Escape From Paris (36 page)

It was pitch-black in the cell, the only light filtering in from the open door. She tried not to gag from the nauseating, overwhelming, suffocating smell.

When she hesitated, he said, “That's your bed, 1887,” and gave her a push.

She stumbled inside. The door swung shut and she stood in absolute darkness. She had glimpsed four iron beds. They filled the cell except for a small table in the center with a tin canister on it.

The canister smelled horribly.

“You have to go to bed now.” The voice was light and cultured. “If they open the peephole and you are still up, they will put you in solitary confinement.”

Eleanor stretched out her hand, moved uncertainly to her left, toward the empty bed that the guard had indicated. “Is it always dark?” Eleanor heard the tremor in her voice. She couldn't bear to be shut up, crowded up in this filthy airless room, blind, not knowing who was near her, not being able to see.

“Oh no,” another woman answered. Her voice was deep, almost rough. “It's just another little torture from the Boche. The light goes off at eight every night. They turn it back on in the morning.”

Eleanor sank down on the bed. “That smell is awful.”

“That's our toilet, love. The bastards haven't emptied it tonight. Some nights they don't. But, that's the war.”

There was something in this woman's deep voice that cheered Eleanor, something buoyant and indestructible.

“What are you in here for?” the deep voice asked.

“Oh, for helping English soldiers escape.”

The silence in the cell was suddenly absolute.

“But you can get the—” The lighter, cultured voice broke off.

—the death penalty, Eleanor finished in her mind. Yes.

“Is it true?” a third voice asked. “Did you do it?”

Eleanor started to answer but before she could utter a sound, a hand gripped her arm, tightly, painfully, the fingers digging harshly into her despite her coat, a warning.

“It's a mistake of some kind,” Eleanor answered unevenly. The thick fuggy air pressed against her and the darkness crackled with tension. The deep voice and the cultured one spoke together, quickly. They had so many questions, was England still fighting, did it really look as though Germany was going to invade, what was the weather like, and food, did she know anyone who would bring her food packages?

Eleanor answered as well as she could though now she was so tired that despite the smell and the uncomfortable bed, she wanted desperately to sleep.

“What did you do that made them suspect you?”

Again, there was a little circle of silence until the cultured voice spoke, “Don't talk about it, my dear, if it's upsetting to you.”

Eleanor knew the voices now. The cultured voice, the deep buoyant voice and the third voice, an almost nondescript voice, dull, lifeless.

“I am tired,” Eleanor admitted. “I believe I will go to sleep now. We can talk in the morning.”

“That we can, dearie,” the buoyant voice said humorously. “We'll all be right here.”

It was abruptly quiet then, though the breathing of each was distinct as they struggled for air in the fetid closeness.

Eleanor was tired, tired to the bone. But she lay quite still on her cot and stared sightlessly into the dark. The third voice . . . something wrong there. Why else had a hand gripped her so painfully when she started to answer? But it didn't matter much now. Robert and Linda were on the train, the wheels were clacking, carrying them farther and farther from Paris. Robert . . .

Eleanor bolted upright, her heart hammering.

A dim light flickered on above.

“It's all right, dearie.”

The thunderous knocking that had shocked her awake was repeated like an echo, moving farther and farther away.

“That's how they get us up in the morning. Right on the dot, Fritz is, seven-thirty every morning.” She was a big woman to match her deep voice. A crest of iron-gray hair puffed up like a cockatoo's comb above a square, resolute face. She was bending over her cot now, shaking the grayish blanket, smoothing it up. She looked at Eleanor and nodded, almost formally, “I'm Eloise Cottin.”

Eleanor smiled. “I am Eleanor Masson.”

“I am Simone Bernard.” Eleanor half turned. The cultured voice. Simone had a slender aristocratic face and faded red hair. She held out her hand and Eleanor took it.

Eleanor looked at the third cell mate.

Her face was pale and her hair pale, too, a pale dull gold. Her light green eyes darted over Eleanor and looked longest at her coat. She realized suddenly that the three of them were watching her. “Marie,” she said shortly. “Marie Leroy.” Then she too began to straighten her cot.

“Hurry,” Madame Barnard said. “The beds must be made and everyone dressed before he comes back or they put you in solitary confinement.”

Eleanor did as she was bid, recoiling in disgust from the filth of the covers in which she had slept. Soiled, smelly, odorous. She finished just in time.

The cell door opened and the guard stepped inside.

After a quick glance, Eleanor followed the lead of her cellmates and stood stiffly at the head of her cot.

The guard looked under the beds, in the corners, nodded and turned to leave.

“We need a fresh canister,” Mme. Cottin boomed.

“Tonight.”

“But it's almost full.”

The cell door slammed shut.

The other three then sat on the edge of their beds.

Eleanor looked at her cot. It was so dirty. But she felt dizzy and weak. She started to lie down.

“Oh no, Madame. You can't lie down during the day. You have to sit on the edge of your bed.”

“All day?”

“When you aren't too tired, we take turns one at a time walking up and down.”

Eleanor looked at the cramped cell, scarcely a foot of space between the beds and the table with the evil smelling canister.

Eleanor sat down on the edge of her bed.

No one talked now. They all seemed sunk in apathy though it was more than that, there was an air of tension and reserve.

Eleanor's eyes closed. It took every effort of will not to sag down on the bed. Today was . . . Her mind felt dull and fuzzy. Was it yesterday . . . no, the day before, that had been Monday and she was arrested Monday night, then Tuesday at the Gestapo building and now today, today must be Wednesday.

The cell door creaked open.

An incredibly old man shuffled inside, carrying a tray. He handed each of them a mug, three-fourths full. Then he sat a small basin, half filled with water, on the table.

The others were all reaching beneath the pillows on their beds and bringing out variously wrapped small lumps.

Mme. Bernard's was wrapped in wrinkled brown paper, Mme. Cottin's in a piece of cloth, Mme. Leroy's in a piece of silk. She looked up and saw Eleanor watching. “I tore it out from the lining of my coat.”

Mme. Cottin looked up then. “It's our bread ration. They give it to you at night and you have to save enough for your breakfast and lunch.”

Eleanor hadn't realized until she saw that small piece of dark bread how ravenously hungry she was. Eleanor lifted up her tin cup. “Is this all we get?”

The others nodded.

Eleanor sipped from the cup. It was supposed to be coffee, she could tell that, but it had an oily bitter taste. She drank another mouthful. It was foul. For an instant tears burned her eyes. It was just another German trick to make you miserable. She started to put the cup down, then, desperately, she drank again. She had to drink. She was so thirsty and hungry.

Mme. Cottin leaned toward her. “How long has it been since you've eaten?”

Eleanor tried to think. The days slipped in and out of her mind. “Monday,” she said finally. “I ate Monday.”

Mme. Cottin handed her piece of bread to Eleanor.

“Oh no,” Eleanor began. “I can't take your food.” The bread was in her hand and her fingers were closing around it and she was bringing it up to her mouth.

“Of course you can.” Mme. Cottin laughed and that booming laughter sounded odd but triumphant in the cold filthy cell. “I've been trying to lose weight for years. Didn't think I could do it. And, believe me, I've still lots of extra.”

There was a little burst of animation after breakfast. The basin of water, all they would get for cleaning purposes, was passed from hand to hand. “Goes in order of seniority,” Mme. Cottin explained.

By the time the bowl reached Eleanor, the water was gray but she splashed her face, washed her hands, then once again joined her cell mates in sitting on the edge of the bed.

Hungry, hungry, hungry. The foul tasting lukewarm drink had only made her hunger worse. It was a live thing, her hunger, a coil of pain inside her. Time expanded to incredible lengths. Twice Eleanor looked at her wrist before she remembered that her watch and wedding rings and money had been taken from her when she was admitted to prison. What difference did it make? She was no longer Eleanor Masson, free to determine her day, free to choose where to go, how much time to spend. She was Number 1887, sitting on the edge of an iron bed on a dirty ticking mattress covered with soiled coarse linen and one thin wool blanket. The cell was bitterly cold. She wrapped her arms around herself. At least she still had her fur coat. Andre would never have imagined, when he gave it to her, how much it would someday mean. He had been pleased with her pleasure. “Oh Andre, it's too extravagant,” she had objected. He had smiled. “The coat will keep you warm.” She hugged the coat tighter to her.

It was only midmorning, but already to Eleanor it seemed as if she had been forever in the ill-lighted cold and airless cell, when the slide scraped open, then a moment later the door swung in.

“Number 1843.”

Mme. Leroy looked up, then rose and leisurely moved toward the hallway.

“Hurry, 1843.”

When the cell door slammed shut, Mme. Cottin and Mme. Bernard both watched it close with grim silent faces. When a long moment passed, they nodded at each other and both of them moved closer down their beds toward Eleanor.

Mme. Cottin leaned across the narrow space where the table sat and the sickening canister. She ignored the smell and whispered, “Madame, last night, it was I who grabbed your arm. I was afraid you were going to speak, to say that you were involved in the escape line.”

“That woman is a plant,” Mme. Bernard hissed. “They move her from cell to cell and she tries to pump new prisoners. We knew we were going to get a new prisoner yesterday when they took two of our cellmates away and sent her in.”

“Don't say anything incriminating. Not a word,” Mme. Cottin warned.

Eleanor looked toward the door. “Where has she gone now?”

“She'll pretend she's been had up for interrogation,” Mme. Bernard said disdainfully. “Instead, she's in the guard room, eating a good breakfast. It's warm in there, too. They have a stove and plenty of coal.”

Eleanor reached out, touched both of them. “Thank you.”

Mme. Cottin shrugged. Mme. Bernard smiled shyly. The smile transformed her thin ascetic face. She started to speak, hesitated, asked, “Are you English?”

Eleanor smiled. “No, Madame. I'm American.”

“American,” Madame Cottin exclaimed, “but Germany isn't even at war with America. Why are you in France now?”

Eleanor explained that her husband was French and that she had lived in France since her marriage sixteen years ago. “Andre has been missing since Dunkirk. I stayed in Paris with my son and my sister, who was visiting me. I've been working with the Foyer du Soldat and in other ways.”

Her new friends nodded understandingly.

“Have you been charged yet?” Mme. Cottin asked.

Eleanor shook her head.

The big woman frowned. “That's too bad. They don't permit extra food, say from a friend, while you are under examination.”

“They will call you up for questioning after you've been here a while. They like to give you a taste of prison. Some people will confess to anything if they think they can get out,” Mme. Bernard explained.

“Are you still under examination?” Eleanor asked.

Both of them shook their heads.

“Two years sentence,” Mme. Bernard said.

“Six months,” Mme. Cottin replied.

Eleanor hesitated, asked, “Why are you here?”

Simone Bernard told her story first. She was the wife of a banker. He was really too old to go to the front, but he had rejoined his unit when the fighting began. He was wounded at Lille and taken prisoner. Mme. Bernard had attempted to bribe a guard at the military hospital to gain his release. She had been betrayed by a second guard who was jealous of the money received by his co-worker.

Mme. Cottin smiled hugely. “My big mouth cost me six months in prison, but I've never regretted it once.”

Eleanor couldn't help but smile in anticipation. “What did you do?”

“They made me take a sergeant major as a lodger. I have a boarding house, a nice little house, in the Porte d'Orleans quarter. Well, I took him in. I had to. But I kept having a little trouble with his name.”

“You did?”

She nodded her head emphatically. “It always seemed to slip out when I saw him. Good morning, Sgt. Maj. Polydore. Good afternoon, Sgt. Maj. Polydore. Good night, Sgt. Maj. Polydore.”

Eleanor was still laughing when they heard the peephole scrape open.

The cell was silent when Mme. Leroy returned. No one spoke. She tried twice more to pump Eleanor. Each time, Eleanor responded volubly, complaining about the damned Boche, how a woman's own money could be held against her. Her eyes wide, she demanded, “I don't trust the banks. How can anyone trust the banks? Do you trust the banks?”

Mme. Leroy tried one more time, the next day. “It must have been very exciting, to be part of an escape line.”

Eleanor was sharp. “I wouldn't know. I've heard about things like that. Actually, I think it would be pretty foolish, don't you? I mean, with the death penalty and all that?”