Something Old, Something New

Extract from the novel: Despite her protests, armed guards forced her downstairs before driving her to the Maison d’Arrêt, a formidable looking prison in the district of St. Michel. They led her to a cell where she remained for the rest of the day and night, locked up with nothing to eat or drink and no contact with the outside world. The following morning, they dragged her from the cell before returning her to the Préfecture where the interrogation continued with the young officer. Following every truthful response, a second interrogator beat her. She was vaguely aware of daylight when they transported her battered and bleeding to a transit camp on the outskirts of the town. Armed guards patrolled the facility, which contained a number of wooden huts surrounded by three metres high barbed wire fencing. Overcrowded with few facilities, Marie believed that she had arrived in hell. With tears streaming down her bruised face, she crouched by one of the huts. Everywhere she looked, wretched people with vacant expressions on their faces wandered aimlessly, searching for answers to the dreaded thoughts that permeated their minds. They must have been ordinary people like me, she thought. Will I become like these poor souls? Rumours in the town had spread about such places; the reality shocked her. The stench of sweat and urine hung in the air like a portent of decay and ultimately death. Even with no information, she quickly realised that she was destined for transportation, a fate that had befallen many others victims since the Nazis moved into the unoccupied zone in 1942. My arrest happened so quickly, no one will know what became of me, she thought. How could anyone possibly find me here? She prayed—this time for a miracle.