A Week in Paris (34 page)

‘He took hold of the ring himself and he pulled. Everybody was so quiet, you could hear them breathing. The door opened on its hinge with a grinding sound and there came a rush of cold air from underground, a horrible icy cold like death itself. Sofie, the little Belgian girl, gave a gasp.

‘“Silence!” Hoff snapped.

‘He produced a torch and, going down on one knee, shone it into the hole. I don’t think he could see anything. He shouted, “Come out!” and we waited like Jesus’s friends who witnessed Lazarus emerge from his tomb. But nothing happened.

‘Hoff drew his pistol and fired it into the hole. The crack rang round the building. Kitty’s eyes were wild, her face bleached white. Again there was nothing. Hoff climbed down the steps with torch and gun. One could imagine his torchlight flicking over the stone coffins of the long-dead until it met Eugene’s eyes blinking out of the darkness.

‘What happened next I cannot exactly say. A shout echoed up from the hole, then came sounds of a scuffle. Kitty tried to run to the hole, but one of the officers dragged her back. Two of the others peered down, directing their torchbeams and arguing, then one climbed down after his leader. Kitty cried, “Gene!” and struggled in her captor’s grip, but he pinned her arms more tightly behind her back and pressed his hand over her mouth.

‘From down below came an explosion of shots. The nuns cried out in terror. Kitty struggled, but the man had her pinioned.

‘A moment later, a dishevelled Hoff emerged from the crypt, still holding his smoking weapon. His face was inscrutable.

‘“He resisted arrest,” he announced to the generality. Then, “Clear the church,” he ordered his men. “They can all go. Frau Knox, however, comes with us in the van.”

‘Kitty gave a terrible cry: “
Gene
. . .”

‘Hoff would not look at her.

‘It was over.’

‘He murdered my father,’ Fay whispered.

‘Yes.’ Mme Ramond spoke the word like a sigh. ‘In France, you know, we have the
crime passionel
– violence committed in the heat of passion. This killing was in cold blood: like an execution. I have often thought about why. Perhaps your father did or said something unwise down there underground. Perhaps the German could not bear to be humiliated in front of all those women. We will never know. I did not see them bring the body out. None of us did. They sent us all back into the refectory, whilst they combed the convent quickly once more. Perhaps they were looking for Dr Poulon or one of the Allied servicemen, I do not know. They left without finding the room where Poulon and Serge were hiding.

‘Your mother, they took away with them. She fought as they led her out to the van, her face ravaged with shock. She was searching for a last glimpse of you – her lips shaped your name. I stood by the window in the kitchen with you so that Kitty could see you. She gave you one final lingering look before they lifted her up into the back of the van and slammed the doors.

‘A moment later, she had gone.’

The sun had moved off the window of the Ramonds’ flat and the room was falling into gloom. Hardly able to bear what she’d just heard, Fay rose and crossed to look through the glass down to the street below. Her gaze focused on a young man on a motor scooter who had stopped to speak to a demure girl clutching a music case and she heard their laughter. Further down, a portly man with a balding head and a white apron swept soapy water from the pavement outside his shop. A little girl skipped along beside her elegant mother. A withered old man in a jellabah loitered at the street corner smoking and looking up at the sky where Fay saw the silver glint of an aeroplane. Peaceful scenes, but only twenty years ago, any of these people might have been shot in cold blood, like her father had been. Or have witnessed it happen to someone else. It was difficult to believe, but it was true.

Was this the heart of her mother’s secret then, the story of how Fay’s father, Kitty’s beloved Gene, had been executed? Why hadn’t he been taken prisoner instead? How was it that Serge and the other man, Dr Poulon, had not been found? There was so much that might never be answered.

There was something else that was troubling her, something worrying at the corner of her mind that Mme Ramond had said – but she couldn’t think what it was for the moment, couldn’t quite catch hold of it.

But now her mind was moving on. She turned and asked Mme Ramond, ‘What happened to my mother? Where did they take her?’ She came and sat down on the sofa once more.

‘Initially she was taken to the Gestapo headquarters in the Avenue Foch. Père Paul was able to discover that much, but after that, for a long time, nothing more.’

Fay suddenly remembered what she thought was odd. It was a mistake Nathalie Ramond had made. How had it not registered at the time? The woman had said it so naturally that Fay hadn’t noticed. Or maybe it was something that unconsciously she’d known for a long time. She knew who Mme Ramond was now.

‘You said “we”.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Just now, when you described the scene in the church. You said “we”. You were there, Mme Ramond, weren’t you? You saw it all.’ And now she felt anger, anger and frustration, that this woman hadn’t told her the truth. All this time she’d shielded her identity from Fay.

But now, instead of being defensive, Mme Ramond’s expression grew tender. She smiled and in the soft light it was as though all the years fell away and the marks of pain dissolved and she was familiar. Fay remembered her. A gentle young woman with a serene face and an infectious laugh. Fay’s eyebrows knitted as she strained to recall her more clearly.

‘Do you remember, Fay?’ this new tender version of Mme Ramond whispered. ‘There was a song I used to sing you, a silly nonsense song about planting cabbages. It always made you laugh.’ She began to hum. ‘“
Savez vous planter les choux, à la mode, à la mode
. . .” That’s how it went. You used to love to sing. Such a sweet voice you had.’

‘I know you,’ Fay whispered in gathering wonder. ‘I do remember. You’re Thérèse, aren’t you? Sister Thérèse. But . . .’ She studied the woman before her in her neat wool suit, the crucifix at her breast, the gold ring on her finger. ‘You’re married.’

Mme Ramond glanced down at her hand. ‘If you’re a nun,’ she murmured, ‘you wear a ring to show you’re a bride of Christ. But I was released from my vows. My name is Nathalie now. It always was my name, of course – I was born with it. I only became Thérèse when I entered the convent. I had always had an attachment to the Little Flower of Lisieux.’

She raised her eyes to meet Fay’s. Fay was so full of questions but she didn’t know where to start. This new knowledge made everything different in ways she couldn’t begin to comprehend. The whole story about her mother. Everything.

‘Why did I leave the convent?’ Mme Ramond said. ‘Is that what you wish to ask?’

‘Yes. And about Serge.’

Mme Ramond folded her hands in her lap and sighed. ‘Tomorrow I will tell you,’ she said. ‘The next bit is difficult for me to relate and I don’t have the strength for it now.’

As Fay rose to go, Nathalie Ramond asked her to pass the old album that lay on the sofa next to her. The older woman opened it on her lap and turned the pages until she came to the photograph of Fay and her father.

‘Here we are, my dear,’ she said. She separated the photograph from the page with care and passed it to Fay, who looked up at her enquiringly.

‘I can’t remember at all how I came to have it. Take it, it’s yours.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ Fay said, thrilled, examining it again with feelings of tenderness. Then with care she hid it in her handbag.

‘
Mademoiselle,
wait – you have a letter.’

Fay thanked the hotel receptionist, seeing with surprise and pleasure that the letter was from her mother. She went into the breakfast room, which was empty, settled herself at a table and slit open the letter with the handle of a teaspoon someone had forgotten to put away.

The note inside was written on cheap paper in Biro, probably all the hospital had. Her mother had written quickly, agitation evident in the handwriting, which was less even and elegant than usual. In it, Kitty went straight to the point.

Fay read it through a second time, her hand over her mouth, her face strained with despair. It not only upset her that her mother sounded so distressed, but because what she said threw Fay into confusion once more. What part of Nathalie Ramond’s story should she believe? All of it or bits? Which bits? What should she do and whom should she trust? Over the last few days her world had shifted on its axis, and now, just as she’d been getting used to the new perspective, it was shifting once more.

She laid the letter on the table and stared sightlessly ahead, her chin resting on her hand, her lips quivering. She felt like crying.

She was suddenly angry with her mother. What right had Kitty to tell her what to believe, whom to listen to? Her mother herself had lied, it now seemed. It was up to her, Fay, to decide, and she knew what she wanted to do. She would hear out Mme Ramond’s story, and then she’d weigh everything up and judge which was the correct version. The deer park and the whitewashed house in Richmond, or the convent and the apartment on the Left Bank? Or both? Her mind whirled. Did the stories fit together, or was one – or both – a lie?

Fay was still reflecting on the letter when a gruff voice interrupted her thoughts. She looked up to see a middle-aged man, somewhat broad in the beam, and with a fringe of hair around his otherwise bald head. He wore a short apron and carried a set of keys.

‘I’m sorry?’ she said, blinking.

‘It is I who must apologize for disturbing you.’ He went to the corner of the room where there was a small bar and proceeded to unlock the padlock on the grille that stood round it.

‘Oh no, no. I was only sitting here thinking.’

‘Not bad news, I hope?’ he said, lifting a section of the counter and squeezing through behind it. ‘Your letter – it has upset you, no?’ He took a cloth and started polishing glasses.

Fay smiled briefly and shook her head. ‘It’s from my mother,’ she said. ‘I’ve done something to annoy her, that’s all.’

‘Ah,’ he said, his face lighting up. ‘That is part of growing up. We must learn to make our own decisions and this cannot always please our mothers.’

‘No, I suppose it can’t,’ she said thoughtfully. She watched him pour an amber liquor into two glasses.

He passed one to her, taking the other himself. ‘Let us drink to our mothers. Where would we be without them, eh?’

She swallowed a mouthful of the brandy and coughed as it burned its way down. Somehow it made her feel better, more brave. She took another sip, which this time was more soothing.

‘We all love our mothers,’ the barman said, and drained his glass. ‘But remember, mademoiselle, you must follow your heart.’

Whether it was the brandy or the man’s words of advice, she couldn’t say, but when she climbed the stairs to her room to change for dinner, she knew the right thing to do. She would go back to Mme Ramond to hear the last part of her story, she simply had to. Despite the rambling nature of the letter, her mother sounded better, stronger and more eager to talk. Fay had the right now to demand the truth from her. She was no longer a young girl to be comforted by untruths.

Sandra was in the room, lounging on her bed in a petticoat, smoking and listening to the French news on a tinny transistor radio. ‘Not much happening in the world. President de Gaulle’s presenting some medals in Paris tomorrow,’ she remarked to Fay, yawning. She reached over and switched it off. ‘I hope the city won’t be too crowded. It’s our last chance for some shopping.’

‘Didn’t you do some this afternoon?’

‘No. Georges took me to a poky little theatre to see the most ridiculous melodrama. Oh, did you take that phone call? Someone came up asking for you a moment ago.’

‘No, I didn’t.’ That must have been while she was in the breakfast room.

Fay hurried back downstairs to find that it was Adam who had called and left a message. He could meet her after all this evening, if she was free. She rang him back quickly and managed to catch him before he left the office.

When she replaced the receiver her mind was so full of him that she almost forgot to ring the curé. She tried his number straight away, but again, nobody answered. He was probably out taking the evening service.

After Fay had left that afternoon, Nathalie Ramond returned to her drawing room and for a long time sat thinking of the past. Today had been difficult and she hoped that she’d been right to say the things she had and to leave out the others. It was hard to remember clearly the exact order of events that had taken place at Sainte Cécile’s that dreadful day nearly twenty years ago, but the manner of Eugene Knox’s death she recalled as though it were on a piece of film playing on a loop before her. She closed her eyes to shut it out.