Perfectly Ordinary People(40)

They spoke for a short while and the soldier studied his book again before Matias returned, jangling some keys, and said, ‘You’d better come with me.’

He led me through a door and down a long corridor, then some steps and all the way back in the other direction, past all the holding cells. There was a terrible sound of weeping and pleading coming from them.

Finally he stopped in front of one of the doors and unlocked it, and for a moment I didn’t understand. I thought that perhaps our plan had failed and to save himself he was going to have to lock me up after all. And then it crossed my mind that maybe he’d tricked me and that it had all been a ruse to get me there with the baby.

The door opened and he asked me to identify my husband.

The sight of that cell . . . God, I don’t even know how to describe it to you. It looked like some sort of Armageddon in there. There were six, maybe seven men huddled into the far corner. Some were completely naked and others were still wearing their clothes, but all ripped and filthy. The floor and walls were covered with faeces and glistening with blood, and the men, those men . . . you know, I still have nightmares about them. They were like tiny, frightened animals waiting in an abattoir, which in a way is what the Nazis had reduced them to. I remember thinking that I’d never really believed in evil, or the devil, but that he undoubtedly existed, and was there, in that building, in uniform.

I couldn’t see the men’s faces because they were all trying to hide from view, whimpering and struggling to get behind each other, so Matias pulled me into the cell. I covered the baby’s eyes with the shawl so that he wouldn’t have to see that sight.

The stink in there – God, it just came back to me. I can smell it now, I swear – blood and shit and urine and sweat all mixed up. And fear. You can actually smell fear.

And then, quite brutally, because another man was, I realised, watching from the corridor, Matias pulled the men one by one from the huddle, saying, ‘Is it this one? Or this one? Is this one your husband?’

One of the men fell at my feet and grabbed my leg and started to beg me to help him and I had to shake him off, which felt nightmarish. And when Matias finally pulled Pierre from the group I didn’t even recognise him, partly because he was staring at the floor, but mainly because he’d changed so much in such a short time that it didn’t seem possible. He was naked from the waist up and shoeless and filthy dirty and so terribly thin. He’d never had much meat on him, but he was so skinny that it shocked me. He had blood on his face and his hands and one of his trouser legs was deep red with blood as well . . . what they’d done to him . . . it was . . . I can’t . . .

Take a moment if you wish.

I’m not sure I can . . .

We can take a break if you want. Really. We don’t have to do this right now.

No, I’d rather carry on. But Pierre . . . He just looked so pitiful. It was a terrible shock when I realised it was him.

Matias pushed him right in front of me and asked if I was sure my husband wasn’t there, and I began to weep again because I’d realised it was him. At some point I remembered someone was watching and asked Matias angrily what in God’s name had he done to my husband.

He asked Pierre if this was his wife, if this was his child, but Pierre just looked stunned. I saw that he’d recognised Matias and panicked he was going to give the game away. He kept looking from Matias to me and back uncomprehendingly. So Matias asked him again, shouting at him this time, saying ‘Is this your damned wife?! Yes or no?’

And then the man who’d been clawing at my leg said, ‘She’s my wife. Aren’t you? Please, help me.’ And that was when Pierre twigged. I saw the realisation sweep across his face.

I asked, ‘What have you done to my husband?’ and said that they were animals, and finally Pierre replied, speaking through tears. ‘You came. I thought you’d never come.’ He told me that they had been accusing him of the most terrible things.

Matias told him he could go, and pushed him towards the door, but I had to pull his arm around my shoulder so that he could walk.

Then, hassled by Matias to get a move on, we made our way back along that corridor and up the stairs, and then all the way back down to the front desk. I was petrified that someone would realise what was happening – that a voice would suddenly ring out and say, ‘You! Stop!’ or something. Those corridors seemed endless.

When we got to the front desk, the officer I’d seen when I arrived told me happily that he was glad I’d found my husband, as if this was all perfectly routine.

Matias gave me a little push and said, ‘Go on then, off you go! And don’t hang around, OK? I don’t want to see you here again. Either of you!’

The two soldiers I’d seen smoking outside were coming in just as we were leaving. They were still joking and laughing about something, and one of them held the door open for us, so we had to squeeze right past them. And then we stepped out into the sunshine.

It took us for ever to walk home. It was only a few kilometres, but Pierre was limping along, leaning on me, and even then he kept having to stop and rest. He looked absolutely shocking, too, and I became hyper-aware of how visible we were, how utterly conspicuous, especially when the baby started crying on top of it all. Nearly every person we passed stopped and stared. Some looked sympathetic and concerned, but just as many turned away in disgust. Pierre was still naked from the waist up, and shoeless, remember. He had bruises on his face, bloodied hands and feet, and a huge dark stain all down the left leg of his trousers. Most terrifying of all was whenever we walked past policemen or German soldiers – they were everywhere by then. I kept expecting them to stop us and enquire why Pierre looked the way he did, and then most probably take him straight back to the station. But out of all the people we walked past, the soldiers were the ones who seemed the least interested. I can only suppose that they were thoroughly used to the sight of injured, bloodied, crying men.