‘Pooh,’ said Céci wrinkling her nose. ‘Like Charlot when he got shut in. Oh, sorry, madame.’
The woman she had stumbled against didn’t protest or move, not even when Pauli close behind made the same error and almost fell on her, putting his hand against her shoulder to steady himself.
‘Come on, Céci,’ he said. ‘Over here. Hurry up.’
They reached the lavatory door. It was pointless going on. The room was literally overflowing. Céci squatted down and quickly relieved herself.
On their way back, she said, ‘I’m hungry.’
‘We’ll get some food soon.’
‘Why doesn’t maman send us some food? Granpa would send us some biscuits if he knew we were here, wouldn’t he, Pauli?’
‘Of course he would. Lots,’ assured Pauli. He’d told his sister that they were camping here for a few days while their mother went with daddy to get some fruit from the countryside. It was a story the little girl was ready to accept as she had absolute faith in her brother. But he couldn’t talk her out of feeling hungry.
Sophie Simonian had packed a little food in her old carpet bag, inspired by distant memory of her flight from Russia. She eked it out to them in dribs and drabs once she realized that no one seemed interested in feeding them. But it couldn’t last for ever and already they’d been here in the Vél d’Hiv three, or was it four nights? Dysentery was already rife. It couldn’t be long before even worse epidemics broke out. There’d actually been a doctor in the place yesterday. She’d got within earshot of him and heard him respond angrily to a woman demanding more of his time and attention, ‘There are two of us, madame, two for all these people. The Germans won’t let any more of us in at a time. What can I do?’
You can go home at night, thought Sophie. Go home and sit with your family and try to put us out of your mind.
This was the hardest thing to bear, the knowledge that out there within only a few yards there were French families eating, drinking, laughing, playing. This sense of abandonment, of devaluation, was potentially the most dangerous thing of all. Yesterday a young woman had somehow got on to the grandstand roof and with one last scream of despair plunged out of sight. Sophie could never forget that scream. She seemed to hear it now…
Violently she erupted out of her fitful feverish half-sleep. The echo of a scream did hang on the air, and about fifty yards away there was a lot of commotion. Swiftly the word passed…another jumper…woman…five children…not dead but dying…
Then with a coldness which made the night air like a jet of steam, Sophie realized the children were no longer with her.
‘Pauli!’ she cried. And sobbed with relief as a voice answered instantly, ‘Here, Bubbah.’
Next moment they were back.
‘Ceci wanted pi-pi,’ explained the boy.
‘I’m hungry,’ said the girl.
Her attention was diverted by the sudden wail of mourning which rose from close by.
‘What’s that, Bubbah?’ asked Céci sleepily.
‘Nothing. Just some people making a noise,’ said Sophie.
Already, thank God, the child was going back to sleep. She glanced at her grandson, old eyes somehow sharper in the dark than they had been when she was a girl.
Thank heaven he also seemed too preoccupied to pay much attention to the noise.
‘What are you doing, Pauli,’ she asked.
‘Nothing. Just cleaning my hands, Bubbah,’ he explained.
‘Good boy. That’s good. You have to keep clean,’ she approved. ‘Then go back to sleep.’
‘Yes, Bubbah.’
Satisfied, she let her own head sag back and soon the shallow waves of time-breaking sleep lapsed around her again. While in the darkness by her side her grandson, Pauli, tried to cleanse his hand of the blood that had stained it ever since he stumbled on the woman and steadied himself with his fingers against her deep-gashed throat.
‘No!’ said Delaplanche. ‘Definitely no. I cannot help her. You even less. You must not even try!’
‘I must do what I can,’ retorted Valois angrily.
‘And what’s that? Make enough fuss to draw attention to yourself and in the end achieve nothing? Listen Christian, they’ve rounded up God knows how many Jews, fifteen thousand minimum I’d say. Now just imagine how many of them have got friends, often influential friends, trying to help them. And if one half of one per cent achieve anything, I’ll be amazed! And this man, your friend, he’s lying in bed wounded by German bullets, you say? God, man! Suppose you draw attention to him? Suppose they discover that the head of this family you’re so anxious about is what they call a terrorist? What then? You’ll be a marked man!’
‘It’s no good,’ said Valois defiantly. ‘I have to do what I can. I’ve already written to my father asking for help.’
He stood, fists clenched, expecting anger.
Instead, to his surprise, Delaplanche began to smile.
‘To your father? That’s good. If that’s what you mean by help, write all you will, my boy. To your father! Write away, write away!’
And chuckling still, in a much better humour than when they had encountered, Delaplanche left.
Madame Crozier threw her apron up over her head and rocked to and fro crooning, ‘Oh the children, oh the poor poor children.’
Claude Crozier held his daughter tight.
‘My poor girl,’ he said. ‘My poor girl. This is too much to bear. You should have come to us earlier. Why didn’t you come to us earlier?’
Before Janine could answer, his wife’s flour-smudged, tear-streaked face surfaced from the apron.
‘Because she doesn’t trust us, that’s why. Because she’s cut herself off from us and doesn’t think we’ve got any rights in the welfare of our own grandchildren. Oh the poor children!’
Janine broke free from her father’s grip. Five days of suffering showed on her face; five days of nursing Jean-Paul, who kept on sliding back into fever, five days of listening to meaningless reassurances from Christian that they were being held in the cycling stadium and would be quite safe; five days of using every rare minute she could get away from the flat to beg for news at the police station or to wander with many hundreds of others, disconsolately, desperately, in the streets outside the Vélodrome d’Hiver, hoping somehow for a message, a glimpse. Five days of this, with the fear in her heart all the time that to press too close, to make too much of a fuss, might draw the attention of the authorities to Jean-Paul, unregistered, unstarred, lying between life and death with three German bullet holes in his body.
Even her relief at Jean-Paul’s lucid intervals was soured by his enquiries after the children, his puzzlement that his mother didn’t bring them to visit him.
All this had pared the already meagre layers of flesh on her face almost to the bone and her eyes shone huge at the promised luxury of burying her grief for a moment under an outpouring of fury at her mother’s accusation. Then she recognized the impulse for the indulgence that it was, recognized too that her mother’s intemperate words were her attempt to build a shield against the pain she felt. Her anger drained away and with it her strength.
‘Oh maman,’ she said, collapsing on to a chair. ‘I should have told you sooner only there’s been so much…and I didn’t want to cause you pain…I thought it might all come all right…children, why should they want to lock up children…’
‘Because of their name,’ flashed Louise. Then she caught her husband’s gaze over their daughter’s head and for once was cowed by it.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said what I said. It’s not Jean-Paul’s fault that…nor old Sophie’s…it’s just that if you hadn’t…’
‘If I hadn’t married him, you’d have no grandchildren to worry about,’ said Janine dully.
‘Oh the poor children,’ wept Louise. ‘Crozier, what are we going to do?’
As Claude Crozier stood there regarding his wife helplessly the door opened and Michel Boucher’s sunburst of red hair appear
ed.
‘What’s all this then? You’ve got a bigger crowd of people listening in your shop than if you’d announced an extra baking of baguettes!’
‘Oh Miche!’ cried Janine and ran and embraced him.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Trouble again, is it? I’m away in the country for a few days and this family’s up to its neck in trouble. Tell me everything.’
His natural jollity faded then vanished altogether as he heard what had taken place.
‘Pauli and Céci!’ he exclaimed indignantly. ‘The bastards. Do they not know who they are? We’ll have to see about this!’
Janine looked at him hopefully.
‘You think you can help, Miche?’
He opened his mouth to give her the big reassurances, the all-embracing promises which so naturally arose there. Then he saw her desperate face, and behind her, Claude’s sad and warning eyes.
‘Maybe,’ he said gently. ‘Who can tell? But I’ll try. I promise you that. No one will try harder. And at least we know where they are, cousin. That’s a start, eh? At least we know where they are!’
‘Yes,’ said Janine dully. ‘We know where they are.’
‘Up! Up! Up! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Come on there! For God’s sake, you people have been moaning about this place for days, now we’re trying to move you, all you want is to sit around enjoying the view. Up! Up! Up!’
Sophie Simonian rose slowly, leaning heavily on Pauli’s shoulder. It was just old bones, she told herself, nothing more. It had rained the previous night, the wind drifting it in under the scanty protection of the stand roof. Old bones soaked up cold and damp, but it was nothing that a bit of exercise wouldn’t loosen and lubricate.
She took a step forward, swayed and almost fainted.
‘Bubbah, are you all right?’ said Pauli anxiously.
‘Yes, my dear. Fine. I think I’ve forgotten how to walk, that’s all. Never mind. I’ll soon leap again.’
‘Can you really forget things like that? How to walk, I mean?’ said Pauli.
‘Of course you can! You can forget your head if you’re not careful. You can forget everything.’
‘I don’t think I’ll ever forget this place, Bubbah,’ said Pauli seriously as he helped his little sister up. ‘Céci, you’ll have to walk. Bubbah can’t carry you and I’ve got to carry the bag. Take Bubbah’s hand.’
‘Where are we going, Pauli? Are we going home?’
Pauli looked up at his grandmother.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Later perhaps. But not today. The holiday’s not over yet. Come on, children. Come on.’
Slowly they joined the long shuffling queues winding towards the stadium exits. Slowly the huge stadium emptied, but not completely. The detritus of all those days remained blowing around in the summer wind, and amidst it here and there lay crumpled forms of those too decrepit to obey the instruction to rise. Policemen moved among them, prodding with foot and truncheon to diagnose the seriousness of each one’s condition. Gradually they were lifted or dragged away and men and women with brooms and buckets started the long task of clearing up.
Two cleaning women went beneath the stadium to the toilets. The stench as they approached made them gag. One pushed open the door.
‘Oh Jesus Mary!’ she exclaimed. ‘Look at that! That’s disgusting!’
The other peered in.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Filthy bastards, these Jews. My husband always said it. Plain naturally filthy.’
12
‘Günter. Back already? Isn’t it strange how other people’s leave seems to pass even more quickly than one’s own?’
Mai was sitting in the Lutétia’s lounge enjoying a coffee, which he’d found almost unobtainable at home. He’d just got back, having travelled overnight. Fortunately he had the gift of being able to sleep anywhere.
‘And how was Offenburg? Dull as ever? But perhaps you’ve got some really interesting addresses in that little black book of yours. I don’t suppose you even had time to pop down the river and see my mama.’
Ever since Mai had been foolish enough to remark on his grandfather’s buttons with the horn and Zed, the major had mockingly urged him to take a trip along the Rhine to Schloss Zeller for a chat about old times with his mother. One of these leaves he’d take the bastard by surprise and do it.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Next time perhaps. I spent a lot of time in Strasbourg. I always preferred that side of the river. Funny, it feels even more French now it’s not.’
‘Careful, Günter. You never know who’s listening.’
‘I think I do, sir,’ said Mai, lighting his pipe. ‘Has anything interesting happened since I’ve been away?’
Zeller laughed and said, ‘What? Asking me for information, and you must have been back all of thirty minutes? You’re slipping.’
Ignoring the sarcasm Mai said, ‘Before I went there was a rumour about our friends planning a big anti-Jewish operation.’
‘Oh yes. Operation Printanier. It missed its target by fifty per cent I gather, but they still locked up fifteen thousand.’
‘Good God. And how did the French authorities react?’
‘React? It was the French who did it. Not a single German in sight, wasn’t that marvellous? Operation Spring Wind. A thousand French cops using French census lists to gently waft French Jews into French concentration camps guarded by French guards.’
‘And once in the camps, what then?’
‘A trainload went east earlier in the year. No doubt there’ll be more.’
‘What a waste of time, manpower, transport!’ exclaimed Mai indignantly. ‘Forced labour I can just about understand. Sending them out to mend bomb-damage or build the new sea-wall might make sense. But this locking them up and guarding them for evermore, it’s just crazy! You don’t say anything. Don’t you agree?’
‘My dear fellow, who wouldn’t agree? It’s just that what I’ve heard makes “crazy” an…understatement.’
A mess orderly approached and clicked his heels.
‘Begging the major’s pardon, a telephone call for the lieutenant. A French lady, I think.’
‘Good Lord, Günter, hardly off the train and already they’re after you!’
‘Excuse me,’ said Mai, rising.
He moved over to the telephone and picking it up said, ‘Hello? Günter Mai.’
‘Hello! It’s Janine Simonian. Lieutenant, can I see you? Please.’
The voice was urgent, pleading. She sounded desperate. Best procedure now was to be doubtful, suggest delay, span her nerves to the point where she’d make any bargain for his help. That was what she wanted, he was in no doubt.
He said, ‘I’ll come at once. No. Give me ten minutes to change. Where?’
She said, ‘I can’t go far. The Jardin des Plantes, by the big cedar. In fifteen minutes then.’
The phone went dead.
He made his way to the switchboard and asked, ‘I’ve just had a call from a woman. I wondered, has she perhaps rung before?’
The operator looked at his log.
‘Yes, sir. There’s been some woman trying to get hold of you several times in the past couple of days.’
‘Thank you.’
He’d guessed from the sound of her voice that she was far past the stage where this would have been her first call. Perhaps it hadn’t after all been kindness that made him agree instantly to meet, but a professional awareness that she’d done all the necessary nerve-twisting for herself.
Or is that what I want to think? he wondered.
By the time he had changed out of uniform, he was late arriving at the Jardin, even though he got a car to drop him in the Rue Linne, just a hundred yards from the northwestern gate. A sudden fear came upon him that she would not have waited, not the fear of a professional who dislikes having his time wasted, but something much more irrational. He broke into a trot without thinking. As he passed beneath the amused gaze of the pair of rather mangy bronze lions just inside the gate, he said to him
self, ‘This is ridiculous! I’m trying to look inconspicuous!’ But he didn’t slow to a walk till he’d turned up the track towards the cedar and saw her slim figure standing impatiently beneath its magnificent spread of summer-heavy branches.
She started speaking rapidly as soon as he arrived, but now he was in control again, the trained Abwehr man playing with the potential agent. He waved her words aside without even looking at her and collapsed on the stone bench round the bole of the tree.
‘All right, all right, give me a minute,’ he said breathing heavily. It came easy, playing the part of a man much older and much less fit. After a moment, he took out his pipe, filled it and putting it in his mouth said as he struck a match, ‘Now you can begin.’
He looked up at her as he spoke and his voice faltered a little as he saw close the face which matched the desperate voice. Sunken cheeks, bloodless skin, deep-shadowed eyes, all combined to make her look more like some spirit of the underworld, begging release, than the lively young woman he remembered.
‘Madame Simonian, please, won’t you sit down. You’re ill.’
‘No, no, I’m not ill,’ she said, sitting by him. ‘Please, listen to me, you must help me. There’s no one else.’
The story came pouring out - the arrest of Sophie and the children, their imprisonment in the Vél d’Hiv, her vain attempts to see them - and then her discovery that they’d been moved out of the stadium.
‘I can’t find out where,’ she sobbed. ‘Some say it’s somewhere in the Loiret. Are there camps there? What do you want with them? What can you want with little children? People near the stadium said you took them away in cattle-trucks. Why should you do that? Why should you put children and old women into cattle-trucks? It’s monstrous, monstrous! Oh please help me, lieutenant! Please, please, you’ve got to, I beg you - I’ll do anything!’
Her tone switched from bitter accusation to desperate pleading and back again without modulation as she spoke. Tears ran down the wasted cheeks. People walking past were looking towards them and Mai put his arm around her shoulders and said helplessly, ‘Please, please…Janine…I beg you…’
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