Chapter Six #2
She was left alone with her guilt and remorse.
This was the worst torture of all: the thought of what Renée must be going through, and Mathilde’s own part in the tragedy.
She deserved to be punished. She wanted Renée to scream at her, to scratch her cheeks and spit in her face, to see if that pain might lessen the agony she felt inside.
But there was nothing to be done now; she was powerless.
Laying her head in her arms, she tried to empty her mind.
Occasionally sounds percolated through from the outside world: footsteps in the corridor and drunken wailing from a nearby cell.
She couldn’t allow herself the relief of tears.
Instead she nursed a burning, implacable hatred for the French police who had killed a fellow countryman because the Germans told them to.
Sometime later, the sound of her cell door opening made her lift her head. André yanked her upright and said in her ear, ‘Renée’s here. You can have five minutes, all right? And keep your mouth shut till you’re with her.’
He took Mathilde by the arm and marched her along the corridor until they reached a door at the end, with another gendarme lounging against the wall beside it.
André nodded at him. ‘Another one for the toilet. And hurry up,’ he barked at Mathilde. ‘I haven’t got all day.’ Then he pulled open the door and thrust her inside.
The acrid, ammonia smell of urine with a top note of sewage made Mathilde’s eyes water. Renée was crouching beside Louis in the gloom, buttoning his trousers. She gasped at the sight of Mathilde, who put her finger to her lips before pulling Renée to her feet and into a tight embrace.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered in Renée’s ear, over and over again. ‘I’m so sorry. Forgive me.’
Renée held her at arm’s length. Her face was deathly pale, her eyes huge and dark. ‘This wasn’t your fault,’ she said quietly. ‘He knew what he was doing.’
‘It was over in an instant,’ Mathilde told her. ‘He wouldn’t have felt anything.’
Renée nodded. ‘Thank you.’
Mathilde was deeply ashamed. She liked her cousin’s wife but she’d dismissed her as passive and unadventurous; maybe even looked down on her a little.
Yet here was Renée, standing before her with no anger or reproach in her expression.
Perhaps she was holding herself together for the sake of her son.
Louis stared up at them without saying a word.
Renée drew Mathilde to one side. ‘I’ve told them I had no idea what Pierre was up to but they don’t believe me. Do you know what will happen to us?’
Mathilde’s heart had turned over at the sight of Louis.
The Gestapo were known for torturing children in front of their parents, to make them talk; maybe the Vichy police had learned from their example.
She clasped Renée’s hands, looking around the room.
‘I can’t bear to think. We need to get you out of here. ’
There were two open stalls, each with a hole in the centre and footpads on either side, and she wondered for a moment about trying to escape through the drains, but the thought was unimaginable and the openings looked far too narrow anyway.
Then, raising her eyes, she spotted a window set high up in the wall, above the washbasin.
‘Do you think you could fit through that?’ she asked Renée, pointing up at it. ‘There shouldn’t be too much of a drop on the other side.’
Renée laid a hand on her stomach. ‘Maybe. But how would I reach it?’
Mathilde knelt on the floor. ‘Climb on my shoulders and I’ll raise you to the sill. Then I’ll pass Louis up to you.’
Renée took another look at the window. ‘I’m not sure. What if I get stuck?’
‘You have to try. They’re going to throw you in prison and take your baby away as soon as it’s born. Pierre would want you to save his children, wouldn’t he?’ This was unfair but she had to persuade Renée somehow. ‘We don’t have time to think it over,’ she added, aware of the guards outside.
Renée nodded. ‘All right, let’s give it a go.’
She sat on Mathilde’s shoulders. Then Mathilde grasped Renée’s feet and boosted her so she was standing upright, one foot either side of Mathilde’s neck.
‘I can reach the window!’ Renée panted. ‘But how to get hold of it?’
Balancing precariously on one leg, she tore off her woollen stocking, wrapped it around her fist and punched a hole in one of the small glass panes.
Then she tied the stocking around the central iron window frame and used it to clamber up the wall, grab the window frame and hoist herself on to the sill.
‘Think you can get through?’ Mathilde asked, gazing anxiously upward.
Renée forced the window open and peered out. ‘It’ll be a tight squeeze. I’ll have to take off my skirt.’ She began wriggling out of it. ‘Louis, we’re off on an adventure. Tante Mathilde is going to lift you up here and you’re going to put your arms round my neck and hold on tight. Understand?’
‘You’re so good at climbing trees,’ Mathilde reassured the little boy as she picked him up. ‘This is just the same.’ Poor thing; he had no idea what was happening but at least he wasn’t crying.
She reached Louis as high as she could above her head but there was still a gap of a foot or so between his outstretched arms and his mother’s, reaching down. And now they could hear the sound of voices outside in the corridor.
‘Tie the stocking round his waist,’ Renée hissed.
Mathilde hurried to do so, clumsy in her fear. Somehow she managed it, and Renée pulled Louis up until she could grab him round the waist.
‘Leave Provence,’ Mathilde whispered urgently. ‘Get to the station, go to Paris on tonight’s train and find Jacques – he’ll help you.’
Renée nodded, throwing her skirt out of the window. ‘But what about you?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.’ Mathilde blew her a kiss. ‘Goodbye, chérie. And bonne chance!’
She watched as Renée positioned Louis on the windowsill outside, then swivelled around and wriggled out feet first to join him.
Her face contorted with effort and at one point she let out a cry of pain, but little by little she managed to lever herself over the windowsill.
Louis threw his arms around her neck and clung on, like a baby monkey.
The last Mathilde saw of Renée were the fingers of one hand, white with strain, before she released her grip and was gone.
Everything had changed in the space of a few hours.
The future Mathilde had always assumed lay before her, despite the war, was lost to her now.
She no longer had a home or a job, and what she had just done put her in serious trouble.
There was nothing in the room she could use as a barricade, so she put her back against the door and braced herself for whatever was to come.