Chapter Thirteen
The first notebook of Agnes Embleton. 2nd May
Father Rochet was right about the Germans. Within months of taking control a census of Jews was ordered. At the time I was pregnant, so this would be late 1940. Madame Klein and I had moved out of her apartment to a rental property she owned in the eleventh arrondissement. ‘I do not want to be too conspicuous,’ she said. But it was a strange thing to have done. For while she became just another face among the crowd — the crowd in question was unmistakably Jewish where, with all the others, she would easily be found. It was a poorish neighbourhood but many of her friends from our musical evenings lived there. I think she wanted to be with her people when the end came, for she knew I would be safe, come what may as a ‘Christian’.
Madame Klein obeyed the census. I did not. The first round-up followed a few months later, of foreign Jews. Shortly afterwards, every Jew had to hand in their wireless to the police. She did, and I didn’t. Then there was a huge round-up in our area, lasting about a week. By the time they’d finished, all our friends from the music group had gone. Do you remember Mr Rozenwerg? I saw him with two gendarmes. He walked calmly on to the bus wearing his prayer shawl and a wonderful big fur hat. Twice they came to our door. Twice they looked at my papers, nodded and told Madame Klein, my ‘grandmother’, not to bother looking for hers. Isn’t that strange? She would not give herself up to them, but neither would she take any forged papers from Father Rochet. But that was Madame Klein. The net began to close, for the next orders were that Jews could not change their address and had to obey a curfew
They knew where you lived and you couldn’t get out. The whole rotten, stinking business was under way
Then Father Rochet called together his knights.
3rd May
My little boy was about ten months old. So that would be early 1942. It was the same group as last time. Except for Victor. Father Rochet had not spoken to him for months and someone said they’d seen him dressed as a policeman. Father Rochet nodded. Victor’s family apparently were very pleased with him.
The Round Table was ready to operate. Acting alone or in pairs, our task was to collect children from a pickup point and take them outside Paris where they would be hidden. Someone else would take over after that.
Jacques was the coordinator among ourselves. He would be the sole link with Father Rochet and would tell each person where and when to do ‘a run’, distributing any travel papers that might be needed. He was the natural choice because members of his family, based in Geneva, handled the other end of the escape route.
Father Rochet stressed that if caught, stay calm and blame him. ‘All you have to do is say I told you the parents were ill, and I’d asked you to take the children to stay with a relative. Leave the rest to me.’ I asked him wasn’t he frightened of what they might do to him? ‘No, no,’ he laughed. ‘I’ve lived among tombs all my life. I’m not scared of dying.’ Afterwards, Jacques said that worried him because there was a weak streak in Father Rochet. He often smelled of wine, even though he was a priest. He was the sort who might well cave in under the pressure. ‘Never,’ I said.
I did several ‘runs’, my own boy on one arm, a little charge in the other. They passed without hitch or hindrance.
4th May
About this time there was another order from on high. All Jews had to register the names of their children. That is what it was like. Every now and then there’d be a new requirement or regulation affecting the Jews. The next one was to wear a six-pointed star with ‘Juif’ printed across it. Jacques and some friends from the university decided to protest by wearing a star with their names on. Come to think of it, I think Jacques’ said ‘Catholique’. He was duly arrested. The memory of that day is bitter for many reasons.
Almost overnight, thousands of people suddenly became visible, separated from everyone else by a single piece of yellow cloth. I saw two girls, twins, walking hand in hand, dressed in the same clothes, and with sky-blue ribbons in their hair. Over their hearts, neatly sewn, were these yellow stars the size of my hand. I stopped on the pavement and watched them pass, dumbfounded.
That makes me think of Madame Klein, a week or so before the regulation came into force. She is sitting by a tall lamp-stand, glasses on the end of her nose, carefully sewing the yellow cloth on to her black dresses. She has three of them. I don’t remember her going out any more. She took fresh air by the window, describing the statues of musicians in Parc Monceau, or the turns in the paths and the odd people she used to meet there.
Worried about Jacques after his arrest, I went to see Victor at Avenue Foch, hoping he could help. On the way I saw Father Rochet. He looked more dishevelled than usual and nipped down a side street. Anyway, Victor crawled from under his stone and I asked if Jacques was all right. He couldn’t even bring himself to speak to me. He just stared back in a way that scared me and showed me the door.
A few days later I bumped into him on the Champs-Elysees. ‘I know what you’re up to,’ he said. And he warned me to back off from the heroics. I suppose I should have seen it then, that he was capable of selling us all down the river. But it never entered my head. Instead, I did something which, I’m ashamed to say I have often relived these past fifty years. I gave him a great big belt across the face. It was glorious.
13th May
The end came on 14th July 1942, Bastille Day I had been given a ‘run’. It was straightforward enough. I went to a dummy social club, set up by OSE, and there I collected a little boy I met his mother. She was about my age but very beautiful, with dark green eyes. Needless to say she was distraught. It was like a scene in a film about a sinking ship. I am there, taking the boy who will survive, but with no space left on the lifeboat. Anyway the mother had no papers, so the plan was I would leave my boy with her and her son would come with me, relying on my papers if we were stopped. Her last words to him were, ‘I’ll see you very soon.
I took the train from the Gare de Lyon to a village in Burgundy I was met by a monk who took me to a convent with an orphanage. That was it. I took the next train back to Paris.
I got to the social club in the middle of the afternoon. They told me my boy had cried after I’d gone so I took him straight home. Trudging up the stairs, I heard a low cough from am open door. It was an old busybody who lived on the first floor, Madame Vigmot, who often complained about the noise. She shook her head, pointing up at the ceiling. I leaned in. She whispered that Madame Klein had been taken away She’d fought and they’d dragged her down the stairs by her hair. Then three others had come, half an hour ago. They were waiting upstairs. I asked for a description and one of them was obviously Victor. There was a German soldier and a nurse.
I walked out on to the landing. That was the turning point in my life. Because I could have walked down the stairs, on to the street and out of Paris. But it was only Victor. He’d come to explain about Madame Klein, with the nurse. All my papers were in order. There was nothing to fear. The German just wanted to know why I was living with a Jew Anyway, I hadn’t seen Jacques, I couldn’t just slip away So I went up the stairs. It all happened very quickly, but in my mind it is painfully slow
The German soldier was Eduard Schwermann. I had seen him once before, sitting with Victor in a cafe. Father Rochet had pointed them out to me. Well, Schwermann barked something. Victor asked for my papers; everything — birth certificate, baptism certificate, the lot. I passed them over. Another bark. He wanted my parents’ papers. Shaking like a leaf, I dug them out of the cupboard. My boy started to cry Schwermann didn’t look at a single piece of paper, he just put them in his pocket. He barked again. ‘Downstairs,’ said Victor. Off we went. The nurse followed.
I was taken into the street and round a corner, where a couple of parked vehicles were waiting — a truck with some soldiers in the back and a car. Both engines started. The rest is a blur. As I was being pushed into the back of the truck Schwermann pulled my boy out of my arms and handed him to the w
oman. She ran to the car and it pulled away I was dragged off my feet, kicking and screaming. I can’t remember much after that.
21st May
I don’t know how long I was locked up in Paris, and I don’t know when I left. But I was taken to La Sante prison and later transferred to Auschwitz.
It was in that appalling place that I had a bit of luck. I’d been there about four or five months. Up at 3 a.m. Standing in the yard until 7 a.m. Then labouring till I dropped. Constant, indiscriminate beating. One afternoon, a group of French women arrived. About two hundred or so. They marched through the gates singing ‘La Marseillaise’. They were political prisoners and their detention at the camp was later the subject of a complaint by some government or other. I didn’t get to know them immediately because I got typhus. For ten months I was in quarantine, and that probably saved my life because I was pulled out of the Auschwitz regime just as I was losing the will to survive. For six months I lay in a bunk beside Collette Beaussart, a former journalist who’d been deported because of what she thought rather than anything she’d done. Every day we talked of the simple things we’d like to do if ever we were free. She wanted to make jam and I wanted to eat it. I can’t remember what else we said, but the words formed a sort of ladder and I clung on to them, unable to move up but not slipping any further down. When I came out of quarantine, the French politicals were being moved to Ravensbruck the next day in response to the protest. By some clerical error, or so I thought, my name was on the transfer list. In fact, Collette had told the camp officials I was one of their number.
We left Auschwitz in 1944 and I remained at Ravensbruck until it was liberated by the Russians. I worked like a slave in the Siemens factory, making telephone equipment. I thought it would never end. When it did, the Germans abandoned the camp, leaving a few of us behind to deal with the sick.
22nd May
I have often wondered whether I should tell you about your past, never mind my own. But now the two are inextricably linked. I cannot give you partial truths. So, read these words slowly and understand that I hope not to hurt you. I’m telling you part of your own history and, however painful it might be, it is yours and no one else’s.
I met a woman who had only just arrived in the camp. I could not understand her language, so I know nothing about her. Not even her name. I think she was Polish. She had two children and was gravely ill. Ravensbruck was a women’s camp so I can only assume her husband, your grandfather, had been taken from his family at some time in the past.
You don’t need words to express certain things, or to understand them. So I think, in what mattered, we made contact with one another. She knew she was dying. She knew her children would be left all alone. She knew I was the last person she’d ever speak to. Pleading sounds the same in any language, and she asked me to do something, over and over. I held both her hands, muttering helpless assurances in French. I knew she was begging me to look after her twins, Freddie and Elodie. And I knew she was comforted by my replies. She died while we were talking. Her hands lost their grip, as if she’d let go of a rope, and she fell back. I did not have a name for her, until you were born. I called her Lucy, after you. And you have grown to have her delicate, haunting features.
The rest you know I returned to Paris with fifty or so other camp survivors. We were all terribly thin and a waxy grey-green colour, with brown rings under our eyes. As we lined up on the platform at Gare de l’Est, everyone stopped and stared in silence. They began ‘La Marseillaise’. It was the most moving moment of my life. The last time I’d heard it was at Auschwitz.
While I was in hospital I met Grandpa Arthur, who was recovering from a broken foot. I found him talking to Freddie and Elodie. He introduced himself Over the next few weeks I told him everything. From then on I didn’t need to say any more. He understood. After that I knew I never wanted to leave him. I long to see him again.
When I was discharged I went to what was left of my home. Nothing remained of Madame Klein’s life, or mine, or anyone I had known. I made enquiries and pieced together what I could. Victor betrayed us all. Each and every member of The Round Table had been arrested on the same day as me, mostly that afternoon, in one swoop. Jacques’ family had managed to escape but he’d stayed behind. He must have waited for me in vain, for I did not come. He was arrested that night, in his own home.
I tried to keep my promise, to look after the children, but I failed. And I have never been able to forget the little boy who cried because I’d left him with strangers at the social club. Arthur helped me find out what had happened. My boy had been taken to an orphanage. All of the children were deported to Auschwitz in July 1942. The Red
Cross told me the obvious: no one with his name had survived. At least I spent some time in the place where he met his end. That has been a comfort.
Well, that is what happened, and that is why I am who I am. Do you remember reading out loud with Grandpa Arthur on Sunday afternoons, doing silly voices with serious plays? Do you recall King Lear, when he finally understands that his failures have cost him the lives of his children? He says, ‘I am a man more sinned against than sinning.’ Can you bring yourself to think that of me?
Part Two
‘All burns! The reddest rose is a ghost;
Sparks whirl up, to expire in the mist…’
(Laurence Binyon, ‘The Burning of the Leaves’, 1942)
Second Prologue
‘I shall be your amanuensis,’ said Wilma with theatrical gravity. Agnes nodded. It would be the only way now that she could not write. ‘There isn’t much to say but I’d like it set down.’ Ever since she had completed her notebook, Agnes had pored over that dreadful time, rehearsing the order in which things had happened. The act of committing herself to a narrative had lit the past with a new light. She saw new shapes and the hint of an outline she partly recognised.
Agnes opened the drawer of her bureau and took out the remaining school notebook she’d bought six months earlier. She gave it to Wilma, who settled herself down at the table.
‘Start when you are ready,’ said Wilma ceremoniously pen poised.
Agnes closed her eyes, feeling her way And then she began:
“‘Night and day I have lived among the tombs”, comma, “cutting myself on stones”. Full stop. ‘
Wilma wrote slowly, in great swirls. ‘I like that story.’
‘What story?’ asked Agnes sharply wondering if this was a sign of things to come.
‘The one about the poor chap in the hills. He was possessed by so many demons that no one could control him. He lived night and day just as you said, among the tombs. Like we do.’
‘Why do you like it?’ enquired Agnes with feeling.
Wilma put down her pen. ‘Because help eventually came, after everyone had given up and when he was unable to ask for it.’
Agnes’ memory flickered. ‘What happened?’
‘The Saviour sent the lot of them into a herd of pigs grazing on the fat of the land.’
‘That’s right,’ remembered Agnes. ‘The demons were called “Legion” because there were so many of them: Father Rochet had likened them to the German army in France, just as the Roman legions had occupied Palestine.
‘They charged over a cliff into a lake and drowned,’ said Wilma with great satisfaction. ‘And the poor young man was returned to his family’
Oh yes, that’s it, thought Agnes. Father Rochet had said there were plenty of pigs, but no cliff, and as yet, no Messiah. ‘So we have to act while we wait,’ he’d said.
‘Did I say who this was addressed to?’ breathed Agnes, weakened by a new, unexpected certainty.
‘No.’
‘Go back to the beginning them, please.’ She closed her eyes, trying to conjure up an old friend.
‘Dear-’
Chapter Fourteen
Alone at last in the first-floor sitting room overlooking the sea, the old man opened once more the letter from his wife, penned just before she died while he slep
t in a chair by her bed. She’d told him to read it every time the guilt threatened to overpower him.
My Dearest Victor
I’ve often watched you while you sleep. The bad times have even marked your peace. They’ve never really left you and I doubt if they ever will. But you must believe me: you acted for the best in the most difficult of times. 1 was right when I said all those years ago that sometimes there have to be secrets. What a relief it would be if a great wind would blow and sweep it all away! But that is not going to happen. For twenty-six years we’ve had each other and you could turn to me, and now, well, that is coming to an end. So this is what I have to say. Just look at Robert! Look at all his children! Look at them all! This is your testament. They only see the good man I married, even if the world comes to judge you one day out of hand. I know, and I bless the day I met you.
Your ever-loving
Squirrel
Pauline the squirrel: because she never threw anything out. He folded the paper and put it back in his pocket diary. The words had no effect. They never had done. It wasn’t that Victor didn’t see the wonder of his family He did. But each shining face was only a flickering candle against the endless shadow of slaughter he had known.
After his wife died Victor went on a binge. Not a single monumental blow-out but rather a gradual build-up of solitary chaotic sessions, a ritual that gathered pace and eventually left him flat on the floor almost every day He learned what only the gravely fallen know: there’s a sincerity to drinking, a bravery. It’s not an escape — that’s at the amateur level, carried out with newfound comrades, takeaways and taxis. It’s the opposite. It’s standing your ground, utterly alone, as the demons rise to dance and sneer.
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