The Best of Our Spies (56 page)

ooo000ooo

Her son had been born on an unusually warm Tuesday afternoon at the end of October. It was an easy birth and she had been well looked after by the doctor and the women at the farm. Even the four boys seemed to respond to the baby, spending hours crowding round it, fascinated by every feature. Once the baby was born, the doctor said, the boys began to recover.

Although he had her eyes, when she looked at the baby, she could only see Owen. For most of the time, this gave her great comfort and she felt an overwhelming love for the baby and its father. When no one was listening, she would talk softly to the baby in English. ‘Everything will be all right,’ she would assure him.

At other times, she looked at the little one and the enormity of what she had done would hit her. Then she felt distant from the baby and for a few hours would just go through the motions of motherhood, before her mood changed again.

Everyone at the farm had been unsettled by the three men who had appeared near the entrance the night before the birth, but they soon reassured themselves that it was nothing. Only she and the doctor guessed they were Germans and only she had heard what they said. Their presence haunted the farm for the remainder of her stay there.

She wanted to move on soon after the birth, but the doctor persuaded her to rest. The four boys had repaired enough of the house to make it habitable and importantly, warm. To the east, parts of Alsace were still at war. Fighting was raging over the Vosges Mountains and every night the sky was streaked with Allied aircraft.

On the last Saturday of November the priest from the village came to visit them.

‘I have two pieces of news for you. The first good. The second bad.’

They had all gathered around the table in the farmhouse. The priest was enjoying being the centre of attention on a day other than Sunday. He poured a second glass of the rough
vin de table
that was being passed round and continued.

‘The good news is that Strasbourg has been liberated. It was two days ago, on Thursday.’

The doctor translated into Polish, German and Yiddish, which she now knew was the language he communicated to Rachel in. The Roma women understood Polish. It was a long process. There were polite nods of approval around the table. They were pleased that Strasbourg had been liberated, of course, but after what they had been through, good news would have to be much more profound.

‘Yes. There was a real battle. The Americans and the Free French broke through the Saverne Gap on Wednesday and the French Second Armoured Division entered the city at eleven in the morning on Thursday. General Philippe Leclerc was the commander who liberated the city!’

The others looked at the priest who appeared to be overcome with emotion. They all raised a glass to General Leclerc, of whom none of them had ever heard.

‘The second item of news is not so good,’ said the priest, deploying his most funereal voice.

‘Last Monday a whole family was killed at a farm not far from here, just the other side of the hill behind us. I say last Monday. In fact, that is when their bodies were discovered. They were probably killed some days before.’

The doctor was hesitating before translating. When he started to speak, he kept it very short. He knew that there was only so much bad news the people around the table could take.

‘All of them had their throats cut. Mother, father, two sons and daughter.’

The priest  shook his head. The doctor did not translate.

‘Apparently there are reports of small bands of renegade German troops operating in the area. Probably ones who became detached from their units and they have nowhere to go. Usually SS. You had better take care.’

When the priest left, they agreed it was time to leave the farm. The doctor was going to take them all to Nancy where a proper refugee centre had been set up. She said she was going to head south to join her family in Lyons.

ooo000ooo

She had waited at the farm for just an hour after they left and then she and the baby headed east. The fighting had only just ceased in Alsace and there were reports of pockets of German resistance, but a mother carrying a baby proved irresistible to the first American truck they saw and they were in Strasbourg by lunchtime.

It was hardly recognisable as the city she had left four years previously. The damage she had expected, along with the other physical aftermaths of war. The air of resignation and exhaustion etched on the faces of the people she hadn’t. The city was teeming with French and American troops and seemingly thousands of German prisoners of war, slowly marching in long lines, enduring the pent-up resentment of a long occupied population.

It did not feel like she had come home, but she had nowhere else to go. Ever since her son had been born she had understood what was driving her back to Strasbourg: if Owen was ever going to find her, it would be here.

The area where her mother lived was unscathed compared to the centre and some of the outskirts. A neighbour whom she didn’t recognise helped her lift her bags up the stairs to the apartment while she carried the baby.

Her mother had said nothing when she opened the door. Her lips trembled and she reached out a hand to cup the baby’s face before hurrying her into the apartment.

‘Do you want to tell me your story now or later, or shall we pretend that nothing has happened?’

She sat down in the familiar armchair. Her son was awake and feeding from her breast.

‘Do we have hot water?’

‘Is that your explanation?’

‘If I can have a hot bath, then I will tell you everything.’

Her account to her mother had been so well rehearsed, so tightly edited and refined, that it did not take long. It had been prefaced with an instruction that there were to be no questions.

‘I left in May 1940 because I was afraid. You had already been evacuated, so I couldn’t contact you. I thought I would return, but I went to Paris. I came across the identity card of a woman my age. She looked similar to me too, so I assumed her identity. She also had the permit and papers that allowed her to live in Paris, so it was all so easy. I still thought I would return, but life there was not bad. You have to believe that in many ways, it was normal. I found work in one of the big hospitals. I thought many times of contacting you, but I was afraid that would compromise my identity. If I came back or even risked contacting you, it would all be too complicated. I was worried it could unravel everything. I had a comfortable life in Paris. I was selfish, I am sorry. I am ashamed of that. But I am back now.’

Her mother raised her eyebrows; she appeared unconvinced and certainly surprised at the brevity of her daughter’s account of the past four years.

‘Not even a letter?’

‘I’m sorry. ‘

‘And the baby?’

‘The baby was born a month ago in Paris. As soon as I heard that Strasbourg had been liberated, I came home. Here I am!’

She laughed, but her mother remained stony-faced.

‘The father?’

She had the script ready. ‘A good man. A doctor at the hospital where I worked. But he helped treat injured resistance fighters and had to leave in a hurry. That was at the end of April. I have not heard from him since. I don’t know. He did buy me this ring though. If it makes you feel better, you can tell people that I was married to him.’

Her eyes filled with tears for her baby’s absent father. Her mother softened and reached over to pick up the baby.

‘It all sounds very innocent to me, Ginette.’ She was clearly not convinced.

‘A few days before I was evacuated, two men came round asking for you. They frightened me. I told them that you were at work, which you were. I never said anything to you at the time. I was going to mention it, but then I was evacuated.’

‘Probably from the hospital here.’

Her mother shook her head firmly. ‘Probably not, Ginette. If they were, they would have been aware you were at work. The one who did the speaking, he was from Alsace. The other was German, I’m sure of it.’

‘I thought you said only one spoke?’

‘Ginette, don’t argue with me. I know Germans and the other man was German. I know it. What were you mixed up with? Was it the reason for your disappearance? What about the strange political views you used to have?’

She got up and went to draw the curtains.

‘Whatever my views were, four years of the war have changed them. In any case, they had nothing to do with me leaving. I’m home now. Do you want me to stay – for
us
to stay?’

She had noticed that her mother had been cuddling the baby, pressing her cheek against his.

‘Of course. Where else are you going to go, anyway?’

‘If we stay, it is on the understanding that we discuss these matters no more.’

‘Is there something important you have to tell me? Like, his name?’

‘I was waiting. I thought I would wait until I got home. I wanted you to have a say.’

They agreed on Philippe, after the general who had liberated the city the previous week.

‘And what will you do now, Ginette?’

‘I’ll get a job, mother. The hospital may take me back.’

The room was dark apart from a dim lamp in the corner. Philippe was fast asleep in his grandmother’s arms. She knew that her mother did not believe her, but she knew that she would not pry any further.

So life would go on as normal and she would wait.

And wait.

ooo000ooo

The bells of the Notre Dame had finished pealing and Strasbourg was surprisingly quiet. In the next room, she could hear her son begin to stir.

ooo000ooo

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Paris
January 1945

Gaston returned to André’s flat in the early evening and handed a package over to him. Only then did André explain his plan. Up until then, Owen had imagined that they might actually be spending the night in the sewers.

André’s idea, he had to admit, was an inspired one. It was risky and could go badly wrong, but he could not think of a better alternative. His real worry was that Lange would be released soon and would then disappear.

‘We’ll walk,’ André said as they turned left out of his apartment block and headed north.

It was a damp night and it was a while before either of them spoke.

‘This is Pigalle we are entering. Have you heard of it?’ André asked.

‘The red light district?’

‘If it was only the red light district that would be fine. This is where everything that shouldn’t happen does happen. It is where the underworld of Paris gathers. Anything you want, you can buy here. Anything. Even the Germans couldn’t tame it in the whole time they were here. You see that guy over there?’ They were on the Rue Pigalle, walking past a small bar at the corner of an alley. André was waving at a friendly looking man in his early forties leaning against the door. Despite the cold, he was in shirtsleeves.

‘When he last came out of prison he discovered that his wife had been having an affair with a friend of his. He cut his wife’s ears off and made her eat them. I will leave it to your imagination what he did to the friend.’

‘And what happened to him?’

André laughed. ‘Nothing. Lack of evidence. There is very little evidence here in Pigalle.’

A short man in a full-length cashmere coat was shepherding a young girl out of a long Citroën which was blocking another alley. ‘If you have specialist tastes, this is where you come. That is Claude over there. He specialises in young girls, sometimes for himself, but mostly for clients. He did a lot of business with German officers. He was able to pick up a lot of intelligence that way, I am told. Boys you get in another street. Any age you want. The Germans had a taste for fourteen year olds, I’m told.’

They darted across the road as an argument started in the alley: a delivery truck was objecting to Claude’s Citroën blocking the road.

‘Right, we’re going into the side streets now, just be careful. If we keep moving fast we will be all right. The pickpockets don’t like a moving target. I’m known here anyway, but you look like what you are.’

‘Which is?’

‘A stranger.’

They had crossed Place Pigalle and had turned into a long, narrow alley. At first Owen thought it was covered, but the buildings on either side were no more than feet apart and the sky was obscured by overhanging balconies that appeared to touch each other. Halfway along, André turned up a small flight of partially concealed steps and then they cut back into another alley, which had no street lighting, relying on the occasional dim light thrown out from the gathering buildings. The alley appeared to come to a dead end, but André opened a creaky wrought iron gate and they found themselves in a tiny courtyard. A statue of a naked lady stood in the middle of the courtyard, surrounded by plants. A spout that had once turned it into a fountain was sticking out of the top of her head. The ground was bathed by low level lights. André knocked on one of three doors opening onto the courtyard.

Owen heard André mumble something and mumbling in turn from the other side of the door. Then a delay as a series of locks, bolts and chains was noisily unfastened. The door was unusually high and the man who had opened it unusually short. He stood behind the door, holding it open just far enough for André and Owen to squeeze in, then hastily shut it, putting all the locks, bolts and chains carefully back into position.

Owen had never seen anything quite like it before. The whole of the ground floor and first floor appeared to have been excavated to form one large room. It was just one large space, with no floors other than the ground floor and no dividing walls. The roof beams were exposed and a small bird was flying between the rafters. Owen could not work out what was keeping the building standing if all the supporting walls and joists had been removed. It felt like an urban cave. There were desks, printing presses, drawing boards, shelves of pencils and inks and a door in a side wall that opened into a dark room. On the opposite wall there were three sinks, side by side. One was stained black with ink. There was a small table next to another sink, with food and drink on it. The middle sink had a syringe on the side. The back wall had a ladder propped against it, leading to more shelves. A black and white cat stared down at them from one of the shelves, wedged in between volumes of large torn leather ledgers.