The Tiger Claw

by Shauna Singh Baldwin

  Allah, send your farishtas to me.

  She led her cycle along the trail and came to the X on the map in her mind—the woodcutter’s cottage.

  At her knock, a woman with a knitted shawl covering her head as if for namaaz took the bicycle with no comment. Noor put on her coat and crept out, carrying her valise and handbag through an area of long grass into a newly cut field.

  No Germans arrayed for her arrest. But they could be lurking in the dark.

  This wasn’t where she had landed two weeks earlier.

  A lantern placed on a tree stump illuminated Gilbert and someone in overalls—probably the woodcutter. Gilbert held a torch tied to a stick. He brought the flat of his other hand down lightly on its unlit face, demonstrating planting it in the soil. The woodcutter took up an armful of torches and disappeared into the dark. He would be forming the L-shape to guide the landing.

  Halfway to the tree stump, Noor recoiled. A strange object hovered before her eyes.

  “Bonjour!” said a voice.

  Bonjour with a German accent? Where was the “Halt!”?

  Then another, “Bonjour.”

  Where were the boots? The swastika? That smell—what was it?

  Chocolate.

  Fragrance steamed into night air from the hovering thing. Only a flask cup.

  Two fair-headed men of college age wearing jackets with sleeves ending halfway up their forearms stood before her. They whispered at her in Dutch that was double dutch to Noor and held out strong right hands.

  Don’t let Gilbert see you were frightened.

  “Vous parlez français?”

  Both shook their heads. They gathered around the tree stump, and since they spoke only a few phrases of French or English, all Noor could do was nod, smile and pantomime.

  Gilbert greeted Noor, cocky as ever and very much in command. He spoke no Dutch either.

  Torches in place, there was nothing more to be done till 02:00 hours but wait.

  The aeroplane mechanic turned woodcutter spread a blanket over the nubbly ground, placed the Thermos flask upon it, blew out the lantern, rolled over on his side and fell asleep. The heat coil of Gilbert’s lighter glowed beneath a cupped hand. He drew deeply on his cigarette, yawned, lay down on his back and patted the blanket beside him.

  Disregard him.

  Noor sat down cross-legged. The gourd base, bridge and strings of an imaginary veena lay between her and Gilbert. A yawn came, but she wasn’t sleepy; she was wound more tightly than her wristwatch. Cold seeped through her oilskin coat.

  Tweedledum and Tweedledee lay down, leaning against their duffel bags, and whispered to each other.

  “They’re agents of Queen Wilhelmina’s WIM,” said Gilbert.

  Noor had heard of WIM, a Dutch resistance network. Its leader, a Belgian code-named Rinus, had been recently arrested. These two agents must be escaping to England.

  “I wish I could speak Dutch,” said Noor.

  “What for?” asked Gilbert. “You want me to believe you prefer Dutchmen to Frenchmen?”

  “Non,” said Noor, stung into reaction despite herself. “But I would like to know who betrayed their leader and his network, and what advice they have for smelling out traitors.”

  “Some networks don’t need traitors. They can betray themselves by carelessness.”

  “Carelessness! Someone told the Gestapo where to find their leader, and when. And the same with Prosper. That kind of man is a traitor.”

  Gilbert shrugged. “Traitors can be women also. My wife, for instance … I just paid two million francs for a parcel of land in the Midi and now she says she doesn’t want to leave her lover in Paris.”

  Two million francs was a large sum. A huge sum. How could an air movements officer afford two million francs? But someone who owned a château could afford it.

  “Men or women traitors, both are despicable creatures,” said Noor, having no desire to discuss the dalliances of Gilbert’s wife. She gritted her teeth to keep them still.

  “Have more chocolate—I laced it with rum,” said Gilbert. “No? Then I’ll have some. How quickly you judge others, Madeleine—but then, you’re so young, so naive. ‘Traitors!’ We’re in a war. Enfin, some people get involved more deeply in the Resistance than they meant to, or circumstances force them to compromise, leaving them no choice but to betray.”

  She had pitied Monsieur le Missionnaire at Drancy for such a dilemma, and she had to agree. But Monsieur le Missionnaire was truly forced; his family was hostage at Drancy. What circumstance forced Gilbert to betray Prosper? Money. Provide the Gestapo with information and get paid.

  Perhaps over a friendly game of chess.

  Gilbert hadn’t once mentioned the messages for which she had almost been captured at Grignon.

  “Do you have the messages I am to take to London?” asked Noor.

  “Those messages? I sent them.”

  But a few hours earlier, when he met her at La Place des Jacobins, had he not said, “I have them”?

  “How?” asked Noor. “Do you now have another radio operator in northern France?”

  “No. I sent them by courier over the Pyrénées. He should be in London by now.”

  There had been no messages to send from Grignon. There were no messages to carry to London. She had been lured here.

  You’re not being fair; suspicions are not proof. You mis-remember what he said.

  A sound like a steam engine startled them—only the woodcutter’s snore.

  “Dream!” said one of the agents. He shook the woodcutter.

  Noor’s head seemed to be moving through its own dream. Sharp fronds interlaced themselves around her heart, squeezing it tight.

  “Aren’t you at all sorry for those who have been arrested?” she asked Gilbert.

  Gilbert slowly expelled a sigh. “Madeleine, the stupid cause their own problems. If you ask me, Prosper lost his nerve in the last few months. I’ve seen it happen to pilots.”

  “Losing your nerve is not stupid. It’s unfortunate, unlucky. Often sad. If a pilot lost his nerve after seeing his comrades fall, I would call him human, not stupid.”

  “D’accord, d’accord. But you have, I’m sure, had some long night when something overcame your courage. For you, it may have been fear of shame, for Prosper, fear of capture.”

  A warning bell crashed in Noor, sounding all the way to her womb. Those were her own words, “the long night at Madame Dunet’s when fear of shame overcame my courage.”

  Mais non! Impossible. Impossible.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Only that it is impossible to judge men—and women—who play many parts simultaneously. Like Arletty in Fric-Frac. She’s still playing many parts.”

  Her own words again. “Mother showed me how to play many parts simultaneously. Remember the time Zaib and I were at the cinema laughing at Arletty in Fric-Frac?”

  Why would Arletty come to Gilbert’s mind? And Fric-Frac? An old film, a little-known comedy. How?

  Gilbert had read her letters. To Zaib and to Kabir.

  Did her blood run cold from night chill or the implications? If Gilbert had read those letters, he had read others, letters with much more confidential information. It showed a malevolent curiosity, a quest well beyond casual interest. He could have collected an arsenal of information for the Gestapo. Simply horrifying to contemplate.

  She had no proof Gilbert had read the letters of other agents, only her own.

  But why had Gilbert quoted her words now? Was he not afraid she would report to London that her letters had been opened by him, or was he so confident he could spin a tale to justify his actions?

  She would tell her fears to Major Boddington on arrival. He would take action.

  But suddenly Noor didn’t want to be on an aeroplane arranged by Gilbert. Maybe there were no Gestapo men on the ground because that plane, Noor and the two Dutch agents would never survive the crossing.

  A mosquito-drone became a buzz. Gilbert and the wo
odcutter ran into the field to switch on the torches. By these and the tiny lights below the black plane, the resistants gathered on the ground could intuit its silhouette.

  Maybe Gilbert quoted her letters to her in petty revenge for rejecting his advances. And with impunity, knowing she would never carry the information anywhere but into the waters of the Channel.

  The stars rotated in their sockets above.

  How many farishtas must Allah send with signs before I heed his warnings?

  The buzz became a pulsing roar.

  “Lysander again, not a Hudson,” said Gilbert.

  Noor scrambled to her feet, her handbag looped over her arm.

  Torch in hand, Gilbert flashed the Morse code signal into the sky. The landing lights sparked briefly and the heavy-footed plane touched ground. Noor felt the earth-shaking bump, and the Dutchmen seized their bags and ran past her, following the propeller’s slipstream.

  Gilbert flung the torch onto the blanket and picked up Noor’s valise. But Noor tugged at his grasp till he dropped it and turned with a look of irritated surprise.

  “I’m not going,” she shouted over the roar. “I’m not going.”

  “What? Get on, get on!”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  “Merde! What are you saying? Allez-hop!”

  The pilot leaned out, so close she could see his scarf. The woodcutter had the ladder up against the side of the plane. She yelled to the pilot, “Stop! Don’t—”

  She was about to shout, “Don’t let those men get on the plane, don’t take off! Don’t, don’t … !” But Gilbert clapped his hand over her mouth and dragged her nearer the flutter-roar, nearer the propeller, overpowering her voice.

  The woodcutter came running. One of them had her by the forearms. She was shaking, shaking till her head lolled. It was Gilbert, teeth clenched at her eye level, rum on his breath. He was thrusting her so close …

  He wouldn’t dare, not before so many …

  The woodcutter had retrieved Noor’s fallen valise and was clinging halfway up the ladder, handing it to the mystified Dutchmen.

  “She’s hysterical! Hysterical!” Gilbert yelled over her head. “Afraid of flying!”

  The pilot threw up his hands. Gilbert dragged her past the wing, closer to the ladder.

  At the base of the ladder Noor went limp. She slipped through Gilbert’s grasp to the ground, as if struck unconscious. Gilbert backed away. But a second later his hand thumped down, grabbing her arm through her coat. Away she rolled, shedding the oilskin, retaining her grip on the handbag.

  She found her feet. And ran, ran into darkness.

  Out of range of the landing lights, into the cover of the long grass at the edge of the woods.

  Breathing like a piston, running, she glanced over her shoulder. On his feet again, Gilbert had started across the landing field towards her, but then he stopped, turned on his heel and ran back, up to the cockpit.

  Lungs burning, Noor hunkered down and watched. Gilbert cupped his hands and shouted something at the pilot.

  The overhead canopy slid closed. Gilbert waved the plane forward.

  Don’t go, don’t go!

  But the Lysander pumped its throttle till it roared, and began to taxi. Then its nose lifted and it was soaring into sky. The woodcutter picked up the lantern and blanket. Gilbert began helping him remove the torches planted in the soil.

  And she watched, helpless, as German flares lit up the sky and night fighters zipped down from above. No one could see the black monoplane any more. Gilbert, too, watched. And he didn’t point, didn’t make any move, no sign of alarm or shock. The woodcutter ran up and stood beside him, and both looked upwards.

  What chance do they have? It’s a slow, unarmed plane!

  Beneath the howl of Messerschmitt engines, the Lysander’s pulsing roar dimmed to a buzz and went silent.

  Imagine, imagine that little plane searing the stars as it fell from the sky.

  The night fighters circled.

  The sound—they were diving. No, climbing. Now they were leaving, whizzing away.

  Noor sat still, looking up.

  Night noises—breeze in leaves—filled the tense silence.

  Noor dashed her nose on her sleeve and moved stealthily into the forest. She was only a few feet in, proceeding at erratic angles through complex thickets and skin-snagging thorns, scuffing over leaves and tilted stones, bushes lassoing her feet, when a shooting pain in her shoulder said she had rammed into bark.

  She sank to earth with a groan, and went limp. This time with no pretense.

  A cone of torchlight bobbed towards her. She sank lower to the ground, moving deeper into the brush. Leaves rustled, so loud they would surely hear.

  A second yellow cone stopped at the edge of the woods, lifted, then described a long slow arc. Low voices; Gilbert and the woodcutter were conferring.

  Back and forth went the light cones, for what seemed like hours. They seemed to be walking a path—so there was a path, and not very far away. The lights came together again. More voices amplified by a breeze flowing in her direction, but incomprehensible.

  The torchlight divided, cones moved in opposite directions.

  No more torchlights. Noor rose to tensed thighs, then upright.

  Take the opportunity now.

  Fallen branches and twigs cracked as she moved away from the tree.

  Too loud, too loud!

  Was Gilbert armed? He must be. And if he found her …

  Move, move. No one can rescue you but yourself.

  On a cow path now, trodden about four feet wide. The compass in her jacket button gave her north. Le Mans lay northeast. She must avoid the route Gilbert had mapped for her.

  She set off, walking and stumbling across fields and through vineyards, losing her way several times.

  She came upon a grotto to the Virgin Mary, a familiar patch of flowering hogweed, a finger-post pointing to a mine shaft and, rain-faded but still discernible, a quail poacher’s painted X between the sweeping branches of an ancient oak.

  Coincidence or the hand of Allah? It didn’t matter; the familiar reassured.

  Noor walked on through the night, shins scraped, shoulder throbbing, till early dawn, when the town of Le Mans loomed above the plain.

  She must tell Émile what happened. But where was he in Le Mans? Even if she knew, she couldn’t go there. Too dangerous for her and Émile. Besides, that would make Renée even more frightened and angry.

  She couldn’t walk into the Hôtel du Dauphin at any hour looking like this: wet, muddy, scratched—a bloody mess. And with only diamonds left for payment, there was no question of getting lodging at any hotel.

  She rummaged in her bag, counting the francs she had saved by dining with Gilbert. Enough for a ticket to Paris; not enough for a room in Le Mans.

  Madame Aigrain’s safe house was closer than Madame Gagné’s boarding house at Drancy. And Émile said Gilbert didn’t know of its existence.

  Gilbert might assume she’d take the first train back to Paris. So Noor let the 04:00 train depart, and the 04:30, before she entered the station. She ate one of the pears that wouldn’t be going to London after all, and composed her features to match the blank expressions of other waiting passengers, queuing with them to present her papers.

  A German soldier took and returned her papers in square movements, his gaze never touching her face. On the platform now. About twenty people waiting, and no one looked like Gilbert or Gestapo. To her right, two boxcars marked Hommes 40/Cheval 8—forty men or eight horses. Empty. To her left, first-class compartments filled with glum-faced German soldiers. No doubt going to Russia, setting out for the front.

  German eyes boring into her back. Shouts in German. They might be shouting at her.

  Slowly. Count carriages: one, two, three …

  Almost to the end of the train, now.

  … nine, ten.

  She boarded the single second-class passenger carriage for French civilians and col
lapsed into a seat.

  CHAPTER 25

  Paris, France

  Sunday, July 4, 1943

  NOOR ARRIVED at Madame Aigrain’s door chilled to the bone, an hour before the lifting of curfew. The sentry had been snoring at his post, and the concierge’s loge was Sunday-dark. Between sneezing and coughing, Noor managed four pairs of knocks. Despite the signal, Madame’s eyes were roundels above the restraining chain. But the chain fell away. Madame took Noor in.

  “How is it you have returned, Madeleine?”

  A steaming cup of milk Noor knew Madame had intended for the Siamese appeared on the table before her. Madame Aigrain almost disappeared into the sofa.

  I must look like a stray, and smell terrible.

  “There was a problem,” said Noor. “I will try to leave again soon. Émile must be informed as soon as possible.”

  With no hesitation Madame agreed to leave a message for Émile at the letter drop. Sacrificing details, Noor wrote a note: To Phono: Madeleine is still in Paris.

  He might imagine there was serious trouble or might read nothing into the statement at all. Planes developed engine trouble and had to turn back to England. Sometimes resistants found the Germans had planted stakes on landing strips. She couldn’t tell what Émile might imagine. She needed to meet with him and discuss Gilbert’s reading her mail. But meeting with Émile came with Renée in tow—Renée who didn’t want Noor to come near Émile. A rendezvous would be too dangerous now.

  Besides, the room was sliding sideways, even as she presented the fruit she’d intended for her family in London to Madame.

  “Thank you. Now rest, Anne-Marie.” Madame Aigrain’s soft hand brushed Noor’s forehead. “I would call a doctor, but mine was sent to Germany. I don’t know one who will come on a Sunday, and the concierge has locked away her telephone. We need someone who will not ask questions, who will not mind a little deviation around the law.”

  “But I have no money left.” Noor discovered her eyes were streaming.

  “C’est ça?” said Madame Aigrain. “I have a little—enough for a doctor.” She lifted a cigar humidor standing on the mantelpiece. “Here—”