The Corsican Woman

by Madge Swindells

  ‘Ah ha! So that’s it. Robin told you to come and persuade me not to go.’

  ‘He has impressed me with his concern for you. He feels that it’s only a matter of time before you are discovered. Please, child. Stay here.’

  ‘Did he tell you that he loves me? And that I love him?’

  The priest’s face registered shock. ‘That would be playing with fire, Sybilia. You know the customs here. You’re in mourning.’

  ‘After the war, we’ll see. Perhaps I’ll go away. Meantime, I’m going back to Bastia. I have a job to do, and no one else can do it as well as I.’

  Suddenly her stem resolve melted. She crumpled onto the bed. ‘Oh, Father Andrews, help me. How could this happen? I love him, so help me God.’

  ‘I will pray for a happy ending for you,’ Father Andrews said kindly, ‘but now it would be wrong. I know that you never loved Michel, but he’s hardly in his grave.’

  ‘Oh, I know, I know. D’you suppose I haven’t told myself that day after day? So I’m going back to Bastia. Today. Now!’

  As she picked up Jules, hugging him tightly, the tears were rolling down her cheeks. ‘Stay with him,’ she begged. ‘Just a little while, and then hand him over to Maria. If you play with him, he won’t even notice me leaving.’

  Chapter 43

  It was late in May. Sybilia emerged each afternoon with a splitting headache and a glint of triumph in her eyes. Krag’s bitterness over the war news was a matter of intense satisfaction to her. The Allies were winning on all fronts. It was only a matter of time before they invaded Italy. When they did, the Italians would try to oust Mussolini and capitulate. That was the gist of the conversations Sybilia recorded. The comings and goings of troops, arms, and supplies were reported faithfully each evening. Sometimes the Resistance were successful in ambushing them. Krag blamed the Italians, and specifically Dino Renucci, for the information leaks.

  Once outside her cupboard, Sybilia felt exposed and vulnerable. The cupboard was growing on her, like a shell on a tortoise. She felt safe only when she was walled up in her stuffy cocoon.

  Nevertheless, she found less opportunity to eavesdrop now that she had to account for her time. Renucci was convinced that someone in the hotel was an informer. He spent most of his time noting the activities and whereabouts of several staff members, notably Sybilia, who appeared to be his prime suspect.

  The sight of Dino Renucci’s snakelike eyes, watching her work while his hands flicked the pencil over his notebook, sent her into panic. Sometimes she felt too scared to move. She would pause in her scrubbing or bedmaking to stare as if hypnotized. Oh, how she despised herself. Never again; never again! But next time she would be transfixed with shock and simply stare, vacant and trembling.

  It’s probably lucky for me I'm such a coward. I’m acting like a stupid peasant. Quite in character, really. Yes, it's a good thing.

  After a few days of this, Renucci seemed to lose interest in his amusing game of watching Sybilia. She began to take chances and spend more time in the cupboard.

  On Friday, when she returned from work, the house was strangely empty. She called out to Lucilia, but there was no answer. Even Granny was missing. How odd! Strange quivers of misgiving were fluttering in her stomach. All her woman’s intuition was screaming: Go! Get out! You’re blown! Run for it! Yet she forced herself to keep calm. She would not listen to her sixth sense as she climbed the three flights to her apartment. It was nerves. She could not allow herself to give way to nerves.

  Why? Why was she so stubborn? she asked herself as she walked into her flat. She gazed hopelessly at Dino Renucci. He had ripped open the false back of the wardrobe and was studying the radio intently.

  Gazing over her shoulder, she saw two armed, uniformed men on the stairs and two in the room behind the door. Could she possibly race to the balcony and throw herself off? No, she realized dismally. Another guard was stationed there. They had thought of everything. Strange how her mind was calm, but her body had reared into panic stations. Her breath was coming in short, sharp gasps, her palms were damp, her insides felt like molten lead, her legs had turned to jelly. She sank onto the settee and buried her face in her hands.

  ‘You’re too late,’ she said in the dialect with a low, moaning sob. ‘Krag took Michel and shot him a month ago. He didn’t talk. He didn’t even tell you where his radio was. You’re too late.’

  Renucci’s eyebrows shot up with surprise. His mouth slackened with disappointment. She could see that he half believed her story. Good, she would stick to it.

  ‘Come now, my pretty Sybilia. Are you trying to say that you don’t know how to operate this?’

  Why was he still speaking in Italian? Why didn't he believe her?

  Sybilia burst into tears, which was not difficult. ‘I begged him to give up his work. He could have fled to the maquis. Now he’s dead,’ she moaned.

  ‘Do you speak French?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Why a little? It’s compulsory here, isn’t it?’

  ‘In school. I didn't go to school.’

  ‘And these books?’

  ‘My husband’s.’

  ‘My, my. For an illiterate Corsican scrubber you certainly married a well-read man. Look at these books: The Oxford Companion to English Literature, Samuel Butler, Hermann Hesse, Mark Twain. Ah ha! Zola. My favourite, too. I can see we have much in common. Where did your husband go to school, my dear?’

  ‘You tortured him for a month. Whatever he wants you to know he’s told you himself. Don’t ask me these questions. I’m not going to answer them.’

  ‘You will, Sybilia. I promise you that. I have no doubt you’ll soon be talking in as many languages as you have in your books. Rebecca West! Now I ask you, what would a man want with Rebecca West?’ He turned to one of the guards. ‘Handcuff her. We’ll take her to headquarters.’

  Why can’t I walk? What's gone wrong with my body? Sybilia tried to talk, but her mouth was too dry. Eventually she managed a whisper: ‘Can I go to the toilet?"You can, but with handcuffs on you’re going to need some help. Allow me to assist you.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ she said.

  He laughed. It was a cruel laugh.

  In the Fiat, his fumbling hand explored her body.

  Oh, God, what can I do? I can scream, try to fight, moan, curse him, all of which will be so useless. All resistance will be utterly useless against this man. I know.

  She took refuge in stony silence while his fingers prodded, caressed, and pinched. Her feet were wedged between two men’s legs. Her hands were handcuffed behind her back. Robin was right, she thought, feeling half-crazy with fright. This is the reality. It’s so much more terrible than I could have imagined.

  She was taken to a cell, stripped, and searched by a wardress while Dino Renucci watched. Then her clothes were returned, minus her shoes, handbag, and belt. At last she was left alone.

  The cell was whitewashed and freshly scrubbed with ammonia, but the walls seemed to be impregnated with vomit, urine, and misery. She sat on a bed and waited for them to send for her, but no one came.

  After an hour or two she looked around her cell. There was nothing much to see: a bucket in a corner, a barred window set into the wall adjoining the ceiling. Even if she stood on the bucket, she would not be able to see out. There was no light fixture, which seemed odd, no table or chairs, only the bed, which was bolted to the floor. The mattress was of straw, and there was no blanket.

  Nothing! There was nothing to help her kill herself, but at the same time she did not want to die. Far from it. She emphatically wanted to live and to get out of that cell. If only she could see out of the window.

  The silence seemed to burst in on her ears. After a while she scuffed her feet on the ground and hummed to herself. Anything rather than endure the silence. She was hungry, but no one brought her food or water. Her thirst began to cause her physical discomfort. She knocked on the door, then kicked it and called out, but no one came. It was part of
the softening-up process, she knew that.

  It grew dark, and Sybilia became increasingly dejected. She felt lost. Hopelessly, utterly lost and forgotten. Who cared if she was alive or dead? If she slept or stayed awake? If she died of thirst or not?

  Eventually she cried herself to sleep.

  Nothing changed the next day. In the middle of the second night, she heard footsteps. Her cell door was opened quietly. Dino Renucci came in with a jug of water, bottle of wine, and a large pile of sandwiches.

  ‘I could lose my job for this,’ he whispered in Italian. ‘Come on’ eat up and drink as much as you can. It will help you last out tomorrow.’

  A surge of gratitude swept through her. ‘Thank God, I’m so thirsty,’ she croaked.

  ‘I’ve spent the last two days trying to keep Krag away from you. He wants to tear you apart, literally. Just as he did to the hotel’s carpenter. I suppose you know it’s he who informed against you. It didn’t help him. He died today.’

  ‘How terrible!’ she said. ‘He was a kind man.’

  For a while she sat shivering against the wall, but she was hungry. She could not resist finishing the sandwiches with Renucci, who complained that he hadn’t had a meal all day. Suddenly his arm was around her.

  ‘I’m doing my best to help you,’ he said.

  As his hand fumbled to her breasts, she pushed him away.

  ‘You’re not making it very easy for me.’

  She began trembling. Then she screamed, a long, loud, dismal wail for help. But who was there to help her? Pointless to waste her breath.

  She crouched in the corner of the bed, but he caught her by the ankles. She felt his loathsome hands running up her legs to her thighs. It was the most revolting feeling she had ever experienced. She lunged out toward his eyes, but he was so strong. She felt herself being hauled down the bed. She hung on, kicking. Then she began beating his face with her hands, but he caught both wrists and held them above her head with one hand.

  Oh, God! How could anyone be so strong? She waited her chance and brought her knee up, slamming it into his testicles. He winced. Then he laughed and slapped her face hard.

  For a moment she was stunned. He had hurt her eyes. She could see nothing but purple blotches. After blinking several times she could see dimly. Orange-and-yellow bicycle wheels were spinning madly around the edge of her vision.

  Now she was terribly frightened. She screamed again, but he flung his full weight on top of her.

  ‘Get off me. Get off,’ she gasped.

  He smirked down at her. She saw his face as if through a magnifying glass, distorted and grotesque, with the spittle on his lips and a wart on his cheek.

  Time seemed to stand still. She could hear her own sobbing breath. Gasping a lungful of air seemed to be all that she could do. She bellowed like a heifer when she felt his hand fumbling at her waist, tearing her clothes away. Horrible! Terrible! This couldn’t be happening. She would kill him… if only she could.

  He was crushing the life out of her. She could not breathe at all, only in small, short gasps. When the inevitable thrust came, she was almost choking to death and obsessed with trying to survive.

  Afterward she pulled her clothes together and sat up staring at the wall. She could not look at him.

  ‘That wasn’t much fun,’ he said. ‘You’re not much good."You had no right,’ she whispered.

  ‘Sybilia,’ he said, smiling at her, ‘this place transcends the barriers of right and wrong. You have no rights here at all. Not even the right to drink water, or use the bucket. It can be taken away. Everything can be taken away, even your life. ‘Help me to want to help you.’

  ‘No, never. Never.’ She waited until he left before crumpling into the corner of the bed and sobbing out her grief.

  Chapter 44

  Her food was a bowl of thin soup with little nourishment and a slice of grey, stale bread once each day. Worse than the hunger, the boredom, and the solitude was her fear of what was to happen. She had never been brave. Besides, she had an extraordinarily low pain threshold. Michel had always chided her for that. She would share Michel’s fate, she knew, but she doubted she would acquit herself as well as he had.

  Was it morning? She glanced up at the barred window, but there was no glimmer of light. She had no idea how long she had been there, but now she could hear footsteps approaching.

  Two guards explained that they had come to fetch her for interrogation.

  She was taken upstairs to a room on the third floor. This time she could see out of the window. It was almost dawn. There was a wonderful view of the mountains in the distance. Robin was there somewhere. She hoped he wouldn’t be wasting his time thinking of her. She did not think of him any more, either. She felt too guilty. Nevertheless, she could not tear her gaze away from the mountains. Eventually the guards forced her onto the chair.

  Dino looked very healthy and fresh. He smelled of soap and after-shave, and he was wrinkling his nose in disgust at her. They had given her no facilities for bathing or washing or any way of cleaning herself.

  His assistant, a blond, blue-eyed Italian, smelled strongly of perfume, and he kept moistening his lips as he studied her.

  Dino said in a brisk, businesslike voice, ‘Sybilia, you’ve been lying to me, but this must stop now. Here are four questions, and you must answer them. They are: What is your frequency and code number to radio headquarters? Where are your headquarters? Where have you stored the arms you stole from us? And lastly, who is your leader?’

  ‘I will tell you nothing.’

  ‘We’ll hear a different story quite soon, I have no doubt. I also want the names of your colleagues in the Resistance, and particularly those who are working at the hotel.

  ‘You see, all these matters are of great importance to our war effort. If you won’t tell me, I shall have to hand you over to Major Krag.’

  ‘I won’t tell you anything.’

  ‘Sybilia, you are irritating me. I have the means of making you talk.’

  ‘No. You don’t,’ she whispered. ‘Everyone knows what butchers you are. We saw what you did to Michel. You couldn’t make him talk.’

  ‘We?… Ha! Now we’re getting somewhere. Define “we” Sybilia.’

  ‘I will not.’ She choked back a sob and saw him smile.

  Oh, God, help me. Mary, Mother of Jesus, help me.

  The assistant was removing her shoes and her stockings. ‘I will do it,’ she gasped, but she could not. She was shaking too violently. Finally she leaned back and closed her eyes as she acknowledged defeat. It didn’t matter. She was an impersonal body to this man, which made him all the more terrifying.

  He pressed the metal jaws of his pincers over her nail and pulled. The pain was excruciating, and she began to cry. Not because of the pain, but because human beings could do this to one another; because a man could do this to a woman.

  As the blood started to drip on the floor, she passed out. She revived a few moments later when they threw a bucket of water in her face.

  ‘Would you like to tell us where your leader’s camp is?’

  She tried to speak but could not. Instead she shook her head. Dino Renucci nodded to the man, who grasped her next nail. It was dragged out slowly and dropped on the floor.

  He moved to the next toe and, hours later, it seemed, to the next foot.

  Could it be hours? The sun had not yet risen. She gazed horrified at her bloodied, mangled feet, but there was worse to come. Dino lit a small gas stove in the hearth and put a poker onto the flame. When it was red hot, he picked it up and held it in front of her eyes.

  ‘Last chance, Sybilia,’ he said, smiling happily.

  When the young Italian held the poker against the sole of her foot, she screamed in agony. Mercifully she passed out again, but once again they revived her with a bucket of cold water.

  ‘Back to your cell, Sybilia. Next time we’ll try our pincers on more intimate places. We have another treat for you later this morning. You can’t
walk? Well, you must. Try your heels, my dear. If you hang around here, we’ll think you want some more…

  ‘Just remember one thing, Sybilia,’ he called down the passage after her. ‘If you won’t talk for me, you’ll talk for Krag. I promise you that.’

  They came for her again at eleven. She had torn her petticoat into strips and bandaged her feet. She could no longer push them into shoes, they were too swollen. Now she had two bloodstained, dirty lumps to shuffle along on.

  The ‘treat’ was to be driven in a convoy of six official Fiats to the Gafforis’ home. Renucci wanted her to see Uncle Pierre being hung from a lamp-post for his involvement with the Resistance, and more specifically because of the radio transmitter, which had been hidden in their house. They hadn’t even known about it, Sybilia reminded herself.

  Because the road was a series of cobbled steps, the cars had to be parked at the bottom. They proceeded on foot. Sybilia was half pulled and half pushed behind Dino. By now her feet were hideously swollen and every movement was agonizing.

  Uncle Pierre looked shocked and terrified, but he smiled. He was trying to show her that he did not blame her. Lucilia was screaming, and the children were crying.

  ‘Get on with it quickly,’ Dino said. He seemed worried.

  They put a rope around Pierre’s neck and strung him up. As he began kicking, a shot rang out from a second-floor window, severing the rope. His body fell with a dull thud on the pavement.

  The world had turned to slow motion for Sybilia. She saw Dino frown and then lurch toward her. She dropped down on her knees and tried to climb under a car. Suddenly Dino was propelled forward and upward. His hands were flung out, his head shot back. A crimson stain burst out on his chest. He fell, spattering her with blood.

  Sirens, shots, yells, whistles — pendemonium broke out as Robin’s squad came roaring down the cobbled steps on motorbikes, armed with submachine guns. Someone grabbed her — she did not know who — and thrust her behind Robin. She hung on as they raced back up the steps, through the old town, toward the maquis and freedom. A waste of lives, she thought. He should have left me there. I’m not Sybilia any more. He’s been cheated.