The Cyclist Read Online Free PDF

bony face was one of meanness and corruption. Auguste knew the face, the thin lips, the pinkness of the cheeks, the blue eyes. He had seen it a hundred times before, a thousand perhaps. He recognised it for a face of anger and jealousy. If you do well in life, beware of such young men he thought. They will do anything to bring you down if you show ability.
    ‘Major Brunner presents his compliments,’ he said.
    ‘Indeed,’ Auguste said, ‘is there a problem?’
    ‘You will come with me.’
    ‘Well, that’s fine, but I have things to do this morning. Will you wait for twenty minutes?’
    ‘My instructions are you should come now.’
    ‘Well, tell Major Brunner, I have important matters to attend to and I will come in twenty minutes.’
    ‘But he said...’
    ‘You are?’
    ‘Scharfürer Linz.’
    The young man began to raise his right arm once more but Auguste had positioned himself close and there was no room for the gesture. The Frenchman looked, inches away, straight into the young German’s eyes.
    ‘When I say twenty minutes, I mean twenty minutes. You will wait, do you hear me Scharfürer?’
    The young man seemed to have difficulties deciding who had senior rank. In the end, he decided to capitulate. He turned and went to his vehicle.
    Auguste entered the Prefecture. He nodded to his sergeant and ascended the stairs, his mind turning over the events of the last day. He had done nothing even suspicious but the paranoia bred by the presence of the SD would make any man, even an innocent one, quake. He neared his office door and began to wonder what the word “innocent” meant in his own mind. Then he thought, ‘am I guilty of nothing?’ He knew he was responsible for rounding up and interning thousands of men and women, even children. Would they be slain by these Germans? He had no way of knowing, but his suspicions were enough to make him hate himself. Political duties had become a betrayal of its own and he felt like a drowning man, desperate to get to some surface to allow him air and time to breathe.
    ‘Édith,’ he called as he fumbled the lock of his office door. ‘Édith.’
    She came before he had even seated himself behind the pine desk.
    ‘Auguste?’ she said as she entered.
    ‘I need some letters preparing immediately.’
    ‘Letters?’
    ‘Yes, letters of transit for Pierre Dreyfus and his daughter, Monique.’
    ‘Where to?’
    ‘Anywhere, everywhere, just out of this damned country.’
    ‘Auguste, they will not be valid unless signed by you and countersigned by the German authorities,’
    ‘If you type them now, I will ask Brunner to sign them. He has sent for me. I have fifteen minutes.’
    ‘I will do it now then.’
    ‘Good. Oh, by the way, get their names off the register.
    ‘How?
    ‘I don’t care but get them off the bloody Jewish register or they can’t get out.’
    ‘I need to know the destination.’
    ‘Destination? Well Switzerland will do, I suppose. Hurry.’
    Auguste sat waiting. Édith was resourceful. If anyone possessed the ability to do as he asked, she did. He failed to understand why he felt nervous. He wondered if it was because it was the first time in his life, he had used his position to transgress the law. But what kind of law was it he flouted? This was not French law. It was a law of occupation and as a Frenchman, he could surely not feel pangs of conscience about breaking these foreign-forced laws?
    He thrummed his fingers on the blotter amid the doodles and scribbled telephone numbers, and noticed he was sweating, although the office was cold. He thought perhaps he was contracting ‘flu or something similar. He hoped Brunner would get it too, perhaps even pneumonia he thought.
    He wrote a memo by hand. The orders for the internment were clear.
    Presently, Édith came in. She held the documents in her hand. Auguste took them and began to read. He signed them and folded them with care, placing them in his pocket, before leaving the building.
    Outside