Chapter Text
“We with divided heritage see either side,
Involuntary spies who are upheld by pride”
Marion Strobel – Involuntary Spies
Early 1942, London
The train was only half-full so I managed to get a seat at the back of the carriage. I caught the Piccadilly Line every day to go to work, if what I did at the Ministry of Information could be called that.
I briefly saw my reflection in the filthy window pane, before we entered a tunnel: I looked tired, which was hardly exceptional.
I must have said something, because the man sitting opposite me lowered his newspaper and cast me a bemused look.
“That bad, is it?” he asked, chuckling.
He was about my age – late twenties – with dark hair and expressive grey eyes.
“I didn’t mean to bother you,” I replied, but he shook his head and smiled warmly.
“A distraction from this,” he said, indicating the broadsheet he’d been reading, “Is always welcome. Peter Gregory,” he offered me his hand to shake.
I introduced myself and asked him whether he was on leave.
“I am a test pilot,” he explained. “My latest bit of equipment was a death trap called Hurricane. Heard of it?”
“Vaguely,” I said, “Are you allowed to talk about it?”
He grinned. “Careless talk costs lives,” he quoted. “Did you come up with this slogan?”
“No, but I know the man who did.” Before he could question me further, I added, “My lips are sealed.”
Gregory stole a glance at my mouth, and for some reason, that made me shiver.
“Perishing cold, isn’t it? Promise you won’t laugh if I tell you what I was wearing yesterday beneath my flying suit.”
“I’m not making any promises,” I said, wondering why I was feeling so carefree all of a sudden.
“I’ll take my chances,” he smirked and then counted the items of clothing on his fingers, “Roll-necked sweater, pyjamas, aircrew vest, long-johns.”
“You must have been sweating.”
“Colder than a witch’s tit”
We were silent for a moment, his eyes subtly interrogating mine.
The train ground to a halt.
“That’s my stop,” he said, and he quickly rummaged into the inside pocket of his coat, extracting a crumpled bit of paper from it. “Come to this party tomorrow night: nothing fancy, a literary gathering, but there will be drinks and music.”
I took the paper and looked at him, as he bundled up the newspaper, hat and scarf which he’d deposited on the seat next to his. He had already stepped on to the platform when he shouted: “Nice to meet you, Oliver.”
Home was a dilapidated flat near the Old Brompton Road: it was cramped and damp but at least I had it all to myself. It was an unwarranted luxury, considering the shortage of housing ever since the Blitz.
I wasn’t looking forward to a tepid bath and a dinner of kippers and gluey asparagus soup, but I never complained: my life was tedious but not half as dangerous as that of most men my age.
Arrhythmia, the doctor had said: a diagnosis that I had received with incredulity.
“That’s ridiculous,” I’d exclaimed. “I feel perfectly fine.”
At well over six foot and with a body-frame to match, I seldom fell ill and my only complaint was a spot of dizziness, now and then.
“That dizziness is one of the symptoms,” the doctor had explained. My heart was at no immediate risk but I would not be allowed to enlist.
My best friend, Luke Morris, who had been recruited from Oxford by section G, had been overjoyed.
“Come work with us,” he’d said, slapping me on the back. “Sir Dick is looking for someone just like you.”
“Tall, blond and devilishly handsome?” I’d joked.
“Vanity of vanities; all is vanity,” he’d quoted.
In the end, we’d reached a compromise: I was to be employed by the Ministry of Information and wait for my chance to shine and make my country proud.
My country: that was one rub.
Sally, the FANY I’d been seeing on and off for nearly a year, had thought at first that I was a German.
“You don’t look like one of us,” she’d said, “You’re too wholesome and your shoulders are too square.”
“My father was American,” I’d explained. “My mother left him when I was two and eloped with a French aristocrat.”
“I didn’t know they still had those. Didn’t they kill them all?”
“Not him, since he brought me up, in a manner of speaking.”
Sally had scrunched her nose and continued her third degree.
“Where did you live, in Paris?”
I told her that we’d settled in Poitiers for a few years until my mother had grown tired of Jean-Philippe and had taken up with an English country squire whose estate was in Norfolk.
“He insisted on marrying her and adopting me, so here I am, a man without a country, a virtual citizen of nowhere.”
She’d laughed. “Stuff and nonsense; you belong here, same as me.”
It was her warmth and generosity that I’d been attracted to, since physically I’d never felt anything other than fondness; not for her or any other woman.
And there was the second rub: my relationship with women.
During my globe-trotting childhood, I had been too worried about making new friends and adapting to every new environment than I'd cared about girls.
The schools had all been same-sex establishments and it was only at Cambridge that I had my first taste of the other side of the moon. Not that I’d yet had a taste of anything else: I was shy and oddly uninterested in carnal intercourse.
That era ended abruptly one night during a boozy party at the digs of one of the older students: I got drunk on champagne and slow-danced with Derwent, a slip of a boy with a talented mouth and deft fingers. After him, I’d been so ashamed of myself I’d not tried again for a long time. I went out with girls, I slept with a handful of them, but they did not scratch that particular itch.
The next man I had was a casual encounter and that left me even more depressed; I was also afraid, since I’d heard about chemical castration and the horrors that derived from it.
In conclusion, I was an unfulfilled man, both in my public and private life. That maybe explains why I decided to accept the invitation of a man I’d just met on a train, a virtual stranger.
****
Summer 1942, Lavaurette
The boy was sitting on the steps outside his house and he was sobbing.
He must not be older than six, seven at most, I thought. On the front door someone had painted a yellow star and dribbles of paint ran from the diagonal lines. I clenched my fists and took a deep, calming breath.
“What is your name?” I asked.
“Julien Duguay,” he choked out, “I want maman. Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Let’s see if we can find her, alright?”
The child sniffled and rubbed at his eyes with his small, grimy fist.
There was a paper bag with eggs and candles on his lap, and those meagre possessions made my heart ache; I smiled at him, trying to reassure him that everything was going to be fine.
“My name is Elio,” I said, “I’ll look after you.”
“But where is she?” he kept asking, as we walked towards the hôtel de ville.
I held his hand tightly and his tears subsided.
The waiting room of the hôtel de ville was filled with people waiting to speak to the disgruntled clerk. I forced my way to the front of the queue, uncaring of the angry protests and remonstrations.
“I apologise, Monsieur, but the boy is very upset, as you can see...”
“Very sorry, Madame, but it’s not for me, it’s for this child...”
In the end, I elbowed the woman to one side and took the clerk by the arm, pulling him forwards.
“This child was sitting outside his house and says his parents have disappeared. Someone’s painted a Star of David on the front door: what’s going on?”
The clerk glared at me and tried to shake me off.
“Let go of me,” he hissed.
I released Julien’s hand so that I could grab the man more tightly.
“You heard what I said. Tell me what’s going on. I heard about the extra trains at the station.”
The clerk was red-faced and his glasses had slid down his nose.
“I don’t know anything about trains. You better go to the police.”
I pulled him closer and said, lowering my voice, “you know and you won’t tell me, but I’ll find out one way or another.”
I shoved him away from me, reached for Julien’s hand and made my way through the same wrathful crowd.
The gendarmerie was on the other side of the village, past a courtyard where elderly men played boules.
We went through the double doors into a large anteroom. I rang the bell on the desk and a familiar face answered my call for help.
Bernard, a paunchy middle-aged gendarme, shook my hand and asked me what had brought me there. I explained about Julien and immediately I realised that Bernard felt guilty about something. He went through the motions of picking up and checking some papers from the ledge below the counter.
“Duguay, you said, hmm, yes, here. It was an order from high up.”
“I figured as much,” I said, “But tell me what happened.”
Bernard scratched his head and looked down at Julien.
“Listen, Perlman,” he coughed. “Why don’t you leave the boy here for a minute and come into my office?”
Julien’s face was streaked with dried tears and his eyes were wide with fear.
I leaned down and caressed his cheek. “I’ll be back in a minute, stay here.”
“The Vichy police came here, those bastards,” Bernard exclaimed, as he lit a cigarette. “Don’t get me wrong: I like the Marshal, but what can he do? He has no choice. These officers had a list of people in the region.”
“Jews,” I asked, biting the inside of my cheek.
He nodded. “We don’t have any new immigrants here; it’s not like Paris or Clermont. I had no idea the Duguay weren’t French; I always see them in church. But this train came from the south, Agen or somewhere, and they had to be on it.”
“What special train? Where was it going?”
He flinched and could not hold my gaze.
“You must have heard what happened in Paris: how they were rounded up and taken to a refugee camp.”
I said nothing, waited.
“Look, I only do what I am told; I’m just doing my job.”
I stared at him.
“You did it yourself, didn’t you? You arrested them.”
When he replied, his voice was shaking.
“I had to do it, it is the law. I couldn’t do otherwise or they would have got another gendarme to do it.”
“Why didn’t you take the children?”
“I couldn’t find them,” he replied, stubbing the cigarette out, furiously. “The one you’ve got must have been out and the younger one I couldn’t find.”
“But he must be three or four,” I said, “His mother wouldn’t have left him on his own.”
Bernard offered me a cigarette but I declined.
“I wonder where he is now, this other child,” I said, watching him closely. “And would you arrest him and put him on a train too?”
“You are a difficult bastard aren’t you, Perlman?” the gendarme exploded. “The thing is, we were going to be late for the train; the mother was sobbing and the father was imploring me to do something, so I pushed the little boy into the cellar and locked the door.”
Bernard was trembling and I felt faint with disgust.
“Give me the key and I’ll say nothing of what’s passed between us,” I said, quietly. “In return, you’ll pretend you’ve never found the children.”
He nodded, opened a drawer, pulled out the key and handed it to me.
I strode out, while his voice rang in my ears. “It’s not my fault, I didn’t want to do it, but I have to think of my family before I worry about any Jews or anyone.”
Did he realise he was talking to one of them, I wondered.
Julien was still sitting on the chair and his eyes lit up when he saw me.
“Let’s go find your brother,” I said, and took his hand in mine.