Charlotte Gray

by Sebastian Faulks

  ‘Yes,’ a Parisian accent turbulently shouted back, ‘but we’re not all French.’

  At eleven in the morning some bread was brought to the room, where it was divided into portions of one seventh of a loaf to each man. The head of the room was scrupulous in his division, as it was carelessness in this task that had once led to two men being immediately deported.

  Levade had no appetite, but kept his piece of bread and gave it to the young man on whose shoulder he had leaned at roll call. At midday, the pail that had earlier brought up coffee arrived with what was described as soup – a broth of cabbage shavings and hot water, which was hungrily received by the other inmates.

  ‘Don’t you want your soup?’ It was Hartmann, the head of the staircase, who had helped Levade when he arrived.

  Levade shook his head.

  ‘You don’t look well.’

  ‘It’s my chest. I haven’t been well for a few weeks. I don’t think the conditions are a help.’

  Hartmann smiled. ‘I’ll see if I can get the nurses to look at you. We had a doctor on this staircase but he was deported.’

  ‘These deportations,’ said Levade. ‘Where do they go?’

  ‘Pitchipoï. That’s what we tell the children. It’s a name they made up in the infirmary. They go to Poland.’

  ‘And what happens there?’

  Hartmann raised his shoulders and spread his hands a little. Levade looked into his face: his eyes, Levade noticed, were of a remarkable deep brown with a thin bar of light at the centre. ‘In theory,’ Hartmann said, ‘they work. In fact . . . In fact, I don’t really know. But there are rumours, there are stories you’ll hear in the camp.’

  ‘And what do they say, these rumours?’

  Hartmann shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t think it matters. I think we’ll find out, you and I.’

  Levade was lying on his bed, with Hartmann standing next to him. Levade said, ‘Why are you here? What was your crime?’

  ‘My crime . . . aah. So many crimes. As far as they were concerned, the problem was that I wasn’t wearing a star. I lived in a little town in Brittany, in the Occupied Zone, and someone informed the local police that I was a Jew and was refusing to wear the star.’

  Levade smiled. ‘Like me. My papers weren’t stamped with the right word.’

  ‘My mother’s family isn’t Jewish anyway,’ said Hartmann. ‘My father was an atheist. But they needed people to make up numbers. I’ve been here six months now. That’s how I got appointed to this elevated position, and because I’m a lawyer. The authorities like lawyers for some reason. I suppose they think we’re intelligent. Or honest, perhaps.’ He laughed.

  ‘Who was it that chose you?’

  ‘The gendarmes. They run the camp really. Officially, the national police are in charge, and it’s their commissioner who’s the commander of the camp. But they keep at arm’s length, they feel happier that way, being the guardians of public order, doing the bidding of the Government but allowing the gendarmes to do the dirty work.’

  ‘And these people with the armbands. Who are they?’

  ‘There’s a sort of Jewish administration, too. The gendarmes get us to run the place as much as possible. These people are orderlies. It’s the same principle as the Germans using the French police. But if you’re the head of a staircase, you can do some good, you’re not just working for the enemy. You can help people, you can try to keep their spirits up. We have times of bad morale. Before a deportation there are a lot of suicides. People throw themselves from the windows.’

  Levade closed his eyes. Perhaps it was illness as much as religious stoicism that was keeping him at a distance from the circumstances he was in; or perhaps they were simply too strange to be fully apprehended.

  He said, ‘How long do people stay here before they’re deported?’

  ‘Not long,’ said Hartmann. ‘We had a lull during the winter when no trains seemed to leave, but now it’s starting up again. It’s a few weeks for most people, and for some just a few days.’

  ‘And who chooses the people?’

  ‘To some extent the Jewish authorities choose. They try to send foreigners before the French, and they try to keep back veterans of the war. But the police can throw in anyone they like, and so can the Germans. In the end it’s a matter of chance.’

  ‘And the children?’

  ‘Yes, they can go, too. Once they were ruled out, but not any more.’

  ‘I see. And are you a veteran of the war?’

  ‘Yes, but only at the end, from 1917. I was too young to go in before. And you?’

  ‘Yes. Four years. Verdun. The smell here—’

  ‘I know,’ said Hartmann. ‘It takes you back.’

  Levade had closed his eyes again. He felt the other man’s hand on his wrist. He said, ‘I’ll get someone to come and examine you. Perhaps you should sleep now.’

  But Levade was already dreaming.

  Sylvie Cariteau took her bicycle from the square and set off into the countryside. The post office was closed on Wednesday afternoon, so she had plenty of time, but she wanted to be back before it was dark.

  It took her an hour to reach the farm where the boys were being kept. She felt unsure of her reception as she pedalled down the muddy track; she never really knew if they regarded her as their saviour or their gaoler, and André had become sensitive and strange in the course of the long months without his parents.

  André turned out to be in his best mood, skipping and talking incessantly, eager to share with Sylvie the marvels of his new home. He was, or could be, the most delightful child, she thought, and little Jacob never complained, but just tagged along in his own time.

  Anne-Marie’s mother was in the kitchen, a woman of the same generation as Sylvie Cariteau’s own mother, and of a similarly reticent character. She was not pleased at having two extra mouths to feed, but her husband had told her it would work out for them in the long run. He had given Sylvie a mysterious and conspiratorial look.

  In the course of the afternoon, Anne-Marie herself came back from work in her café and joined in the games Sylvie was playing with the boys. Then she set to work to make a large omelette with eggs she sent André to gather from the hen coop. She even had butter to set foaming in the blackened skillet she put on the stove.

  They were half-way through the meal when Anne-Marie suddenly raised her finger to her lips. ‘Ssh. I can hear a car. Quick. Upstairs. Quick!’

  André and Jacob scrambled up the ladder while Anne-Marie gathered their plates into the sink.

  ‘It’s not your father’s van?’ said Sylvie.

  ‘No. He has no petrol. Wait here.’

  Anne-Marie, a slight woman beneath her lumpy winter clothes, went to the door and stood with her hands on her hips.

  Coming into the yard was an open-topped German military vehicle with four men in it, their rifles pointing skyward from between their knees.

  Anne-Marie stayed where she was as they climbed out and crossed the muddy farmyard.

  The tallest of the four men stepped forward. ‘You have Jews here,’ he said in French. ‘We take them. Jewish boys.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. There are no boys here. Just my mother and me. And a friend.’

  ‘Move.’ The German sergeant pushed past her, followed by the corporal and the private who had been at the Domaine, and another private who was part of the detachment at Lavaurette.

  The sergeant shouted an order to the other three, who began to move about the kitchen, turning over the furniture, opening cupboards.

  ‘What do you want?’ said Anne-Marie’s mother.

  The sergeant stopped at the door to the next room. ‘The French police say there are Jews here. Two boys. We take them.’

  A cry from one of the privates brought the other three over to his corner of the room. He was pointing to a padlocked door that led into a back store-room.

  ‘Where’s the key?’ said the sergeant.

  Anne-Marie
shrugged. ‘No key.’

  The sergeant hammered at the lock with the butt of his rifle until he broke the housing off the door frame.

  While all four men were in the back room the women looked at each other. Sylvie Cariteau held her hand across her mouth. Anne-Marie’s eyes darted back and forth between the other two, her lips set resolutely together.

  The soldiers returned. ‘Where are they?’ The sergeant grabbed Anne-Marie by the lapels of her thick woollen jacket and Anne-Marie spat in his face. He pushed her back on the table, ripping the cloth of her coat and the dress beneath, half baring the breasts she had for so long exposed to Levade.

  He paused for a moment, then seemed to recollect himself. He pointed to the ladder in the corner of the room and gave another order. The three others climbed up, and Sylvie Cariteau watched their boots disappear into the gloom above. She heard their footsteps overhead and wondered how well the boys were hidden.

  The sergeant turned away from Anne-Marie and began to look round the kitchen again.

  Anne-Marie leaned over and whispered in Sylvie’s ear, ‘If you and I can detain them, perhaps Maman can get the boys out at the back, through the window.’

  She said the word ‘detain’ in a way that made its meaning clear to Sylvie Cariteau, who hesitated for a moment, then mournfully nodded.

  Anne-Marie whispered to her mother, who pursed her lips.

  ‘What’s this?’ The German sergeant was holding up a book he had found on the floor by the sink. It was the story of the crocodile who lost her egg.

  He raised his eyebrows as he advanced once more towards Anne-Marie. He spoke softly this time. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘There’s no one,’ said Anne-Marie, though her voice had begun to tremble.

  The two privates and the corporal came back down the ladder.

  The corporal shrugged and spoke briefly in German. The sergeant smiled sceptically and shook his head, too, as he held up the book.

  The private who had been overpowered by Julien at the Domaine stepped forward and grabbed Sylvie Cariteau by the hair, twisting her head. She screamed in pain as she turned her body round in the chair.

  She pulled herself free from his grasp and stood up. She glanced for a second at Anne-Marie, as though for confirmation, and then, to the private’s visible amazement, embraced him.

  He pushed her back, but then seemed to think again, as though it was not so much what was offered as the way in which it was being made available that displeased him. He muttered to the corporal, who took Sylvie Cariteau by the arms while the private wrenched at the waistband of her skirt. As it tore, he began to shout at her and slap her in the face.

  The sergeant watched indifferently as her clothes were ripped. Beneath the skirt there was a pair of silk drawers with a satin edge of daisies and forget-me-nots.

  The sergeant turned back to Anne-Marie and said something to the other private, who held her arms while the sergeant pulled away the clothes from her chest. His movements were slow and quite deliberate, unlike those of the corporal, who was slapping Sylvie Cariteau in a frenzy. Both had loosened their belts and were fumbling with the fastenings of their trousers, pushing the women back against the kitchen table, while the other two men held them down.

  Anne-Marie’s mother was screaming. ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it, you pigs. They’re upstairs. I’ll show you. Stop it.’ She battered the sergeant’s shoulder with her small fists. ‘The boys. I’ll show you. Come, come.’ She grabbed his arm and began to drag him across the room.

  The sergeant reluctantly buckled his belt and went with her. As he passed the corporal he shouted at him to stop what he was doing, as though unwilling to allow his junior what he himself had given up.

  Sylvie and Anne-Marie rearranged their clothes beneath the sullen eyes of the German soldiers. From upstairs they heard a roar, then the sound of childish screams.

  André and Jacob were pushed, slithering, down the ladder, followed more slowly by the sergeant and Anne-Marie’s mother.

  The sergeant smiled thinly at the two private soldiers and jerked his head towards the door. The men dragged the boys out into the dark afternoon.

  Anne-Marie’s mother stood by the kitchen table, staring first at her daughter, then at the sergeant, her face scarlet with peasant defiance. There was a moment’s silence; then the sergeant gestured to the corporal, turned on his heel and left the house. Outside, an engine started up.

  Zozo moved his charge to a bare room above a chemist’s at the other end of town. The shop was owned by his sister, a tall woman in a white coat with grey hair, who looked at Charlotte disapprovingly over the rims of her glasses when she made her way daily through the pharmacy at the back, past the shelves of pills and lotions. She never spoke, as Charlotte went through the door and up the small back staircase. The room had a bed with a blanket, a washing bowl and a jug. It overlooked an untended yard at the back, and beyond that a row of small houses.

  Every evening from Zozo’s house Charlotte rang Sylvie Cariteau in Lavaurette, but there was never any news. The days went by. She borrowed books from Zozo to pass the time. In her cold room she felt the depth of her loneliness, but she would not give in to it. The value of all that she was and all she might become depended on whether she could see Levade and explain to him what Julien had done. If she failed, then the broken ends of her own life would never be joined.

  On the eighth day, Sylvie Cariteau said she had a message, delivered by César. Octave had sent him to say that all was well and that the name of the place was Drancy, near Paris. The word meant nothing to Charlotte.

  She asked if there was news of the boys, and Sylvie broke down in tears.

  Charlotte went upstairs to Zozo’s bedroom, where he was draping the aerial wire of his transmitter over the top of a wardrobe before making a transmission.

  ‘What’s the excitement?’

  ‘Zozo, can you find me someone in Paris? Someone who can get me home?’

  ‘Paris. My God. You want to be careful.’

  ‘I know. But do you have a name?’

  ‘No. But I can probably get one.’

  ‘How soon?’

  Zozo looked at her curiously. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  When she was back in her cold room above the pharmacy, Charlotte said a prayer for André and Jacob.

  3

  IN THE MORNING, the internee whose job it was to clean the room would sprinkle water on the floor from an empty jam tin in which small holes had been pierced. A brush was provided, but for the dustpan he had to use a piece of card, from which the sweepings would then be thrown into a pail by the door. There were only two buckets for the use of the hundred or so occupants of the room; the other one was for food.

  Levade was told by the head of the room that he would be on fatigues like everyone else. The most likely task would be the peeling of vegetables, which took place every morning in a room on the ground floor, not far from the main gate. It was tedious work, the man explained, but some people liked it because they could supplement their rations by secretly eating the potato peel when the gendarmes were not looking.

  Levade felt lucky that illness had robbed him of his appetite. He heard the complaints of empty stomachs all day long, and witnessed a desperate bartering of half-carrots or small slices of bread for cigarettes. Since no communication was permitted with the outside world, the main source of tobacco – the only hard currency in Drancy – was the gendarmes.

  A doctor on another staircase had advised those in a developed state of hunger and weakness that they could best conserve energy by lying all day on their beds. Word of this advice had reached Levade’s room, and many of those not on fatigues would pass the long hours between roll calls immobile on their wooden bunks.

  The doctor himself, it was noted, had been seen by the gendarmes rooting through a dustbin near the Red Castle, looking for scraps of potato peel from which he would scrupulously clean the cindery dust of the courtyard and other waste or slime before fur
tively consuming them. He had been a gynaecologist with a large practice in the Opéra district of Paris, but this made no impression on the camp authorities, who decided that his scavenging should be punished by deportation on the next transport.

  Hartmann managed to find a German paediatrician called Levi, who came to visit Levade one afternoon as it was growing dark. Levade was asleep when he arrived and was roused by his touch. He looked up to see two men staring down with concerned expressions, Levi and Hartmann, one on either side of the bunk.

  Levi spoke good French, though with the pronounced accent of his own country. With no instruments, it was hard for him to diagnose Levade with any accuracy: he felt his forehead, took his pulse and inspected his throat; then he put his ear against his chest and made him cough into a cloth, where he examined what he brought up. He asked him how long he had been ill, how much weight he had lost and when he had last eaten.

  ‘You must at least try to drink,’ Levi said. ‘You have a cup? Get someone to bring you water from the pipe – there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m going to see if I can find a place for you in the infirmary. It’s difficult because there’s dysentery at the moment among the little ones. But you need to be in bed.’

  ‘What’s the matter with me?’

  ‘I think you have pneumonia. Your lungs are very full.’

  ‘And what happens?’

  ‘Nothing. Normally there’s a crisis, a big fever, and then either you survive or not. There’s no certain cure, even in the proper world.’

  Levade looked at the German’s serious face, its dark features shadowed by fatigue. Clearly, he had not had the strength to pretend. Levade put his hand on the doctor’s. ‘Did you fight in the war?’

  ‘Not this one,’ said Levi. ‘The last one.’

  ‘That’s what I meant.’

  ‘We were considered proper Germans then. I resisted for as long as possible. I was making my way as a children’s doctor in Hamburg. In the end I had to go. I was in France for two years. My brother Joseph was killed in a tunnel just before the end. But I survived. And you?’

  Levade was smiling. ‘I was there.’ He squeezed Levi’s hand. ‘We’re old enemies.’