by Ariel Lawhon
“The, ah, very…private…kind,” I say, adding a quick glance at him, up through my eyelashes, for effect. “I am on my way to meet my employer now.”
He grins the base male smile I would expect of a Nazi guard. Then he stamps my card and steps aside. “Far be it from me to get in the way of another man’s pleasure,” he says, and it takes everything within me not to turn around and punch him when he smacks me on the ass as I walk by.
* * *
—
I call Henri at work from a café once I’ve arrived in Nice.
He exhales audibly at the sound of my voice. “Ma fille qui rit,” he says. “You are safe.”
My laughing girl.
Oh, how devastated Henri would be if he knew that the laughter he loves so much now puts my life at risk. Is an omission the same thing as a lie? Have I crossed some Rubicon in which I keep things from my husband for his own protection? The thought makes me ill.
“I miss you,” I tell him. I miss us. I miss the life we had before, the one we’ll never have again because this war stole it from us.
“Noncee,” he says, pausing, “there’s something…”
I grip the receiver. “What?”
“This morning, when we let the dogs out…”
“Yes?”
“Did you see Grenadine come home?”
I lean my head against the wall and close my eyes. I rewind my memory to that moment lying in bed, hearing Picon scratch against the door and whine to be let back in. I sift through every memory after that, as though they are slides in a box and I am looking for one specific frame. Picon pawing at Henri’s leg. Picon…just Picon.
“Oh no.”
“Merde.” Henri sighs. “I didn’t even notice, not with O’Leary there. I should have noticed. I should have gone to look for her.”
I gnaw at the inside of my lip. “It’s not your fault. I was there too. Picon tried to tell me but I was too distracted.”
“I didn’t notice until I left for work, he says. But I thought she must be asleep under a bed somewhere. So I went home again at lunch and Picon was frantic by then. I called Ficetole and we spent an hour looking for her. But nothing. I’m so sorry, ma chère. What do you want me to do?”
“Wait. Maybe she’s just lost. Maybe she’ll find her way back. But don’t let Picon out on his own anymore.” I know, even as I say these words, that it is wishful thinking. My cheeks are wet and I dry them with the back of my hand. I breathe through my nose. I clear my throat. “Meat is in short supply right now and the sausage makers are shameless. So don’t buy sausages from any of the butchers this month.”
MARSEILLE
September 1942
One of the realities of this new life I lead is that, whenever the entrance bell to our flat rings, I hide. If Henri is home, he answers it. If Henri is at work, I look through the peephole and swing the door open only if I know the person on the other side very well. This is one of the many small promises I have made to my husband in order to continue working with the Resistance. It is important to me that my husband be able to go about his life and work without worrying that I have been arrested and sent off to prison in the middle of the day.
Today, however, Henri is home, and he answers the door. Our bedroom door is propped open and I stand behind it, looking through the crack as Henri sets one eye against the peephole.
“Who is it?” I ask in a stage whisper.
“I don’t know,” he replies. And that is my cue to retreat farther into the room. I hear the front door creak open and Henri say, “Bonjour. Comment suis-je t’aider?” in a normal, friendly voice.
“Monsieur Fiocca?” the stranger asks.
“Oui.”
“I have a message for your wife.”
“From?”
“Ian Garrow.”
Two trains of thought diverge in my mind. One: Garrow would never, under any circumstances, send a dangerous person to my home. Two: Garrow has been tortured for information and given me up to the Gestapo. I waver between these two possibilities, tottering back and forth between them like a woman on a high wire having to decide which side to fall from. I choose the first. Garrow is a lot of things, but he’s not a coward and he wouldn’t have offered my name to save himself.
Henri, knowing that I can hear, stands there and says nothing. He is giving me a few seconds to assess.
“How do you know Garrow?” I ask, stepping out from behind the bedroom door.
Seeing this, Henri moves aside and motions for the man to enter. Then he closes the door behind him. This is not a conversation to have within earshot of our neighbors. I motion for him to follow me into the living room as Henri goes to turn on the radio.
“My name is Arnal,” he says, “and we were prisoners together in Fort Saint-Nicolas.”
“Were?”
He sees the flash of fear in my face, rightly assuming that I believe he’s come to tell me that Garrow is dead. Arnal takes a step forward to comfort me, but Henri stops him from moving closer by setting his palm against Arnal’s chest.
Realizing his mistake, he raises both hands in a show of surrender. “Garrow is fine. As well as he can be under the circumstances. I served my time and was released this morning.”
“Why were you in Fort Saint-Nicolas?”
“I own a chemist’s shop in Toulon and the Gestapo caught me selling medicine to a Jewish woman with a sick child.”
“How long were you there?”
“Six weeks of solitary confinement, in the cell beside Garrow’s.”
“What is his message?” I ask.
“There are two, actually.” Arnal looks down at Henri’s hand, where it still rests against his chest, then back at his face. “May I?”
Henri drops his hand and Arnal walks toward me. Then he wraps his arms around me in a rib-bruising hug followed by a sloppy kiss to each cheek. I don’t dare look at my husband for fear of what I might see on his face.
“Thank you,” Arnal says. “For the food and the whisky.”
Henri snorts. Even he can’t help but find this funny. “You sent Ian Garrow whisky? In prison?”
“Well, he is Scottish. Besides, I put it in a half-full bottle of cough syrup. I’m sure that ruined the whisky but I figured Garrow would get use out of it.”
“Those packages you send every week are keeping him alive. He wanted you to know that. And I thank you as well because he shared what he could with me through cracks in the wall. It’s a hard way to get a full meal but it works if that’s all you have.”
Hearing this is such an enormous relief. I’ve had no other way of knowing whether my packages are being delivered.
“What is Garrow’s other message?”
Arnal’s face turns somber. “He is being transferred to Mauzac next month.”
“I know. I’ve been trying to find a lawyer who will file an appeal.”
We are behind closed doors but Arnal leans in anyway and whispers, “If that fails there is a prison guard at Mauzac—a French national—who is open to bribery.”
I grab the lapels of his shirt. “What is his name?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only heard rumors. Hopefully it won’t come to bribery. Mauzac is a hellhole that I would not wish upon my worst enemy.”
BERGERAC
November 11, 1942
Taking a page from the Nazi playbook, the officials in Vichy decided to create a concentration camp of their own. They named it Mauzac and built it on the banks of the Dordogne River, twenty-four kilometers from the nearest train station in Bergerac. Getting there from Marseille requires a strong motive and an entire day of my life. I take the Bordeaux express from Marseille to Toulouse, but transfer at Agen to the Périgueux train, then I connect, a short way down the tracks, to the Sarlat-Bergerac line. From Bergerac it will be tricky to get to the miser
able camp housing my friend.
Arnal was able to tell me nothing about this guard I might be able to bribe. Word has gotten out and the man takes great pains to keep his identity a secret—not that I can blame him, it’s the firing squad if he’s discovered—so I arrive in Bergerac with little in the way of a plan. I rent a bicycle for the weekend and ask around for the recommendation of quiet lodgings with a good view and privacy so I might spend a leisurely weekend painting. I pat the shoulder bag I carry to indicate that I’ve brought my supplies with me. I am told there is a wonderful old inn several kilometers north of Bergerac that sits on a cliff overlooking the Dordogne River but that it is too close to the new Vichyiste concentration camp. It is recommended that I secure lodgings in town instead. I agree that this is the wiser course of action and, as soon as I part ways with this stranger, get on my bicycle and go straight to the inn he mentioned.
Mauzac is only five kilometers from the inn, so I make the trip on foot, enjoying the chance to stretch my legs after such a laborious train ride. The camp itself is little more than a series of hastily constructed wooden buildings surrounded by a tall barbed-wire fence and protected by four dozen armed guards. There are groups of prisoners huddled together on the other side of the fence talking to one another, and I have to walk right by them to get to the camp entrance. I can feel their gazes on the back of my neck as I pass. I can hear the whispers increase and then, several minutes later, the unmistakable sound of someone whistling “Auld Lang Syne.”
I do hum a bit under my breath, delighted that my clever friend has been on the lookout for me. “Should auld acquaintance be forgot…”
I reach the entrance to the gate and hand over the card identifying me as Mademoiselle Carlier. Because this particular camp is operated by the French and houses mainly French citizens—who at least maintain the semblance of legal rights—the rules are slightly different than in camps operated by the Germans. Security is less strict and visitors are allowed during certain hours.
“Who are you here to see?” the gendarme at the gate asks.
“My cousin.”
“And what is his name?”
“Ian Garrow.”
The man looks me over and shakes his head. I purposely dressed the part of Marseille socialite. I need to look pretty and clueless and very wealthy because there is one guard, somewhere in this camp, who needs to believe he can get money from me.
“You have thirty minutes,” the gendarme says, letting me into the central courtyard.
There are only three other people visiting prisoners today, all of them old women weeping against the fence as they talk to younger men I assume to be their sons. The courtyard is the size of a small parking lot and there are two guard towers that overlook the happenings below. Three other guards patrol the courtyard, rifles up and resting against their shoulders. None of them are much to look at. All of them have the shifty look of men who know they’ve thrown their lot in with the wrong side. One of them has a harelip that was mended badly at some point in childhood, leaving him with a permanent snarl. Two of them can’t be over twenty.
Based on the whistle I heard earlier, I assume that Garrow will find me, so I drift to the nearest fence and wait. He is there, five minutes later, out of breath but grinning like a fool.
He presses his face against the wire and I say, “Hello, cousin!” then do my best to kiss each of his cheeks through the wire.
“I knew you’d come,” he whispers. “I knew it.”
“Well, being here and being able to do anything for you are two very different things, but I will certainly try.” I tell him quickly—and as quietly as I can without attracting suspicions—what I learned from Arnal.
“I’ve heard nothing about a friendly guard,” he says, tapping a fading bruise beneath one dark and sunken eye. “And I certainly haven’t met any.”
“Well, if I can’t find him then I’ll make sure he finds me.”
“Is that why you’re dressed up like that?”
I grin. “Excessive, isn’t it?”
“You look ridiculous,” he says, returning my grin. “But I’d say you’ve announced your presence.”
“It’s a terrible plan but it’s all I’ve got. We’ll just have to trust that Arnal heard correctly.”
Garrow asks me about Marseille and our friends in couched language and I answer him in turn, careful to say nothing that would incriminate either of us. As the minutes tick away his face gets the pinched look of a man racing the buzzer and I realize that he is scared to be left alone in the camp again.
A short time later the long, metallic shriek of a whistle sounds from one of the towers overhead and Garrow pulls away from the fence.
“Changing of the guard. Visiting hours are up.”
“How do the guards come and go?” I ask.
“Lots of ways,” he says, nodding at a string of vehicles making their way down the dirt road I’ve just traveled. We watch as they pull up to the prison and park outside the fence. “Most of them walk or ride bicycles. But some have vehicles.”
“I’ll keep an eye out then. I leave on the first train Monday morning, but I’ll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ll see what I can learn about our friend.”
I follow the three older women out of the courtyard and watch them pedal away on their bicycles while I linger beside the fence, adjusting the strap on my shoe. Garrow and the other prisoners fall back to the buildings during the changing of the guard. I have stayed a bit longer than is safe, but I want to be seen by all the guards, those leaving and those arriving. I’ve done all I can for now, however, so I move to the shoulder of the road and begin the short walk back to my inn as vehicles begin to leave the camp, stirring up dust in their wake. When the final vehicle passes me, something hits my shoulder and I think, for a moment, that one of the tires has kicked up a bit of gravel. But then the thing drops on my foot and I look down to see a stone about the size of an egg with a note wrapped around it. I pick it up and slide it into the pocket of my skirt.
Only once I am back at the inn and safely locked inside my room do I read the note.
Lalinde bridge. Midnight.
On one hand I am elated. Arnal was right! On the other I want to throttle the bastard who tossed this note at me. Curfew is eight o’clock, Lalinde is twenty-five kilometers east of here, and I will have to make the entire trip in the dark, on bicycle.
* * *
—
The bridge at Lalinde is a broad, stout, stone structure spanning the Dordogne River. There are four arches and a low rail but it’s not much to look at overall. The main problem, however, is that I am standing here, in the open, beneath a full moon. Anyone on the road at either end, or in the buildings that frame the river, can see me clearly. Me in my fur coat, nice dress, and Italian leather pumps. Me looking every bit the sort of woman who could bribe a prison guard if she wanted to.
It is cold, but not freezing, and my breath turns into little tendrils of fog as it leaves my nostrils. The water rolls steadily along beneath me, untroubled by motor or paddle.
I check my watch: 12:15.
Perhaps it was a trick? Or maybe a trap? But no, my gut says our friendly guard is testing his prospects. Lalinde is quiet tonight, her citizens having obediently tucked themselves in behind closed doors at eight. A few lights are on in the windows but there are no vehicles rumbling through the streets. No voices. This unnatural silence makes it easier for me to hear the footsteps at the end of the bridge.
Bumps rise along the surface of my arms but not from the cold. I can feel myself being watched as I turn toward the village, and see the silhouette of a man at the end of the bridge. He wears a trench coat and a hat. A lit cigarette is pinched between two fingers and he stands there, watching me.
He could be anyone. An average citizen like myself. Gendarme on patrol. The guard I’ve come to find. I say
nothing and neither does he. But after several seconds he lifts the cigarette, takes a long draw, then flicks it to the ground and crushes it with the toe of his shoe. The man exhales and the smoke flows from his nostrils in two perfect streams before clouding together, then dissipating.
He nods once, turns on his heel, and walks away.
Well, fuck you too, I think. Bastard. You made me come all this way for nothing.
* * *
—
My train leaves for Marseille in three hours and I sit in a small café near the station sipping weak tea and wondering how I will explain this to my husband. I went to visit Garrow again this afternoon. He was waiting for me at the fence and I told him about the note and the mysterious figure on the bridge.
“It was a waste of time,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“No. It’s part of the process. He can’t afford to get caught either.”
“So he strings me along?”
“He makes sure you’re serious.”
“I am seriously angry for being dragged out in the middle of the night and having nothing to show for it,” I hissed.
“Try again when you come back,” Garrow said, then dropped his eyes to the ground. He stared at his feet for a moment. When he looked at me again his cheeks were burning. “You are coming back, aren’t you?”
There was nothing I could do to comfort my friend other than slide my fingers through the fence and set them over his hand. “Of course.”
Henri won’t like it. He didn’t want me coming here in the first place. He begged me not to leave. But what was I supposed to do? Leave Garrow to die in this godforsaken outpost? No. I can’t. If I were the one who’d been arrested, I would want my friends to do everything within their power to secure my freedom.
“Merde,” I mutter now as I poke my tea bag with one finger. The cup is chipped and stained, and the water is lukewarm. Tea is just another pleasantry that I seem to have lost the taste for.
“Such an ugly word for such a pretty mouth,” a man says, dropping into the seat across from me. He’s got a cigarette pinched between two fingers and he takes a puff, blowing the smoke into the air between us. His harelip is even more distinctive close up and I am mesmerized by his twisted mouth.