The Lost Girls of Paris

by Pam Jenoff

  “Come then.” Eleanor squared her shoulders. Inside the barracks, the floor was dirt and a rotten smell came off the stone walls. He led her from the room and down the hall, stopping in front of a closed door. “This is it.” It was different from the others, reinforced with steel and a peephole in the middle.

  Eleanor peered through. At the sight of Hans Kriegler, she gasped with recognition, recoiling. The face she had seen so many times in reports and photographs was now just a few meters away. He looked the same, perhaps a little thinner, wearing khaki prison garb. She’d heard stories about Allied troops exacting their revenge on prisoners. But, except for a pinkish scar across his left cheek, Kriegler looked no worse for the wear. And he was so ordinary, like a bookseller or merchant one might see on the streets of Paris or Berlin before the war. Hardly the monster she’d imagined in her mind.

  Mick gestured with his head. “You can go in.”

  Eleanor stopped, unexpectedly frozen in her tracks. She stared at the one man who might have all of the answers she had been searching for. For the first time, there was some part of her that didn’t want to know the truth. She could go back, tell some of the families at least that she had found where and how the girls died. That much was true and for most of them it would be enough. But then she saw the girls’ parents, the agony in their eyes when they asked why. She had sworn to herself that she would find out what had happened and why. Nothing less would do.

  The cell was a barracks room, small and rectangular. There was a bed with a blanket, a small lamp. A coffeepot sat on the corner. “This is how we house prisoners?”

  “It’s the Geneva Convention, Ellie. These are high-ranking officers. We’re trying to keep it clean, no allegations of mistreatment.”

  She shook her head. “Surely my girls received no such consideration.”

  “You’d best go in,” Mick urged her. He looked uneasily over his shoulder. “We don’t have long.”

  Eleanor took a deep breath and started through the door. “Herr Kriegler,” she said, addressing him as a civilian, refusing to use the title he did not deserve. He turned to her, his expression neutral. “I’m Eleanor Trigg.”

  “I know who you are.” He stood politely, as though they were in a café and had arranged to meet for coffee. “So nice to finally meet you.” His tone was familiar, unafraid and almost cordial.

  “You know who I am?” She could not help but sound off guard.

  “Of course. We know everything.” She noticed his use of the present tense. He gestured toward the coffeepot. “If you would like some, I can ask for another cup.”

  I’d sooner drink poison than have coffee with you, she wanted to say. Instead, she shook her head. He took a sip, then grimaced. “Nothing like the coffee back home in Vienna. My daughter and I loved to go to this little café off Stefansplatz and have Sacher torte and coffee,” he remarked.

  “How old is your daughter?”

  “She’s eleven now. I haven’t seen her in four years. But you didn’t come to talk about children or coffee. You want to ask me about the girls.”

  It was as if he had been expecting her, and it made her uneasy. “The female agents,” she corrected. “The ones who never came home. I know that they are dead,” she added, not wanting to hear him say the words. “I want to know how they died—and how they were captured.”

  “Gas or gunshot, here or another camp, does it matter?” She blanched at his dispassionate tone. “They were spies.”

  “They weren’t spies.” She bristled.

  “Well, what would you call them?” he shot back. “They were dressed in civilian clothes, operating in occupied territory. They were captured and killed.”

  “I know that,” she said, recovering. “But how were they captured?” He looked away, still recalcitrant. “You know those women had children themselves, daughters like yours. Those children will never see their mothers again.”

  She saw it then—something shifted in his eyes, a flicker of fear breaking through. “I won’t see mine again either. I’m going to hang for what I’ve done,” he said.

  If there is a just God. “You don’t know that for sure. If you cooperate, perhaps you might get a life sentence. So why not tell me the truth?” she pressed. “The things I want to know have nothing to do with the prosecution,” she added, forgetting for a moment her promise to Mick that she would help him. “You’ve got nothing to fear from your own side anymore. All of the others are arrested or dead.”

  “Because there are some secrets one must carry to the grave.” Which secrets? she wondered. And why would a man who was at the end of his days choose to remain silent?

  She decided to take another tack. She reached into her bag and pulled out the photos. She handed them to Kriegler and he flipped through them one by one. Then he paused and held up one of the photos.

  “Marie,” the man said with a glint of recognition in his eye. He pointed to his face, a poorly healed scar. “She fought with her nails, here and here.” Leaving him a mark he could never erase. “But ultimately she did what we asked. Not to save her own life, but his.”

  “Vesper?”

  He nodded. “I shot him anyway.” Kriegler seemed emboldened now. “It wasn’t personal,” he added, his voice dispassionate. “I had no more use for him...or her either.”

  “And Marie?” she asked, dreading the answer.

  “She was put on a transport from Fresnes with other women.”

  “When?”

  “Late May.” Right after Julian had returned from London. So much sooner than Eleanor had imagined.

  “So you had the radio by then?” He nodded. “But we were still receiving messages.” And transmitting them, she added silently. Every fear she’d had during the war was true.

  “Messages from us. We got the first radio from Marseille, you see. But since London already knew that circuit was blown, there was no point in transmitting from it. So we played around with the frequencies until we found one that the Vesper circuit used. We were able to impersonate the operator to get London to transmit information to us.”

  The radio game, just as Henri had said in Paris. Eleanor recalled her suspicions, the ways in which some of Marie’s transmissions had sounded just fine, others not at all like her. The latter, as she suspected, were actually being broadcasted by German intelligence. Eleanor had kept her concerns silent at first, and later when she had spoken they’d been brushed aside by the Director. But here they were now laid out in front of her as plainly as a winning hand of cards splayed on a table. If only she had acted on her suspicions and pushed harder with the Director to find out what was happening.

  There was no time for guilt, though; her precious moments to question Kriegler were rapidly ticking by. “But how? I learned in Paris that you had the radios and were able to play them back to London. You didn’t have the security checks. How did you manage?”

  “We didn’t think it would work.” A smile crossed his face and she held her hands down so as not to reach across and slap him. “There were so many ways the British would have seen through it. At first we thought they were just careless, preoccupied. Only later did we realize that someone in London actually wanted us to get the messages.”

  “Excuse me? How can you say that?”

  “In mid-May 1944, I had occasion to be away from headquarters. One of my deputies, a real dummkopf, got cocky. He sent a message to London acknowledging that we were on the other end of the line. When I found out, I had him court-martialed for treason.”

  “Who in London, exactly?” Eleanor had sent many messages herself. But she surely didn’t know about the radio game.

  “I have no idea. Someone knew and kept transmitting anyway.”

  Eleanor’s mind reeled back over the people who had access to broadcast to Vesper circuit. Herself, Jane, the Director. It was a very small group, none of whom, she felt certa
in, would have done it.

  Before Eleanor could ask further, Mick knocked at the door, gesturing for her to come out. “Time’s up,” he said when she stepped into the hall reluctantly. “Did you get what you were looking for?”

  “I suppose.” Eleanor’s mind reeled at Kriegler’s assertion that the Germans had told London they had the radio. That London knew. She was aghast—and puzzled. She had been there at headquarters for every single day of the operation, and she had never imagined—much less heard—of such a thing.

  Mick was watching her expectantly, waiting for the information he needed. She had forgotten, in her distress about the girls, to ask Kriegler the questions she had promised for Mick. But it didn’t matter. She’d had the answers he needed all along. “He confessed to the murder of Julian Brookhouse. Said that he shot him personally at SD headquarters in Paris in May 1944.”

  Mick’s eyes widened. “You got all that in ten minutes?”

  She nodded. “If he denies it tell him that I was secretly recording the conversation. And that I am prepared to testify against him at trial.” The first part was a lie; the latter was not.

  Mick turned toward the cell. “I need to go in there and speak with him now, before the transport comes. If you don’t want to wait for me, I’ll have one of the orderlies drive you back to base.”

  “I’ll wait,” she said. She had nothing but time now.

  A few minutes later, Mick came out of the cell. “Kriegler asked to see you once more.” Surprised, she walked in to once again face the most evil man she had ever encountered.

  “I’m going to cooperate with the Americans.” His expression was somber now, and she knew Mick had confronted him with the evidence about killing Julian. “But before I do, I want to help you.” It was a lie, she knew. He wanted the truth about the girls to go with him to his grave. Only there was fear in his eyes now. “If I do, will you put in a good word for leniency for me?”

  “Yes.” She would never forgive Kriegler or let him walk free again. But a long life alone with his crimes seemed more punishing.

  The German’s eyes glinted. He slid something across the table. It fell to the ground and he kicked it toward her. It was a small key. How he had managed to hang on to it through his arrest and interrogation was beyond her. “Credit Suisse in Zurich,” he said. “Box 9127.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “An insurance policy, so to speak,” he said cryptically. “Documents that hold the answers you’ve been looking for.” Eleanor’s heartbeat quickened. “I’ll never walk free again, but I will give you the answers for Marie and the other four I sent—and their daughters.” It was, perhaps, the smallest act of contrition.

  Then something about his words stuck. “Did you say that there were five girls?” He nodded. “Are you certain?”

  “They all left Paris together. I signed the order myself. One died when the train car exploded.”

  Four should have arrived. “But the witness’s report only spoke of three girls. What happened to the other?”

  “Never accounted for. There were a dozen ways she could have died. But for all I know she might be alive.”

  Eleanor leaped up and burst from the jail cell, starting past Mick in a run.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Eleanor

  Zurich, 1946

  A light snow had begun to fall as Eleanor crossed the Parade-platz and started toward the massive stone headquarters of the Credit Suisse. As bells of Fraumünster Church pealed nine thirty in the distance, she wove between the suited bankers making their way to work.

  Eleanor had left Germany in a haze, traveling south by train. They crossed the snow-covered Swiss Alps, which just a year ago had formed a natural barrier to escape for so many, without incident. She clutched the key Kriegler had given her during the entire trip.

  Mick had run after her as she fled Kriegler’s cell. “Do you think it’s true?” she’d demanded of him. “Do you think one of my girls could still be alive?”

  “That’s tough.” Mick hesitated. “I want to say yes. But you know the odds. The man is a liar. Even if he is telling the truth about putting a fifth girl on the train in Paris, that doesn’t mean she’s alive. If she was, she would have turned up by now. There are a dozen reasons she might not have made it to the camp, none good. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “There’s probably nothing in the safe-deposit box either.” She waited for him to disagree, but he did not.

  “So don’t go,” he said instead. “Stay here. Help us with the trial.”

  “If Kriegler had given you a lead about one of your men, would you leave it alone?”

  “No, I suppose I couldn’t.” He understood that it was impossible to walk away from even the slightest sliver of hope of finding those who had been lost. “Then go see what’s there and come back quick. You’re a damn fine woman, Eleanor Trigg. We could use someone like you here permanently. We could use you,” Mick had pressed. “Your experience would make a great addition to our team.”

  Was he really trying to recruit her? Flattered, Eleanor considered the offer. She had no job now that she’d been dismissed from SOE, nothing waiting for her anymore back at home. The work would suit her.

  Then she shook her head. “I’m honored,” she said. “But I hope you’ll forgive me if I say no, or at least not now. Your work is so important, but I’ve got mine and I’m not done yet.”

  “‘Miles to go before you sleep,’” he offered with understanding. His words were reminiscent of the American poet Robert Frost.

  “Exactly,” she replied, warming to him. They were kindred spirits, each alone and searching. Though she had only just met Mick, he seemed to understand what she was feeling better than anyone. She was sorry to leave him.

  Leaving Dachau, she’d desperately wanted to search for the missing girl Kriegler said might be alive. But she didn’t have a single lead, not a document or witness to go on, other than his word. And the safe-deposit box in Zurich, which he’d suggested might contain the answers she was seeking about the radio, had beckoned.

  She entered the bank now, the sound of her sturdy heels clicking against the floor and echoing off the high ceiling. Dark, gold-framed oil paintings of somber men adorned the walls. She passed through two enormous columns and entered a room marked Tresorraum. Vault.

  Behind the marble-topped counter, a man in a striped ascot looked down over his spectacles. Without speaking, he passed her a slip of white paper. She wrote the number of the safe-deposit box down on it and returned it to him. As he read the information, Eleanor braced for questions about who she was, whether she owned the box. But the man simply turned and disappeared through a doorway behind him. That was how it worked, she mused. No names, no questions. The beauty and the evil of the Swiss bank. Through the doorway behind the counter, she could see a wall of metal boxes stacked high and wide, like tiny crypts in a mausoleum. What other secrets might they hide? she wondered, stashed there by people who had not lived to see the end of the war.

  A few minutes later the bank man returned with a sealed oblong box bearing two locks on the top. Eleanor took out the key Kriegler had given her. How had he possibly been able to keep it hidden in captivity?

  The bank man produced a second key. He inserted it in one of the locks, then gestured for Eleanor to do the same with hers. She tried to insert the key, but it did not seem to fit in the lock. Her heart seized. Mick was right; Kriegler had duped her. But looking closer she could see that the key was worn and a bit rusty as well. She brushed it off and tried to straighten it, then maneuvered it into the lock.

  Eleanor and the bank man turned the keys in unison. The box opened with a pop and the man lifted a second smaller box from inside. The bank man took his key and disappeared, leaving her alone.

  Eleanor opened the safe-deposit box with trembling hands. There was a sta
ck of Reichsmarks, worthless now, and a separate stack of dollars. Eleanor took the latter and tucked it in her pocket. It was blood money, but she did not care. She would see that it went to the families of the girls who had left behind children, now motherless.

  Beneath the money, there was a single envelope. Eleanor opened it carefully. There was a piece of paper inside, so thin and tissue-like that it threatened to tear as she lifted it. She unfolded the paper carefully and scanned it. Her eyes filled. Before her, in black-and-white, were the answers she had been seeking. It was, as Kriegler had promised, everything.

  It was a radio transmission from Paris to London, dated May 8, 1944: “Thank you for your collaboration and for the weapons that you sent us. SD.”

  This was the transmission that Kriegler had mentioned, sent by one of the underlings, overtly signaling to London that the radio had been compromised. The transmission was stamped “Empfangen London.” Received in London. Somehow she had never seen it. But someone in London had allowed the transmissions to continue even knowing the Germans had the radio.

  Why had Kriegler given it to her? Surely not a change of heart, a sudden altruism. Nor did his fear of prosecution fully explain a revelation so bold. No, it was the truth about the crimes the British government had committed, the blood that was on their hands. Releasing it was his final act of war. What would he have done with it if Eleanor had not come to Dachau? she wondered. He might have found another way of getting the word out. Or he might have taken the secret to the grave.

  But what to do with it? She had to find a way to bring the truth to light. To reach those to whom it mattered most. The truth, once out, would spell the end, for the Director and herself, for all of them.

  Still, Eleanor had made a promise to her girls. There was no choice. She had to set the record straight.