The Paris Agent(81)
C H A P T E R 20
JOSIE
Paris, France
May, 1944
In training, they taught us that if we were tortured, the first fifteen minutes would be the worst. If we could survive that without our tongues loosening, we could survive anything.
They did give us some terrible advice in that training, but this was among the worst.
I lay on the floor of my cell at 84 Avenue Foch, dazed and confused after another day of torture and interrogation. Was this day two or three? No, it had been longer. Maybe this was day four or five.
Two of my toenails had been removed. One of my molars was cracked, and I suspect that several of my toes were broken too—one of the interrogating offices kept stomping on my feet in his jackboots. I suspected I had some broken ribs. My lungs were angry and inflamed after hours of water torture.
The worst of it was that they already knew so much about the SOE. They knew where I had trained, they knew about Maxwell and Booth and Elwood, they even knew that initial interviews were being conducted in the Northumberland Hotel. I wasn’t tortured and interrogated because I knew anything that those men did not know—after all, it was certain now that my circuit leader was working with them, and likely had been for some time. This was never an exercise in information gathering, as much as they made a show of demanding I answer particular questions. I knew, from the very first blow, that this was an exercise in revenge.
The hours of misery since my arrest had collapsed into one confusing medley of memories that ran together, but one stood out from the blur: Gerard Turner, sitting opposite me as I slumped on a chair, my hands cuffed behind the backrest, bleeding and beaten down and exhausted.
“I’m trying to get you out of here,” he whispered hoarsely. “You weren’t supposed to be at her house that night. You told me you were meeting her before curfew to hand over the transmission. She was tailing me! I had no choice about her. But you?” I stared at him, seething with hatred, but I did not answer. It was a bizarre thing to see grief and shame and remorse in the eyes of the man who had, ultimately, condemned me to such suffering. His voice broke as he finished miserably, “I was trying to protect you. You were never meant to get caught up in this!”
“I thought you were a good man,” I blurted then, as tears of disappointment and pain filled my eyes. My lips were swollen, a heavy lisp in the sounds because of my injured teeth.
“I made one bad decision in 1941. My father’s business was going under.”
“You took money from them,” I croaked, stunned.
“I was desperate, and at first, they only asked me to pass them low-level intelligence—details that didn’t even seem important. But as soon as I took that money I was trapped, and they’ve demanded more and more from me over the years…” His eyes swam as he stared at the table. “Every time I think I’ve found a way out, there’s something more, but it’s not my fault. I had no idea what I was signing up for. You have to believe me, Josie.”
“Mr. Turn—” I broke off, then squeezed my swollen eyes closed, the disappointment almost overwhelming me. But then I felt a sudden surge of fury and I opened my eyes and I stared at him as I said fiercely, “Gerard. There is no circumstance on earth that could justify the things you’ve done. If you have a shred of moral courage, you’ll contact London. Turn yourself in.”
“It’s too late for that,” he said dully, but then the door opened, and an SS officer was there—Schulte, the one who liked to stomp on my toes. I cowered in spite of myself, but Schulte only told Turner that his time was up and he had to leave.
“I’ll try to come back,” Turner said. I wanted to tell him not to bother, but my entire body had frozen at the sight of Schulte, my throat so tight I could not force the words out.
I didn’t see Turner again after that, but I saw plenty of Schulte and his kind.
“Do you know what a Nacht und Nebel prisoner is?” he spat at me during one interrogation. “We will disappear you. There will be no trace of you left behind when all of this is over—no paperwork or body for anyone to find, no sympathetic witnesses to your fate. Did you think you were suffering for something? You aren’t. The war is all but over, and the Reich will be the victor.”
In that moment, all I could think about was the last time I spoke to Maman, and everything left unresolved from that day that might now forever remain unspoken. I had to believe Fleur had managed to convince Baker Street to break the rules and send my note to her. The thought of my mother and Aunt Quinn forever wondering what became of me hurt more than anything the Germans could ever do to my body.
I lay there on the floor that night, collapsed as much in despair as pain, and my bleary eyes fell upon a remarkable inscription on the wall, low and almost out of sight. It was a list of names—other people who’d passed through that cell, visible only to someone too weak and broken to hold themselves up.
A tiny nail rested where the wall met the floor. With my bloodied, swollen hands, I picked up that nail and marked my name at the bottom of the list, so that one day someone might remember that I had been there too.
I had done my best to make a difference. I had done my best to survive. If there was any justice in the world, that had to count for something.
I tried not to count the days. Time meant something different now, and I knew I would be more afraid if I understood how long my imprisonment had been. The physical torture stopped once I was moved to Pforzheim Prison, but the mental torture had only just begun. I was in my cell alone all of the time—each day punctuated only by the morning and nightly visits from unfriendly guards. I had no bed—just a simple wooden plank affixed to the wall, with a thin, dirty blanket to cover myself with. I had no toilet, only a metal bucket. I was still wearing the clothes I was arrested in. I was shackled at my hands and my feet.