The Girl from Vichy

by Andie Newton

  I knew I sounded like a spoiled little girl who just wanted to be remembered, and I couldn’t help it. Germans had taken over the whole of France; the only things we French people could cling to were our remembrances of bravery. Our families were torn apart. People had died. Our memories were the only thing left.

  ‘I was somebody. Once. Now, nobody knows who I am. I might as well have run away. At least then I could have saved myself the agony of seeing my sister’s guilty face.’

  Marguerite reached out for me. ‘No—’

  A car’s headlamps lit us up followed by the cock of a gun. We jumped, nothing to be seen other than clear black space and the glare of two bright lights. One Gestapo officer walked forward with his gun drawn.

  ‘Hallo,’ he said. ‘Mademoiselles.’

  Marguerite took a strained look into my eyes. Her face smeared with mud and dirt, more visible than before in the white light.

  ‘Out for a walk?’ he said in muddled French. Marguerite swayed back and forth on her feet as if she was entertaining the idea of running. He pointed his gun at Marguerite and then at me. ‘What are your names? Carte d'identité!’

  I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my identification. He glanced at it with a discerning eye. ‘Jeanne Calvet,’ he said, ‘and from Lyon.’

  ‘Where’s yours?’ he said to Marguerite, but she did nothing but stare. The rain-heavy tree branches creaked, and their leaves fluttered like a thousand butterflies from a gust of wind that blew right through us. He lowered his gun and picked at his teeth with his fingernail as two other Gestapo appeared from behind him. Marguerite stopped swaying. ‘We know what you saw.’

  He pointed to the muddy hill, the streaks from our bodies sliding down it looked like tyre grooves even in the dead of night. ‘Now, speak up, or I’ll give you something to speak up about.’ He paused, one nail in between his teeth, the buzz of the light drawn upon us as piercing as a mosquito in my ear. Marguerite shook her head very subtly as if to remind me not to say anything.

  ‘Well, mademoiselles,’ he said with a bit of a laugh. ‘If that is what you are. Looks like we’re going to have to make you talk.’ He motioned at the other Gestapo. ‘Take them to interrogation. Hotel Terminus.’

  ‘Jeanne,’ Marguerite said, reaching out for me as I reached for her, our hands grasping for each other’s while he stepped in between us and pulled us apart. ‘Jeanne—’

  Be strong.

  *

  The architects of the grand Hotel Terminus would have been appalled at what the Gestapo had done to their building since they took it over as their headquarters. Blood-red carpet runners covered the marble floors, and Nazi flags lined the corridors. Hitler’s portrait hung from every available hook and nail. The guest rooms, which were known for their exquisite furnishings and luxurious linens—even more of a tragedy—had been stripped down to splintered wood floors and plasterboard.

  I sat for hours, moaning from not having eaten and enduring a painful, burning sensation to urinate when a woman guard dressed in a mouse-grey uniform opened my door. Her belly was as big as the barrel she held in her hands, which she placed in the middle of the room.

  ‘Where’s my friend? I demand to see her.’

  She laughed before stepping back, and taking a good look at me. ‘Take your clothes off,’ she said in a very thick German accent. ‘All of them.’

  ‘I will not,’ I said.

  She put a hand on her holstered gun. ‘You will.’

  I felt my lips pinch, and took my coat off and then begrudgingly unbuttoned my dress.

  ‘Slower,’ she said, ‘there is no rush.’ A smile slithered across her face as I peeled my wet dress from my shoulders and let it fall to the floor around my feet. She grabbed at my undergarments, flicking her tongue over her bottom lip as she unfastened my brassiere.

  Gooseflesh bumped over my arms from standing naked in a bare, cold room. ‘What’s this little gem?’ She snapped my heart pendant from my neck with one quick pull. I shuddered and quaked, feeling as if she had reached into my chest and ripped out my heart for real. She eyed the heart closely in her hand before stuffing it into her pocket. ‘Now, tell me who you are.’

  ‘Jeanne.’

  She laughed. ‘We know your documents were forged.’ She took a few steps back. ‘Get in the barrel.’

  I didn’t move.

  ‘Get in!’ she yelled, her face flattening like a frying pan. ‘Now!’

  I stepped carefully into the empty barrel, shivering, as she brought in five metal pails that had been filled with water. She dunked her hand in one and then flicked some water on my back, laughing about how cold it was.

  ‘I’ve been in water before—’

  She dumped the whole pail over the top of my head. I gasped from the shock of the freezing cold water waving over my skin and then shook violently, searching for the right word. ‘Christ!’

  ‘This is how an angel dies,’ she boasted.

  Clumps of sopping-wet hair hung over my eyes, my jaw clattering. ‘Angel?’

  ‘Isn’t that what you are?’ She took one finger and dug it into her cheek with a twist. ‘Your dimples. Makes you look like a little angel.’ She peered into the bucket to see how much water had filled up inside. ‘Now, tell me who you are.’

  I looked straight at the stone wall like Marguerite had taught me all those months ago. Be strong. This was the real test.

  The guard sighed, smiling. ‘Very well.’

  Another pail, this time laced with shards of ice that scraped and pierced my skin. I felt numb to my bones with a shiver I was sure had turned my lips blue, but she pressed on, pouring another and then another, the barrel filling with water, first over my ankles and then halfway up my calves.

  ‘I’ll stop when you tell me who you are,’ she said.

  ‘Let me see my friend.’

  ‘No!’ she barked, and my gaze drifted to the wall, which made her huff and puff.

  ‘I need to urinate,’ I said.

  She laughed. ‘If you pee in that bucket, you’ll get ten more pails on you.’

  Instantly I started peeing—the cold water made it impossible to hold.

  Her eyes got wide and her mouth snarled. She lifted another pail, but she bobbled it and a wave of water splashed onto her face.

  I laughed, soft at first, bordering a giggle, taunting her with my only weapon.

  Her face scrunched up like an old prune listening to me laugh, and she dumped what was left in the pail over my back and then threw the pail at the wall. ‘Amusing, is it?’ She opened the door—someone was screaming not far away as she called out to another guard. ‘More pails!’

  Soon enough more metal pails were brought in and laid out in a line. The guard gave me a strange look as he left, probably wondering how I was able to handle more, and it was that look that lit a fire inside my cold bones. My laugh turned into a screeching shrill, which startled even me, getting louder and more pronounced the more pails she poured over me. ‘Stop that laughing!’ she yelled, which only made me laugh more. ‘Get out!’ she finally said, lips puckering, pointing to the door with a stiff finger.

  I stepped out of the barrel, my feet unfeeling against the cold stone floor, my laugh more like a metal pitchfork scraping against slate. ‘Ah ha, ah ha, ah ha…’ I screeched, following her down a long corridor and into a room with floral paper peeling from its walls and a hole in the floor for a toilet.

  I flung my arms out, laughing in the face of the guard, ignoring the little voice in my head telling me to shut up and put my arms down, but all I could think about was Marguerite and that maybe she’d hear me… know it was me. The guard threw a plain beige smock at my face and then slammed the door, locking it up tight. I succumbed to a wave of tears and sobs when I realized she’d left, then everything got very hazy, and I wobbled. I heard a slap—my face hitting the ground—and I plunged into a dark, cold dream.

  *

  After weeks of cold-water treatments without talking, and no sign
s of Marguerite, the Gestapo moved me to Lyon’s infamous Montluc prison for what the guard called, ‘formal interrogations.’ Three times a day a guard brought me a hunk of stale bread and a cup of rust-coloured water, which was pushed through a slit in the door. If I was lucky, I got a rotted apple or a bowl of mouldy mush. These were the easy days, when I’d sit on the floor and stare out the caged window in my room. But when I heard footsteps marching down the corridor and the clinking and clanging of keys near my door, my heart began to race, and I had to remind myself who I was, and who I wasn’t.

  I sat up, listening to the key as it slid into the lock, wondering how much cold water I’d have to stand in, or how much yelling I’d have to endure, lips to my face.

  The door opened, and a Gestapo officer I’d never seen before stood in the doorway. ‘Hallo, Jeanne.’ He laughed. ‘Or whatever your real name is. I’m Klaus Barbie.’

  I scooted away from the door. I had heard of Klaus Barbie every day since I arrived at Montluc. The guards had warned me this day would come, the day when the head of the prison would visit.

  ‘You’ve heard of me, no?’ He ran his fingers down the lapels of his woolly Gestapo uniform. His face, stern with sharp lines, was typical for a German.

  ‘I’ve heard.’

  ‘They call me the Butcher of Lyon. But look,’ he said, holding his hands out, ‘I have no knives.’

  He poked his finger into my ribs, where my bones protruded from under thin skin. ‘But if I did, not much to butcher here.’

  ‘You don’t find me attractive?’ I brushed a swatch of matted hair from my eyes.

  ‘You have a sense of humour.’ He smiled. ‘After spending weeks at Montluc? Interesting…’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Let’s take a walk.’

  I stared at him as he waited for me to move, wondering what kind of interrogation the Butcher of Lyon had in mind for me, and if I’d be able to withstand it.

  ‘It’s not a question, fräulein,’ he said, but then shouted, ‘Get up!’

  We walked to the end of the prison corridor, past a dozen wooden cell doors and into an office adorned with fine furnishings. He pointed to a table with a stiff white linen set for two with china and silver chargers, sparking crystal wine glasses and water goblets filled to the edge with clear drinking water. A bread basket with rolls wrapped in a blue tea towel had been placed next to an antique soup tureen. Barbie poured wine from a decanter and then offered me one of the wine glasses.

  ‘Please,’ he said, smiling. ‘Drink.’

  I took the glass he offered, wondering if it were poisoned or not. ‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘If we wanted to kill you, we would have done it already.’ Barbie poured himself a glass from the same decanter and took a drink. ‘Please,’ he said again. ‘Have a drink.’

  I took one sip only to spit it out like I’d been taught, wine spraying from my mouth. ‘Vin du merde!’ The disgusting, gritty taste of Gamay grapes saturated my mouth—shit wine, as Papa had always called it.

  Barbie glared—I had not only spit the wine out but had gotten some on him. ‘You don’t like it?’ he snarled.

  I wiped the wine from my mouth with the back of my hand, laughing—a guttural chortle that spread a wide smile on my face. ‘Germans know nothing about wine.’

  Barbie sat down in one of two high-back chairs, his dark hair perfectly slicked back with pomade. ‘Tell me more. Please, have a seat,’ he said, pointing to the chair opposite him.

  I sat down as he lifted the lid off the soup tureen. ‘Creamed leeks,’ he said, and my mouth watered. ‘I believe you call it… Vichyssoise.’ He ladled a full helping into a wide brimmed bowl. ‘Tell me who you are, and you can have some.’

  My eyes absorbed every bit of the soup as if it were in my mouth. Breathing, breathing, thinking about the sun, the grass…

  ‘How about you tell me who your friend is,’ he said, and I glanced up. A slow smile curled on his lips. ‘Your friend interests you, no? She interests me.’

  Barbie put his nose to the bowl and breathed in the creamy, salty vichyssoise. ‘Reminds me of a dish back home.’ He lifted the silver spoon from his napkin and dipped it into his bowl, licking his lips before slurping from the spoon. I swallowed along with him as he rubbed his lips together.

  ‘All you have to do is talk. That is it.’ Barbie reached over the table and ladled a bowl of soup he meant for me to eat, filling it to the very edge. ‘And this can all be yours.’

  I watched him eat, staring at the creamy yellow, telling myself it had been made from pureed maggots just to keep my tongue from lapping it up.

  He scraped his bowl clean, padding his lips with a napkin. ‘Ahh… ist gut? Is good, no?’ An unusually long pause followed. He set his napkin down, growling, gritting his teeth. ‘Is good—’ He leapt over the table like a tiger, shoving the spoon in my hand, trying to force me to taste it. Soup sloshed over the sides of the bowl as we battled with each other over control. ‘Eat it!’ he said, the spoon clinking against my teeth as he pried my lips open, pulling back my head, soup spilling onto my chin and face.

  Unsuccessful, he stood back, his teeth baring and breath panting. ‘You leave me no choice.’

  Barbie opened a set of curtains that ran along the wall behind him, exposing yet another room with two chairs side-by-side with two pieces of rope wound up on the ground. He grabbed me by the collarbone and dragged me toward one of the chairs.

  ‘You like rope?’ He tied my ankles up, and then my wrists tightly to the armrests.

  ‘No.’

  He laughed.

  Another Gestapo officer walked in pulling a woman by the arm. Her head hung low, and her hair had been pulled out in patches.

  ‘Oh, good! Your friend,’ he said, and I thought my heart had split in two.

  Marguerite.

  He pulled her head up by a patch of stringy hair, and I gasped, looking swiftly away, but I’d already seen her, and tears flooded my eyes.

  ‘Didn’t they teach you not to look in your… training?’ Barbie laughed, and then forced us to look at each other, moving her chair directly in front of mine where he tied her up just the same, only there was no resistance from her; she had no strength. Her bones were larger than mine with flesh in between, a walking corpse if I had ever seen one. She opened her mouth, her jaw gaping open, but no words came out, only breathy moans, and tears spilled over my cheeks.

  ‘Now,’ the other officer said as he walked around the two of us tied in the chairs. ‘Officer Barbie seems to think he can get you two to talk.’ He laughed. ‘I can’t imagine how he expects to do that, but he does have his ways…’

  ‘Ja,’ Barbie said. ‘I do have my ways.’

  The officer laughed as he left the room. Barbie laughed too, his eyes narrowing as he gazed upon us. I was imagining what he was going to do to us when a very attractive woman about my age wearing a delicate pink dress walked into the room.

  ‘I know how women like to talk to other women,’ Barbie said, ‘so I’ve invited my friend to our little date. Perhaps you might find her appealing.’

  She lit a thick brown cigarette and waved it around in the air as she talked. ‘I do love a good chit-chat.’ She was undeniably French, dressed in the silkiest and most expensive clothes I had seen in a long time, pearl buttons and shiny jewellery around her neck and wrists. She was from Paris, I had decided, with her thick makeup and tightly curled hair—no woman from the Auvergne would look like that in the middle of the day.

  ‘But where am I to sit, honeybear?’ she said, looking around the room. ‘Wait—’ she put both hands on Barbie’s chest, resting her hands on the breast of his uniform ‘—how do I say honeybear in German?’

  ‘Honigbär,’ Barbie said before he kissed her.

  She giggled and played with the bracelets on her wrist as he got her a chair. Then she sat back and smoked her cigarette, smiling at us as if we were friends.

  ‘What should we do, Claudette?’ he said.

  ‘Burn thei
r nipples, honigbär.’ She leaned in, her eyes beady. ‘Burn them right off!’

  Barbie ripped open Marguerite’s smock and exposed her breasts, which were covered in pocky, round scars. ‘Looks like you have been through this before.’ He smiled. ‘You interest me more every minute.’

  He curled his fingers around the neckline of my smock as if he were about to rip it from my body, but then slowly started to tear it, lower and lower it went until my breasts popped out. He felt me with the back of his hand before cupping each one of my breasts in his palm. Claudette shifted uncomfortably in her chair. ‘But this one hasn’t.’ He put his lips to my ear, playing with my nipple until it got hard. ‘I heard you have the skin of an angel.’

  He snapped his fingers at Claudette, and she took several short puffs from her cigarette until the ember burned bright red.

  ‘Tell us who you are,’ he said to Marguerite, but she turned her head to stare at the wall. I knew our silence was what was keeping us alive—our information had value. She would never answer him. A sinister smile spread the width of his face. ‘As you wish.’

  Claudette laughed hysterically, puffing on her cigarettes as Barbie lifted my breast, exposing the plump underside. He snapped for her to give him her lit cigarette, and my feet scraped the floor.

  ‘No…’ I said, praying for the strength I had when I faced the Milice, but I hadn’t a shred of it left. ‘No—’ The ember glowed, and I screamed a moment before he pressed it to my skin.

  ‘Tell us who you are!’ he yelled to Marguerite over my screams, ‘and I’ll stop!’ Marguerite wept openly as Claudette lit more cigarettes to replace the ones he’d broken while burning me—three in all—until finally I heard her say something that gave me hope.

  ‘I’ve run out.’

  There was a devilish look in his eye and in his mouth as he searched the room for something else to torture me with, shouting into the air in German. He kicked my chair, tipping me over, the back of it pressing my head against the floor. He leaned onto the chair, crushing me.

  ‘This is your fault,’ he said, pointing to Marguerite as my skull cracked.