The Liberation of Camille Vignon

Sweat dripped down Camille’s back, causing her dress to cling to her skin and barely a breath of wind stirred anywhere in the village. Dust wafted listlessly from the cobbles with her every step and settled on her carefully polished shoes. A typical late summer day in the southwest of France. The cathedral bells rang in the distance, a reminder to her and the rest of the village to go to the main square. Shouts of joy mingled with greetings and conversations as people made their way there.

The carnival-like atmosphere was due to their recent liberation. The villagers were on their way to a public celebration of that freedom put on by members of the French Resistance. This was the village’s first celebration since 1942 and nearly the whole village would be there.

Camille squinted in the bright sunlight and studied the temporary wooden stage set up in the square: it was tall, offering the crowd a good view of the event, and had a row of chairs for those who would be on it.

A small group of people walked up on the stage and took their places. The leader of the French Resistance in the area, Jules Durand, stepped to the edge of the stage and pulled his speech notes from his pocket.

A member from the American Army’s Signal Corps readied his camera to film the event. Gesturing to the villagers and American soldiers hanging around the edge of the crowd, he cleared his throat and started to give his carefully prepared speech.

“Welcome to freedom, my friends! Let us all thank the brave soldiers and resistance members that drove the German scourge out of our lovely little village!”

A joyous roar went up from the crowd. Once it died down, Jules continued. “We also have some local women who deserve recognition of their own.”

One-by-one, the women were introduced to the crowd — an unnecessary step in such a small village where everyone knew everyone and their business.

As each woman was introduced, the crowd jeered and hurled insults at her, for this celebration was also a punishment. Each of them was accused of being a “Horizontal Collaborator”— women who, for various reasons, befriended and bedded Germans during the occupation

Camille shifted uncomfortably on the hard wooden chair she had been made to sit on and the sun blazed down on her thick head of dark hair. More sweat dripped down her back, increasing her discomfort as she stared out at the crowd. She could name almost everyone watching; and those she could not she knew by sight.

Her discomfort was not purely physical, nor was it because of charges brought against her. It was whispered about around the village that she preferred the company of women to men and anytime she was singled out she feared it would come up. Thankfully, that did not seem likely to happen as it would take away from the allegations against her.

Jules raised his hand for silence and the crowd quieted instantly, eager to hear what would happen to the wayward women on stage.

“As punishment for their crimes, these women will have their heads shaved. We will take away the vanity that drove them to betray their countrymen, and everyone who sees them will know exactly what they did.”

The crowd roared its approval as the village barber, an older man named Maxim Petit, whipped out his scissors and clippers and started in on the woman closest to him.

Camille would be last, as she was sitting furthest away, forcing her to watch the humiliation of her fellow women. She spent her time reflecting on her fellow collaborators and who they were outside of this ordeal.

‘There,’ Camille thought, looking at the first to be sheared, ‘is Margaux Toussaint. Barely fifteen years old and already learning of the brutality of men.’ Margaux hid her face with her hands, and the barber yanked on her red curls- pulling her head up, so she was forced to see and be seen. He could not, however, keep her from closing her eyes as tears spilled down her freckled cheeks.

Camille looked at the woman next to Margaux. The grey-haired woman with a thin face sat silently wearing a grim expression. ‘And Helene Roy, a sixty-year-old grandmother who knits for the cathedral’s Christmas bazaar.’

‘After her is Blanche Perrin, a young mother of six — five of known parentage…’ She was a plump brunette, her hair in a tight braid and her blonde infant in her arms. “Please,” she begged, “think of my baby…don’t do this to his mother.”

Her begging was met with louder jeers from the crowd who showed no mercy. One man even threatened to shave the “Nazi bastard baby’s” head.

The middle-aged blonde woman next to Camille tried to talk some sense into the men. “Please, be reasonable. You cannot prove guilt without a trial. We are all entitled to at least that much! I know the law! We have rights!” But her logic fell on deaf ears.

‘That is Thomasine Roux, the widow of our former mayor. A woman who did far more for this village than her husband — which is common knowledge. The villagers love her, or they did. No one is safe from these men, and all because we tried to find control in a situation that was forced upon us,’ she reflected with a mix of sadness and quiet rage. ‘If only the Nazis had left us alone…’

In autumn of 1942, the Germans rolled into the village with their rattling tanks, snarling dogs, and stomping boots. Camille cowered in her house, watching through the lace curtains as her small village was invaded and occupied for the glory of the Reich. Once control was established, German soldiers were billeted with the locals in their homes, whether they liked it or not. Camille’s ‘guest,’ Horst Muller, was barely a man and definitely not a hardened soldier, let alone a card-carrying Nazi.

Camille resigned herself to having the blonde haired, blue eyed boy in her home and went about her daily tasks as best she could while walking on proverbial eggshells. As time went on and she realized he was more afraid of her- an independent woman, than she was of him and she used that to her advantage.

She fed him the best home cooked meals she could manage using her rations and tiny kitchen garden.

Silverware clinked against plates as they ate in silence. Steam rose from Camille’s tea in its customary chipped cup. Horst ate everything set in front of him — even the over-cooked carrots — as the radio played French jazz in the background. A typical night in their odd little household.

She listened, with her meager German, to him talk about his girlfriend, Gitta, back home, how much he missed her, and the perfect future he envisioned for them.

“She’s the perfect German girl, Camille — gentle but also strong, and of perfect blood, of course. We’ll marry when I return home and have many children.” Camille just nodded and asked the appropriate, polite questions to keep him occupied as she darned his socks by lamplight.

She coddled him until he felt safe enough to enter her bed, another way of ensuring her survival.

“Don’t worry about Gitta, she never has to find out. It’s wartime, who knows what will happen tomorrow, Horst? Why not enjoy ourselves while we can? There’s no harm in that,” she reasoned as he hesitated before they slept together for the first time.

The rewards were worth it — extra rations here, a pair of new stockings there, friendship during an isolated and frightening period in her life. The occupation was still rough, but it could have been much worse.

The Germans were gone by fall of 1944, replaced by another, more familiar, male aggressor.

“Did you enjoy your time with him?” a harsh voice demanded, breaking Camille out of her reverie. Evidently, it was her time to be the main event in this circus.

Camille looked at the man in front of her: Remi Chevalier, a man Camille had known since childhood, was not a knight as his surname intimated. With eyes and hair as black as night, a perpetual tan, and a mischievous glint in his eye, Remi was as handsome as he was immoral. And he was loving his time in the spotlight.

He was a member of the French Resistance, a local hero up on the grand stage for all to see as he helped put the women in their place. But it was common knowledge among those gathered that he was also a racketeer on the local black market and made most of his money selling to the Germans. He’d played both sides for fame and profit and come out on top.

‘What do I have to lose at this point?’ she decided.

“Yes, I did,” Camille answered calmly, mostly to make him angry. Remi had tried many times over the years to pursue her and had always been met with profound failure.

Every time he would show up at her house coaxing, begging, and threatening her to give him a chance, Camille turned him down flat.

Before the black market and the war, he had never worked an honest day in his life, instead making his money gambling and hustling, an ever-present cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

He was the kind of man who, even if she did like men, Camille would want nothing to do with. Now she was publicly paying for humiliating him over the years.

“And here I thought you only fucked women. Say you’ll give me another chance, and I’ll spare your hair and dignity,” he hissed around the cigarette clamped between his teeth.

Camille looked as though she were considering it for a moment before baring her teeth and spitting in his face.

Remi sputtered in rage as he wiped his face on his sleeve. Grabbing the scissors from the shocked barber in one hand and Camille’s hair in the other, he got to work, punishing her personally.

Cutting her hair, they both knew, was the only way he would ever get to touch her, and even then it was still against her will.

The roar of the crowd was silenced by the sharp cutting sound of the scissors in her ears as they worked their way through her thick hair.

His grip on her hair was rough, jerking her head around angrily, and pulling out nearly as much hair as he cut.

Biting the inside of her lip to keep quiet, Camille soon tasted blood, but the coppery tang was preferable to giving him the satisfaction of knowing he was hurting her as much as he hoped he was.

So, she sat in stony silence, not pleading for mercy or weeping as the others had done, as ragged clumps of her chestnut locks fell around her feet and onto the rough boards of the stage.

After the length was gone, Remi started in with a razor- short hair was not good enough. Camille had to be bald. One look at his trousers and she could see he was enjoying himself immensely. It made her feel sick.

Once he was done, Remi threw a towel at her. “Get cleaned up, Bitch. It’s parade time.” Camille used the ratty towel to brush the pieces of hair from her face and shoulders while wondering what he meant. The dread filled walk to the village square had been bad enough, but there was still more.

The women were herded down from the stage and through the crowd. Camille was groped rather brazenly by Remi on the way to the waiting truck- the spectacle of the hair cutting had removed the societal protection afforded moral women and they were fair game now.

They were driven through the streets so everyone, even those who had chosen not to attend the celebration, would see their shame.

In the back of the truck with them were some of the men, including Remi.

He was grinning from ear-to-ear at the attention lavished on him by the crowd that trailed the truck.

“There’s a seat for you on my lap, Camille,” Remi taunted.

Camille did her best to ignore everyone and stared straight ahead with a resigned look on her face.

Once the parade was over, the women were driven to the farthest place in the village from their homes and made to walk back.

Camille walked slowly through the narrow streets at dusk, unable to summon much energy. Her feet felt heavy, and her steps were leaden. She noted absentmindedly that the heat was not as unbearable without her heavy hair — a small consolation.

Most people avoided her gaze, the anonymity of the crowd gone and making them feel ashamed of their actions as she passed. Some pointed and whispered to one another about what it was she had done; some insulted Camille to her face, and one even threw a tomato at her. The tomato hit Camille on the side of her tender scalp, and the juice dripped down her neck and under the collar of her dress.

She made it home well after dark. Arriving sweaty, weary, in pain, and emotionally drained, Camille barely had the energy to take another step, let alone bathe and eat.

‘Well, I’m not hungry anyway…I’ll just bathe and go to bed. A bath will help me feel human again.” she decided as she unlocked the door to her cottage.

After stripping off her dirty dress, she got into the bath, hissing softly as the hot water touched her tender skin. Then she set about to wash off the dried tomato, the sweat, the dried blood from where Remi had nicked her scalp with the razor, and the itchy pieces of hair. While in the water, she finally allowed herself the luxury of crying. She cried over what had been done to her by the Germans and by her own village. She also cried for idealistic young Horst, wondering if the boy had made it home to Gitta or not.

Sleep was hard to come by for the village that night because of the summer heat, but a handful of women in the village had an even harder time of it.

‘I can’t stay here. They’d never let me live this down…but it’s my home. I have as much right to live here as they do.’ Over and over that argument ran round her head. ‘If I leave, they’ll win. If I stay, they’ll still win by making my life miserable. I’ll never meet someone if I stay… If I leave, I could start over where no one knows me. I could date, find a job, new friends...’

By sunrise, Camille had come to the decision that she would leave the village, not just because of what had been done to her, but also because the head shaving had freed her from her expected role within the community — that of a traditional and meek woman.

By leaving, Camille could become the women she already knew she was deep down. She had always wanted to travel, but the war had started and put her plans on hold. Now that France was liberated, she could travel a bit. This would not be a glamorous holiday due to the damage everywhere and the threat the Germans still posed. The war was not over, but she had heard Paris was still a swinging spot. She knew there was no fulfilling life left for her in the village.

With her mind made up, Camille finally fell asleep.

After giving her a few days to let the shame and helplessness of her situation sink in, Remi made his way to Camille’s house. When he let himself into the sitting room, he found her packing.

Remi leaned in the doorway, watching her closely. He was, he explained with an oily smirk, still willing to give her a chance.

“You’ll need someone on your side, Chere. You don’t have to run away, you could stay. But you know what this village is like. You saw the crowd. Heard them. And they know what you are. You’ll need a respectable man to shelter you from their anger. Another town won’t be any better. They did the same to women across France.”

“If I see a respectable man, I’ll be sure to explain that to him. You never had a chance, Remi. You’re a despicable cheat of a man. Horst was just a means to an end. Goodbye,” she replied coolly, before pushing him out of her house and slamming the door in his face.

She had survived the war, the rationing, the occupation, and last Saturday — all events brought upon her by men. No way was she surrendering now, with a hope of a new life ahead.

She would survive as she always had, by her wits. She needed no man and would not pretend otherwise, no matter how much respectability it would recover for her in others’ eyes.

After locking the door, she picked up a scrap of paper on which she had written a list of things she would need for her move. Under the usual items on the list, she added one last item: ‘wig’ and resumed packing.

EPILOGUE:

Camille found work as a secretary at a steel company in Paris. Working there gave her purpose and ambition, even if it was just making sure the office was in order. After the war, the business boomed with all the rebuilding going on.

She found a group of women who had also been branded ‘Horizontal Collaborators’ and had their heads shaved. They helped and supported each other through hard times and forged life-long friendships. Camille became a hairdresser after leaving the steel company in 1952; having learned the trade styling her own and her friends’ wigs.

One such woman, Ninon Martin, became exceptionally close to Camille. Ninon was from a village depressingly similar to Camille’s. They spent their years living as “roommates” in an increasingly open Paris.

Camille and Ninon were finally able to marry in the spring of 2013. The ceremony was held in their favorite café with many friends from the LGBTQ+ community in attendance. Sadly, Camille died a few months later at the age of 88.

Ninon honored her wife’s dying wish and had her ashes spread in her home village- the only way she ever returned to it. After a lonely two years, Ninon passed away.

Though they never had children of their own, a small group of queer girls was sheltered and guided by them during good times and bad. These women honor their memory every PRIDE week with a drink and the passing down of their stories to new members of the community. Not a bad legacy for a couple of village girls who met with shaved heads and nothing to lose.