Though little celebrated, Andrée was a real, historical figure. Mathilde Masson and Juliette Lemaire were real as well, though known only to a few researchers like me – remembered by their families, perhaps, but not much more. Georgette Chevalier, Juliette’s friend, had lived and worked for the Resistance, but was mentioned in no books. ‘Simone’ was a code name for someone whose real name Armand had never known – or at least had not disclosed to Mathilde. And Clémence … Well, a woman had been photographed and her image had appeared in my dream. She had been alive in Paris at the time, but what she had actually done – and who she really was – could never be known. The historical, the real, the possible … I knew I needed to cling on hard to these ghostly distinctions.
At Strasbourg SNCF station, I collected the key from the car-hire desk and went to a multistorey car park, on the roof of which I saw my designated white Renault. Once I’d found the road out of town, it was almost a straight line to Struthof, the village in the valley at whose railhead the women would have arrived. It was a beautiful day to drive towards the mountains and, despite the nature of the past I was revisiting, I found my spirits lift.
From Struthof, I began to climb, gently at first, then more steeply as the road followed S-bends up the hillside. When I’d finally learned to drive, aged twenty-five, it had been on automatics, so I found the stick shift a little difficult. I hadn’t expected anything quite so mountainous, but then remembered reading that the site of the camp had once been a ski station. Swallowing to clear my ears, I went past a small sign by the road that read ‘Chambre de gaz’; it had the familiar lettering of signs throughout rural France announcing ‘Chambre d’hôte’, the local bed-and-breakfast.
Natzweiler was beautiful. The air was clear among the fir trees and the distant ring of mountains. I could hear thrushes, blackbirds and chaffinches; I remembered a phrase my old landlady had liked – ‘heureux comme un pinson’, ‘happy as a finch’. I parked the car and went into a modern reception building where a tour party was gathering round a drinks machine. It was more organised than I’d expected, with a bookshop and an audiovisual room.
The entrance to the old camp itself was a short walk up the slope, and here the sense of a mountain resort began to fade. Above the double gates of timber and wire was a wooden board with the words ‘Konzentrationslager Natzweiler-Struthof’. I showed my ticket and took a site plan from the kiosk at the gate.
The camp was on a steep slope, into which was cut a series of flat terraces. At the top was a group of low-built wooden huts, where the prisoners had been housed, and just beneath them, on the first terrace where everyone could see it, was a gibbet, its noose still in place. Around the wired perimeter were sentry boxes, painted blue-green; and beyond them were trees and mountains under a huge blue sky. Wanting to be alone, I waited for the tour party to go down the terraces.
The arrival of Andrée Borrel and her three friends had been observed from an upper hut by a male English SOE officer, who saw at once that the women were being singled out for special treatment. Andrée had for some reason, presumably as part of a failed disguise, dyed her hair blonde and was wearing a shabby fur coat against the cold. She had been a tomboy, mad for cycling and mountain climbing, but by the time of her arrival was weakened by prison and malnutrition. She came from a humble family – ‘des petits gens’, ‘little people’, as one colleague noted – and had to be taught not to smoke or eat on the street, things that might betray her background as an Avenue Kléber bakery assistant when trying to pass herself off an as an habitué of a smart café. But her resourcefulness and enthusiasm set her apart, ‘the best of us all’.
The hike uphill from Struthof would have taxed her even at the height of her fitness, I thought, as I began to walk down the side of the camp towards the prison and the crematorium at the bottom of the hill. Perhaps they’d had to drive the weakened prisoners up. What could Andrée have been expecting – Andrée the indefatigable, the one who volunteered for the worst and most dangerous jobs?
At once, the women were told that they were to be inoculated against typhus, a scourge of such camps, and to begin with they were not suspicious, though they did refuse to take their clothes off without a female doctor present.
I went into the prison where they’d been held, a low green, single-storey timber construction with a pitched, felt-covered roof. The empty cells opened from a stone floor that ran the length of the building.
There were no other visitors. I stopped in the corridor and listened for female voices. Vera? Here. Andrée, tu es là? Sonia? I may have spoken out loud.
Next door, the crematorium building was of the same design but had a tall tin chimney, supported by four metal guys that were pegged into the hillside. Inside, the atmosphere was different. There was a room with drug cabinets and a mortician’s white porcelain table, the trappings of Nazi medicine.
All the German guards were used to hanging prisoners as encouragement or example and to cremating the bodies of those who’d been worked to death. But this was not an extermination camp, and they weren’t practised at simple murder. Through an uneasy chain of command there came an order from Berlin that the four women were to be executed – not in the camp’s own gas chamber, which was in an outhouse of the local hotel-restaurant down the hill, but by lethal injection. There was some reluctance among the camp medical staff (they were hoping to have a party to celebrate the departure of the senior doctor the following day) and they tried to shift the task on to others. Alcohol was taken while the furnace was stoked and given two hours to reach full heat. All the other prisoners were told to stay in their huts and to draw the curtains, on pain of death.
On a bench in the crematorium building, Andrée Borrel, Diana Rowden, Vera Leigh and Sonia Olschanezky, one French, two English and one Polish woman, were injected with the camp’s last supplies of phenol. But although the injections were administered by trained doctors, the procedure was clumsy, the dosage was guessed and the quantity insufficient. The women became comatose, but they did not die at once.
I walked down the corridor into the room where the iron furnace stood, its doors still open and its mouth gaping. Into the flames on metal stretchers they had loaded the bodies of the four drugged and dying prisoners; but when her turn came, Andrée was still conscious and fought back, tearing flesh from the face of her murderer with her fingernails as he pushed her into the flames.
Perhaps this was not the selfsame furnace, but merely one like it. You could never know for certain. I put out my hand and touched the metal, hoping it was the same hot rim that Andrée had grasped to save herself – the last thing on earth her fingers had touched.
Then I turned and went outside the building, sat down on the bench and lowered my head into my hands.
When I had composed myself, I went to the foot of the hill, to a small memorial garden with a white cross of sacrifice and plaques of remembrance let into the wall behind. They represented every country and every group of people who had been imprisoned, persecuted or killed in the camp.
A group of three visitors was emerging, dazed, from the crematorium. As they went past on the bank above me, I heard a female voice say, in French, ‘I had no idea.’ Je n’avais aucune idée. The woman was in tears.
Then, my own eyes dry, I began to climb up the terraces, back towards the entrance. Standing by the gallows, I looked down one last time and to my amazement saw an eagle flying above the crematorium, over the stiff firs and off into the blue skies of the mountains behind. I had never seen an eagle before.
Back in the car park, sitting in the white Renault, I felt a great weariness. I needed to get back to Paris as fast as possible and would take an earlier train from Strasbourg if I could. I left the site, not bothering to look at the commandant’s house, ignoring the sign to the gas chamber a short way down the hill.
After a few minutes my strength began to fail me and I knew I’d drive off the road with fatigue if I tried to get back without resting first. Halfway down th
e mountain, driving slowly, working through the gears, I saw the name of a hotel. I hadn’t noticed it on the way up, but it could hardly have come at a better time. I turned off and followed the signs, which led me through iron gates, on to a gravel area in front of a white-painted building with a view over the valley.
A board announced the Hôtel du Parc. I pushed open the double glass doors onto a hall with a parquet floor and a couple of palms growing from painted urns. To the right was a wooden reception desk with a dial telephone; on a board were hanging room keys with tassels. Every hook was taken, as though no bedroom was in use. I tapped the bell on the desk.
While I waited for someone to come, I walked down the hall and, through more double glass doors with half net curtains, looked into a dining room, where a dozen tables were laid. On a couple of them stood bottles of wine that had been part drunk, then re-corked. I put my head round the door and caught a smell of floor polish and old flowers, perhaps potpourri or dried chrysanthemums.
‘Madame?’
I turned round quickly. A woman in widow’s black was standing in the hall. ‘Did you ring?’
‘Yes. I wondered if you had a room.’
We went back to the desk. The widow was no more than forty-five, I thought, although her face was expressionless, the colour drained from it.
‘It’s number fourteen, isn’t it?’ said the widow, handing over the key.
‘I haven’t … I mean, yes, that’s fine.’
‘And you’ll be dining with us?’
‘Yes … yes, I think so.’
‘Please don’t be late, Madame.’
‘Of course.’
The woman was unsurprised by my lack of luggage and seemed to expect me to find the room myself.
I went to the staircase at the end of the hall and climbed the steps on a threadbare runner. At the top, off the landing, was a corridor with rose-print wallpaper. Room fourteen was the last on the right and the old key turned satisfactorily in the lock.
On the bed was a green cover, beneath which were blankets and white linen sheets, mended in places but quite clean. There was a bathroom with a shower and bidet and a smell of failed plumbing. Through the window, I could see the ground rising up the mountainside towards the camp.
Thinking I’d sleep, have dinner, then set off again, paying for the room but not staying overnight, I took off my dress and shoes and lay down on the bed, on top of the blankets but with the cover pulled up over my shoulders.
There was the sound of German voices singing in the next room. Andrée Borrel, her eyes wide with fear, knocked on my door and asked if she could hide beneath the bed.
I woke up. I had fallen asleep and begun dreaming so fast …
There was another knocking at the door and the manageress, the widow, told me I was late for dinner … But no, that was also a dream. My hair was damp on my forehead when I awoke this time.
Next door, the Germans were not singing any more, but talking loudly.
Julian Finch was sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘I love you,’ he said, ‘I always will.’
I was awake, putting on my dress for dinner. It was a relief to be awake and I must stop myself from dropping off again. If I fell asleep, I would be lost for ever – I would fall through the floor of time.
More footsteps came to the door. It was Andrée again, in a bakery assistant’s overall. ‘They’ve taken Julian,’ she said. Ils ont pris Julien.
This time I awoke for sure. Yes, this was reality, this was consciousness. All the other times I had only dreamed that I had awoken, but this time …
Now Andrée was kneeling by the bed, praying, her big eyes closed. I wanted so much to help her, but the tide of sleep was overpowering and it sucked me down once more.
There was a rapping at the door again, louder. It was the widow. ‘They are coming for you, Madame.’
To be certain that I was finally awake, I must move my body, I must shock myself. Pushing back sleep, I reached inside to summon up movement. None came.
What I did find was the ability to make a noise, to scream. It was the loudest I could manage, perhaps no more than a moan in reality, but enough to force my eyes open.
I pushed myself up off the bed, expecting to discover I was still asleep. But no. It seemed all right. I got to the bathroom, ran cold water and splashed it on my face and neck. I looked at myself in the mirror above the basin.
‘It’s all right,’ said the face.
And I heard neither the Parisian accent of Andrée nor the tones of the local widow, but my own American voice. ‘It’s okay.’
Still not trusting that I was back in reality, I went to the window and looked out. It was beginning to grow dark, as was proper to the hour of the day. I walked briskly round the room, checking I had my bag with its books to read on the train, my half-finished bottle of water, my notebook and cell phone. I slipped on my dress and shoes again, touched different surfaces: porcelain, wool, linen – the iron espagnolette at the window. At the feeling of each different material I grew more confident.
Awake, alive, in the present day, in a hotel between Natzweiler and Struthof in the foothills of the indisputable Vosges, Hannah Kohler walked down the corridor to the landing, clattered down the stairs, making as much everyday noise as possible, and went into the hall.
‘Dinner is ready, Madame,’ said the manageress. ‘I thought you’d like the table by the window tonight.’
‘No!’
I pushed past her and ran to the front door, where I fumbled in my bag. I found a fifty-euro note and tossed it onto the reception desk. Then I went outside and climbed into the white Renault. I took a breath as I stuck in the key and started the engine.
Twenty-One
Denfert-Rochereau
When I said goodbye to Hannah, I felt sad. And there was a tear in her eye when she hugged me.
‘Watching you change and grow has been just great,’ she said, standing back, holding on to my wrists, sounding more American than usual. ‘You know that, Tariq?’
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘No, really. I feel you’re starting to understand things.’
‘Charles de Gaulle?’
‘More than that. Tell me why you first came to Paris.’
‘I wanted to escape. I guess I hoped to find something too. I don’t know. What do you think?’
‘I think that without knowing it you realised it was time to engage with the world. You couldn’t live for ever on the screen of your cell phone. I know your idea of finding out something more about your mother was kind of vague. But maybe it was the first stirring of some hunger in you. The need to understand.’
I was starting to feel embarrassed. ‘I’ll send you some more money one day,’ I said. ‘When I make my fortune. I owe you for … all this.’
She laughed. ‘Don’t bother. Life goes around. Next time we meet, you’ll be the one with the spare room and I’ll be the penniless guy on the run. I just hope you’ll let me in.’
‘Of course I will. Especially if I’m thirty-one and you’re nineteen.’
This came out a bit wrong, but she didn’t take offence. She just said, ‘And I hope I’ll be as good a room-mate as you’ve been.’
‘I’m sorry about not passing on Julian’s message.’
‘You’d better get going or you’ll miss your flight.’
‘Okay. What are your plans?’
‘I’m going to a concentration camp tomorrow.’
‘You have all the fun.’
I gave her the last of Jamal’s weed in its plastic bag. ‘I couldn’t quite get through it all.’
‘But you gave it your best shot. That’s what counts.’
She could be quite funny, really. I don’t know why she’d kept her humour hidden all this time. I had her e-mail, I could be in touch, but I still felt sad.
Down on rue Michal, I headed for Place d’Italie. I had to get off the Métro at Denfert-Rochereau and I felt some regret as I left that tarry smell, the dazzling adver
ts and exotic names (I’d look up D-R himself when I had a moment). I wondered if I’d ever come back to Paris again, and if so what type of man I’d be. Where would I fit in among the grown-ups I’d seen rattling through the underground world? Would I be a father? A businessman? Rich or poor? Would I be married? To Laila? To the girl from Stalingrad?
But then I thought: suppose you never really do grow up – suppose it’s all an illusion. It sure wasn’t something I could picture ever happening to me.
I trekked over to the RER station, where with my last euros I bought a ticket for the airport, Charles de Gaulle. But of course. Who else would they have named it after? My new best friend.
It was more like a supermarket than how I’d imagined an airport, full of the smell of perfume advertised by pouting women and rows of liquor and watches and headphones and cameras and laptops. If I’d not been such an unbeliever I might have felt quite disapproving. As it was, the sweet smell just made me a little nauseous as I took the shuttle train to another zone.
The flight was called and I made my way to Gate 21. I had a seat over the wing and the plane was only half full. It took hours for everyone to settle down, for all the safety stuff with the old-fashioned life jackets, but then the pilot opened up the engines and I thought I was going to burst through the back of my seat. The nose lifted and …
Above the Paris clouds, the sun was shining. A female attendant in a funny hat and scarf and thick orangey-brown tights brought beer and wine for free. I raised my plastic glass to old Jamal and all at PFP. Merci, mes amis. Cheers. And to Hannah Kohler … May your Ladies of the Occupation bring you joy.
The plane rumbled along, bumping over pockets of air, the wing tip staying level with the clouds on the far horizon. It was difficult to put a name to the feeling as we travelled through the bright sky. Happiness, maybe. Something unfamiliar. I sat back and shut my eyes, tired suddenly, my head full of Victor Hugo and Saint-Denis, white wine and the old-fashioned flat in rue Humblot.
Paris Echo Page 26