O

by Steven Carroll

  The morning slips by: towns, villages, open countryside. But slowly. There are more stops. Another troop train going back to Paris; another familiar, inconsequential town; blurred stations she well remembers from numerous trips back to Avranches to see her grandmother. Comforting memories. She dozes off and is woken by the sound of the compartment door sliding open. When she looks up, two Germans are standing at the doorway calling for papers.

  No warning, no sign. They just appear. The officer checks the papers; the soldier stands behind him, rifle over his shoulder. It is a friendly exchange, could almost be a routine border check in peacetime.

  The officer asks Dominique where she is going. She says where, points to Pauline and says they are travelling together. He hands their papers back. Soon he has checked the compartment and moves on to the next, wishing them all a pleasant journey.

  And the relief is such that the next hour or so is almost pleasant. She reads and for the first time all morning her mind is on something other than the job at hand. Perhaps that will be their one and only inspection. At some point she imagines she ought to talk to Pauline. If they really were old friends on a holiday together they would be chatting. They would be making plans. Besides, she can feel herself relaxing as she would on just any journey, and relaxing, she tells herself, like lingering, is dangerous.

  ‘Shall we go to Mont Saint-Michel? It’s a walk, but a good walk.’

  Pauline joins in. ‘I’d love that.’

  A born actor, Dominique can’t help but think. Not only does she look like an actress descended upon them, she plays the game like one as well.

  ‘Good, it’s settled.’

  Pauline suddenly adopts a troubled look. ‘You don’t suppose it’s been washed away? Or bombed?’

  The young student laughs, the whole compartment amused.

  Pauline turns pensive. ‘I dreamt it was gone. The tide was out and I was walking to where it always was, but there was nothing there.’ She says this with such convincing poignancy that Dominique can’t help but believe that she did dream it. ‘Well,’ Pauline continues with practised ease, looking at Dominique, ‘it’s been an age since we saw it. It wouldn’t be the first island to sink into the sand or be blown to bits.’

  ‘Madame,’ the young student suddenly says, ‘I saw it last week. Believe me, it’s still there.’

  ‘You see?’ Dominique adds. ‘Still there. Just a dream.’

  ‘No, dreams are never just dreams,’ she observes, with the air of someone who knows a thing or two about dreams.

  The conversation continues: castles, the weather, cheese – for the woman by the window with her daughter hands some around. Her cheese, she says, and they all savour it with nodding approval. They talk on. The young man, it transpires, is an engineering student from Granville; the man in the suit a salesman as Dominique suspected; the middle-aged woman by the window a farmer’s wife returning home, her daughter a nurse on a break. Soon everybody is joining in the conversation: travellers sharing travellers’ tales. And it is quite a surprise when Dominique looks up and sees they have just pulled into L’Aigle.

  Only L’Aigle, she notes. For it is impossible not to be glumly struck by the fact that they’ve still got over half the journey to go. As she listens to the conversations around her, mostly complaints about the time everything is taking and all the stops, she is watching the compartment door, expecting it to open any minute and a new round of inspections to begin. But it doesn’t. The train lumbers out of the station, shrouded, she imagines, in steam.

  The compartment has fallen silent again. Everyone either asleep or idly gazing out the window. Pauline is looking down at the magazine she must have read over and over again, and Dominique lets her be. As she gazes out the window she notes that something is different. And she’s puzzled by what it is until she realises it’s the rapidity with which the view is now passing. The train has picked up speed. There are no stops. And it seems that the distance between L’Aigle and the next stop is covered in virtually no time.

  Suddenly they are easing into – what is it? – she waits for the station’s name to come to her. Argentan. Pleasant. Trees in late autumn orange, everybody slowly ambling along the platform. No soldiers. The look of a town that has never gone to war. And it is while she is contemplating this that the compartment door opens again, and a German officer is standing there.

  ‘Papers.’

  He is business-like, abrupt, no sign of emotion. Just someone getting a boring job done. Dominique is aware of her body tensing again, and once more she’s wondering just how good Pauline’s papers are. He might be bored, this German, but he has the air of someone who knows his job.

  After checking the student’s papers, he takes Dominique’s. The train edges out of the station. The German turns to Pauline, eyes lingering, appreciative, the slightest hint of an emotional life inside the uniform.

  ‘We’re travelling together,’ Pauline says, pointing to Dominique.

  ‘Ah,’ he says, ‘friends?’

  ‘Old friends,’ says Dominique, as he scans their papers.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Avranches,’ Dominique continues.

  ‘Oh,’ he looks up, ‘I’ve just come from Avranches. Pretty.’

  ‘Quite pretty,’ Dominique agrees, wishing only for the conversation, for it is becoming a conversation, to end. He is cagey, this German. Does he sniff something? Let someone talk long enough and eventually they’ll talk themselves into trouble. That’s the principle. And as much as she’d like the conversation to end, it shows no sign of doing so. What is she doing here in this stuffy third-class compartment, he could be asking himself, before mentally shrugging the question off with the thought that even the beautiful must travel as best they can.

  ‘Why Avranches?’ he eventually asks.

  ‘We grew up there.’

  He turns to Pauline. ‘Such a beautiful church,’ he observes, looking down at her papers, then looking up, ‘Madame Réage.’

  For the first time in the journey, Pauline hesitates. Is it a trick? Dominique could jump in and relieve her of the need to answer, but it would look suspicious. Happily, Pauline’s hesitation is brief.

  ‘I was confirmed there.’

  ‘Ah,’ he says, ‘and you, Madame Aury?’

  ‘I was sick, I missed it.’

  It is at this point that the farmer’s wife pipes up. ‘They’re going to visit Mont Saint-Michel, if it’s still there.’

  The German turns to her as if upon an unfortunate interruption, with a look that says who asked you? But the compartment breaks into laughter and the look fades.

  ‘Well then.’ He slaps their papers lightly against his palm. Thoughtfully. A gesture that suggests something is not right. But what? ‘And how are you getting from Granville to Avranches?’

  The question is addressed to either of them. Dominique replies quickly. Decisively. No hesitation. ‘My uncle is meeting us.’

  ‘How fortunate,’ he says, then casually adds, ‘And what is your uncle’s name?’

  Dominique freezes. Nobody thought to give her uncle a name. Not the Englishman, Pauline or her. So simple. So small. But it is on these small points that everything can unravel. She is silent, and suddenly the German is interested in her answer in a way he wasn’t when he asked the question.

  ‘Your uncle’s name, Madame Aury. You do know your uncle’s name?’

  Think, she tells herself. Just speak! ‘Sam.’

  A smile crosses the German’s lips. ‘Sam? You have an Uncle Sam?’

  ‘Well, that’s not his fault, is it?’

  She is back into a rhythm now. She is confident. The German is laughing. The compartment joins in. He hands their papers back, not even bothering to check the others. A smile still on his lips, he looks round at Dominique as he leaves. ‘Give my regards to your Uncle Sam. And that mouse!’

  Once again the compartment breaks into laughter. The door closes, the German is gone. Dominique leans back in her place, the
familiar drug of tension pumping through her veins. Pauline’s eyebrows rise momentarily, the slightest of congratulating nods directed at Dominique, then she looks down and puts her papers back in her handbag. It’s all luck, Dominique tells herself, like someone who has just played a kind of Russian roulette for the last time.

  She turns her attention to the view. The light is fading. They have travelled all day. The train speeds up, as if having only just noticed the time. The green fields are darkening. She sighs quietly. Exhausted. Pauline rolls her eyes: will this journey ever end? Dominique would dearly love to sleep. But she knows if she succumbs she might not wake up for days.

  It is early evening when they finally pull into Granville, its lights muted in the night. Waiting, just for them, all day. The engine not so much stops as collapses. The steam, carried by a soft breeze, floats back along the platform. Passengers move in and out of clouds of steam and soot, solid one moment, spectres the next. German soldiers watch at the end of the platform, but there are no checks. Passengers pass through the platform gates untroubled.

  Dominique, walking with Pauline, is looking about for a moustache and a baguette when a man suddenly emerges from the smog, breaking off a piece of bread.

  He smiles at her and says, ‘Dominique.’

  ‘My favourite uncle,’ she says, as he nods at the correct response and they embrace.

  ‘Here, eat. You must be starving.’

  Dominique takes the bread. ‘I haven’t eaten all day.’

  The man looks at Pauline. ‘Welcome back to Granville, Pauline. It’s been too long,’ he says, offering her bread as they leave the station.

  ‘It has,’ Pauline responds, joining in the make-believe familiarity. ‘Much too long.’

  Dominique is too preoccupied chewing on the bread to notice the approach of the German officer who checked their papers.

  ‘Ah,’ he calls, ‘so this is your Uncle Sam?’

  Her contact stares at the officer, at Dominique, and back at the officer before breaking into a smile. ‘That’s right,’ he says, ‘that’s me.’

  The German casually salutes the baker. ‘I’ve always wanted to meet the famous Uncle Sam,’ he jokes, before waving them all goodbye and disappearing through the smoke.

  Her contact watches him go then turns to Dominique, eyebrows raised, as if to ask what the meaning of that was.

  The platform empties, the engine breathes easily, the driver and the crew amble into the station offices. Outside, on the street, a black car with a baker’s sign painted on the side sits waiting for them. As they approach the car Dominique studies this newly discovered uncle of hers, wondering if he’s a baker any more than he’s her uncle.

  A driver sits at the wheel; Dominique and Pauline sit in the back. The drive out of the town takes about five minutes, and once in the countryside the car pulls over to the side of the road. The two women look about, puzzled and wary. The two men jump from their seats and open the back doors.

  ‘Why are we stopping?’ Dominique asks the driver. But he says nothing. Without explanation, both men produce blindfolds and place them over the eyes of the women, tying them at the back. Then, with a ribbon of some sort, Dominique’s hands are tied behind her. It is all so swift, the men so practised in the procedure, that she is stunned into silence.

  It is a precaution, the driver eventually says, as the car pulls out onto the road. ‘For your own good as much as ours.’

  For the remainder of the journey Dominique can only speculate where they might be. It is a silent trip. And dark. And in that closed-in darkness it is the facts of the situation that she goes over again and again: she is in a car at night with two men she has never met before; she is blindfolded, her hands are tied and she has no idea where they are going. And it is the realisation that she has absolutely no control over anything that seizes her. And as much as she tells herself it is all right, just a precaution, she is also afraid at this particular moment in a way that, for all its dangers, she never was on the train. After all, the woman beside her has been denounced. She is guilty of horizontal collaboration, and the French will want her as much as the Germans. And she’s asking herself just how much she can trust these two men. But, of course, the point is now academic. She has no choice.

  Her mouth is dry. How, how could she have surrendered control so easily? Danger, she knows, can be borne, can be negotiated, if you choose it. That is calculated danger: you can use your wits and you can act. But this, literally, is an act of blind faith. And it occurs to her that she’s never really understood the full meaning of surrender, that she has never really surrendered to anything or anyone until this moment.

  Just as she is about to protest, the car swerves, turns, slows and comes to a halt.

  ‘We’re here.’ It is the driver’s voice she hears as he takes her by the arm and leads her out of the car. She is standing in the cold, silent night when the blindfold is taken from her and her hands untied. She blinks, adjusts to the darkness, then takes in the dulled lights of a farmhouse.

  It is almost as though it has simply materialised. Magically. As though she is being led into a story, which she is. A fairy tale as frightening as it is fascinating. It is puzzling, disturbingly so, that she feels more fearful among her own people than she felt at any time on the train being questioned by Germans.

  They walk up a dirt path. A door opens, seemingly by itself, and they step inside.

  Just then Uncle Sam speaks to her. ‘Let me give you a word of advice.’

  ‘Please do,’ says Dominique.

  He is stern. Like a schoolmaster, which he quite possibly is or was. ‘No more jokes.’

  ‘Jokes?’

  ‘Uncle Sam,’ he says. ‘For every joke that works, that gets you through a tense moment, there are fifty that don’t. You were lucky, you struck a German with a sense of humour. But don’t think that because you struck it lucky once you will again. The next one may very well haul you in.’

  Dominique doesn’t tell him that she’s actually struck it lucky twice.

  ‘Keep your head down,’ he says. ‘Look beaten. Respectful. Make them feel powerful. But, above all, do not attract attention. Madame Réage,’ he adds, looking at Pauline, ‘would already have been attracting enough of that.’

  ‘Lesson over,’ the driver says, then turns to Pauline. ‘You are well, madame?’

  ‘I’m glad that’s finished.’

  ‘Not long now,’ Uncle Sam says, studying Pauline, then adding, ‘Have you been told you look like Arletty?’

  Pauline smiles. ‘Yes.’

  Uncle Sam nods. ‘I’m not surprised.’

  ‘I once doubled for her,’ Pauline adds.

  ‘Well,’ he says gruffly, his tone now changed completely, ‘I wouldn’t double for her when this war is finally over. Because we will win, and there will be a reckoning such as we haven’t had since the revolution.’

  Dominique studies him, seeing for the first time the steel in him. This is a man, she is sure, who has lost loved ones and killed.

  He then tells Pauline, almost casually, ‘You got out just in time.’

  ‘Oh?’ Pauline raises a questioning eyebrow.

  ‘Your apartment was raided this morning.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Just after you boarded your train.’

  Pauline is looking round the room vaguely, almost, it seems to Dominique, trying to picture the scene: the Gestapo in her apartment – drawers emptied, clothes flung from the wardrobe, all those silk pyjamas strewn across the floor, her letters, private things, collected and taken back to the Gestapo headquarters. Pauline then asks Uncle Sam, ‘And Stefan?’

  He glares at her, astonished at the question. ‘Stefan?’

  Pauline turns to Dominique as if to say yes, he had a name.

  ‘The German,’ Dominique says.

  Uncle Sam replies with a touch of contempt in his voice, as if the charge of horizontal collaboration were not far from his thoughts and lips. ‘He was taken away.’ />
  Pauline gasps as if winded. ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t care,’ he says, with an abrupt air that he’d really like to wash his hands now of this woman. ‘There’s one less German to kill – that’s all that matters.’

  Pauline gazes at him almost pityingly, it seems to Dominique. Uncle Sam looks Pauline up and down, drawing the obvious conclusion. It is then that Pauline’s manner turns defiant. Don’t you dare judge me! What do you know, the look could be saying, what do you really know of the shades of grey?

  The silence that follows the exchange is tense and the driver suddenly breaks in. ‘Enough. We don’t have time for this.’

  He unfolds a map and spreads it out on the table, pointing to a spot on it. ‘Do you know this field?’ he asks Dominique.

  Dominique looks at the map, concentrates, notes that it is not far from Avranches, then recognises the name of the hamlet near the field and knows exactly where it is. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good,’ the driver says, ‘then you can help get us there once we’re on the main road.’

  ‘I could find it blindfolded,’ Dominique says.

  The driver shakes his head. ‘That won’t be necessary now.’ He adds, ‘How long is the drive?’

  Dominique tilts her head. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know where we are.’

  ‘We’re not sure either. This is not our usual territory, you understand,’ he says, ‘and there’s been no time for reconnaissance. We only heard of Madame Réage yesterday. I don’t like this, but there you are.’ He turns to Pauline. ‘They want you out fast.’ He eyes her warily: whatever you know, madame, it’s enough for them to pull out all stops. ‘In two hours Madame Réage’s plane will land on that field,’ he says, turning back to Dominique. ‘The field was chosen by the British.’ He raises his eyebrows as if to say high-handed bunch. ‘They have a man in Granville,’ he says.

  Dominique shrugs. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘On another job. A British airman. It’s a busy night.’ He lets the point sink in before continuing. ‘Our plane will land, it will take off, Madame Réage will fly away and our job will be done.’ He then adds wryly, ‘But I would dearly love to be on the right field when it does land.’ He looks round at Pauline. ‘We only have to wait for confirmation from London that the job will go ahead as planned.’