Waiting for the Violins (28 page)

The chamber was large and sordid, with soiled cement walls and the smell of sweat and urine. On the floor to the left stood a steel object made up of two large wedges, which she could make no sense of. But the purpose of the pulley on the ceiling and the rope that hung from it was obvious.

More terrifying was the rough wooden table on the right with shackles on both sides. A wire sheathed in rubber lay at one end of the table, next to a pair of heavy rubber gloves. The wall that the table abutted held an electric socket.

Her legs were like gelatin and scarcely held her as he dragged her to the table, and while he uncuffed her hands from behind her and reshackled her to the table, she panted with terror. Could she make herself die? When someone taped a length of exposed wire to one of her palms, she began to tremble all over.

The head of an officer looked down at her, filling her field of vision. “I have a few questions for you,” he said without any preliminaries. “As long as you answer truthfully, all will be well. But at the first lie, it will become very unpleasant.”

How much did he already know?

“I will start with a little truth on my side. I know your name. Sandrine Toussaint. So, now you will reciprocate with some truth of your own. What were you doing in Spain with false papers? We know you are part of a network that smuggles criminals and enemy soldiers across the border into Spain. How long have you been doing this?”

She was anxious to give him an answer that would satisfy him. “Not long. It was my first trip,” she said weakly, and held her breath. Was that a good answer? It must have been, for nothing happened.

He looked into the air over her head as he formulated his next question. “So, you are new at this. Who gave you the order and determined the route? Who is your supervisor?”

What could she tell him without incriminating someone? “I have no supervisor. I was acting completely alone.”

He shook his head sorrowfully. “That can’t possibly be true,” he said, and signaled someone she couldn’t see.

A jolt of electricity shot through her right arm, causing the muscles to spasm violently and her body to jerk to the side. The current seemed to go on and on, a hot underground stream, cooking her from the inside.

Then it stopped. Her heart pounded as if it would burst from her chest.

He held another wire to her throat. “Just so that you know, I have started out rather gently. In fact, we can send the current through any part of your body we wish. And all of it will be quite nasty. So, let’s start again. We know that someone is transporting enemy soldiers to Spain. We thought we’d put an end to that when we arrested the de Jonghs, but now we find there are others. You can save yourself a great deal of suffering if you give us the name of your commander.”

“I have none. I swear. I was on my own.”

With a look of exasperation, he gave the signal and the torment began again. This time her entire upper body convulsed and her heart fluttered wildly. She called out a low, hoarse moan that strangled in her throat, and she clenched her teeth until it seemed they would crack. She started to black out, and he signaled for the current to stop.

She panted in shallow breaths through clenched jaws.

“You are wasting my time and putting me in a very bad mood. Shall I force your legs apart and place the electrodes inside of you? That is the next step, you know. It leaves quite a mess on our table.”

“I was on my own, I swear it!”

“Enough. Heinrich!” He called another man over. “Spread her legs.”

“No. I’ll tell you…what you want,” she rasped. He had broken her.

“Very good.” His tone became gentle. “Now, who was your commander?”

She searched her memory for someone, anyone, far away, someone who might still escape, or whose death she could live with. None came to her. She had only seconds to come up with a name. Christine? No, never. Colombina, a Basque? No, he’d never believe her. C…C…A name with C?

“Corot,” she forced out in a croak, then struggled with the rest of the memory. “Jean Corot.”

“C…O…R…O…T? Is that how you spell it? Your damned French names.”

“Yes, that’s right.” She panted, plunging into memory trying to reconstruct, or invent, something convincing. If he jolted her again, she would confess everything.

“That’s not enough. We need an address. Give me an address.”

“Wolvengracht, I think. Yes, that’s where I met him once. After that couriers brought the orders. Never knew their names.”

“Well, now we’re moving along. A street number would be helpful.” He waved over a guard with a pad and pencil.

“Not sure. A round number. One hundred, two hundred. Something like that.”

“Since we’re doing so well, perhaps you can give me another name, eh?” He grinned down at her, almost amiable.

“She shook her head weakly. “The others are all dead. You caught them. You’ve won. No one’s left.”

He raised his hand again, and she went rigid with fear for the next jolt, but it was merely a signal for the guard to unshackle her. “This will do for now. But if no such person as Jean Corot exists, you will be on this table again, my dear, and it will not go nearly so well.” He tilted his head toward the two guards standing by. “Take her back.”

When the guards pulled her off the table, she could no longer stand. They half walked her, half dragged her toward the corridor. At the entranceway, they passed Moishe, who gawked at her, wide-eyed, ashen.

“Corot,” she groaned at him. “I gave them Jean Corot. I’m sorry.”

“Shut up, bitch!” The guard’s truncheon came down on her shoulder, but not before she caught Moishe’s faint nod as he seemed to grasp the strategy.

Dear God, she hoped so. Moishe was as fallible as she was, and under the horrendous torture, he could give up an authentic name. A name the Gestapo would love to have. Sophie Lejeune. Her beloved Antonia.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Antonia was awake by seven. She had packed a supply of underwear and a change of clothes, along with her service revolver, and so dressed in clean clothing. Having no food in her room for breakfast, she was leaving her apartment by seven thirty.

Christine met her at the foot of the stairs with a cup of ersatz coffee and some buttered bread. “Here, much easier to think with a little food in your stomach.” Antonia ate gratefully but declined to sit down. On that morning, she didn’t want to be comfortable.

“I’ve contacted Kuba, and he thinks he can get together some people in a couple of days. We’ll suggest that to Francis and Laura. The café doesn’t open until ten, but they’re both usually there by eight o’clock.”

On the lookout for gendarmes of any sort, they moved quickly along the streets and across the Grand Place. The majestic square of medieval guild houses and opulent residences, splendid in the morning sunlight, seemed callously indifferent to their agony.

At the Rue des Bouchers, they slipped into the alley behind the Café Suèdoise and rapped on the door. Laura opened it.

“They’ve arrested Sandrine,” Antonia announced, stepping inside. Uttering the words caused her chest to tighten again in sorrow.

Francis pulled out chairs for her and Christine. “Yes, we know. Philippe called us yesterday. He thinks someone along the route denounced her, perhaps a black marketer who wasn’t paid enough, and that they simply posted a description of her at the border stations.”

“So, what can we do? We have to save her somehow.”

“What do you suggest we do?” Francis asked coldly.

“Help her escape, for God’s sake.” Exasperation sounded through the sorrow. “Isn’t that what we do? Help people escape?”

“She’s right, Francis. We can’t just leave her in Gestapo hands.” Laura thought for a moment. “Besides, they’re bound to torture her, so we’re all in mortal danger.”

Francis shook his head. “But we’re not a group of storm troopers. The only firepower we have is those two Sten guns you gave us and a few pistols. At most, we could attack a truck or a car if they were moving her some place, but we don’t even know where she is.”

“That’s true,” Laura said glumly. “We tried to rescue Andrée and Frédéric from several prisons each time they were moved, but it all came to nothing. We just don’t have the resources to attack the Gestapo.”

Antonia looked to Christine for support, but she leaned on her fist and stared into empty space. “I’m appalled you’re giving up on her so quickly. We should at least find out where she is.”

“We can do that if she’s in Brussels,” Francis said, giving her an iota of hope. “We have contacts at Saint-Gilles prison, in Mechelen, and at Breendonk. Someone will be sure to know something.” He nodded at himself, apparently relieved to have something purposeful to do.

“But then what?” Laura held up empty hands. “As you said, we don’t have the firepower. We have counterfeiters, smugglers, patriots willing to provide information or food, or hide our airmen. But I don’t know anyone, really, who could mount a rescue operation.”

“I do,” Christine said, raising her head. “The Jewish partisans.”

Antonia nodded energetically. “I worked with them for two months before Sandrine accepted me into the Comet Line, and I can tell you, they’re tough as nails. They rescued one of their men from a hospital and aren’t afraid to go anywhere.”

Francis winced slightly. “I met your friend Moishe, and he seemed all right, but we don’t know the others. Do we want to get involved with a lot of Communists and bandits? Their strategies aren’t the same as ours.”

Antonia stifled her anger. “They’re stalwart men, fighting for a country that isn’t even theirs. They’re used to confrontation, and now they have a lot of guns from London.”

Laura spoke up. “Even if we do decide to ‘get involved,’ why would they want to help us? Don’t they have their own battles to fight?”

“Some of those battles are the same as ours. Their own people are being rounded up daily, alongside resisters like us. My neighbors, who were partisans, were arrested too.” She took a deep breath.

“It seems to me you have this choice—to abandon Sandrine to her fate with the Gestapo or appeal to the partisans for help. I’m telling you now that I’ll contact them with or without your approval.”

Laura glanced over at her husband. “She’s right, you know. Aren’t my enemy’s enemies my friends? I think this is a chance we have to take. Sandrine is very valuable to us.”

Antonia looked off into the distance. “Yeah, to me too.”

*

On the following Sunday, when the café was closed, four swarthy men crept into its back room: Kuba and three men Antonia had never seen before. She wished they’d all been familiar faces, but feared the ones she missed had all been captured or killed.

On the other side of the room, as if hesitant to engage too closely with the foreigners, members of the Comet Line sat: Christine, Francis, Laura, young Celine, and the newly returned Philippe.

Antonia introduced only Kuba, and he in turn introduced his men by their first names—Youra, Robert, and Jean—all of them young, and none of them inspiring much confidence.

She addressed the Comet Line side of the room. “I’ve already explained that we’ve lost someone critical to our group and need any help we can get to save her. But Kuba has news of his own.”

The partisan leader glanced around at the circle of Belgians. “These are terrible times, and we also have lost some of our own recently.” He directed his remark to Antonia. “You know that Aisik and Rywka were taken in a raid, along with two others of our group. Our friend Moishe was also arrested last week, but we don’t know where the Gestapo took him. We usually hear about the executions, so we think he is alive.”

He spoke tolerable French, but hearing him alongside the Belgians of the Comet Line, Antonia realized how thick his accent was. She hoped it wouldn’t put the others off. They needed him too much.

To her surprise, Francis raised a hand and spoke directly to Kuba. “He
is
alive. We have a contact at Breendonk, the chaplain, Monsignor Gramann. He’s Austrian, but a good man, and smuggles out messages all the time. We just got this one.” He held up a tiny piece of rag. From where Antonia sat, it looked like someone had scribbled something on it with charcoal.

“It says,
Sandrine Toussaint, Moishe Goldman. Alive, silent, on way to Dossin
.”

“Ah, that’s a relief,” Kuba said. We have people inside the Dossin barracks at Mechelen. They’re prisoners, but they can also smuggle information in and out. We can get a message to them.”

“Can’t we radio London for help?” Young Celine looked around at the skeptical faces.

“What good will that do?” Francis scoffed. “They can’t do anything except drop supplies and guns. And besides, it’s not like one of their own has been captured.”

“I’m surprised they’re both still alive,” Kuba said. “But if they’re going to Dossin, that means deportation. That’s the collecting point.”

“Deportation to where?” Celine asked.

“The Germans keep insisting it’s to work camps in the East, but no one falls for that anymore. Too many reports have come back that there’s no trace of the people from the earlier convoys. If they’re working, it’s inside a concentration camp, and the biggest camp is Auschwitz.”

Christine spoke up for the first time. “The fact that four days after their arrest, they’re both still alive and the Gestapo hasn’t raided us, tells me they haven’t talked. They both must have come up with good stories, though I can’t imagine what that could be.”

Antonia nodded, half in her own thoughts. “I think von Falkenhausen saved her from death. Or at least postponed it.”

“With Moishe, I don’t think the Gestapo know who they’ve got,” Kuba added. “He’s very good at lying with sincerity. He’ll convince them he’s just another pathetic Yid running errands for someone else.”

Antonia moved on to strategy. “Either way, the question remains, where do we intercept them—at Breendonk or at Dossin?”

“Can we break into Breendonk?” Laura asked.

Francis gave a bitter laugh. “Have you ever seen that place? It’s a fortress, surrounded by a moat. Impossible to break in or out of.”