know where they had taken Julian, what they had done with his body.
That was nearly a month ago. The dream of Eleanor rescuing her and bringing her home to her daughter was one she had almost every night since.
It was shouting that had roused her from sleep. “Raus!” voices barked. Not the usual French of the milice who ran Fresnes prison, but German. Something hard clanged against the metal bars of each cell as the doors opened.
Marie sat up quickly. What was happening? For a fleeting second, she wondered if they were being liberated. The invasion had come since her imprisonment, she’d learned, Allied troops inching toward Paris. But the faces around her were grim, pupils dark and dilated with fear. Throughout the large cell, emaciated women were gathering their few belongings, writing notes on tiny scraps of paper. One was feverishly attempting to swallow a piece of jewelry she had managed to keep. These were the last preparations each woman had rehearsed hundreds of times in her mind, knowing this day would come. The rumors they had heard of the prison being emptied were true.
Marie rose stiffly. She had been one of the last arrivals to the cell, and there were no more thin, straw mattresses left for her to sleep on. She had instead spent more than three weeks sleeping on the floor. She had consoled herself by thinking she might avoid nits by not lying on one of the filthy pallets. But it was inevitable with too many people in such a small space. Her scalp itched now with the tiny bugs, and she scratched her head, disgusted.
She watched the women scurry about, making the only preparations for deportation that they could, as though it would change anything at all. About a dozen in all, they had been here longer than she, and their bodies were skeletal, covered with sores from the bedbugs and bruises from where they had been beaten. Marie had come to learn that they were all French, resistance members and spouses of partisans, and ordinary women who had been caught helping to defy the Germans. Very few were Jews; those poor souls had already been sent east, but their presence lingered in the makeshift mezuzah one had scratched into the wall near the door.
The women moved swiftly now. They squeezed slips of paper through the thin slit prison windows, sending them cascading to the ground like confetti. They were notes, scribbles on whatever could be found, written in charcoal or sometimes blood, asking about relatives or trying to send word. Or simply “Je suis là” (“I am here”), followed by a name, because soon they would not be and someone needed to remember.
But Marie stood motionless, letting the activity swirl around her as she prepared to be taken, once again, against her will to points unknown. She considered refusing to go. The Germans would surely shoot her on the spot, as they had Julian. Her heart screamed as she remembered his last moments, life pouring from him. He had looked so peaceful. Without him, all hope was gone. Perhaps it would be for the best.
No, not all hope. If the Allies were closing in on Paris, surely the Germans would want the prisoners moved ahead of that. Liberation could not be far behind. If there was a chance of someday getting back to her daughter, Marie had to try.
The door to the cell, which had been locked since her arrival weeks earlier, now burst open with a clang. “Raus!” The women around her surged forward. No one wanted to face the consequences of being last. In the dank central corridor, women poured from the other cells, merging with them until the stream became a river of bodies, thick and warm.
As the crowd pushed her forward, Marie stumbled over something and nearly fell. It was a woman on the corridor floor, curled up in a ball, too sick or hurt to go on. Marie hesitated. She did not want to lag behind. But the woman would surely be killed if she remained on the ground. Marie knelt hurriedly and tried to help the woman. Then she let out a yelp of recognition.
It was Josie.
Marie froze, wondering if it was an illusion, or another dream. Then she dropped to her knees, embracing her friend. “You’re alive!” Josie was a skeleton, though, hardly recognizable, not moving. “It’s me, Marie,” she added, when Josie did not respond or seem to know her.
Josie opened her mouth but no