The Tiger Claw

  I squinted, looking for any movement at my cell window. The guard has never matched her count of pages given to me with the pages I give to Vogel, but she could, or Vogel could. What better time to search my cell?

  Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to be returned to my cell. I, who a moment earlier wanted to be outside forever, now wished for nothing but the sight of these walls.

  When I shuffled back, the guard didn’t push me in and walk away—but came into the cell. To my amazement, she removed the shackles from my hands as well. She left me the knitting needle and more tickets to string, and then was gone.

  I held my hands out before me, tested each digit, massaged my wrists. I feel sure I was unshackled by order of the prison governor. He said he’d never kept a woman enchained as I was, not even a murderer. I don’t know if my unshackling is a respite for a few hours or whether I dare hope for a more kindly regime.

  I waited at least an hour before opening my khazana, my treasure chest in the leg of my cot. The sheets were still there. I write so small, using initials for code names; they reveal a tenth of my thoughts, but enough.

  Ma petite, I must not write any more.

  Yet how can I keep these pages? Keep them for you?

  The pipes that bring me news in Morse run between two brick walls. Hands free, I worked all night, all night in the white-hot haste of desperation. By morning I had scooped a hole in one corner with the knitting needle. A hole no larger than the circle between thumb and forefinger, but enough to poke my papers one at a time between the cell walls. When I get some soup, I’ll make a paste of all the plaster chips I’ve saved and it will camouflage the hole. The Germans will have to tear down the walls before they find them.

  We are still together, ma petite. I continue speaking to your spirit as I did in the dungeon, only in my mind.

  My manacles and leg irons were replaced this morning. I was unenchained only for a single night. And in the afternoon the governor himself brought my paper and ink. He stood looking at me a long time in silence. I cannot imagine how I looked to him.

  “I telephoned Herr Vogel in Paris,” he said eventually, struggling to find the right words in French. “I asked if I could remove your chains after so many months. I told him I never kept women in chains. Sometimes in the dungeon, but not in chains. But Herr Vogel said there is a punishment order in your file. For attempting to escape, ja?” He shook his head regretfully. “He said already he has made too many exceptions in your case.” Here he gestured at the pen and paper. “Remember, children’s stories only,” he said—and gave a little bow.

  Even the Nazis cannot fully eradicate compassion and kindness.

  I disobey him and write to you once more, against all resolutions, against all caution. I want you to know somehow—I don’t know how or when—all I have said, all I have thought, all these months.

  Talking to you distracts me from my daily fears, but leads me back to open questions. I want to know, I need to know: who told Cartaud and Vogel they would find a radio and an operator at the boulevard Richard Wallace apartment?

  Was it my phone call to Odile? To trace it, the Gestapo had to know “Sablons 80.04” before I arrived for my transmission. The switchboard operator could have had it on a list of numbers under surveillance. How did they get it?

  Major Boddington? Perhaps, when he told me in July that he had not given anyone my number, he meant “no one so far.” He could have given Gilbert my telephone number afterwards. I can’t believe he would tell it to Gilbert after I had refused to work with that salaud, but maybe he did.

  The Gestapo could have triangulated on my transmission from detection vans, but how had they known the area a van should roam that day? Chance? I made my decision the night before and told no one, not Odile, not Josianne, that I would not be transmitting as usual from Suresnes.

  Odile knew the address at boulevard Richard Wallace, but she would never have given me away—intentionally. But oh, she is such a little chatterbox. To whom might she have spoken? Viennot? Viennot knew my transmission times, but none of my addresses. Émile? Monique? Renée? They didn’t know the new apartment either.

  I have no proof, only suspicions. Polygamous conjectures that lead to more confusion.

  Did Armand feel as I did when he was arrested? I felt panic, like a cornered animal; anger, like a wounded tigress.

  August 16, 1944

  Noor lay beneath her blanket, back to the door. A bolt drew back; she looked over her shoulder.

  Sheen of sweat on that pale face, eyes bloodshot behind Vogel’s spectacles. Perhaps some internal dialogue was in progress, finally.

  “I walked from the station,” he said, taking off his jacket and wiping his brow. “I couldn’t get a motor transport to bring me here.”

  No internal dialogue—how foolish to expect it.

  “The Gestapo headquarters are moving from Paris. Temporarily, you understand. Befehl ist befehl—an order is an order. We’re sending everything to Berlin by car. Herr Kieffer could get petrol for that, of course.”

  Noor struggled to her knees, sat up, shook matted locks.

  A small submarine began to bubble upwards in her stomach. If the Gestapo was retreating from Paris, the Allies must almost be upon them.

  “I, however, am returning to Munich, Princess.”

  Change in pattern. Vogel usually came to see her on his way from, not to, Munich.

  “Why not Berlin?” Noor asked.

  “Herr Kieffer doesn’t need an interpreter in Berlin. He may need an interrogator later, but at present he is not even taking Cartaud.”

  Of course, Cartaud would want to fall back with the Germans, even fleeing all the way to Berlin. Retribution was coming to the occupiers and their collaborators. No pity for Cartaud—he had felt none for her.

  Vogel took a step towards her. She shrank away.

  He sat down beside her and his shirt-sleeved arm looped around her shoulders. Cleared his throat. “I left Munich when I was seventeen …” He cleared it again. “I went back one summer and my wife …” He looked away. “She wasn’t my wife at the time, but we … she became with child. So I had to marry her. But after the twins were born, I could never touch her again. You know I visit them dutifully, I provide for them. But, Princess, even now I feel nothing, though she is worn by war, sewing swastika arm bands. And then I saw you, a warm-blooded filly …”

  Speech delivered, he began to flounder.

  “When I come to see you, I am reminded of camp—nineteen thirty-nine. The year I last felt anything. Hope, pain, sadness, anger, shame—anything. It was safe in camp. No obligations, no women laughing at me if I couldn’t …”

  He didn’t finish his sentence, nor did it seem he was going to.

  “And now, to return to Munich … I’m going back to prison, a German one this time.”

  How dare Vogel compare this prison, this very real prison, with an abstract prison of rules willingly inhabited! Vogel should experience a real German prison camp, worse than Drancy if possible; he had sent so many Frenchmen—maybe even Armand—to German camps. A German prison camp would cure him of all nostalgia for Germany, make him truly appreciate his wife.

  Vogel continued, “I have lived in Paris too long. I am accustomed to being served well in restaurants, having the right of way, interrogations, authorizations, reports. Munich has no need of me. I could be conscripted for military service, sent to the Eastern Front.”

  The hand resting on Noor’s shoulder clenched a little, reawakening the ache of dislocation.

  “I’m returning to a strange country. People don’t require my translation skills, or if they do, no one wishes to pay. I think: what if I could take you with me? Call me Ernst, Princess, and I will get you a hot bath. You could do your hair. You would look as you did the first time I saw you—an exotic, beautiful thing.”

  Thing.

  Cold fingers caressed the nape of her neck, his hand moved down, down, finding her breast. Did the Führer no longer prohibit sexual
relations between Aryans and non-Aryans?

  The pressure on her shoulders increased. Did it no longer matter to Vogel what the Führer prohibited? She leaned away, as far away as she could, sensed his biceps tensing beneath his shirt sleeve.

  Then, suddenly, he released her and stood. She scrambled away to the corner of the cot, her back to the wall.

  “Wouldn’t you like a lovely silk dress? A pair of patent leather shoes? I can arrange a room for us at the Regina Palace Hotel—it has the most secure bomb shelter in the world. The Pinakothek is destroyed, but we don’t need art. I prefer to take you to the opera.”

  She stared down at her ragged lap, manacled hands and feet before her. Yes, of course she would love a hot bath, a silk dress. But she was not Cinderella, Vogel was not her Prince Armand, and no glass slippers Vogel could buy for her would fit her feet.

  Don’t let him anger you—you have too little strength.

  She was so tired of Vogel’s games. So tired of being told who she was, who she should be, what he wanted her to be, how she should behave. Her half-starved body kept her almost in stupor these days, tired all the time.

  He was over her again, grabbing the chain between her wrists. Pulling, as the iron rubbed its way into flesh. His hand was on her knee—the closest he had ever come.

  “Please,” she said, “please,” but heard no sound emerging from her mouth. Heard only the cascading roar of fear within her.

  Vogel held her shoulders in a vise.

  “For once, call me Ernst, Princess! It’s such a little thing.” He rocked her back and forth, crooning, begging, “Call me Ernst! Call me Ernst …”

  She turned from his paleness, his decomposing breath, closed her eyes.

  “You want something? I’ll give you something. Here—” He let her go to fish in his pocket. “I was taking it for my wife, but I’ll return it to you.”

  Noor opened her eyes, and a jolt went through her.

  There on Vogel’s palm lay a bright gold disc. The compact Colonel Buckmaster gave to all his women agents. How could this be? Yolande had been captured; it could be hers. But he had said, “I’ll return it to you.”

  “It’s yours, take it.”

  “What do you mean, it’s mine?”

  “I mean, I’ll give it to you if you call me Ernst.”

  “It’s pretty.”

  Lying on his palm like a third eye, reflecting a circle of light on the wall.

  “A friend of yours gave it to me. Actually, it cost some money, not my own of course. It cost our department ten thousand francs, to be exact …”

  “A friend of mine?”

  “Call me Ernst and I’ll tell you.”

  She didn’t need to be told which “friend.” She had given Colonel Buckmaster’s gold compact to Renée Garry. If this was her compact, no one else could have or would have given it to Vogel. But Renée couldn’t have betrayed Prosper and his whole network, she didn’t have enough information—addresses, names—to do that. To have led the Gestapo to her brother, and her own safe house.

  Vogel must be lying.

  Wheedle, coax, cajole.

  “How did you get it?” Noor insisted. “Tell me. I have given you so many stories, tell me this one. Maybe I will call you Ernst.”

  As he spoke, Noor saw with her third eye: Renée taking her walk in the Jardin d’Acclimatation, walking further and further, all the way to the avenue Foch.

  “She asked for someone who spoke French,” said Vogel.

  And she sat where Noor would sit a few days later, before Vogel in his office, talking about an agent from London code-named “Madeleine,” offering him the stranger she wanted out of her life in exchange for Guy, offering him a foreigner to bring her Guy home.

  For ten months Noor had speculated and conjectured: who had denounced her? Anger and hatred would be normal. Anger and hatred—not anger mixed with pity, unexpected pity churning at the base of her stomach.

  Renée! And all this time she had blamed Gilbert. Viennot was right—one is usually suspicious of the wrong person.

  “Renée Garry said you were a Jew,” said Vogel. “But I didn’t believe her, once I saw you. And you didn’t smell like a Jew to me.”

  Anger and pity somersaulted in her again as Vogel related how he asked Renée to bring him proof, something belonging to Madeleine.

  “I had other compacts like it from other women agents. I believed her,” said Vogel.

  What a choice was offered Renée. What might Noor have bartered for the chance to feel Armand’s breath upon her cheek? The first time she ran after buses at Drancy, had she not begged, Take someone else, Allah, not my Armand, not him, not him.

  “She told us you had a transmitter. She didn’t know where to find you, but my good friend Gilbert had a telephone number. And we waited till you used it. So you see, I always knew you were a British spy, but I couldn’t help myself … wanting you. Now call me Ernst, just once, call me Ernst.”

  The compact sat upon Vogel’s palm like an offering. She took it.

  A scalding feeling at the back of her throat.

  Do not cry.

  Vogel’s arms enveloped her again. Rocking. Would the guard come if she screamed? Any second now he would rock her back onto the cot; his weight would be upon her.

  “Shhh! The guard will see you.”

  His grip loosened. She wriggled away.

  “If you were convinced I was the spy, why arrest innocent people? Viennot and that man Phono.” Her voice was angry again.

  Be conciliatory, less confronting.

  “Viennot is no innocent. And you do know Phono, Renée Garry’s brother. Can you imagine what Herr Kieffer would do to you if I told him? You would be dead now, dead with Phono.”

  Émile executed! Good-humoured Émile—square-shouldered as a claret bottle, Émile of the grey suit with the elbow patches so lovingly sewn by Monique, the godfather Babette loved almost like a father. May Allah show his mercy.

  A sly look came over Vogel’s face. “I have stored two hundred litres of petrol, Princess. We could run away together, go to Switzerland.”

  Go to Switzerland with Vogel? Even had he not been a Nazi, how dare he think of abandoning his wife and children?

  Vogel’s look turned even more sly. “But for me, Princess, you would be dead for another reason. Renée Garry told me you killed two soldiers. Not even French—two German soldiers. Ja, she told me.”

  A numbing current of fear coursed through Noor.

  “Moi?” As if completely surprised. A hangman’s noose seemed to dangle above her; she reached out her toe, feeling for solid ground.

  “Ja, but when I saw you, so dainty, so petite, I realized immediately you couldn’t commit such crimes. Madame Garry swore you were at Grignon when we rounded up the terrorist Hoogstraten and his accomplices. But if you had been there, I would have seen you—and I would never forget you. I didn’t bother to tell Herr Kieffer her inventions, because Madame Garry didn’t know the facts: a man was seen running from Grignon after the shooting. We will find him.”

  You won’t find him. You’ll never find him.

  She was savagely glad. But then—

  Will he try to rape me without removing my chains? Keep him talking.

  “The murderer could have been Phono. Was Madame Garry trying to protect him by blaming you? Phono was her brother. He has no need of your protection now—he’s dead. Confess it, now—you knew him.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “Remember I told you Cartaud found Phono when he went to get your valise from Madame Aigrain’s apartment, and arrested him there? I told you Phono was lying in wait for you, waiting with a gun?”

  Something was inhabiting her, crowding and pushing her organs against her ribs.

  “Cartaud brought me to arrest Phono, and when he took Phono away, his wife—what is her name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Monique, that is her name. Monique came to Madame Aigrain’s apartment looking f
or Phono. And Phono begged us for her life. He didn’t know I had already promised you Madame Aigrain was not to be arrested, so he bargained for Madame Aigrain’s as well. As if he had anything to bargain with!”

  “These people are just names to me.”

  “No, not just names. I know everything. Everything! What is the use of denying it? Cartaud took Phono away and I began to interrogate Monique Nadaud and Madame Aigrain. Both were guilty—I knew that. And so was that Renée. Because she arrived too, looking for Phono.”

  Again, pity instead of anger. Renée arriving, seeing Vogel with Monique.

  “She screamed, ‘Where is Émile? What have you done with Émile?’ And Madame Monique Nadaud said, ‘He’s gone, ma belle-soeur, the Gestapo has arrested him.’ So you see, Phono was Renée’s brother.”

  Renée’s high-nosed face was before Noor, contorted with dismay and horror at where her actions had led her. If Noor were Renée, learning that she had gained her husband but lost her brother, she would wish the ground to open and swallow her. How would she feel if the Germans sent her Armand but took away Kabir? Even if Kabir had been tyrant-in-training, refusing to give permission for her marriage, even if he had been an intolerant munafiq who preferred her exile in India to her happiness, he was still her little brother to whom she told stories as he fell asleep at night. And Renée was so with Émile, whom she’d taught to shout “Vive la France!” Renée had offered hospitality to her brother’s friends though vehemently disagreeing with his politics, and scoured all of Paris for chocolate for his wedding cake.

  Vogel’s spectacles drew close to her face, diminishing his eyes. His putrid breath chilled her skin.

  “I’ve told you the story you wanted, Princess Noor. Call me Ernst. Now!”

  His weight shifted, rocking her back. Crushing weight. He was rubbing himself against her, mumbling in German, pushing, snuffling, nuzzling into her left shoulder.

  Old pain wakened.