CHAPTER 35

Gestapo Headquarters, avenue Foch
Paris, France
Thursday, October 28, 1943

MAN. WOMAN. Man. Men, women. More men, more women.

The animal screams and pleadings Noor heard from other cells each night for eight nights were in French, the shouting sometimes in German, sometimes in French. She strained to recognize a single voice—Prosper, Archambault, Monsieur Hoogstraten or the Professor? Émile? Viennot? Not Odile? Not Josianne? Distance blurred words but retained the anguish of the sounds. At the end of each disturbed night came real coffee, rye bread and cheese for Noor. She ate it. Another beating might be coming. Interrogation scenes played over and over in her mind. Her cuts and bruises were healing. Every day, she had yet another wild plan for escape. But not a chance.

Now a guard was pushing her down the hall past closed doors of other rooms, down a servants’ back staircase to Vogel’s office. He shoved her into the chair before Vogel’s desk.

Sit up straight. Don’t cringe.

Rain ribboned the French windows overlooking the contre-allée, the side road that buffered the mansions from traffic on the avenue Foch. Outside, trees baffled and channelled an earthmusked breeze.

Vogel offered himself a smile in the mirror.

“Something to show you,” he said in English.

A manila folder slid across the desk and opened before her. Some kind of report stamped U.S. Board of Economic Warfare.

“Read it,” he commanded. “Read aloud where I have underlined.”

Noor read, “‘The average person in India is eating 600 to 800 calories per day. That is only a few ounces, consisting chiefly of starches. The average Englishman or American consumes between 3,500 and 3,800 calories daily … The minimum subsistence diet is 1,000 calories a day … Registration records show an increase of 47,000 deaths over the previous five-year average for the month.’”

“What does it recommend? Read the conclusion, underlined in red.”

“It recommends immediate relief shipments.”

“Yes, don’t you see, Princess? These are your Allies.”

“These are the occupiers of India, just as Germans are the occupiers of France.”

He took off his spectacles and stared at her. Then he put them back on and said, “Read the clipping from The New York Times. It’s dated August 1943. Read it aloud!”

“‘The mayor of Calcutta has sent a telegram to President Roosevelt. It reads: Acute distress prevails in the city of Calcutta and province of Bengal due to shortages. Hundreds dying of starvation. Appeal to you and Mr. Churchill in the name of starving humanity to arrange immediate shipment of food grains from America, Australia and other countries.’”

Noor’s cheeks grew warm, but she remained quiet.

“And this one.” He picked up another clipping. “Dated August 30, see—not that long ago. Read it aloud.”

Keeping her voice optimistic as that of a newsreel announcer, Noor read, “‘ … at a meeting of the Combined Food Board, the U.S. representative raised the issue of food with the British representative. He was told it is a matter of shipping, not of supply, and that Australia can supply India.’”

“Do you understand for whom you are fighting, now, Princess Noor? Allow me to read this one to you myself—top secret, intercepted from a consul general’s dispatch to the U.S. State Department. It says, “‘The problem of disposal of corpses from the streets of Calcutta is severely overtaxing the facilities available.’ Don’t you understand? Your countrymen are being exterminated, and the excuse is this war. See these—”

Her tongue turned heavy and helpless in her mouth.

Don’t let him see any reaction.

Clippings spread across his desk: “Bengal Food Crisis!” cried the London Times. “Famine in Bengal” proclaimed the Manchester Guardian. “Hospitals receive 5,000 cases of hunger-related diseases” said The New York Times. And finally, one dated today, October 28, 1943, from the Associated Press: “100,000 men, women and children are dying of starvation each week in Bengal and the figure is likely to rise weekly till December.”

Dadijaan’s teak-brown face in 1940, the day they fled—old Dadijaan refusing to return to India with Uncle Tajuddin because she had “a lot of work to do in London.” Dadijaan making her speeches at Hyde Park every Sunday.

Maybe, just maybe, someone who could understand Urdu had begun to listen. Dadijaan said, often and loudly, that the British-owned Statesman had been censored, barred from using the word “famine,” yet the Manchester Guardian actually used the word.

The clippings showed some progress, a capacity for self-correction. And though they would never bring back those starved for this war, maybe these reports would pressure Churchill to request UNRRA grain and famine relief from President Roosevelt.

Swallow back tears, or he wins.

“At least,” stammered Noor, “the English papers are freer than yours. People could be starving and enslaved in German camps and your Propagandastaffl’s newsreels would never report it.”

Vogel threw up his hands. “Now you don’t want to believe what your ‘free’ press is telling you? Usually there are so many conflicting points of view, one doesn’t know what to believe.” He glanced at himself, then came back to Noor. “You are Indian, but you do not care?”

Noor frowned at the clippings before her and willed her voice steady. “I do care. Not only because I am Indian, but because I am human.”

Vogel looked at her as if she had spoken in Urdu. “I have been so patient with you. Understand me: I report to Herr Kieffer every day how much you know. I tell him you have intimate knowledge of the PROSPER network, since all messages went through you. But you have to, you must, give me locations of hidden arms.”

How long could the illusion Vogel had created last? She didn’t know any locations. Vogel would never believe her, but the last time she had seen arms was in the library at Grignon. And the Germans must already have found those after the Grignon roundup. What she knew of the Free French networks for whom Viennot had enlisted her services was code names, addresses of safe houses. Resistants didn’t have any need to inform London where arms were hidden in France.

“It’s taken days, but we have deciphered Archambault’s messages and yours. Very interesting. Très intéressant! But only code names have been used in every message. We have some information from other sources, but you must help me with the code names we don’t know.”

Other sources. “Ask Gilbert!” she wanted to shout. But she couldn’t admit to knowing him. Gilbert would know only the names and addresses of SOE agents; he couldn’t help Vogel with names of Free French resistants. Viennot would know those details. Insh’allah, Viennot had lasted twenty-four hours to let his contacts go underground. Silence was her only defence.

Vogel’s face had actually reddened. “Herr Kieffer expects me to send you to Fresnes prison. Do you understand? That is no longer a prison—it’s a prison camp! Don’t oblige me to obey him. If not Fresnes, he commands that I send you to some other prison camp, as I have sent everyone in Prosper’s network.”

They haven’t been executed! They must have used the diamonds to bribe someone in the Gestapo. Probably Vogel.

Though Émile was caught, at least some benefit had come of requesting her valise, some good for many others.

“If you give me nothing I can use, I will be forced to send you away. At present, I’ve told Herr Kieffer I can’t find a prison or camp that isn’t full.”

Seeming unaware of the implications of his statement, he gestured at the clippings on the table. A throbbing ache returned to her shoulder, radiated through her.

“Think, Princess, think what Churchill is doing to your people, for this war. We’ll have dinner together again when you’re ready to talk to me.”

The guard stepped forward, took her by her good arm and led her back to her cell.