Shoot Me, I'm Already Dead

by Julia Navarro

  “The one place they can’t find me is here.” Samuel was tired and couldn’t stop coughing.

  “You’ve insisted that I keep myself out of danger, but do you really think I’m safe?”

  “The only thing I don’t agree about is our leaving Paris. There are people here who need us,” Samuel said worriedly.

  “Maybe the time has come for us all to leave. Konstantin was right when he insisted that we go to London. We’ve done what we can here, but now . . . If they arrest us it will be worse,” Katia mused.

  “I think it’s a good idea for you to go to London and to take Dalida with you, but I’m staying here.” Samuel was inflexible about his idea of what needed to be done.

  Katia introduced a little bit of common sense into the discussion.

  “Let’s go through this step by step. The first thing is to stop them from arresting us. Dalida will take you to Juana’s house. I’ll go see Sister Marie-Madeleine. We’ll meet at the convent. If the sister agrees to let Dalida stay with them, there won’t be any problems; if not, then we can go home.”

  Juana was worried by Samuel’s appearance. She saw that he had a temperature and wouldn’t stop coughing. Pedro gave him his own room so that he could rest, and Juana promised Dalida that she would look after him.

  “He’s as stubborn as my own father was,” Juana said.

  When Dalida got to the convent, one of the sisters sent her to the refectory, where Sister Marie-Madeleine was talking with Katia. She saw the tension on the nun’s face immediately.

  “I was telling Katia that if it were up to me then you would of course be able to stay here, but I will need to speak to the mother superior, and she is a timid woman.”

  “I’m sorry to put you in this position after all that we’ve done,” Dalida excused herself.

  A few weeks ago Dalida had brought a Jewish family to hide in the convent, and the nun had taken them in without asking any questions. Her superior had scolded her for her conduct, reminding her that she was putting the whole community in danger. The truth is that the mother superior was scared, and was debating between her fear and what her conscience told her was the right course of action, aware of the recriminations that Sister Marie-Madeleine would make.

  “Imagine if it were Christ seeking shelter and we who were refusing it to him. Christ was a Jew, like these good people, so will we refuse them our aid? God would not forgive us.”

  The mother superior had crossed herself, shocked into silence by the nun’s reasoning. She wanted to help the Jews but she trembled to think what would happen if the Gestapo knocked at the convent door.

  Days later, Armando asked Dalida to help him find a place for a woman in the Resistance to hide from the Gestapo, who were following her closely.

  She asked Sister Marie-Madeleine to hide the woman until Armando could get her out of Paris and take her to a safe place. The nun agreed once again, but this time the mother superior got angry.

  “You cannot put the convent at the service of the Resistance. It is one thing to help the orphans, and quite another to help everybody.”

  Sister Marie-Madeleine could not make her change her opinion. The mother superior accepted the presence of the woman, but warned that “never again” could she agree to accept anyone without permission.

  “I’ll try to get her to allow you to stay, but if she says no . . . I cannot disobey her,” the nun said apologetically.

  Katia and Dalida waited impatiently for the sister to come back after speaking to the mother superior. The fact that they had to wait so long made them think that the answer would be “no.”

  When she came back to the refectory, Sister Marie-Madeleine’s face was that of someone who had escaped from a battle without winning it.

  “You can stay for two days. No more. I am sorry, it’s all I’ve been able to get her to agree to.”

  “It’s much more than we expected,” Katia assured her with a smile.

  At least they had two days to try to organize their flight to Spain. Armando and Raymond would have to help them.

  Katia didn’t know either of them, but the Resistance did know about Katia and benefitted from her reports. As Dalida was the only point of contact, it would have to be her who got in touch with Armando and Raymond.

  Whenever the situation was an urgent one, Dalida would go to a little haberdashery near the Louvre, where there presided a middle-aged woman, always serious and circumspect, but well turned-out: Madame Josephine. Dalida would look at the spools of thread and hanks of wool and then would leave, always saying the same thing: “It is a shame that in my haste I didn’t bring enough money with me; I’ll be back in a bit.” This meant she needed to meet someone urgently. If she finished the sentence by saying “I’ll be back tomorrow,” then it meant that the topic could wait a little.

  She barely exchanged a word with Madame Josephine.

  Once she had said that she would be back in a bit, she left the haberdashery and began to walk around. She couldn’t go back to the shop for two hours, the fixed time.

  Without any clear idea about where she was going, she headed toward the bank of the Seine. She was worried because she had left the radio in Katia’s house. But she knew that she couldn’t ask Sister Marie-Madeleine to let her install it in the convent. The nuns were running far too great a risk to open themselves up to even more.

  As she walked, she had the impression that someone was following her. But when she looked back she didn’t see anyone who looked suspicious. Couples tended to stroll along the banks of the Seine, a favorite haunt of lovers.

  She couldn’t stop looking at the clock as she was impatient to go back to the haberdashery, where she was sure that either Raymond or Armando himself would be waiting in the room behind the shop.

  She climbed the steps that took her from the banks of the Seine to the Place de la Concorde, and on the way back to the haberdashery she again had the sensation that she was being followed. She saw a car that drove so slowly it almost seemed to be keeping pace with her. She didn’t want to look at it directly; it was a black car with three men in it. She started to walk faster and moved to the other side of the road to try to avoid them. She felt calmer when she saw that she had managed to get rid of them.

  When she got back to the haberdashery, Madame Josephine made a sign to her to go into the back room, where Raymond was waiting for her.

  Dalida explained what had happened without omitting a single detail.

  “You must leave Paris at once,” Raymond said worriedly.

  “Can you help us? We haven’t dared be in touch with anyone from our network. We think that most of them must have been arrested by now.”

  “And they will be looking for you.”

  “What can we do?”

  “We don’t have much time to organize your escape. Tell me, where is the radio?”

  “In Katia Goldanski’s house.”

  “I don’t think that woman is safe.”

  “Well, we know that the French collaborators and the Germans trust her, you and I have both benefitted from this.”

  “The Germans are not stupid, Dalida, and I promise you that they will not take long to pull the string and see that it leads to her.”

  “How long can someone withstand torture?”

  “You’re thinking about Monsieur David . . . I cannot give you an answer. There are men who are tortured until they die and who never speak a word, there are others who spill the beans straight away . . . No one knows where his limit is. And I am not one to judge anyone who speaks while in the hands of the Gestapo. Monsieur David is an elderly man, it’s difficult to imagine how long he might last.”

  They agreed to see each other in the same place at the same time. Raymond said that it would be difficult to take her and Samuel and Katia over the border together, that the easiest thing would be to take them out individua
lly. But Dalida refused to think of doing this.

  “I can’t leave my father here, and he won’t go without me and Katia.”

  “If you are being looked for, then it’s a risk if you all go together.”

  “I have to say something . . . Maybe it’s not important, maybe I’m just being paranoid . . . Earlier I had the impression that I was being followed, but I couldn’t see anyone who looked suspicious; then a black car started to drive alongside me and . . . Well, I don’t know if I’m just nervous, but . . .”

  Raymond tensed up. He didn’t believe in coincidences, especially since it was true that if he had in the past been able to avoid the Gestapo it was entirely because he had followed his instincts.

  “They’ve found you! They’ll catch us all, we need to get out of here.”

  He coughed loudly and Madame Josephine came into the back room.

  “We have to go out through the basement,” he said nervously.

  Madame Josephine nodded and moved an old sewing machine to one side and, lifting a carpet, revealed a trapdoor that opened onto some extremely narrow steps.

  “You know how to go, hurry up,” she said, and closed the trapdoor over their heads.

  Dalida could see nothing, and it took her a few seconds to get used to the darkness. Raymond had taken her hand, and was pulling her down the stairs. She felt her clothes getting hooked on something and heard her skirt rip, but she continued heading downwards as the damp and the smell of mold made her stomach turn.

  “This basement is connected to the one next door,” Raymond said in a low voice.

  They walked for a few minutes and then he lit a match to illuminate the hole they found themselves in. Dalida shrieked as a rat ran between her legs.

  “Shut up!” Raymond ordered and pulled her along by the hand and helped her up some more steps, which were in an even worse state than those at the haberdasher’s.

  Dalida didn’t dare ask how they would get out of here and what they would do once they were in the street. She took it for granted that Raymond would know what they had to do.

  She felt him let go of her hand, and then he lit another match. She saw him smile as he lifted a trapdoor over their heads. They climbed out into a cellar that smelled extremely powerfully of wine.

  “This is the cellar of an inn, where you can still sometimes get good wine if you are able to pay for it. The owner is one of ours,” Raymond explained.

  He pointed to a corner where she could sit, and she sat. He sat down next to her.

  “We’ll wait here a while. Then I’ll go up into the inn, and if there’s nothing suspicious I’ll come back down for you.”

  “I have to be in the convent before dusk, the mother superior is inflexible about timing.”

  “And who said that you’re going to the convent? The first thing we need to do is find out if you are being followed, and send word of it to Juana; imagine the disaster if they were to find your father in the print shop.”

  They sat there in silence next to one another, each of them sunk in their own thoughts. Suddenly they heard a noise and footsteps coming toward them. Raymond took out the pistol that he wore in his belt and made a sign to Dalida not to move.

  The footsteps came ever closer until a huge man, taller even than Raymond, appeared before them.

  “I thought I might have a visitor. Two Gestapo men came in here a while back, pretending that they were only looking for a good glass of wine. Three or four of their cars have come past as well.”

  “Did they go into the haberdasher’s?” Raymond wanted to know.

  “No, they didn’t. I suppose they think there is a Resistance hiding-place near here, but they still don’t know where it is. What about this girl?” the innkeeper asked.

  “My good friend, she is Jewish. She’s part of a Jewish underground network and works with us. She knows how to deal with explosives, but above all she’s our messenger, she has a radio which she uses to be in touch with London,” Raymond explained.

  The tall man nodded, as if he suddenly remembered who Dalida was.

  “We have to warn Juana,” Raymond said. “This girl’s father is in her house.”

  “It would be a disaster if they found the print shop! Whoever thought of hiding a Jew in Juana’s house?” the tall man asked in alarm.

  “Juana herself, you know that no one tells her what to do.”

  “I don’t know how Vasily puts up with it, but she’s the one who wears the trousers.”

  Raymond shrugged. Vasily was a good forger, but Juana was the heart of the network. Armando trusted her more than anyone else, sometimes Raymond wondered if it was because the two of them were Spanish. But he normally put this thought to one side. Juana’s pulse would not have flickered if she had had to kill a man. She was much braver than many men.

  “Go and have a look around and if you don’t see anything suspicious we’ll come up. I’ll take care of the girl, you go and warn Juana and Armando.”

  “Where are you going to hide her?”

  “If they haven’t seen us, then the hiding-place she has chosen will be safe, at least for tonight,” Raymond told the tall man.

  “Fine, but we need to send some messages to London. I have them ready to pass over to you. They are urgent. Our friends have rescued a couple of British airmen.”

  “She sends the messages and I don’t know if it’s a good idea for her to do so at the moment.”

  “We have to take the risk.”

  They waited impatiently until the innkeeper came back. He seemed happy with what he had seen, or had not seen.

  “The street is calm: I sent my son Claude and his girlfriend Adèle out for a walk, and they’re just back now, they say there’s nothing suspicious going on. You can go, but change your clothes.”

  Raymond put on a different jacket and hat, and Dalida borrowed Adèle’s scarf and coat.

  They went out into the street, stepping boldly as if they had nothing to fear. They walked very close to one another. After a while they calmed down. Raymond was sure that no one was following them.

  “I don’t like it, but we have to do it; go to Katia’s house and send the messages that they gave us. Then go back to the convent and wait there until I get in touch with you. We have to get the radio out of your friend the countess’s house. We can’t afford to lose her.”

  He went with her to Katia’s house and she stood in the entry hall, waiting patiently for the elevator to come.

  Katia was not at home, but the maid did not mind letting Dalida in to wait for her. She knew her and knew that her mistress would never forgive her if she didn’t let in this young woman who sometimes served as her paid companion.

  Dalida lost no time and locked herself in Katia’s bedroom, which was where she had hidden the radio. In other circumstances she wouldn’t have sent more than a couple of messages and would have left the rest for the next day, but she didn’t know when she would be able to get back to the radio again, so she sent them all, even though she knew the risk she was running. Then she stood by the curtain at the salon window, peeking out into the street, impatient to see Katia. Night had already fallen when my aunt came home.

  “How long you’ve taken!” Dalida said while she hugged Katia.

  “I’m worried. I’ve just come from Madame Deneuve’s house, you know that she runs a literary salon where important Frenchmen and the occasional German come regularly. I don’t know, but Madame Deneuve seemed to be upset by my presence and some of the women seemed to be avoiding me. Maybe it was just my imagination . . . Then a higher-up in the police arrived along with that horrible German officer, Alois Brunner. They apologized to Madame Deneuve for coming so late and when they saw me they seemed surprised. My friend the policeman came up to me and said some words that I didn’t quite understand: ‘Countess, I thought you would be somewhere else this evening,’ the
n he turned away without giving me a chance to reply.”

  “They’re going to arrest us,” Dalida said. “It’s just a question of time, you said so yourself.”

  “But I didn’t think they suspected me . . .”

  “We have to get the radio out of here and take it to Juana’s house. She’ll get it to Armando,” Dalida explained.

  “It’s too late . . . If they’re watching us and see us coming out of the house . . . I don’t know, I don’t think it would be a good idea.”

  “We have to do it. Do you have the car?”

  “Yes, but I told Grigory that I didn’t need it today.”

  “It’s a good thing that Grigory is married to your housekeeper and that both of them are Russian and feel no sympathy for the Germans. I don’t think that Grigory would be upset if you called him out now.”

  “My dear, it would be madness to try to take the radio out now.”

  “It would be even madder if we were to leave it here. We can’t lose it, the Resistance needs it.”

  They couldn’t agree and Dalida eventually had to give in. She would go to the convent and hide with Sister Marie-Madeleine until Raymond or Armando came to find her. Dalida did not accept having Katia or even Grigory accompany her to the convent.

  “I will be less noticed if I go alone. You hide the radio as best you can, so that they won’t find it if they search the house.”

  They knew that everything was lost, so that when they said goodbye it was as if they did so for the last time.

  Dalida walked slowly, hiding in the shadows until she reached the convent, where Sister Marie-Madeleine was waiting impatiently for her. The nun was in the little garden from which a gate led onto the street.

  “Don’t make any noise. It’s very late and the mother superior thinks we are all asleep. You had me worried.”

  “They were following me, I think they were Gestapo agents, but I think I managed to get rid of them.”

  “You’ll be safe here.”

  “I hope so. I don’t have much time, at most another day; and then Armando or Raymond will come for me. They’ll take us to Spain.”