by Hore, Rachel
She knew the man in the photograph at once. He was a little older than he’d been in that honeymoon picture at her mother’s bedside. His hair was shorter, though curly, but the smile was the same – a broad, open smile, that you couldn’t help liking. He was sitting on a low brick wall and his attention was fully on the little girl whose arms he held as she balanced on the wall before him, looking out of the picture with a shy, uncertain wonder. The child had a mop of shoulder-length wavy hair with a ribbon tied into it. It was as dark as the man’s was fair, but Fay could still see the likeness between them. It was something about the child’s eyes, she thought, the fullness of the lips.
‘I’ve never before seen a picture of myself when I was little. My mother told me they’d all been lost when our house was bombed. It is me, isn’t it?’ she whispered, looking up at the older woman with an expression of rapture.
‘Of course it is. It was taken near the time of your mother’s accident. You were two years old, a sweet child.’ She gestured with her finger and thumb. ‘A tiny edition of your mother. Ah, you liked to sing to yourself. Such a pretty voice. That was before they took your father away. You were never quite the same after that.’
‘Took him away?’ Fay echoed, and felt a responding emptiness. She studied the photograph one more time before closing the album.
‘Early one morning in the middle of December, your father was arrested at your flat and sent with other American men to an internment camp in the North of France. Your mother was beside herself, and of course she was left in charge of you, alone and with a broken ankle. You were too young to know what was happening and the arrival of the police that morning must have been very frightening to a young child.’
‘I don’t remember it,’ Fay said, closing her eyes. Her mind refused to try.
‘It wasn’t for long he was gone, a matter of weeks. Your father’s employers made an official complaint. He was vital to the work of the hospital, a good doctor, no threat to anyone, what was the use of imprisoning him? He was freed soon after Christmas. The whole thing had been – how do you say? – sabre-rattling by the authorities. At the time they guessed nothing of your father’s activities.’
‘My mother must have been terrified out of her wits.’
‘She was. You must have sensed that also. The Gestapo, however, kept an eye on them after that. They both had to report each week to their local police station, and sometimes they’d receive a visit from a Gestapo officer. His name was Obersturmführer Hoff. I remember your mother hated him even then. He was very correct in his manner, with eyes of such pale blue they were almost colourless. He would ask about their movements in great detail and examine their papers. She told me she was terrified of saying the wrong thing. She felt like a hunted animal that is tempted to give itself up. When he’d gone, your poor mother would be left literally shaking.
‘What with all this and the viciously cold winter that followed, when there was hardly any electricity or fuel and it was increasingly difficult to get food, how could you not be affected?’
Chapter 21
‘By the early summer of 1942,’ Mme Ramond said, ‘instead of feeling relief after the terrible deprivations of the winter, life for Parisians became even more challenging.’
The war was not going Germany’s way. Their forces were engaged on too many fronts and their winter campaign in Russia had sucked up men, supplies and, crucially, morale.
In Paris, the Nazis were enraged by the activities of the Resistance, who were becoming increasingly sophisticated in their mission to make the enemy’s job more difficult. Hitler’s response was to clamp down hard. He gave the policing of the Occupied Zone into the hands of a man with a reputation for complete ruthlessness. His name was Major-General Carl Oberg, and he was a member of the Nazi Party’s security agency, the SD – the Sicherheitsdienst. In appearance he was like a cartoon evil Nazi, with a shaved head, rimless glasses and a fanatical expression. He was obsessed with two aims: to pack as many Jews as possible into trains to Poland, where they would be put to death, and to crush the French Resistance. His horrifying brutality was to earn him the nickname ‘The Butcher of Paris’.
Kitty and Gene sensed the change of mood immediately. New regulations were issued thick and fast. One morning at the beginning of June, when Kitty ventured outside she saw that new posters had been pasted on the hoardings at the end of the street. Instead of crowding round them as was the usual habit, however, people averted their eyes and hurried past. Kitty saw the word Juif and stopped to look, reading with a sense of increasing revulsion. All Jews, the posters said, were to wear the étoile jaune, the yellow Star of David, sewn onto their outer garments. They were forbidden to enter a variety of public places: libraries, swimming pools, restaurants, parks – the list went on. As she stood there, trying to come to terms with the reality of it, she heard an all-too-familiar sound, the regular tramp of hobnail boots, a voice barking ‘Eins, zwei, drei!’ She turned away as the patrol marched by.
That same day, she began to notice people in the street wearing yellow stars, shamed, cowed figures, branded for all to see. Her spirits lifted slightly at the sight of one angry-eyed man walking tall, wearing a row of military medals next to his star. A French youth spat on the ground as the Jew went by, but his older companion cuffed the boy’s arm, saying, ‘What are you doing? He fought for France, you fool. He is one of us.’
It happened late one morning a few days afterwards. Kitty returned from shopping with Fay to find an unmarked, matte-grey van parked outside their apartment block. Its back doors were open and the driver, a uniformed policeman, was pacing about smoking. He nodded to Kitty and closed one of the doors so she could get the pram past on the narrow pavement, but as she manoeuvred it into the lobby and unclipped Fay’s harness, she was filled with unease. The concierge was nowhere to be seen and in any case had stopped complaining about the pram, so she left it where it was and summoned the lift. She waited, but it didn’t come. It must be stuck somewhere. Her sense of unease grew.
‘We must take the stairs, sweetie, I’m afraid,’ she said to Fay. ‘See if you can count them.’ Fay’s little voice sang out, ‘One, two, one, two,’ as she climbed, clutching the iron railing.
At the second floor they paused to catch their breath. Up above, men’s voices could be heard, and odd thudding noises, echoing down the stairwell. These grew louder as mother and daughter resumed their climb. Halfway up the last flight, Kitty stopped. Whatever was happening, it was on their floor. Angry shadows leaped on the wall ahead. There came a muffled cry of pain and a roar of what sounded like ‘Venez – vite!’ then a door slammed and a tableau formed at the top of the stairs. Two policemen were dragging a man in a shabby black suit. It was Monsieur Klein. She caught a glimpse of his face. His spectacles were gone. He was deathly white and blood streaked his chin. Kitty gasped and drew Fay back into the shadows. After a moment she heard the lift grille clatter into place and then the whines and creaks of the machinery as the lift began to descend.
Fay had seen it all. ‘Maman,’ she whispered and buried her head in Kitty’s skirt. Kitty lowered her straw bag, hefted the child onto her hip and held her close. The bag toppled over and her shopping tumbled out.
Above, all was quiet now, so she abandoned the shopping, walked up the last few steps and peered into the corridor. Monsieur Klein’s door was closed. Something had been scribbled on it in white chalk, but before she could read what it said, she heard a sound and looked round. At the other end of the corridor a woman stood in an open doorway, her arms folded. When Kitty caught her eye, she retreated inside and closed her door without a word.
‘M’sieur Zipper, maman?’ Fay asked, twisting in her mother’s arms to face her.
Kitty did not answer. She was staring at Monsieur Klein’s door. The scrawled writing read Sale Juif. Dirty Jew.
‘I should have helped him,’ Kitty cried, throwing herself into her husband’s arms. She’d had difficulty getting Fay to sleep, the little girl w
as so agitated and afraid, but finally she’d fallen back exhausted in her cot, her long-lashed eyes closed, the hot tears drying on her flushed cheeks.
‘What could you have done, honey?’ Gene said, hugging her close. ‘You did all you could, keeping yourself and Fay out of sight.’
‘I don’t mean then,’ she wept. ‘I meant before. We should have seen what was coming.’
‘There was no indication of danger. Someone must have denounced him.’
‘But why? He was harmless. And kind, Gene, so kind.’
‘Life doesn’t work like that now. It must have been to someone’s advantage to get rid of him. We’ll probably never know.’
Kitty’s suspicions focused on the woman she had seen further down their corridor. A childless widow, she was the only inhabitant to have a mat outside her door for visitors to wipe their feet on. She also had a German lover who came by night. A dapper man, his soft footsteps could sometimes be heard padding down the corridor. Sometimes she’d smell his scented hair-oil in the lift in the mornings and know he’d been there.
Kitty rubbed the chalk message off M. Klein’s door, still feeling guilty. The fact remained that M. Klein had lived next door and had been their friend, and yet they had been able to do nothing to stop him being taken away. For some days afterwards, Fay would ask her if he’d returned and eventually Kitty told her that he’d gone to live somewhere else. The little girl looked at her for a long time after this then said, ‘Poor M’sieur Zipper. Gone,’ whenever they passed his door.
In the weeks following, his flat remained silent and empty. No friends called to enquire of him, and as far as she knew, no one came for his possessions. Each time she passed the empty flat, she felt his absence like the warning twinge of a hidden disease.
Kitty had become used to days when some special operation was underway, the presence of extra soldiers in the streets, the horns of the outriders’ bikes clearing a route for an official cavalcade to pass. Often she never learned what it was about. But there was something different about 16 July.
The raids began at dawn. She was woken by vehicles roaring down the street. Soon, shots could be heard in the distance. Sleep was impossible after that; she lay anxious as Eugene breathed gently beside her. He was exhausted, poor man. Long hours at the hospital, insufficient food and the need to be constantly on his guard had taken their toll. When had she last heard him laugh? She couldn’t remember, yet from the passion with which he spoke about his work she knew that beneath his weariness his spirit still burned bright.
When Fay came in at six and snuggled into the bed between them, Kitty rose to visit the bathroom and became aware of a low, distant rumbling, like a storm gathering on the horizon. She went to the window and raised the sash and the rumbling grew louder, yet the sky was a cloudless blue. A hot day was in prospect, she thought. There was a strong smell of traffic fumes and though the usual sounds echoed up from the street below, a tension hung in the air. She turned back to the room and went to lift the child into her highchair, taking comfort in the usual routines, the whistle of the kettle, Eugene running water in the bathroom.
All morning, the noise of heavy traffic continued, and down in the shops, people pursued their business with a subdued air. Everyone was aware that something was going on, but there were conflicting rumours as to what. It was while she was queuing at the butcher’s, in the hope of a few strands of stewing meat, that the butcher’s wife, a beady-eyed woman with a dumpy figure and an ear for gossip, came in and remarked to her husband that ‘they’, whoever they were, said it was all going on at the Vélodrome. Others joined in with questions, and by the time Kitty had stowed her tiny parcel of offal in her shopping bag she’d learned that a huge Gestapo operation was in place. Jews were being taken from their homes and assembled in the vast sports stadium near the Champs de Mars.
An awful silence fell over the shop and Kitty was pleased to take Fay’s hand and leave, trying to absorb the shock of this news. All those poor people, some the Knoxes’ neighbours perhaps, herded together – and what was it for? What were the Gestapo going to do with them? And then a thought that turned her blood cold: was Serge amongst them?
She wasn’t sure what to do, but as she put the shopping away and warmed some thin soup for lunch a resolve strengthened in her mind. She had to find him and make sure he was safe. After they’d eaten she hastened downstairs with Fay and knocked on the door of the lady with the baby, begging her to look after Fay for an hour or two. It was only as she left the building that she remembered that she didn’t know Serge’s precise address. It was somewhere in the maze of streets in the Marais district, she knew, in a street of jewellers’ shops, but which number she had no idea. This meant she had to go to the Conservatoire first to enquire. It took the porter some time to find out the information she needed, then she checked to make certain that he wasn’t in the college, before taking the Métro to Place de la République. By this time she felt so anxious she was jittery and hurried along with lowered eyes in case anyone noticed.
Rue du Temple was a long, narrow street running straight down towards the river at Notre Dame. Despite the mid-afternoon sunshine it was cast in shadow. The grilles were down on many of the shops, and sentiments similar to the one on Monsieur Klein’s flat had been daubed on some of the doors.
She found the number she wanted without much trouble. The shop itself was closed until further notice, a handwritten sign told her, and when she rang the bell to the dwelling above there was no answer. After a moment, she crossed the street and looked up at the windows. Though the shutters were open the curtains were drawn across and the glass reflected darkly back at her. She was turning to go when her eye caught a tremble of a curtain as though someone had lifted it to peep out, but when she looked again, all was as before. She glanced about in case anyone else was watching.
A man was standing at a street corner a dozen yards away. He wore his hat down low so she could only see the lower part of his face. It was a narrow face, close-shaven, with a mean twist to his lips, but it was his hands she noticed as he smoked his cigarette. Who would wear leather gloves in July? He saw her interest and touched the brim of his hat in acknowledgement. She ignored this, and instead set off down the street towards the river. She hardly noticed where she was going – she simply wanted to get away from him. But when she checked behind her a moment later, there was no sign of anyone following her. Perhaps he was of no significance. She walked on more slowly now, deep in thought. If anyone had been in the flat, they hadn’t been prepared to reveal themselves. Had it been Serge? Who else could she ask about him? The lovely face of Mrs van Haren hovered in her mind, but she’d need to find out where the woman lived, and anyway, she might be putting Serge in more danger by stirring that particular wasps’ nest. She would ask Gene.
Her pace quickened. She was glad to leave the shadows of the Rue du Temple and to emerge into the open, crossing the dusty expanse of ground by the Hôtel de Ville with its forbidding German sentries before reaching the pearl-grey bridge over the river.
It was as she undressed alone that night in the weak light of the bedroom lamp that she became aware of a gentle tapping sound. Someone was at the door of the flat. Kitty pulled a dressing gown on over her underwear and went to see. Outside, the figure of a man separated himself from the shadows and for a moment she thought she saw those leather gloves and drew in a sharp breath. But then a shaft of light fell across his face.
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ she breathed. It was Serge.
Grasping his arm, she pulled him inside and shut the door, saying in a low voice, ‘Serge, I was so worried.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, setting down a small suitcase. Fear rose from him, she sensed it in his shallow breath, the quick pulse of his blood. ‘I saw you this afternoon, but I daren’t come down. Not till he’d gone.’ She had no need to ask who ‘he’ was.
‘Gene’s not here,’ she said, directing him to sit with her on the sofa. They conversed quietly for a w
hile. Serge had received an anonymous letter the night before warning him to stay away from his apartment and to tell no one. He had slept the night in a cupboard at the Conservatoire ‘with the ghosts of all those musicians’, he managed to joke, then, torn with guilt at having left the family he lodged with, couldn’t help himself returning to Rue du Temple to find out what had happened to them. There was no sign of them, but no sign of any struggle either. He’d just been packing a few things when he’d peeped out of the window and noticed the man in the leather gloves. Each time he’d looked he’d seen the man. Then Kitty had arrived, and after that the man had left. Whether he’d been right to be wary of him, he couldn’t say, but he’d been fearful enough to wait till darkness fell before setting out once more.
‘It’s she – she who betrayed me,’ he kept saying over and over again. ‘Mrs van Haren, of course,’ he snapped when Kitty asked. ‘I thought I’d be safe with her, but she couldn’t keep her mouth shut, could she?’
‘But think – perhaps it was she who sent the note warning you?’ Kitty saw no yellow star on his coat and wondered if he’d ever worn one. If he’d been stopped and his identity checked, he could have been arrested simply for that omission, but perhaps it was the only safe way for him to travel during curfew. And now he was here, what was she to do with him? She didn’t need to glimpse the not-quite-closed door to the second bedroom to remember Fay, within, sleeping innocently on her front, her knees curled to her chest as was her habit. Kitty swallowed. If only Gene were here, he’d know what to do, but he was on call at the hospital tonight and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow evening. All she knew was that if Serge was found here, she’d be deemed guilty of hiding him – and who knew what would happen? She’d heard stories – everybody knew one – of prison and torture.
Serge’s eyes were dark pools of fear in his white face. His hands with their strong, sensitive fingers worked at the brim of the hat in his lap. He was her friend and he was in trouble. There was only one thing Kitty could do now and that was to find him something to eat and make up a bed on the sofa.