by Jina Bacarr
Unfortunately, the Gestapo isn’t going anywhere.
They’re staying in Paris. Ramping up arrests, torture.
Which means Herr Geller will be a part of my life for a while to come.
I say nothing about my fears and what happened that night in my apartment when Jock returns to Paris, so filled with joy I am at feeling his arms around me. Kissing me with such intensity I can’t breathe. We don’t dare meet in the open, so we’re underground. I have to stand up on my toes to wrap my arms around his neck, my navy cloak swinging around me like a swirl of saffron fog, our voices echoing in the cool, damp passageway under the city. He slides his hands up and down my body, his fingers digging into my flesh, rolling up my lightweight housedress to stare at me. I’ve never been happier to show off my big belly than to this man. He’s in awe at the sight of me, the vein at the side of his neck pulsating from the near miss of a Nazi bullet earlier when he was spotted after curfew.
I grip him so tight he flinches. I’d die if anything happened to him because of me.
We’re engulfed in a comforting semi-darkness as we speak. I can’t let him go. Jock couldn’t be happier about the child. He speaks the words with a mixture of joy and amazement, adding that he loves me more than anything. Our baby is lodged between us as we embrace, the unborn urging her parents to stay as close together as possible. Mais oui, since all my weight is spread out around my middle, I’m convinced I’m having a girl.
I keep my thoughts to myself, listening to every word from Jock, how he wanted to return sooner, but he saw heavy hand-to-hand combat with Nazi patrols after he picked up three airmen. He’s keeping them hidden in safe houses around the city till it’s safe to travel.
I find it so hard to listen to him talking about leaving again, my hands covering his as he holds me with a firmness both comforting and protective. I instinctively suck in my protruding stomach. Jock never stops asking if I’m feeling well, if the baby is okay, what can he do to help? I tell him having him here means everything to me. And the baby. Mon amour stands close to me until I relax, his loving hand resting on my belly, his lips brushing my hair, making me feel warm inside and happy. I feel complete. Loved. Pretty.
Am I selfish to want to keep him with me? Of course I am. What woman in love isn’t?
These moments may have to last me for the rest of my life.
He cups my chin, kisses me, not with heat but with the promise he’ll protect me. A notion so far removed from my psyche, it takes me a moment to accept it. I’ve always been on my own, had to fight for everything. Now in my greatest moment of need, when I’m determined to be stronger than ever, I let go, not feel guilty if I close my eyes and be as one with my unborn child. Because Jock will be there, watching over both of us.
For now. This moment.
I’m not fool enough to believe it will last, not with Paris again on the brink of armed conflict. Air raid warnings are becoming more commonplace. The Resistance is going on the offensive, skirmishing with the Germans out in the open. Strange, we’ve had nearly four years of occupation when Parisians got on and off the Nazi merry-go-round while others – like the Jewish roundup – were pushed off with reckless abandon. I’ll never come to grips with it. When Jock confirms what I heard about a major Allied invasion coming soon, I pray the ride is nearly over.
And the Nazi machine will fall apart like a house of cards.
Which presents me with a new set of problems. When the Allies come… what will I tell them? I had no choice but to make it appear as if I cooperated with the Nazis?
Will they believe me?
A raw fear grips me. A weak excuse, if best. Yes, I started out openly defiant against the Nazis. It didn’t work.
So I embraced what did.
I used my status as a film star to gather intelligence to help the Resistance. Then created Fantine. A fanciful adventure at best. I notice the air in the passageway is suddenly stifling and the smell of black deeds from centuries past rises up around me, the spirits pointing their bony fingers at me, accusing.
We don’t believe you, mademoiselle.
A nervous humming escapes from my lips.
I can’t prove a damn thing. I don’t care for myself. But what about my child?
I keep humming like I used to do when I was a little girl, playing among the roses and violets in the convent garden, picking up the fallen petals. Feeling as lonely as each petal cast aside, I’d try to put them back together to make a new flower.
It always fell apart.
I pray that won’t be me when the Allies come.
Jock must have known by my nervousness and all this talk about invasion what’s on my mind. He gives me a number to memorize… a service number, he says. He sent a coded message to London via a trusted wireless British operator dropped into France. (I’m saddened to learn the operator was later picked up by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp.) The British officials responded with the number, acknowledging my work as Fantine with the Resistance is known to a ‘Mr Peeps’ in the Foreign Office and what I’ve accomplished is registered with the SOE F (French) Section in London with a notation of my true identity.
Sylvie Martone.
French actress.
No other record exists.
Then he kisses the tip of my nose and tells me he’ll love me always… and he’s off on a dangerous mission soon.
But first, he insists on marrying me.
I never expected I’d say my wedding vows with an armed Nazi guard as a witness.
Before I get ahead of myself, it’s not a real wedding and it’s not a real Nazi guard.
Bertrand again dons his German soldier disguise to give our ceremony the guise of being sanctioned by the Party when we enter Sacré-Coeur late at night. He drove me here in the sidecar of his military motorcycle with Jock meeting us outside the basilica.
Father Armand is waiting for us, the kindly priest more than pleased when I asked him to marry us. He’s never spoken of that time in my life when I abandoned God, but welcomed me over the years when I come here to pray. A simple word to the father-on-duty in the confessional earlier and he received my message I need him. Tonight. To marry us.
He asks no questions.
But he records our names in his journal for proof of the religious ceremony after the war. Other than that, we don’t go through the legal formalities – how can we? Jock would have to establish his residency for at least two weeks to obtain a marriage license. I find a bit of mirth in that, imagining how he’d explain to a French official he ‘dropped in’ by parachute and he had no permanent address because the Gestapo is on his tail. I whimsically conjure up an image of me wearing a wedding gown made from his white silk parachute. Instead I choose a loose blue frock with a white collar that hides my rounded figure and cover my head with my trailing lace veil.
We say our vows to each other in clear voices and Father Armand gives us his blessing.
No marriage certificate.
No ring.
But it’s a union blessed by God.
And that’s all that matters to me.
Our wedding night lasts a mere six hours.
I hide my new husband in my apartment in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine swathed in a night of blessed darkness. First he insists on carrying ‘us’ over the threshold. The baby and me. I beg to imagine what my nocturnal neighbors will think if they’re out past curfew and see a pregnant woman, her face hidden by a long lace veil, being lovingly brought inside, then the door kicked shut with the man’s boot.
Should questions be asked, Fantine will tell them the daughter of a dear friend needed a place to hide with her Resistance-fighter husband until the heat died down, that a Nazi detail was following them after a mission. No one will question her.
Not me. I’m too busy enjoying marital bliss.
Kisses abound for the first hour… perhaps longer.
Hours two and three see us rolling around the four-poster, our bodies tense and distraught for so long easing
up and trying to find a position where we can get as close to each other as possible without injuring the baby. Comical, funny, staccato moves. Wild facial expressions like we’re making a silent film.
Fourth hour we lie in each other’s arms, exhausted. Smiling, contented, the wild fever in us satiated. For now. We speak in hushed undertones about the baby. Our love for each other. And us.
‘I pray our child will be born into a France free from these horrible Nazis,’ I whisper, laying a hand over my belly. Jock puts his hand over mine.
‘The invasion is coming, Sylvie, and I shall fight to keep you and the baby safe.’
I trace his jawline with my fingers. ‘We’ll raise our baby to never forget the long road to peace, mon amour.’
‘And she’ll speak both English and French,’ Jock insists, kissing my stomach.
‘And we’ll spoil the little royal rotten… a pony, dolls, ribbons for her hair…’
‘And she’ll be pretty, like her mother.’
‘Did I tell you I love you?’ I whisper, hungry for him again.
‘Not for at least five minutes.’ He wraps his arms around me. ‘Let me show you.’
We kiss again, a warmth igniting between us that hovers over us like an invisible aura I shall remember always as I reach up to stroke his thick, dark hair. We’re safe and happy here, but we’re aware of the hurdle we face regarding us getting married.
‘If we can defeat the Nazis,’ I tell Jock, ‘and I’m sure we will, we can overcome the prejudice of stuffy, old British bureaucrats.’
‘My enchanting Sylvie,’ he says with a chuckle, ‘they have no idea what they’re in for.’
My aching back rules the fifth hour with Jock kneading, probing with his fingers to relieve the building pressure in my lower back, pressing hard enough to relieve the pain and evoke in me a pleasant wave of release. I cry out, a surprised moan erupting from deep with me. Then I sleep for a precious few minutes.
It isn’t until the sixth hour we rise up to accept our responsibility we have a job to do in this war. Jock received a wireless message earlier telling him he has SOE agents being dropped tomorrow night at a field outside Angers, nearly three hundred kilometers from Paris. I dive under the fluffy quilt on my bed, teasing my love to join for one more heated embrace. As I sigh in his arms, I wish I could turn back the clock and relive tonight. I can’t. It’s only after he leaves and I accept the fact it will be a while till we see each other again, that I embrace a new truth.
I’m a wife in the eyes of God.
No one has ever loved me enough to risk everything, to make me feel so wanted, so happy. I love Jock with everything I am and it thrills me that he’s embraced that love. Given me his undying devotion and a name I am proud to own if only in my heart.
Madame John Lawrence Revell.
The Duchess of Greychurch.
My baby kicks me hard when I see the kindly physician with the monocle arrested by the French police for hiding Jews.
I panic, my steps a slow and steady pace near the apartment on Rue des Belles Fueilles, the contractions getting more painful, my dear Halette urging me to run the other way, hide. I can’t. My shoulder muscles tighten. Everyone knows the Milice, a French paramilitary organization, is controlled by the Gestapo. The shock is settling in, the fear twisting, turning in my gut. I can’t shut out the yelling in my head, the accusations hurled at the poor man by the commander, calling him out so everyone can hear his ‘crime’ of concealing a Jewish family in the empty apartment in the building.
God sent me a warning… I can’t leave him like this.
I wrap my cloak around me, think, think. I must help him.
‘There’s nothing we can do, Mademoiselle Sylvie,’ Halette cries out, pulling on my arm. Her skin is as pale as a porcelain doll, her eyes exploding with the harsh reality of our situation. She insisted on coming with me and I’m grateful for her loyalty these past weeks. Massaging my lower back, bringing me tea, insisting I put my feet up. Watching over me after Jock left on a dangerous mission in advance of the Allied invasion. The glow of our union hasn’t worn off, nor the urge to wrap my arms around his neck and bury my face in his chest. At nights the feeling is so intense I forget my changing body. Then a wild kicking in my belly alerts me I won’t be alone. That doesn’t make the memory of our parting easy, remembering how he left me with a passionate kiss and a promise to return before the baby is born.
Since then, I’ve been keeping Halette busy acting as my courier to get intelligence, giving her instructions on how to proceed if anything happens to me. I still have my room at the Hôtel Ritz, but we spend more time at my Trocadéro apartment, coming and going at odd hours, fearful of running into our Nazi neighbors, but things run smoother here than in the poorer arrondissements. Meanwhile, Emil is busy in post-production, which suits my purpose. Bertrand spends more time disguised as a German soldier than not, his tall powerful image sending fear into both German and French alike.
And my baby is overdue.
Which is what brings us here this morning.
The surreal scene of this stalwart man being forced into the black Citroën holds me fast.
I clench my fists to my side. ‘I can’t stand by and do nothing.’
‘We must, Sylvie… think about the baby.’
‘Yes… my baby.’
I rub my stomach under the voluminous navy cloak hiding my impending motherhood. Along with the white nurse’s cap and sensible white shoes I commandeered from the studio wardrobe department, I donned a black wig and wire-rim glasses to hide my identity. No one pays attention to me when I make my pregnancy visits to the doctor’s residence a short walk from my Trocadéro apartment. To anyone spying, I’m a nurse from the nearby American Hospital of Paris come to deliver an important message to the doctor. Since the hospital is farther north of his residence, I go to the extreme of circling round the street should anyone notice I’m approaching from the wrong direction.
Now I’m grateful for my caution.
Hopefully I’ve aroused no suspicion, though I imagine had I arrived earlier, I could have been caught in their mousetrap, a Gestapo operation where they don’t take their target into custody right away, but wait around for other suspects to show up and snag them in their net.
‘Merci, mon enfant, for saving us,’ I whisper to my unborn child for keeping me home until I couldn’t wait any longer. Contractions coming then abating since early this morning when Halette and I were discussing her future over tea and biscuits. I told her I’ve made certain the deed to my Faubourg apartment is also in her name. Not an easy feat. Using her false identity card and calling in a favor from the studio solicitor, I achieved my goal.
Then the contractions started coming closer together. Too close. Regular intervals, which I could deal with by slowing my breathing. When my legs cramped, I got scared. Then the nausea. I couldn’t use the telephone to call the doctor’s residence for help. The line is down again.
What if I had called? Could he have warned me? Not as easily as pulling the curtains closed, a signal often used to indicate ‘stay away’. My heart is breaking seeing this brave physician being treated like an animal.
I’ve been coming here since that night when I fainted in front of the Nazi general. A lucky break for me rather than trying to get to the clinic on top of Rue des Martyrs when my time came. The doctor and I both agreed it would be safer for me to have the baby here at the private clinic in his home, but he assured me he’d hide me in the hospital if necessary. Bertrand later confirmed my suspicions the French physician is friendly to the Underground and has attended to several wounded evaders. He keeps them safe from the Germans by forging their identities on their medical charts as Frenchmen, or listing them as deceased and then moving them very much alive along the escape lines to freedom.
His wonderful work will cease and I beg to wonder how many Allied soldiers will never see home again because we’ve lost him to the Gestapo.
The last time I see the esteem
ed doctor, he’s being shoved into the motorcar without his monocle.
I turn and walk down the block, motioning for Halette to run off in the opposite direction down a narrow passageway so we’re not seen together—
When a black Mercedes rolls up behind me as silent as a devil-ghost.
What’s going on?
I cross the street.
The motorcar cuts me off.
I zigzag, my head down, clasping my cloak tight around me. The motorcar must have been waiting around the corner, engine running, for someone to snare in its claws. Thank God Halette escaped from his clutches.
The black metal monster moves forward and nearly clips me. Heart racing, I jump back. The car stops, the driver side door opens and why am I not surprised when Herr Geller gets out, his eagerness to confront me affecting me in a frightening manner.
I can’t move, my senses spiking with a strange smell up my nostrils. It’s the scent of decay that clings to him like a shroud. Yes, it’s in my mind, but the horror that races through me every time we meet singes my skin on fire. Every nerve in my body taut, heart pounding in my chest so hard, I can’t breathe.
Another contraction… then another, the pressure building in my back.
Oh, God, I can’t stand the pain.
‘Need a lift to the hospital, mademoiselle?’ he asks in that syrupy sticky voice that crawls all over me like a thousand ants.
‘Non, merci.’
Say nothing.
‘You live in this neighborhood?’
Don’t lie. He’ll follow you and you’ll blow your cover.
‘No. I like to walk after my shift… now if you’ll excuse me.’
‘I find Paris in early summer too humid for my tastes. I’d rather ride… wouldn’t you?’
He’s toying with you. He knows you were on your way to the physician’s home. Why? his brain is asking. Who is she?
I’ve got to get out of here before he asks me for my papiere. In my haste, I left my phony identity card at the apartment. You don’t think about damn papers when you’re in labor for hours.