Agent Josephine, page 27
Josephine had long feared that she would be unable to conceive. Mostly she kept this private, but it had come to a head rather publicly in the early 1930s, when she had staged a charity concert at a Bordeaux orphanage, and had helped raise funds for a new wing of l’Hôpital Saint-André. Afterwards, she had gone out partying with the staff, and in high spirits she’d sung for them most of her repertoire. The next morning they invited her on a tour of the hospital’s maternity ward. As she cooed at and kissed the babies lying in their cradles, she’d turned to one of the nursing staff and confessed, tearfully, that she feared she was unable to have a child of her own.
She’d consulted any number of Paris doctors over the years, and she had been warned she would have difficulty conceiving (there are many conflicting accounts of why this may have been so). Drawn to children, she’d become the patron of the Saint-Charles Orphanage, which was located near her Paris home, and where they mostly cared for the orphans of those killed in war. They organised a yearly trip to the seaside, known as Les Gosses à la Mer – Kids at the Sea – and Josephine donated furs and jewellery to help fund it. She had a playground built at her Le Vésinet home, allowing the orphans to come and play, and to cavort with the animals she kept there.9
By June 1941, Josephine and Abtey had been lovers for approaching two years, and in a sense in their Marrakesh villa they had found their home together. Theirs had been a somewhat fluid relationship. She had taken other lovers, as had he. But this was war, and any day could end in capture, torture or death, so each took what pleasure and escape they could whenever they could. Still, they were anxious for Josephine to conceive. During her visit to the Casablanca clinic to check on the health of her lungs, she also requested a second X-ray, to see if she was able to conceive.
‘I want a baby more than anything in the world!’ she’d confided to the doctor.
His reaction was one of shock. ‘A child? Don’t you know there’s a war on, madame?’
With the world convulsed by conflict, death and destruction, how could she want to create a new life, the doctor demanded? Perhaps that was the chief reason, Josephine countered, as an antidote to the horror. Hope in the midst of darkness. Surely, the world needed children to build a brighter, better future, especially as America was poised to enter the war, after which victory would be swift and sure.10
The doctor remained sceptical. Regardless of his downbeat attitude, Josephine had come away from that clinic ‘happy as a lark’, for the results of the X-rays had been positive.11 The doctor had confirmed that she could have all the children she wanted. She’d left Casablanca for Marrakesh riding on a ‘pink cloud’.12
The road south to the Red City offered a rough, boneshaker of a journey. The day after their return, Abtey went to Djemaa el-Fna square, to have his head shaved in the traditional fashion, which often denoted those Muslims who had completed the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest shrines, in Saudi Arabia. Of course, Abtey had not travelled as far as Mecca, but regardless he was determined to adopt the ‘local’ look. Josephine was off bargaining for something or other, and when they met up again at first she didn’t recognise him. Finally realising who this shaven apparition was, she dissolved into fits of laughter.
‘I have never seen such an egg in all my life,’ she giggled. ‘If you were trying to make yourself unrecognisable, you succeeded. As for discretion, judge for yourself!’
She gestured to the bread vendors squatting in the nearby shade, their veiled faces revealing only their eyes. The volleys of shrill laughter they let fly in Abtey’s direction left little to the imagination. Josephine suggested they retire to a place of refuge, where he might hide his glistening dome. Pulling him by the hand, she hurried towards the series of narrow passageways at the end of which lay their villa. There was one final gauntlet to run, the crowds of beggars that lined the exit to the square: ‘emaciated ghosts, supporting each other, holding out begging bowls… turning their blind eyes towards us, chanting their… monotonous lament.’13
With so many of them being unable to see, Abtey’s shaven-headed look went largely unnoticed, but only until they reached the villa. There, they had a visitor. It was Emmanuel Bayonne, their former Deuxième Bureau colleague, Château des Milandes resister, TR agent and sometime theatrical impresario. Unsurprisingly, Bayonne found Abtey’s new appearance utterly hilarious, especially when Abtey tried to convince Bayonne to switch to the ‘lawnmower’ look himself. All three were in high spirits. With Bayonne’s reappearance, they could re-establish their links to Paillole. Canfield and Pendar were keen to reconnect the French end of the intelligence pipeline, and here was the perfect means to do so.
But before they could celebrate, or discuss and plan much, Josephine began to complain of feeling sick. She had a dull ache in her stomach. Famously reluctant to succumb to any ailment, Abtey and Bayonne managed to persuade her to lie down and rest. As the pain worsened, they administered some camphorated tincture of opium, or Paregoric, an opiate-based medicine then available over the counter. But even that brought little respite, and around one o’clock in the morning Abtey called a doctor. Having examined the patient, he emerged from the bedroom looking decidedly concerned.
‘What is it?’ Abtey demanded.
‘I can’t say yet,’ the doctor replied. He hadn’t been able to reach a clear diagnosis. But whatever was the matter, it didn’t look good. He promised to return in the morning, and in the meantime they should ice the most painful area. That was the best they could do for now. As Bayonne hurried off to fetch some ice from the marketplace, Abtey took Josephine’s hand in his. She was moaning and clutching her stomach and her limbs were burning hot with fever.
‘What’s happening to me?’ she murmured, weakly. ‘It’s awful…’14
He did his best to calm her. ‘It can’t be anything serious, my dear Josephine.’ He told her a small lie, offering reassurances that the doctor wasn’t concerned. ‘Bayonne has gone to get some ice… You’ll see how it will help.’15
After Bayonne returned they sat up all night, alternating tasks. While one held the ice pack to a feverish Josephine, the other took a hammer and crushed ice out on the villa’s patio. It was a long night, and when the doctor returned the situation looked dire. He diagnosed the onset of peritonitis, an infection of the silk-like membrane that lines the inner wall of the abdomen, cushioning many of the body’s organs. Most likely, it had been caused by an infected needle being used to administer the contrast fluid, prior to Josephine’s X-rays at the Casablanca clinic.16
Left untreated, it would very likely spread to the blood, causing sepsis and widespread organ failure. At that time, prior to the widespread advent of antibiotics, most people did not survive peritonitis. Certainly, there was nowhere in the Red City fit to treat Josephine, the doctor warned. They needed to get her to Casablanca as quickly as possible. The road between the two cities was atrocious, so they’d have to find an ambulance to carry her.
With Josephine racked by crippling stomach cramps, Abtey took the first train to Casablanca to find both a clinic and a suitable conveyance. He returned frustrated and beside himself with worry. No ambulance was available for such a long drive over such an appalling route. The best he’d been able to do was to get his hands on a large inflatable inner-tube, to at least cushion the ride. He’d also managed to borrow a car, but he couldn’t get it anywhere near the villa’s entrance, due to the narrow alleyways, which were even too constricting to allow for the passage of a stretcher.
Abtey and Bayonne decided they should leave in the cool of the evening, in an effort to make things a little more tolerable. They dressed a feverish Josephine in warm clothes, wrapped her in a blanket and carried her to the vehicle. Upon reaching it they were forced to lay their burden ‘in the dust of the street’, before trying to make Josephine as comfortable as possible on the inner-tube, which they slid into the rear.17 Thus began their journey north through the darkening desert, jolting over potholed roads and dirt tracks, weaving through jumbled, rocky gorges, and slipping between mighty shadowed dune seas, which seemed to whisper beguilingly in the moonlit silence.
‘The night was beautiful and the sky was full of stars,’ Abtey would write. But from the back of the car Josephine was saying not a word. Her silence lay heavy upon them, as they stared into the darkened terrain, nosing ahead at a snail’s pace and trying to shield their patient from the worst jolts and pain. Typically Josephine would make light of the situation: ‘They were a sight to behold, my brave companions! I could see a greater concern than mine in their smiles.’18
Abtey and Bayonne had every reason to be worried. The doctor had warned them not to breathe a word to Josephine about what was wrong, which had a ‘terrible effect’ on the both of them.19 There was good reason to keep the truth from her. Back in 1927 the very same ailment – peritonitis – had killed Josephine’s stage rival-cum-co-star, Florence Mills. Eleven years her senior, when a teenage Josephine had first won her breakthrough part on Broadway Florence Mills had been the headline attraction of the show. Years later, after a gruelling but sell-out 1926 London season, Mills had returned to New York for a routine operation. She’d contracted peritonitis and died from the resulting complications – chiefly tuberculosis – aged just thirty-one.20
Josephine had followed Mills’ glittering career, describing her as a ‘pixyish’ dancer with ‘a light, high voice’.21 In many ways her London triumphs had echoed Josephine’s success in Paris. Likewise a descendant of former slaves, Mills had been billed as ‘the Queen of Happiness’. Her premature death had robbed the world of one of the most talented black female performers. Partly, her tragic demise was put down to exhaustion. She’d completed three hundred shows in Britain with barely a break. In similar vein, being two years into the stress and strain of the war, the cumulative effect had taken a heavy toll on Josephine. As Abtey realised, if she died of this illness it would be the war that had killed her, just as certainly as if she had taken an enemy bullet.
The drive to Casablanca lasted the entire night. On reaching the city they made straight for the clinic at which Abtey had reserved a bed. It lay adjacent to the city’s cathedral, the Church of the Sacred Heart, and just a short drive from the beach front. They arrived to find the clinic’s director waiting for them, an austere-looking woman dressed in a crisp uniform.
‘Would you tell Miss Baker to come up?’ she suggested, gesturing at the several flights of stairs leading into the hospital.
By way of answer, Abtey explained that Josephine was too sick to move, and he asked the director to come and check on her. Bizarrely, she refused, arguing that surely Miss Baker was capable of making her own way into the building.
For once, Abtey was lost for something to say. He stared at ‘this curious human specimen’, this ‘dragon’, unable to think of a suitable riposte. Instead, he turned and without another word hurried back to the car.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he exclaimed to Bayonne.22
Back on the road, Abtey asked the first policeman they came across to direct them to the best clinic the city had to offer. The Mers Sultan was the place, he advised. It was run by a ‘surgeon with an excellent reputation’, and was but a short drive away.23 As a bonus, the clinic lay on the north side of the city’s Parc Murdoch, a lush, palm-shaded green space known as Casablanca’s second lung.
Thanking him profusely, they headed there right away. Upon first impressions the Mers Sultan – better known as the ‘Comte Clinic’, after its chief surgeon, Dr Henri Comte – looked full of promise. Abtey rang the doorbell, noticing the smart, whitewashed walls clad with bougainvillea – vigorous, ornamental vines – and hoping to God that they had space. A lady answered with a ready smile, and in short order a room was made ready for Josephine.
Abtey asked for a cot to be made-up. Unless his work compelled him to be away, he was determined to remain at Josephine’s side and to see her through the worst. Little did he appreciate how long or dark the road ahead would prove. So ‘began our struggle with death’, he would write, in which the ‘rage with which we said no to death’, married to ‘our unshakeable will and faith’ was about all that might save her. Ahead lay months of suffering, during which Abtey would fear that Josephine would ‘collapse under blows that were impossible to parry’.24
Shortly, Dr Henri Comte came to examine his new and unexpected – and famous – patient. He emerged from Josephine’s room looking troubled. ‘Not brilliant. Not brilliant,’ he remarked to Abtey, who was pacing the corridor outside. Just as the Marrakesh medic had surmised, Josephine had contracted peritonitis. They would need to work a miracle ‘to stop the evil’, Dr Comte warned. They would know the worst in three to four days, but for now he needed to get busy preparing his treatment.25
Alone again, Abtey crept back into the room. The shutters were closed and Josephine looked dead to the world. He slipped off his shoes and retreated to his cot. There, he was assailed by the most terrible thoughts. The doctor’s words kept swirling around his head. The fact that Josephine might die was beyond his comprehension. She had more spirit and life-force than just about anyone he knew. She could not die. Every way he looked at it, she simply could not perish like this: ‘It was neither the place nor the time.’26
Josephine herself had said that the human body only ever lets go of life when the mind decides it is ready to. There was so much left to do. Just at the point when they had forged their new partnership, brokered via the Apostles, surely they were not to witness the tragic end of Josephine’s war. He glanced at the sunlight streaming in through the shutters. No one died on a day of such splendour, Abtey told himself, as he tried to buoy up his spirits. Momentarily, he caught his reflection in the mirror on the wall. He cursed his crass stupidity in getting his head shaved; cursed the ‘clown face’ that stared back at him; and he cursed his impotence in not being able to help.27
For two days and nights he kept his lonely vigil. All that second night Josephine was delirious, crying out in her dreams about her menagerie; about Mica and Gugusse, plus a small African sparrow that she’d adopted and named Gigolo. Abtey lay awake, eyes open, throat tight, listening out for any coherent, sentient sentence that she might utter. Then, very early on the morning of the third day, she finally spoke.
‘Jack, I feel so strange,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter. This ice pack seems so heavy to me…’
He hurried to her bedside. If anything, she looked even less well. He called for Dr Comte, and shortly Josephine was wheeled away to the operating theatre. An hour later she was back. Deeply anaesthetised, her face seemed peaceful, her pulse regular, her fever less severe. The attendant nurse smiled. Nature had run its course, she explained. The infection had peaked, and Dr Comte had managed to isolate it with a simple incision and drain it out.
By the time Dr. Comte himself came to see his patient, Josephine had opened her eyes. Gradually, over the coming hours, her strength returned and she seemed finally on the road to recovery. That day would be the first in many when Abtey would find his appetite again. While Josephine’s life had hung in the balance, he’d been too worried to eat.
Abtey was determined to remain by her side until she was fully well. Not all would welcome his presence at the clinic. With his shaven blond hair, piercing blue eyes and his ‘nose shaped like a sabre’s blade’, Abtey was distrusted by Dr Bolot, Dr Comte’s assistant. He disliked Abtey’s ‘Aryan’ look and distrusted him. He was forever wondering if Abtey was a Gestapo plant, or an agent of the Vichy French police.28
Regardless, Abtey wasn’t going anywhere.
Since their dinner in Ain Diab several days earlier, neither he nor Josephine had seen Canfield, or any of the Apostles. But thanks to Josephine’s good offices, Canfield had got to meet with Moulay Larbi El Alaoui. Shortly, he made a beeline for the Comte Clinic. The reason for his visit was two-fold. First, he’d come to check on the health of the Apostle’s newest, and most potent special agent. Secondly, he wanted to report how well things had gone at his recent meeting. Hot on Canfield’s heels, Moulay Larbi himself paid a visit. Both figures – Moroccan notable and American Apostle – were of the same mind: Canfield’s depiction of the ‘colossal war output of American industry’ had convinced the Moroccan that when America joined the war, the Allies were sure to triumph.29
Even as Josephine seemed to turn the corner towards recovery, her doctors warned that many days of bed-rest lay ahead. When finally she was told she could get up and move about, her ‘joy was like that of a child’. She confided in Abtey how happy she was, just at the simple pleasure of being able to take a few steps.
‘It seems to me that I am coming back to life,’ she told him, ‘and that everything was just a terrible nightmare. You’ll see, I’m going to make myself beautiful for my first outing. I’ll put on my pretty yellow dress that I’ve always found a little too long, and my small brown felt hat that is “so lovable”. With that dress we won’t be able to see my legs, which are so thin…’ she added, laughing at her own dark humour.30
Her first outing in the clinic became an event in itself. She realised she’d forgotten how to walk. She had become a dancer whose legs were unable to carry her anymore, she lamented.31 Supported by two nurses, she managed to execute a short lap of the corridor, carefully placing one foot in front of the next. Still she insisted on going to visit her fellow patients, especially the young ones. Look children, look at me, she told them. If I can recover after such a terrible sickness, you’ve got nothing to worry about.32
But those first few, faltering steps, and her hope and heartfelt optimism, proved premature. Two days later her fever spiked again. The infection had returned and it was attacking the very same organs as before. Overnight, Josephine’s abdomen became ‘hardened like a drumhead’. Icing, surgery and a whole range of measures – including dosing her with sulphonamides, the nearest to an antibiotic then available – were employed, as the battle against death was resumed with a vengeance.
