‘I’ve been stupid,’ he said. ‘I made a misjudgement of you. I should have grasped from what I know of your husband that he was not a man to make such misjudgements.’
Again the mention of Simonian brought a veil over her expression.
He said harshly, ‘So we understand each other. To get an Ausweis for your children and the old lady, I shall need to affirm that you are a valued agent of the Abwehr, your name will appear in our files, and this will not simply be for show. As you say, anything you can tell me, I shall not hesitate to use. Anything I think you can do for us, I shall not hesitate to ask.’
He had never contemplated so open an approach. He had always thought of himself as the manipulator, the puppet-master. But now, with this woman, in these circumstances, he could see that nothing else was possible. He had to state exactly what he wanted, except of course that he wanted her. He could never ask her for that again and he could not imagine a situation in which she would offer herself to him freely and with love. The knowledge made him cold and angry.
‘Now, when can you do it?’ she cried. ‘When can I have them home?’
‘I should have the Ausweis by tomorrow. Then I have to arrange for a release order to be sent to the camp.’
‘Tomorrow?’ Her face fell. ‘Can’t we go for them tonight?’
He said brusquely, ‘Tomorrow at the earliest. It takes time.’
She said, ‘Of course. I’m sorry, I’m just so impatient. Günter, whatever you want, thank you, thank you more than I can say.’
She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips.
‘Till tomorrow,’ she said, standing up.
Once again she turned and waved as she ran lightly down the hill.
He didn’t wave back.
14
‘You smiled, Bubbah,’ said Pauli. ‘What did you smile at?’
So my smile has become such a rare thing that this sharp-eyed grandson of mine instantly spots it, thought Sophie sadly.
Bending over Céci’s hair which she was combing for lice, she plucked one out, held it up and said, ‘I was just thinking, there’s such a one! Must be the grandfather of a whole family! Crack, and there’s an end to him.’
Her lie seemed to satisfy the boy. What she had actually been smiling at was a sudden memory of Iakov singeing lice from the seams of his clothes with a candle after their long flight from Russia and accidentally setting his shirt on fire. Such memories were precious sustenance for the soul here in Drancy.
For Drancy was an abomination. The food was vile beyond description. They slept like animals on straw infested with parasites. Every day, new arrivals poured in, including vast numbers of children, many separated from their parents. When she saw them herded out of the trucks and left to mill around, aimless and hopeless as lambs in an abattoir, Sophie wanted to rush forward and comfort them, pressing to her thin bony body as many as possible.
But she did not dare do it. All her energy was directed to keeping Pauli and Céci with her. She’d seen families ripped apart after dawn roll-calls when those picked out had been marched away to the station.
At first she’d been sure there must be protests. Drancy was a complex of apartment blocks surrounded by other apartment blocks. People at their windows could look into the camp. People out shopping or going to work must see the lines of deportees plodding by.
Then she remembered the walk from her home to the Rue des Rosiers. She must not look for help from anywhere but within. Only the children mattered. Keeping them with her was her only function.
She concentrated all her attention on her granddaughter’s hair.
‘Bubbah,’ said the little girl idly. ‘When will it be our turn to go to Pitchipoi?’
‘Pitchi-what? Where’s that, cabbage?’ she asked.
‘Pitchipoi!’ repeated Céci. ‘When are we going?’
‘Pauli?’ said Sophie, turning as always to the boy whenever she couldn’t grasp what Céci meant.
‘It’s a name,’ said Pauli, who was sitting trying to repair his worn and torn trousers. It would be much easier if he had a needle or even a knife. He thought with regret of the super knife that Uncle Miche had given him. He’d left it at home the day his mother had suddenly and inexplicably decided they should stay with Bubbah. He wished he had it now. Even though he’d promised maman he would never open the blade till he had her permission, there were still all those other bits and pieces which would have been so useful.
‘I know it’s a name,’ said Sophie sharply. ‘I may be ancient but I’m not antique. A name for what?’
‘It’s the name some of the children give to the place they’re going to send us,’ said Pauli casually.
‘What place? You mean it’s a game?’ demanded Sophie in alarm.
‘It’s an awful place,’ announced Céci, happy to be forthcoming now that her brother had shown the way. ‘It’s a dreadful place where they do dreadful things. They make stew out of the little girls and steak out of the little boys.’
‘Céci!’ exclaimed Sophie almost choking on her alarm. ‘That’s just silly.’
‘No it’s not,’ said the girl indignantly. ‘Everyone knows. It’s an awful awful place and it’s miles and miles from home and you never never ever come back, ‘cause if you try to run away there’s big dogs like wolves to eat you. Isn’t that right, Pauli?’
Her brother looked up at his grandmother then looked away. Céci took the silence as assent and cried triumphantly to Sophie, ‘See, Pauli knows it’s true!’ and in the very moment of her triumph, the implication of having her worst fears confirmed by her infallible brother hit her.
Bursting into tears, she squeezed tight against Sophie as if trying to get inside the old woman’s body and sobbed, ‘I don’t want to go, Bubbah. I don’t want to go to Pitchipoi.’
‘There, there, cabbage, there’s no such place, it’s just a silly game,’ crooned Sophie rocking the child to and fro. ‘We’re not going anywhere.’
The next morning in the corpse-light of a grey, drizzling dawn, their names were called out in the list for departure.
She tried to protest, but all she did was draw attention to herself and the gendarmes were only too pleased to satisfy their masters’ bureaucratic demands by ticking off three names.
‘Quickly, over there. Do as I say, old woman!’
They had collected their pathetic scraps of belongings. The old carpet bag was long gone. Now what they had was contained in a ragged square of cloth tied together at the corners. Now this was opened and searched but not even the magpie instincts of the searchers could find anything left worth stealing.
‘Over there! Get on the bus!’
The old green and white buses were being used today. There was a larger than usual number of unaccompanied children being deported and it was felt there was a slight risk that the sight of them being herded along the rain-soaked pavements might provoke some kind of protest.
One or two gendarmes were visibly affected. Most hid their feelings under a shield of anger. They shouted and swore and brandished their sticks as though there was a constant threat of resistance. Sophie realized why they were doing this but felt no sympathy. This was not work fit for decent men.
On the bus she sat near the door and pulled the children close to her. They didn’t speak but sat by the rain-spattered window, fearfully watching the confusion outside.
Whatever system there was had clearly broken down. Harassed French officials with lists were trying to check names. The guards were herding people towards the buses with growing brutality. A German officer appeared, a comparatively rare sight within the camp. He began to shout angry instructions, adding to the confusion. A girl of about ten ran from the doorway of one of the blocks and spoke to him. She kept on gesturing towards the buses. Her dirty face was streaked with tears. The officer spoke to a French official who studied his list and shook his head. The officer pointed back to the block, the girl persisted, and finally the official dragged her, screaming in g
rief and protest, back into the building. It was like watching a vision of madness, then realizing you were no spectator but a part of it. And over everything rose the cries of weeping children.
Céci’s face at last crumpled and she said, ‘Bubbah, are we going to Pitchipoi now?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Sophie, but her voice carried no conviction even to herself. She had to do something. She closed her eyes in prayer for a moment, opened them again and saw through the window the young girl who was desperate to get on a bus being driven back by the angry official once more.
‘Pauli,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask questions. Take Céci back to the block. If anyone stops you, tell them you want to go on the bus because there’s a nice lady who’s been kind to you on the bus. But don’t tell them your name. Can you do that, Pauli?’
He looked straight into her eyes with that unblinking gaze he had inherited from her son. Then he nodded.
‘Yes, Bubbah,’ he said, and flung his arms round her neck and kissed her. Then he took Céci by the hand. Their bus was full and their guard was round the front, smoking a cigarette and talking with the driver. The door was slightly ajar. Pauli pushed it so it slid just wide enough for them to squeeze out.
Sophie watched them walk away. Pauli had his arm around his sister, holding her tight against his side. They looked so small, so defenceless. The old woman half rose from her seat to call them back. This was stupidity. At least they had been together. All that was likely to happen now was for the children to be transported separately, out of reach of any small protection she could afford them.
But she slumped down again without calling. In her mind she was seeing that sad, already defeated queue shuffling over the hall of the police station to register what no civilized state could have any reason for wanting them to register. Even then she had known but not been able to admit where that queue led to.
Now it was her unavoidable fate to travel east at the end of her life just as she and Iakov had travelled west at its true beginning. But for the children any delay must increase their slender chance of rescue from this nightmare.
They had almost reached the nearest block. Perhaps they would simply walk in unchallenged. But just as it seemed they had made it, a gendarme planted himself in front of them and began shouting at them and pointing back to the buses.
Sophie felt her old frail body ready to collapse in on itself and die at this last disappointment. She sank back in her seat and put her hands over her face.
Pauli looked up at the man who was yelling at them to get back to the buses. He let him go on a bit, then began to yell, ‘We want to go! We want to go! But he won’t let us! He won’t let us!’
At last the gendarme realized what was being said.
‘What do you mean? Who won’t let you?’
‘The man on the bus! We want to go with the lady, but he said we can’t! The lady was kind to us. We want to go with the lady!’
He now screwed his face up, and made himself cry, and through the tears continued his refrain, ‘We want to go with the lady!’
Céci had no idea what was going on, but tears are infectious, and anything Pauli did was good enough for her, so she soon joined in, ‘We want to go with the lady!’
‘Shut your row, boy!’ ordered the gendarme, but his tone was now less angry than his words. ‘What’s your name?’
The man had a list.
Pauli thought desperately. All names except his own vanished from his mind. Then he saw the door of his grandfather’s shop, and smelt the glorious smell of fresh baked bread, and his eyes filled with genuine tears.
‘Crozier,’ he said. ‘I’m Claude Crozier and this is my sister, Louise.’
The gendarme studied the list. Suppose there was someone called Crozier on it? Pauli clasped his sister’s hand so tight, she squealed in pain.
‘Poor kid. You really are upset, aren’t you?’ said the gendarme paying attention to Céci for the first time. Men were always delighted with the little girl’s wide-eyed, appealing face framed in blonde curls, and even in her present state, the charm still worked. Suddenly Pauli foresaw a new danger. Success.
He flung himself forward against the gendarme, butting his head against the man’s crutch.
‘Let us go with the lady! You’ve got to let us go with the lady!’ he cried, beating his fists against the policeman’s thighs.
‘Yes, you’ve got to, you’ve got to!’ yelled Céci, adding her tiny fists to the tattoo.
‘Jesus Christ, you little bastard!’ gasped the gendarme, doubled up with pain. ‘Get out of here before I break your fucking neck! Go on, you nasty little Yid! Get out of here!’
In the bus, Sophie took her hands from her eyes. She saw the gendarme straightening up with difficulty, saw the backs of Pauli and his sister as they disappeared back into the detention block.
‘Thank God!’ said Sophie, certain beyond reason that this was no temporary escape for the children, that somehow they would be freed completely from Drancy. ‘Thank you, dear God. Now I can die.’
She meant it. It seemed an easy thing, now that she no longer had the children to care for, to release her hold on life and slip quietly away, perhaps even before the cattle-wagon into which they were herded at the railway station trundled its way eastwards out of France.
But when she lay back against the rough wooden slats and closed her eyes, she felt fingers tugging at her arms and her legs and her shoulders and her hair. Opening her eyes, she saw she was the only adult in this wagon full of children. Slowly their touch and their cries drew her reluctantly, painfully, back to life.
She reached out and put her arms around as many as possible.
‘Be silent, my cabbages,’ she said. ‘Dry your tears. It’s a train we’ll be travelling on, not a boat, so who needs a river, eh?’
Some of the nearest children tried to stop their tears. A small boy asked fearfully, ‘Will the train take us to Pitchipoi, madame?’
‘Who knows where a train goes these days? Only the driver. Do I look like a driver, eh? But don’t be afraid, cabbage. Be sure, wherever it takes us, I’m going with you all of the way.’
The wagon lurched forward. The journey had begun. Paris was soon falling behind them, Paris where people were stretching, and yawning, and eating breakfast, and grumbling about the coffee, and going to work; Paris where Günter Mai was already in his staff car, heading to the Majestic, eager to collect the Ausweis and the release order for the Simonian children and their grandmother from the horror of Drancy.
15
Three months after Sophie Simonian’s train had crawled into the east, the rescued children stood on a cold, windswept platform of the Gare de Lyon and prepared to journey south. Once more their destination was the home of their Aunt Mireille in the Ain, and this time the journey made even less sense to Pauli than it had in 1940. Then at least their mother had been going with them.
Towering over the children on the platform, one huge hand resting on each small head, was Michel Boucher. With his beard and locks tousled by the wind, he looked like a red-headed Moses giving them his benison. To protect Janine, not to mention his own interest, Günter Mai had suggested that Boucher be given the credit for obtaining the Drancy release order, and it had made sense to maintain the deception when it came to the children’s permit to travel into the Free Zone.
While Boucher had been delighted to play the role of benevolent provider, he hadn’t omitted to use the occasion to his own advantage. The children needed an escort, at least as far as Lyon where his sister would meet them. He knew just the man. And there was no need for Mai to worry. He, Boucher, would supply all the necessary identification papers if the German could arrange the Ausweis. Although feeling he was being sucked from bending the rules into active illegality, Mai finally agreed, and the result was Monsieur Roger Corder, commercial traveller who stood there, wan-faced, anxious-eyed, in a grey fedora and an astrakhan coat.
Boucher had said, ‘For God’s sake, Maurice, dump
that coat! It’s a dead giveaway. You look like a mad poet heading south to die of consumption!’
‘Do you know how much this coat cost me?’ replied Melchior passionately. ‘Nothing! Do you expect me to give up so easily something which was a gift from God?’
Janine had been more than relieved to learn that Melchior was travelling too. Worried at the thought of the children having to make such a long trip by themselves, she had been tempted in many ways to obey Jean-Paul’s harsh instruction and Mai’s gentler urgings to go with them. But her greater fear was that if she made the trip, she would not have the strength to come back.
She looked at her husband now, so much slighter, so much less flamboyant than Michel Boucher. But to those close enough to feel it, the intensity of passion and menace emanating from that still body made him the group’s dominant figure.
He had taken the news of his mother’s deportation with the same terrifying immobility of feature. She’d kept it from him as long as possible, waiting till he got some of his strength back. That night, he rose from his sick bed and went out, returning hours later with no explanation. But she noticed that the toes of his heavy boots were stained brown and the backs of his hands were scored with scratches such as a woman’s long nails might make trying to loosen a strangler’s grip.
Next day there were red and black notices everywhere announcing heavy reprisals for the brutal murder of a German sergeant. Not mentioned, because not thought significant, was the fact that he had been killed at the apartment of a blonde Pigalle prostitute, and that the woman had been throttled so violently that every bone in her throat was shattered.
Since then Jean-Paul seemed to have settled into a creature of stealth, as though acknowledging that to take unnecessary risks might cut short his chosen career of destroying the enemy. Janine and the children he either ignored or looked at with baffled despair like a man watching birds through a barred window.
There was danger here, she could feel it. For herself, she did not mind. But the thought of having the children brought into peril again became too much and finally she had embraced the lesser pain and opted to send them away.
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