Violins of Autumn (30 page)

When Robbie asked for a song to play on the piano, my mind went blank. I have an even harder time of it now. I hum the tune to “Someone to Care for Me,” imagining Robbie’s long fingers effortlessly gliding across black-and-white keys.

Lisa taps out the dots and dashes of her guess.
“Danny Boy”?

No
. Played this way, the game is too difficult. It needs something extra.
Your turn. Give clues
.

Take long way there
.

I rub a filthy finger across my forehead, confused, until I realize Lisa gave a clue. I smack my rock into the wall to shout,
Long Way to Tipperary!

Hurrah!

In that moment of shared victory, I picture Lisa, a complete stranger, as clearly as if I’ve known her all my life. We smile to each other through the concrete divide.

Your tu …
The dots and dashes that follow make no sense. Then the tapping stops altogether.

I wait for a very long time, fearful that others now listen in on our game, before I silence my rock.

I curl up in the corner to sleep.

“Wake up!”

A boot heel slams into my ribs. I didn’t move quickly enough to convince the soldier that I’m already awake. I stagger to my feet. Agonizing pain wallops my side, pulsating through my chest, as if I’ve been kicked again. I double over, gasping for breath.

Two guards lead me from my cell. At the door to the interrogation room, I limp, expecting to go inside. They carry on. I drag my feet. I don’t recognize the guards. Maybe they’re new and don’t have directions to the interrogation room.

Soon nothing looks familiar. The temperature drops. Sound reverberates differently through the halls. The hair on my neck stands on end when I reason out the purpose for moving me outdoors.

I step through the open doorway. Golden strands of dawn stretch across the courtyard walls. The air smells and tastes like freedom.

“Go to the wall,” one of the guards commands.

“Please, no.” I force my feet backward, shackles scraping my bruised ankles. “Don’t do this. Please, I beg you.”

A rifle butt to the kidneys sets me in motion. Another knocks me breathless to my knees.

I kneel before the stone wall. A numbing sense of peace grows out of my fear.

I wish my father happiness in his new life. I say good-bye to Denise. I pray for Robbie’s safety. I kiss Pierre and hug Madame LaRoche. I ask for one more day with my aunt. I plead for liberation to come.

Behind me, in the middle of the courtyard, rifles are readied.

Will I hear the gunshots before I die? Will I feel pain? Or will everything just end with silence?

Snide laughter penetrates my last thoughts.

“Rise!”

I lurch forward onto my hands, heaving hot rancid bile into the dirt. I swing my shackled legs around and stand, dizzily watching yellow liquid trickle down my legs and pool at my feet.

Without a word they march me back to my cell. I clutch at the wall, moaning away an intense urge to vomit.

One of the guards sneers at my filthy legs. “You are a disgusting animal. This place is too good for you.”

He shoves me to the floor, where I collapse in a heap. He locks the door behind me.

I curl on my side, feeling broken and brittle as a dried corn-husk. Nothing makes sense anymore. Nothing at all.

After two days without word from Lisa, the dots and dashes return.

I limp to the wall. In my excitement, I forget to take shallow breaths. A jolt of pain spikes my ribcage.

Lisa?

Tina
.

In slapdash tapping, I ask,
Where Lisa?

Her answer confirms my fears.
Cell empty. Your name?

Adele
.

I’m crushed, Adele
.

We will get out
.

Lonely. Pain too much
.

Outside of prison, being alone meant something different to me. I wasn’t alone at all. There were ringing telephones, playing radios, children running past open windows. A dog barked or a neighbor’s car pulled up to the curb. Ordinary everyday connections I took for granted my whole life—I can’t put into words how much I crave them now.

I bring my hand to my chest when she asks,
Will we be all right?

I can’t afford to hesitate with my answer.

I quickly tap,
Yes!

Thank you
.

I untangle my hair with my fingers. Straighten my blouse.

Tina. Like to play games?

At the end of June, Krieger’s men finally give up on me. I’m put in a van and driven to Fresnes, the massive prison on the outskirts of the city.

I’ve always assumed that the first time I bared my body completely would be with a man I love, in a romantic setting. Not with two frosty German women in a chilly room under the unflattering glare of fluorescent lighting. I leave the full-body search sore, humiliated, and on the verge of tears. But what matters is that they didn’t find the bracelet in the hem of my pants.

A beefy prison matron in a pale-blue uniform wordlessly leads me from the search room to a long, high-ceilinged room. We pass several numberless doors until we come to an open one. The cell isn’t much more than a dark hole.

“Go inside.”

My reputation as an uncooperative prisoner sure hasn’t done much to improve my living quarters. I enter the cell and the matron bolts the door behind me.

Three straw mattresses are stacked upon the one and only cot in the room. I heave the two extras to the floor and lie down. There isn’t much else to do but sleep.

The door to my cell opens with a bang loud enough to jolt me awake and get my heart racing.

“Bread and coffee,” the matron says, her flattened mouth never showing more emotion than disdain.

I carry the bread and bowl of coffee to my mattress without spilling even a drop. I take a cautious first sip. Not only is the liquid not hot, it could only be called coffee by some wild stretch of the imagination. And the mushy bread tastes as if it has been soaking in that liquid. I gag down the bread, helping it along with great gulps of the coffee.

I’ve barely finished eating when the door is opened again, this time by a different woman.

This matron knows how to smile. She says, “Come with me, please.”

I follow her with no sense of where I’m being taken or for what purpose. There’s no point in studying my surroundings for clues. Everything about the place looks the same: windowless hallways, numberless doors, metal and concrete.

The uniformity breaks when we reach a long, broad hallway. The din of many voices reverberates throughout a nearby vast space.

At the end of the hallway, I slow behind the matron. This is prison as I’ve imagined it, as it’s portrayed in movies.

A massive sunlit corridor towers four stories above me, each balconied level lined with jail cells. At both ends of the lengthy
room, monstrous floor-to-ceiling windows allow a glimpse of the outside world. The cells themselves are completely segregated one from the next; concrete boxes with solid metal doors rather than bars.

The commotion in the room is god-awful, with guards and matrons everywhere, shouting to be heard and calling names from clipboards. The abrupt switch from silence and solitude to the bustle and barrage of echoing noise batters my senses.

The matron directs me past a line of female prisoners waiting to hear their names. I take a long look at the sun through the bars on the window as I climb the staircase to the third floor. At room #347, the matron inserts a key in the door, unlocks the bolt, and pushes the heavy door open.

A blond woman sits cross-legged on the floor beneath a small barred window.

“
Bienvenue
,” she says with a wave, as if welcoming me to a party. She motions for me to join her.

I scan the small cell as I enter—metal chair and cots secured to the walls, an open toilet, and not much else. When the door locks behind me, I become secured to the room like everything else.

When I sit next to the woman she says, “My name is Christina.”

We shake hands. Despite her slightness, she has an assured grip.

“Hi, I’m Adele.” I hold on to the handshake well beyond the point dictated by proper etiquette, shocked to have been given a cellmate. “It’s too bad we couldn’t be meeting under better circumstances.”

Christina stands. She must catch me staring at the summery
nightgown she wears in the middle of the day, because she says, “The cells are unbelievably hot and muggy. You’ll soon despise those heavy wool pants of yours.”

My legs immediately begin to itch. “Oh.”

“Don’t worry. I came here when personal parcels were still allowed. I have an extra nightgown you can borrow. And a toothbrush.”

I run my tongue over my teeth. It’s been far too long since they’ve known the luxury of a toothbrush. “Thank you, Christina.”

“I’ll give you the grand tour,” she says. “The best part is there’s no need to get up. You can watch it entirely from where you are sitting.”

I laugh.

“This is the chair. It’s not nearly as comfortable as iron typically is. These are the smelly blankets and mattresses we sleep on.” Gesturing to the door like a poised model in a magazine advertisement, she says, “Once in a while this door will open. Sometimes the reason for this will be good, such as the twenty-minute walks they permit us to take in the courtyards twice a week. More often than not, the reason will be bad, for instance when the soup cart rolls around. And occasionally, the reasons will be quite bad.”

I don’t want or need her to elaborate on the “quite bad.”

Moving on, she says, “Here is the dish of water I catch fleas in. And the toilet with its imaginary privacy screen.” At the window, she offers a hand to help me up. “I saved the best part of the tour for last. The peephole.”

A portion of the wood casing around the window has been cut away. If I peer through at just the right angle, I can see over the prison walls.

“We can spy on the guards as they make their rounds,” Christina says. “And watch the wing where they keep the men.”

“Fantastic. You made the peephole?”

“Yes. I smuggled in my tiny nail file, in my hair.”

Studying the window, I say, “Do you still have it?”

“The matrons will find it eventually, but I have it for now.”

“See this bolt that holds the window shut? If we use the file to the remove the screws here and here, we can prop the window open a few minutes a day to let fresh air in.”

Christina shakes her fist with excitement. “Adele, that’s brilliant!”

My curiosity draws me back to the peephole. I smirk when a guard strolls into view. Without his knowledge I stalk his every move.

The Fresnes guards wasted no time getting to interrogations, questioning me about fellow agents—some I know, but most I don’t—and SOE headquarters, and weapon drops, and whatever else they have their cold hearts set on knowing. They seem almost desperate for information about Denise, grilling me relentlessly about her whereabouts, her radio, and her codes. Part of me is glad for this. It means she’s still alive.

Sometimes I wonder if they’re pulling questions out of thin air whenever it suits them, as an excuse to torture me more. To draw them away from the parts of my body that hurt the most, I cry out when they beat me where the pain is manageable. Still, no matter how bad it gets, no matter how close I get to cracking—and I’ve seen the final seconds before my breaking point—I tell them nothing more than they already know.

I don’t want to give up hope that liberation will come, but too
much time has passed. I have so many unanswered questions. Why are the guards still interrogating me for information? Where are the Allies? Did the D-day invasion fail? Are we losing the war? And then there’s the one question I almost can’t bear to consider. Have we already lost?

In the three weeks at the prison, the movie I’ve been creating from my memories has become a real spectacle worthy of Hollywood, with the help of some substitutions. The role of Louis is now played by Clark Gable, and Madame LaRoche bears a striking resemble to Marlene Dietrich. Even Rat hasn’t escaped scrutiny. I replaced him with Roddy McDowall.

I lounge on the mattress, compiling a list of places to visit before I die. None of my lists are set in stone, they change with my moods. Surprisingly, “Top Ten Films of All Time” gave me the most grief. “Twenty Foods to Eat When Freed from Prison” was easy as riding a bike.

I hear movement outside the door. I pick up the mug of soapy water a female guard brought me. When Christina enters our cell after interrogation, I’ll be there to wash whatever wounds they inflicted on her, just as she does for me.

There’s a knock on the door. “Adele.”

I recognize the voice of Greta, the kind guard. I run to the door, saying, “What is it?”

Key. Bolt. Open door
.

A paper-wrapped bundle appears through the opening. “This has come to you. I wouldn’t ordinarily accept a bribe to smuggle gifts to prisoners. I will for you, but only this once. I cannot afford to lose my job.”

I grab the parcel from her hand. “Who is it from?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know. A guard in the men’s wing received it from an acquaintance. He passed it on to me.”

The door and bolt close with their familiar metallic rhythm.

I carry the parcel to the mattress and rip into the paper. Two of my fingernails were extracted the day before. I let the package tumble from my hands, lightheaded with pain. Sparks of white light dart before my eyes.

I open the package the rest of the way with my good hand. Inside, I find two biscuits, two squares of chocolate, cheese, and salted meat. I clutch my throat, overcome with joy, savage hunger I can no longer ignore, and the fear that if I look away even for a second the food on my lap will vanish.

Someone put himself in danger to smuggle food to me. That reconnection to the outside world boosts me as much as the food.

I hide the package beneath the mattress, to share it with Christina.

A short while later she weaves through the door when it opens.