Becoming Clementine: A Novel

by Jennifer Niven

  By Friday, I had learned the routine at Fresnes Prison for myself. Six o’clock in the morning was when you found out who was going to be interrogated by Gestapo headquarters later that day. We lay awake listening for the clanking of the iron-wheeled coffee cart, which stopped in front of the cells of the prisoners they were taking. We listened to the opening and closing of doors, wondering if it would be our turn. Sometimes women didn’t come back, and when they did come back we knew they had been tortured in ways they didn’t want to—or couldn’t—talk about.

  After a breakfast of ersatz coffee, we washed our faces, taking turns with the soap and the washcloth, and made up our beds and tried to tidy the cell as much as we could. There was loose straw and dust everywhere, and we started a contest to see who could catch the most fleas. After that, we sat on our sofa of mattresses and played cards. Millie, who had been there longest, said that every two weeks you were allowed a hot shower, that once every eight or ten days the food cart stopped by with books, and that there was a Catholic mass once a month before dawn.

  Air raid warnings sounded almost every day. We knew that Paris was abuzz, that the Allies were close, and that the Liberation would be any day now. When the sirens started wailing, we ran to the window to see if we could see anything—B-24s or B-17s or bombs falling toward the earth.

  Once a day they opened the door into the main hall balcony and left it open for half an hour. Twice a week they gave us a “promenade,” which meant we were allowed in the courtyard outside our cell for twenty minutes. On Saturday, August 12, Annika and Millie and I were let out of our cell and taken down the stairs to the ground floor, and the matron opened a door into one of the courtyards, which was just a little plot of grass surrounded by concrete.

  The three of us walked round and round in a circle, looking up at the sky. If we stopped moving, one of the guards would shout at us, so when we got tired of walking we jumped and somersaulted and cartwheeled on the grass, which made me think of physical education, or PE, back in Sweetwater, Texas, when I was training to be a WASP. We weren’t allowed to talk to anyone outside our own cell mates, but back in our cell Millie and Annika showed me how you could talk with your neighbors by tapping out Morse code against the walls or whispering through the faucets. You could also take the metal soup bowl and hold it against the wall and speak through it, pressing your ear against the bowl to hear the reply. And you could communicate with the prisoners on the floors below by using the hot air shaft, sending messages and food up and down by strips of cloth tied together.

  Through the walk outside and the talking to other prisoners, I was learning some things about Fresnes. The walls of the prison were a heavy stone, about twenty inches thick. There was a matron named Agathe, who worked Tuesdays and Thursdays and every other Friday, who would look the other way sometimes if you gave her a bribe.

  The hardest thing about prison—harder even than wondering what Émile and Barzo were doing, and if they knew where I was, and if I would ever get out—was feeling closed up like a bird in a cage again, like I’d felt living with Harley Bright back on Devil’s Courthouse. I hadn’t felt so closed up and closed in since then.

  Nighttime was the worst. After the sun went down, we opened the window and stood breathing in the air for half an hour. Sometimes I pressed my face against the bars and stared out at the grass and the trees, pretending I was free. And then we would screw the bolts back into place and lie down on our straw mattresses.

  After we went to bed, we talked about the meals we would have once we got out of there. We invited each other to made-up dinner parties, telling about where we’d be going and what we’d be eating. When it was Annika’s turn, Millie would translate as best she could, and when it was my turn I described one of Granny’s home-cooked meals. I would say, “You’re invited to Fair Mountain for the weekend. It’s a warm day in fall, but not too warm. The trees are just changing colors, and it’s such a beautiful clear day that we will eat outside on the banks of Three Gum River. We’ll have sweet tea and hot biscuits and country ham and fried apple pies, and after we’re done with that, we’ll have corn bread and fried ramps and honey sweet potatoes and three-week slaw and barbecue chicken and molasses sweet bread.”

  Sometimes I took them to Nashville, to the Lovelorn Café, famous for their fried chicken, and other times I took them to the Italian restaurant I’d eaten in with Ty, in Blythe, California, or the Balsam Mountain inn, where Harley and I spent our honeymoon, and where I ate lime pepper steak at every meal.

  After we were finished describing the food, our voices faded off until I knew, even though I couldn’t see Millie or Annika, that we were each lying there with the dark and the fear and the lonesomeness crowding in on us. This was when my heart was heaviest, and when I felt like it, I sang to them—“Yellow Truck Coming, Yellow Truck Going” or “Beyond the Keep” or one of Butch’s songs that he used to play me, or the “Hymn to Avenger Field.” Sometimes I would hear the women from other cells, the ones nearby, humming along.

  After the talking and the singing, there was nothing to do but lie on our mattresses and wait for sleep. This was the part of my day I dreaded most. I worried about Eleanor, this woman I’d never met who was my responsibility, and I worried about Gossie and Cleo and Émile. Most of all I worried about myself.

  I couldn’t get Mama’s voice out of my head. I kept seeing her face fading into her pillow, after she took to her bed, and kept hearing her voice telling me to go to the window, saying, “Live out there. That’s where you belong, Velva Jean.”

  Live out there had become a kind of chant in my head. I heard it with the wheels of the cart rolling down the balcony in the morning, at noon, at night. I heard it when I was walking the courtyard. I heard it when I was brushing my teeth or cleaning the cell or playing cards. I heard it every time I looked out the window, the air cooling my face. I was as far away from out there as I could be. Mama never would have told me to live out there if she’d known what was going to happen, that I was going to end up here, locked up tighter than I’d ever been locked up anyplace.

  For the first time in my life, I was angry with Mama for ever putting the idea into my head, and that was worse than maggots or fleas or not knowing if I would get out of Fresnes prison at all—if maybe Émile hadn’t found someone else to do his mission for him—or falling asleep to the sound of my own stomach, growling with hunger, or wondering if there really was a heaven at the end of everything or if it would just be me in the dirt in the ground forever.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  At six o’clock on the morning of Monday, August 14, we heard the metal clanking of the coffee cart rattling across the brick floor. We heard the doors opening and closing, until the cart was right outside. The door to our cell swung open and one of the matrons stood looking in. It had been my turn to sleep on the cot, and I lay on it now, trying to disappear. Her eyes, far apart and small as peas, moved from me to Millie to Annika. She said, “Clementine Roux?”

  I said, “Yes?”

  “You’re to be ready at seven.” She held out a cup of coffee and as she did I knew it could be my last. I stood up and took it from her and then I sat back down, legs shaking. The matron slammed the door closed and I heard the cart clattering away across the balcony.

  I wanted to say: You don’t want me. I’m not Clementine Roux. I’m Velva Jean Hart. I’m not the woman you think I am.

  Millie said to the door, “Always a pleasure.” And then she was up and sitting on the edge of the cot, her knees knobbing out in front of her, pinning her hair back from her face, a hand coming to rest on my arm. “Just remember—tell them nothing, no matter what they do to you. The traitors are the ones who talk before they’re even touched. But I assure you, there’s nothing they can do to you that’s worse than your own conscience.” She pushed up her sleeves and turned her arms so that the bottom sides were facing up and I could see the long red burn marks from the elbow to the wrist. “Hot irons. One of their favorite devices.” She s
miled dryly.

  I reached out to touch the scars. “They did this to you?”

  She rolled her sleeves back down. “Jesus. Did no one warn you about them?” I thought: There wasn’t time. Émile would have warned me, we would have gone over it, but I was picked up too soon. “Stand up to them, but don’t be belligerent. Speak slowly because if you hesitate, they’re less likely to notice. Be dignified, calm, but vague. Don’t look too observant. It’s better if you act confused or frightened or even stupid. They might try to torture you, but their biggest weapon is mental torture. They’ll try to break you down that way first. They want you to be uncomfortable or afraid. They want to throw you off balance. Always stick to your cover story. Never tell an unnecessary lie.”

  Annika walked over and handed me something—a handkerchief, and inside were some crackers and sugar. Millie nodded at her. “Yes,” she said. “You could be there awhile, and you need to keep up your strength.”

  “Thank you,” I said, thinking it would take more than sugar and crackers, but it was all we had.

  “Whatever you do, don’t eat anything they offer you. Not because it’s poisoned—it shouldn’t be—but because it’s something they do. They offer you a feast, your first decent meal in days, and you’re so grateful you start talking.” She shook her head. “At the most, take a bite or two, but no more, no matter how good it smells or looks.”

  I was learning to keep time without a watch. When the matron came back to get me at seven o’clock, I was ready. Annika said something as I got up to leave, and Millie listened and nodded. “She says you don’t need Nazi food because it’s her turn to have us to dinner tonight, and she’s preparing an extra special meal for you after this day. So hurry up and get back here. And knock ’em dead, kid.”

  I wanted to hug both of them, these women I would never have been friends with in real life, in the outside world, but instead I nodded and did my best to smile, and then I followed the matron out of the cell and across the balcony and down the stairs. She led me into a dark hall and another and then, instead of going outside into the courtyard and to a waiting car, which would take me to Gestapo headquarters, she opened the door to a room and pushed me inside.

  The lamp on the desk was lit and in the light I could see the square bread-dough face and glasses of a man. It was a face I’d seen before. He said in French, “This must be Mademoiselle Roux. Sorry. It is ‘Madame’ instead, is it not?”

  I had already told myself I would think over every question before I answered, to make sure I didn’t slip up. I would answer slowly, just as Millie had said.

  “Oui.”

  The office was warm as an oven, and he had the windows closed, even though they would have let in the breeze. The desk was small and wooden and plain. The man sat half in light and half in shadow. In English he said, “Of course, I should be speaking in English. You are American, after all.” He paused, waiting for me to thank him for being so reasonable. “The thing is, you aren’t Clementine Roux, are you?”

  I said, “My papers say I’m Clementine Roux. You must have them because they took them from me.” Why was I here? Who was this man?

  He got up, unfolding himself as if he had all the time in the world. He walked around the desk and stood in front of it, so that he was just two feet away. He offered me a cigarette from a sleek silver case.

  “No thank you.”

  “I forgot—you don’t smoke.” He took a cigarette for himself, and then held out his hand. “I’m being rude. Sergeant Bleicher.”

  The spy hunter. The one who had captured Eleanor. I wanted to spit in his hand, but instead I made myself shake it. “Clementine Roux.”

  He smiled, and the smile made me like him less. “Of course. Madame Roux.” He said my name as if he were underlining it. “I have some questions for you. About the Brunets.” I thought: I have some questions for you too. He settled himself on the end of the desk, feet on the floor, arms at his sides, hands resting on the edge, unlit cigarette poking out from his fingers.

  “I have nothing to say.” Who is Eleanor and why is she so important? Why did you go out of your way to hunt her down?

  Sergeant Bleicher’s face folded in at this, as if I had just broken his heart or run over his dog, but it was a pretend sad. He was playing nice with me, showing me he was the good guy in all this. “The Gestapo will send for you.” I knew it was a warning, but he said it like it was the last thing on earth he wanted. “I don’t think they’ll be nearly as understanding.”

  In my head I kept questioning him: What is it Eleanor knows that you’re so afraid of? Is she a spy? Why didn’t you shoot her on the spot instead of putting her in prison?

  He leaned forward, as if he were getting ready to tell me a secret. “As far as I’m concerned, the Nazi war effort can go to hell. I myself am counterintelligence. I work for the Abwehr. Or what used to be the Abwehr.” He said it in a bitter way. “I hate to think of your family, wondering where you are, missing you. Look at you. You are very young and very beautiful. You are here in Paris, the city of lights. You should be enjoying yourself. I am assuming it’s your first time here.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  He said, “Would you like some new clothes? Jewelry? A lovely girl like you shouldn’t look so ragged.”

  I looked at him as if I didn’t understand a word he was saying, as if the thing I wanted to do most in this world was to sit there and have him ask me questions. I thought: How many other people have you captured? How do you even sleep at night?

  He said, “Perhaps you would like to go to the theater? Or the opera?” Something must have passed over my face because he said, “Ah, the opera then. I am sure this could be arranged.”

  I said, “No thank you.” I wouldn’t take a thing from him, not even a chance to go home this minute.

  He said, “Now, the Brunets.” His voice turned brisk as an afternoon walk. “If you could tell me anything you might know, it would be very helpful for my investigation.” He gave me a charming-type smile, but it didn’t suit him.

  I said, “I rented a room from them.”

  “Did you know them before you came to Paris?”

  “They are friends of the family.”

  “Good friends then.”

  “I didn’t know them before renting the room, but they are nice people.”

  “You know, of course, that they’re involved in the Resistance.”

  I didn’t answer and he said, “You will talk, madame. To me or to someone else.” And then he walked by me, so close I could feel the whoosh of him passing and smell the cigarettes on his breath. He opened the door and called for the matron, and then he stood in the doorway as she led me out. “I will see you again soon.”

  As I walked out, he said, “We have a mutual friend, you know.”

  I turned to look at him. The matron had her hand on my arm, her fingers pinching into my skin like claws.

  “I believe you know him as Fritz. He was of great help when I was tracking you.” I tried to keep my face still so that I wouldn’t react, but he could see he’d surprised me. He nodded at the matron. He lit the cigarette. To me he said, “We will try again tomorrow.”

  The following morning, August 15, the matron led me across the balcony and down the stairs into a dark hall and another and then, instead of going into the office from the day before, she led me deep into the belly of the prison, down stairs that grew narrower and hallways that grew darker, and through a maze of passages with low ceilings just a few inches higher than my head. The mildew smell of earth and damp made me dizzy, and I followed her down a hall that was more like a cave leading to a tomb, walking past closed doors on either side with no peek holes. One of the doors at the end of the hall sat open, and Sergeant Bleicher stood inside smoking a cigarette.

  The room was as small and tight as Monsieur Brunet’s office, and there was only one small window, up near the ceiling, with bars on it. A single bulb hung from the ceiling and it gave off a dim light.
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br />   Sergeant Bleicher said, “How nice to see you again.”

  Once again he offered me a cigarette and once again I said no. He offered me a seat on the concrete bed. I told him I would stand, and then he asked me stupid things like how had I slept and how was I finding it here at Fresnes. He asked me more questions about the Brunets and I still didn’t answer. He said, “You are not who you say you are, but amazingly there is no record of you. Just where do you come from, madame?”

  I said, “I have nothing to say.”

  “Where did you first land in France?”

  I have nothing to say.

  “When did you land?”

  I have nothing to say.

  “Who are you working for?”

  “I’m not working for anyone.”

  “Who are you working with?”

  “I am by myself.”

  “What contacts did you make in France?”

  I didn’t say anything to this.

  He sighed. “You mustn’t take me for a fool, Madame Roux. I am a very patient man, but I have my limits. I should have you shot, but I really don’t want to.”

  He said this as if he were giving me some wonderful gift. I stared at him without blinking, keeping my gaze steady and calm. He said, “We executed a prisoner yesterday, a young woman who ran an escape line for Jewish people. She was a wife and the mother of two. Her body is still lying in the courtyard.”

  I said, “I’m sorry to hear that.” I thought: Don’t let the fear in. Push it away.

  He inhaled deeply and dropped the cigarette onto the floor, where it lay burning, the end of it glowing red. He lit another cigarette. I thought: He is on edge too. He needs to calm his nerves. He probably didn’t smoke nearly as much before the war started.

  He said, “How do you like this cell?” His eyes moved around it and he waved his cigarette hand at the walls, the ceiling. “The very best in solitary confinement. Only our finest accommodations for our least accommodating prisoners.”