Single to Paris

by Single to Paris (retail) (epub)

  So what happens at the western end of this magnificent Avenue Foch? Come on – think.

  Why – Porte-Dauphine, of course!

  Large carrefour, also a Métro station and one of the entrances to the Bois de Boulogne. She’d been there with her father, she remembered. One marvellous summer afternoon when she’d been about – oh, ten, perhaps. They’d left the Métro at Porte-Dauphine and taken a fiacre to the lakes where they’d hired a boat for the afternoon, landing on some of the islands, taking snapshots of each other and eating chocolate ice-cream. Happy memories – the boating, choc-ices, Papa’s invariable tendresse and sense of fun. She couldn’t get any more out of this cigarette without burning her lips. She took it gingerly – of necessity with both hands up – dropped it on the bed of the truck and asked Rat-face – who was watching her practically all the time – ‘Monsieur?’ Pointing down at the glowing stub: ‘Would you be so kind?’

  He looked puzzled. She lifted a bare foot into his field of view: ‘I can’t, you see. Please – so not to start a fire?’

  He grunted, minimally shifted one boot; glancing at the man beside her, cocking an eyebrow, while this one leaned over, peered down at her feet. A mutter in German: Keine something. She explained. ‘Wasn’t expecting to be arrested. Had slippers on, and they gave me no time to—’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ But on the spur of the moment – having broken the ice, maybe, and enunciating the words slowly and clearly: ‘Where are we going?’

  They were looking at each other, then – the three of them. Exchanging views or comments in that hideous tongue. Arguing as to whether she should be told or not? But she guessed it then – recalling that the road entering the Bois at Porte-Dauphine was called Route de Suresnes and that having passed the lakes and through the full depth of the Bois it led to the village of Suresnes, which was only a stone’s throw from Mont Valérien, the fort where they incarcerated hostages and at intervals shot them in reprisal for the anti-German activities of others.

  Could be where they’d taken Georges and company?

  She tried it on Rat-face: ‘Mont Valérien?’

  Another exchange of glances. She was being a bore to them, she supposed. They’d be puzzled too: she’d asked the question almost happily – in finding a solution that did not involve Lafont. Those two were looking puzzled, although ignoring her and her question, but Rat-face had decided to make a joke of it – putting an imaginary rifle to his shoulder, aiming it at her head and pulling a trigger, shouting ‘Boom!’ A shout of laughter then – his own – while the one beside her growled at him as at a misbehaving child. The other one lighting a cigarette, taking no notice; Rat-face now waving his hands as if wiping stuff off a blackboard, and explaining – even apologising – something like, ‘Sorry, just my little joke…’

  * * *

  After what must have been about twenty minutes – quarter-hour maybe – they’d taken a right turn. Presumably were not going to Suresnes. Or this might be a short cut the driver knew of. Or, her own recollection of the topography might be wrong. Childhood memories often were; and in studying the maps at Fawley Court the Bois hadn’t seemed to call for any particular attention. Mental processes wandering somewhat anyway: for instance, remembering how less than half an hour ago she’d grabbed quite cheerfully at the thought of a firing-squad awaiting her at Mont Valérien – as an alternative to being delivered to Lafont, which for several miles back there had had her sweating – well, thinking straight now, she thought – the best option in present circumstances would obviously be delay, stay of execution – to be still alive when the Yanks rolled in. Too much to hope for? Perhaps. Depending on how long these people took, how much of a rush they felt they were in. Whoever they might be – SD, SS, Gestapo, Bonny-Lafont. One was an object being disposed of, that was all. A thinking object: which of course was part of the reason one did have to be got rid of. Leaning forward, in that position with her forearms on her knees, her eyes on the rectangle of dark night astern: it was greying a little, she thought. The moon had set, though – either had set or was close to doing so, so low that you weren’t seeing any of it through the trees. Wednesday, this was. Last Wednesday had been her last full day of briefing at Fawley Court. Thinking back to it over the interval of just seven days was like remembering a different person, or at least one in a completely different mental state. That degree of optimism, for God’s sake. Shaking her head then, thinking less optimism than a combination of drive and hope and impatience to be getting on with it – get those two out, as they’d done their successful best to get her out. All right, to start with she’d been averse to the idea of going back, had resented Hyatt’s even proposing it: but a lot of that had been her own sense of let-down – no Marilyn, no Ben. Within a few hours of getting down to brass tacks she’d been in a far more positive frame of mind. In particular, obsessed by the absolute imperative of keeping Léonie out of bloody Ravensbrück. Remembering every detail of the train journey when she and Lise had escaped and the others hadn’t – Edna, Maureen, Daphne, hadn’t – and visualising Léonie in their situation. How could one not have told Hyatt yes, yes, of course…

  So you were still of that mind. With less hope, certainly, much less hope – in fact damn little – unless Leblanc—

  The truck was on a left-hand bend and by the sound of it not on tarmac now. Definitely not, in fact, that was dirt and gravel rattling under its wide mudguards.

  Going where the hell?

  She felt as if she’d been dozing. The truck was slowing, anyway. The man next to her moving – crabbing towards the rear. The other one too – gymnastically, on his feet and hanging on to the canopy’s supporting framework at the back, most of him still inside but his head up over the top to look forward. They were both in that position – and the truck slowing even more – while Rat-face watched her, had shifted the Schmeisser on to his lap, she noticed. Brakes on hard then and the truck tilting, skidding to a halt in the loose surface of the track with its right-hand wheels up on some sort of banking… The driver was getting out – slam of his door – and the two at the rear jumping down, leaving the tailboard up. Rat-face with the Schmeisser actually in his hands now. Expecting her to make a break for it? If that was something that seemed likely to them, one might reasonably expect the worst. A shout in German somewhere outside there was answered by the acknowledgement ‘Jawohl!’ She’d begun to move – as much as anything to see what might happen – and Rat-face had gestured to her to stay put. That seemed somehow to clinch it – solution to the disposal problem; they were going to shoot her, here in the woods. A torch-beam probing in over the tailboard focused on her for a few seconds: and one of them out there was peeing. Not all they’d stopped for, surely. She wouldn’t have minded one: wouldn’t have minded a cigarette either, was thinking of asking Rat-face if he’d spare another – but he was preoccupied suddenly, listening – one of them muttering something to his companions and then starting up the road, calling something that sounded like, ‘I come, Herr Major!’

  If there was a Herr Major around, she guessed, Ratty wouldn’t give her a cigarette. Fraternising with prisoners verboten, one might guess. Having to keep it all light and easy in one’s mind – all the more so if one was within minutes of being shot. But he obviously wouldn’t let her into the bushes for a pee either. Be dying with a full bladder: not very dignified or decent, letting it all go as the bullets whacked home. Voices of Germans in conversation were returning now anyway: one questioning, the other giving brief, soldierly answers. The driver, she guessed – he’d have been the one peeing, heard the officer call to them and hurried to meet him, was now coming back here with him…

  But she knew the other voice.

  Even speaking German. Was pretty sure she did, anyway. Yes – she did. Had been mistaken in an earlier presumption that he’d be unwilling to get out of the nice warm bed he shared with Jacqui.

  Passing, boots scuffing gravelly dirt, coming to the truck’s rear en
d. A torch flared, illuminating her. Then another. And they were letting the tailboard down.

  ‘Come on out, Jeanne-Marie.’

  It was him.

  She didn’t move: had her chained hands up to shield her eyes. The torch shifted and Clausen urged her, ‘Come, please. There’s nothing to be frightened of. I’ll have those things off you in a minute.’

  Things. Handcuffs? And – nothing to be frightened of?

  One of them helped her down. The driver, she guessed. Short, thickset man. Clausen standing back, shining his torch on her bare feet, asking her in his lightly accented French, ‘No shoes?’

  ‘I was wearing old slippers when you had me arrested. In the cellar in Rue des Saussaies there’s urine all over the floor and they were soaked. I’m in a foul state altogether, can’t you smell me?’

  ‘Since you mention it—’

  ‘Your doing.’

  ‘I regret that it was necessary—’

  ‘Going to shoot me now?’

  ‘—although of course I was not aware of the conditions as you describe them. In any case one would have had no choice. You were my prisoner, and had to be seen as such – also to feel you were, so that you’d behave accordingly…’ Then: ‘Shoot you?’

  Not aware of the conditions as you describe them… His accented French as it were reverberating through her slight dizziness – as coldly formal an explanation as if he’d put it together from some SD glossary of useful phrases. As far as he was concerned, he was in no way to blame. Was or was not about to shoot her or have her shot – she didn’t know, although he’d sounded genuinely surprised at the suggestion that he might. Addressing the corporal now – the driver – who produced the handcuffs’ key and after some further question and answer took one cuff off her wrist and clicked it on to Clausen’s briefly extended left one. He was wearing an Army greatcoat over civilian trousers and a striped shirt, with a major’s insignia on the coat’s epaulettes. She shook the chain of the handcuffs: ‘Thought you said taking these off me?’

  ‘Soon – yes. It’s necessary now, for the sake of appearances.’ A movement of the head: ‘Come with me, please.’ There was a troop-carrier parked a few yards ahead, she saw; soldiers in helmets standing around it, others on top close to its machine-guns. Clausen turned back, gave this truck’s driver an order; the man saluted and turned away. Dismissed, she guessed.

  So this was as far as she was going.

  Moving again now though, towed by the wrist: wondering what the hell… She began to ask him, but he cut her short with a mutter of rapid French: ‘Not to converse now. It should appear that you’re my prisoner.’

  ‘What the hell else?’

  ‘You’re in fear of execution—’

  ‘Damn right I am!’

  ‘But I just told you—’

  ‘Ach – Herr Major…’

  A young officer – lieutenant, but not SS – had appeared from somewhere beyond the front end of this vehicle, asking him something in German. About her, she thought. Clausen had given him a brief answer – an affirmative. Telling her then, not in that quiet, private tone but loudly, authoritatively: ‘You’re here to see if you can identify any of these people.’

  ‘What people? Where?’

  ‘You’ll see.’ A nod and a jerk of the head to the younger man, who followed. She thought he was following them. Recognising Clausen’s car then: there was a gap in the trees flanking the roadside at this point, and it was parked just beyond it – a dark-coloured Citroen fifteen. It could hardly have been anyone else’s, and Clausen wouldn’t have come on that other thing. The gap in the trees gave access to a clearing with beyond it, a long way down-slope, a shine of water. Back-end of the lakes, she supposed. Glancing round, seeing that the lieutenant was still there and had two soldiers with him – common-or-garden infantrymen, slung rifles in place of machine-pistols. Clausen said – quietly – ‘You may find this – disturbing. You will. I’m sorry. I hope not unbearable. You see, there’s no one else who could make the identification – at least, if my guess is right—’

  ‘Talking about identifying bodies?’

  ‘Thirty-five of them. I do regret inflicting such a task on you.’ Showing her – in a sweep of the torch-beam angled downwards – ‘See. These.’

  A double row – or two ranks. From the road they’d been in dead ground, owing to the down-slope and the earth bank. Aiming his torch at the right-hand end of the nearer lot: ‘We’ll start there. If there are any you recognize—’

  ‘Who are they, where’d they come from?’

  ‘Résistants who were caught with a load of stolen Schmeisser machine-pistols a few nights ago.’

  ‘And killed where? Here?’

  ‘Yes. About three hours ago.’

  ‘Were they in Rue des Saussaies before this?’

  ‘At one time – yes.’

  ‘Thirty-four of them then, not thirty-five.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘It’s what you said. In that telephone call when you were interrogating me.’

  ‘Sharp ears and a good memory. Yes, you’re right. But there are thirty-five here. An error in the message I received, perhaps. Or perhaps not. That’s the point of this procedure. So – if you wouldn’t mind?’

  She could see tracks where the bodies had been dragged around, bloodied tracks over and through last season’s fall of leaves and this summer’s growth of bracken. The ground had been well trampled over, and there was a lot of blood.

  ‘Did whoever killed them line them up like this?’

  ‘No.’ A gesture towards the lieutenant. ‘His men did so – at my request.’

  ‘Who killed them?’

  ‘I can only tell you that from Rue des Saussaies they were transferred to Rue de la Pompe, to one of the houses used by the Gestapo of Rue Lauriston. I want you to understand, this was not in my area of responsibility, not in any way at all. It seems they were brought here – alive – a few hours ago.’

  ‘Gestapo using Bonny-Lafont to get rid of them?’

  ‘Well – we are facing certain problems—’

  ‘Which justifies this?’

  ‘This is entirely the responsibility of Lafont.’

  ‘You mean your Gestapo would have expected Monsieur Henri with his kind heart and gentle ways to have provided them with comfy beds and three square meals a day?’

  ‘We should get on with this now. You know what I think of Lafont. Please – we don’t have all that much time.’

  ‘One more question, though. What d’you imagine I could ever have had to do with any of them?’

  ‘That we shall see. You have only to tell me if there are any you do recognise.’

  ‘All right. But first take this off me, please?’

  The handcuff. Clausen unlocked it – his own too – dropped them into his left-hand coat pocket and took a pistol out of the other one. A Luger, she noticed. There were lots of them about but they weren’t standard equipment, hadn’t been for years. She looked from it to him: ‘This also for the sake of appearances?’

  A nod. ‘Exactly. Get on with it now.’

  ‘I’ll need a torch.’

  ‘I will accompany you, with mine.’

  Around the end of the nearer line of them, so as to see them – their faces – the right way up. Clausen came with her and stayed close, holding the light on each face in turn until she moved to the next. She was inspecting two at each move: one on her left, second on her right, then out around that one’s feet and up between the next pair. In close-up there was a lot more blood than she’d expected; most of them were soaked in it. Georges was the fifth in the line; he’d been shot in the lower part of his face, most of his jaw shot away, and there were numerous bullet-holes in his chest. She didn’t look at him for longer than at any of the others. Patrice, near the other end of the same line, had multiple wounds in his body but his face and head were intact. It had been done with machine-pistols, obviously. She was being careful where she put her feet and
Clausen helped, lighting her way for her as she picked her way along. It did occur to her, especially when passing some of the smaller men, that she might purloin a pair of shoes, and she knew it was actually quite silly to be squeamish about it; they were dead, didn’t need shoes now. Doing nothing about it though. Lacking the strength, maybe. Weakness coming in waves. Glancing at Clausen and the Luger as they moved to the second rank to start back the other way. Multiple-millimetre bullet-holes were standard in all of them, as was the blood and some faces drained as white as sheets of paper. There’d certainly been no economy of ammunition. In some cases there was scorching from what must have been ultra-close-range bursts of fire. Some of the faces might not have been recognisable even if she’d known them when they were alive. There was certainly one other that she’d seen before – in the Dog, obviously – but couldn’t ever have put a name to. No reason to say, ‘Oh yes, this one I knew’, in any case – or to tell Clausen that those others’ names had been Georges Dénault and Patrice Macombre. She couldn’t guess why he’d even want to know their names, or that she’d known them.

  Moving on. As it were brain-frozen, one stage removed from the sickening bestiality of it by exertion of self-discipline, self-control, the fact of having to get through it – almost in the way they’d had to: that at least as an example, while knowing also virtually beyond question that she’d be going through it over and over again in nightmares from which if she was very lucky she’d wake in Ben’s arms, as she had often enough after waking him with her screams and thrashings-around.