The Sisters of St. Croix

by Diney Costeloe

  “Well, I have met him a couple of times, and I think I agree with you,” Mother Marie-Pierre said. “I shall certainly steer clear of him if I can. Still, for the moment, I think it should be safe enough for me to walk back to the convent, taking Margot with me. The Germans won’t know that she should have been put in the lorry. They’ll just think she’s one of the village children.”

  “Better you go openly,” agreed Madame Juliette. “If they thought you were trying to hide from them, that would be really dangerous. You must go in the daylight, but go with caution, they will still be looking for those two who got away. Your habit should protect you and if a patrol stops you, you must tell them you are taking the child to the hospital.”

  Mother Marie-Pierre nodded. “Then I think we’d better be off, before we bring any trouble to you and your family.”

  The old woman nodded at this and gently roused the child from her sleep. “Wake up, Margot,” she said, “you’re going with Mother Marie-Pierre, now. So, be a good girl and hold her hand all the way. I’ll let you out the back way, Mother,” she added. “If you walk down the lane to the end you’ll be on the towpath and can cut back to the convent from there.”

  Mother Marie-Pierre smiled. “Yes,” she said, “I know the way. Come along, Margot.” She held out her hand to the little girl who took it obediently.

  “Are we going to find Maman and Papa now?” Margot asked.

  Before the nun could answer Madame Juliette said, “In a little while. Don’t you worry about them, Margot. They’ll be back soon. You go with Mother Marie-Pierre for now like a good girl, and in a day or two I’ll bring you a little cake, just for yourself, all right?”

  The child nodded and the two adults exchanged glances over her head. The lies had to be told, for Margot had to be inconspicuous as she was got to safety. A crying child would draw unwelcome attention to them. She could be told about her parents when she was out of danger.

  “Is Marthe still at the convent?” murmured Madame Juliette softly.

  “Yes, at least I hope she is,” replied the nun. “I left her with Sister Danielle and told her to stay there until I got back.”

  “Let’s hope she did,” replied the old lady as she led the way to the back gate. She eased it open and looked out into the lane beyond. “No one in sight,” she said, “but don’t forget they’ll still be looking for the two who got away.”

  Mother Marie-Pierre slipped out through the gate, still holding Margot firmly by the hand. “God bless you, Madame,” she said.

  “And you, Mother. It’s you taking the risks now.” With that she closed the gate and Mother Marie-Pierre heard the bolts being drawn across again.

  “Come along, Margot,” she said turning down the lane towards the river, “let’s get home to the convent and have something to eat.”

  The lane led to the towpath that ran along the riverbank. The river itself wound its way lazily round the edge of the village before widening into a pool from which it emerged to continue its leisurely way to join the Somme. The towpath was a well-used track to some of the outlying cottages, a shortcut to the centre of the village, or to the road that led eastward beyond. Today, however, it was deserted. The river flowed slowly here, its brown water sluggish as it slid under the willows that lined its bank.

  Mother Marie-Pierre hurried along the path, her eyes scanning the fields on the further bank, flicking anxiously towards the backs of the houses that sprawled untidily at the edge of the village. Keeping a firm hold on Margot’s hand, she almost dragged the child in her wake.

  “Halt!” The word rang out and Mother Marie-Pierre stopped abruptly as a burly soldier carrying a rifle stepped out from the end of another of the lanes that led into the centre of the village. He looked across at her and the little girl clutching the skirt of her habit, and said in execrable French, “Where do you go?”

  “To the hospital,” replied Mother Marie-Pierre simply. “This child needs to see a doctor.”

  The man, looking at them suspiciously, took a step towards them, still covering them with his rifle. Margot gave a scream of fear and buried her face in the habit. Immediately Mother Marie-Pierre scooped the child up into her arms and said sternly to the man, “Put your gun aside. Can’t you see you are terrifying the little one?” She gestured at the rifle to make her meaning clear and then gathered Margot closer into her arms. The little girl was sobbing, her face hidden against Mother Marie-Pierre’s shoulder.

  The man lowered his weapon and looked round. “A woman. I look for a woman. Maybe shot. You have seen?”

  Mother Marie-Pierre shook her head. “I’ve seen no one,” she said and took a step forward along the path. For a moment the soldier continued to bar her way, then he stepped aside, and turning away set off along the path in the direction from which they had come.

  “No,” murmured Mother Marie-Pierre to his departing back, “I’ve seen no one, man or woman, but would I have told you if I had?” It was no time to be considering the rights and wrongs of lying to save a life, she still had a life to save here and now. Margot must be got to safety and the sooner the better. Still carrying the child, she hurried to the path that led across the fields and up through the copse to the convent. She could see the tall, grey walls above the trees, and never had she longed to be there so much as now. As she finally reached the copse, Margot heavy in her arms, she looked back across the field and saw two more men in field grey searching among the willows along the riverbank. Clearly they had not yet found all those who had made a break for freedom.

  As soon as she reached the convent gate, she was greeted by an almost hysterical Sister Celestine, who rushed out to greet her.

  “Oh Mother,” she cried. “Thank God you are safe! We heard shots from the village and when you didn’t come back, Sister Marie-Paul sent Sister Henriette down to find out what had happened, and she hasn’t come back yet. And there’ve been soldiers on motorbikes on the road, roaring up and down and…” Her words came tumbling in a torrent of anguish and relief, but her superior cut her off.

  “Well, as you see, Sister, I am quite safe. Please go to the kitchen and get some bread and milk and bring it up to the children’s wing. I shall be with Sister Danielle. Please also tell Sister Marie-Paul that I am back and ask her to call all the sisters who can be spared from their work to the recreation room in half an hour.” Even as she was speaking, Mother Marie-Pierre was striding through the hallway and along the passage to the children’s rooms.

  “Yes, Mother, of course, Mother, straight away.” Sister Celestine scurried away to find the novice mistress, Sister Marie-Paul.

  When Reverend Mother entered the children’s dayroom she was greeted with a shriek from Marthe, who rocketed from her chair at the sight of her little sister. Margot, set down on the floor at last, was gathered into her sister’s arms and hugged so tightly that after a minute she wriggled to be free. Sister Danielle appeared from the next room and looking over the heads of the two girls raised her eyebrows questioningly. Mother Marie-Pierre shook her head slightly and the younger nun went pale.

  “Now then, Marthe,” Mother Marie-Pierre said briskly, “let’s get Margot comfortable. Sister Danielle will take her to the bathroom before Sister Celestine gets here with her food. I want you to come with me for a moment or two.”

  Marthe, still cradling Margot in her arms, looked up and saw the compassion in the reverend mother’s face. Gently putting Margot away from her she stood up. There was a bleak control in her voice. “Go with Sister Danielle, Margot. I’ll be back in a minute to give you your tea.”

  The little girl reached for her sister’s hand, her bottom lip quivering, but Marthe placed the reaching hand into Sister Danielle’s. “Be a good girl now, Margot,” she said. “I’ll be back in minute, I promise.” Then turning her back resolutely on the tears that were beginning to course down Margot’s cheeks, she followed Mother Marie-Pierre out of the room.

  “We’ll go to my office,” said the nun, leading the way, and
with a leaden heart, Marthe followed.

  Once in the privacy of the office, Mother Marie-Pierre turned to the white-faced girl. It was heartbreaking to have to tell this girl, little more than a child herself, of the events down in the village square. For a short moment she looked at her, wondering what words to use to break the news, but Marthe didn’t wait to be told.

  “They’ve gone, haven’t they?” she asked quietly. “Are they dead?”

  “No, of course not…” began Mother Marie-Pierre, but Marthe continued almost as if she hadn’t heard. “We heard the guns, you see. Shooting. Lots of shooting. I thought…”

  Mother Marie-Pierre took the girl’s hands in her own. They were icy cold and the nun chafed them gently as she spoke.

  “There was shooting,” she agreed, “but not at your family. They were put on a lorry to go to Germany to work in a factory there.” No need to describe the dreadful conditions that they must be facing in that overcrowded lorry, no need to tell this brave girl that they were being treated worse than cattle on the way to the abattoir.

  “Your mother gave Margot to me to look after until they come home again,” she went on. “She knows you are safely here with us and that you’ll look after Margot for her.” No need to explain how her mother had put her own life at risk to save young Margot’s. Let Marthe think that the Germans had had no use for such a young child and had allowed the nun to take her. “She sent you her love. They all did.” Not aloud, Mother Marie-Pierre thought as she stretched the truth for the third time that day, but she had no trouble with that, she had no doubt that the love had been sent.

  Marthe’s face was rigid with her determination not to cry. Mother Marie-Pierre could see the tears brimming in her eyes, but the young girl would not let them fall. It was as if, before her eyes, Mother Marie-Pierre saw the girl’s childhood fall away, sloughed off like a snakeskin, and the cloak of adulthood envelop her.

  “They’ve gone,” she said flatly. “Margot and I have only each other now.”

  “Certainly for now you must look after each other,” Reverend Mother agreed gently, “but there is no reason to think that your family won’t return at the end of the war.”

  “Isn’t there?” Marthe looked pityingly at the nun. “You don’t understand, do you, Mother? We are Jews. There will be no Jews left at the end of this war. Jews in Germany have been disappearing for years. Now it is our turn.” She gave a sharp and bitter laugh. “You think we shall be safe here in the convent? Margot and I will be safe nowhere round here where it is known that we are Jews. Before long someone will send the Germans here, you’ll see. They’ll come for me and for Margot and probably for those Leon children as well, and you won’t be able to stop them. We shall be loaded onto a lorry, just like Maman, Papa and the others… and we shall disappear. There will be no end to the war for us.” She had spoken with steely control, but as she uttered these last words her voice broke in a sob.

  Mother Marie-Pierre moved to gather her into her arms, but Marthe pulled away and spoke, almost fiercely. “No, Mother, I’m not a child like Margot, to be comforted with a hug and soothing words. I know what we are facing, and I know that you won’t be able to protect us when the time comes.” She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand and went on, “I must go back to Margot, now. She’ll be frightened here with no one she knows. Thank you for bringing her to me.” Her voice was so unemotional and polite she might have been thanking the reverend mother for having her to tea.

  Mother Marie-Pierre stood aside. “Yes, go back and find her. I will consider what we do next. You’re safe for the time being, I think, but it may not be for long and we must make plans.” She smiled at the young girl. “May God give you courage, Marthe.”

  Marthe, who had reached the door, turned back and looked the reverend mother in the eye. “There is no God, Mother. Not yours, not mine.” And with that she left the room, closing the door softly behind her.

  Some minutes later Mother Marie-Pierre joined the rest of her community in the recreation room. There was a buzz of conversation, but it died away as she entered, and the nuns all turned their eyes expectantly on their superior.

  “Sisters,” Mother Marie-Pierre began, “today the Germans have started rounding up people from the village and shipping them off to Germany. They say they are to work for the German war effort in their factories, and maybe they are. However, they are taking whole families including young children, who can be of little use in the factories. The families they are taking are those of Jewish extraction. We have all heard rumours of camps where the Jews are being held, and whether we believe these or not, the fact remains that Marthe Lenoir’s family have all been loaded into a lorry today and taken away. Her mother managed to get the youngest daughter, Margot, to my care before they left, but from what I have heard in the village”—she did not mention the attitude of the curé as most of the nuns would bow to his authority and accept his line of thinking—”it will only be a matter of time before someone tells the Germans they are here.”

  Sister Marie-Paul raised a hand and Mother Marie-Pierre nodded to her to speak. “Mother, surely their presence here will endanger the whole convent community.”

  There were murmurs of assent to this, but Mother Marie-Pierre cut through them. “So, what do you suggest we do, Sister? Simply hand two innocent young girls over to Colonel Hoch?” she asked sharply.

  “No, Mother, of course not,” Sister Marie-Paul said hastily. “I was merely going to suggest that we should find a family to take care of them until their own people return from Germany.”

  “Will that not put the foster family at the same risk you are saying we shouldn’t take?” the reverend mother asked evenly. There was no accusation in her voice, but the other nun flushed. “We run an orphanage, Sister, and to all intents and purposes these children are orphans. They are our responsibility and we must not shirk it.

  “Please, sisters, discuss this among yourselves, and if anyone can come up with a way to protect the children that have been confided to our care, then come to me so that we can consider it. In the meantime, please carry on as normal, and remember the families who have been carried off in your prayers, particularly Marthe and Margot’s.”

  As she left the room, there was another buzz of excited conversation. Never before could the nuns remember having been asked to discuss something among themselves. Usually decisions were taken by the senior members of the community, Reverend Mother, Sister Marie-Paul as Novice Mistress, Sister Eloise as Matron, and handed down from on high to be implemented without argument. This new reverend mother ruled the convent in a very different way from her predecessors, and that in itself was worth discussion.

  Mother Marie-Pierre left them to their amazement and went upstairs to talk things through with Sister St Bruno. She had the germ of an idea, but needed to consider it carefully with someone whom she could trust implicitly.

  10

  Sister St Bruno was dozing in her bed, her missal open upside down on her lap, her head tilted sideways on the pillow and her spectacles askew on her nose, but at the sound of the door opening she jerked awake.

  Mother Marie-Pierre smiled across at her apologetically. “Sorry to wake you, Aunt Anne,” she said as she came into the room, “but I need to talk to you urgently.”

  “I wasn’t asleep, Sarah,” replied her aunt, “just resting my eyes.”

  Sarah laughed. “Good, then I haven’t disturbed you.” She drew the little, upright visitor’s chair to the bedside and sat down, her face instantly serious. “Aunt, we’ve got a problem and I need to talk it through with you.”

  Her aunt settled her glasses more comfortably on her nose and looked gravely at her niece. “What has happened?”

  “The Germans have started taking people from the village,” replied Sarah. “Ostensibly to work in their factories in Germany, but they have taken whole families, not just the able-bodied who would be of use to their workforce. The families they have taken are Jews, and among them ar
e Marthe’s family.”

  Her aunt stared at her in horror. “All of them?” she queried in disbelief. “Even the children?”

  “All except Marthe, who was here overnight in the hospital, and little Margot, the youngest.” Sarah described how Marthe had been brought to her in great distress that morning, and then went on to tell what had happened when she had gone down to the village to investigate. Aunt Anne listened without interruption as Sarah described the events of the day, finally telling of the meeting she had called in the recreation room.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “Several of our sisters think we shouldn’t keep the children because we endanger the whole convent.”

  “Sister Marie-Paul spoke for them?” It was hardly a question, more of a statement.

  Sarah shrugged. “She certainly spoke out,” she agreed. “No one else did, but I had the feeling that there were others who think as she does. Our primary work is the hospital and they think that we shouldn’t get involved in anything that might bring German wrath down on our heads.”

  “It makes sense, I suppose,” sighed Aunt Anne.

  Sarah stared at her in horror. “But what about the children?” she exploded. “Aunt, I can’t believe you said that!”

  Her aunt reached out a hand to her. “Sarah, I said it made sense, I didn’t say it was right! Of course we must find some way of looking after the children, but you have to face the ugly truth. It won’t be long before the Germans know that we have them here and that they are Jews. There will be people ready enough to inform if they think it will be to their advantage… and those same people will probably also tell their new masters that you are English. That is something else to be considered.”

  “That doesn’t put the convent at risk,” pointed out Sarah briskly, “only me.”

  Her aunt inclined her head in acquiescence. “And me,” she added softly.

  Sarah was immediately contrite. “Oh, Aunt Anne, of course, I’m sorry.”