The Tiger Claw (44 page)

Yet another dilemma of war. What could Noor say beyond commiseration? Renée deserved better. Many women like her in France, and indeed everywhere in the world, deserved better. Renée needed something to cheer and distract her, but Noor couldn’t think of anything.

She draped her oilskin over her arm and a round flat shape came to hand—the gold compact Miss Atkins said Colonel Buckmaster gave all his women agents. Extra, as Noor had her own tortoiseshell compact in her handbag. Made in France, Miss Atkins had said. A bright little thing, a conciliatory gift to express Noor’s gratitude to Renée—Renée who had given grudging but
essential hospitality to an agent torn between two secret missions, Renée whose heart was as full of longing for her Guy as Noor’s was for Armand.

Noor held the bright disc out to Renée. “Please accept this. A parting gift. From me.”

Surprise registered in Renée’s eyes, then reluctant pleasure. She opened the compact, looked solemnly at her reflection for a moment, then snapped it shut.

“You are leaving, then,” she stated and questioned in the same breath. Noor’s gift was interpreted as partial reimbursement; Renée uttered no word of thanks.

“Yes.”

She could tell Renée found the news reassuring.

“Back to Paris?” asked Monique.

“No.” Noor took a deep breath. “I am leaving for London tonight.”

“Tonight? So quickly?” Monique sounded genuinely sorry.

It was too quick. After all her training and preparation, Noor had, in her short time in France, sent fewer than twenty messages for her cell. Important, some critical, but still …

“Gilbert made the arrangements?” Émile was asking.

“Yes.”

“I thought you distrust Gilbert,” said Renée.

“I do, but I have my orders.”

“The danger of betrayal is far more for Frenchmen,” said Émile. “Will they be sending another operator to take your place?”

“I don’t know.”

“I wish we didn’t need a radio operator from London, Anne-Marie, but we do. A radio can be a better weapon than any gun,
tu sais?
It calls down destruction. I know Morse, but the Germans would detect me before I finished the first sentence.”

“My transmitters remain in France, but no one can use them without security codes and encryption keys,” said Noor. “One is left at Madame Aigrain’s. The one at Grignon was probably
discovered. When London sends my replacement, you will need this to locate the third.” She showed him a piece of paper—the address of Madame Gagné’s boarding house.

He nodded once he’d memorized it, then said, “Once you leave, the Allies will bomb France without fully understanding their targets. If French civilians are killed and not German military, you know what will happen: the support of the people will wither. And the Allies desperately need French support on the ground when they invade.” A pause, then disconsolately, “
If
they invade.”

“What do you suggest? I should not leave? My superior officer said it was an order.”

Émile bit into dark rye. “No, of course you cannot disobey.” He held the sandwich at arm’s length. “What’s in this, Renée?”

“Cauliflower.”

He made a face and waved it before Noor.

“I’ve eaten lunch,” she said. “But, Émile, don’t you think the English understand this? They will send in a new operator soon. No need to explain this to my superiors.”

“Yes, yes, I know. They will send a new operator when it is a hundred percent safe,” said Émile with uncharacteristic bitterness. “They keep out of harm’s way, the English, the Americans, they think dropping explosives from the air will defeat Hitler and Vichy. Oh, I know they’re waiting for Stalin and Hitler to exhaust one another. But explain! A second front is needed. Now! Explain to the Colonel and to Churchill—eventually they will have to invade and fight him here. On the ground, not from the air!”

Noor laughed shortly, but Émile was quite serious.

“Émile, I can explain to the Colonel, but don’t think I can request an audience with the Prime Minister.”

“You cannot?”

“No. You overestimate my powers, my rank. I’m a radio operator,
c’est tout!”

Émile shook his head vigorously. “
Mais non!
Prosper met him.”

“Met whom?”

Émile whispered, “Monsieur Churchill.”

“No!”

“
Si, si
! Archambault told me.”

Mr. Churchill was reputed to be fascinated by his
SOE
agents. Some agents she knew had met with him before their missions, but …

“Ah, well, Prosper is Prosper. He outranks me many times.” But then her curiosity prompted, “What do you think Monsieur Churchill discussed with Prosper?”

“The invasion.”

“
Mais oui
—but that’s a very big subject.”

“I think not. I think Prosper was told something specific. You’ve heard what Monsieur Churchill said on the radio? Four days ago he said the invasion will come ‘before the leaves fall.’ But I think Prosper knows something more specific than ‘before the leaves fall.’ And the Germans want it.”

Perhaps Émile’s hope for an invasion, the hope of everyone in France, had drawn him into the realm of astrology.

“Oh, be sensible, Émile—” said Renée.

A man in a suit approached. Noor raised a forefinger.

Renée began to tell about something cute that Babette had said. Émile and Monique nodded and smiled as if they were listening.

Had they been speaking too loud? How long had the man been there? What had he heard?

The man passed by without looking in their direction.

Renée resumed in an even softer undertone. “Prosper knows your name, where you live, details of your ‘work.’ Isn’t that enough?”

“
Our work
,” Monique reminded her. “But they won’t get it from Prosper. He’s very proud, very strong.”

“He has not been tested,” said Émile. “All of us are not as strong as Max.”

Would Noor find the courage to resist if captured? How could she know—how did anyone know? She wouldn’t be arrested; she’d
never find out. She fought the image of Prosper under torture, drove it from her mind.

“Anne-Marie,” Émile said, getting to his feet, “time is short. Would you like to walk in the gardens?”

Noor began to rise, but Renée said, “Brothers and sisters have no secrets. Say what you need to say.”

Émile and Noor sat down again. She’d already told Renée what shouldn’t have been said. Best to fulfill her reason for meeting Émile in Le Mans. So Noor told them her suspicions of Gilbert.

When she was finished, Renée looked affronted instead of grateful. “Gilbert is French. Frenchmen are not traitors.”

One would think she knew every Frenchman personally.

“But Renée,” said Émile, “I have the same suspicions.”

“
C’est impossible!”
said Renée in a voice of certainty. “A Frenchman betraying Frenchmen? Foreigners betray Frenchmen, Frenchmen do not betray Frenchmen.”

Noor was the only foreigner present, accusing a Frenchman. Renée didn’t wonder if Gilbert was a traitor or not, or what information might have led Noor to such a conclusion. What she disputed was Noor’s right to comment on the proclivities of a single Frenchman.

“Renée,” said Monique, “Maréchal Pétain and every minister in his Vichy government are Frenchmen, so how can you say Frenchmen do not betray Frenchmen? I have witnessed it myself: every day at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, Frenchmen denounce other Frenchmen.
Écoute!
the Boche pay ten thousand francs for each arrest.”

“Those are denunciations of Communists, Communist Jews and Israelites by Frenchmen,” said Renée, “not denunciations of
French
men by Frenchmen.”

Respect for her sister-in-law seemed to restrain Monique from pointing out that Renée had completely sidestepped Monique’s mention of Vichy.

“Most Jews living in France are French,” said Noor. “It’s a religion. And they are not all Communists.”

“I’m sure you would know, Anne-Marie,” said Renée.

Should Noor address the implied accusation? If she did, the conversation would turn to her beliefs and religion, something she had not the time to explain. Better to let it slide.

Back to Gilbert. “So Gilbert is safe in the ever smaller pigeonhole labelled ‘Frenchmen’ and you cannot see his potential for treachery.” Her passion sounded muffled by the handkerchief held over her nose. “How many more arrests will it take before you believe it?”

“Someone,” said Émile reasonably, “alerted the Gestapo that there was a house on the rue Erlanger that should be searched.”

“I feel it was Gilbert.”

“You feel? You have no proof,” said Renée. “I agree someone did, but not a Frenchman.”

“It was a warm, beautiful day,” said Monique. “It was our wedding, and I’m so glad you were with us, Anne-Marie.” She bent over her smocking. Obliquely, she had delivered the reminder that Noor could not have betrayed them without walking into the Gestapo’s trap herself.

“You told me Gilbert said to meet him at Grignon at 10:00 hours,” Noor said to Émile. “But had I been on time, I would have been arrested. And Gilbert must have been there, but he was not arrested.”

“Coincidence,” said Renée.

“Perhaps,” Noor conceded. “We have not considered: what if Monsieur Viennot informed the Gestapo?”

“Oh, no,” Renée responded for Émile. “His grandfather and ours were brothers. He’s our cousin.”

“Even if he were not,” said Émile, “Viennot has been buying information from the Gestapo for a long time. He cannot want Prosper arrested—there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people in that network, all his best customers. And I never described to him the extent of our work at Grignon.”

“Gilbert gets a big salary from London,” said Monique, “so why should he want Prosper arrested?”

“He could be well paid by Berlin as well,” Noor pointed out.

Émile’s lips twisted in wry acknowledgment of this possibility, but Renée and Monique seemed surprised by the idea. Noor sneezed as if she’d sniffed pepper.

I’ll be here till next Id without convincing them
.

She rose. The garden undulated around her.

“Believe what you will,” she said. “Pray there will be no more arrests, but we cannot be too careful. I had to warn you. What are your plans?”

“Émile telephoned Madame Meignot’s
loge
,” said Renée, “and Madame told him a Gestapo car parks every morning at the end of the street and another takes its place at night. But we cannot stay in Le Mans forever, Babette must return to school in Paris in September.”

“She could go to school in Le Mans,” said Monique. “And under the circumstances, perhaps it would be wise—”

Renée looked down her nose at Monique and gave a firm, “Non!”

“We’ll find another apartment in Paris before September, then,” said Émile. “We have to stay hidden for some weeks. They’ll tire of watching the house. I don’t mean we can return and live there, but …” The sentence trailed away.

Noor’s glance prompted Monique. “I have two weeks’ leave for our honeymoon. After that I will write to my superiors at the Hôtel de Ville saying my
grand-père
has died and I must go to Marseilles for his funeral. So if the Gestapo comes to search for me, they would send them to Marseilles.
Voilà!
That will keep me away from work this month. Next month, August, is a month of vacation. And then the Allies will come. If they don’t …” She stopped. “I must return to the Hôtel de Ville. Especially if we rent an apartment here and another in Paris.”

So vast a gulf between those who can leave and those who must stay
.

“I will return to France as soon as I can,” said Noor.

Monique took Noor’s hand. “I can see you now. At the front of the invasion, the Maid, Anne-Marie Jeanne d’Arc!”

Everyone laughed, even Renée. Babette was called to say goodbye. Renée’s admonitions to the little girl faded as Émile escorted Noor back to the Hôtel du Dauphin.

A new soldier was stationed at the checkpoint. The heart-thudding humiliation of identification must be endured again. Three streets away, Noor caught up with Émile’s stride.

“Each year, I think I am now used to Occupation,” he muttered. “Then they search and manhandle us, and it infuriates me again. Monique and I were walking in the gardens yesterday and a soldier came and asked what was I doing there. What am I doing in my own country? Where else should I be? We’re second-class in our own land—they call us chimpanzees.”

The British used such tactics in India, and Indians were called “brown monkeys” in London. The French had like terms for Algerians, Moroccans and Tunisians—personal indignities trivial compared with arrests and torture, distractions from the colonizers’ plunder.

“Can you imagine, we French are reduced to living on cauliflower sandwiches,” said Émile. “Renée complains she has no kitchen garden here but insists on cooking, and Monique is kind enough to let her—but one of these days I’m going on a hunger strike! But then I think, what can she do when the Germans give ration tickets for just 1,200 calories a day?”

Earlier in the century, Algerians under the French had made do on 1,500 calories a day, two-thirds of what Europeans lived on. And Dadijaan said Indians in Calcutta were trying to stay alive under the British Raj on a mere 850. The Germans had learned the colonizer’s tactics well.

“Since you’re leaving, you could give me your ration tickets?”

Noor fished in her handbag and came up with the booklet of ration coupons. Keeping three for her dinner that night, she handed the rest to Émile.

“
Merci bien
!”

Émile slowed to let other pedestrians pass, and detoured around a tarpaulin-covered car.

“Renée—she is carrying too many burdens,” he said in an apologetic tone. “She refuses to understand the times, the France we now live in. She sees only the distance between what she expected and what she has become.”

Noor was silent. Émile continued, “You know, some of Guy’s clothes were stored at my home, to be used whenever Renée and Guy visited in the summer. She is helping Monique refit them for our boys in the Maquis, the same she called outlaws.”