The Tiger Claw (50 page)

Distance, I need distance
.

“Stay in bed for a few days, Mademoiselle Khan. See me again in a week if you still have fever or delirium.” Madame Dunet opened a cigarette case, removed a cigarette. A lighter flicked. A flame leaped and burned in the gloom.

In a waking, walking stupor, somehow Noor was outside, back on the path, then in the street, almost running before the evening blush of the sky, under the pooling shadows of deep-rooted trees.

Here in the dungeon, where night follows night, I toss in a fever-dream as I did for days in the little cupboard at Madame Aigrain’s. No sound, no paper comes between us at this moment; my spirit speaks to yours across Al-ghayab
.

A taste like the medicine the midwife gave comes again
.

Talking to Madame Dunet battered my senses. I searched for false notes, but Madame Dunet had never claimed to be tolerant; her actions were consistent with her political beliefs, distasteful as I might find them. But as for Mother, and Kabir—the hiatus between discourse and actions astounded. I can say it to myself now where no one hears me, to myself if to no one else: I was ashamed of them, and ashamed for them. Their actions showed coinciding reasons to see me as a woman but never as Noor. Mother: her aspirations to bourgeois respectability. Kabir: the newly won masculine authority of majority
.

Of course, they must have felt they did what was right, but …

The most important decision I ever made was chosen as they willed. Then, was it mine or theirs? They were munafiqs—hypocrites, talking and preaching tolerance while acting from prejudice
.

Allah, I pray for hidayat: guide them to narrow the gap between their beliefs and actions
.

Madame Aigrain brought lace handkerchiefs dipped in eau de cologne and damp linen towels, and plied me alternately with soup and hot milk. I wandered, delirious, in an inscape of anger mingled with remorse. I have no memory of that time till the twenty-seventh day of Ramzaan. Last year it fell on July 12
.

On this day one should pardon those who have wronged us
.

I who could not pardon Mother and Kabir implored your soul’s pardon for me. You were silent all day; there was only Hazrat Issa faintly smiling from the wall, his sacred heart open and bleeding. Then came the Night of Destiny, when the Qur’an was revealed. The night all fates are sealed, the night one waits for angels. Madame Aigrain had retired when suddenly I sat up in bed. I heard a baby
.

A baby crying alone
.

It had to be you, the part of me that comes from the creative chakra of the cosmos. Meri jaan—the part of my self that is truly alive. You cried, you screamed, and I could not console you. Did you weep for the clay of the body I denied you, or for the world?

Forgetting the curfew, I ran downstairs and stood in the doorway. The dark, glistening street was illuminated by a single torchlight from the sentry box on the corner
.

There was no baby, no baby crying there
.

I turned my face so Madame Aigrain might mistake my tears for rain. She led me back to bed
.

Tell me, what should I have done ten years ago, ma petite? If, as Madame Dunet said, there were nuns who would look after a foundling—I did not know them. I swear
.

But to have you, touch you, then renounce you forever. Would not that have been worse, worse for both of us?

I tell you, I was never afraid of the pain of your birth. Love and fear, rather than chains or bars, bound me when I stopped your soul. In 1934, I imagined you entering your body in the sixteenth week, imagined your heart pumping, taking shape within me. I imagined you forming eyes, lungs, a spine. I thought I felt the long rope of a placenta growing between us, sending nourishment from
my inmost recesses to yours. I talked to you as I’m doing now, and you could not express any reason why you needed to be
.

Why does any child need to be?

Was it a homicide I did that day, or an act of love for you and Armand? The divine and demonic met in me; years have blurred memory and left only what I wish to remember
.

What I wish to remember is love
.

Had I let your soul arrive, what would you have seen in my womb? A darkness as deep as the dark in this cell. What would you have heard? Sounds like I hear now: pipes gurgling, the exhalation of the tall building breathing around my trapped body. You would have been as dependent on the cord that fed you as I am on that single outstretched arm with its bowl of soup
.

On the Night of Destiny your crying no longer permitted my evasions: I stopped my child’s soul from entering the world by taking away its defenceless piece of my flesh. At twenty, I was capable of deliberate destruction
.

My lips are bloody as those of Kali, who gives life and takes it away
.

Would I make the same decision again? I lay shivering beneath the coverlet and thought about this for many hours, as if I were playwright, director and actor in my own story
.

Enfin, the answer was yes. To bring you to a world in which a woman must have permission before she may love—that was, to me, a sin beyond any the Prophet, peace be upon him, had foreseen. To disallow your father from knowing you because he was Jewish—this would have been an injustice to him and to you
.

In that answer I found some peace. You must have understood my thoughts, for by dawn you no longer cried
.

I have this time-away-from-time to think, ma petite, think about what makes a human. It is not merely being born, or surviving, but being cherished, receiving love in enough measure that it becomes our obligation to pass it on. Love, caring—these are the true signs of life, not only flesh. The capacity to feel as others feel. To suffer, even vicariously. By this measure, you were not human
.

By this measure, none of us have yet become human, for we are numb to pain that is not our own
.

Hope is a dangerous luxury in this place that has killed so many of my illusions, but one illusion remains: I will be ready to receive you next time. The twin angels, Kiraman Katibeen, will record better deeds in the Book of Judgement to balance against the harm I inflicted on you, on myself. If not, my jihad-al-akbar, that war I fight against the forces of destruction within me will be lost
.

When Armand learned of you, he said, “We’ll have a little girl, we’ll call her Shekinah.”

Shekinah—feminine spirit. Ma petite ruh—yes, that will be you
.

I feel his smile tug at my heart. I grow from inside
.

But do I hear footsteps and muttering? Was that a hollow bucket crashing against a wall?

“Is someone there? Is anyone there?” I call
.

There is no answer, no human who answers. The war could be over, but no one would know I am here. Vogel is not required to account for me. By Hitler’s command, he doesn’t have to keep any record of me and other Night and Fog prisoners. Armand, Mother, Dadijaan, Kabir, Zaib—no one will ever know I am here. I’m just a combatant who has disappeared, an enemy forgotten in this stinking hole
.

Is the world destroyed, and no voice but mine left in the universe?

Everything is collapsing
.

Allah, my heart is breaking once more
.

CHAPTER 27

Paris, France
Friday, July 16, 1943

N
OOR REASSURED THE PROPRIETOR
of Chez Clément that she wouldn’t be dining alone, and was shown to a small round table in the corner beside an engraved glass window. Back to the wall, face in shadow, with a view of the Germans and French dining beneath the chandeliers, and of the tin-surfaced bar past the WC—just the seat she’d have chosen herself.

A dozen days since she escaped being shot down with the others in the Lysander and today was the first time since her encounter with Madame Dunet that she had emerged from Madame Aigrain’s apartment. An anonymous message left at Flavien’s directed Noor to meet “Monsieur N.” here at 13:30 hours.

Green velvet half-curtains on the brass rail beside her smelled of tobacco and smouldered candles. Outside, Parisiennes with luxuriant headdresses sported baskets and bags for foraging. Each looking far more chic than Noor, whose green skirt was now feeling more like a uniform. She raised her copy of Paris Soir, and from time to time, looked over it at people entering and leaving. They couldn’t see her whole face—effective purdah.

She had pictured herself in the seedy elegance of this restaurant often—not incognito, but with Armand. Celebrating the début of his sonata, an award, or yet another invitation to conduct
or teach. Armand leaning across this peach tablecloth, tapering fingers lovingly slipping a ring on hers.

But without Armand, Chez Clément held little charm.

“If it is not my portion to meet thee in this my life … let me not forget a moment …”

Quell those lines
.

Still no news from Claude. He had promised to telephone; she must not lose hope.

The black market plat du jour featured spaetzle, sauerkraut and pork in every guise—bratwurst, schinkenwurst, liverwurst, knockwurst, blood sausage. Amazing aromas of chicken, beef bourguignon, onions and cheese drifted from the kitchen. Major Boddington would pay for food and wine, but Noor wasn’t hungry. Despite Madame Dunet’s medicines she still felt weak. And “the curse” was upon her again.

Yolande called it the curse, when they were toughening up in England. What mission had Yolande volunteered for, and where was she transmitting from now? She could be with a different cell only a few kilometres from here and Noor wouldn’t know. What of Edmond, who landed with Noor?

The windfall of a good meal and a long hot soak at a bathhouse would, she was sure, restore her body to normal. Her spirit—that was another matter.

A brief article in
Paris Soir
said that at Houdan, on Bastille Day, “terrorists” had captured the Monument of the Dead. Professor Balachowsky’s bold scheme had been successful. His last words repeated in her mind: “We’ll come through this.” Insh’allah, the Professor was still alive.

An editorial shrilled with indignation: the peaceful suburbs of Paris had been savaged by Allied air raids. On Bastille Day, it said—an outrage. It didn’t mention that German orders had restricted Bastille Day celebrations to a few firecrackers. No mention, either, that Ramzaan had ended, and that Algerians, Tunisians and other Muslims of Paris celebrated Id at La Mosquée. Since it wasn’t a Christian celebration, Id was of no interest to
Paris Soir
.

Id. She had so ached to be home for it. With Mother. With Kabir. Even though, if Madame Dunet’s story was true, they were now proven hypocrites.

Family love—that myth she had maintained and bowed to for years, believing in their concern for her. Now she had no family but Armand and others who fought tyranny, fellow resistants.

But today was Friday, when juma prayers were usually followed by Dadijaan’s delicious dhokla and kachoris.

And it was half an hour past the appointed time for lunch with “Monsieur N.”

Major Boddington must have been arrested. Gilbert must have betrayed
him too
.

One last glance over the curtain rail and she reached for her handbag, stood up.

A pincer gripped her elbow. A man with a steel-grey raincoat over one arm loomed over her. “Mademoiselle Régnier! How is your dear mother?”

Brown hair now black, his attire bland. But that flat face and spectacles were Major Boddington’s. How had she missed seeing him enter?

He slung his coat over the back of the chair opposite Noor, and forgot his cover only to shake hands instead of kissing her on both cheeks. A carafe of muddy-looking wine and two close-to-clean wineglasses arrived. A clink of his glass against hers, and the Major got down to brass tacks.

“Had a spot of trouble lately, haven’t we, then?”

“A spot of trouble” for certain torture, instant executions or deportations of hundreds of agents? Major Boddington sounded like those in London who still referred to a massacre of unarmed Indian civilians as an “error in judgement.”

But the Major had braved a covert mission to France to meet her, and no doubt other endangered agents. Capturing him would be a coup celebrated in Berlin, and he undoubtedly knew it.

“I’ve arranged a new safe house for you.” Suavely accented French issued from the side of his mouth. “Secure place. You
even have your own telephone. Seventeenth arrondissement—my agents must have a few perquisites, I always say. Memorize this number.” He dictated like a ventriloquist. “Sablons 80.04. I haven’t given it to anyone else. And the address: 3 boulevard Richard Wallace.”

Noor warmed towards Major Boddington. Officious but well-meaning; perhaps he just didn’t know how to express his concern. And she did need a different safe house. She couldn’t transmit from the pocket-sized room and hated to burden generous old Madame Aigrain much further. Major Boddington was being considerate, making the arrangements.