Citadel (26 page)
Marianne didn’t answer.
There was a belch of smoke. A heavy hiss and a grinding of brakes and iron on the tracks, as more third-class carriages were shunted towards the engine. The guard jumped down, then began to lift the heavy chains to connect the new rolling stock to the rest of the train. All the windows in the third-class carriages had been painted over, making it impossible to see in.
Then, at the outer edges of the station compound, above the Quai Riquet, Sandrine heard shouting and the sound of feet. Moments later a unit of armed
gardes mobiles
came into view, herding a line of prisoners through a side gate and across the rails towards the transit carriages at the back of the train.
The guards were shouting, even though there was no trouble, pushing the prisoners with their sticks, the butts of their machine guns. Sandrine felt her fingers clench around the thin handle of the bucket. Some of the other ladies walked to the far end of the station to help those at the back. Sandrine and Marianne moved to the head of the line.
‘Remember,’ Marianne said, ‘our job is to be kind. To patch them up. Do the best we can, as quickly as we can, then move on.’
‘But there are so many of them,’ Sandrine said, looking up and down the long platform, aghast at the sight.
‘Just do what you can.’
As they came closer, Sandrine saw the men were handcuffed, though not chained together. They looked disreputable, dirty, in filthy clothes, their faces grey. Marianne had warned her that they were held in unhygienic and unsanitary conditions, but Sandrine was shocked to acknowledge her first reaction was disgust rather than pity.
Then she recognised the older brother of one of the boys in her class at school. A quiet, gentle boy, not one to cause trouble. Straight away the mass of prisoners became individuals and she rushed to help. He had a cut on his head, the blood brown on his temple, and his knuckles were bruised and swollen.
‘My God, Xavier,’ she said. ‘What happened?’
He tried to smile, revealing a couple of broken teeth.
‘They came for a friend of mine. Said his papers weren’t in order. The police didn’t take kindly to me trying to intervene.’
‘That was brave,’ she said, dipping a metal cup in the pail and giving him a sip of water. She waved to attract her sister’s attention. ‘What happened to your friend? Where’s he now?’
Xavier shrugged, then winced. ‘I haven’t seen him since we were arrested. Could you try to find out?’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Marc Filaquier.’
‘I’ll try,’ she promised, then waved again. ‘Marianne, over here.’
Marianne quickly appeared, took a look at Xavier’s injuries and started to patch him up.
‘Go,’ she said to Sandrine. ‘There are plenty of others who need help.’
Sandrine threw herself into the thick of things. Rushing up and down the line, giving everybody water, handing out dry biscuits, calling for medical assistance, accepting letters and rings when the guards weren’t looking.
‘I was going to propose,’ one boy was saying. ‘But we quarrelled, and now . . .’ Tears began to run down his dirty cheeks. ‘Never got the chance to make it up.’
‘Write a note and I’ll take it to her,’ she said. She pulled a piece of paper and a pencil from her pocket, then noticed he was cradling his right hand in his left. She licked the end of the pencil. ‘On second thoughts, tell me what to say.’
He tried to smile. ‘She’s called Maude Lagarde, rue Courtejaire. Red door, just past Artozouls.’
‘All right.’
‘Tell her I love her – I’m Pierre-Jacques – and I’ll write. They allow letters, don’t they?’ he said, his voice rising. ‘They do allow letters.’
A police officer appeared, poked him in the ribs with his stick.
‘Enough. Get on the train.’
Sandrine couldn’t stop herself. ‘He needs medical attention.’
‘Are you trying to tell me what to do?’
‘No, of course not,’ Sandrine said quickly, stepping back. ‘But his wrist is broken. He should be in hospital.’
The guard moved closer. ‘Unless you want to find yourself going with him, mademoiselle, I suggest you get out of the way and let me do my job.’
Sandrine could do nothing but step back as Pierre-Jacques was forced on to the train with the others. She tried to catch the boy’s eye, but his head was bowed and he didn’t look back.
‘You said they had to be fit to travel,’ Sandrine said, when she found Marianne, ‘but there’s someone with a broken wrist. He should have been taken to hospital, but the guard just didn’t care.’
She felt her sister’s arm go around her waist. ‘Come on,’ Marianne said quietly. ‘There’s nothing more we can do.’
Sandrine turned away. The remaining prisoners were being loaded into the last carriage at the far end of the train. The woman with the broad-brimmed hat stepped forward and put a blanket around the shoulders of a tall, stooped man at the end of the line. He had his back to her, but Sandrine briefly glimpsed his aquiline features and black hair. She frowned. Was there something familiar about his profile? Then the woman moved and blocked her view.
Sandrine quickly started to walk down the long platform towards the group, trying to look past the Red Cross ladies standing between her and the man. Although he was covered by the blanket now, she could make out his cuffed hands were held out in front of him. Sandrine saw him slip. The woman tried to help. The warder pushed her roughly away.
Sandrine started to run, suddenly desperate to get to them before the doors were shut, but Marianne put out her hand and stopped her. She watched in despair as the warder raised his baton and struck the man across his shoulders, then shoved him on to the train.
‘No!’ she shouted, but the guard took no notice.
The woman raised her hand to warn Sandrine not to say anything more.
‘That’s the lot,’ the warder said, slamming the door and walking back up the platform towards the front of the train.
The driver nodded and sat back in his cab. The guard banged the side of the engine, then blew his whistle and waved his flag. Slowly, the wheels began to move, metal grinding on metal, steam belching out into the clear blue sky.
The women were left standing on the platform, watching as the train disappeared around the bend in the track.
‘Is it always like this?’ Sandrine said to Marianne.
‘It was particularly awful today. There were many more prisoners than we’d been told to expect and they were in a worse condition than usual.’ She paused. ‘Do you wish you hadn’t come?’
Sandrine looked along the empty platform, then up towards the white stone crosses and tombs in the cimetière Saint-Vincent on the hill above the station. She thought of the risks Marianne and Suzanne took every day, of how Raoul kept fighting against the injustice they saw all around them. Then she thought of Xavier and Pierre-Jacques. She’d hardly done much, but it was better than doing nothing.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Quite the opposite.’
S
andrine and Marianne walked over the boulevard Omer Sarraut. Ahead of them, to their right, was the Café Continental, traditionally a leftist meeting place. On the opposite side of the road, the Café Edouard where the LVF and the Jeunes Doriotistes met. Sandrine realised she was already starting to divide the Bastide into them and us.
‘What is it?’ Marianne asked.
‘Nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m fine.’
Sandrine looked down at the sad collection of objects, letters, notes in her hand.
‘I promised I’d deliver these,’ she said.
‘That was nice of you.’
‘You said it was all right,’ she said quickly, ‘if the guards didn’t see.’
Marianne put her hand on Sandrine’s arm. ‘I mean it, it was a good thing to do. It makes all the difference to the prisoners.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’ll meet you at home later.’
‘It’s all right, I’ll walk with you,’ Marianne said. ‘Before we left, I promised Lucie I’d drop a note from her to Max, but there wasn’t time. She promised to have supper with him, but she is still feeling awful.’
They walked down into rue Georges Clemenceau, towards the building where Max and Liesl were living. When they were level with Artozouls, Sandrine stopped.
‘I’ve got something to drop off here. Won’t be a moment.’
‘All right?’ asked Marianne, when she got back.
‘No one was there,’ she said. ‘I pushed the note under the door. I hope she gets it all right.’
As they carried on, Sandrine realised she was looking into everyone’s faces – wondering what they were thinking, what sort of person they might be. There were plenty of people about in the heart of the Bastide, though she thought everyone looked nervous, scuttling to and fro, heads down, trying not to attract attention.
They arrived at Max and Liesl’s building to find the door on to the street was standing open.
‘That’s peculiar,’ Marianne said. ‘They’ve had a bit of trouble recently, so Lucie said they kept it locked.’
‘Even during the day?’
‘I thought that’s what she told me, but I might be wrong.’
Sandrine went inside first, stepping into the dark hall. She had a bad feeling, the sense that something wasn’t right. And there was a peculiar smell, like blocked drains. She took the stairs two by two, dread building in her chest, until she reached Max and Liesl’s apartment.
‘Marianne,’ she called, ‘quickly.’
The front door was kicked in, hanging off at the hinges, and bore the imprint of boots. There were splinters of wood everywhere and splashes of blood on the jamb.
Sandrine rushed into the living room, then stopped dead. She put her hand over her nose and mouth. The walls were covered with graffiti – the words
JUIVE, JUDEN, JUIF
daubed in black paint, crude swastikas and Nazi slogans, crossed-out Stars of David. Worse, the stench of excrement and the ammoniac smell of urine.
In the centre of the room was a heap of clothes mixed with smashed glass from the windows, the stuffing from the cushions on the sofa, which had been ripped open. On the floor, a black and white photograph of Max’s father and mother with a swastika scrawled across it. Sandrine bent down and picked it up, then turned round as Marianne came into the room behind her.
‘Oh God,’ she said.
Suddenly they heard a noise. Sandrine froze, threw a glance at Marianne, who pointed to the rear of the apartment. Sandrine nodded, then slowly went towards the sound.
She looked into the first bedroom. The window was open and the room had been turned over, but it was empty.
‘There’s no one here,’ she said.
She heard the same sound, a shuffling and the creaking of a floorboard.
‘It’s coming from here,’ she said, going quickly into a smaller second room.
‘It doesn’t look as if they came in here at all,’ said Marianne.
‘Listen,’ said Sandrine. ‘Over there. Behind the bedside table.’
The sisters pulled the piece of furniture forward, surprised as it rolled away from the wall.
‘There’s some kind of storage cupboard or something,’ Sandrine said, crouching down.
‘Is there a handle?’
‘Can’t see one,’ said Sandrine, rapping her knuckles on the white and pink paper, ‘but it sounds hollow.’
Then, more clearly this time, the same shuffling, and the sound of a bolt being shot open. Slowly the hatch door opened and Liesl crawled out.
‘Oh my God,’ Marianne said, immediately putting her arms around the girl. ‘What happened?’
Liesl emerged, blinking, into the light, then slowly stood up. Her pale face was white, strained, and her eyes were blank. She was clutching a photograph album.
‘Liesl,’ Marianne said, ‘look at me. What happened to you?’
For a moment, it seemed the girl hadn’t heard. Then, slowly, she raised her head.
‘I hid,’ she said in a stunned voice. ‘Max told me if anyone came I should hide. So I hid.’
‘Who came?’ Sandrine said. ‘Who did this?’
Liesl carried on as if she hadn’t heard. ‘There’s a compartment, you see. It was part of a corridor, but when the house was divided up, there was an awkward space left between the two apartments. Max built it. Said to hide if the police came. I bolted the door from the inside like he told me.’ She looked at Sandrine, as if noticing her for the first time. ‘Where’s Max? Why wasn’t he here? Where is he?’
Sandrine looked down at the photograph she was still holding, then turned cold. Now she realised with a sinking feeling why the man on the station platform had been familiar. The same aquiline profile, the same dark hair as his father. She had only met Max twice before and without his heavy spectacles obscuring his face, she hadn’t properly recognised him.
‘He was one of the prisoners,’ she whispered to Marianne, so that Liesl couldn’t hear. ‘I couldn’t work out if I knew him or not.’
‘What, are you certain?’ Marianne said quickly.
‘Not at the time. He was at the far end of the platform, half covered by a blanket, and there was someone in the way.’ She looked at the black and white image. ‘But, now I’m sure. Look.’ She frowned. ‘I should have said something. Told him I’d get a message to Liesl and Lucie, at the very least.’
‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Marianne whispered. ‘It might not even have been him anyway. For now, let’s get Liesl out of here.’ She put her arm around the girl’s shoulders and raised her voice. ‘We’ll try to find out what’s happened to Max. But for now we’re going to take you home with us. You can’t stay here.’
Liesl stared blankly at her for a moment, but she allowed arianne to steer her out of the bedroom and into the living room. She stopped for a moment, staring at the defaced walls and the devastation, then carried on to the hall without saying a word.
Sandrine crouched down and picked up one of Liesl’s cardigans, then hung it on the back of a chair. ‘I’ll stay here and clean up.’
‘All right,’ Marianne said, dropping her voice again. ‘But be quick. It’s possible they’ll come back.’
TARASCON
T
he elderly couple stood in front of a table at the Café Bernadac in the Place de la Samaritaine in Tarascon.
