The Tiger Claw (33 page)

Still, she repeated her question about baptismal certificates.

“You should tell Monsieur le Missionnaire not to bother,” said Gabrielle. “I pawned my gold cross to buy baptismal certificates for the children two weeks ago, but when I realized all they have
to do is check if my little nephew is circumcised and the certificate will be useless, I went and got my cross back.”

The same was true for Armand. He and Kabir had this in common, besides their similar avoidance of pork. The baptismal certificate was futile but attractive, a logical answer to an illogical situation.

“He said each baptismal certificate is worth its weight in gold, but it’s a good thing you got your cross back,” said Monsieur Durand. “When the guards see you wearing it, they don’t search your packages as much when you leave them at the camp post, oui?”

“Non, non, they search. But I hope it makes them treat my little darlings better. Oh, I didn’t mean …”

“Better than Jews, yes.”

“Anne-Marie, stop chewing your hair, you’re making me even more nervous!” Gabrielle deflected Monsieur Durand’s attention to Noor.

Startled, Noor looked at the end of her ponytail and realized she had indeed been chewing it. Her wristwatch said it was almost 18:00 hours.

“Can we do nothing more?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” said Gabrielle. “But I’m going now to deliver the parcel. If I see something or think of something …”

Noor and Monsieur Durand sat at Noor’s window, watching the camp, waiting.

Monsieur le Missionnaire did not return with the list that evening. Noor brought in chairs for Gabrielle and Monsieur Durand and sat watching the camp with them. As darkness fell, the perimeter lights flashed on, their beams shooting into the night sky.

Gabrielle cut Monsieur Durand’s tobacco ration cigarettes in half and re-rolled them. She smoked carefully, holding the smoke as long as she could, smoked them down as close as she could without burning her fingers. Noor found herself doing the same.

In a low voice Gabrielle told them her entire life story, showing no interest, thankfully, in Noor’s. Monsieur Durand held his cigarette between thumb and forefinger the way Indians smoked bidi-cigarettes to appease their hunger. By dawn Noor’s eyes and lungs were leaden, her attic room hazy grey as the dawn sky. Behind the lavatory door at the end of the corridor she turned the spigot and let her tears flow with the water.

What could they, what could
she
, do by watching the camp? Absolutely nothing. Then why did she, Monsieur Durand and Gabrielle watch all night? They needed to believe they were doing something. Perhaps they were there to comfort each other, especially Monsieur Durand; to have fourteen relatives in that camp was beyond understanding. What could Monsieur Durand’s father possibly do in a German factory at age eighty-one?

Crying was useless too. Noor dried her eyes and turned back.

The door to Monsieur Durand’s room was open, and both he and Gabrielle were crouched in the corner, looking into the wooden rabbit hutch.

There was nothing but straw in the cage. The rabbits were gone.

“But the cage is still locked,” said Gabrielle.

“Look in the lavatory—” Monsieur Durand’s voice was breaking.

“But the cage was locked,” repeated Gabrielle.

“Maybe they got into your room,” said Monsieur Durand to Noor.

“But I tell you, the cage door is not open.”

Repetition finally penetrated Monsieur Durand’s misery. He sat down heavily on the edge of his bed and said in a bewildered tone, “What do you mean, the cage is not open?” He made kissing sounds in the direction of the cage, but nothing moved.

Gabrielle sank to her knees, opened the cage door and reached in. She rummaged in the straw for a second, then let out a shriek. She drew back, wide-eyed, revulsion distorting her nose.

“What? What is it?”

Gabrielle was speechless. Noor had to see for herself.

A rabbit skin was almost plastered to the floor of the cage. The rabbit’s flesh had been sucked out of its body, leaving only the head and a scaffolding of bones under its skin. Blood, sinew, entrails—all drawn right out of the poor animal. Smell of decay already permeating straw.

Noor pushed more straw away. Another skin. Blood soaked the floor, bits of flesh.

And when she pushed the straw away for the third, she could see the marks, the gnawed hole in the floor of the cage where rats had attacked. The starving creatures had chewed through the floorboards.

Why had the three of them in the next room not heard the rats attacking the rabbits? Why had the rabbits not made some sound—cries, screams—whatever sounds of distress a rabbit can make? But they had, yes, they had. The cage was nicked and scraped by their desperate death throes. Would that they had had pliers to escape from their cage, but they had no such tools … And meanwhile she, Gabrielle and Monsieur Durand had been right there in the next room, eyes fixed on the camp, waiting for Monsieur le Missionnaire’s return.

Monsieur le Missionnaire! He would be expecting his rabbit, and there was now not a single rabbit left to give him: the rats had done the job neither he nor Monsieur Durand could bring themselves to do. Would Monsieur le Missionnaire give them the list now? Would he turn Monsieur Durand in to the Germans? No—he would see the distress in Monsieur Durand’s eyes. Monsieur Durand was sitting on his bed, tie undone, grey hair rising in tufts about roving fingers. Perhaps Monsieur le Missionnaire would accept more money and give them the list.

The drone of motors rose from the street below. Suddenly Noor abandoned the carcasses of the poor rabbits. She, Monsieur Durand and Gabrielle acted as one: they hurried to Noor’s room, crowded around the window again.

Buses were arriving at Drancy, the open gates of the internment camp sucking them in one after another like pastilles. More and more buses, like green locusts descending on the camp. Noor, now leaning from the attic window, could see that while they had been aghast at the fate of the rabbits, a roll call of prisoners had begun in the central courtyard. Women holding children in their arms, men shuffling forward, some leaning against each other for support, each clutching a suitcase or bag. She took out her binoculars, shared them with Gabrielle and Monsieur Durand in turn, but they couldn’t recognize a single face from this distance even if the light were brighter. Quink-coloured clouds hovered, threatening rain.

Noor ran downstairs with the others behind her, no longer caring if she was seen or by whom. Into the street she raced, past Madame Gagné standing on her front steps; into the street, just as a black Citroën with headlights on led the first bus from the gates. The roar of engines must have woken others in Drancy. Hundreds lined the avenue where the buses would pass on their way to Bobigny station. Some from curiosity. Some must be like herself—related to the inmates. Angry murmurs rose and fell, but there were no shouts of protest. It was an alliance of the helpless.

Noor’s fists and jaw clenched.

Allah, no, no! Not now, not when I am so close. Please, please, Allah, don’t take Armand away! Why did you bring me here only to send him away to Germany before my eyes?

Take someone else, Allah, not my Armand, not him, not him …

She was weeping, running after the first bus, sobbing, Gabrielle beside her. She’d seen a man at a window, a man who looked like Armand. No, there was Armand standing—no, there—crammed among the old men and boys.

No—there! There!

No—there!

Oh, where? Where?

“Armand, I’m here, look, look!”

Please, Allah, let me speak to him first. Let me tell him. Oh, tell him for me …

Then came the headlights of another crowded, lumbering bus and she began running beside it, looking, throat soon rasping, lungs gasping, legs beginning to drag. Gendarmes moved into the crowd with their batons. Gabrielle was howling.

Monsieur Durand was left far behind.

Was that Madame Lydia’s face? No, no.

White birds fluttered in the smeared windows—hands, large and small, waving.

A third bus thundered by, listing with the weight of its passengers, and she was running, running, but couldn’t keep up. Gabrielle was left behind.

Another bus, and another.

Suddenly there were more birds, grey birds, flying from the windows of the buses. Square birds that fluttered to the sidewalks, then skittered and blew like dry leaves.

Legs heavy as if wading through water. A biting pain entered her side, she stumbled, had to slow … walk … double over … stop.

Vision was liquid, spilling over. She looked up, fighting for breath, fists still clenched over emptiness. The sky was an inverted bowl moving impotently above. Houses and shops were shuttered all around. How could it be that the din and cries of prisoners leaving Drancy at this hour had disturbed no one along this road? Had the convoys become so familiar a sight?

On the pavement before her lay one of the grey birds. It was a letter. She picked it up as if it were injured.

Addressed in pencil, but not to her.

She had run all the way to the
tabac
. Closed this early in the morning. There was an old half-barrel to rest against till panic subsided and reason returned.

She hadn’t seen Armand. She hadn’t seen Madame Lydia.

She examined the address on the letter and put it in her pocket. She would post it, as a kind stranger had done for Armand—for her.

Noor walked back—a long way back—soft-boned, insides jangling.

Monsieur Durand was standing among the dwindled crowd by the camp gates. He stood empty-handed, looking very old. Gabrielle’s head leaned on his arm, she patted his hand. No letters in sight; they must have been scooped up and pocketed quickly.

“God will look after them,” Monsieur Durand said to Noor.

A blade pierced her side again.

“He saw his father, his wife … everybody,” whispered Gabrielle. “I didn’t see the children, thank God.”

The three began walking back to the boarding house.

“We did see Monsieur le Missionnaire,” she said to Noor. “He was on the last bus, poor man.”

“He’s a good man. God will look after him,” said Monsieur Durand. “And your husband, Mademoiselle Régnier?”

“I didn’t see my husband.”

Alhamdulillah
.

Self-loathing welled and Noor’s eyes dampened. How could she rejoice for Armand even as other prisoners were being sent to Germany? But then—had she missed Armand? Perhaps he had been on the far side of a bus.

Banish the thought. Believe your eyes, only your eyes. You didn’t see him. So he’s not gone, he’s still alive, he’s still in the camp
.

She joined Gabrielle in helping Monsieur Durand up the stairs. At their urging he lay down on the bed in Gabrielle’s room. Gabrielle kept up a steady stream of fantasy as comfort.

“Don’t worry. People in Germany live like kings—they take our wheat and coal there because they have to feed prisoners of war in the camps. Don’t worry, the Red Cross inspects German camps for foreigners—they can’t be all that bad.”

Noor contributed one too. “Remember the Geneva Convention. Please don’t worry …”

Gabrielle brought a bucket from Madame Gagné and water from the lavatory. Noor helped her clean, swab and scrub till all traces of the mauled rabbits were gone. Gabrielle took the skins away to sell, the cage to be repaired by Claude and the bones to bury in a flower bed. Then Noor led Monsieur Durand back to his room.

The problem struck her as she stood gazing at the camp again from her window. With Monsieur le Missionnaire gone, how could she know if Armand had received her tiger claw, or that he was still at Drancy?

Noor stood in the doorway of the garage, caught in the abrupt change of light from bright afternoon to murky interior. Smell of grease and acetylene welding. A light shaft from the clerestory window lit a table beside the automobiles. One of the two figures with lunch packets and bottles of cider open before them looked like Claude. The other was an older man in overalls.

“Salut, Monsieur Claude!”

The boy came towards her, a lopsided grin adorning his face. A muscular arm rubbed against her shoulder, leaving an odorous dampness. He stood a little closer than she liked, but she let him.

“I have one more favour I must request.” She spoke softly enough that he bent closer.

“Mademoiselle, what is it?”

Noor twiddled her watch about her wrist. It was too difficult to make up a tale after the events of that morning. She would begin from the truth and diverge a little for the sake of persuasion.

“Claude, Gabrielle delivered a parcel to the camp for her little niece and nephew—and I took the opportunity to send a small gift to a friend there.”

“Oho.” Claude stroked his beardless chin. “A friend?”

“Yes, a family friend.”

Another lie; her family had never considered Armand a friend. Perhaps Anne-Marie Régnier’s family considered him a friend.

“And so?”

“I must find out if he received my gift.”

Claude gave a low whistle. “
C’est tout?!
”

“Yes, that’s all.”

Claude’s guffaw began falsetto then cracked to bass register. “Ask Monsieur le Missionnaire.”

“Regrettably, he was sent on one of the buses this morning.”

“
Mon Dieu!
” Claude hunched his shoulders and stared at the ground. Then he said, “Mademoiselle, I can sell you Pall Mall, Brut champagne, Algerian wine, Scotch whisky, apples, quinces, truffles, tripe, even oysters—but only a Resistance group can get a message in and out of the camp.”

“You must know someone in the Resistance?
Enfin
, you look like a man who would be fighting in the Resistance—even the German officer suspected so.”

It was unmistakably a compliment; she hoped he would take it as one.

Claude stood a little taller but said, “Non, mademoiselle, my mother says if one is going to fight, one should be in French uniform, not creeping around doing sabotage in the night or hiding in the hills like the Maquis. And if I were caught, who would look after her?” But he did look disappointed to be left out of the adventures.