by J. R. Lonie
‘But I must explain,’ he said. He couldn’t bear for her to think worse of him than he deserved.
‘You asked why I need to come here in Pau,’ he said. ‘After his wound, Hugo is posted in the Armistice Commission because of his French. He tries to get me out of Mauthausen. Then we have luck. Hitler wants me back in Russia, so opens the gates of Mauthausen himself. And the army place Hugo in the consulate here. He can get passports, visas, any document. This is our chance. He organises everything: the army pass and tickets to Paris, the passage from Paris to Pau. I will be able to cross the frontier with new passport and papers. We swap clothes on the train in Paris so I stop being in army uniform. While I am on the escape route, he drives back here from Paris with the consul to wait for me. But then we have that trouble and I am late by one day.’
Eleanor remembered all too clearly.
‘Everything he does,’ Henk continued, ‘he does to save me from the Gestapo.’ He sensed this might be painful for her, but he had to tell her. ‘I know always that I am this way,’ he explained. ‘It’s why I am in trouble at school, with police in Vienna, with my father, why I am sent to a labour camp. But Hugo, he knows but he hides from it until we meet in the army. You understand?’
Did he have to ask her that?
Because of their late arrival, he continued, he missed the initial rendezvous times with Hugo, but when he’d made it there at the right times on the second day, no Hugo. So last night, he’d gone to the consulate, which was closed, then to Hugo’s hotel. He knew his room number. When he arrived, he encountered the Gestapo there and was nearly caught.
‘I go to where the boulevard is very steep above the valley. If it is not for cat, I would jump. Instead, I come to you, and you take me in, and you love me. You think because of him, I don’t feel love for you? Oh, my dear friend, you would be wrong.’
None of this helped Eleanor, but she felt she had to hear every last word and suffer for it like some masochist.
‘This morning, I waited for you. A car stops. I think it’s the Gestapo, but it is Hugo. He tells me what has happened. On Friday night, he fights a Gestapo officer and nearly kills him. They arrest him and torture him. The army police manage to release him from the Gestapo. We must leave immediately because the Gestapo, they have broken into his hotel room. We have no choice. I am sorry.’
‘What do you want?’ she said abruptly.
‘I want you to know that I haven’t betrayed you. I want you not to feel angry with me.’
Eleanor nodded. She knew what she felt but she wasn’t about to tell him.
‘How will you both get into Spain?’ she asked, changing the subject.
‘Now I do not know.’ He explained how Hugo, working in the German consulate, had been able to get a Portuguese passport for him with a Spanish visa so he could cross legally into Spain. They might have gotten across legally early this morning, with Hugo on his German diplomatic passport and visas. ‘But when we arrive, the frontier is closed and the French have my face on a poster as a killer. On our way back, we see police have set up roadblocks going to Spain.’
‘I paid for two passages,’ she reminded him. ‘One passage is available. We leave in an hour,’ she said, looking at her watch.
‘Unless they take him too, I cannot,’ Henk said.
How that cut into her. Brain understood. Heart refused.
‘The priest told us why the police are everywhere,’ he said. ‘Someone stabbed the concierge in your hotel and killed her.’
‘Oh God,’ Eleanor muttered. ‘Did they say who?’
Henk shook his head. ‘But I know.’
‘The rogue tried to take all my money and hand me over to the Gestapo,’ Eleanor reported matter-of-factly. ‘You were right,’ she added as a concession. ‘She walked right onto the knife.’
He nodded. ‘Now you understand,’ he said.
Hardly different from him having to kill the two German soldiers. She knew that, but it was a step too far to admit it.
A silence descended between them, all too open and raw. She didn’t know what to say, except she wished he’d go.
‘May I keep your book?’ he asked.
She nodded. He stood for a moment, looked at her.
‘Thank you,’ he said. He smiled, opened the door and disappeared into the darkened maze, leaving behind only the terrible ache in Eleanor’s heart. She pushed the door shut. She couldn’t contain herself any longer, fell on her bed and sobbed.
How long she lay there she neither knew nor cared. The pillow was wet. She stopped only when she was exhausted. She turned over on her back and started to yawn, and this she couldn’t stop either. It was as if some demon was inside her, seeking release and escaping bit by bit, until eventually she lay dazed and empty.
At the sight of him and his rough-hewn beauty in the doorway, like some angel in the niche of a cathedral, her heart had leapt. Her initial denials to herself vanished, and her hysteria too. She’d known in that moment just how much she loved him, in a way she’d never loved before. Not Claude, certainly not the louse, not even Fred. She had never been completely available to any of them, each of them the lover, she the beloved. Henk had unwittingly pointed out a terrible truth to her: until she met him, she had been unlike any of her female protagonists, all of whom loved completely and were prepared to pay any price for that love. She had lived her life as a taker, never having sacrificed herself for anyone or anything. Even her ambulance driving during the Great War had been an adventure that made life thrilling. Helping wounded soldiers was a corollary. To add to her self-torment, Hettie Rosen now came to her mind. That morning at the Parish Hall when Hettie had asked for money, whatever she had done or said to Hettie, it hadn’t been enough. Her exasperation with Hettie had really been disapproval laced with distaste, which Hettie had understood all too well. She who called herself a Christian had offered charity without compassion, forgiveness or love, as cold-blooded a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal as could be.
She knew all the precepts about love in the Gospels. She knew them all by heart, but they were not etched on her heart. The Lord had told her she’d see Henk again. Now she knew why.
The weight of her self-loathing pressed her into the bed. If she didn’t get up, she never would. Even then, she slipped off the bed and onto the floor, the blanket having fallen away. On her bare knees, she knelt before the crucifix and she spoke the confession, ‘Merciful God, our maker and our judge …’ She said it again and again and again, until at last she was able to rip away the remains of that carapace of respectable civic duty to pour out the passions and aches of her heart, and she felt empty and as insignificant as a mote of dust. She glanced at her watch. Listlessly, she dressed and gathered her belongings and went out.
HOUSE OF RETREAT, CATHÉDRALE SAINTE-MARIE, OLORON
3am, Monday, 15th December 1941
Eleanor found her four travelling companions eating with the priests and nuns in Trappist-like silence. Their guide was a young woman. Eleanor was quite taken aback. Hadn’t she, a woman, been seen as a burden for male guides? How could a mere woman cross the mountain passes in summer, let alone winter? This girl was so very young and slight. Too late now for any qualms, and too bad if they’d been asked to eat in silence: she identified herself to the young woman and asked to speak to her privately, beckoning her to the corridor. The young woman joined her.
She had paid for two passages, Eleanor told her. Could they now add one more to the party? She would pay.
‘No,’ said the young woman. ‘We take only six.’ She was the guide for the first part of the journey, she explained. Because of the police everywhere, they could get out of the town only along the river, upstream, against the current, which was quite strong. The boats were light and had room only for six passengers and for her. They were leaving in twenty minutes.
Eleanor returned to the refectory, aware she was the sole disturber of the peace, yet again. She found the nun who had guided Henk to her.
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p; Would she now take her to him? It was a matter of life and death. Without a word or a moment’s delay, the nun set aside her food and quickly guided Eleanor down.
Eleanor thanked her, tapped on the door, opened it. ‘Henk?’ she called softly. There was no answer. She flicked her cigarette lighter and saw the room was empty. The nun had made a mistake. She went to the next door, hoping this was the right one, tapped and opened and called his name again.
‘Yes?’ she heard a voice say in French. She flicked her lighter on and there they were, having brought in the bed from the other room. She was no martyr: this was too much; she withdrew. She could hardly breathe.
‘Eleanor?’ she heard Henk call to her.
He appeared, curling the bed blanket around his nakedness.
‘Get dressed,’ she ordered. ‘Both of you. Now. You’re leaving.’
Henk dipped back inside. The candle was lit. She waited in the gloomy, dark corridor. In a short time, they appeared.
‘You can’t go in that,’ she said, seeing Hugo in his Wehrmacht greatcoat.
‘That is all I have,’ he replied to her in French.
‘Quickly,’ she said. Without sentiment, she took off Claude’s coat and handed it to Hugo. They were of similar stature, after all. When he removed his greatcoat in return, she saw he was only in a shirt.
‘You’ll still die,’ she said.
‘I survived Russia,’ he replied.
‘Quickly,’ she said, as she peeled off her thick woollen pullover and handed it to him.
He resisted. ‘This is too much, madame, what about you?’
‘I have another,’ she lied.
She had 200 US dollars, most in useful single dollar bills. She handed 100 dollars to Henk.
‘You gave me twenty already,’ he protested. She insisted. One hundred and twenty dollars for two to get from Spain to Palestine in such an uncertain climate didn’t seem much to her. She really had no idea. Did anyone?
‘Hurry,’ she said, and they followed her back to the refectory, which she found without a mis-turn. She told them to eat as quickly as they could while she went to speak to the young woman.
‘These two go,’ Eleanor said in as soft an imperative voice as possible. ‘I stay.’
This did not impress the young woman at all. Who were these two men? she demanded. Eleanor explained: one had been included in the original deal, the other was in greater need than she.
With French, Hugo understood what she was doing. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I cannot allow this.’
‘For God’s sake, be quiet,’ Eleanor snapped, and her voice echoed around the stone walls, roiling the peace. The clergy and nuns would have to be deaf not to hear, but you wouldn’t know they’d heard a thing. They continued eating, their contemplations undisturbed by such worldly ructions. Eleanor made plain her feelings to the young guide. It was the woman’s Christian duty to take these two men whose lives were in much greater danger than hers and who had done more than any of them here to prove their courage against the enemy. She left it at that, uneager to go into detail, for fear of ruining any chance they had. They were German soldiers, after all.
Her four companions came to her rescue. Her word was now law. If the two men weren’t included, they wouldn’t go either. The young woman was furious but relented, predicting disaster, don’t blame her. She allowed them time to eat, though with bad grace, and then swept her charges out. The four Frenchmen quickly kissed Eleanor.
‘Thank you for saving him,’ Hugo said, ‘and for this.’ He turned and went.
Henk went to hug her, but she held him back. Then she grabbed him and held him, her nose and lips touching his neck, the smell and feel and the warmth of him, and she knew she’d never felt such love before.
‘Go,’ she whispered and unravelled herself from him. At the doorway, he turned back to look at her, he and his infernal cat, whose head was now poking out of the top of his coat. Then he was gone. She ran to the door and saw only the turn of his coat as he disappeared up the corridor and away.
She stayed at the door long after they had gone, until she started to feel the cold. For warmth, she slipped her hands into the huge pockets of Hugo’s coat. Her right hand found a pistol. Finnegans Wake, she realised, was in the chest pocket of Claude’s coat, which Hugo was now wearing into Spain. She was aghast. How would she explain this to Sylvia? Sweet reason came to her rescue. Yes, it stabbed at her that she was letting Sylvia down, but she was equally struck by how justice might be at work here. Publishing Mr Joyce’s Ulysses had made Sylvia’s name, but she’d also made his, and then he betrayed her by selling the book to another publisher. She’d been loyal to him; the same could not be said of him to her. And as God was her witness, she, Eleanor, had carried his preposterous book since Paris, even going back when she’d left it behind, not forgetting an exchange that would have saved her a lot of money. She felt quite absolved of any responsibility for it, and what a load off her mind that was. The German pistol in exchange was dismaying. She looked it over carefully. A Mauser. She knew enough from growing up with her brothers and learning to shoot to see the safety catch was on. Caution had her return the beast into the pocket in which she’d found it. She couldn’t leave it here, after all. She’d dump it along the way.
‘Pockets!’ she cried out, remembering with a terrible jolt that her small travelling cosmetics case was in the pocket with Mr Joyce’s tome, because, oh God, worst of all, in the other breast pocket of Claude’s coat, she had squirreled away her new Lancôme face crème and perfume. And yet she laughed rather than cry. God was clearly determined to cast her near-naked into the world again.
The nun who had guided her to Henk came over, put a kind hand to one of Eleanor’s teary cheeks and handed her a napkin from the table. ‘Poor madame,’ she said. ‘You come with me now.’ She led Eleanor back to the table and filled a plate with a wheaten porridge, which she sweetened with honey and with some pieces of dried fruit.
‘Eat,’ she said. Eleanor did as commanded. Her stomach was empty. She had to keep up her strength as she worked out what to do next.
HOUSE OF RETREAT, CATHÉDRALE SAINTE-MARIE, OLORON
After prime, early morning, Monday, 15th December 1941
To avoid being alone, Eleanor attended the office of prime in a chapel of the cathedral. It allowed her time to reflect, to think, to work out what she had to do. Why not just give up now? she wondered, forget going home. But if she did that, where would she go? The only answer to that was ultimately prison – and worse, the guillotine. She had killed a Frenchwoman and was Henk’s known accomplice. Her intellect rebelled intensely at such an unjust outcome. Her anger against the Nazis for Hettie flamed, and for Henk, even for Hugo. She had to find a way into Spain and she had to do it now. She slipped away before the service was over and returned to the refectory. The younger nuns were preparing breakfast for the Lourdes pilgrims, who were to return that morning on the train. She would ask straight out for help finding a guide. She couldn’t imagine anyone here would have a direct line to the police or the Germans. If they said no, she would understand. She’d know where she stood. She made her initial plea to the one who had led Henk and who had fed her.
Supervising the preparations was the nun, who until now had been a nameless Good Samaritan. An ageless and generic face peering out from a black habit now took individual form. She was Sister Perpetua, she told Eleanor. She was older than she had initially looked, with fine, delicate lines around her eyes and her mouth. Her skin was like soft, aged silk. What now animated her so intensely was patriotism. She took Eleanor’s hand firmly in hers. Her brother was a farmer in the foothills; this was where she had grown up, on the family farm. He and their shepherds knew the passes. She would find out what might be possible. Eleanor was not to despair.
‘Come,’ she commanded Eleanor, then led her along the corridor to another room and opened the door. She was not keen to light a candle, and looking through the doorway, Eleanor could see why. This was a reposito
ry for clothes left behind over the years by parishioners or deposited by novices when they first withdrew from the outside world. It was now much denuded by the refugees, but Eleanor should take what she needed. She couldn’t cross into Spain at this time of year in no more than a coat. She told Eleanor she would come to her as soon as she had word from her brother.
Cheered as much as she might be in her present situation, Eleanor waded into the room, which was a jumble sale waiting to happen, except winter wear was already at a premium. What fun she and Madeleine would have had in this room. What on earth were chemises doing here? Some were so old-fashioned and worn they looked to have been left from the time of Henry IV. Layers, she said to herself, as she collected garments – layers, the more the better. She found no pullovers but found woollen socks, though not in pairs, and she found a scarf that was fur lined. Then, dear God, she found a fur. Smelling it gave her a possible reason for why it had been overlooked, but too bad, she thought. She’d smelt like a fox herself for most of this journey so far. This fur wouldn’t make much difference. She took her haul back to her room, where she tried the items on, discarding hardly a stitch. The fur turned out to be a little more worn than she’d expected but better than nothing. Under her Wehrmacht coat, it fitted quite snugly. What she must look like, she thought, aware now that she didn’t even have her compact mirror to see. A London pantomime dame, most likely, she thought.
She went back to her room. There on the little table with the crucifix Mrs Teixeira had given her and her cigarette case, was the bottle of Lancôme perfume that she’d already surrendered up to an unlikedly fate with its companions. Somewhere, she thought, there’s a moral in this.
Through the chilly vent in the wall, the new day was upon her already. She was ready to leave. All she needed was someone to guide her.
HOUSE OF RETREAT, CATHÉDRALE SAINTE-MARIE, OLORON