A Week in Paris (42 page)

‘Adele!’ she cried. ‘I wondered if I might see you here.’ Adele Dunne had never been demonstrative, but now the two women clung to one another in their joy. Then they collected their rations and ambled back together.

Miss Dunne appeared to be much her usual self, her face more lined perhaps, and her mousy hair streaked with grey. She was wearing a long skirt, a lace blouse and a short jacket, an outfit thirty years out of date, but which oddly suited her. She threw Kitty a look of concern.

‘Don’t ask, I know I look dreadful,’ Kitty mumbled.

‘What has happened? Is Dr Knox well? And young Fay?’ She asked this tentatively, then read the answers in Kitty’s face.

They stopped to sit on the steps of a pavilion to talk. And now Kitty told her everything, hesitantly at first, but then it all came tumbling out in a rush, about Serge and the nuns, Gene’s death and her subsequent incarceration.

‘Dear God.’ Miss Dunne clutched the cooking pot in her lap and closed her eyes as she absorbed the shocking news and for a while after Kitty had finished was quite speechless.

‘Please,’ Kitty laid her hand on her arm, ‘I need you to be strong for me. I have to stay strong or I won’t be able to go on. Fay . . .’

‘Is Fay all right?’ Miss Dunne asked swiftly. ‘Where is she?’

‘I think she must still be with the nuns. I wrote to Mère Marie-François a few days ago. It was before we came here, so she won’t know where I am.’

‘There’ll be some way you can let them know. The nuns will look after her, I’m sure of it,’ Miss Dunne said firmly. ‘Perhaps she could be brought to live here.’

‘Is that allowed?’

‘Sometimes, yes. But would you want her to?’

Kitty considered this. Yes, she wanted Fay with her badly, very badly, and Miss Dunne was right, some women did have children with them. It would be a long journey for Fay though, and what would it do to the child to imprison her here? Kitty must confirm where her daughter was and whether she was happy, then she’d decide what was sensible to do. She mustn’t be selfish.

‘I’ve also known of women who’ve been released because of having young children,’ Miss Dunne told her. ‘You must apply.’

‘Yes, I must,’ Kitty echoed with uncertainty, remembering her last attempt to do that. Again, she wondered what had been written next to her name on the list the officer had consulted at the zoo.

Miss Dunne was not a popular figure at the camp and it didn’t take Kitty long to find out why. She spoke German fluently, and was amongst several women who worked at the Kommandant’s office, helping with the record-keeping. ‘It’s just clerical work,’ she explained to Kitty. ‘I do it because I enjoy it.’ Some of the other internees thought it amounted to collaboration with the Germans and made a point of not speaking to her. Miss Dunne never tried to justify her work to Kitty, who simply didn’t believe that her friend was capable of betraying anyone and accepted her naïve explanation at its face value.

Miss Dunne never spoke about anything she might have discovered during her work – Kitty supposed this was a condition of the job – except for one thing. When, after she’d been at the camp for a fortnight, she asked Miss Dunne about her application to be released, the other woman was quiet. Finally she said, ‘I’m afraid that they are unlikely to let you go. You were right. There’s a note on your file that says as much. I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s because you’re still under suspicion of some sort. I’m very sorry.’

This news, although Kitty had suspected it, was a blow and she became very cast down. Even a letter arriving from the Reverend Mother lifted her spirits only slightly. It was warmly expressed, but said little beyond the fact that Fay was well and, that although she missed her mother, kept up good spirits. They all sent their best wishes and hoped that Kitty would be released soon. There was no suggestion of bringing Fay down to see her. Perhaps it was for the best, Kitty told herself, putting the letter safely away to reread later. It might upset both of them to see each other and then have to say goodbye again. Anyway, there had been an outbreak of measles at the camp. Some of the children had been very ill indeed and the rumour was that one had died. It wasn’t a good place to bring Fay at present.

In the weeks and months that followed, Kitty kept herself as busy as she could. She was much in demand to give music lessons as part of the impressive education programme organized by a committee of English stalwarts in the camp. However, she still found plenty of time to brood.

The shock of Gene’s death was gradually ebbing away, but it was succeeded by anger, and, what is more, anger with Gene. How could he have put himself in danger in that way when she needed him so much? This was unreasonable, she knew, and she was ashamed of this feeling, but she felt it all the same. She went over and over in her mind the events that led up to his death, wondering what she could have done differently. If only Fay hadn’t been there. She worried that what had happened would affect her daughter for ever. How traumatic, to see her father going down into that frightening dark hole and not come out again. Had Fay understood what had happened to him? Kitty hadn’t been given the opportunity to find out.

In time the anger faded and thankfully her best memories of Eugene started to emerge, burnished and shining. Her husband had done only what he’d had to, helping others, and it was one of the things for which she’d always loved him.
Yes, but he should have put us first
, a voice would argue in her mind. He tried to, was her counter-argument. He had managed to keep her ignorant of his dangerous acts of resistance. She would not have known anything at all if he’d not needed a safe place for Flight Lieutenant Stone. And Gene hadn’t complained when Serge, who was her friend, had come to them. He had accepted it and done what he regarded as the right thing.

Kitty had always known she’d have to share Gene with his work. She remembered the night they’d become engaged, when she’d been so bitter that he had missed their date because of being needed at the hospital. He’d as good as told her then that she’d be marrying his work. Men had their duties and women had theirs. Hers had been to support him, she thought resentfully, and to the detriment of their child. And now she must do everything to survive and endure for Fay’s sake. One day this war would be over. Germany would be beaten: that was what the rumours were saying and Kitty believed them. She would find Fay and go home to England, home to Uncle Pepper and Hampshire, and never mind if life was dull, they would be safe. But it would be a life without Eugene. How would she bear it? She wondered, not for the first time, what they’d done with Eugene’s body. Had the Gestapo taken it? Was there a grave where she would be able to mourn?

In February 1943 came a piece of bad news that she hadn’t expected. It was a letter from Uncle Pepper’s solicitor, who’d finally heard by a roundabout way official news of Kitty’s internment. He was very sorry to have to tell her that her uncle, Anthony Fletcher, was dead. He’d died the previous summer, apparently, following a short illness. Her uncle had left her some money and he, the solicitor, would see if he could send her some via the Red Cross if she was in need. He was duty bound to remind her though, that Mr Fletcher’s house had been leased from a local landowner and the lease having lapsed with her uncle’s death, it had had to be cleared. His effects had been placed in storage pending Kitty’s return.

She refolded the letter and closed her eyes against grief as memories of her uncle flooded her mind. His kindness to her and his dry affection. The way he’d encouraged her music and wanted to do his best for her. It was because of him that she’d come to France in the first place. And met Gene. She remembered how relieved her uncle had been at her wedding, believing her to be happy and settled. How anxious he must have been about her, hearing nothing from her for so long.

‘What a shame. He was a very nice man,’ Miss Dunne said when Kitty broke the news to her. ‘We had such a lovely time visiting the Louvre together while you were on honeymoon. He was so knowledgeable about the paintings. How very sad for you.’

‘I don’t have anywhere to go home to now,’ Kitty said, with a catch in her voice. In losing Uncle Pepper she had become an orphan all over again. She didn’t remember her real parents, not properly. He had eventually taken their place and provided not just the material things she needed, her education and stability, but a steady, patient love. A bachelor who’d been middle-aged for most of his adult life, he had been the most unlikely candidate to bring up a lonely small girl, but his guardianship had turned out a success for both parties and she felt the loss of him deeply.

‘I felt like that when my father died,’ Miss Dunne said, patting Kitty’s hand. ‘I had no one else, you see. When we return to England, you and Fay must come and stay with me in Norfolk.’

‘If we return,’ Kitty said, wistful. ‘Sometimes I don’t believe we ever will.’

‘Now, now, it is our Christian duty always to hope, Kitty, dear. Naturally you’re sad about your poor uncle, but remember what you told me when you first came to Vittel. You must think of Fay and be strong for her.’

All this made Kitty miss Fay more than ever. Again she applied to be released. Again her application was refused. After this she wrote a letter to Mère Marie-François asking after Fay and suggesting that one of the nuns bring her to visit. She gave it to one of the French doctors in the camp hospital to post, but did not receive a reply. She wondered whether the letter had ever arrived at the convent. Or perhaps the response had gone missing or been intercepted.

In her most desperate moments Kitty entertained the idea of escape, but in the end she didn’t have the courage. What would happen if she were caught? She had heard that runaways could be shot. Anyway, the only place she would want to escape to was Paris – and what was the point of going back there? She’d put both herself and Fay in danger then. No, better to stay where she was.

In the spring of 1943 something happened that drew her out of her own predicament. Several hundred unusual visitors arrived in two successive trainloads. Some of the women wore furs and velvet hats, others were dressed more shabbily, having lost all their possessions. The group included men, young and old, in their number, and many children, emaciated and terrified-looking. An air of fear and exhaustion hung over the whole group and the news quickly spread through the camp that they were Polish Jews, traumatized survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto, which had been destroyed by the Nazis. They had come to Vittel, many of them, clutching doubtful paperwork claiming Latin-American citizenship or promises of sanctuary in Palestine that their captors, perhaps in a rare moment of clemency, felt bound to investigate. Or maybe they just hadn’t known what else to do with them. At Vittel, the Poles were housed together away from the rest of the inmates in an hotel by itself. This was linked to the main complex by a specially erected wooden bridge which, Kitty heard, was a bitter reminder to them of the one the Nazis had constructed to the Warsaw Ghetto.

It was from these newcomers that many of the internees learned for the first time the phrase ‘the Final Solution’ and the names ‘Auschwitz, Treblinka and Dachau’ and were appalled. All sorts of whispered stories circulated, so horrifying that Kitty didn’t know whether to believe them. Many of the most traumatized of the Jews had endured the cruelties of the Nazi camps or had family members who were still there or had died in one.

Kitty came to befriend one of the women, Rejcel, who reminded her of a girl she’d seen in the prison exercise yard in Paris, being fair-haired, slender and listless with a hollow-eyed look. She had with her a ten-year-old daughter, Anna, who played the violin, and Kitty approached Rejcel originally after hearing the child practise, wanting to help.

Like Kitty, Rejcel had lost her husband in dreadful circumstances. She had no idea of the whereabouts of her younger daughter, Iza, or of her parents, but feared they must be dead. She and Anna had escaped the round-ups by crawling through Warsaw’s sewers.

Vittel must have seemed like paradise to Rejcel after all that they had endured, but if so it was an empty one because she was without the people she loved. Rejcel wept often, but in a strange and unexpected way, talking to her helped loosen the tight band of grief around Kitty’s own heart.

Most of this group of Polish Jews lived at Vittel for a year. During the winter of 1944 the news gleaned from outside started to bring hope to the internees. Italy had surrendered to the Allies early in the autumn, and now the war in Africa was slowly being won.

Vittel was directly under the flight path of the British planes on their way to bomb Germany, and Kitty’s heart couldn’t help lifting as the raiders passed overhead in ever-increasing numbers, for this was further indication that the tide of war was turning in the Allies’ favour. Surely it wouldn’t be long before France would be free. None of the rumours offered hard information about when or how. Patient, she must be patient. From time to time a letter arrived from the convent to assure her that Fay was well. For now she had to be satisfied with that.

Then in the spring came an awful sign of the increasing defensiveness of Germany’s position. A train with boarded windows drew up at the station in Vittel. Most of the internees thought nothing of it, but the Polish Jews understood its significance straight away and panic ensued in their enclave. They were right to panic.

Kitty watched in consternation the horrifying scenes as the first batch of Jews was marshalled together by the Germans. At least one woman killed herself by taking cyanide rather than get on the train. Another jumped from a fifth-floor window. Miraculously, she survived and was taken to the camp hospital. A few, however, were discovered by the authorities to have mysteriously vanished, and searches of most of the buildings ensued.

Kitty looked anxiously for Rejcel, and was relieved to see that she wasn’t in this first group to be deported, but there were others she knew who were. She ran to ask one of the SS soldiers where they were being taken. As ever, she was ignored, and when she persisted in her request was pushed roughly aside.