The Girl in the Blue Beret - Bobbie Ann Mason [103]
“A poet?” Marshall asked.
“A poet, yes.” Annette stopped to spread a dollop of the pâté on a piece of toast. She stared at it and handed it to Marshall. He couldn’t eat it.
“I cannot dwell on how we were treated at the Gestapo headquarters.” She shuddered. “We could hear the sounds of street life outside, mostly German sounds but now and then a French word called through the air, or a child singing. We clung to those French words; we always spoke French to the officers who questioned us. We refused their words. We wouldn’t repeat them.
“A German officer would say, in halting French, something like ‘Did you have a notebook of contacts?’ He would hold up a notebook, a carnet. And he would use the German word. And instead of repeating the German word, we’d say carnet. It was almost funny. It was as though he was teaching the German word and we were teaching the French word. I liked to speak quickly and excitably—nothing incriminating, just something to confuse them.
“They were a type without humanity,” she said harshly. “You would think that in their position, with all the fine accommodations they had in Paris, and the privilege of the finest restaurants and other enjoyments, they would be easier in their sentiments, but no, evidently no. For our part, my mother and I, we had to grab at any stray bits of wit in order to know that we were alive, that we were still ourselves.”
Annette wasn’t looking at Marshall as she talked. She was staring across the courtyard as if waiting to see the moon rise above the rooftop.
“At Fresnes, there were frequent air-raid alerts, and once some bombs hit a factory nearby. The prison was in an uproar. The anticipation was so great that we became riotous as the sounds died away, as the aircraft receded. We knew the Allied planes—we recognized the sounds.
“All the while, my mother held me and reassured me. I realized I was still a child. I clung to her as I did when I was five. I had been so happy going about with Robert. He had told me his wishes for the future. He was determined to fight the Germans. He vowed to join the Free French army if he ever received the opportunity, although he did not want to leave France because of his parents. He was devoted to them and always went to them on Sundays. In his heart, Robert was a man of peace, but it was thrilling to hear what he would sacrifice, how he would dare to change if necessary to regain freedom for France.
“It was dark in our prison. And so hot, with no air circulating. The noises were unending, day and night. Cries, pounding and clanging, boots tramping up and down. We heard rumors and snatched morsels of news. We knew that the débarquement, D-Day, had happened. We heard the bombers. We believed the liberation of Paris was imminent. We heard shouts and fights, and the guards who brought our food taunted us with false, twisted stories, lies. The food was hardly food. Yvonne was rolled in a ball again. Our clothes had become worn, but still we tried to wash them and keep them as clean as we could. At times we were thrown into an exercise yard for some free movement, though there was little we could do. They wouldn’t let us have boules—too much like weapons. For the most part, what we did was cast around for news; we exchanged life stories and gossip. We learned to talk through a system of signals we tapped on the pipes that connected all the floors. Oh, the prison was dreary and bleak and isolated. We could see in the distance the gray ceiling of Paris, as if it were empty and deserted and we were at the end of the world, looking back.
“De Gaulle is coming, we heard. The Free French are coming.
“The Germans are going home.
“Au revoir, les Allemands! We made it into a song. Au revoir, les Allemands, and then it seemed appropriate to learn some of their words, to taunt them and mock them. So we twisted those ugly words,