The Tiger Claw Read online

  Allah! Were Armand and his mother arrested like that?

  The last postcard from Drancy. The blackened lines. Had Armand been subjected to such terrible treatment?

  Could she ask Émile or Monique for directions to Drancy? Could she ask anyone? Anne-Marie Régnier couldn’t go to a train station and ask for a ticket to Drancy unless she knew where it was and had thought up an acceptable reason to go there.

  Could she go there? Could she meet Armand, send him parcels as Renée was doing? Patience! Her hosts were still strangers. Armand was her secret, the secret she’d kept from family and friends alike. After Renée’s comments she couldn’t confide she was looking for a Jewish man, a dearly beloved Jewish man, and his mother.

  Twenty-four hours of involuntary fasting had left her ravenous, but she toyed with the pink sliver on her plate. Was it pork? She shouldn’t ask if it was pork.

  Ask more questions. Sound merely curious.

  “Where do they take them?”

  “To camps in France—Compiègne, Pithiviers, Drancy. Places of misery. Then, if one can believe what one reads in Combat and Libération—and I do—many are being sent east by train, some say to be resettled, some say to work.”

  “What if they refuse to wear the star?” she asked.

  “It’s true, some have escaped by not registering. They live among us,” said Monique. “We remain silent—that is the best we can do for them.”

  Armand wouldn’t have registered as required by Vichy law; he had an artist’s wariness of edicts. Besides, he knew stories told by his refugee cousins and by students to whom he taught French at the Alliance Française. Yes, Armand and Madame Lydia would have relied on the silence of friends—that is, until someone they had relied on turned them in.

  “With what are they charged?”

  “Rien! Absolutely nothing. Yesterday, I was at a tailor’s shop and a man was arrested because a book he was carrying covered his yellow star. And the day before, I saw a Jewish woman arrested for shopping at 15:00 hours rather than 16:00 hours,” said Émile. “Surely they know of these crimes in London?”

  Noor had heard rumours, read newspapers and seen French POWs in newsreels, but all rhetoric was passionate propaganda in England, as elsewhere. How could one know what to believe? Knowledge and power—they were inextricable. Hadn’t English newspapers suppressed counter-knowledge of famine reports from British India? Meanwhile, they had published the fictions of India’s British district collectors as news. But she had heard tales from escaped POWs at Piccadilly’s Café de Paris, or from downed airmen of the RAF who’d escaped out of Marseilles, Le Havre or Spain—tales of repression and mass executions of dissenters, and of unprinted and unprintable German savagery.

  For the sake of her own hope she had not wanted, still didn’t want, to believe.

  Noor’s appetite suddenly vanished. Émile’s words might apply to Armand. But she would not curb hope on her day of arrival.

  Trust Armand. He’s a resourceful man with many friends.

  Renée returned. What was she looking at? Noor followed her gaze to the small pink tongue left on her plate.

  Challenge sparked in Renée’s eyes. Plainly, a test lay on the plate before Noor.

  It’s ham. Eat the ham.

  With every disgusting morsel that passed her mouth, she felt Renée relax a little. By the end of the evening the older woman was almost civil.

  Flowered curtains drawn tight for blackout, two beds, a dresser and a small cot where a dark-haired little girl lay fast asleep on her side, an arm thrown round a china-faced doll.

  “Renée could rent out the other room and get three hundred francs a month for it,” said Monique. “But she keeps it like a shrine waiting for Guy, and sleeps here in Babette’s room. You’ll sleep here too.”

  “It’s difficult for her, I’m sure,” said Noor. How many sleepless nights had she spent, thinking of Armand?

  “Babette is just nine,” whispered Monique, “but so intelligent. Émile is her godfather and like a father to her now. It’s three years since she saw her own—she loves him very much.”

  “And you, I’m sure,” said Noor.

  “Of course. I bring her boiled bonbons—one needs no ration tickets for those. She says she’ll love me more when I am her tata.”

  “And when will you be her aunt?”

  “It was to be three years ago, after Émile was demobilized. Pétain said the war was over. But after the armistice, Émile said the war will be over only when the Germans are defeated, and I agreed we should postpone our wedding. But this year, on Palm Sunday, I said to Émile, I said: ‘Émile, if we wait for the whole world to be at peace, we’ll never marry. We don’t know how long it will take to defeat the Germans. We should marry immediately and continue fighting together.’ We have registered our intentions now. We’ll be married on the thirtieth of June.”

  Cool slim fingers touched Noor’s, and Noor sighed over each facet of Monique’s briolette cut diamond. Armand had offered her a ring many times.

  I could have been with Armand now. We too could be fighting together.

  “Émile says I’m too young for him, but often I think I am the elder. Our old friends don’t come to visit us any more. One’s circle shrinks to those one can trust, non?—those who are committed, who cannot suffer by associating with us. And you—you have family in France?”

  “No.”

  “Bon! You’ll be freer to act. You are married? Non? Then you have a fiancé?”

  “Yes.” Noor’s face warmed. “At least, I think so. I hope so.”

  “Is the gentleman here in Paris?” Monique’s whisper had turned arch.

  With Jews being treated as Monique had described, she couldn’t say anything close to the truth.

  “Oh, no,” she said, adding vaguely, “overseas.” Most young Englishmen, Frenchmen and many Indians were in the armed forces; why not a mythical fiancé?

  There was a pause, then Monique whispered as if she understood the need for secrecy. “It is very difficult to be separated, even for a few weeks. But your presence cheers me, Anne-Marie. It means we are not forgotten, it means liberation will come.”

  “When did you begin working against the Germans?” asked Noor.

  “‘The work’ as we say? Just after I saw the Boche march down the Champs-Elysées.” Monique pulled open dresser drawers. “Not that much was possible then. Émile made leaflets, I made a few forgeries—I’m considered quite an artiste! Then last year I was ordered, along with the other women who work at the Hôtel de Ville, to the Préfecture to work on a card index file. Each card—and there were 27,400 of them—had to be duplicated and sent to Gestapo headquarters. All were foreign-born Jews. We worked for three days.”

  Noor swallowed, found her mouth dry. If Armand hadn’t made evacuation arrangements for Madame Lydia to go south right away in 1940, both might have been arrested and taken to the Vél’ d’Hiv’ last year. Armand was born in France—but could the Germans redefine him as foreign? Madame Lydia was foreign-born, Russian. To be Russian and Jewish today in occupied France was ten times worse than being British.

  “I came home and I said to Émile, I said: ‘Émile, the Boche are going to do something terrible.’ And they did, with the help of our own gendarmes. It took them a week to arrest fifteen thousand people—all Jews—and they crowded about seven thousand into the stadium with no food or water. I know because it took five of us to count and sort their cards. We still call it the Grand Rafle.”

  No food or water for so many! The card from Armand was dated April ‘43, so Armand and Madame Lydia had been arrested after the Grand Rafle. There must have been similar rafles in other cities. Or they could have been arrested individually. Which was worse?

  “We tried to warn those we could the night before, but some don’t speak French or, if they do, speak with accents. Most had no relatives in France. Where were they to flee overnight? Germany, Italy, over the Pyrenees or the Alps? The newspapers said they were all cri
minals and black marketeers—c’est impossible! Are we so stupid to believe that? Then why have they not been charged or tried? The chief of my department at the Hôtel de Ville calls it ‘preventive detention’—c’est incroyable! Today the Jews are persecuted, and tomorrow we’ll all be enslaved.”

  So obvious it didn’t require comment, but it wasn’t obvious to most Europeans. Monique’s “we” meant France, but her words brought to mind the news buzzing through London’s expatriate Indian community. Dadijaan’s Urdu newspapers said the number of Indians gaoled in the past year of civil disobedience against the British Raj had risen to thirty-six thousand. Arrests and persecutions were continuing daily in every city. Those arrested had the comfort of knowing they were active protesters against the Occupation of India and, to her knowledge, their ranks didn’t include children. But they were no less in gaol, without trial, and still wasting away there like her poor Armand and Madame Lydia. And without breadwinners their families had to survive on savings and charity, and the Brits knew it. Such repression and persecution had been carried out by Europeans with impunity for centuries in the East, but never had it happened in Europe. Had a karmic madness afflicted the continent?

  “Can we help them in any way?” she whispered to Monique.

  Monique pulled open another drawer, wincing as it creaked, but Babette didn’t stir.

  “Renée said we could bring our friends here and do the work so long as we don’t bring any Jews or Communists. We wouldn’t anyway—it is too dangerous to show interest in Drancy or Compiègne or any of the camps. It might attract attention of the Germans to this safe house, to the entire network. And there are Resistance groups working to help Jews. In fact, they have their own organization, the UGIF. They look after the children when the parents are deported.” Another drawer scraped open. “Attendez un peu! I’m looking for a nightgown for you. I keep a few old clothes of my own here, for escapees and people like you.

  “Anyway,” Monique continued, rummaging through the clothes, “Émile was so shocked after that roundup, he contacted someone in London and said he was an expert in explosives. He didn’t know anything about making bombs, only firing them, but he was in the military and an electrical engineer, so he bought books, went every day to the Bibliothèque Nationale and learned quickly. He even taught me!” She gave a bell-like laugh. “There should be a nightgown right here. Renée keeps every cushion and curtain in place, whereas I—Voilà! You’re lucky we are about the same size. By the way, you’re wearing a well-cut skirt—it’s reversible? Maybe I can borrow it sometime to copy the pattern?”

  She held up a gilt-edged red book: Mein Kampf, the French edition. “And look what else I found—a ‘present for newlyweds.’ From the German army, when we registered to get married. A present, but we had to pay for it!”

  Monique’s shoulders shook with repressed laughter at the old practical joke, the same that France historically played on its colonies, Britain on India. The Germans were selling the French whatever they wanted sold. And the French had to buy.

  Babette stirred in her sleep; the china doll gazed unblinking at the ceiling. Noor put two fingers to smiling lips. Monique sobered. “You have a long way to go tomorrow, Anne-Marie. And it’s late—Émile will take me home before curfew.”

  In the bathroom adjoining Renée’s bedroom, Noor changed into her borrowed nightgown, washed, put on her headscarf and used the bath mat as a prayer rug. She wound her wristwatch, then got into bed and waited for Renée.

  If anyone had followed her from Le Mans, Gare Montparnasse or the last carriage of the métro, she would have been arrested by now. She wasn’t important enough to be followed—why would they bother?

  Even so, vigilance was essential; the Gestapo habit was to come in the middle of the night.

  But it had been such a long day. Let the Boche come knocking—she would deal with it then.

  Noor thumbed through the magazines on the nightstand between the beds by the light of an oil lamp. Pour Elle, a magazine full of airbrushed photos and articles suspiciously similar to the old Marie Claire. One called L’Illustration had rotogravure photos. And here was one she had never seen: Femmes de prisonniers. An article detailed what France’s million prisoners of war needed in Germany—tins of condensed milk, shoes, socks, soap, cigarettes, chocolate. Below it, an exhortation to wives of prisoners to keep themselves looking chic. On the next page a column of advice for wives who might have urges to be unfaithful, and in the middle of a column detailing how to refashion a jacket in these times of scarce fabric Noor fell asleep like a stone sinking into water.

  CHAPTER 10

  Pforzheim, Germany

  December 1943

  WHEN MONIQUE TOLD ME about the Grand Rafle, my heart flooded with anger against the Germans who held Armand and your grand-mère Lydia in their grasp. Anger was the emotion with which I was least familiar.

  When I was growing up, anger in a girl was almost haraam—forbidden. In its place I allowed myself to feel only hurt or sadness—cover-up feelings, the bomb shelters of the powerless. I never acknowledged my anger when Abbajaan left us in Paris and died soon after in India, when Uncle Tajuddin lectured on tolerance but would not tolerate my marrying Armand, or even when I could not become your mother, ma petite—you who would be little Babette’s age now.

  But this time, when anger appeared on behalf of my beloved, I found my hands trembling with it, could even name it. Every moment of anger I should have spread over the years seemed to meet and knot inside me.

  In the years before the war I was, like everyone in France, all acquiescence and conciliation and non-aggression. I admired Monsieur Gandhi, whose non-violence was shaming the occupiers of India, for he spoke of brotherly love and said that differences between Hindus and Muslims will be honoured in a free India. With other followers of Sufism, I performed namaaz and zikr, meditating to heal the planet. We prayed for the miraculous enlightenment of Fascists everywhere—German and French, Hindu and Muslim. At the time, Monsieur Gandhi had not yet grown feeble from imprisonment, and the future of Muslims in a Hindudominated India still held promise. And the dictator in my family, Uncle Tajuddin, still quoted Abbajaan and Rumi.

  But where did conciliation and appeasement lead? First to losing you, ma petite, then to losing the one man worth calling husband.

  And so, my first night back in Paris, I swore to Allah: I resist all tyranny. Know this, little one, when your spirit returns from hiding in Al-ghayab, the great beyond. Say no to all oppression, whether it rise from those you love or from an enemy, for the shame and self-hatred your mother carries for not resisting when I was younger are worse by far.

  It was now too late for doubts. If I had wanted to be protected from the consequences of love and anger, from risk of pain and death, I could have stayed in London, remained a nurse or become a chauffeur in Fany, and no one would have said I hadn’t done my part for this war.

  Abbajaan said the Sufi trusts his intuition, following it where logic cannot go. He said life’s events lead you to encounter your nafs, your base self, and you must surmount it to find your true self.

  So I held my anger close that night, and by morning it had turned to renewed resolve: I would reach Armand and tell him to have faith. We will be together again soon.

  CHAPTER 11

  Paris, France

  Thursday, June 17, 1943

  NEXT MORNING, Noor closed the door to the safe house behind her. Seven o’clock Berlin time, but a hesitant rose dawn was breaking over the grey roofs of Paris.

  It must have been dark when Émile departed an hour ago. Their destinations were the same, but caution prescribed she leave and travel separately.

  “Take this bag,” Renée said to him. “If by some miracle you find sugar, milk or butter …”

  Émile promised Renée he’d return with fresh eggs.

  Once Émile was gone, Renée served Noor a vile-tasting ersatz coffee and day-old croissants while aiming a stream of admonitions at Babette. “Ne m
ets pas les coudes sur la table!” and Babette took her elbows off the table. “Tais-toi!” silenced Babette’s shy stirring of conversation with Noor.

  “Take the blue dress from the cupboard. Her socks are in that drawer. Give me the hairbrush,” she said.

  Noor’s cover story about being a nursemaid seemed to have come true.

  Though habituated to orders from officers, the implicit contempt in Renée’s voice irked her. That haughty tone was reserved by Dadijaan for servants in India, and by Mother for the maids in Suresnes, but it went unused in London, where war afforded no such luxuries.

  She was unlikely to meet Renée often during her three weeks in Paris, so there wasn’t much reason to object. Instead, as Renée sat before a mirror applying powder, Noor perched on the bed and peered into a jar full of doryphores, green locusts Babette had collected on a school outing. They plagued the crops, and the Germans enlisted schoolchildren to kill them.

  Was it a sin, Babette asked, to kill the pretty creatures she’d captured? Noor said what she believed: every being deserved life unless it harmed another. That remark drew a snort from Renée. Noor moved on to comfort Babette over a page in her sketchbook where the big-eared, smiling Mickey she had drawn had been defaced with a big black X. The words “degenerate art” appeared below. Babette began to read a homework essay she’d written in her copybook: “Our führer is Adolf Hitler. He was born in Braunau. He is a great soldier who loves children and animals …”

  Noor was tempted to recite a La Fontaine fable in response, if only to ensure Babette would learn something French, something of her own heritage that would be more helpful in life than the biography of Adolf Hitler. But would a fable recited in school be grounds for punishment? German repression went beyond British disparagement and suppression of the indigenous in India, or French disparagement of Muslim traditions.