The Tiger Claw (48 page)

She found her feet. And ran, ran into darkness.

Out of range of the landing lights, into the cover of the long grass at the edge of the woods.

Breathing like a piston, running, she glanced over her shoulder. On his feet again, Gilbert had started across the landing field
towards her, but then he stopped, turned on his heel and ran back, up to the cockpit.

Lungs burning, Noor hunkered down and watched. Gilbert cupped his hands and shouted something at the pilot.

The overhead canopy slid closed. Gilbert waved the plane forward.

Don’t go, don’t go!

But the Lysander pumped its throttle till it roared, and began to taxi. Then its nose lifted and it was soaring into sky. The woodcutter picked up the lantern and blanket. Gilbert began helping him remove the torches planted in the soil.

And she watched, helpless, as German flares lit up the sky and night fighters zipped down from above. No one could see the black monoplane any more. Gilbert, too, watched. And he didn’t point, didn’t make any move, no sign of alarm or shock. The woodcutter ran up and stood beside him, and both looked upwards.

What chance do they have? It’s a slow, unarmed plane!

Beneath the howl of Messerschmitt engines, the Lysander’s pulsing roar dimmed to a buzz and went silent.

Imagine, imagine that little plane searing the stars as it fell from the sky.

The night fighters circled.

The sound—they were diving. No, climbing. Now they were leaving, whizzing away.

Noor sat still, looking up.

Night noises—breeze in leaves—filled the tense silence.

Noor dashed her nose on her sleeve and moved stealthily into the forest. She was only a few feet in, proceeding at erratic angles through complex thickets and skin-snagging thorns, scuffing over leaves and tilted stones, bushes lassoing her feet, when a shooting pain in her shoulder said she had rammed into bark.

She sank to earth with a groan, and went limp. This time with no pretense.

A cone of torchlight bobbed towards her. She sank lower to the ground, moving deeper into the brush. Leaves rustled, so loud they would surely hear.

A second yellow cone stopped at the edge of the woods, lifted, then described a long slow arc. Low voices; Gilbert and the woodcutter were conferring.

Back and forth went the light cones, for what seemed like hours. They seemed to be walking a path—so there was a path, and not very far away. The lights came together again. More voices amplified by a breeze flowing in her direction, but incomprehensible.

The torchlight divided, cones moved in opposite directions.

No more torchlights. Noor rose to tensed thighs, then upright.

Take the opportunity now
.

Fallen branches and twigs cracked as she moved away from the tree.

Too loud, too loud!

Was Gilbert armed? He must be. And if he found her …

Move, move. No one can rescue you but yourself
.

On a cow path now, trodden about four feet wide. The compass in her jacket button gave her north. Le Mans lay northeast. She must avoid the route Gilbert had mapped for her.

She set off, walking and stumbling across fields and through vineyards, losing her way several times.

She came upon a grotto to the Virgin Mary, a familiar patch of flowering hogweed, a finger-post pointing to a mine shaft and, rain-faded but still discernible, a quail poacher’s painted X between the sweeping branches of an ancient oak.

Coincidence or the hand of Allah? It didn’t matter; the familiar reassured.

Noor walked on through the night, shins scraped, shoulder throbbing, till early dawn, when the town of Le Mans loomed above the plain.

She must tell Émile what happened. But where was he in Le Mans? Even if she knew, she couldn’t go there. Too dangerous for
her and Émile. Besides, that would make Renée even more frightened and angry.

She couldn’t walk into the Hôtel du Dauphin at any hour looking like this: wet, muddy, scratched—a bloody mess. And with only diamonds left for payment, there was no question of getting lodging at any hotel.

She rummaged in her bag, counting the francs she had saved by dining with Gilbert. Enough for a ticket to Paris; not enough for a room in Le Mans.

Madame Aigrain’s safe house was closer than Madame Gagné’s boarding house at Drancy. And Émile said Gilbert didn’t know of its existence.

Gilbert might assume she’d take the first train back to Paris. So Noor let the 04:00 train depart, and the 04:30, before she entered the station. She ate one of the pears that wouldn’t be going to London after all, and composed her features to match the blank expressions of other waiting passengers, queuing with them to present her papers.

A German soldier took and returned her papers in square movements, his gaze never touching her face. On the platform now. About twenty people waiting, and no one looked like Gilbert or Gestapo. To her right, two boxcars marked
Hommes 40/Cheval 8
—forty men or eight horses. Empty. To her left, first-class compartments filled with glum-faced German soldiers. No doubt going to Russia, setting out for the front.

German eyes boring into her back. Shouts in German. They might be shouting at her.

Slowly. Count carriages: one, two, three …

Almost to the end of the train, now.

… nine, ten
.

She boarded the single second-class passenger carriage for French civilians and collapsed into a seat.

CHAPTER 25

Paris, France
Sunday, July 4, 1943

N
OOR ARRIVED
at Madame Aigrain’s door chilled to the bone, an hour before the lifting of curfew. The sentry had been snoring at his post, and the concierge’s
loge
was Sunday-dark. Between sneezing and coughing, Noor managed four pairs of knocks. Despite the signal, Madame’s eyes were roundels above the restraining chain. But the chain fell away. Madame took Noor in.

“How is it you have returned, Madeleine?”

A steaming cup of milk Noor knew Madame had intended for the Siamese appeared on the table before her. Madame Aigrain almost disappeared into the sofa.

I must look like a stray, and smell terrible
.

“There was a problem,” said Noor. “I will try to leave again soon. Émile must be informed as soon as possible.”

With no hesitation Madame agreed to leave a message for Émile at the letter drop. Sacrificing details, Noor wrote a note: To
Phono: Madeleine is still in Paris
.

He might imagine there was serious trouble or might read nothing into the statement at all. Planes developed engine trouble and had to turn back to England. Sometimes resistants found the Germans had planted stakes on landing strips. She couldn’t tell what Émile might imagine. She needed to meet with him and
discuss Gilbert’s reading her mail. But meeting with Émile came with Renée in tow—Renée who didn’t want Noor to come near Émile. A rendezvous would be too dangerous now.

Besides, the room was sliding sideways, even as she presented the fruit she’d intended for her family in London to Madame.

“Thank you. Now rest, Anne-Marie.” Madame Aigrain’s soft hand brushed Noor’s forehead. “I would call a doctor, but mine was sent to Germany. I don’t know one who will come on a Sunday, and the concierge has locked away her telephone. We need someone who will not ask questions, who will not mind a little deviation around the law.”

“But I have no money left.” Noor discovered her eyes were streaming.

“
C’est ça
?” said Madame Aigrain. “I have a little—enough for a doctor.” She lifted a cigar humidor standing on the mantelpiece. “Here—”

Sparks struck up inside Noor’s head as she shook it no.

“It’s a loan. Take enough for the doctor and so you won’t have to ask me again for at least a week. Then, if you are still here, still in need, I will arrange more.
D’accord
?”

Still Noor hesitated, then said, “A loan. And I will pay you back as soon as I can.”

Madame Aigrain counted out five thousand real francs, wadded them up and held them out to Noor. She replaced the rest in the humidor and put it back on the mantelpiece, evidently quite confident of Noor’s honesty.

In the cupboard room, the forest-green skirt she’d given Madame Aigrain’s daughter to copy for Monique lay neatly folded on the bed. Noor changed from her slacks, shook out her damp hair and lay down.

Madame Aigrain dipped a lace-trimmed handkerchief in eau de cologne and placed it on Noor’s burning forehead. Then she bustled about the apartment squeezing the netted balls of atomizers till heavy, soft, sharp, bright, resinous and animal scents dissolved and combined. In a lavender Sunday dress,
black shawl and black fishnet gloves, she took her cane and left for church.

Noor closed her eyes, but every nerve was on edge. With each breath she smelled the cologne of Gilbert’s betrayal. Now he had many reasons to pursue her.

She saw the pilot throwing up his hands, believing her hysterical. Once again the plane rushed past and roared away. Then the flares, the fighters, the silence. She could imagine what must have happened: three men cremated alive.

If only she could have warned the Dutchmen or the pilot. Luck or Allah’s
farishtas
had now saved her from Gilbert and the Gestapo three times. How many more times would be too many?

Waking sleep. What day was it?

July Fourth, a day so important to Mother. The one day Dadijaan was civil to Mother, conceded her approval of any country that fought for and won independence from the British, even a Western power. Sunday morning: Dadijaan would be standing at Speaker’s Corner, silk sari
paloo
billowing about her, giving her weekly speech in Urdu about the starving in India to passing churchgoers. Mother, believer in everyone’s right to free speech, would be her only, long-suffering, uncomprehending audience, and the two would garden their allotment in Hyde Park afterwards.

Mother required everyone to be home for dinner on the Fourth and, being from Boston, would tell the story of the Tea Party. The first time the story was translated for her, Dadijaan had winced at the waste of that much fine tea, even to protest British taxes. “You know how long it takes to pick and dry one shipload of tea?” she said. “And why did they dress up as Indians? Everything, every time, blame it on Indians!” But pressed by Noor and Zaib on July Fourths since, Dadijaan would launch her own tale of how the Mahatma passed through Baroda on his Salt March in 1930. Dadijaan had joined his procession, walking for days, also to protest taxes, those on salt—but never destroying any salt, never wasting a single grain. After dinner the family would come together around the phonograph, listening to recordings of Abbajaan.

And if things had been different last night, Noor would have been with them, playing the veena.

She rose and lurched from her little room. Perfume hung in vaporous puffs in Madame Aigrain’s sitting room. In the dining room the fragrance of roses mixed with lemon. Lalique bottles released a musky patchouli that combined with a scent reminiscent of raspberry.

Each hybrid fragrance begged for an open window, a single breath of air.

I never felt such nausea since mon petit problème
.

Siamese eyes of unblinking blue reflected her own. A little motor purred as she lifted the cat from the windowsill. All Madame’s windows were locked, hermetically sealed with blackout tape; Madame’s fear of draughts ran deeper than her fear of bombs.

Noor stopped struggling with the windows to cough into her handkerchief. A spot of red in the palm of her hand—she was spitting up blood!

She could not stay in the airless rooms a moment longer. Not an instant longer. All she needed was a prescription for some medicine to cure influenza quickly. But how? She couldn’t approach a doctor at an office or a hospital. Madame Aigrain had gone to church and then Flavien’s pawnshop; it would be hours before she returned.

At this moment she didn’t care if she was seen by one, two or fifty Germans.

Get some air
.

Noor picked her handbag off the bed and slipped down the stairs, past the concierge’s empty
loge
. A moment later she was out on the sunny street, gulping lungfuls of fresh air, and coughing again and again.

Five thousand francs in her handbag and Madame Aigrain’s words echoing in her mind: “… someone who will not ask questions, who will not mind a little deviation around the law.”

One step forward. She knew immediately where she needed to go. Knew to whom she might go again.

CHAPTER 26