While I was packing my bag, my mother handed me a cloth pouch. ‘Don’t open it,’ she said. ‘You know what it is.’
I felt the spiky object and guessed it was a rabbit bone, for protection. ‘You will need it,’ she said. ‘I can’t watch over you for ever.’
I had long discarded my Provençal superstitions, but I tucked the pouch into my pocket with respect. My mother and I may have different weapons, but we were fighting the same war.
‘I shall keep it with me always,’ I told her, kissing her cheeks.
When I was ready to leave, I embraced my mother and aunt, Minot and his mother, Bernard and each of the children, and patted the dogs and cats, before following Roger out the door and into the sunshine. Kira tagged along with us until the stone wall, then watched as Roger and I headed through the fields towards the village, from where I would catch the motor coach back to the railway station.
When we reached the town hall, Roger and I kissed while the driver good-naturedly beeped his horn. ‘Come on, you two, the motor coach now runs on Vichy time.’
‘I love you, Simone Fleurier,’ Roger said, tucking a sprig of wild lavender into the buttonhole of my dress.
From the back of the motor coach I waved goodbye to Roger. One night in Paris and I would return to him and my family. That was the plan. But it never happened like that. It never happened at all.
I arrived in Paris late in the evening and caught the métro to the Champs élysées. Even in the short time I had been away, I could see that the mood of the people had sunk even lower than it had been before I left, although I didn’t yet understand why. Perhaps I was too tired to notice that the last two carriages of the train were empty.
Madame Goux opened the door for me. No sooner had I stepped inside than she poured out her story. ‘They have been rounding up the Jews,’ she said. ‘Not just the foreign ones any more but French people as well. They are sending them to camps in Poland.’
‘Who is rounding them up?’ I asked, slumping into a chair by the office door.
‘The Paris police.’
‘So the Nazis are getting us to do their dirty work?’ I said, leaning my head against the wall. To me, that was the most discouraging news of all. The Germans didn’t have to worry about spreading themselves too thinly when they had so many French people to act as accomplices.
Madame Goux clucked her tongue. ‘A dozen police have joined our network. They are disgusted by what happened at the Vélodrome d’Hiver.’
I looked up at her. ‘What happened?’
Madame Goux sniffed. ‘I saw the buses heading towards the sports ground when I was out on an errand. A crowd of us gathered near the entrance, wanting to know what was going on. Some of the police were ripping at the women’s clothing, searching for jewels or money. They separated the men from the women and children, then took the men away. The women and children were left without food or water for three days.’
I covered my eyes with my hand. ‘What happened after that?’
‘One of our police recruits was here earlier,’ Madame Goux went on. ‘He said the Germans had given orders that they only wanted children old enough to work. So the police pushed the young children away from their mothers with the butts of their rifles and water hoses. He said the screams will live in his memory for ever.’
I took my hand away from my eyes. How could anybody do that? I thought about the policemen I had seen in the days when Paris was left as an open city. The last command given to them had been to keep order. But wasn’t there a time for every person to question the instructions he or she was given?
‘Where are those children now?’ I asked.
‘Some have been snatched up by the network, but most of them have been left to fend for themselves,’ she said. ‘The policeman believes they will soon be rounded up too.’
‘Like hunted animals,’ I muttered.
‘A request has been sent to Germany that all children accompany their parents in the future. It is more humane,’ said Madame Goux.
‘More humane!’ I cried. ‘Those people are being sent to their deaths!’
When the foreign Jews were first rounded up and deported, most of us did not know about extermination camps, and the Nazis did a good job of propaganda by screening documentaries of Jews being settled in the east. Non-Jewish people even received postcards from their Jewish friends, assuring them that all was well. But the intelligence arms of the Resistance had been piecing together a different picture. Roger had told me about the suspected atrocities, but when underground papers such as J’accuse and Fraternité printed reports of genocide, people dismissed them as too horrible to believe or viewed them as Allied propaganda.
I thought of the five children Bernard had saved in Marseilles and the trouble Roger would have to go to in order to get them to safety. How was the Resistance in Paris going to save thousands of children, let alone their parents? We needed help. We needed Parisians to stop hiding behind the fiction that life was normal under the Nazis.
‘Do you think we can conceal children here?’ I asked. It was a heartbreaking question for me. I had committed myself to assisting Allied agents. If concealing children compromised the safety of those agents, the network would forbid me to do it.
Madame Goux’s expression changed. ‘You have two visitors waiting for you upstairs already. The woman wouldn’t say who they were, but I think they need your help.’
I was expecting my visitors to be agents, so I was surprised when I found a woman sitting at my dining table with a small child clasped in her arms. The woman spun around when she heard me come in the door. She had the same terrified eyes I had seen on the children at the farm. But I knew her instantly.
‘Odette!’ I cried.
She stood up and rushed towards me. I put my arms around her and stroked Petite Simone’s head. The girl was as pretty as her mother with a pert nose and luminous skin. But her eyes drooped wearily.
‘Let’s put her in my bed,’ I said. ‘Then we can talk.’
Petite Simone yawned and fell asleep as soon as her head rested on the pillow.
‘Leave the door open,’ Odette said, when she saw I was about to shut it. She sounded as if she were afraid that if Petite Simone was out of her sight for a moment, she would be snatched away.
We sat down on the sofa together and took each other’s hands. ‘Why are you in Paris?’ I asked her.
A wild look flashed into Odette’s eyes. ‘I should have listened to you, Simone. They took Uncle and Joseph. They took my parents. They have rounded up the Jews in Bordeaux. We thought we were safe because Uncle found a passeur willing to take us across the line. We were supposed to hide in the back of his clothing van. But he never showed up. He took nearly all our money but he never came.’
Tears welled in her eyes and she shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe there were people capable of stealing from the desperate. ‘The next day everybody was rounded up,’ she said. ‘Petite Simone and I were saved because we had gone to visit a Catholic neighbour. She hid us in her cellar until the raid was over. When I returned to our house, it had been turned upside down and everybody was gone.’
I buried my face in my palms. For the past two years I had given all my available resources and time to saving Allied servicemen and hiding British agents. Months ago we had been told that the Americans would swiftly end the war. Where were they all now? Couldn’t they see that everything was getting worse?
I went to the kitchen to make Odette some of the real coffee I had stashed away. I had to admit to myself that my true disappointment was not with the Allies but with the French people. Passeurs who stole money from desperate Jews. Policemen who beat children until they let go of their mother’s skirts. ‘If no help is coming from the outside, then we must help ourselves,’ I muttered.
‘Odette, do you and Petite Simone have false papers or only your real ones?’ I asked, when I set down the cup of coffee before her.
‘The passeur was supposed to give us
false papers,’ she said. ‘I have only our real ones, stamped “Jew”.’
‘How did you get to Paris?’
‘I had just enough money left for a ticket for me and Petite Simone,’ she said. ‘I got on the train with our Jewish papers and nobody stopped me.’ She gave a sharp, nervous laugh. ‘Perhaps they figured if the Germans missed us in Bordeaux, they would get us in Paris anyway.’
My mind ticked over. I had only ever picked up false papers from another member of the network, never directly from a forger myself. The good ones were too precious to the network to be compromised, so access to them was limited. For years I had simply taken orders. I had no idea how to go about getting Odette and Petite Simone across the demarcation line myself. My mind drifted to Roger. There was no way I could contact him now to ask him what to do. He had severed his ties with the network. When I didn’t turn up the following day, he might think that I had been caught. I hoped that it wouldn’t stop him leaving. I didn’t allow myself to think how disappointing it was that I wouldn’t see him; I was too worried about Odette and Petite Simone. Nor did I allow myself to think about Monsieur Etienne or Joseph and what their fate might be. If I had, I was sure I would have broken down. I had to think as Roger did when he planned a mission. I convinced myself to be like a machine, churning forward with only one goal in mind: to get Odette and Petite Simone out of the country.
The following morning, I made my rendezvous to deliver the code Roger had given me. I sat on a bench in the Jardin du Luxembourg, which was risky because a few people recognised me and asked for my autograph. Worse still, a German officer tried to flirt with me. I thought he was never going to go away, until I explained to him in German that I was waiting for ‘my man’.
When the contact arrived, I was glad that the officer hadn’t stayed around to see him. ‘My man’ had a stomach that was straining all the buttons of his shirt and three double chins. I gave him the code. He repeated it only once, perfectly. He was about to get up to walk away when I put my hand on his arm.
‘I need papers,’ I said. ‘For a woman and a child.’
‘Jews?’
I nodded.
‘Do you have photographs? Money?’ he asked. I handed him an envelope with the forger’s fee and the photographs I had snipped from Odette and Petite Simone’s real papers.
He slipped it straight into his pocket. ‘Be back here in three days’ time,’ he said.
For the next three days, Odette, Petite Simone and I stayed inside the apartment. Odette drew pictures to calm her nerves while I kept Petite Simone occupied. I had never had a chance to get to know my namesake and I enjoyed making paper dolls with her and playing cats and dogs on the carpet as much as she did. I had been given a porcelain doll some years before by an admirer. It was from Holland and had eyes that opened and closed. Not being particularly fond of dolls, I had put it away in my cupboard. I went to fetch it.
‘I would like you to have her,’ I said to Petite Simone, holding out the doll which was still in its box.
Petite Simone took the doll from me, a frown wrinkling her forehead. ‘She needs to come out of the box,’ she informed me. ‘Little girls need air.’
For the rest of the afternoon Petite Simone only had eyes for her new doll, who she named Marie. Odette and I played a game of cards. ‘Petite Simone hasn’t had much of a childhood,’ Odette whispered. ‘I am frightened that she will grow up thinking that hiding is normal.’
At night Odette and I slept in my bed, Petite Simone squeezed between us. The little girl had a habit of locking her chunky arm around mine. I listened to her soft inhalations and the faint whistling sound she made when she breathed out and was struck with a sad feeling that perhaps I would never have a child of my own.
The second night, Petite Simone asked after her father and uncle. I waited to hear what Odette would say.
‘They are at work, my little darling,’ she answered. ‘Meanwhile you and I must go and find a new place to live, so they can join us afterwards.’
Odette sounded so calm that I could almost see Monsieur Etienne at his desk, making calls to theatres, and Joseph in his store. Where were my old friends now? What unspeakable things were they enduring?
True to his word, the contact who had taken the code was waiting for me on the bench in the Jardin du Luxembourg three days later.
‘These papers are not perfect,’ he told me matter-of-factly. ‘The Germans keep changing the requirements in order to catch people out. There are many Jews trying to leave the city. I made the woman your cousin. But if they catch you and check your birth certificates, you’ll be finished.’
‘I have no choice,’ I said. ‘I have to save her and the child.’
He glanced at me and nodded. Although his manner was abrupt, I could see the sympathy in his eyes. It encouraged me that I could look into the face of another person who had not lost his sense of humanity.
Given what the contact had said, I wondered if it would be wiser to keep Odette and Petite Simone in Paris, either concealing them in my apartment or taking them to one of the network’s safe houses. I stopped at a café, to rest my feet and consider the matter. Like a chilling omen, no sooner had I sat down than I caught the conversation of two men sitting behind me.
‘They are offering rewards for anyone who denounces Jews or reveals who is hiding them.’
‘What kind of rewards?’ his companion asked.
‘You might get to keep their apartment and furniture.’
I tried to finish my chicory coffee as calmly as I could, but my heart was thumping in my chest. Was this what human beings had become? Greedy people who would denounce a family so they could sit on their sofa or admire the view from their apartment? I did my best to think clearly. Odette was known to many people in the entertainment business in Paris. Taking her and Petite Simone across the city with their false papers would be as dangerous as trying to get them onto a train south. But the final encouragement I needed to get them out of Paris was handed to me by Madame Goux when I arrived home.
‘They put it under the door,’ she said, passing me an envelope with my name written on it.
I opened it and found a leaflet inside. It was a notice from the Germans about the deportation of Jews. The line, ‘Those who help the Jews will suffer the fate of the Jews’, had been circled in red.
‘Is it a threat?’ I asked. ‘Are we being spied on?’ When I thought about it more, I realised it had probably come from one of the network members. Somebody was trying to warn me.
Odette and I wasted no time in packing and going directly to Gare de Lyon to catch a train south. To my relief, the station wasn’t any more crowded than it had been the other times I had travelled with agents and servicemen. It seemed a mass exodus of Jews with false papers trying to escape Paris wasn’t happening that night. Although we hadn’t reserved seats, I was able to get us places in first class.
‘Enjoy your journey,’ said the ticket vendor.
‘I’m sure I will,’ I said. I smiled although my heart was racing.
This would be my last journey from Paris to the south. Every other trip I had made, I had been successful in getting my ‘parcels’ across the border. Odette and Petite Simone were less suspicious-looking than the men I had accompanied. I prayed that we would make it to Lyon safely. André would be able to help us from there.
Odette and Petite Simone were sitting on a bench waiting for me. I showed them the tickets. I admired Odette for the calm she was trying to project. She had a piece of sewing on her lap and worked at it as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
‘Let’s go,’ I said.
Petite Simone slipped her hand into mine and said, ‘I love you, Tante Simone.’
‘I love you too,’ I told her, stopping a moment to kiss her cheeks.
The conductor greeted us without suspicion when we climbed on board the train. A German official checked our papers in the corridor. He gave mine a quick glance, but he read Odette’s thoroughly and ch
ecked the picture.
‘You are from the south originally?’ he asked her, looking over her clothes. She was wearing a navy blue suit with satin lapels that I had given her from my wardrobe. She looked very Parisian but that was the idea.
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘But I have lived in Paris most of my life.’
Petite Simone held up Marie to the German. To my surprise, he smiled at her. He handed the papers back to Odette and waved us on.
Odette and I took our seats in the compartment, placing Petite Simone near the window. We were so terrified that we couldn’t bring ourselves to speak. I took Odette’s hand and squeezed it. Her skin was like ice. She picked up her sewing and continued, although her fingers were trembling. I glanced at my watch. Seven minutes to departure. There would be more checks on the journey, but I was sure that if we could get away from Paris we would somehow be all right.
More passengers boarded the train. Every time somebody walked past our compartment, my heart jumped. I closed my eyes and leaned back in my seat, trying to relax. I could hear the hiss of the engine. It wouldn’t be long now. The door to our compartment rattled open. Four German officers glanced in, then realised that they had the wrong seat numbers. They apologised and moved on. I scarcely dared breathe. It would have been easier to travel third class, but because of my reputation that was impossible. I prayed with all my might that we should not end up with a compartment full of Germans. I felt in my pocket for the rabbit bone my mother had given me and realised that in our hurry to exit the apartment I had left it on my bed. I glanced at my watch. Four minutes to go.
I looked out at the platform. It was almost empty. We might even have the compartment to ourselves if we were lucky. I relaxed and stood up to get a book out of my travel bag which was on the rack above me. At that moment the door to our compartment opened. A cold shadow crawled up my back. I turned around. At first I thought my terrified mind had produced a hallucination, but the longer I stared the more the black hair and sharp teeth became real. Colonel von Loringhoven.
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