by Alex Gerlis
Owen was shocked. Apart from the German prisoners he had seen clearing rubble while driving through Boulogne, this was the first time he had come face to face with any Germans, despite being at war with them for over five years. Gaston spat on the ground, in the direction of the prisoners. André shot them a mocking smile. But it was not Owen they were looking at, nor Gaston or the officer. This group of men with their grey prison uniform and hollow eyes, huddled together in the drizzle against the grey brick, could not take their eyes off André. It was unsettling, as if they recognised him.
The senior officer unlocked a door at the end of the courtyard and they were now climbing down a series of steep steps.
‘Why were they all staring at you, André?’
‘Don’t you realise, Owen? They know my type, they’ve had years of training. I was supposed to have been eliminated, remember?’
They waited in a narrow corridor while the senior officer went into a small office. The steps had taken them down into what now felt like a dungeon. The only light came from a series of yellow light-bulbs, all protected by steel mesh, and the atmosphere was distinctly damp. They were now joined by a guard who led them down another corridor, through further locked door and into a small corridor with four locked doors. They paused in the corridor.
‘I will carry out the interrogation,’ said Gaston. ‘Leave it to me. André will translate for you. We do not want him to know at this stage that André speaks German, we may need that later. I will explain that you are from British Intelligence. Under no circumstances must you say anything about your relationship with her. You remain silent, you are here as an observer. You understand? You have the photographs, André?’
André nodded and turned to Owen. ‘Don’t worry. We know what we are doing.’
‘Let’s go.’ Gaston signalled to the guard who unlocked the door nearest to them.
The room was about twenty foot by twenty foot, harshly lit and windowless. Behind a metal table that was fixed to the stone floor sat a well-built man with slicked back fair hair. A guard was standing to the side of him. In front of the table were three chairs. There was nothing on the table apart from an empty ashtray.
The man stood up as they filed into the room. He was on the short side and was wearing the same grey uniform they had seen the other prisoners wearing. The guards left the room, leaving just the three of them facing Georg Lange.
André took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and tossed them onto the table, gesturing for Lange to help himself. He took out three, placed one in his mouth and two in his top pocket and smiled. André held a lit match for him and lit a cigarette for himself.
‘We are from French Intelligence,’ said Gaston, pointing at himself and André. ‘Our colleague here is from British Intelligence.’ Lange’s eyebrows raised, part surprised, part interested.
‘We are interested in finding about some of your agents. We are going to show you some photographs of Abwehr agents that we have arrested. We need to establish their true identities. We believe you may have been connected with them. It would be in your interests if you could tell us what you know about them.’
Lange leaned back, so that his wooden chair was resting on its two back legs. One arm was folded across his middle, the other holding the cigarette in front of him, the elbow resting on the folded arm. His eyes narrowed, before he replied in what to Owen sounded like immaculate French.
‘What do you mean by in my interests?’
‘I mean,’ said Gaston, ‘that if you co-operate then your chances of an early release will be greatly improved. If you fail to co-operate, then you may find that you are a guest of the French Government for many years to come.’
Lange laughed and shrugged his shoulders. ‘My understanding is that the Allies play by the rules.’ He smiled directly at Owen as André quietly translated. ‘I am a prisoner of war, gentlemen. I am covered by the Geneva Convention. I am not obliged to answer any questions. I only have to give my name, my rank and my serial number. I have done nothing wrong. There are no conceivable grounds for detaining me any longer than necessary once this war is over.’
‘You are an Abwehr officer, though.’
‘If you look at my file, gentlemen, which I am sure you have, you will see that I am a Wehrmacht officer. I was arrested in Paris on the twenty-fifth of August wearing a Wehrmacht uniform. In my file is an affidavit I have signed testifying that I am not a member of the Nazi Party, neither have I ever been a member of it. You will find no record of my being a member of the Nazi Party. I have done nothing wrong. I am very confident I will be released along with all the other Wehrmacht soldiers, because I know that there will never be any evidence that I ever did anything improper. You should not be wasting your energies on me, gentlemen. There are plenty of Nazis who you should be chasing after. Certainly, I worked in the field of military intelligence, but I do not think that is a war crime, is it? You may not choose to believe me, but I was never a Nazi. Sure, I was a loyal German, but never a Nazi. You will find no evidence that I was. I am sorry; I am aware that I may be repeating myself, but what more can I say – other than the truth?’ He inhaled deeply, folded his arms, leaned back in his chair and smiled politely.
André took an envelope out of the small briefcase he had brought with him and removed some photographs.
‘I am going to show you some photographs,’ said André. ‘They are of people we have arrested who we believe are Abwehr agents. We believe they are giving false names. We want you to tell us their real names. As we say, if you co-operate it will be in your interests.’
André placed five photographs in front of Lange, as if he was dealing from a pack of cards. They were upside down from Owen’s point of view, but he could clearly see that they were of three women and two men. Nathalie’s photograph was on Lange’s far right.
Lange studied them carefully, picking each one up and tilting it in the light. His face showed no hint of recognition whatsoever. When he had finished he placed them all down again and laid his hands flat on the table, his fingers spread out as he looked once more up and down the photographs.
‘No. I am sorry, gentlemen. I do not recognise any of these people. You understand that in military intelligence we had very little contact with French citizens. There was some, of course, but “agents”,’ he was waving his hand with the cigarette in a dismissive manner, ‘agents appear in books. Military intelligence is all about maps, codes and radio intercepts – as I’m sure you know. Very boring, actually. So, I don’t think I can help you. If you are looking for spies, then I suggest you try a library.’ He smiled at each of them in turn, anxious to convey the impression that he was genuinely sorry.
Lange helped himself to more cigarettes, this time brazenly removing four from the packet and placing three of them in his top pocket. André lit the one in his mouth for him.
Gaston hesitated as if he was not sure what to do next. He had clearly not expected Lange to stonewall them quite so effectively. ‘We have different levels of interest in these people. There is one in particular that we want to know about, more than the others.’
‘And I imagine that it is this one, am I right?’ Owen’s heart leaped and he fought to control his excitement. Lange was holding up the photograph of Nathalie. It had been taken in Hyde Park, so she was smiling and clearly out of doors. ‘Shall I tell you why? Because the other four have had their photographs taken in a police station. Mug shots. This one, I suspect, is not in custody as otherwise you would have a custody photograph of her. She is the odd one out. Am I right? Please do not treat me as if I am a fool. ‘
Gaston appeared to sigh. ‘What can you tell us about her then, Lange?’
It was impossible to calibrate, but the pause that followed felt just a fraction too long. It was enough to convince Owen that Lange was hesitating. His face was very still; if anything he was trying just too hard to show no flicker of emotion. He was allowing himself an extra split second to compose an appropriate response.
/>
‘Nothing. I have never seen her before, have I? I thought I had told you that.’
‘Are you sure, Lange? If we find out that you are lying to us then that will put you in a very difficult position.’
‘I cannot see how. If I don’t know someone, then I don’t know them, do I? Is there anything else that I can help you with?’
There was nothing. They left the prison disconsolate. The idea of placing Nathalie’s photograph among a selection of others had seemed a good idea at the time, but it had backfired. Their de-brief in the car felt desperate. Lange was smart, they agreed. He might well know Nathalie, but he was clearly not going to admit to it. The rest of the journey back to Paris was conducted in silence. Every time Owen looked up he could see Émile’s eyes darting around in the mirror. Owen was devastated. Lange had seemed to be their best bet for finding Nathalie, but he was not going to co-operate. He knew that they had no proof of the connection, so could easily block them. He could feel Nathalie slipping from his grasp after seeming to be so close.
They were dropped off in the Rue Taitbout and André and Owen trooped miserably up the stairs, with the concierge’s beady eyes following them from the entrance hall.
For a while, nothing was said. Owen sank into the sofa and helped himself to one of André’s strong cigarettes. André paced up and down, at one stage kneeling down by the box containing photographs and glancing at one or two.
Then he seemed to have an idea, turned to Owen and said ‘wait here’ and disappeared.
It was an hour before he came back. When he did, Owen was none the wiser. ‘I rang Gaston. He liked my idea. He is going back to the prison to collect something. Then I’ll take you into the sewers of Paris.’
ooo000ooo
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Strasbourg
January 1945
For the first time in five years, the bells of the Notre Dame were able to summon the New Year into a free city. The city had been occupied by the Nazis for nearly four and a half years, longer than almost any other city in France. The bells sounded muted.
There was some shouting in the street, but her mother was asleep and the baby was settling in her arms. She stood at the window, inside the drawn curtains, gently rocking. Over the rooftops, she could just make out the main spire of the cathedral, lit up for the first time in years. In a nearby street she could hear a crowd singing La Marseillaise. After the years of silence you could hardly turn a street corner without hearing that music, she thought. On the table behind her was a half-full glass of white Alsatian wine, its chill long gone. Her mother had insisted on opening a bottle, but she did not feel like celebrating.
ooo000ooo
Her son had been born on an unusually warm Tuesday afternoon at the end of October. It was an easy birth and she had been well looked after by the doctor and the women at the farm. Even the four boys seemed to respond to the baby, spending hours crowding round it, fascinated by every feature. Once the baby was born, the doctor said, the boys began to recover.
Although he had her eyes, when she looked at the baby, she could only see Owen. For most of the time, this gave her great comfort and she felt an overwhelming love for the baby and its father. When no one was listening, she would talk softly to the baby in English. ‘Everything will be all right,’ she would assure him.
At other times, she looked at the little one and the enormity of what she had done would hit her. Then she felt distant from the baby and for a few hours would just go through the motions of motherhood, before her mood changed again.
Everyone at the farm had been unsettled by the three men who had appeared near the entrance the night before the birth, but they soon reassured themselves that it was nothing. Only she and the doctor guessed they were Germans and only she had heard what they said. Their presence haunted the farm for the remainder of her stay there.
She wanted to move on soon after the birth, but the doctor persuaded her to rest. The four boys had repaired enough of the house to make it habitable and importantly, warm. To the east, parts of Alsace were still at war. Fighting was raging over the Vosges Mountains and every night the sky was streaked with Allied aircraft.
On the last Saturday of November the priest from the village came to visit them.
‘I have two pieces of news for you. The first good. The second bad.’
They had all gathered around the table in the farmhouse. The priest was enjoying being the centre of attention on a day other than Sunday. He poured a second glass of the rough vin de table that was being passed round and continued.
‘The good news is that Strasbourg has been liberated. It was two days ago, on Thursday.’
The doctor translated into Polish, German and Yiddish, which she now knew was the language he communicated to Rachel in. The Roma women understood Polish. It was a long process. There were polite nods of approval around the table. They were pleased that Strasbourg had been liberated, of course, but after what they had been through, good news would have to be much more profound.
‘Yes. There was a real battle. The Americans and the Free French broke through the Saverne Gap on Wednesday and the French Second Armoured Division entered the city at eleven in the morning on Thursday. General Philippe Leclerc was the commander who liberated the city!’
The others looked at the priest who appeared to be overcome with emotion. They all raised a glass to General Leclerc, of whom none of them had ever heard.
‘The second item of news is not so good,’ said the priest, deploying his most funereal voice.
‘Last Monday a whole family was killed at a farm not far from here, just the other side of the hill behind us. I say last Monday. In fact, that is when their bodies were discovered. They were probably killed some days before.’
The doctor was hesitating before translating. When he started to speak, he kept it very short. He knew that there was only so much bad news the people around the table could take.
‘All of them had their throats cut. Mother, father, two sons and daughter.’
The priest shook his head. The doctor did not translate.
‘Apparently there are reports of small bands of renegade German troops operating in the area. Probably ones who became detached from their units and they have nowhere to go. Usually SS. You had better take care.’
When the priest left, they agreed it was time to leave the farm. The doctor was going to take them all to Nancy where a proper refugee centre had been set up. She said she was going to head south to join her family in Lyons.
ooo000ooo
She had waited at the farm for just an hour after they left and then she and the baby headed east. The fighting had only just ceased in Alsace and there were reports of pockets of German resistance, but a mother carrying a baby proved irresistible to the first American truck they saw and they were in Strasbourg by lunchtime.
It was hardly recognisable as the city she had left four years previously. The damage she had expected, along with the other physical aftermaths of war. The air of resignation and exhaustion etched on the faces of the people she hadn’t. The city was teeming with French and American troops and seemingly thousands of German prisoners of war, slowly marching in long lines, enduring the pent-up resentment of a long occupied population.
It did not feel like she had come home, but she had nowhere else to go. Ever since her son had been born she had understood what was driving her back to Strasbourg: if Owen was ever going to find her, it would be here.
The area where her mother lived was unscathed compared to the centre and some of the outskirts. A neighbour whom she didn’t recognise helped her lift her bags up the stairs to the apartment while she carried the baby.
Her mother had said nothing when she opened the door. Her lips trembled and she reached out a hand to cup the baby’s face before hurrying her into the apartment.
‘Do you want to tell me your story now or later, or shall we pretend that nothing has happened?’
She sat down in the familia
r armchair. Her son was awake and feeding from her breast.
‘Do we have hot water?’
‘Is that your explanation?’
‘If I can have a hot bath, then I will tell you everything.’
Her account to her mother had been so well rehearsed, so tightly edited and refined, that it did not take long. It had been prefaced with an instruction that there were to be no questions.
‘I left in May 1940 because I was afraid. You had already been evacuated, so I couldn’t contact you. I thought I would return, but I went to Paris. I came across the identity card of a woman my age. She looked similar to me too, so I assumed her identity. She also had the permit and papers that allowed her to live in Paris, so it was all so easy. I still thought I would return, but life there was not bad. You have to believe that in many ways, it was normal. I found work in one of the big hospitals. I thought many times of contacting you, but I was afraid that would compromise my identity. If I came back or even risked contacting you, it would all be too complicated. I was worried it could unravel everything. I had a comfortable life in Paris. I was selfish, I am sorry. I am ashamed of that. But I am back now.’
Her mother raised her eyebrows; she appeared unconvinced and certainly surprised at the brevity of her daughter’s account of the past four years.
‘Not even a letter?’
‘I’m sorry. ‘
‘And the baby?’
‘The baby was born a month ago in Paris. As soon as I heard that Strasbourg had been liberated, I came home. Here I am!’
She laughed, but her mother remained stony-faced.
‘The father?’
She had the script ready. ‘A good man. A doctor at the hospital where I worked. But he helped treat injured resistance fighters and had to leave in a hurry. That was at the end of April. I have not heard from him since. I don’t know. He did buy me this ring though. If it makes you feel better, you can tell people that I was married to him.’
