Two Resistance operatives met, for a night, in a hideout near Lyon, France, in 1944. They made love, and parted. Bob survived the war. Paulette died in a German labor camp.
Now, more than 60 years after the one-night stand, a court in Nancy, France, has authorized DNA tests to ascertain whether a man whom Bob has never met but who bears his name is his son.
The story of the two Robert Nants -- one a survivor of birth in a camp, the other a Resistance hero -- has so enchanted French lawyers and judges that they admit they are dreading the outcome of the tests.
"Whatever happens, I'm going to take care of him," said Bob, 83.
"All I can do is hope," said Robert, 61.
Robert Nant, who is unmarried and earns 400 euros (US$525) a month as a hostel cleaner in Nancy, first learned of Bob in 1975 in a newspaper article about Vichy regime militia leader Paul Touvier. He was staying in a Strasbourg hotel and wrote to his namesake in Chambery.
"I drove to Strasbourg and called in on the hotel but Robert Nant had left two days earlier," Bob said.
Bob asked friends in the police to trace Robert. Last year, he hired a private detective, who traced him to Nancy. Both Roberts decided to take DNA tests which, in France, can only be ordered by a court.
"Both men are on legal aid so there is no financial motive," said Bob's lawyer, Olivier Fernex de Mongex. "Helping Bob is my way of paying tribute to a man who did so much for this country."
Robert Nant's lawyer, Laurence Charbonnier, said the DNA application had taken a long time to come to court because "the legal aid application said Robert Nant versus Robert Nant, so the clerk threw it away."
"I knew my background was complex but at least I knew I was born on 19 March 1945," Robert Nant said. "I was brought up among 11 other children by adoptive parents called Nant, which is a fairly common name in Savoie. They called me `bastard' and `Boche'' [`Kraut']. When I was 18, it transpired that I didn't have any papers. A social worker arranged for me to be registered."
Fernex de Mongex said that the French authorities discovered in 1968 that a child had been born at Schkopau labor camp, near Leipzig, on March 19, 1945.
The mother died and three weeks later the camp was liberated. It will never be known how Paulette -- in a camp where life expectancy was three months -- managed to secure her child's survival and register his name.
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