Code Name Verity(46)

Fr?ulein Anna Engel, M d M – M?dchen des Mystères

We looked at my translated bus schedule and admired v.L.’s Montblanc fountain pen, which I had been using. Penn asked me if I was worried about my upcoming ‘trial’.

‘It’s a formality.’ I could not help being brutal about this. ‘I will be shot.’ She asked for honesty, after all. ‘I am a military emissary caught in enemy territory masquerading as a civilian. I count as a spy. The Geneva Convention doesn’t protect me.’

She was silent for a moment.

‘There’s a war on,’ I added, to remind her.

‘Yes.’ She scribbled some notes on her pad. ‘Well. You’re very brave.’

All TOSH!

‘Can you speak on behalf of other prisoners here?’

‘We don’t see much of each other.’ Had to dodge that one. ‘Or, not to speak to.’ I do see them, too often. ‘Will you get a tour?’

She nodded. ‘It looks very nice. Clean linen in all the rooms. A bit spartan.’

‘Well-heated too,’ I said waspishly. ‘It used to be a hotel. No proper dungeon rooms, no damp, no one suffering arthritis at all.’

They must have taken her round the rooms they use for the orderlies – perhaps even planted a few as dummy prisoners. The Gestapo use the ground floor and 2 mezzanines for their own accommodation and offices, and it is all kept in beautiful condition. The real prisoners are kept on the uppermost 3 storeys. It is harder to escape when you are at least 40 feet above the ground.

Penn seemed satisfied. She heaved a tight smile in von Linden’s direction and said, ‘Ich danke Ihnen – I thank you,’ very grave and formal, then continued in French to tell him how grateful she was for this unique and unusual opportunity. I suppose she’ll interview him too, separate from me.

Then she leaned close to me and said in confidential tones, ‘Can I get you anything? Send you anything – little things? Towels?’

I told her I’d stopped.

Well – I have – and they wouldn’t let her anyway. Would they? I don’t know. According to the Geneva Convention you’re allowed to send useful things to prisoners of war – cigarettes, toothbrushes, fruit cakes with hacksaws in. But as I’d just pointed out, the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply to me. Nacht und Nebel, night and fog. Brrr. As far as Georgia Penn knows I have no name. Who would she address the package to?

She asked, ‘You’re not –?’

It was a rather extraordinary conversation if you think about it – both of us speaking in code. But not military code, not Intelligence or Resistance code – just feminine code.

‘You haven’t been –?’

I’m sure Engel was able to fill in the blanks:

– Can I send you (sanitary) towels?

– No thanks, I’ve stopped (bleeding).

– You’re not (pregnant)? You haven’t been (raped)?

Raped. What was she going to do about it if I had?

Anyway, technically speaking, I’ve not been raped.

No, I’ve just stopped.

I’ve not had a cycle since I left England. I think my body simply shut itself down during those first three weeks. It performs basic functions only now. It knows perfectly well it’s never going to be called on for reproductive purposes. I’m a wireless set.

Penn shrugged, nodding, with her mouth twisting sceptically and her eyebrows raised. Her mannerisms are what you’d imagine in a pioneering farmer’s wife. ‘Well, you don’t look so healthy,’ she said to me.

I look like I’ve just emerged from a sanatorium and am about to lose a long battle with consumption. Starvation and sleep deprivation do leave visible marks, YOU IDIOTS.

‘I haven’t seen the sun for six weeks,’ I said. ‘But sometimes the weather’s like that back home too.’

‘Well, it’s sure nice,’ she drawled. ‘It’s nice to see they’re treating prisoners so well here.’

Suddenly, in one great dollop, she sloshed all her cognac – untouched, the entire glass – into my glass.

I slugged the whole lot back in one like a sailor before anyone could take it away from me, and spent the rest of the afternoon being sick.

—

Do you know what he did last night – von Linden, I mean – came and stood in the doorway of my cell after he’d finished work and asked me if I’ve read Goethe. He has been chewing over this idea that I can ‘buy’ time in exchange for bits of my soul and he wondered if I likened myself to Faust. Nothing like an arcane literary debate with your tyrannical master while you pass the time leading to your execution.