The brown eyes intent, probing. Ben said – relaxedly, glancing from him to Solange – ‘She’s a great kid. Brave as’ – half-smiling, still looking at her – ‘some gentle little lioness.’
‘That’s a nice description.’
It wasn’t bad. The green eyes, tawny hair – and her quietness, self-containment. She was remarkably resilient. Age nineteen – and quite alone, with that frightful business still vivid in her very recent memory.
There’d been no mention by either of them of his spur-of-the-moment suggestion about taking her to England. He’d been hoping ever since the morning after that she might not have heard it, or remembered, or understood what he’d tried to say.
Vidor asked him, ‘Those the old man’s clothes you’re wearing?’
‘Yeah. The others were in rags. And she’d burnt my reefer jacket – how d’you like that?’
Vidor smiling at her: ‘You burnt his uniform?’
‘Before he came. I thought if they came back to search—’
‘Quite right.’ He came back to business. ‘Ben, listen. We’ve got until the weekend – for this moon. I’ve suggested a decision by Thursday night, between us and London. So – if there’s no change between now and then – what d’you say, do we risk it here, or—’
‘Vidor.’ Solange handed him a mug of coffee.
‘I adore you.’ He smiled at her. ‘Don’t tell Pierre, huh?’ Her boyfriend Pierre, son of a local fisherman, had been in a work-camp in Germany for a year now. She’d told Ben she’d almost forgotten what he looked like.
Ben took his own mug from her, told her in Australian, ‘You’re a beaut, Solange.’
‘Oh.’ The shy smile, that one. ‘Sanks.’
Vidor raised his eyebrows: ‘Language classes?’
‘Well – you know – long, quiet evenings…’
‘Ah. Yes…’ Treating her to that thoughtful gaze of his: she’d laughed briefly, gone back to the stove. He turned back to Ben: ‘What do you say?’
‘What change could there be?’
‘I don’t know. Troop withdrawal, maybe?’
‘Not likely, is it? Why now?’
A shrug. ‘Good question.’
‘You’re telling me London know there’s a doubt, but if you give them the OK, they’ll come – so it’s our decision?’
‘Right.’ Vidor nodded. ‘Big one, too. You – us – your gunboat… Has to be our decision – not mine. OK?’
* * *
She was back on the same chair: if they hadn’t tied her to it she’d have fallen off. How long she’d been unconscious she didn’t know, but she was still soaking wet, her clothes plastered to her, although the bath itself and a time when she’d believed she had been drowning seemed like a far more distant memory.
She could see the outline of her bra through the wet, smudged cotton, remembered the thought she’d had earlier – that when the time came – when she was back in her cell and had a hand free—
Still there, still intact. Moving that arm slightly, she could feel it. Given the chance, she’d have done it now, this moment. She’d been right in that guess, you didn’t have to think about it.
Prinz’s voice: ‘They tell me you tried to drown yourself.’ Focusing on him. He’d looked taller behind the desk. Short legs, fat hips, Himmler-type pale face. Prime specimen of the Master Race.
‘Obviously more drastic persuasion is necessary. I won’t allow you to kill yourself – you’ll either endure quite incredible levels of pain, or you’ll see reason. Again, I advise the latter.’
If only in that forest she’d been quicker off the mark. Dashed out after Romeo, for instance, so they’d have had to shoot her. Or had a gun, as he’d had – that would have done it. She remembered Marilyn offering her one, in the cabin of that old paddle-steamer.
An age ago…
Prinz had turned away, opened a desk drawer.
‘This may do the trick.’ He held the object in front of her face: a pair of pliers, handles encased in red rubber, the business-end shiny steel, new-looking. She thought – cringing, an immediate reflex, it was one of the things she’d feared – Fingernails. Oh, Jesus Christ…
Help me, Jesus?
‘Strip her.’ Pointing, with the pliers. ‘To the waist.’
Not fingernails.
The bra, the cyanide… Slam of the door – no way out? Beyond that – much closer – a mounting awareness of overwhelming horror – understanding – she couldn’t not, couldn’t hold it off, couldn’t continue to keep out of mind the recollection of a whisper heard a year or so ago and deliberately – imperatively – shut out. She begged frantically, No, not possible, not even these people – Christ, don’t let them!
‘No!’ Her own voice, high and querulous: repeating on an even higher, longer note, ‘N-o-o!’
The big one clumsily pulled her blouse open, jerked it back over here shoulders. A wet rag – the cord held it there. She’d shut her eyes: not to see either Prinz or the other, and by shutting them out coming as near as she could to not letting them see her.
Prinz’s voice: ‘Yes – of course, that too.’
Her bra.
A hand on her shoulder held her forward against the cord: thick fingers between her shoulder blades fumbled at the catch.
‘Here.’ Prinz used a knife: she heard it click open, then felt a tug and the bra came loose, was pulled away: opening her eyes, she saw him just let it drop. He was staring at her breasts. Fingers gripped her chin then, tilting her face up… ‘Look at me!’
‘No. No – please—’
‘Guessed what I’m going to do, have you?’
Jesus had prayed, Take this cup from me—
‘Guessed, have you?’
The other one had murmured something in German. Prinz said in his atrocious French, ‘She knows how to stop this. Open her eyes, pull the lids up.’
More German. An appeal, by the sound of it.
‘Do it!’
Hazy, unfocused, and pulsing actually in her eyeballs: as if her brain was swelling, about to burst out. Heart thudding, shaking her whole body.
‘So pretty. Very pretty.’ Fingers stroked her breasts, touched the nipples. She struggled to twist away against the chair, the cord, the big one’s hands: the thumb and middle finger of one hand pulling her eyelids up, the other now brought into use, clamped over her mouth. Prinz was asking her, ‘Are you choosing to cooperate?’
She might have nodded. Agreed to anything. There’d never been any concept in her mind of such horror: the threat in itself, her certainty that he’d go through with it, terror of something even beyond the ultimate in pain – and with it, a part of it, the disfigurement – and virtual certainty that her screams would fuse into outpourings of treachery, self-destruction in the course of destroying everything of the greatest, truest value.
‘Look. See this.’
The pliers: through a fog of terror as well as utter loathing. She was fighting, trying to get her teeth into that hand, screaming like an animal, writhing, Prinz murmuring calmly, ‘Now then…’ Cold steel touched that nipple, moved against it as the pliers opened: ‘If you want to change your mind—’
‘She’s gone.’
‘What d’you mean, gone? Fainted, is all—’
‘Not so sure, looked more like a heart—’
‘Revive her. Get a bucket – cold water—’
Surfacing, she heard a door open. Something like a wire was biting into her chest. Gagging, mouth open, slime welling, hanging – the feel of it made her retch again. Somewhere close, Germans were shouting at each other. Heels stamped across a board floor and a door banged shut. A hand on her shoulder pulled her upright in the chair, and the wire cutting into her – it was a cord, she remembered – went loose. Whoever it was – oh, the big one, Prinz’s subordinate – jerked the sodden blouse together over her breasts, muttered in heavily accented French, ‘Seems you’re in luck.’
18
She’d been dragged back to her own
cell, left there in semi-delirium for – she’d little idea – one hour, six hours – then hauled out again – thinking, This time, they’ll finish it, please God – and pushed into another one – bigger – in which a blanket-covered human form crouching against the back wall had turned out to be a man.
‘Pascal Erdos. Who are you?’
‘Jeanne-Marie Lefèvre.’ Her knees still felt as if they were on fire, and her legs were throbbing agony from ankle to hip. She’d more or less collapsed into the corner behind the door. Telling him – Erdos – after some interval – ‘If you don’t mind, I want to sleep.’
The bucket routine was going to be an additional discomfort now. It was part of the reason she resented having to share a cell with him. Would have preferred to have been alone in any case, psychologically to lick her wounds, work up new strength: if she could find any… Also, though, she suspected the motive behind this – theirs, and this person’s.
Sunburnt face, balding head – a lot of forehead anyway – and the whites of his eyes unnaturally bright in the tanned skin. Staring at her, and beginning to chatter – somewhat chimp-like… ‘Why they’d have put you in with me, is what bothers me. No offence – but usually it’s either solitary or all-women or all-men. Not that I’ve been locked up before – going by what one’s heard, I admit… Might you be S.O.E. -by any chance?’
‘I suppose they’ve set this up so you can question me.’
Aesop’s fable about the sun and the wind competing to persuade some character to strip off. Kindness succeeding where violence had failed. It was an old dodge, anyway, one had often been warned about it. Erdos told her, ‘I was wondering the same of you.’
‘Well – I’d be content not to exchange another word… Except – you said your name’s – Erdos? Are you French?’
‘Born Hungarian, French by adoption. My guess is you are S.O.E. – or you were – but I don’t mind telling you – these bastards know it already – I’m RF Section, or was. Tell you another thing—’
‘Don’t tell me anything.’
RF Section was a kind of parallel to F Section – hers – set up as a separate operational unit and employing only French agents. The object had been to propitiate de Gaulle, take the steam out of his anti-S.O.E. attitudes and manoeuvrings. They liaised with his people and had a base of their own in Dorset Square.
‘Tell you, anyway. Not that I’d want you to count on it – my guess, that’s all – that they’ve put us together because we’re both on our way to Paris. What I can’t tell you is whether it’ll be Avenue Foch or Rue de Saussaies. This lot here were all S.D., you see, Gestapo have now displaced them. What the English call a bit of a bugger’s muddle, at the moment.’
‘What makes you think we’re being moved?’
‘I know I am, and they’ve stuck you in here with me, so’ – he shrugged – ‘if there’s any method in their foulness… Have they been giving you a bad time?’
She shut her eyes, leant the intact side of her head back against the wall.
‘Sooner not talk about it.’
‘OK. For what it’s worth, though, I’m sorry.’
If he was right about being moved to Paris – well, it was pretty well par for the course, and whether one would be in Gestapo or S.D. hands at that stage didn’t make much difference. After they’d finished with you, you might be shunted on to Fresnes prison for a while, en route to Ravensbruck or one of the other death-camps. Or, miss out Fresnes.
Prinz’s assistant hadn’t let her have her bra back. He’d allowed her to recover her wooden shoes, but when she’d wanted the bra he’d growled something negative in German – perhaps that with the strap cut it wouldn’t be any use to her – and he’d physically stopped her when she’d reached to pick it up. So – effectively, one was a lump of meat. Or an animal waiting to become a lump of meat. No hope, no exit. Shut the mind.
Pascal Erdos had his head back too, and his eyes shut. Monk-like more than monkey-like, in that blanket. He’d watched her closely while they’d been talking, must have seen that she had on only the thin, damp blouse and that she was shaking like a jelly, but he’d done nothing, offered nothing.
Perhaps the blanket was all he had. If he was naked under it he’d hardly have offered it to her.
The sickening fact that was beginning to sink in now was that her carefully contrived Jacqui Clermont setup had gone for six. She’d been so sure that she’d got it up and running and that it would continue to run either with or without her own participation, but it had hinged on Romeo getting to London and telling S.I.S. about the ‘Rosalie’ password. Jacqui wouldn’t deal with anyone who introduced herself in any other way, so – full stop. She – Rosie – had not been so bloody clever.
The field reports would come in, of course – to César, or whoever came in to replace him. Plumier’s death would have left a gap in that chain, unfortunately – but the others would all know of it, make their own alternative arrangements. And a lot would go straight to London – touch wood – some of it no doubt by the secret mail route to the Brittany coast and across-Channel by hand of Ben Quarry, et al.
Interception of Baker Street’s signals had to be the Achilles heel. It couldn’t have been César because if it had been it would mean he personally had instigated the ambush at Hêtre de Poilu, and to have done that he’d have had to be in touch with the local Army Command: so this lot upstairs would have been in the know, would hardly have gone to such lengths to extract information which they’d already have possessed – the drops, locations, recipients, all the stuff she’d given César in writing.
And they knew about him, for Christ’s sake! Prinz’s complacent tones swam up out of memory: I’ll have Rossier on that chair, before much longer.
She’d caught her breath, gasped, ‘Oh, Christ—’
‘Huh?’ The Hungarian… ‘You all right?’
‘Yes. Only’ – she shut her eyes again – ‘talking to myself.’
‘Best not to think about any of this more than you have to. Think about pleasant things, if you can… Married are you? No – too young… How about a lover?’
How about minding your own bloody business, she thought. But her first impression might have been wrong, perhaps he wasn’t all that bad. He nodded – thinking back on the advice he’d just given her – ‘Easier said than done, I know.’
She managed a smile, in response to his. ‘Have they hurt you?’
‘Well.’ A shrug, inside the blanket. ‘Hurt I think is rather a funny little word, in that context… But – yes, they know what they’re about, don’t they… D’you know – oh, I don’t want to be a bore, come over all introspective—’
‘Go on.’
‘Well – I think it’s the first time I ever found myself actively hating someone. Consciously, actually full of it. Of course, hate and fear are first cousins, I realize that, but—’ He paused… ‘Do you hate them?’
‘I have done for a long time. Not just for this. In fact I think I’d say hate is a funny little word.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t agree. To me it’s like a knife – either the sound or the look of it on paper. It has an edge to it, it cuts!’
‘Something to do with language, are you?’
‘Was.’ He raised his hands in surrender. ‘I was a lecturer at the Sorbonne – for two years—’
The bolt scraped back on the outside of the door. Erdos finished – ‘In modern languages… Whatever this is, good luck.’
‘Same to you.’
‘The two of you—’ It was the big man, Prinz’s assistant. In uniform, with a pistol on his belt. He was a sergeant. ‘On your feet… Out!’
‘Out –’ struggling up, using both the walls in her corner – ‘like this?’
Meaning the way she was dressed: the thought of being moved to Paris in such a state… The German grabbed her by an arm, jerked her into the doorway, saw the pain she was in, and let go: she leant there, two uniformed guards in the passage staring at her out of quite startlin
gly brutish faces. Behind her Erdos murmured, ‘I’d give you this blanket, except—’
‘Thanks, but—’
‘No talking to each other!’
The passage – not towards the lavatory, the other way – to narrow stairs leading up into the vestibule. Stone pillars, printed notices on some of them – posters in red and black announcing executions carried out. Two black-uniformed Germans and a Frenchman in plain clothes paused in their jokey conversation, staring at her and the Hungarian as they passed. Outside, she saw that it was early evening: she’d thought of it as being later, wouldn’t have been surprised by pitch darkness. Hobbling down the steps to the pavement, wooden shoes clacking on the stone although she was putting them down as gently as she could so as to jar her knees as little as possible – and the guard beside her in his jackboots and helmet staying level but showing impatience at her slow progress. Erdos behind her with his own guard clomping down: he was bare-footed, she remembered.
There was a camouflage-painted staff-car waiting, with a soldier-driver behind its wheel. Prinz’s man got to it ahead of them, jerked the rear passenger door open and gestured brusquely at her to get in.
Her knees didn’t like being bent…
‘Isn’t this a treat.’ Erdos, shoved from behind, dumped himself beside her, the door slammed and the big man was going round to the other side, to the front passenger seat. Erdos nudged her: ‘Notice we’re not handcuffed?’
Until that moment, she hadn’t thought of it. Prinz’s man was forcing his bulk in, in front of her, and having some difficulty getting that door to shut. The other guards were going back up into the building. Erdos muttered, ‘Door’s not locked either, this side.’
‘Talking is not permitted!’
He’d shouted it with his head slightly sideways – as if trying to see out of his left ear. Too bulky to swivel round, and on that colossal neck his head probably couldn’t turn much either. The driver pushed the car into gear, revving the engine as he pulled out from the kerb: Erdos whispered, ‘Any chance we get – out this side – join me?’
Into the Fire Page 31
