Swim Until You Can't See Land (31 page)

Mariel…

Non
! Sabine. Sabine was from Paris.

.. / .- -- / ... .- -... .. -. . / ...- .- .-.. --- .. ... 

She still recognised it.

Recognised it despite the changes. The twinkling café lights and tall apartment blocks, the intricate black ironwork of the balconies, the Eiffel Tower. They were all in shadow now, lights out.

The white brick buildings glimmered out from the darkness, in defiance: we are Paris, you cannot hide us.

Sandbags towered up, makeshift walls surrounding the buildings deemed to be important, the monuments. She turned her head so she could see out the window; despite the darkness she could make out shapes. Some of the buildings were in rubble. The allies, the side she was fighting on, bombing Paris.

Flags hung from windows, the black, red and yellow of the German flag. The Swastika. Yes, even in the blackout, she could make out the Swastika.

The men around her shifted, she felt their anticipation. They knew they were almost home before the car began to slow. They held the power.

The car stopped and the men got out, doors slammed around her and for a moment she was alone. She breathed in, then out, embraced the split second of calm before the door on her side was pulled open.

‘
Raus
!’ The man who had hit her dragged her out by the elbow. She stumbled out of the car, fell onto the pavement.

‘
Komm mit, schnell
. Quickly!’

‘
Je ne peux pas me lever
,’ she replied, unable to push herself up without the use of her arms.

‘
Steh auf
!’

She lay there, her face against the cold concrete until one of them grabbed her under the armpits, lifted her onto her feet. She felt a gun prod into her back.

She climbed the steps leading into the building. Another swastika flag draped over the doorway. She stopped at the entrance, looked up at the sky.

Stars. She could see the stars. So the blackout had its advantages. She could see the stars over Paris.

If she was going to die inside these walls, then she chose this memory as her last.

The stars over Paris.

The gun prodded her in the back, pushed her inside the doorway.

21 October 1945 

Miss Downie acted with extreme courage and bravery under very traumatic circumstances. She did not reveal any secrets and continuously referred to her alias Sabine Valois and the cover story created for her.

Sabine lay on the floor of the cell, a bowl of soup and a piece of bread next to her. Someone must have left them there while she’d been unconscious.

She couldn’t eat.

She couldn’t eat.

She was hungry but she couldn’t.

Just the thought of eating made her queasy. She tried to lie as still as possible. If she moved the cramps in her stomach increased, travelling up and down her body in waves. She hadn’t had a proper meal since the night of the drop. How long ago was that now? She’d lost track of time.

Her fingers throbbed, dry blood crusty on her hands. There was blood on the floor too, it had dripped from her fingers, stained the concrete. She couldn’t pick up the bread or the soup; her hands didn’t work anymore.

She kept her eyes closed most of the time, had done since they’d dragged her in here, dropped her onto the floor.

How long ago was that?

She’d curled up in a ball in the corner, no blanket to keep her warm, wearing the same clothes she’d had on when they picked her up. She drifted in and out of consciousness. It wasn’t sleep, it didn’t feel like sleep. She didn’t dream. No Morse code, dot dot dashing in her head the way it had before.

- .- .--. / - .- .--. / - .- .--. / - .- .--. / - .- .--.

She tried to focus on the Morse alphabet. Run through it in her head.

.-

-...

-.-.

What was D again?

She had to get her brain working. They could break her body but she wanted to keep her brain.

-.-.

-..

.

The monotonous running through the alphabet fixed her mind on something that wasn’t pain, hunger, cold, sickness. Occasionally the repetition would send her off into one of those black-out periods, like counting sheep.

..-.

--.

Those blessed moments of release. Until she came round, automatically opened her eyes. Remembered where she was and shut them again.

.-

-...

-.-. 

Someone had been in there with her for a while. At least she thought they had.

She was sure someone had spoken to her, gentle words, pulled her hair back, laid a cool hand on her clammy forehead. She wanted Mama, she’d kept her eyes closed hoping it was Mama.

Do not trust anyone if you are arrested by the Germans. It could be a stool pigeon
.

Words were carved on the wall, just in front of where she lay. Someone else had crawled into this corner. The words flashed, a closed-eye hallucination.

Vive la France

Vive la France

Vive la France

Vive la France

Vive

Vive

Vive

BG  YI  AC  ID  KJ  EM

BG  YI  AC  ID  KJ  EM

Who had written it ? Another prisoner, like her? Were they alive or dead? They must have had the use of their hands. She couldn’t pick up a piece of bread, let alone carve defiance into the crumbling plaster.

She opened one eye, felt her stomach clench, closed it again.

Vive, vive, vive, vive, vive, vive.

BG  YI  BG  YI  BG  YI  BG  YI  BG  YI  BG  YI  BG  YI 

The word flashed on the back of her eyelids like those other images that wouldn’t go away. That haunted her.

Madame.

Alex.

Madame.

Alex.

JC  JD  TM  CA  DY JC  JD  TM  CA  DY JC  JD  TM  CA  DY

JC  JD  TM  CA  DY JC  JD  TM  CA  DY JC  JD  TM  CA  DY

Her stomach lurched and she swallowed the sickness back down, felt it burn the back of her throat.

.-

-...

-.-. 

-..

She couldn’t move. It was worse if she moved. She would be fine if they just left her here, a ball on the floor.

She dreaded the sound of footsteps approaching. The clip, clip, clip, clip of those leather boots. Please, just leave me alone. Just leave me here alone. Here alone. Leave me here. Alone. Alone.

She woke later, hours, days, minutes, she didn’t know. Her fingers still beat with pain, her nails were still gone. Maybe she could gauge time by her fingers? Measure it by the length of her fingernails.

What if they never grew back? When they tidied the garden, Father always told her to make sure she got the weeds out by the roots.

So they would never grow back.

Had they pulled the roots out?

The pain had to stop sometime, she could measure time by how bad the pain was.

‘
Steh auf
.’

She opened her eyes, looked up, didn’t move.

‘Stand up!
Steh auf
!’

The soldier bent over, pulled her to her feet. She swayed from side to side, leant back against the wall to steady herself.

She noticed the German wipe his hands on his tunic after touching her. Was she that distasteful?

She looked down, felt the floor slope away, then rush towards her. Her clothes were creased and stained. She couldn’t remember using the bucket recently. She must have wet herself at some point. She had a vague recollection of the shame, of the warmth spreading over her thighs. Had she imagined it?

Making the horror worse than it actually was.

The man in front of her was smart, well-presented. Pressed uniform, polished boots, slicked hair, shiny buttons and belt buckle.

MEINE EHRE HEIßT TREUE

My honour is loyalty

How to recognise the different ranks of German soldier.

Gefreiter

Leutnant

Oberleutnant

Hauptmann

SS
Hauptsturmführer

SS
Obersturmführer

‘You are leaving us,’ he said as he led her out of the cell and along a corridor. She floated alongside him.

He was new. Hadn’t been there before, when they’d...

Young. Maybe he was newly promoted? Learning the ropes.

Well done, here’s your lightning flashes and your pliers.

January
2009

Hannah Dives Under The Knife

British swimmer Hannah Wright is to go under the knife in a bid to save her sinking swimming career. Hannah has floundered recently due to a recurrent shoulder injury and, despite undergoing intensive physio- therapy, hasn’t seen any improvement.

‘The operation was always a last resort, but unfortunately the injury has turned out to be worse than we first thought,’ said Hannah. ‘I’m hopeful that this will sort things out though and I’ll be back in the pool in no time.’

21

‘I don’t hold any animosity for her, she was young and she fell in love. She thought he would marry her once the war was over. And she was punished, they called it a
collaboration horizontale
. They shaved her head, made her parade through the village. Not the Germans, you know? The French did that to her.’

I tuck the blanket round my feet. How many times has she done the same? Snuggled up under this blanket while she read a book or watched
TV
. The old woman who sat on this sofa, the girl I’m reading about.

The Germans waited until the drop was over and the members of Sand Dune had returned to their respective homes before they made their move. Most of the circuit were in bed, giving the Germans the element of surprise and terror that they used so often to their advantage.

‘I knew something was wrong that night, I could feel it. I ran all the way home. But when I got there, Madame was okay, everything was as it should be. I let my guard down, I went to bed. There’s not a day goes by when I don’t curse myself for falling asleep.’

After helping with the drop, Marièle returned to the house she lodged at with Madame Poirier. Alex went to confront Natalie.

‘I told him to be careful. That was the last time I ever saw Alex. I never found out what happened when he went to see Natalie. He must have discovered we were to be rounded up. He tried to warn me. He might have escaped if he hadn’t come to warn me.’

Marièle was in bed when they arrived at the house she shared with Madame Poirier.

I put the book down, try to slow my heart rate, my breathing, get it back to normal.

(resting heart rate)

I’m scared to keep reading but there’s a morbid curiosity compelling me to go on. It’s like watching a horror movie, I know something’s coming.

Something bad. I can’t look away.

She was awoken by gunshot outside her bedroom window. Realising her escape route was cut off, she tried to get out through the front door but was intercepted. She was arrested and taken to Gestapo Headquarters in Paris.

Eleven members of the Sand Dune network were killed during the raid, including Alex Sylvan and Madame Poirier. Sebastian Tholozan evaded capture and continued to work for the resistance until the end of the war. He committed suicide in
1950
.

Fuck sake.

Marièle.

She must have been so scared. They killed her friends and dragged her off in the middle of the night.

Marièle. Marièle.

A complete stranger, the old woman who collapsed in the shop, my fake aunt.

This incredibly brave girl.

I know people did stuff like that in the war, acts of bravery which they never bragged about, but I didn’t realise she was one of them. Her story reads like the plot of a film, not real life. It feels so far removed from my life to be real. But she did it. This was her. This was her life.

Marièle.

Marièle was held by the Gestapo in Paris, where she was beaten and tortured while being questioned. Despite being subjected to extremely brutal treatment at the hands of her captors, she maintained her story, vehemently denying all knowledge of the circuit and maintaining that she was Sabine Valois, sent to live in the country to recuperate from a bout of Rheumatic Fever.

‘Apart from Alex and Madame, I didn’t know what had happened to the rest of them. I was on my own most of the time I was held. I don’t remember much about it, to be honest.’

A report written after Marièle’s return to the UK stated that she ‘acted with extreme courage and bravery under very traumatic circumstances.’ During her time in captivity, she was repeatedly submerged in water, as well as having her fingernails forcibly removed.