Chapter Eight
When Mathilde had been imprisoned in Sainte-Anne for a couple of months, according to the marks she scratched on the wall beside her bunk each day, the Viper and a female guard came to the cell and ordered her and Rosa Luxemburg to stand apart from the others.
They were manacled together at the ankles and escorted down the stairs, with no idea where they were going; perhaps even to be executed, Mathilde thought, and she could tell from Rosa’s pallor that the same idea had occurred to her.
Anything was possible. However, they were taken out through the back of the prison and marched towards a waiting van.
‘Where are you taking us?’ Rosa asked the guards. The Viper ignored her but his colleague said they were being transferred to a high-security prison, closer to Paris.
For more intensive interrogation and torture, Mathilde supposed, though the prospect of getting away from the Viper lifted her spirits momentarily. Yet who was to say whether someone equally sadistic might not be waiting for them at the end of the journey?
Five men were sitting on bench seats in the back of the van: four prisoners on one side, also chained together, and a guard with a holstered pistol at his waist opposite them.
The women were thrust beside this guard and the Viper sat at the end of the row, next to Mathilde.
Being in such close contact with him was so nauseating that her head swam, and it took all her self-control to straighten her spine and keep her face an expressionless mask.
It was early in the morning but the day was already warm and the van had no windows that would open; the male prisoners stank of sweat and dirt, and she and Rosa were hardly fragrant themselves. The journey would be an endurance test.
Aware that someone was looking at her, she raised her eyes to meet those of the man opposite.
He held himself differently from the others: poised and alert, with an energy that contrasted with the slumped bodies of his fellow prisoners.
He gazed at her intently, as though he had a message to communicate.
Mathilde glanced away immediately. She might have glared at him once, but now she had no bravado to spare.
An invisible driver behind the front partition started the engine and the van slowly moved forward – presumably through the prison gates, though no one could see them.
A change was coming and it was unlikely to be for the better.
To keep her spirits up, Mathilde concentrated on imagining the life she would lead when she was free.
That day would come, she was certain. The depths of despair she’d felt when first incarcerated had been replaced by a fierce will to live and a desire for revenge.
They would not beat her, these cowards; she wouldn’t let the fear of death break her spirit.
The atmosphere soon became stifling. Rosa Luxemburg fell asleep with her head on Mathilde’s shoulder and one of the prisoners began to snore.
Feeling her eyelids close, Mathilde bit the inside of her cheek so hard she drew blood and the pain kept her alert.
The man opposite stared at her again and this time she held his gaze.
There was nothing lascivious about it; he might have been telling her to stay strong.
Her blood beat a little faster as she looked into his eyes.
Beneath the stubble and grime, he had a clever, handsome face with an air of calm authority, even though he was powerless.
At least now she felt wide awake. She might be filthy and flea-ridden, but he had restored her dignity.
Seconds later, a volley of shots rang out, followed by a loud bang that sent the van skidding sideways so abruptly they were thrown out of their seats before it lurched to an abrupt halt.
It was hard, afterwards, to remember the precise order in which things happened.
Both guards drew their weapons as two of the prisoners, including the man opposite Mathilde, attacked them with knives they’d produced from nowhere.
Rosa had fallen to the floor, pulling Mathilde with her, where they were in danger of being trampled on.
More shots were fired but they came from outside the van; the Viper was struggling with Mathilde’s ally, who’d pinned the arm holding his gun aloft, while the other guard clutched at a ligature around his throat, eyes bulging.
Seizing her chance, Mathilde reached up from the floor to grab his other arm and sank her teeth into his flesh until his grip weakened and she could tear the pistol from his hand.
Kneeling, she took careful aim and shot the Viper in the highest part of his body she could reach: his groin.
The sound in that enclosed space made her head ring and his scream of agony added to the din.
His assailant stood back to give her space to fire at the Viper’s chest and the screaming stopped.
Sunlight and a gust of warm, sweet air flooded the van as its doors were thrown open and a couple of men climbed in. One held a bunch of keys with which he set about freeing the men from their ankle chains.
‘And us too,’ Rosa Luxemburg demanded when he’d finished, so he tossed the keys over and let her get on with it.
Both guards were dead. Mathilde looked at the Viper’s body with a thrill of satisfaction, sharpened by a streak of contempt.
He wouldn’t be able to hurt another woman in the way he’d hurt her.
Meanwhile Rosa slipped out of her clogs and tugged at his boots, tearing them off and ramming her own feet into them.
Mathilde followed her example with the second guard’s corpse.
When one of the prisoners tried to elbow her aside to take the boots for himself, she shoved the gun in his chest with such venom that he backed away, hands in the air.
She and Rosa scrambled out of the van and looked about, trying to get their bearings.
The van had ended up skewed across the narrow country road, its front tyres shredded, and a covered truck stood nearby.
One of the prisoners was already climbing into the back while the man Mathilde thought of as her ally waved at the others to follow. He seemed to be in charge now.
‘What will you do?’ Rosa asked her.
‘Go with them, if they’ll have me,’ Mathilde replied, making up her mind. ‘Are you coming?’
‘With those bastards? You must be joking.’ Rosa was already backing away. ‘Good luck, though,’ she added, before breaking into a run and plunging into woodland at the side of the road.
Mathilde ran too, shuffling along in the cumbersome boots with the pistol still in her hand. When she arrived at the truck, she handed the gun to the man waiting there and said, ‘Take me with you. I won’t slow you down.’
‘You’d better not,’ he replied, though his eyes were amused, and offered her a hand up into the truck.
She declined to take it, climbing up by herself to join the other men sitting there in silence, who all stared at her with varying degrees of suspicion.
Their leader leapt up after her, secured the tarpaulin in place and thumped on the front partition to signal that the lorry could drive away.
Once they were on the move, the prisoners broke into cheers and shouts of laughter, clapping each other on the back.
One of the men who had freed them handed round cigarettes, water bottles, apples and clothes to swap for their uniforms. Mathilde tried to make herself as small and unobtrusive as possible.
She’d made her choice on the spur of the moment, though she hadn’t the faintest idea who these people were or where they were going.
Yet no one else was around to help, and something about the steady gaze of this man the others called the Patron persuaded her to trust him.
When the hubbub had quietened down, one of the prisoners – a burly man with thick black hair, whom Mathilde had fought for the guard’s boots – nodded at her and asked, ‘Who’s this, then?’
‘An escapee, same as us,’ the Patron replied. He had the faintest trace of a foreign accent: English, maybe, or Dutch. ‘We’ll take her as far as the chateau and she can make her own way from there.’
As Mathilde stared back at the men, daring them to object, he added, ‘I’d say she’s already proved her credentials, wouldn’t you?’
They drove for another hour before the truck pulled to a halt and the tarpaulin was rolled back. One by one, they jumped down into a farmyard, where a waiting labourer drove the lorry into a barn and closed the doors behind it.
‘And now we walk for a couple of hours,’ the Patron told Mathilde. ‘Think you can manage?’
She nodded, though she wasn’t at all sure. Weeks on starvation rations had weakened her and the boots, although an improvement on her hated clogs, were ill-fitting and chafed her bare feet.
‘Bind your feet with these,’ the Patron said, tossing her two cotton squares from his rucksack.
‘And try to keep up – we have to move quickly and can’t afford to wait for you.
If you get lost, we’re aiming for Chateau Albertine.
Only don’t tell that to the police if they pick you up, obviously.
We’ll rest there tonight and go our separate ways the next day. ’
They split into pairs and set off across the countryside.
Mathilde walked on her own as no one seemed inclined to keep her company, revelling in the sun on her skin and the breeze ruffling her hair after so long in a dark, fetid cell.
Summer had arrived while she’d been locked away and the warm air smelt aromatic.
Thyme and rosemary were growing everywhere and she glimpsed a haze of purple lavender in the distance.
Flinging her arms wide, she spun around in a circle, lifting her face to the infinite blue of the sky.
Freedom! She would never take it for granted again.
Yet now her head was reeling, so she concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.
Their fractured group kept to tracks bordering fields of crops and grazing cattle, sometimes taking narrow woodcutters’ paths through dense trees.
At one point they passed rows of vines, bright green with fresh growth, and Mathilde remembered Monsieur Piquemal with a pang of guilt.
He would think she’d let him down at the busiest time, stealing his motorcycle and disappearing without any notice, and he had only ever been kind to her.
Maybe he’d have realised what had happened when news of Pierre’s death leaked out.
The ground was stony and uneven, and she often had to wipe away the sweat trickling into her eyes.
She was relieved when the Patron called a halt and they could sprawl in the shade of cedar trees and drink from water canteens, taking refuge from the heat of the day.
The water was warm and brackish, but she gulped it down nevertheless.
The Patron squatted beside her. ‘Tell me about yourself,’ he said. ‘Why would they be taking you to Mont-Valérien? What have you done?’
‘I didn’t know they were,’ she replied. ‘But I’m glad not to be going there, so I’m much obliged to you and your friends. And I haven’t done much – not yet, anyway. My cousin was caught sabotaging a railway line and the police shot him. I happened to be there at the time, so they brought me in.’
‘You’re not from around here, are you?’ he asked.
‘I came from Paris a few months ago. My husband was going to join me but the Germans shot him, too.’
They were both quiet for a while, gazing at the gently rolling countryside that stretched away to the horizon.
‘I was grateful for your help, back there in the lorry,’ the Patron said. ‘Have you killed a man before?’
Mathilde shook her head.
‘Would you do it again?’ he asked.
‘If I had to,’ she said, meeting his gaze.
He smiled and something approaching happiness flooded through her. ‘The time may come,’ he said softly. ‘We need people who are prepared to fight for their country, no matter how great the risk. Will you help us?’
‘I should like nothing more,’ she replied. ‘I have nothing left but my life, and France may have it, with pleasure.’ She had no idea where those words had come from but they were sincerely meant.
The Patron rose to his feet and helped her up too. ‘Maybe one day we’ll meet again,’ he said. ‘I hope so.’
‘My name is Marie,’ she called after him as he walked away. ‘Marie Garnier.’
He looked back with a shrug. Names were unimportant, he was saying; she still didn’t know his. He had seen her as she truly was, and that essential self was what he appreciated. She would have followed him anywhere.