"We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it." - Tennessee Williams, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
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I tend to spend a lot of my time writing out my confessions. I think it's doing me some good - trying to remember instead of forget but doing it in a way that feels like I'm in control, as though I'm a writer crafting characters and plot as opposed to the person experiencing it. Writing it in the third person and past tense helps a lot, too, and even though the writing makes the memories feel more vivid it also helps me lock them away a little bit in my mind.
The Americans are training a lot these days, preparing for their eventual deployment to the Pacific. No one knows when that will be which only makes waking up each day that bit more nerve-wracking because I'm always wondering whether today will be the day they're sent away, or the day I am. They should get a little bit more forewarning though; it's us that are at risk of a last minute deployment.
Any time the yanks aren't training I try to spend with them, as do the others. Where Tom and I have always been close with them, during my time in interrogation Martin and Will apparently grew close with them too; experiencing combat together will do that to people. I've heard brief stories and anecdotes about Bastogne and what happened there but I think Bastogne for them is the equivalent of what interrogation is for me, and I don't want to push them into telling me anything that's only going to upset them.
Our next update from HQ comes, conveniently, when all four of us are sitting in one of the bigger hotel rooms allocated to four of the men to share. It has a large living-space type area and two bedrooms which branch out off of it but we all fit comfortably into the main area. Will's playing poker with Chuck, Floyd, Malark, Popeye, and Frank, and seems to be winning, too (though I don't know the first thing about poker) whilst Martin and Johnny (Martin squared, if you will) seem to be content bitching about something or other. Tom is sitting with Liebgott, Skinny, and Alton More telling them all about the 'progress' he's making with Carlotta-who-works-in-the-lobby, whilst I sit with Gene, George, Babe, and Spina and we're all discussing whether the European or Pacific front is worse.
"From a spy's perspective," I begin to offer my tuppence, and giggle when George jokingly groans, "European is worse. I'm not even sure if they have spies in the Pacific but I think being stuck in the Gestapo HQ with only a watch and a lock-pick is maybe the worst kind of mission anyone can be sent on."
"You're shittin' me," Babe says, half-shocked and half-enthralled. "You've been to the Gestapo HQ?"
"Yeah, many times," I reply, laughing. "It's in Paris. Or, well, it was. It's in Berlin now but when I was breaking and entering it was in Paris."
"I hate that I have no fuckin' idea whether you're lyin'," Spina says, which makes me laugh because I absolutely am not.
Before I can reply, however, Will jumps to his feet and shouts, "Jules!"
"What?" I call back but then I hear it for myself; the radio static that signifies we're about to receive a message. "Oh, no."
"Shit," Tom says from the other sofa. When I look to Martin he's rubbing a hand down his face.
I hop to my feet as well and grab Will's radio off of the floor. He sweeps the poker table clear, to the soundtrack of the other men's protests, but we pay them no mind; we have very little time to get our act together.
Will puts on his headphones and takes a seat whilst I kneel on the floor beside the table, pencil poised against paper and ready to translate whatever we receive.
"What's -"
"Shh!" Tom hisses, and the room falls into dead silence. As the morse code begins to come through I can feel the eyes of the room upon us.
Will whispers the letters to me, though his attempt at secrecy is redundant in the sudden silence of the room, and as soon as I have them all down I translate them from their coded format. Out of convenience I force myself to read the finished message myself and when I look up at the others, suddenly gathered before me, I have to force myself not to cry.
"Tonight," I whisper, and hand the paper to Tom. I watch him scan over it and see his face fall as he realises that this isn't a false alarm. Then I watch as the same happens when Martin and Will read it, too.
"Okay, everyone in mine and Jules' room," Tom orders. "We need to get organised."
My heart is in my shoes by this point, and I feel like the room is spinning.
"Okay, Jules?" Tom asks. He takes ahold of my hand and ducks to meet my eyes.
I force myself to look back at him and send him a nod.
Martin leads us out with Will following him, and as Tom tows me quickly behind him I spare one final glance behind me and catch Gene's eye. He's frowning and in my attempt to try to smile I only manage to muster tears, so I give him a nod and follow Tom out of the door, trying desperately not to cry.
As soon as I've closed the door to mine and Tom's room behind us, Tom is relaying the ideas he's formulated for a plan. I try my hardest to pay attention but the words 'Gestapo', 'prisoners', and 'burn' are making me feel dizzy. I stumble my way over to Tom's bed, the closest to the door, and sit down, shutting my eyes tight and breathing deeply. I trust Tom and I'll trust whatever plan he's formulated, because I have to. I keep going and I do my job, because I have to. I'm allowed to be brave and I will be brave, because I have to.
This isn't, and has never been, a matter of choice.
I open my eyes when Tom finishes speaking and he turns to look at all of us in turn. He looks about as grave as we all feel but he tries his best to muster a smile when he looks at me, so I try my best to offer him one in return.
"It'll be clean," he vows, speaking slowly so we all understand the gravitas of his words. "No casualties, no mistakes, no captures." He looks at me pointedly when he says this final part.
When we all nod our understanding he lets his shoulders drop and he's once more just Tom, my best friend, as opposed to Tom, my CO. He comes to sit beside me on his bed and stares at me with sorrow in his eyes. "I hate this and I know you do too, but -"
"Tom," I cut him off, forcing all of the courage and strength in my body into these words, "I'm okay. I want to burn that place to the ground. I want to see it gone."
I'm not sure he believes me - I'm not sure I believe myself - but neither of us have any choice but to accept these words and move on. We have a job to do, after all.
I don't see Gene before we go due to the last minute nature of our orders. Just in case he comes to knock at some point, in the midst of all of the chaos I spare one of my sheets of hotel paper to write him a note:
Nous sautons ce soir. Devrait être de retour demain. Souhaite moi bonne chance. Je t'aime. - J
I tuck it under the door just as we're leaving, leaving a corner peaking out underneath it. It would only be visible to someone looking for it, and I think he'd be looking. I hope so, at least, otherwise I've just wasted some of my fancy paper.
The plane we have to use, in the absence of airfields around here, is waiting for us in a nearby field. We don't speak to the pilot, though we never do, and instead get ourselves situated in the back with little fuss. The entire time my heart is pounding with nerves because the whole thing feels familiar in a strange way; it's not familiar because I've done it so many times before but it feels more like something I experienced in a dream. A dream, I hope, and not a nightmare.
The jump used to always be my favourite part but I find it extremely difficult to get past my nerves. I'm trying so desperately to push my fears and worries down but they don't seem to want to be silenced. I have to summon every single last ounce of courage in me to keep on going, and indeed that's what I keep repeating to myself in my head: keep going, keep going, keep going. Just take one thing at a time and keep going.
The streets of Berlin are eerily silent by the time we're walking them but at least there are no Nazi patrols. Large sections of the city are bombed out but a lot of it remains; the place I hate the most in the world remains but hopefully not for long. As long as I can will myself to go back in there. As long as I can keep my head and remember my training. As long as I don't freeze.
When 0230 strikes Will gives us the signal from the inside and we're entering the building. Entering through the front door is an entirely different experience to being dragged in through the back. Slipping past the guards with Will's distraction is easier than I thought it would be, and I'm so grateful, because if they saw my face I'm sure they'd recognise me. I'm almost certain.
However, the fact that I was once a prisoner here has given us one hefty advantage: I know the layout of the building like the back of my hand. I got Will in and situated without him even having to come into contact with anyone, and I can get the rest of us in whilst making sure that we're always taking the guards from behind. It was cruel of the SOE to send me on this mission knowing of the trauma I experienced here, but it was also incredibly clever.
Drugging the guards isn't difficult. With the new syringes they've given us we can inject it into their necks from behind and they drop in seconds. Hidden in the shadows and leaving a trail of bodies like breadcrumbs behind us, we make our way through the halls silently, and when the time comes, we split up.
Martin heads to do the floors at the very top whilst Tom and I head for the middle - contrary to popular belief, all of the prisoners are kept above ground; it's more difficult to escape when you're that far up. The cellars are reserved for interrogations. I shiver to recall those treacherous rooms.
Once Tom and I are on the uppermost of our group of floors, I halt, not because of the guards but because of the memories. But I have a job to do. I have a job I want to do. And I have a job I'm going to do even if it kills me.
Tom squeezes my shoulder and sends me a reassuring nod before he goes around to the other end of the hallway via the staff corridors. Standing there, all alone in the dark in the place that comes to mind when I imagine hell, I feel myself start to panic. I'm starting to lose my nerve and my hands are starting to shake, so I clasp them around my cyanide necklace. But Tom gives me the signal just in time and my hands may be shaking but that doesn't mean I can't inject two guards. I have a syringe in each fist when they land at my feet. I can't help the smile that draws up my lips.
Maybe I am fragile now. But maybe I'm not fragile like glass. Maybe I'm fragile like a bomb.
Tom sends me a nod and we unlock each cell, starting from the ends and making our way in. The first one is empty, I find, but the second one isn't. The prisoner they have in there is a boy, perhaps around seventeen, and he doesn't look nearly dirty or beaten enough to have been here beyond a week. Regardless, he's so happy to be rescued he flings his arms around me and I have to beg him to keep his gratitude quiet.
Tom and I make our way inwards silently and end up gathering the prisoners between us. The prisoners are more than happy to oblige our pleas for silence - absolutely anything to be rescued. They gather together at the other end of the hall, the one Tom came in through, and watch as we work.
When I get to the sixth door I pause before picking the lock. When the door swings inwards it's empty but my blood is still stained on the floor. This was the place they beat me, and burned me, and cut me open, and hung me up, and kicked me, and taunted me, and tried to drown me. It brings tears to my eyes but I don't cry.
I take a few steps in and make sure to pour the petrol over the desk I always wrote at and over the chair I used to sit in. I pour it over the wall my head was smashed against and the one I was tied up from. I pour it everywhere.
Then I move on to the next room, and the next, and the next, and then the floor below, and the one below that, too. Focusing on the process takes my mind off of what I'm actually doing, though my attention is drawn away when I hear loud, unmistakable slamming footsteps crashing through the floor below. The floor below doesn't have any prisoners on it - it doesn't have anyone on it, besides Will, which is why I told him to go there. The fact that someone's heading there now does not bode well.
I share a panicked glance with Tom and turn before he can tell me not to; I know these hallways better than he does. If Will's in trouble he'll need someone who knows how to get him out and Tom won't be able to do that. I force my fear down and shove my shoulders back, chin held high as I sneak through the staff corridors - being afraid won't help Will and I am not surrendering him to the same fate I faced. Not for anything.