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SABINE
PARIS, 1987
Monsieur Géroux looked at Sabine now, his eyes solemn. ‘What might have happened with that school haunted me for years. Then, in the Seventies, I watched a news story on the television about a school just outside Paris, very near the one I’d seen marked out on that map, that was thought to be housing Jewish children. It burned down, during the war, and the officials believed that all the students perished in the fire. However, forensic scientists examined the remains and were shocked to find that the bones were over three hundred years old. They also discovered that there was a secret passageway beneath the school, a set of tunnels, and within them were artefacts from the war period – discarded shoes and clothing. It appeared that someone had fooled the Germans with bones from the old cemetery, as there were signs that the graves had been dug up during the war. They speculated that the school and its many Jewish children received a tip-off somehow, started the fire and used the bones as a decoy for the Germans, managing to escape the country via a network of priests out of Italy.’
He didn’t tell her that afterwards, he’d cried like a baby.
Sabine was sitting forward, eyes wide, as she listened in a mixture of horror and awe.
‘You think it was the same school?’
It was after eleven and Sabine and Monsieur Géroux were still at Pistachios, their meals only half eaten. They were still caught in the arms of the past.
‘Yes, I do. I never forgot the area they pointed to on that map, even though it was just a glimpse. And after that documentary came out, I looked up the school they mentioned – up until then I’d been too afraid to do so, afraid of what I would find, I think I half believed that because Harald Vlig had had a heart attack, perhaps their evil plan was stopped somehow. But I always knew in my heart that was likely wishful thinking. The documentary made me realise that I needed to know either way. What I found was that none of the other schools near the one I overheard the Germans mention had any Jewish children, hidden in secret or otherwise, on record, but it’s not just that that convinced me it was the same one.’
Sabine blinked. ‘What did, then?’
‘The fact that there was no other record of a deportation of Jewish children anywhere near there.’
‘Could they not have just covered it up – I mean, it is an awful thing, it would be understandable that a certain amount of shame would be involved.’
‘Perhaps, but this was a lot of children; it would be hard to hide when people go digging afterwards, as other records of schools who deported children proved, so it’s not likely. I really think it had to be that school, and somehow they escaped.’
Sabine gasped. ‘You’re right.’ Then she looked up at him. ‘Do you think she was involved in that somehow?’
‘Marianne?’
Sabine nodded. ‘Like she said to you – you were the only ones who knew of that plan.’
He sighed. ‘I don’t know. We might not have been. It would be nice to think that, but she was the one who stopped me from relaying what I’d overheard about the planned attack on that school to the Resistance and with everything that happened afterwards it makes me think otherwise.’
Sabine sighed. ‘You’re right. I guess it’s just hard to imagine her doing what she did, after what you’ve told me so far.’
‘I know,’ he sighed deeply, rubbing his face. ‘Trust me. I’ve lived with that for so many years and I still don’t know why she poisoned all those people. Including Henri.’
Sabine stared at him in horror.
‘Henri?’ she said, gasping softly. She felt horror-struck. ‘Oh, Monsieur Géroux, I didn’t know.’
He nodded, looking away as tears filmed his eyes. ‘He was one of the unlucky ones that night.’
Sabine reached over and squeezed his hand, not knowing what to say.
He nodded, then bit his lip. ‘We haven’t even got to that night yet,’ he said, swallowing. ‘When she—’
She knew of course the night he meant. The night Marianne decided to kill all those people.
She blew out her cheeks. ‘Monsieur Géroux, we don’t have to if it’s too hard. I realise now what I was asking… it’s a lot.’
He shook his head, and squeezed her hand in return. ‘A week ago that’s what I thought, but now I realise how much I’ve needed to speak about it. I’ve held it inside for so long, this part of me buried in darkness – it feels good, somehow, to finally let it see the light. To speak of my brother, to remember him, not just as a victim, but as a person.’ He gave her a wobbly smile.
‘He was a wonderful, funny person,’ she agreed, looking away, and needing to dab her eyes. They both did.
When their eyes met again, she said, ‘I’m honoured truly that you would tell me your story.’
He squeezed her hand in response.
It was getting late, so he suggested she come past the shop the following week, after work, so that he could carry on, and she agreed, realising he was likely wrung-out emotionally. She hadn’t experienced it first hand but she felt that way herself, just listening to him recount this time in his life.
