Her effort was wasted. Neither woman had even flinched as de Brassis plowed face-first into the Persian carpet. Instead, they exchanged self-satisfied smiles before breaking loose in unbridled laughter. Erika’s jaw dropped. Agnès spoke first: “Please relax now, madame, and forgive us our little charade.” She slipped her pistol into the pocket of her smock.
Louise Trouget explained: “Our detested Madame de Brassis has now consumed sufficient wood alcohol to send her to hell. She’ll be dead within the hour, at least if there’s any justice left in this godforsaken Boche world.” Erika was stunned by the sudden reversal of fortune. The woman came over and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry I made you pump me so hard for information, but it was necessary to bring this all about. We couldn’t risk this taking longer than hoped and having von Kredow show up unannounced.” She gestured to the jerking body at her feet. “It’s high time this one dies, but we do so regret the tragic suicide of the young woman. It was never meant to happen that way. Sophie’s mother, I presume?”
Erika could only nod as she sat down again, her legs trembling.
“Nothing we could have foreseen, I’m afraid. Von Kredow ordered us to set the trap and we had to do everything as he demanded to disguise our plan.”
The dying woman continued to retch repeatedly, spewing cords of vomit on the expensive wool rug. “My God!” Erika suddenly remembered, “Where is Leo?” She scrambled to her feet and lunged for the door.
“Don’t worry, madame. He can’t have gone far, and Leo’s perfectly safe now.”
“Safe?” Erika pulled up short, horrified by the thought of Leo somewhere in the huge house with two dangerous soldiers around. “We must find him, and now! Those SS thugs killed the other children!”
Agnès smiled. “Heinrich and Herbert are party to our little deception, so no worries there, either, and they aren’t actually SS, they’re army. The men may appear a bit simple, but they’re trustworthy fellows.”
“You women astonish me! What about the others? The baby girl?” Erika stood up, nauseated by such heartlessness. “How could you allow them to slaughter innocents in your care?”
“Oh, not to worry, dear,” Agnès placed a reassuring hand on her arm, “all of our little ones are hale and hearty. That’s what makes the young mother’s death especially tragic.” Erika recognized a look of true compassion and regret. “These soldier boys of ours faked everything, even that bloodied little dress von Kredow demanded. Neither your husband nor the old witch there was any the wiser. As far as he knows, we disposed of the bodies in the furnace, just as ordered. But all the little darlings are safe, sound and well-fed, and I’m sure they’ll be delighted to see Leo once again.” She suggested they all move down to the hearth to escape the smell of vomit and the sight of disturbing death throes. “And by the time anyone comes looking, my sister Louise will be back home with her cat and the rest of us long gone.”
Erika had barely wrapped her mind around Horst’s survival and now this complicated deception seemed equally astounding. She took a closer look at the dying woman. Despite her loathing, as a former medical student she thought she should either ease the woman’s suffering or dispatch her more quickly. She recognized the bluish tinge of lips and nails, knew the convulsions would soon lead to coma and death. “Just how long has she been drinking methanol?” The throaty gurgling was turning to choking gasps.
“Madame here is often in her cups, so helping her along with the wood spirits was a natural choice. We started about twenty-four hours ago. Young Heinrich and his brother grew up on a farm, so they know their way around chemicals found in a caretaker’s shed. Madame was already complaining of a headache and vision trouble by bedtime last night, so we upped the dosage with her first drink of the morning.” Agnès appeared very pleased with their successful plan. “She thought it would do her good.”
Louise Trouget spoke up, her tone reassuring. “Your arrival late this afternoon was perfect! My sister and I had already decided to act—to protect the dear children—so we were all set to put our plan in motion. Our young soldiers are trustworthy, decent, so orders to slaughter children didn’t sit well with them either.”
“It wasn’t difficult convincing them we could offer a better future elsewhere,” Agnès added, “and now they’ve settled on heading back to the Sudetenland. We’ve offered a sizeable monetary inducement to help with such a dangerous move, since we know where Madame keeps her safe.”
Agnès hooked her arm through Erika’s. “But your being here will make things even easier!” The governess steered her toward the door Leo had taken. “Please come with me, madame. You and Leo must be famished after such a long day, and I’m sure Heinrich has prepared something delicious for us all. He’s quite a chef, you know.”
Louise took a final look at the matron, now almost still. She nudged the matron with her foot. “They’ll assume she drank herself to death, which is true in a way. We just helped her along. Our soldiers won’t be missed for a while since they’re on assignment to de Brassis here and the Gestapo. Later they’ll be deserters, of course, so it will appear they did away with de Brassis before absconding with the family treasure. But for now, we’ve plans to make. You and Leo are about to lead us out of this Boche nest and into the Free Zone. But first, why don’t we send that cabdriver back to Bayonne?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Nantes, Occupied France
29 August 1941
The governess blathered on incessantly and Horst fought the urge to smash the phone receiver on the desk. The imbecilic woman whined and wheedled, offering feeble excuses for failing at the simplest of tasks. He would gladly strangle her with the phone cord if only he could.
Most of what she said went unheard after the first staggering news. Years of planning, murder and manipulation, all for nothing—his Jew-bitch of a wife was dead. Erika, the bane of his existence, destroyed by accident rather than by his design, stolen away by the incompetence of underlings. First those inept agents from Nantes who bungled his grand finale at the warehouse, and now these feeble-minded sisters in Bayonne had bungled a second opportunity. She had escaped his exquisite tortures after all, would never pay the price for duping him into Rassenschande and polluting his noble bloodline by bearing a Mischling son. She would never compensate him for screwing her way out of the Reich, first with the American and then with that hulking Alsatian.
Those Bayonne morons had foiled a perfect plan. He had considered it possible, if not probable, that Erika would show up at the townhouse. It was simply her nature to attempt the rescue of hostage children. Having his Marionette there was a bonus. How he wished he had witnessed her discovery of the blood-smeared dress of her infant daughter, had heard those cries of anguish! Instead, the weak-willed bitch had gone over the edge and put one through her own head. And he hadn’t been there as it all played out.
The rest of the plan had gone equally sideways. Madame de Brassis and those doltish soldiers were charged with shattering his wife’s mental and emotional composure. They were to display the charred carcasses of the hostage children, then hold her for Horst to complete a task he’d plotted for years. Instead, the liver of old de Brassis had surrendered to that ungodly amount of alcohol she consumed day and night, and Erika had somehow overpowered the old biddies with a hidden pistol. Regrettably—so the sobbing governess repeated ceaselessly—both wife and the boy perished in the exchange of gunfire with the soldiers.
Horst ran his hands through his hair, then allowed a finger to follow the contour of the dueling scar on the deadened half of his face. He exhaled deeply, releasing the fury. His flaring temper finally under control, he spoke calmly to the hysterical woman, consoling, easing her conscience, allaying her fears. “I understand, madame, it simply couldn’t be helped. An unfortunate turn of events, but unavoidable under the circumstances and certainly no fault of either you or your sister.” He would find time later to punish them both for such moronic behavior.
Her voice quavered and
he heard the disbelief. His reputation for cruelty and retribution was widespread along the Atlantic coast among those who had dealings with the Gestapo, and such leniency was unheard of. “Yes, sir, most unfortunate but unavoidable…you’re absolutely right, sir—”
Horst interrupted: “Done is done. Here’s what happens next—the three women and the boy join the children already incinerated, understood? The soldiers know the drill.”
He imagined the hag’s head bobbing up and down, so determined to please or perhaps simply to actually escape his wrath. “Yes, sir, the soldiers will do as you command,” she said. “Not a single trace, just as you wish.”
“Au contraire, madame. There will be a single trace, for I have a special instruction for you and you alone. Had that fool de Brassis not drowned in her own alcoholic puke she would handle this for me, but now it’s all up to you.”
“Whatever you say, sir.”
“Need I speak of penalties for you and your sister should you fail in this matter?”
“Of course not, monsieur, of course not. We’ll do exactly as you say—”
Horst interrupted again, disgusted by her fawning manner. What good were stupid women, especially the plain ones? He steadied his voice, a model of calm. “Now, pay close attention, madame. Write down the following—” Horst gave the address for Gestapa in Berlin. “Now, read it back to me.”
“Yes, sir. Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8, Berlin.”
“Very good, madame. Now listen carefully. Before the bodies enter the incinerator you will remove one finger each from my wife and the boy. Place them in alcohol and seal them in a tidy package. And from my wife it must be the ring finger, understood?”
“Yes, of course, sir, the ring finger.”
“Send them to me by Luftpost at the address just given.” Horst allowed his order to register on the woman’s feeble mind before prompting her again: “You will do as I say, madame?”
He heard a nervous exchange of whispers as she shared his demand with her sister, the concierge, and then at last came a timid answer. “Just two fingers, monsieur…am I correct?”
“Indeed, madame. And if they don’t arrive in good condition, I shall pay you and your imbecilic sister a personal visit when next in Bayonne and take a few of yours, as well.”
He dropped the phone in its cradle and allowed himself a few moments to surrender to the new reality. Three years of dogged pursuit, three years of deception, trickery, deceit, all to bring Erika under his knife, to feel the blade slip beneath the yielding flesh, to watch the blood surface as she screamed for mercy, the life force draining slowly from her wracked body and mind. What a cruel twist of fate to forego her final despair, to lose out on her cries for compassion for that insufferable brat.
He slid his hands beneath his thighs to still the tremors. With eyes closed, he leaned back, consciously relaxing his limbs. The trembling had bothered him now for days, ever since the endless night in the crate, ever since he’d stared down death until it flinched. Each morning he awakened drenched in sweat, his fingers beyond his control as they worked at the scabs on his thighs.
He would display those proofs of death in his Berlin office. It was an inspired idea. Such blood trophies were sure to break the will of Lemmon and Gesslinger. Perhaps he would castrate them both first. He had once broken the will of a traitorous Jewess by presenting her with the severed cock of her husband. “I improved his circumcision,” he had told her. “If a little off the top is good for you Yids, imagine Jehovah’s pleasure in seeing so much more removed.”
Erika might be gone, but the game remained his to win.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Paris, Occupied France
29-30 August 1941
Two memorable events occurred those first days in Cherche-Midi prison. Only one would make her stay there more bearable. Well before the morning meal of vegetable soup and coarse brown bread, a warder had stopped outside her door. Dutiful to the rules of the house, Marita sprang to her feet upon hearing the grate of the key. The guard immediately stepped aside for a female non-com who set a bundle wrapped in brown paper on the table and left as quickly as she had come.
Marita hesitated to move until the lock clicked shut. She watched the peephole to see if anyone would slide the metal tab aside but the cover didn’t budge. She then tore open the bundle to reveal two pairs of blessed underwear, a cotton chemise, a handkerchief, rough woolen socks, and a comb. But most welcome of all was a stack of bandage wadding, palm-sized cotton squares. Frau Biedermann was a woman, after all.
Between noon and two, the guards disappeared for their break. The women of the cell block began calling out to one another, sharing rumors picked up from family visitors or from notes hidden in linen deliveries. Official reports of Boche victories on the Eastern Front were met with jeers and remarkably foul language, even for Marita, who thought she’d heard it all. Reports family members had garnered from illegally-heard BBC broadcasts received rousing acclaim.
The hourly interruptions throughout the long night established a steady rhythm: just as at Rue de Saussaies, the sudden glare of the overhead bulb, the march of jangling keys and screeching locks toward her cell door, the scrape of the spyhole cover and that single eye peering in to remind her that privacy was only found in her rudely abandoned dreams. The prisoner across the way said the predictable routine would surely keep her sane.
By early morning her fellow inmates awakened and did a make-shift wash, with shouts of “bonjour!” and “bien dormie?” passed from cell to cell and across the aisle. She returned those greetings while lying face-down on the floor, calling back through the gap under the iron door. Once all were awake, the women joined together in a chorus of “la Marseillaise,” followed by shouts of “Vive le général de Gaulle!” But the exuberance faded promptly at eight, when the guards reappeared. Then the prisoners entered the corridor with slop pails and water jugs and used the small brushes provided to sweep out their cells.
She learned that blonde Claire, now occupying the cell to her right, was accused of partisan activity in complicity with her boyfriend, secretly relaying messages and funds to support a local Communist cell. The Gestapo had caught her leaving underground flyers on Métro seats. Her sentence was ten years, most likely in a forced labor camp in Germany.
It took more of the group’s encouragement to learn red-haired Denise’s sad story. Her husband Jean-Louis was stranded by the Boche invasion while picking up a wholesale dry goods delivery in Chantilly in June of ’40. The poor man had inadvertently insulted an SS colonel. Standing on the sidewalk to stare at the long, tight column of armored vehicles and marching troops, Jean-Louis failed to doff his cap as the colonel passed in an open car. His punishment for such lack of respect was a bullet to the back of the head. His body remained on the pavement as a warning to honor the new conquerors. A week later the wholesaler used Jean-Louis’ own delivery van to return his corpse to their doorstep in Paris. The old friend hadn’t dared brave the roads until the Occupation was a fait accompli.
To support their two young girls, Denise had hastily found a job assisting a photographer. The man was doing well financially taking portraits of men in uniform for parents, spouses or fiancées back in Germany. The sudden increase in orders with the influx of soldiers on leave required a clerk who could greet arriving customers. However, unbeknownst to Denise, her boss was also forging documents for an underground resistance group, and she was rounded up as an accomplice. The police arrested her at work, and she hadn’t dared make calls to neighbors for fear of implicating them. With no surviving family in Paris and no phone of her own, her daughters would return from school to an empty apartment. She had begged to be allowed to alert them, to find someplace else for them to stay, but to no avail. She now faced a sentence comparable to Claire’s but the fate of her children remained unknown, tearing at her heart and gnawing at her conscience.
The other news on that first day was far less welcome than the package sent by the directrice. It
showed what little hope she had of ever escaping the descending blade. Marita and the new-arrivals had quickly learned the warning codes used when guards approached: the first inmate to spot a warder at an off-hour would whistle Au clair de la lune. The popular tune Cadet Rousselle alerted everyone once the coast again cleared. So that afternoon, after the second daily meal—dense sausage and margarine accompanying any bread that survived breakfast—Marita recognized the signal for a surprise visitor on the block. She heard footsteps stop outside her cell and the turn of the key.
The guard led her to a meeting room where her state-assigned attorney waited. Avocat Bertin was young—perhaps in his mid-twenties—and his recently acquired Doctor of Law degree undoubtedly decorated some nondescript office in a poor arrondissement. Anxious to appear professional, his officious manner covered an obvious lack of expertise, and from the sound of it, experience. He reviewed her story and the Gestapo interrogation notes, and when she still denied any wrong-doing, advised her that the government’s case was air-tight. “There can be no doubt you were caught with an English wireless transmitter.” He promised to plead her case to the best of his abilities—little consolation there—but felt she would do better to admit her treasonous acts and beg for leniency from the judge. “If you only had something to share, the name of someone else complicit in your crime? You should be aware the court favors those who help carry out its judicial duties.”
How dreary and boring her fate now that it was only a matter of time before the blade fell. The daily communal time in the courtyard allowed the women to see each other but talking wasn’t allowed as they paraded around in an endless circle, each with a hand on the shoulder of the woman ahead. No other human contact was allowed. She found little solace in the long hours alone in her cell. She had already memorized the graffiti on the walls, imagined the individual writers as her companions in misery, crafted in her own mind a personal history to accompany each heart-rending comment.
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