The Secret of the Blue Trunk (13 page)

T
he
last two years of imprisonment were particularly harsh. We had turned into zombies. We walked because we had to and we ate because we had to. It was as though we no longer existed, as though we had become empty shells. We had grown insensitive to all those girls dying around us of malnutrition, exhaustion, or simply despair, and this was unacceptable.

In fact, Mathilde kept telling us we mustn’t let ourselves go. Every night, she spurred us on. “Really, we haven’t survived all this to die now! Pull yourselves together, girls. I know it’s difficult, but we have to get out of here alive.”

She often held Iréna up as an example, who would surely have died a long time ago if she hadn’t been with us. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to see the day we put our noses outside, proud we have stood up to the devil!”

Of course we wanted that. No one wanted to die. The problem is when there’s not even a shred of hope left and we wonder what use it is to keep standing. At that point, death no longer scares us.

But Mathilde always managed to keep the faint glimmer alive. “Haven’t you noticed that the soldiers on guard are older all the time? It means the Germans have lost a lot of men in action and Germany will very likely lose the war. Don’t give up hope. It will soon be over.”

It was true. All the soldiers we had been familiar with until quite recently were gone. Throughout these two years, the memory of Franz helped me to stay alive. As soon as I could, I would take refuge in my memories. I had created an imaginary world around him. I would picture pleasant scenes in which he was always there, beside me. My imagination knew no bounds. At night, I saw the film of our life projected on the ceiling of the room. We had first got married in his village and naturally I had made my wedding dress myself. We travelled a lot after that, back and forth between our two countries. Then Franz decided to settle in Quebec with me. Our house wasn’t large. It was white and stood at the foot of a mountain, so he would feel more at home. We were very much in love. Quietly, as the months went by, I entered the bedroom with him. It wasn’t so simple at first. I was ill at ease on our wedding night. But Franz hugged me very tightly, and, with infinite tact and gentleness, took off my clothes piece by piece.

His kisses were delicious. He kissed my neck and I shivered all over. Little by little, I began to caress him, too. The caresses I imagined I would give him, lasting for hours, centered for the most part on his chest, his back and his neck. Of his anatomy from his waist to his knees, I had no idea. No one had ever told me anything. Nothing either on what happened next between a man and a woman. These wonderful secret thoughts of my imaginary life with Franz helped me to get through the real nightmare I was living.

The last year of our detention seemed like an eternity. Sometimes, the mood inside the camp changed completely and it almost looked as if the nightmare would soon be over. There were only about a hundred survivors left in our building, and production in the factory often broke down. The soldiers who now guarded us were veterans of the war of 1914–18.

Even so, we thought it would never end. The last six months were longer than the past three and a half years. We had begun to defy the authorities because we were less and less afraid. Sitting on our mattresses, we would spend entire days chatting instead of going to work. The straw had never been changed since our arrival, and the stench was unbearable, but our sense of smell seemed to be numbed. Bad smells were everywhere and we had probably got used to them.

For the hundred or so remaining girls, there were now only three guards. One day, one of them kicked a girl because she wouldn’t get up. She couldn’t take it anymore and wanted to die. We all began to stamp our feet and thump our fists in our hands while moving toward them, and they backed away. We were very proud to have confronted them and shown them that from now on we refused to accept the unacceptable. We were becoming human beings again.

For hours on end we talked about what we would do after our release, if ever we were lucky enough to make it through. Simone wanted to be reunited with her Léon, of course. She vowed that if she got her old life back she would never complain again and would always be content with her lot. She promised above all to commit the sins of the flesh and gluttony as often as possible. “And if I don’t go to heaven, who cares!” she concluded.

Mathilde also wanted to go back to the life she had before her arrest. She meant to savour everything, like Simone, to revive her sense of smell with heady scents, become an elegant woman again, with exquisite clothes, and find a man, only one, with whom she would share the rest of her life.

Iréna’s only wish was to get out of this hell alive. Because of the number tattooed on her skin, she would always remember what she had gone through in these long years of confinement. She wanted to return to Poland, to meet up with her mother and sister again, and make sure they were in good health. At the same time, she said she was very much afraid of what she would discover.

And I, Armande, what did I want? The first thing that came into my mind was to take a bath. As for the rest of my life, I was utterly confused. I felt less of a desire to be a nun. After all those deprivations, I badly wanted to be free, in every way.

Our wishes would be granted …

For the past three days, we had been left on our own, without any guards. The food had run out and we didn’t know what to do. But if we didn’t take action, we would certainly die in this vile hole.

Mathilde and another strong girl in the camp tried to convince us that we had to go up the stairs to the exit, to see what was happening. Not everyone agreed, for sure. Some said the war might be over, which explained why there were no soldiers around. Others thought the soldiers would be back in a minute and if we made any kind of move, we could count on serious reprisals. Several of us, including me, believed it was a trap and once we were up there, we would all be shot.

Mathilde remained convinced we needed to act quickly and she had a strong argument: if we stayed here, we were all going to die anyway. No doubt she was right.

Then she worked out a plan. We were going to hold hands and hug the wall as we went up the steps in single file. When we saw daylight, we would put up our hands so they wouldn’t fire at us. Mathilde would lead the way, and the other girl who vigorously supported her plan would bring up the rear.

I never trembled as violently in my whole life. I hung on to Simone’s hand like a child who didn’t want to go outside. And Simone drew me up. There were about a hundred steps, and it seemed to me as though the climbing would never end. Some girls were so scared they urinated on the spot, and most of them prayed aloud. I prayed to God and the Virgin Mary with a powerful voice I didn’t know I had. The prayers I recited before that day were nothing like these!

When we saw a glimmer of daylight appear, we did exactly what Mathilde had asked us to do. Blinded by the light, we raised our arms skyward, as high as possible, to be sure we would be seen. The farther we climbed, the brighter the light. We had trouble keeping our eyes open as it was extremely painful. When my foot landed on the top step, I had my eyes closed because of the glare. At last I felt the wind on my skin, my lungs filled with fresh air, and I heard an infernal din coming from above.

I thought the Germans were arriving to kill us. I looked up towards the noise and saw helicopters. I had never seen these flying objects before. Underneath the helicopters, we could see a red cross.

One of the girls shouted, “We’re saved! The Red Cross is here!” When I heard that shout and I knew someone else was taking charge of my life, my body became extremely heavy. It was as though every part of it, having endured too much, began to cry out its pain. I had held on until then, but now I let myself go. I was completely worn out. I just had time to think this was the best day of my life before I fainted.

It was April 11, 1945.

I woke up in a hospital in Paris. I heard we had travelled here by train, but not in cattle cars this time. I made the trip on a stretcher.

The hospital room was huge. There were about twenty of us, in small metal beds, as at the convent. The first thing that struck me was how white and clean the place was. At the three camps where I’d lived for more than four years, I had only seen the colour grey and utter filth. The first movement I made after regaining consciousness was to sniff the sheets. I instantly recognized the smell of the laundry and began to cry. When I noticed the contrast between the white sheet and the black colour of my skin, I cried even more.

To make my skin white again and especially to get rid of the dirt that had become embedded in it over the past four years, nurses would give me sulphur baths every day for close to a year. Despite its rotten-egg odour, sulphur removes grime and stops the spread of infectious diseases.

The first baths I took smelled awful. I couldn’t bear it and fainted several times. It took months before the beneficial effects became visible. We were also entitled to baths without sulphur. These were sheer delights.

On the first day, I looked for my three friends with whom I’d shared a mattress, but only Simone was in the room with me. I found out that Mathilde and Iréna had been placed elsewhere. I was glad to see Simone again. The nurses told me she had remained conscious on the journey back and always close to me. She protected me to the end. That’s why the hospital staff had put her in a bed beside me.

Now it was my turn to watch her sleep and rest, and a feeling of pure happiness engulfed me. She slept for nearly a week, just like me. I would fall asleep at any time of the day. The first mornings, the nurses often found us lying on the floor under a blanket. We had to gradually get used to the comfort of a bed again. We also needed to relearn to eat normally. We had to start with small doses, with clear broth and warm milk. Many prisoners died when they were freed because they had been given too much food too quickly. Their stomachs couldn’t take it.

At the time of my arrest, my weight was a hundred and eighteen pounds. When the nurses weighed me, it was eighty-five pounds. I had lost thirty-three pounds. I wanted to see myself in a mirror. I got a big surprise: Not only did I no longer recognize myself, but it looked as though my eyes had moved towards the back of my skull. My image scared me. The nurses did their best to reassure me: In a few months, my face would become the way it was.

Gradually my appetite returned. I was anxious to be my old self again. Still, after surviving so many deprivations, I didn’t want to die from eating too much. I also asked myself many questions about my future, but for now I chose to rest. Yet I needed to deal with reality sooner than expected. A few days after our hospitalization, the staff had to identify us, by asking for our name and where we lived before the war. We also had to tell them whom they should contact to let them know we were still alive.

So the congregation was notified of my being at the Lutetia hotel, which had been temporarily turned into a hospital to accommodate the overflow of sick people. A few weeks later, a nun from my community in Brittany paid me a visit. When I saw her, I remained unmoved, totally indifferent. Probably because I didn’t know her very well. To be honest, I didn’t want us to discuss my faith.