C’est la première fois que j’écris dans mon journal… No, perhaps I should write in English, in case one of our British or American allies finds this.

I have recently learned that Mlle. Bloch-Serazin was the one responsible for this pill. She had mustered up more courage than many men I’ve known. She converted her home into a laboratory and began making explosives and these capsules filled with poison. The explosives were for the obvious. The capsules, I’m afraid, have a more morbid purpose. If one of us is caught, we are to ingest the capsule. It will assure a quick end, and prevent any of us from spilling our guts to the Nazi scum.

I get ahead of myself. I do not know where to begin. I am number five. Months ago seems like years ago. I was but a child. I had grand ideas of joining the rumored “resistance”. I felt patriotic and romantic. I envisioned myself reporting positions of the dread Wehrmacht, sneaking around at night, or perhaps being a pianiste. I knew so little back then. My father, of course, was furious with my decision, and my mother cried, but in the end I feel that even they were secretly proud of me. I was so foolish! To think I cared about simple matters like paternal pride and my own ego. Those were simple days.

I can imagine how I looked. In my clean, pressed clothes, my clean-shaven face, my youthful pride and vigor out of place in the elements. How comical. How out of place it all seems now.

I have recently received a commission from number two. I am to be flown to meet with him, and other members of the resistance. I do not know what to expect. To say I am unafraid is to lie. I no longer have any grand illusions about courage. There is no courage, only the next moment, the next train track, the next supply drop. I am no longer a child.

I am a Saboteur.

Jour Deux