‘Get here,’ the one with the torch said. He was in his forties, with the two middle fingers missing off his left hand. ‘Do you have a night worker’s pass?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Then we have a problem,’ the officer said. ‘Show me the rest of your documents.’
Marc nervously laid his documents on the roof of the car, where the officers inspected them by torchlight.
‘What’s your destination?’
‘I thought I’d be able to get a room in a dormitory house before curfew,’ Marc explained. ‘But I’ve been to four and they’re all full.’
‘These documents are pristine,’ the officer noted, as he flipped them over to look for the date-of-issue stamp. ‘Issued today, in fact.’
The officer on the other side of the little car picked up Marc’s employment status document. He was extremely tall, and the effect was exaggerated by his long coat and tall hat.
‘You’re from Paris?’ he began.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It says you are released from prison camp on compassionate grounds, to look after your family?’
Marc nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘This form says you come from Paris, so why are you walking the streets looking for a dormitory house?’
‘I …’ Marc began, before coughing to buy thinking time. ‘There’s been a bit of a mix-up. I expect my older sister sent a letter saying where my family has moved to. But a prisoner’s mail can take weeks to pass through the censors.’
‘So how will you find your family?’
‘I know where my aunt lives,’ Marc said. ‘But it’s quite a way, near Beauvais. I didn’t sleep on the train from Germany last night and I’ve been on my feet all day. It was getting near curfew and I just needed a place to sleep.’
To Marc’s relief, the cops seemed to buy his story.
‘If your aunt was in Paris, we might have been able to drive you,’ the gendarme with the torch said, taking a friendlier tone. ‘But Beauvais is over fifty kilometres, so you’ll have to spend the night in a cell. In the morning you can take your train to Beauvais.’
‘What’s your aunt’s address in Beauvais?’ the tall cop asked.
‘Fifteen Rue Lavande,’ Marc said, picking a street name out of thin air, but hoping it would be OK if he sounded confident enough.
‘Rue Lavande,’ the tall officer repeated, as he tapped fingernails on the roof of the car. ‘Hopefully you’ll find your aunt there tomorrow, in the meantime get in the car. The station is only a two-minute ride.’
*
Every prison gets the same smell of bad food, bodies and cigarettes and Marc found it depressingly familiar. He was one of the first arrivals in a big holding cell that filled up as the night went on. There were several drunks, a husband spattered in his wife’s blood, two Luftwaffe8 pilots who’d fought over a girl and an old man who seemed completely off his head.
There was nothing but the concrete floor to sit on. Marc had barely slept the previous two nights and this one turned out no better, with constant noise and a crazy man who kept screaming and asking where all his teeth had gone.
There was light coming through the slot windows when the officer with the missing fingers called out Marcel DePaul. It took Marc a couple of seconds to remember that it was his new name.
‘Sit,’ the Gendarme said, when they reached a titchy interrogation room. All Marc’s things were spread across the table. ‘There’s a train to Beauvais at 06:42, and they run every half-hour after that.’
‘That’s good,’ Marc said guardedly. But he knew there was a sting in the tail because cops didn’t take you to an interview room if they were just going to release you.
He’d only seen the gendarme the night before in the dark, and he looked more wrinkled in the morning sunlight.
‘The only thing is, I called a colleague in Beauvais. He said he’s lived there all his life, but he’d never heard of Rue Lavande.’
Marc rubbed his eye. He needed his wits, but a third consecutive night without sleep meant his brain was in fog. It was a struggle just to keep his eyes open.
‘Maybe I got the name wrong. It doesn’t matter. I know the streets. I’ll find it when I get there.’
‘Why don’t you cut out the shit?’ the officer shouted, as he banged his fist on the table. ‘I’m trying to help, but you’re treating me like a fool. You’re carrying a brand-new set of identity papers but you’re full of lies about family and places that don’t seem to exist.’
‘It’s not lies,’ was all Marc could muster, as he wondered whether the gendarme was a good guy who wanted to help, or a Nazi pet.
The problem was, interrogators are trained to put suspects off balance by switching from scaring the hell out of you to pretending to be your best pal, and that made it impossible for Marc to get any real sense of the gendarme’s motivation.
‘Carrying false identity papers can get you shot,’ the gendarme said. ‘I’ve been working all night and I need my beauty sleep, so here are two choices. One, give me a story that checks out, or two I’ll pass your case on to a senior investigative team led by a German military officer. And believe me, you don’t want that to happen.’
Marc realised he didn’t have much choice but to trust his interrogator. If he was genuinely a good guy the gendarme might let him off the hook. If he wasn’t, Marc was screwed no matter what he said.
And Marc did have one story that would check out. He locked his fingers together to stop his hands shaking and took a deep breath before speaking. ‘My real name is Marc Kilgour,’ he began. ‘I ran away from an orphanage a few kilometres north of Beauvais, a while back.’
‘This better check out,’ the gendarme said suspiciously, as he wrote the information down.
He then asked for the exact address of the orphanage and the name of someone who’d be able to verify that he’d run away.
Marc thought of giving the name of Mr Tomas, the orphanage director who’d beaten him on a regular basis, but Tomas was unpredictable so he gave the name of a young nun who’d always stuck up for her orphans.
‘Sister Madeline knows all about me,’ Marc said. ‘And Sister Mary Magdalene, though she’s getting on a bit.’
‘I see,’ the gendarme said. ‘But these new identity papers are real. How did you obtain them?’
Marc was shattered, but only had seconds to think of a convincing way that a runaway orphan could get a full set of fake documents, without opening further lines of enquiry, or incriminating anyone else.
‘When I was on the street this guy told me that returning prisoners can get identity documents if they present a travel warrant,’ Marc said. ‘I went through the rubbish bins outside the identity office. It took a few attempts, but eventually I found a travel warrant they’d thrown out. I flattened it out, changed the picture, and carefully altered some of the details before taking it back to the counter inside.’
The gendarme laughed. ‘Ingenious,’ he said. ‘But extremely risky. And a serious offence in the eyes of our German masters.’
Having already thrown himself at the gendarme’s mercy, Marc decided it was a good time to sound pitiful. ‘I’ve never done anything like this before, sir. I was sick of the other boys, and I hate farm work.’
‘Let me tell you,’ the gendarme said, raising his voice and wagging his pointing finger. ‘An orphanage may not be great, but I’ve seen boys younger than you rot away in prison cells that would make your hair stand on end.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Marc said meekly.
‘You’re a very stupid boy,’ the gendarme said, as he picked up Marc’s papers and rattled them in his face. ‘If you mess with the system, it will crush you.’
‘I’m going out to call my colleague in Beauvais. He’ll check out your story. Is there anything else you think you ought to tell me before I go?’
‘Not that I can think of, sir.’
*
A two-hour wait in the interrogation room did Marc’s nerves no good. An o
rderly brought him stewed oats for breakfast, but they stuck in his throat.
‘Mr Kilgour,’ the gendarme said warmly, when he finally got back. ‘My colleague in Beauvais actually knows your friend Sister Madeline. He rode out to the orphanage and the sister vouched for you. He even dug up a missing person’s report, filed by the orphanage director.’
Marc smiled, feeling slightly embarrassed for some reason. ‘So, what happens now?’
‘One of my fellow officers will escort you back to Beauvais,’ the gendarme said, before leaning across and squishing Marc’s cheeks in a manner that was friendly, but also intimidating. ‘You’re bloody lucky that I picked you up, instead of a German patrol.’
‘I’m sure I could find my own way,’ Marc said.
The gendarme flashed with anger. ‘To go on the run again?’
‘I just don’t want to waste your time, that’s all,’ Marc said.
‘Besides, you can’t travel unaccompanied. You’ve got no papers, have you?’
Marc knew better than to suggest returning the false ones.
‘I’ll have a report typed up, saying that you’ve reported your identity documents missing,’ the gendarme said. ‘The orphanage shouldn’t have much problem getting you new papers if they have that.’
Note
8 Luftwaffe – the German air force.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Marc stared at the shabby three-storey orphanage like a ghost raised from the dead. He’d lived here for the first twelve years of his life, one of a hundred orphan boys looked after by nuns, under the command of Director Tomas and his steel-tipped cane.
Marc’s departure two years earlier had involved stealing clothes and boots from fellow orphans, smashing a kid’s head through a pane of glass and robbing Director Tomas’ bicycle. But while Marc didn’t expect an easy ride either from staff or the other kids, the orphanage offered food and shelter while he built up his strength and planned the next stage of his escape.
And yet sisters Madeline, Mary and Raphael ran smiling when they saw Marc approach with the gendarme.
‘God be praised,’ Madeline gushed, as she pulled Marc into a tight hug. ‘You were in our prayers every day.’
In the two years Marc had been away it had never once occurred that he’d been missed by the women who’d fed him, scrubbed his clothes and cared for him since he was a baby. The orphans tended to think of the nuns as harsh and slightly witchlike, but Marc now had enough of an outsider’s perspective to see that a hundred boys took a lot of looking after. It wasn’t that there was no love in this place, just that necessity meant it was spread thin.
Little details filled Marc with nostalgia. The creak of the main door, the way morning sun reflected off the highly polished floor. Above all, the smell of boys – socks, bad breath, pee and farts. It wasn’t nice, but it had an innocent charm when compared with the stench of BO and cigarettes made by grown men.
Sister Mary looked at the elderly gendarme who’d accompanied Marc from Paris. ‘Would you like a plate, sir?’
They went to the kitchen. Marc got bread, cheese and carrot, while the gendarme was also treated to wine and chopped sausage.
The nuns spent their lives boiling clothes, bleaching toilets and scrubbing floors with scalding water. As Marc ate, he found Sister Madeline hovering over his shoulders, inspecting him for lice. His stubbly hair passed muster, but she made a tiny yelp when she pulled back his shirt collar and saw a pair of tiny body lice.
‘I’ll draw a hot bath,’ she said urgently. ‘He needs a thorough delousing and we can soon boil his clothes.’
After a second glass of wine, the gendarme shook Marc’s hand and told him to look after himself. Marc thanked him, and repeated his promise to behave.
The two things that had most struck Marc since arriving back in France were the vast resources the Germans had to devote to keeping the French population in line, and the fact that officials such as gendarmes and the woman at the identity office weren’t keen on enforcing German regulations. Even the girl who’d been snogging a German had sided with him.
For all the propaganda posters, smart German uniforms and swastikas flying from important buildings, Marc got the feeling that occupied France was like a beautifully iced cake, being devoured from within by an army of tiny pissed-off ants.
Marc went rigid when he recognised the distinctive click of Director Tomas’ office door. But he glanced back into the hallway, and was surprised to see Sister Raphael step out of his office. She was a short woman, with pudgy white hands that always reminded Marc of balls of dough.
‘Has Director Tomas said anything about me?’ Marc asked nervously.
Sister Raphael smiled. ‘The director is no longer in the service of the church. We sisters run the orphanage now, under direct authority from the bishop.’
Marc didn’t know what to say, but his relieved smile said enough.
‘We seem to get along well enough without his guidance,’ Sister Raphael said, a cheeky smile creeping into her stern expression. ‘But just because you’re taller than me, don’t think I can’t take a cane to your backside if you err from the path of righteousness.’
Marc had never heard the nuns openly criticise Director Tomas, but they’d never liked the brutal way he’d treated the orphans and Sister Raphael was clearly well shot of him.
‘Is Tomas dead?’ Marc asked hopefully.
‘The Germans took a liking to our director,’ the sister explained. ‘He’s working for the Requisition Authority in Beauvais. But he still comes back to his cottage at night, and you’d do well to steer clear of him. He wasn’t very happy when you stole his bicycle.’
‘Avoiding him sounds sensible,’ Marc agreed.
‘I’ll need to get a photograph for your identity papers,’ Sister Raphael said. ‘I’ll tell them you were born in 1929, instead of 1928, which will keep you out of the factories for another year. You used to work for Morel the farmer, didn’t you?’
Marc nodded.
‘I’ll send you to work for him. No point restarting school at your age after two years absent.’
Marc’s mouth twisted awkwardly. ‘The last time I saw Morel, he threatened to chop my …’
Marc tailed off, because he didn’t know how to refer to his balls in front of a nun.
‘Farmer Morel needs labourers,’ Sister Raphael said. ‘And this orphanage relies on the extra food he supplies. He’ll work you hard, your wages will be used to pay for the boots you stole and the glass you broke when you ran away.’
‘I kind of tripped Farmer Morel’s daughter into a pit of manure,’ Marc said delicately.
Sister Raphael wagged her finger. ‘He’s a good Christian. I’m sure he’ll forgive you.’
Marc wasn’t convinced, but didn’t argue because in the twelve years he’d lived in the orphanage he’d had hundreds of disputes with the nuns and had won precisely none of them.
‘Sister Madeline will have the water hot for your bath shortly,’ Sister Raphael said. ‘Go help her drag the tub out into the yard.’
*
Even in freezing weather, orphans bathed in a tin bath on the patio behind the kitchen. On busy days, three baths were lined up, with boys hopping in one after another and the nuns scooting back and forth from the kitchen with hot kettles to warm up increasingly filthy water.
Sister Madeline was in her twenties, and Marc suspected she was rather sexy behind her black habit and veil. She’d probably seen him naked a hundred times, but puberty had properly kicked in and he turned bright red as he stripped naked. He dipped a toe in the steaming water, but that only earned a rebuke.
‘Not yet! I’ve got to get the delousing powder.’
The white powder came in a huge aluminium can. Sister Madeline used an enamel mug to scoop some out. She sprinkled it over Marc’s head, then followed up with a bucket of steaming hot water.
‘Oww, Jesus!’ Marc moaned.
‘You’ll burn in hell taking our lord’s name in vain,’
Sister Madeline snapped furiously, as she gave his wet back a hard slap. ‘And fancy a big boy like you making more fuss than a six-year-old!’
The insecticide powder fizzed on contact with water, and Madeline tipped another cupful into Marc’s hands and told him to rub it into all his hairy bits. When he was white all over, the nun left him to cook naked in the sun, while she sprinkled more delousing powder over a smaller tub filled with boiling water into which she dunked Marc’s clothes.
The older orphans were out at school, but Marc being white and naked greatly amused a group of three-to six-year-olds who’d emerged from a game in the surrounding fields with a teenage nun who Marc had never seen before.
‘He ran away,’ one of the oldest boys said authoritatively. ‘He’s called Marc.’
After ten minutes standing with the fizzing insecticide powder on his skin, Sister Madeline reduced the young spectators to howls of laughter as Marc hopped about under a cold hose, before finally allowing him to settle in the tin bath.
There was no soap and Sister Madeline insisted that Marc scrubbed himself thoroughly with a pumice stone, before she broke off and mischievously chased the little spectators with the hose. Marc sat in his bath with his head tipped back, watching the little boys throwing off their shirts and squealing under the cold water.
If Director Tomas was still around, he’d have stormed out of his office, grabbed the first two noisy kids he could lay hands on and brought them inside for a good thrashing. The orphanage was a happier place for his absence, and Marc was glad to know it.
For two years, he’d seen brutality and suffering, as the Nazi’s turned Europe into a gigantic slave camp. But here, in a little orphanage in the back of beyond, he’d found something that had actually got better.
*
It was only 12:30, but the nuns had seen how skinny Marc had got and they let him eat again when the six-to twelve-year-olds arrived back from the village school and ate lunch.
‘AAARGH!’ Jacques screamed, fighting off happy tears as he gave Marc a hug. ‘I can’t believe you’re back.’