by Pam Jenoff
The women moved swiftly now. They squeezed slips of paper through the thin slit prison windows, sending them cascading to the ground like confetti. They were notes, scribbles on whatever could be found, written in charcoal or sometimes blood, asking about relatives or trying to send word. Or simply “Je suis là” (“I am here”), followed by a name, because soon they would not be and someone needed to remember.
But Marie stood motionless, letting the activity swirl around her as she prepared to be taken, once again, against her will to points unknown. She considered refusing to go. The Germans would surely shoot her on the spot, as they had Julian. Her heart screamed as she remembered his last moments, life pouring from him. He had looked so peaceful. Without him, all hope was gone. Perhaps it would be for the best.
No, not all hope. If the Allies were closing in on Paris, surely the Germans would want the prisoners moved ahead of that. Liberation could not be far behind. If there was a chance of someday getting back to her daughter, Marie had to try.
The door to the cell, which had been locked since her arrival weeks earlier, now burst open with a clang. “Raus!” The women around her surged forward. No one wanted to face the consequences of being last. In the dank central corridor, women poured from the other cells, merging with them until the stream became a river of bodies, thick and warm.
As the crowd pushed her forward, Marie stumbled over something and nearly fell. It was a woman on the corridor floor, curled up in a ball, too sick or hurt to go on. Marie hesitated. She did not want to lag behind. But the woman would surely be killed if she remained on the ground. Marie knelt hurriedly and tried to help the woman. Then she let out a yelp of recognition.
It was Josie.
Marie froze, wondering if it was an illusion, or another dream. Then she dropped to her knees, embracing her friend. “You’re alive!” Josie was a skeleton, though, hardly recognizable, not moving. “It’s me, Marie,” she added, when Josie did not respond or seem to know her.
Josie opened her mouth but no words came out. Despite the awful conditions, joy surged through Marie. Josie was alive. But how? She had been reported missing a month earlier, presumed dead. There were so many questions Marie wanted to ask, too, but Josie seemed to lack the strength to speak, much less describe the horrors she had been through. Marie wanted to tell her about everything that had happened, including Julian’s death.
There was no time now. They were emptying the entire prison, ordering people forward, outside onto the trucks. It was either obey or be trampled or shot. “Come,” she urged Josie to her feet. “We have to move.”
“I can’t,” Josie rasped. Marie tried to lift her, but nearly buckled under the weight. Behind her, a shot rang out, reminding her what would happen if they refused to go.
“You can do this.” Marie braced her knees and tried again to raise Josie. She recalled the day Josie had carried her down the Scottish hillside in that run that seemed a lifetime ago. Now it was Marie’s turn to be strong.
“Come,” she said to Josie. She could almost feel the crisp wind of the Highlands urging them forward. Together, they inched ahead toward the fate that awaited them.
* * *
Through the slatted boxcar window, Marie could make out the faintest light. Whether it was sunrise or sunset, she no longer knew. They had been brought from Fresnes to the Gare de Pantin in trucks, loaded into the railcar forty deep. The train stood idle in the station for hours, baking under the summer sun. When it finally left, it moved east at a glacial pace, at times stopping for hours on end, then starting again just as inexplicably. At some point, Marie assumed, they had crossed from France into Germany. The doors had opened once to pass in a bucket of water and some stale bread, not nearly enough for all of them. Marie’s mouth was dry and cracked with thirst.
Some of the women moaned; others were silent, condemned to their fate. The air reeked of toilet smells and worse. Someone had died in the car, maybe more than one person, judging by the stench. Marie found it most bearable to stand high and press her nose close to the tiny window. But Josie slumped on the floor beside her.
Marie winced as her stomach cramped violently. There was a bucket on the far side of the railcar, which they were meant to use to relieve themselves. But even if she could make it in time, she did not dare leave Josie alone. For a moment, she feared she would soil herself. Then she felt the blood, rushing down her leg in a hot, humiliating stream. Her period. She bunched her dress closer between her legs, feeling the wetness seep through. There was simply nothing to be done about it.
She bent close to Josie and placed her hand in front of her friend’s mouth to make sure she was still breathing. Josie was burning with fever now, heat seeming to radiate off her. Marie took the wet rag, which she had managed to soak when the bucket passed through the railcar earlier, and placed it on Josie’s burning head. She didn’t know what was wrong with her friend; there was no visible wound. Typhus maybe, or dysentery. She leaned closer, heedless of catching whatever Josie had herself. “Josie, you’re alive. I’m so glad I found you. All of this time we thought...”
Josie smiled weakly. “I went to make contact with the Maquis...” She paused to lick her lips and draw a strained breath. “But it was a trap. The Germans knew I was coming there for a meeting and they were waiting. They knew who I was, my real identity and even the fact that I was half-Jewish. Whoever turned us in is still out there. We have to find a way to send word to Julian.”
Josie did not know. For a second, Marie wanted to hide the truth from her, fearing that it would be too much. But she could not. “Julian’s dead.”
Josie winced. “You’re certain?”
“I saw it myself.” A tear burned Marie’s cheeks. “I held him until he was gone. It was my fault,” she confessed. “The SD had one of our radios and they wanted me to broadcast to London for them, so London wouldn’t grow suspicious and would keep sending information. I tried to transmit without my security check so they would know it was a fake. But the Germans discovered what I did and killed Julian.”
“You were doing exactly as you were trained,” Josie managed, comforting Marie when in fact it should have been the reverse. “You mustn’t blame yourself. It’s what Julian would have wanted. He wouldn’t want you to give up the operation for him.”
Then Josie’s face went stony. “It’s over then,” she said quietly. She lay back, the little strength she had mustered seemingly gone. Marie wanted to argue, but could not. She dropped to the floor of the railcar, squeezing into the spot beside her friend. Her fingers found Josie’s and they sat without speaking amid the sounds of the train clacking over the rails and the piteous moans of women dying.
Josie closed her eyes, seeming to sleep. Watching her, something inside Marie broke. Josie had been the best of them. Yet she lay here, broken, a wizened and suffering near corpse. An eighteen-year-old girl should have young-girl dreams, not be facing the end of her days.
“We could be dancing in London right now,” Marie mused aloud. It was an old joke, one they used to make after the worst days of training at Arisaig House. “A night at the Ritz with one of those American Joes.”
Josie half opened her eyes and managed another faint smile, more of a grimace this time. She tried to speak, but no sound came out. Instead, there was a rattle in Josie’s throat, the unmistakable sound that the end was drawing near.
“Josie...” There was so much Marie wanted to ask about her life and the things she had seen in the field. Josie would know how to move forward, to survive whatever awaited her. But she was already too far gone to answer.
Suddenly there came a rumbling in the distance. An explosion of some sort. A murmur rippled through the car. “Allied bombers,” someone whispered. One woman cheered, another applauded. Could it really be the long-promised liberation? It had been rumored for so long, Marie hardly believed it anymore.
But their joy was short-liv
ed. Another explosion hit, closer this time. Boards fell from the roof of the railcar. Marie covered Josie with her own body to shield her from the debris that rained down. “We’ve been hit!” someone cried. Not yet, Marie thought, but it was only a matter of time. The car wobbled and started to topple on its side, and Marie struggled to hold off the tide of bodies that cascaded toward them.
Then the explosions stopped and the railcar stilled, listing precariously at a tilted angle. The doors opened and the blast of cool air was a welcome relief. “Raus! Mach schnell!” came the order to evacuate. Marie was puzzled. Why should the Germans care if the railcar full of prisoners fell or was hit by a bomb? But as she raised herself up and peered out the window, she could see that the track ahead had been destroyed, making the line impassable.
The other women were clambering up the tilted incline of the railcar now, following orders to exit. But Josie lay on the floor, not moving. Was she dead? “Come, Josie,” Marie pleaded, desperately afraid. She tried to drag Josie, but the sharp angle on which the railcar listed made it impossible.
Spying the two women still inside the railcar, one of the Germans climbed inside. “Out!” he barked, moving closer.
“She’s sick and she can’t move,” Marie cried, pleading for clemency. She instantly realized her mistake. The frail and wounded were refuse to the Germans, deserving not of care but instant disposal.
The German lifted his foot to kick Josie and landed a fierce blow, nearly lifting her whole body. “No!” Marie cried, throwing herself over her friend.
“Go, or you’ll face the same,” the German ordered. Marie did not answer, but held on to Josie even more tightly. She would not abandon her to this fate. Marie felt a whoosh of air as the soldier’s foot swept down again. Pain exploded in her ribs, which were still bruised from the beating she’d suffered at Avenue Foch. She curled into a ball over her friend, bracing herself for another blow, wondering how many she could take. She glanced out of the corner of her eye as the German reached for his gun. So this was how it was to end. At least she was with Josie and not alone.
“I’m sorry,” Marie whispered, thinking of her daughter whom she never should have left at all.
There was a banging sound as another German climbed into the railcar. “Don’t waste your ammunition,” he said to the first. “If they want to die here in the air raid, let them.”
But the first soldier persisted, grabbing Marie roughly and attempting to drag her off her friend. Marie fought, then felt movement beneath her. When she looked down, Josie’s eyes were wide-open, her gaze clear and calm. Suddenly they were back in Scotland and it was just the two of them lying awake, talking in the darkness. Josie’s lips formed a single word, unmistakable: run.
Marie felt it then, something round and hard between them. Josie was clutching a dark metal egg to her chest. A grenade, like the ones they had trained with at Arisaig House. She could not imagine how she had managed to keep it with her all of this time. But she knew Josie had saved it for exactly this moment—her last stand.
“No!” Marie cried, but it was too late. Josie had already pulled the pin.
Marie lifted herself from Josie and as though propelled by unseen hands, burst through the Germans who had clustered around.
She leaped for the door and the daylight beyond. She was powerless no more. She could do this. For Tess. For Julian. For Josie. For all of them.
The boxcar exploded, thrusting Marie forward in the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Eleanor
Germany, 1946
Three days later, Eleanor pulled her rented jeep to a stop before the south entrance of the former concentration camp Dachau.
After leaving The Savoy, Eleanor had boarded a nearly empty train at Gare de l’Est and traveled all day and night to get across France. As they’d neared the German border in the darkness, she’d stiffened. Germany loomed large in her mind from the war, the source of so much suffering and evil. She had not been there since crossing through it as a girl when she had fled Poland with her mother and Tatiana. Now, as then, she’d felt chased, as if someone might come after her and stop her at any moment. But the border crossing was uneventful, a perfunctory passport check by a guard, who mercifully didn’t ask why she was coming there.
She’d reached Stuttgart then transferred to another train to go south. The train had wound its way painstakingly through the pine-covered Bavarian hills, stopping often and detouring around tracks that had still not been repaired since the last Allied air raids. At last she disembarked at what had once been the train station in Munich, now a shell of a building with a lone rickety platform. She had read about the annihilation of Germany in the bombing campaign during the last days of the war, but nothing had prepared her for the magnitude of the devastation: block after block of bombed-out buildings, a wasteland of rubble that made the darkest days of the Blitz pale in comparison. She wanted to take some pleasure in the Germans’ pain. After all, it was their country that had caused all of the suffering. But these were ordinary people, living on the street in deepest winter with nothing but thin clothing to keep out the chill. In particular, the children begging at the train station seared her heart in a way few things ever had. The powerful nation that had been the aggressor had been reduced to dust.
No one knew Eleanor was going to Germany. She had briefly considered wiring the Director the news to tell him where she was going and request that he authorize clearances. But he had said to remain dark. Even if he wanted to help her, he could hardly do so anymore. And he might have told her no. Asking questions in Paris was one thing; poking around the tribunals in Germany quite another.
But not telling him meant she had no official status here, Eleanor reflected as she sat in the idling jeep before the barbed wire fence at Dachau. The camp looked exactly as it had in the photos, acres and acres of low wooden buildings, now covered in a powdery snow. The sky was heavy and gray. Eleanor could almost see the victims who had been kept here less than a year ago, bald, skeletal men, women and children in thin, striped prison garb. Those who had survived had long since been liberated, but she could almost feel their sunken eyes staring at her, demanding to know why the world had not come sooner.
“Papers,” the guard said.
Eleanor handed over the documents the Director had given her before she left London to the guard. She held her breath as he scanned them. “These expired yesterday.”
“Did they?” Eleanor acted flustered. “Oh, my, I was sure today was the twenty-seventh.” She attempted her sweetest smile. Feminine guile was an unfamiliar costume to her. “I’m sure if you check with your superior, you’ll see everything is in order,” she bluffed. The guard looked uncertainly behind him toward the massive brick building that spanned the entranceway to the camp. It was bisected by a wide arch with an ominous square tower rising above it. Dachau was a former factory site that had once produced munitions. As she had driven to the camp over the icy stone road built on peat bogs, she had marveled at the houses that flanked either side; she’d wondered what the people there had seen and known and thought during the war. What had they done about it?
The guard studied her papers, seemingly uncertain what to do. Whether he was daunted by the prospect of bothering his boss at dinnertime or the long snowy walk or leaving his post, she could not tell. “I’ll tell you what,” she offered. “Let me in and I’ll check back with you first thing in the morning and we’ll sort it out then.” Eleanor wasn’t exactly sure what she needed to do once she was inside, but she knew she had to get past the guard if she was going to find Kriegler.
“All right.” Eleanor exhaled slightly as the guard started to hand back her papers. He was going to let her through after all.
But as she turned the key in the engine, another voice called out. “Stop right there!” A man walked up to the car and opened the door. “Out please, ma’am.” His American accent
was Southern, she recognized from the films. He was older than the guard, and the bars on the shoulder of his uniform signaled major, an officer’s rank. “Out,” he repeated. She complied, swatting at the cloud of cigarette smoke swirling around her head. “Never let anyone who isn’t cleared through,” he admonished the guard. “Even a good-looking woman.” Eleanor didn’t know whether to be flattered or annoyed. “And always inspect the vehicle. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
The major stamped the snow from his boots. Though it had to be ten below freezing, he wore no coat. “I’ll take it from here.” When the guard retreated into the hut, the major returned to Eleanor. “Who are you really?”
She could see from his piercing eyes that there was no point in lying. “Eleanor Trigg.”
He scanned the papers she held out. “Well, these certainly have all the right stamps, even if they are rotten. I’m Mick Willis from the Investigations Section, War Crimes Group. I’m a haystack man.” She cocked her head, not bothering to pretend that she understood. “Nazi hunters. They call us that because we can find a needle in a haystack. I hunt down the Nazi bastards, or at least I did. Now I’m detailed here from the US Army JAG helping get them ready for trial.” His face was gruff and stubbled with a salt-and-pepper five o’clock shadow. “What is it that you want?”
“I’m British, from Special Operations Executive. I recruited and ran our agents out of London.”
“I thought they were being shut down.” His voice was keen, no-nonsense.