  hormonal fragrance of a young woman, and how beautiful she looked at the dinner table, with her long, brushed, black hair, her brown eyes, and  classic French features.   

       Andre had been living there because he worked for Henri. Worked for him after the occupation, had not before. He was a messenger. He’d pick up a brown envelope at an address, and deliver it to a concierge at another address. He never knew what was in the envelopes. Little diversions like opiates, or information on where to go to get other little diversions? He was almost certain nothing related to the resistance. Henri’s involvement was not logistical nor tactical, totally clandestine, passive and contributory. And what Henri himself might have done to other Frenchmen before the invasion---well, that wasn’t Jeanette’s fault. But Andre knew he would not have been working for him back then. Just not an enforcer type. What he was doing tonight did not come easily nor naturally.. He’d make a better altar boy than construction worker.

        He was sitting in urine and slush. God, he longed to spend just one night with her, to forget about wars and invaders and death. He imagined how she’d look now were he to rap on her door without the rifle in his hand. He could see himself dispelling her fears, comforting her, telling her truthfully they were gone, it was over, and inevitably taking her to bed. If he could just spend one night in her bed, and be warm and secure and in love, he might be ready to die.

     The dark night came suddenly alive with a glowing red. Rifles cracked from the rooftop, and Andre, off  balance, jerked to his knees . The fire would come from the roof first, of course. They triggered the flares, they knew when. Peeking between the cans, he saw the jeep. It was not the last vehicle. There was an open two and a half ton truck behind it, and one in front. Soldiers scurried over the sideboards, returning fire to the roof, and ran in the open to protect the jeep. Both trucks were mounted with machine guns and they too fired at the roof. Andre had to shoot also, attract fire to himself. He saw two of the soldiers lying in the street, and a razor of fear slashed through him.

      He brought his rifle up and fired. He’d aimed everything at the jeep, hit two of the soldiers protecting it who were also now lying on the ground, but his bullets that hit the jeep had bounced off. He could see the pock marks. Something new by the Germans? The machine gun in the doorway opened up now, fired a full volley of fifty caliber bullets at the jeep. He couldn’t tell if they penetrated or not, had no way to know, if the  bullets had,  if they’d killed the general inside.

     The German machine guns blasted bullets into the boucherie doorway, and they threw grenades at it. The rooftop was silent now, but they kept machine gun and rifle fire directed at the building, and shattered every window. Andre heard cries of fear and anger from the apartments, so despite the eviction, there were squatters or former tenants in there.

     He suddenly realized nobody was firing at him. Nobody knew he was there. In the chaos, they’d only realized they were being fired at from two, not three positions. They had at first been turned toward the roof, and he had been firing at their backs. Had he been late,? Distracted by his thoughts and needs and reverie, an undisciplined untrained recruit? Had he let his compatriots down?  No, he had fired on time. He couldn’t know when to fire until the flares ignited, and then he had done so. Of course  fire came from the roof first. They initiated the attack with the flares. But if he’d been kneeling, ready, not sitting down, would he have fired sooner?

     He didn’t know if they’d succeeded or not, but nobody knew Andre was there. Jeanette just lived down the street. Surely she’s let him in this one time. He could make her house through the alleys, and they wouldn’t even be looking for him. The cyanide was to avoid capture. They weren’t  trying to capture him. What good was one more dead Frenchman?  Live to fight another day.

     He drew his rifle away and took a second glance to be sure that no one could see him. The flares were almost out; they cast just an ember of light. But then a door of the jeep on his side---the safe side, they’d think---pushed open, and he got a glimpse for less than a second of a  figure with a beaked officer’s cap, and a jacket with shoulder  straps regaled in insignia. The bastard was not only alive, but seemed uninjured, and was immediately surrounded and protect by a dozen troops. A shot by Andre would have to go through two of them, and if it did, would be spent or almost. He had no target he could see. But if he ran, the mission was a failure. Marcel and Paul, Jean and Pierre died for nothing. If he shot enough German soldiers before they realized where he was, before they could stop him, he might get a shot at the general.

     He raised the rifle again. The huddle of soldiers separated, made an opening. The general was shooing them away, demonstrating his confidence, his authority, being a general, in charge. He was in the open, arrogant, walking with the dignity of a parade  toward the alley of Andre’s doorway. He wore glasses. If the Germans had innovations like bullet proof jeeps, could the super race see in the dark too?  Or were they just spectacles? They looked like sunglasses, but in the night he couldn’t tell. Feeling extremely self conscious and vulnerable, Andre thought the general was looking right at him. He was looking at him----he could not be completely hidden by the garbage can--- but did he see him? Andre knew night vision existed. The Russians were developing it. He’d seen drawings of the goggles, but they looked like submarine periscopes on each eye, gave a man-from-Mars look to the wearer. Could these technological krauts have refined them to look like sunglasses?

     Maybe they were just eyeglasses, because he now shone a thin flashlight, about the size of a small dinner table candle, the beam passing over Andre, who was bent as low as he could be and still able to shoot. He stepped onto the sidewalk, shouting, pointing, probably ordering the doorway and alley searched, walking toward the cans. Andre sucked in to hold his breath, and the muscles in his rectum tightened. He was sure he could see him now, magic vision or not. But no, he was pointing beyond Andre, looking down the alley, the light going there. and shouting more orders. He was six feet away.

     Andre took a careful steady aim, under the beak of the cap, above his nose, at the bridge that joined the lenses of the glasses. Right between the eyes. He held the rifle tight to his shoulder for the recoil. Slowly, quietly, he squeezed the trigger. Coming from explosionless silence, the only sound having been the general’s loud voice, that single thirty caliber shot, ampliied by the narrow alley and doorway, sounded like it came from a cannon.

         Andre saw him lash backwards and fall. The flashlight flipped, did spins, creating a crazy montage of lit images---the general’s soles in the air, the cans with rats fleeing, the restaurant door, the alley pavement, and then the light stopped moving. The flashlight lay on the general’s chest, shining back at his head, which looked like a tomato that had been squashed with a hammer.

      Andre dropped the rifle and ran headlong through the alley. If he could only make it to Jeanette’s. No, he couldn’t go there. Where could he go? Nowhere. He had taken no more than five strides when he heard the machine guns behind him. Then everything slowed down. He’d remember it in slow motion, but he wouldn’t remember it. The bullets tore through him, and he fell into the melting sleet. The ground felt so cold and good because he felt it and it didn’t hurt. The bullets did. He cried out in an anguish of physical pain, he cried out in grief for Jeanette for what had never been and had been, he mourned those fallen with him, Marcel, his peer, and Msr. Paul, and Mrsrs. Jean and Pierre who had lived long lives, but still not long enough. His spirit was abandoning his body, and he knew he was leaving this world for a waiting unknown, if such existed. He was going to find out. Or find out nothing.

       He had one final thought: His young life had not been a failure. He had done everything he should. He had not let his comrades down. He had accomplished his mission tonight.

 Copyright, all rights reserved, by Patrick Breheny