‘In the day, yes you can. He is out all day doing his work.’ The way Wolfgang said ‘work’ left me in no doubt as to its ugliness. ‘I see him arrive in the morning, and we all thank God when he leaves at night.’
‘It’s just too dangerous for you, for me to stay here,’ Rachel said.
‘And too dangerous for you if you go,’ Wolfgang said.
We sat in silence, at an impasse.
The next day was a whirlwind of activity. I had the daily baking and delivery to do, and to clear enough space in Tilly’s room for all my things. I didn’t want to leave anything of mine or Fred’s in Horst’s room. I also kept Rachel’s things and all of Tilly’s. We couldn’t get cloth or shoes anymore. Every garment was precious. I stacked what I could under the bed to make room, lining up my own shoes near the front and putting Rachel’s at the back.
Wolfgang arrived in the middle of the chaos. ‘I can’t stay long. Hauptmann Huber has sent me to see to one of his men who is suffering with ache of the stomach. I can spare only a half hour. But I have an idea. You have bread boxes, yes?’ He mimed the wooden trays we used for carrying bread.
‘Ah. You mean crates?’ Rachel asked.
‘Crates, yes.’ His face was bright with fervour.
‘But we don’t have any bread,’ I said. ‘Not since the English cut off French trade routes. They’re trying to starve you out. And us with you.’
‘That is not important. Show me these crates.’
I took him to the bakery, where a stack of unused crates was piled up near the door. More were stacked under the counter.
He pulled one out. ‘We use these, to build a wall.’
‘What?’ I didn’t understand.
‘A hiding place for Rachel.’
‘Here?’ Rachel’s face took on a worried expression.
‘Wolfgang, I don’t think it will work,’ I said. ‘This isn’t a child’s game. We don’t need a den, we need a proper safe house.’
‘What better place? They will not look in a house where Hauptmann Huber lives.’
‘It seems like fantasy. I’m still not sure —’
‘You will see. I am good builder, but I need nails and a hammer. Can you get these?’
‘I have them already. In Fred’s toolbox under the stairs. But I still don’t think it will work.’
‘Let him try,’ Rachel said. ‘We have nothing to lose, have we?’ Brave words, but I could see by her face the idea terrified her.
The next day, Wolfgang arrived even before it was light. Thank heavens the bakery was a detached shop, because the hammering made a lot of noise. Rachel and I muffled it as best we could with quilts and eiderdowns. And of course, people had got used to strange noises outside, and they knew it was best to stay indoors out of the way until curfew was lifted.
For a medical student, Wolfgang wasn’t a bad carpenter. We watched him saw strips of wood and join them together, and fit a false wall about two foot six away from the real wall in what used to be Tilly’s room but would soon be mine.
‘Has Hauptmann Huber ever been in this room?’ Wolfgang asked.
‘Only once,’ I said. ‘He just pushed his nose in, said it was too small, and then came out.’
‘And I was holding my breath behind the door,’ Rachel said.
Wolfgang shook his head and blew out air. ‘You have close shaving,’ he said.
‘Close shave,’ Rachel corrected.
‘Would he notice, do you think, that the room is smaller?’ Wolfgang said, running his hand along the new partition.
‘Not if we could paper it and hang the same picture there,’ Rachel said. ‘The bed can go right up to it just the same.’
‘I haven’t got any wallpaper. At least I have, but not the same.’
‘Fetch it,’ Wolfgang said, ‘and we’ll see.’
It wasn’t the same at all, but we had no other option. I worried that Horst would notice.
‘We’ll need to paste it up with something,’ I said.
‘Haven’t you got anything?’ Rachel asked.
‘No. If there was any wallpaper paste in the house, I’d probably eat it.’
Rachel stepped through one of the gaps in the wooden wall. ‘Gosh. I’d better not put on weight. How will I get in and out?’
Wolfgang pointed. ‘A small door, hinged there, under the bed where the join will be hard to see.’
‘It might work,’ I conceded. ‘But I don’t think I’ll ever get any sleep.’
‘I’ll sleep in the day,’ Rachel said. ‘I’ll need to stay awake at night in case I make a noise.’
‘Let’s hope the war is short,’ Wolfgang said.
Two days later, the wall was finished. Wolfgang had managed to find a pot of glue the Germans used for postering, and once the paper was up and the picture hung, it looked like any other wall. Of course, it was flimsy and wouldn’t stand up to inspection if someone hammered on it, but we just had to hope no one would dare do that where Horst lived.
Rachel and I took a torch and crawled under the bed and through the flap.
‘It’s tiny, Rache,’ I said. Her face looked gaunt and skeletal in the darkness. ‘You’ll hardly be able to breathe.’
‘I won’t be able to breathe anyway,’ Rachel said, ‘in case Horst hears.’
‘I’ll be sleeping right next to you on the other side of the wall; he’ll just think it’s me.’
‘It is working?’ Wolfgang’s voice from outside.
We crawled back out. ‘It has to work,’ I said.
‘Thank you,’ Rachel said to Wolfgang. ‘Because of you, I have a chance. May I?’ And she reached up to kiss his cheek.
He flushed brick red, but the smile reached right up to his eyes, though he tried to hide it.
‘Forty,’ I said, nudging her with an elbow.
‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ Rachel said, her voice choked.
Wolfgang looked at me, not understanding, but I didn’t enlighten him.
CHAPTER 26
November 1942
Fred
Félix never completely trusted me. On several occasions the Wehrmacht appeared at the sites of our sabotage, just too close for comfort, but none of us could work out where they were getting the information. It could be coincidence, or it could be something more.
Occasionally I was summoned to Avenue Foch, and each time my stomach clenched in dread thinking this was the end, that they’d found out I was helping the French activists. I was so jumpy that the last few times I’d taken the loaded pistol with me.
Vogt was wrong; I’d never got used to the sound of the interrogations.
Today, as I was driven down the Avenue Foch, the army were out on drill. Ranks of gleaming helmets all goose-stepping down the boulevard. I wondered if Obenauer or Schulz were amongst them, glad I was no longer part of that huge machine. It had once made me proud, but now it made me shiver, as if an arctic wind blew down my neck.
As I got out of the car, a tall man in shabby civilian clothes, a raincoat and hat, was getting out of a black car further down the road. He walked briskly ahead of me towards number eighty-four, and the guards exchanged a greeting with him before he went inside. There was something about the way he walked that was familiar. By the time I got inside though, there was no sign of him.
I’d forgotten about him by the time it came to lunchtime. Bauer and Schuster were in the habit of playing cards, and I sometimes joined them if the cells were quiet. Today we were playing for cigarettes as usual. The ornately plastered ceiling, from when this had been a palatial apartment, was already stained yellow with nicotine. I looked up over my hopeless hand at Schuster’s wide beaming face as he laid down his run of four kings. His hands were scrubbed clean, and it was hard to believe he was the cause of the suffering I knew must go on behind those cell doors.
‘Luck of the devil.’ Bauer sulkily scraped up the cards and dealt another round.
I’d just picked up my hand, when laughing voices and footsteps in the corridor
made us swivel to look towards the open door. It was a black-uniformed SS officer, with the man in the raincoat I’d seen earlier. The officer turned to look into the room, and the guards immediately stood to attention and barked out ‘Heil Hitler!’ Instinctively, I followed suit.
The moment was like a snapshot. Behind the officer, Jérôme’s eyes met mine and his smile died. His eyes flashed in astonishment. Immediately, his expression changed to one of indifference. He didn’t acknowledge me, or give any indication he’d ever seen me before. He didn’t speak a word, but turned his head away, pretending to study the view from the window behind.
‘Is Herr Vogt in his office?’ the officer asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ Bauer answered.
‘Best enjoy your break then, those cells will soon be heaving.’
They moved on. What was Jérôme doing here? He’d been speaking German only a moment ago. I replayed the moment in my head. He wasn’t expecting to see me, and I’d blown his cover. Like me, he was obviously under the pay of the Germans. When had he changed sides? Had he been a spy all along? But in this case, unlike with me, Félix, Antoine and Berenice couldn’t know.
‘Your turn,’ Bauer’s voice broke into my thoughts.
‘What?’ I glanced at my hand and threw down the first card.
‘Fool,’ he said. ‘What are you doing? I win.’
I didn’t care; I had too much to think about. Jérôme might denounce me to Vogt. One thing was clear; it wouldn’t be long before Vogt found out I was also working for the French, if he didn’t know already. The files I had copied, the transmissions I’d falsified; they all came back to me with sickening clarity.
I needed breathing space. ‘Call of nature, lads,’ I said, throwing down my cards.
In a daze, I went into the cubicle and locked the door. My hands shook. I pressed them against the icy tiles of the wall.
I’d have to run. Now was the time. I’d just walk out of there before anyone knew I’d gone. What then? I’d have the Nazi army and the French Resistance after me. No time to think. I had to act.
I took a deep breath and opened the cubicle door. I stepped out into the corridor and bumped straight into Freitag.
‘Exciting times,’ he said, grinning down at me. ‘We had a tip-off. The cells are full, and Vogt can’t do it all. Vogt says you’re to go in and translate for the interrogations in five and seven.’
‘What?’ I felt blood drain from my face.
He waited for me to walk ahead of him in the narrow corridor. Shit, I couldn’t turn and run now.
I headed into the office aiming for nonchalance, my heart thudding wildly.
Freitag pointed. ‘There’s paper and a clipboard on the shelf just there. Bauer and Schuster have just been briefed to expect you, and they’re waiting. Files are in the pigeonholes over there. Numbers five and seven.’
I found the files and opened them. In number five was René Fireille, a man accused of secretly giving a Jew his ration book. M’sieur Fireille was also suspected of being a member of the Communist Party. His file was thin, but the second file was much thicker.
I glanced at the name, but had to read it again. ‘Berenice Severin.’
It couldn’t be her. I flicked it open. A passport photo. Berenice was staring ahead in that glassy way of all passport photographs. A typewritten memo was attached. ‘Jewish family Bechstein discovered in the cellar of her business. Interrogate and execute.’
CHAPTER 27
Fireille was a pale young man in broken spectacles who already seemed to have been beaten around the head, as one of his eyes was half-closed and his ear was dripping blood. He shrank back in terrified silence before Schuster even opened his mouth. In the cell next door Bauer was in with Vogt and a member of the SS, and the noises from there were enough to make bile rise in my throat.
Schuster tied Fireille to a chair with little protest and began his questioning. My job was to translate the questions into French and then translate the French back into German and make notes. I sat as far away as I could and shrank in my shirt, as if by doing so I might isolate myself from what might happen next, as Schuster began his work. It was clear he enjoyed this intimidation; a strange fire lit his eyes; a pungent smell of his sweat inside the serge of his uniform filled the room.
I did my best to make Schuster’s questions sound reasonable, but Fireille was incoherent, his eyes wide with terror.
‘I don’t know any Jews. I just keep myself to myself. I have a wife and children. I’d never do anything…’
‘But your ration book was found in Auerbach’s pocket. How do you explain that?’ No matter how measured my questions, Fireille’s eyes stayed fixed on Schuster pacing behind me, his body coiled like a compressed spring.
Schuster frowned at me. ‘You’re not like Vogt,’ he said. ‘You’re taking too much nonsense. We need to do it quicker. I’ll show you.’
I wondered if he’d a bet on it, or whether it was just his anxiety to cause pain.
It took less than fifteen minutes to establish that Fireille was a member of the Communist Party and force him to supply us with names and addresses. Of course, it helped that Schuster produced a tray of pliers, knives and a bloodstained hammer, and threatened to hit him in the jaw with it until his teeth fell out.
That, and the animal screams from next door, soon obtained the result, though it wasn’t the result Schuster wanted.
‘He was no fun,’ he said to me as he locked the cell door again and we emerged back into the light of the corridor. ‘He didn’t put up a fight.’ Schuster cracked his knuckles. It felt like a preparation, and my stomach swooped with fear for Berenice.
Time was running out. There was only one chance for Berenice, and I didn’t know if I could do it or whether she’d be in any state to know what was happening. The only chance of her escape depended on my impeccable timing. The thought of it made me light-headed.
Concentrate, Fred. I wiped my hands down my trousers; they were damp and sticky with sweat. If it went wrong, we’d both end up dead.
‘I need a smoke,’ Schuster said, pocketing the key. He headed for the guardroom. I went back to my desk and took out Berenice’s file. In it, I read that she had been a suspect for years. The file had a page about her son, Pierre, and a note to cross-reference it with his file. So they still didn’t know Antoine was Pierre. I wondered if he was in one of the other cells. Shit, what a mess.
I followed Schuster’s rolling walk back to the guardroom. On the way back, one of the cell doors opened and Vogt, followed by Bauer and another guard, crowded out of the door dragging a short, dark-haired man with them. Even though his face was a mess, and one arm seemed to be broken, I recognised Félix straight away.
He saw me staring, and in one contemptuous movement he hawked and spat. The blood and phlegm landed on my shoe. ‘Rot in hell, you bastard.’
The men dragged him away. Vogt said, ‘Do you know him?’
‘Never seen him before,’ I said. ‘Who is he?’
‘Félix Armand. Head of a Resistance group. He’s not talking now, but he will. After they give him the water treatment.’
My face stiffened. Vogt’s scrutiny of me was just a little too long, before he walked off towards his office. He knows.
My blood stopped in my veins. Should I run? And leave Berenice behind?
Félix thought it was me who’d betrayed them. He didn’t know about Jérôme. So that meant Berenice probably didn’t either.
Stay calm. Do nothing to arouse their suspicion. Behave normally.
Christ, how could I do that?
‘Pass me the file,’ Schuster said. ‘Bauer says the woman in number seven is Pierre Severin’s mother. The one in number five just let it slip.’
Oh Félix. I turned my head so he couldn’t see my reaction. When I turned back, Schuster was pawing Berenice’s file, and the sight of his predatory attention made me cringe. The waiting to go into that cell tightened the tendons in my neck until my shoulders were as hard as
a rock. I picked at the stuffing in the threadbare arm of the chair, and in desperation I took a cigarette from Schuster’s pack and inhaled the stink into my lungs. I held it, feeling the fizz of it hit my veins, then blew out. Better. I was calmer. Knew what I must do. I felt the weight of the gun dragging on my inside jacket pocket.
‘We need to find out where her son’s hiding, and get names out of her. Names of who supplies the false papers. This one’s a fighter. Bauer says she scratched like hell. He found the death capsule in the fold of her ear. Still, if she wants to be dead, she’ll be dead soon enough. But not before we’ve found out what we need. You can just leave it to me — you just translate what she says, all right? I can handle her.’
Crazy. He was congratulating himself on being able to intimidate her, a woman twice his age. He pulled himself up taller, unlocked the door.
Berenice looked smaller than I remembered, like an old woman. Dark shadows hung under her eyes and her hair was limp, bedraggled. She was wearing her familiar café outfit of grey blouse and black skirt, but the skirt was ripped and the blouse had a sleeve torn. Blue bruises made a map on her arms, which were tied behind her back with what looked to be her own shoelaces. Her flat black shoes gaped open.
Before Schuster could speak, I spoke rapidly in French: ‘You don’t know me. Do exactly what I say and I’ll get us both out of here.’
‘Like you got us in here, you mean?’ Berenice said bitterly.
‘What’s she saying?’ Schuster was displeased. He liked to do the talking.
‘I said, “This is a German officer, you must do exactly what he says,” and I won’t translate her reply.’
Berenice turned her head away. I wasn’t sure if she’d understood any of my German, but her mouth turned down in disgust.
Schuster paced. He was annoyed, but I could see he was unsure of my status. Was I representing Vogt, in which case I was his superior, or was I just his assistant? ‘You’d best leave it to me,’ he said. ‘I’m used to this. You can sit over there and write down what she says, all right?’
The Occupation Page 21
