Rose Under Fire (Code Name Verity, #2)(31)

And our hair. Some of the girls were really upset about it. A couple of them, just after, didn’t even try to cover up their privates when the guards grinned at them – they covered up their bald heads, as if this were the most shameful and embarrassing thing that had ever been done to them. I wasn’t upset. I was angry, as mad as I was about everything else. There was one spiky patch on the side of my head where they didn’t really cut it close enough. They cut it too close to Elodie’s scalp, in the dark, and she had another nice long, oozy red scrape to match the scar along her jaw.

What will Nick think when he sees me? I suddenly wondered. Nick loves my hair. Maybe it will grow out by the time I see him again. Oh, please let it grow out a little bit.

Down at the bottom of the bunk my toes were still shiny with cherry-red nail varnish which I’d put on for my last date with Nick. I noticed them in the shower.

Nobody said anything in the dark, but it wasn’t silent. People rutched around trying to get comfortable, growling at each other, sighing, coughing, sobbing. I could hear the distant hum of generators or something – of course some of the workshops kept going all night, though I didn’t know that then.

Suddenly, on the other side of the thin wooden barracks, an anonymous voice yelled out, ‘Vive la France!’

Instantly there was dead silence.

We were all frozen, holding our breath, waiting for the lights to snap back on and the dogs to come back.

But nothing happened, and after another tense moment half a dozen other anonymous voices answered in defiance: ‘Vive la France! VIVE LA FRANCE!’

Then another voice called out fiercely, in English, ‘God bless America!’

It wasn’t me. It wasn’t Elodie. I don’t know who it was. But it was a battle cry. We were still at war and we were soldiers and we were Allies.

After that, everybody settled down.

It happened every single night I was in quarantine in Block 8. Last thing every night, some unseen voice would yell into the dark, ‘Vive la France!’ and someone else would answer, ‘God bless America!’

It was never me. I was never brave enough. My accent would have given me away.

But it was brave of the others to do it for me.





April 20, 1945



Paris



The telephone rang again. I burst into tears again. But it just kept on ringing and ringing. They know I am here and finally I thought that if I didn’t answer it they’d send someone up to make sure I wasn’t drowned in the tub or something, and it would be worse having to open the door to a French bellhop – especially since I still haven’t got dressed – than it would be talking on the phone to the English-speaking switchboard operator. So I answered and said ‘Hello’ in my best imitation of Before-Ravensbrück-Rose-Justice.

It was Mother.

For a long time after we were connected she just kept calling, ‘Rosie? Rosie?’ as if she were hunting for me in the Conewago woods, and I was so dumbstruck to hear her voice that I didn’t answer at first, which didn’t help. Then, believe it or not, I did not burst into tears again. I just said, ‘Hello, Mother,’ very calmly, and lied and lied and lied.

I’ve been in a prison camp in Germany. Yes, a political prisoner, I landed in the wrong place and they wouldn’t let me go back over the front lines. Yes, I’m OK. Uncle Roger has me staying in the Paris Ritz!

I talked about the wonderful silk quilt thing and the beautiful big window and the ridiculous gigantic tub and room service.

‘Didn’t the Nazis take over the Ritz in Paris?’

‘Yes, that’s why it’s in such beautiful condition! And –’

I could talk about this safely, with real enthusiasm.

‘– The Germans didn’t bomb Paris at all – the German commander in charge of Paris was supposed to pound the city to pieces before he surrendered, and he refused to do it. Berlin told him to blow up all the monuments – the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral and the Arc de Triomphe – and he didn’t. And when I brought Uncle Roger to France last summer I flew over the whole of the city and it was just beautiful.’

Mother sighed.

‘Oh, Rosie. It is so good to hear your voice.’

She was crying – not me. I had fooled her.

She said, ‘I thought – we just thought you must have been shot down, of course. It seemed like the only thing that could have happened. Although – have you heard what they’re finding now? There are some terrible stories. Have you heard about these concentration camps they say they’re liberating? The Red Cross keeps coming up with people who say they’ve been freed from these awful places. We don’t believe any of it for a second – those Jewish women who said they’d been –’

I didn’t hear what happened or didn’t happen to the Jewish women because I held the receiver at arm’s length until the distant transatlantic twitter of Mother’s voice went anxious and I could tell she was calling my name again.

I put the phone back to my ear.

‘Hi, Mom.’

‘Oh!’ she gasped in relief. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’

Every spring, Mother makes us wash the house – actually hose down and scrub the outside of our house. She is probably doing it now, getting excited about me coming home. Our house is brick and about fifty years old. There is a wide front porch with columns, and Daddy always gets up on the porch roof to do the second floor and the bedroom windows. Mother watches critically and directs everything from the front yard. I run back and forth to the kitchen delivering buckets of warm soapy water for Daddy; Karl and Kurt play with the hose until it’s time to rinse all the soap off.