J. Janes - Hunting Ground

Throwing a shoulder against that door, I yelled for her again. Suddenly, it was flung open, and as some boys leaped aside, I ran the length of that courtyard and darted into the open doorway. The concierge looked out from her loge and started to object, but the Himalayas of those stairs were almost more than I can manage. One flight, two flights, round and round, me knowing they were after me now, that they wouldn’t stop until they had me, and never mind the child that was inside me. I had to get to Nini before they did, but there was no one in her room, and my heart was hammering so hard it was going to burst.

The washroom was at the far end of the corridor, and I made a bolt for it, had to hide, but knew it was of no use, for the mirror was still there on that wall in its cheap frame, cracked like all such mirrors, and I saw myself breathlessly saying, ‘Nini … chérie, it’s finished for us!’

That door opened. ‘Lily, what’s the matter?’

‘The street. The Boche . There were none of them until I began to run.’

There, I’ve confessed that, too. I broke. I panicked.

She grabbed me by the hand, and we raced back to that room of hers. Parting the cheap lace curtains, she glanced down at the street and said only, ‘We’ll have to go over the top.’

‘I can’t, Nini! I’m five-and-a-half months.’

‘Idiote!’

A whistle shrilled, the first of several, but all too soon there was the sound of motorcycles and the squeal of brakes, the cries of ‘Raus! Raus!’ the hammering of hobnailed boots and bashing of rifle butts.

Dragging a small suitcase from under the bed, she flung a few things into it, and as we reached the head of the stairs and I looked down, that spiral came rushing up at me. ‘Go down,’ she said.

‘Nini, I can’t!’

‘Carry your coat and hide that hat. Act naturally. Bluff it!’

Give her time to get away.

Two German corporals were going from door to door, bashing them in and yelling for everyone to get out, but they were still on the first floor, and some of the tenants were leaning over the railing like I was, wondering what to do. But the child gave a lurch, a tear that caused me to grip my middle and wonder if the baby had dropped. ‘Nini … Nini, I love you. Bonne chance. ’

‘The Jardin du Luxembourg, but watch your back,’ she said as we briefly embraced. ‘I’ll see you later.’

I started down. For me, it was the most difficult thing I’d ever had to do. Schiller and Dupuis would be waiting for me, one at each end of the street. My coat was over an arm, my hat hidden. When I reached a woman with two small children hurrying out of a fourth-floor flat, I heard one of them asking where they were going, and I took that little girl’s hand in mine, smiled at the mother and said, ‘To see the puppets, n’est-ce pas ?’ It was a last desperate gamble, a prayer.

The street had been cordoned off, and there was a wall of German soldiers at either end of the sector they’d chosen for the house-to-house, and as we walked towards the nearest, we did so uphill, until a Feldwebel’s unfeeling eyes searched mine and I heard myself asking, as if of the weather, ‘What’s the trouble, Officer?’ and I couldn’t understand the person who had said that. I couldn’t! It was like I was two entirely different people.

He shook his head, tore the papers from my hand, looked at the two children, at their mother, and thrust my papers back at me.

I thought I was going to have the baby right there, but they were looking for someone else.

It took me a good hour or more to shake those who were tailing me and get to the Jardin du Luxembourg. I remember that the ribbon of the Légion d’honneur was pinned to the old man’s blazer and that he rented toy sailing boats with a defiance that was admirable, for he refused all German requests. Instead, children vied with their parents for them as the statues of the queens of France looked down from their terraced heights.

Among the plane trees around the Fontaine Médicis, lovers sat on stiff-backed benches holding hands and doing other things, though kissing in public was still illegal, as was dancing, and considered an offence to all our boys who were locked up as POWs in the Reich.

Lots of people were about, even though the afternoon, now late, was grey and cold. The puppets fought, as they always did. Out on the rue de Médicis, a calliope played while roasted chestnuts were sold near that gate and the trade was brisk. Around me, there were German officers and other ranks, most of them with their Parisiennes . Strolling flics were about, Gestapo gumshoes also, French ones too, and collabos , maybe even a few black-market dealers, but I saw no sign of my sister. Perhaps she’d not been able to make it. This I couldn’t bear to think, and with hands in the pockets of my coat, I started for the palais , only to remember that the Luftwaffe had taken it over and that it was not permitted to go near it.

But suddenly, I felt her slip an arm through mine, and she gave it a squeeze, was breathless, and said, ‘So you got through it, eh, but me … Ah, I didn’t think you would, but am sorry to have kept you waiting. Were you apprehensive about me?’

‘How long have you been living like this?’

‘Long enough. Look, it doesn’t matter. One lives the way one has to.’

It was an old argument. ‘Is everything set for tonight?’ I asked.

‘Yes, of course, but we have to talk, just you and me. With that thing inside you, it’s impossible. You do understand?’

We were near the greenhouses and the school of mines at the back of the gardens. ‘What, exactly, is it that you want to say?’

‘Schiller and Dupuis will guess who the father is, so what’s the sense of your hanging on to it? You’ll only have the child in prison. It’ll die anyways.’

‘But …’

‘Look, I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to live with the lie of your illness. A tumour, Lily. Cancer of the womb. André has agreed, under duress of course, since he’s holier than the holy, but has finally seen the sense of what I’ve told him at that office of his.’

Me, I couldn’t believe what was happening and finally blurted, ‘But what am I to do about the children, the house, my rabbits, the chickens, and the potatoes I still have to lift?’

Anything but what I really wanted to say, but it was Nini who insists. ‘Go and see Jules at the Jeu de Paume. Tell him you haven’t been feeling well and that you’re afraid it might be bad news.’

‘He won’t care, why should he? Besides, the children already know I’m expecting and that it’s Tommy’s child.’

‘Must you confide everything in them?’

‘One has to trust if one is to gain their loyalty.’

‘Schiller must see you talking to Jules. He must be made to think …’

I pulled her round to face me. ‘What?’ I demanded.

Nini never backed off when cornered. ‘Why do you think Schiller and Dupuis have left you at the house? They hope you’ll lead them to us. We were just lucky that the rafle in my street happened at the same time and that they didn’t know about it.’

‘But they know where you live. They can pick you up at any time. And Michèle and Henri-Philippe.’

Again, there was a look in her dark eyes that I’d never seen before, and I wondered if that was what the Occupation had done to her.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you because I must. There’s to be another big auction next Wednesday. Göring’s flying in for it. Schiller must think we’re going to try to knock it off, so we keep him thinking that. You go to see Jules, and Schiller sees you with him, and it all makes sense-you’re sizing things up for us, and he thinks he can use that stuff to bait the trap while we go off to blow up some other trains. It’s neat, Lily. Only, you absolutely have to have that tumour removed. You’ll be away from it all. He can’t connect you with any of it, and we’re safe as well.’