by Heather Munn
There in the doorway, her hat off and her face unutterably weary, stood Paquerette.
Chapter 19
What God Never Promised
HER EYES were hollow. She stepped up into the doorway slowly, moving as if she was in pain. My throat tightened. I wanted to throw myself at her feet. I took a step back.
Claudine fussed over her, got her to a seat at the table, rummaged in the pantry for food. I stood paralyzed. I only realized I was crying when the sting of salt on my raw left cheek made me gasp.
I opened my mouth. “Paquerette,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Her eyes were wide, without defense. Almost afraid. She shut them for a moment. Opened them again. “Is everyone safe?”
“As safe as we could make them.”
Her eyes were not satisfied.
I took a breath. “Marek ran away. Nina and I found him in the river. That soldier, he found us trying to pull him out, and helped, but he figured out Marek was Jewish—”
Her chair scraped loud against the floor. She had half-risen. “He what?”
“Paquerette, please sit down! You’re not well, you must calm yourself!” Claudine put a plate of bread and cheese in front of Paquerette and glared at her. Paquerette ignored her.
“I couldn’t stop him! He undressed him—to warm him—but that’s all he knows, Paquerette. We made sure—he hasn’t seen the false papers, everything any of us have told him will check out—”
“You are absolutely sure of this?” She looked at me, at Claudine. Claudine nodded. Paquerette relaxed.
“Only thing is if he comes back,” said Claudine, looking at me. “Seeing as he said his name was Jean-Marc … after all that …”
“Jean-Marc,” Paquerette murmured. She looked up sharply. “They’ve got to make him new papers. They’ve got to do it now.”
“Yes. I’m going straight up to tell … tell them. I just wanted … I wanted—”
“You know who they are?”
“Yes,” I said. “Paquerette …” My throat was getting tight and clumsy. “Are you … all right?”
Her face changed, moved strangely. She closed her eyes again. “I will be,” she whispered. Her eyes opened. “Magali, I’m very tired. I’ve got to eat. And sleep. I’ll be all right. After … a while. But you, you’ve got to go. You don’t have time for this now.”
I bent my head. To hear her command me again, that was almost better than forgiveness. My Joan of Arc. I stood to go.
“Magali,” she said suddenly. “God bless you.” I felt tears come into my eyes.
She held out a hand, and I took it. There was a white bandage circling the wrist.
“Go,” she said.
I went. When I’d shut the door behind me I began to run. I could barely see the road.
I WOULD have run all the way, but I literally couldn’t. I had so little strength left.
I walked slowly into town, ignoring the stares at my bleeding face and my wild, muddy hair; when I got to the place du centre I skirted round its edge, making sure I couldn’t be seen from the doctor’s office. There was a CLOSED sign in the window of the bookstore. If Mademoiselle Pinatel wasn’t there … I laid a hand on the door beside the bookstore, the one that led up to Mademoiselle Pinatel’s apartment, and to Lucy’s above it. I stood for a moment, breathing hard—and the door opened.
Lucy stood in the doorway, her eyes almost popping out as she took in the sight of me.
“Magali? What happened?”
“Lucy. I … Listen … Here, I … I think I need to talk to you inside.”
“Of course, come in, I’ll get—” The door closed behind us. I stood in her dark front hallway, swaying, a sound in my ears like the sea. “Magali, are you all right?”
“Lucy. If I said … someone needed new papers … you’d know who to tell. Right?”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “I would.”
“Would you know … two people?”
“Yes. Magali, what happened?”
“Please. I need … Please go to, uh, the closest one, and say that Marek Adam—Marek—Marek from les Chênes needs new papers, fast. By tomorrow if it can possibly be done. They should have his new name on them but say he’s Jewish.”
“Say he’s Jewish?”
“Yes! Do I have to explain it all, or are you gonna believe me? I just saved that kid’s life and now I’m trying to save this whole town and I know what I’m doing!”
She frowned at me. “If this whole town is in danger, yeah, I think you do have to explain it all.”
I sank down on the stone steps. My legs were done. “Okay,” I whispered, and put my head in my hands. I noticed they were shaking harder now.
“You are not all right. Hang on.”
I sat there, my head spinning. She came back with her aunt. I let them half-carry me up the steps. Mademoiselle Fitzgerald put me on a couch, laid a blanket over me, swabbed my cheek with something that stung, and put a bandage on it. Their table was set for supper, the bowls steaming. Lucy brought me some.
I don’t even know what kind of soup it was. It made my belly warm. I stopped shaking. I lay there, feeling my head float through nothingness, through rushing, rushing water. After a minute I realized I was on Mademoiselle Fitzgerald’s couch and she had no idea why I was there.
After another minute I was able to sit up and tell her.
Then it was finally over. Lucy left on the mission she’d always wanted. And me, I could rest.
I rolled over and wrapped the blanket around myself. What I remember after that is sweet, sweet sleep.
BUT YOU have to wake sometime. That’s the worst of it. You always have to wake. And go on. And what’s been done can’t be undone, not ever.
When I woke it was dark. Dark and strange, till I remembered why I was there—still on that couch, in a room full of shadows and silence, alone. I’d never even gone home. Paquerette was back. And I’d never even told anybody.
I started to cry.
And I mean cry. Big, wrenching, gasping sobs, tearing through me one after the other with barely space for a breath in between. I didn’t know why I was crying like that. It scared me stiff.
I couldn’t stop. It was like someone had taken over my body. It hurt. My chest, my heart, was like a piece of cloth being ripped down the middle. I knelt on the couch, doubled over, gasping for breath. Praying Lucy and her aunt wouldn’t wake, and come, and ask me …
What’s wrong, Magali?
I don’t know. I don’t know …
It seemed like an hour. It can’t have been. There was no time, nothing, just me in the dark, shaking and shaking. Until the gasping breaths finally slowed. I lay back on the couch, breathing slowly, spent. I pulled the blanket up over myself and shut my eyes.
I lay there, trying to stop wondering what on earth had just happened. Trying not to think.
After a long time I got up and put on my shoes, and slipped quietly out the door. The air was still and cold outside. I started through the dark streets for home.
IT’S NOT supposed to feel like that, the day after you save a life.
But sometimes it does. That’s all. Things don’t feel like they’re supposed to feel. Things don’t go like they’re supposed to go.
I used to want so badly to do something. Do something real.
It was three days before Paquerette talked to me.
THE PAPERS got there in time. Lucy told me so herself. Mademoiselle Pinatel worked on them half the night, and Nina finished them in the morning.
“Nina’s all right?”
“She didn’t look too good if you ask me, but Dr. Reynaud says so. He says all she needs is rest and food.”
“He didn’t think anything was wrong with her? Lucy, you should’ve seen her—”
“Well, he said it might be stress.”
I had to laugh.
Müller did go to les Chênes again though. I found that out when I went down in the evening. Paquerette was still there, somewhere upstair
s, resting. Papa Thiély was up there with her, Claudine said.
“You should have seen his face when he got home, Magali. He and Monsieur Thibaud and his boys searched every meter of both riverbanks, you know, all the way down to la Combe. Only thing they can figure is Marek must have fallen in after they passed that bridge. He probably wasn’t in the water for more than a half-hour, and a good thing too.”
I glanced at the stairs, and swallowed. “Is she … I mean …”
A faint embarrassment crept over Claudine’s face; the look of someone who’s been given an unpleasant message for you, and is hoping you won’t ask. She might as well have stuck a knife in me.
I didn’t ask.
I asked what had happened to her. If Claudine knew. Claudine shook her head. “She’s got a real bad shoulder, it hurts her to move it at all. And her wrists of course. I guess they handcuffed her.” Her face hardened for a moment. “Those pigs. Unbelievable. Thought this was supposed to be a civilized country.” She shook her head. “Magali, you did good yesterday.”
“I did?”
“Sure! Tipping us all off like that? Getting the papers sent down? That boche showed back up at three o’clock today. Wanted to see Ma—Jean-Marc, how he was doing. Then he got all apologetic and asked for his papers. So I’d say you made a pretty good call.”
I felt my face shift and tremble. “Thanks,” I whispered. I swallowed, and got my voice under control. “Was he … satisfied?”
“He asked some questions. Was it our usual policy to accept Jewish kids, stuff like that. We said we’re a charity home, we accept anybody. He asked if we understood our duty to our nation. That was pretty rich.” Claudine chuckled. Then she grimaced. “He said some stuff about how it’s unhealthy to mix races, and Jews need to be separate for their own good. Seems to think that’s what the camps are for. Seemed to think he might convince us Marek would be better off there.”
“No!”
“Yeah. So Papa Thiély explains nicely that French citizens don’t get sent to those places. Yeah. That was the worst bit. You know what he said? ‘For now.’”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Her face was bleak. Then she drew in a breath. “But he went. He said it was out of his hands and he encouraged us to think about it.” Her mouth twisted. “Well, he’s leaving next week, anyway. His leg’s all healed. I mean, obviously.”
“He saved him,” I said. “He saved him and then he wanted him sent to …”
“Maybe he doesn’t know.”
“What the camps are like?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe,” I said.
I WAS afraid to go down to l’Espoir, or to les Chênes, in case she was there. In case she was there and hoping I wouldn’t come. It hurts if she moves it at all—and of course, her wrists …
Unbelievable. Thought this was supposed to be a civilized country.
Paquerette, what have they done to you?
I. What have I done to you.
Rosa came to see me. She’d seen her, at l’Espoir. She’d heard everything from Nina, and said we were both so brave. I couldn’t look at her. She fussed over my bandaged cheek like Mama had, worried I’d have a scar. I hoped I would. I asked what had happened to Paquerette, and her face fell. She didn’t know much. They’d interrogated her and her shoulder was real bad. I asked if she had asked for me.
Rosa’s eyes widened. “No! I barely saw her, Magali. Madame Sabatier told me this stuff.”
“Oh. Yeah.” I swallowed. I had no right to be jealous. If Rosa had been with her that day … if only. I looked down, and shut my eyes.
“Magali. She … she loves you. I know she does.”
I didn’t look up. I couldn’t imagine anything worse, just at that moment, than for her to see I was crying.
She hugged me. I turned my face away, and let her. It didn’t matter what I’d done for Marek. It would never matter. I wanted to die.
NINA CAME to see me too. That was good. Strange and good. We sat on my bed together, like friends, and I didn’t want to die. We talked over the details of that long, long day. I told her about the awful moment I’d realized I couldn’t pull them in. She said she’d told Marek to pull himself in by the crutch. Screamed it. So afraid he wouldn’t hear.
We shuddered, remembering. We fell silent. The silence of soldiers who have fought together, who know. I felt a stab of pain, knowing I would never have that with Paquerette again. And yet this was here now, and it was good.
I never knew what they meant before, by “bittersweet.” I thought it was a stupid word.
“Hey Nina? I thought … you were really brave.”
“We both—”
“No. I mean with Müller.”
“Oh.” She shrugged a little. “But I was wrong to be afraid, I think. He wanted only to help. He paid the doctor himself.”
“He did?”
She nodded.
And then the next day he came down and asked … “I guess you just never know.”
She gave me a strange, twisted smile. “You never know. Yes, that is very helpful.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. She laughed. On an impulse I threw my arm around her shoulder, and we leaned our heads together, and we laughed some more.
THEN THURSDAY night, Papa met with Paquerette and the pastor. She told them everything. They needed to know, I guess. I wasn’t invited.
Then Papa came home and told me about it.
He didn’t want to, but she’d asked him. She didn’t want to tell it more than once.
This is what they did to her.
The day she was arrested was mostly waiting. Handcuffed to a ring in a holding cell, then locked in a windowless cell of her own. Nothing to eat. Just waiting, and hearing screams. Mostly the young man I’d tried to save. In the evening a short wiry man came to get her, said he was the night guard. He took her down the hall to a little kitchen, gave her soup and bread, and put ointment on her wrists where the cuffs had chafed. He gave her a bitter tea that made her sleep heavily through the night.
The next morning he gave her another bitter tea that cleared her head. No breakfast. He tied strips of soft cloth around her wrists and then tied them behind her with cord. He said he was trying to make things easier on her. He told her not to be so worried, just to tell the truth.
Then he took her to a big, bare room where two men sat behind a desk, and gave her a chair. They asked her questions. She told them parts of the truth, the safe parts. When they wanted names and addresses for the homes she was taking the kids to, she said no. They yelled at her and badgered her for a while, then took her chair and made her stand with her hands tied behind her back while they asked the same questions over and over. Midmorning they had coffee and pastries, and she had a half glass of water. By the end of the morning she was feeling really faint. They broke for lunch and a younger policeman was sent in to watch her. She lay down across three chairs with her hands still tied, and went to sleep. When she woke up, the young policeman had come in with a cup of soup and a piece of bread that he hand-fed her, quickly, glancing over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “It’s all I can do.”
The two men came back. They went on asking her questions till she fainted on the floor. They woke her up and a woman guard took her back to the kitchen and grabbed her suddenly by the hair and forced her head into the sink under cold running water. She let her up and then left her there, coughing and shivering, for a while. Then the two interrogators came in and forced her head under the water again, face up. She couldn’t stop coughing when they let her up. They bent her head back and poured something fiery down her throat from a flask. They took her back to the interrogation room and let her sit down on a chair. Two new men were behind the desk this time.
They were nice to her. They asked questions about her work; they made admiring comments. She was drowsy and confused. She barely caught herself before mentioning Tanieux. That woke her up. “I’m sorry,” she told them. “I ca
n’t answer your questions. Maybe I should stand up now.”
They told her she should cooperate, or things were going to change. She didn’t say anything. They took away her chair.
She fainted twice more that afternoon. The second time they just let her lie. When she woke the room smelled of food—they were eating supper. They forced some more drink on her. They told her they wanted to go home, but they had a responsibility to their country. They told her they were going to get serious now.
They got a freestanding coat rack from the corner of the room. They took off her shoes. They cuffed her ankles tightly to the coat rack’s base, so tight that she only stayed upright because one of them had his hands pushing against her shoulders, his face right up in her face.
“Convince me to tell my assistant to unlock your feet now,” he said. “You have one chance.”
Paquerette took a deep breath, and told him she was only trying to protect children who were being put into camps and had done nothing wrong. He asked her why she protected the young man. She said she’d thought he looked innocent. He let go, and she fell forward, and caught herself on the floor.
He came back with a broad leather belt. The assistant propped her up again. He took the belt and put it around her shoulders, and pulled the strap tighter, and tighter, till her shoulders curved backward around the pole. He did it slowly, pausing at every notch. Each time the pain was more intense. It never stopped. He asked if she was ready to talk. She shook her head. He pulled the belt a notch tighter. She screamed.
They left her like that for a long time. Strapped so tight around that pole she couldn’t think for the agony.
So that’s what was wrong with her shoulders when she came home.
They let her down once. Told her she’d better talk. Put her up again. She fainted.
The next thing she knew she was lying in her cell again, with her hands still tied behind her back.
So that’s what happened. That’s what they did. There’s only one word for it really. Torture.
I got Paquerette tortured.
MY FATHER fell silent, looking fixedly at a spot on his desk.