The Tiger Claw Read online

  Don’t notice the hollow-eyed look those dark panes give the pale stone buildings.

  She crossed the Pont Alexandre III. The usual bateaux-mouches slipped slowly beneath the bridge.

  Ignore the swastika flags and banners adorning the Grand Palais. Ignore uniforms, and all the broad-shouldered, tall men.

  Why had the Germans removed sandbags and scaffolding Noor remembered from 1940? But then, why should they care if French monuments were destroyed by Allied bombs?

  Don’t notice that American and British flags are absent from their embassies.

  Noor doubled back to the boulevard Champs-Elysées and detoured through streets taking their names from generals, battles, revolutionaries who fought for freedom, stood for individualism and liberty.

  Chairs stacked behind glass doors began to appear on terrasse cafés. Sun strengthened, turning sheer to shimmer. Readers lingered in minuscule bookstores, grey-haired men played pétanque. But everywhere, finger-posts pointed in German, and the rumble of traffic she remembered so well was stilled. Even the confused buzz of outdoor conversations seemed muted.

  Late in the afternoon, a very footsore Noor hesitated outside a pâtisserie. Slices of National Loaf in London were a poor substitute for the round, fire-tinged loaves in Paris’s boulangeries, and she was tempted to buy a café filtre and a brioche as she had before morning lectures at the Sorbonne. But did ration coupons need to be presented at a café or only at a grocer? A detail that her instructors had forgotten to include in her syllabus.

  Hungry as she was, she could not buy food. But she went in, to rest her feet.

  Allay any suspicions. Order a glass of Vichy water; they can’t request ration coupons for Vichy water.

  It looked like any other water, tasted like any other. The spa water wasn’t responsible for the actions of Petain’s government encamped there. No ration coupons were requested.

  If any German was following, he must have given up by now. Didn’t the Gestapo have more important things to do than follow a young woman from Le Mans all day? They should.

  Head for the safe house.

  Down a narrow wooden escalator into the pissotière smell of the métro. Noor showed her papers again at the checkpoint, and presented a ticket from the booklet provided by Miss Atkins. A train bound for the Étoile stood at the platform, the doors of its last carriage closing.

  Squeeze in. Hurry!

  She seized a hand-strap to brace herself. The métro began to worm its way into the tunnels. A burst of yellow caught her eye, then another and another. Her gaze leaped from star to yellow star patched to men’s and women’s clothing. Every one read Juif. The étoile jaune! She had been told Jews had to travel in the last carriage of the métro, knew about the yellow stars they were required by law to wear, but in her hurry she had forgotten. And only seeing the star actually being worn by people brought belief. The train picked up speed, and some glanced at her own lapel with its missing yellow star.

  Oh, Armand, are you too wearing one of these?

  The pungence of her fellow travellers’ desperation rose around her as the métro flowed through the dark under Paris. She was kin to these helpless people; had her marriage to Armand been solemnized, she might now be wearing the star with them.

  Brakes squealed. Noor alighted at the next station with a stab of guilt for not riding further with the star-branded group. But she could not attract attention from officials.

  Wait on the platform. Find a bench till the next train arrives. Look inconspicuous. Watch for anyone in the crowd, French or German, who might be watching you.

  Two uneasy hours waiting for another train. This time she was careful to board a middle carriage on the métro bound for the Porte Maillot.

  Sit beside the old woman with the shopping bag over her arm.

  In this carriage, passengers had their inviolate bubble, a cordon of private space. Only the German soldiers stared, their gaze occupying each bubble by ignoring it.

  She alighted at the Porte Maillot and headed for the point where tramlines knit dense patterns against the sky and tram tracks grooved the street.

  Stop! No, keep walking.

  Two German soldiers sat on a bench near the tram stop, poring over a thick Guide Bleu to Paris.

  Do not turn, do not walk away.

  She sat at the other end of the bench, heart racing at this proximity to the enemy. The two were deep in discussion, unfolding and smoothing maps bound to the inside cover of their translated guidebook.

  Inevitably, one looked across at her and asked in broken French for directions to the Hippodrome in the Bois de Boulogne.

  If they walked around the station from which she had emerged, they’d find themselves facing the Bois, and if they joined her on the tram opening its doors before the stop right now, they would pass the Hippodrome they sought. But she turned to them and pointed north.

  “Continuez tout droit …”

  The two thanked her courteously and set off in the direction she pointed. It would be a long time before they realized their mistake.

  She closed her eyes for a moment once the tram chimed away. Her first act of resistance—such a small one. Strangely, venting her anger on the soldiers by sending them in the wrong direction brought little satisfaction. Instead, her act of revenge conformed to the trait Hitler had instilled in Germans, that of identifying others by race.

  The tram rattled and clanked southwards down the allée de Longchamp past the stately old trees of the Bois de Boulogne. In her teens Noor came to know every inch of the Bois from trotting down its paths with her friend Josianne at the École d’Équitation. Knees tight, she’d urged horses over its small jumps and streams, and cantered tight dressage circles near the polo field.

  Now down the boulevard de Boulogne, past the bus stop near the windmill. There were the locust trees under whose leafy shadows she said adieu to Armand; that adieu that should have been au revoir till they met again.

  Her throat—dry and empty box. Heart—incinerated rag fluttering in a body cavity. Hands—once more enfolded in Armand’s. If only she had some small thing belonging to him.

  It was still not dusk when Noor turned down the rue Molitor, though her watch said it was 21:00 hours—nine at night—Berlin time. She stopped before a window filled with mannequins as if to admire it. No one reflected behind appeared to stop. Still, she strolled up the rue Erlanger and back again before she began searching for number 40.

  Forty seemed auspicious—the number of days Moses fasted, the number of days Hazrat Issa fasted in the desert. The Prophet, peace be upon him, was forty when the Qur’an was revealed, and forty was the number of years the children of Israel walked in the wilderness. But where was 40 rue Erlanger?

  Number 41 sat just next to 36, and number 17 sat beside 24. Number 23 rue Erlanger was behind number 10. The second half of the rue Erlanger continued past the rue Molitor. She passed number 40 several times before she realized—a single-storey house crouching behind its garden far back from the street, crushed between two art nouveau apartment buildings, 41 and 40-bis. So close were the apartment buildings, their walls left no passage between them and number 40. The house seemed to match Miss Atkins’s description of its owner. She’d said an old lady, Madame Garry, would be waiting for Noor, that she was the only one who knew Noor would be arriving from London today.

  Miss Atkins should have said something about what to do if Madame Garry was not home.

  If she isn’t here, I’ll make my own instructions and follow them.

  A caramel-brown turban poked from the shutters of a window next door. Probably the concierge of the apartments, hair bound up for cleaning.

  “Leave any packages for number 40 with me,” said the towel-head.

  Noor waved as if to say this wasn’t the address she was looking for. The brown turban retreated. Noor walked away.

  A few minutes later Noor returned, unlatched a scrolled iron gate set in the low grille fronting the garden and walked up the stone
path.

  A serious-looking man of about thirty-five with receding brown hair and a pencil moustache came to the door. Square-shouldered as a claret bottle, with the compressed energy of a pugilist.

  “Oui?”

  “Madame Garry est là? She is expecting me.”

  Large moss-green patches were sewn about the elbows of his well-pressed grey suit; there had to be a Madame Garry somewhere. But every house has its secrets. Was this a Monsieur Garry who didn’t know his mother, wife, sister or daughter had agreed to shelter a radio operator from London?

  “I am Monsieur Garry.”

  He did open the door.

  Monsieur Garry led her to a drawing room, where a woman about Noor’s age came forward from a stool at the piano.

  “May I present my fiancée, Mademoiselle Monique Nadaud.”

  Burnished chestnut curls bobbed shyly at Noor. Merry-eyed Mademoiselle Nadaud was the same height as Noor. An hourglass figure made her worn burgundy dress and grey cardigan look positively chic.

  Now a high-nosed woman in her late thirties with a cameo brooch at her lace collar left a game of solitaire spread upon a small table in a nearby alcove. She peered suspiciously at Noor, a single card held close to her chest. A streak of grey ran from the centre parting of her dark hair past her temples to join a tightly knotted bun.

  “My sister, Madame Garry. Renée, you were expecting Mademoiselle …?”

  “Anne-Marie Régnier.”

  “Mais non,” said Renée. “I was not expecting anyone.”

  Noor stood disconcerted, looking at the three, till Mademoiselle Nadaud smiled at her. “I was about to prepare coffee,” she said.

  She and Renée left Noor alone with Monsieur Garry. How to force the issue or retreat gracefully? Noor was … mistaken about the house, had a poor memory for numbers—was really looking for number 44 …

  No. Plunge in.

  “The sky is blue,” she stammered in a tight, desperate voice. Said to a total stranger it sounded childish, foolish.

  But Monsieur Garry responded with a large, welcoming smile, “But the bread will rise.”

  Noor burst out laughing; after a second, Monsieur Garry joined her.

  Soon Mademoiselle Nadaud returned with a tray of coffee.

  “London doesn’t always know what is going on in Paris, Monique,” said Monsieur Garry. “Mademoiselle Régnier—Madeleine—was told I was a little old lady.”

  “Oh, les Anglais!” said Renée Garry. “How can they not know you, Émile, after all you’ve done for them?”

  “Not for them, Renée. For us. They help all of us.”

  “Maybe. Excuse me, I must see if my Babette is still sleeping.”

  As her heels clicked down a passage, Monsieur Garry and Mademoiselle Nadaud exchanged glances.

  “Have you dined?” asked Monique Nadaud as if to change the subject.

  “No,” said Noor. “Not since last night.” She sipped the barley infusion Monique had called coffee, and told them about landing at Le Mans and how she criss-crossed Paris making sure she was not followed.

  “Good—be vigilant. Be alert,” said Émile.

  Monique left the kitchen door open to listen as she goose-necked in and out of cupboards.

  Renée returned to the drawing room just as Noor was telling Émile about her jumping into the last carriage on the métro. “You look Jewish,” she observed from the far end of the room. She took a half-knitted scarf from a basket beside her chair.

  “Mais non, Renée—how can you say that?” Émile asked.

  Renée shrugged, stitches clicking rapidly. “She is dark-skinned. Perhaps it is her nose.”

  No one had ever remarked on the olive tone of Noor’s skin or her nose the many years she lived in Paris. Perceptions must have shifted radically in the last three years to match official attitudes. But one person’s opinion was no indication of everyone’s; in Paris you always found a myriad divergent ones.

  “Her nose?” Monique carried a steaming plate to the table in the alcove. “What is it about her nose?”

  Disarm with charm.

  “My nose smells wonderful French cuisine,” said Noor. She took her seat in the alcove, opposite Renée’s abandoned solitaire.

  “I saw pictures of people who looked just like her at the Palais Berlitz last year.”

  Noor closed her eyes to say grace. Grace had returned to the family table in London once Uncle Tajuddin was back in India and could no longer protest the prayer as un-Islamic. The ritual touched Noor deeply during food shortages and whenever sharp hunger reminded her of the famine-hungry in India.

  Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty …

  She left out “through Christ Our lord,” ending with a mental Ameen.

  “You went to the Exposition?” Émile was saying to Renée in a disbelieving tone.

  “Oui, oui. I took Babette so she could see it too.”

  Noor opened her eyes. “Which exposition?”

  “They went to Le Juif et la France,” said Monique.

  “Non, Renée,” Émile was remonstrating.

  “Sometimes London sends you Jews,” said Renée. “Don’t they realize how dangerous that is for you? And she rode in the yellow-star carriage. The Gestapo may already think we are hiding an unregistered Jew.”

  “The Gestapo may think? Gestapo men do not think!”

  “Believe me, Émile, she has put us all in danger.”

  Soothe her—this is her house. And it’s almost curfew—where can you go?

  “I am not Jewish,” said Noor. “And no one followed me here.”

  Why would they? A nursemaid visiting Paris to see her aunt. Only the truly egocentric believe they are so important.

  She glanced at her plate—a pink, spongy slice of canned something on toasted black bread, and boiled vegetables. She took a bite of the vegetables. Delicious.

  “Then what are you?” Renée fired at her. “You don’t look French. You look different, somehow.”

  The expression on Émile’s face pleaded for Noor to exonerate herself. Monique seemed more dismayed by Renée’s discourtesy to a guest than concerned by the question of Noor’s heritage.

  What was she? The one question for which Noor didn’t have a ready answer. Should she tell Renée the olive tone of her skin and the shape of her nose were East Indian and American, but not Jewish? But that would only increase the distance between Noor and Armand. It might also make Renée more uncomfortable; African Muslims were familiar to the French, but Indians might be far from her experience. Renée probably hadn’t travelled much, probably considered Paris the cultural pinnacle of the world. She seemed already confused between religion and race; supplying details of many allegiances would only confuse her further.

  “I am French enough,” said Noor. “I lived here most of my life. And I am also British enough—the combination is common.”

  “Most of your life!” Monique smiled, striving for levity. “You look about twenty-one.”

  “I’m twenty-nine,” said Noor with droll dignity.

  “We care little about origins and ages,” Émile said. “What is important, Anne-Marie, is what we can do to defeat the Germans.”

  “You’re a métèque.“ Renée used the street term for a mixed breed.

  “Hush, Renée!” said Émile.

  The Resistance needed a radio operator; here she was—tired from walking all day, hungry, but very willing to work, even if she was a métèque or some other questionable thing. But there was no denying her hybridity, so Noor said only, “My transmitters will arrive soon.”

  “I will take you to meet Prosper the day after tomorrow,” said Émile. “My headquarters is in Le Mans and I stay here with Renée when in Paris. All you need to know is I’m an engineer with the Société Électrochimie. I will call you Anne-Marie from now on.”

  “You live under your own name?”

  “It is only you British whose names don’t sound French,” sai
d Émile with a teasing smile. “I don’t need a cover name. But of course in messages and transmissions I am Phono.”

  Renée stood abruptly and returned to the kitchen. Through the open door Noor saw her place a wooden crate on the table and begin filling it—socks, a scarf, glass jars of jam, chocolate, even bread.

  Noor had finished the vegetables. Delicately, she pulled the bread from under the pink sponge and continued eating.

  “My sister is sometimes hasty, Anne-Marie,” said Émile in a low voice. “Never unkind, but hasty. Her husband …” He glanced at Monique.

  “Her husband, Guy, is a prisoner of war in Germany,” Monique supplied. “Renée is so alone. How she worries. I help with Babette, after my work, but each day is exhausting for her and she cannot sleep at night. Guy is allowed only two parcels a month and two letters—not really letters, small postcards.”

  Noor’s empathy came naturally, for she too had written letters and sent parcels to Armand on the front during the year-long Drôle de Guerre, the “Funny War” of ‘39, and longed for him since the Battle of France. In London she had written him many letters in the last three years, but they remained unposted—she did not know a destination. Two postcards from Armand, each with no return address. Oh, for just a glimpse of him, some reassurance! Renée would never know how much she and Noor had in common.

  “So many Jews have also become prisoners of war since 1940,” Noor observed. “I’m sure Renée is sympathetic.”

  “Mais oui, Anne-Marie!” said Monique. “All of us are sympathetic—it is much worse for them. But what can be done? Every day more Jews are hunted down and rounded up and held in camps. Not POW camps but Jew camps. Émile, how long has it been since the mass roundup at the Vél’ d’Hiv’?”

  “A year, perhaps?” said Émile.

  “And another huge roundup last February. Many are in hiding now,” continued Monique. “I work in the Hôtel de Ville, in the office that issues identification cards and ration books. When possible I bring home blank ones for the Jews, for British airmen, for French boys trying to hide from the STO, and for people like you. But you cannot believe what is happening till you have seen Vichy gendarmes breaking into homes, taking old Jewish men, mothers and children, and forcing them onto TCRF buses.”