The German soldiers and Milice officers shouted angrily and raised their batons menacingly when one child or another scrambled out of the play area.
“Our Fascist compatriots are surprised at what the children of untermenschen have accomplished,” Claude said.
“Our children are wonderful,” Madeleine agreed. “They are our future.”
“Yes. Our future.”
They smiled at each other. Future was a word they rarely uttered. Any length of time beyond their dark present was forbidden territory, undefined, amorphous. They dared not think of what might happen during the next day or the next week. Their tomorrows were shrouded in uncertainty, limned with danger.
On the drive back to Paris after that first strenuous day, Madeleine rewarded herself by resting her head on Claude’s shoulder. They savored the silence of the dying day, the melancholy pastel hues of the setting sun. It was a respite from the anxiety and activity that consumed their waking hours and haunted their sleepless nights.
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful to run away? Just the two of us,” she murmured sleepily.
“Don’t say that; don’t think that,” he retorted angrily. “Don’t even think it. Our duty is to our people. To our children. You must remember the pledge that we made.”
“I remember and I’m sorry,” Madeleine said even as she acknowledged to herself that she was not sorry. She reserved the right to indulge in vagrant fantasies, as cowardly and shameful as they might be.
* * *
During the weeks that followed, Madeleine worked tirelessly to create a pleasant ambiance for the children in the factory complex. She enlisted Jewish teachers whom the Vichy government had fired and arranged for them to organize a school, paying them with small stipends from the grant the Institute had obtained.
Each morning, she and her newly recruited staff, crammed into a battered vehicle, its license plates deliberately made illegible by coatings of mud, and drove to Gentilly. The once-quiet suburb, transformed into an ugly industrial zone by the Germans, was only kilometers south of Paris, but the journey was suffused with tension. Stopped at checkpoints by the Vichy police, Madeleine and her crew pointed to the yellow stars on their jackets and offered forged documents that identified them as Jewish workers reporting to a road-clearing detail. They prayed that the boot of the car, crammed as it was with school supplies, children’s clothing, and food, would not be opened. Surprisingly, it never was. Her more optimistic colleagues attributed their daily escapes to the sympathy of the Vichy police.
“They are Frenchmen after all. Sons of France who stand with us,” one teacher argued.
“No, they don’t bother stopping us because they are lazy,” another countered. “Lazy in peace, lazy in war. Who joins the Vichy police? The scum of Paris alleyways. Bullies without hearts. Lousy anti-Semites all.”
Madeleine shook her head warningly.
“I prefer to think they allow us to pass the checkpoints because they secretly believe in a free France,” she said.
She did not, of course, believe her own words, but she spoke them to discourage her companions’ outbursts of fear and anger. She knew that their safe passage, of course, was because of bribes discreetly paid and greedily accepted.
Within months, the Gentilly project was a recognized success, spoken of with admiration by the staff of the Institute of Social Work and the leadership of the Résistance. Madeleine was exhausted but gratified. She thrilled to the sounds of the children’s laughter, and her heart soared when Anna rushed toward her with a welcoming hug each morning.
Anna was playing; she was studying. She and her brothers slept in their parents’ cramped one-room cubicle in the barracks. But crowded and depressing as it was, Anna thought their togetherness a miracle.
“And you,” she informed Madeleine happily, “you are the miracle worker.”
The warmth of the emergent spring filled Madeleine with a hopeful serenity. One April morning, ablaze with sunlight, she was the designated driver because Claude had another assignment. She stopped the car beside a forsythia bush that blossomed in a wild, neglected garden.
“Let’s bring our children some flowers. They should have some beauty in their lives,” she told the teachers who were traveling with her.
“Flowers will not keep them safe,” Edith, an emaciated teacher whose young husband had been caught in a rafle, said bitterly.
Madeleine recognized Edith’s disparaging tone. She did not disagree. She could not offer her children security, but they were, at the very least, entitled to the scent and touch of the first harbingers of spring. Edith remained in the car as Madeleine and the others filled their arms with flowers.
She parked the car in a secluded area, studiously avoided by both the Germans and the Milice. Clutching her wild bouquet, eager to show the long-stemmed, golden flowers to Anna, she hurried to the playground which, even at that early hour, was usually crowded with noisy laughing, singing children. But there was neither laughter nor song.
Her heart stopped. Silence prevailed. The area was deserted. The swings dangled in forlorn emptiness. There were no clamorous queues for the seesaw, no carefree games of tag. Madeleine paused and looked around, fighting the chill of fear that caused her to shiver despite the warmth of the morning. A hawk flew low, an ominous warning. She hurried into the building.
Small groups of children were gathered around their teachers, but no classes were in progress. The children were subdued, staring nervously each time the door swung open. A large group of youngsters who usually attended the early-morning classes was missing, including Samuel, David, and Anna Hofberg.
“What has happened?” Madeleine asked.
The bouquet of forsythia fell from her hands and dropped soundlessly onto the rough floor, scattering yellow petals shaped like tears.
François, a tall boy, stepped forward. Madeleine knew him, knew that he had turned thirteen only a few months earlier. She had danced at his bar mitzvah at which a courageous young rabbi had officiated, having smuggled a Torah scroll into their improvised school. François’s mother, newly pregnant, had been aglow with pride as he chanted his Torah portion.
He took her aside and spoke slowly and loudly, and Madeleine understood that Anna must have told him about her hearing deficit.
“They came last night,” he said. “A rafle, a mass arrest. It was the Gestapo who came. Not the Vichy police. Not the Milice. Germans. They rounded up refugees. People without papers. They took people who were ill. Pregnant women. My mother.” His voice broke. “My father. My brother.”
He shuddered and fell silent.
Rina, a small girl, Anna’s special friend, whose father had been deported weeks earlier, hurried to his side, and glancing up at him and seeing that sorrow had stilled his voice, she took up his story, speaking very softly.
“They had trucks. The Germans. They pushed people onto those ugly, big trucks. They had guns, those soldiers, those Nazis. They had batons. They hit my mother when she tried to hug me, to say goodbye to me. Why did they hit her? Why are they so cruel? I am all alone now. Who will take care of me?”
Rina’s small voice escalated, became a wail. Tears streaked her pale cheeks. Madeleine held her close, smoothed her matted hair, and murmured words she knew to be lies.
“You will see your mother again. But now we will take care of you. We the Éclaireurs Israélites, the Jewish Scouts. We will keep you safe. You can depend on us, little one.”
Slowly, the child grew calmer.
“Anna Hofberg? Her brothers? Their parents? Were they taken?” Madeleine asked François.
“Her mother and father were pushed onto the very first truck. I heard her mother call Anna’s name. I heard her father shout that they should hide. Anna and her brothers. They listened to their father, and they ran. It was dark but they found a place to hide,” François said. “They are in great danger. Th
ey have no papers. And now they have no mother, no father.”
“Do you know where they are?” Madeleine asked.
“I know. I will take you to them. Come with me.”
She marveled at the firmness of the boy’s tone, the clarity of his command. His recent bar mitzvah had made him an adult member of the Jewish community, but it was the cruelty of the Nazis that had thrust him into manhood. His own parents, his brother, had vanished but he stood ready to help the Hofberg children.
“Take some food,” he advised.
Madeleine crammed her pockets with rolls and fruit and followed him across the playground where children now feared to play. He sprinted to the rear of the building and Madeleine kept apace, her breath coming in painful gasps, her heart racing. He paused at an abandoned storage shed, barely visible between pyramids of factory waste. Discarded metal shards and fragments of broken glass glinted in the sunlight. Francois kicked away rusted barriers, scraps of wire, and knocked sharply on the door. Three taps, a pause, another tap. A code, Madeleine realized, and she smiled bitterly at the canniness of children who planned for their own escapes, lessons she had not thought to teach.
The door opened. They entered quickly and closed it behind them. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she saw the Hofberg youngsters huddled in a corner, their pale faces masks of terror. Anna was curled into the fetal position, her frail body blanketed by a gray overcoat that Madeleine recognized. It had belonged to her brother Jean Louis, and her mother had given it to David Hofberg.
“Madeleine, you came,” Anna whispered.
“Of course I came,” she said and forced herself to smile. “Let us pretend that we having a picnic.”
She distributed the food she had brought, but there were no smiles. Anna and her brothers would not be deceived into gaiety. They stared at the food but made no move to eat. At last Madeleine handed each of them a roll, an apple.
“We don’t know what we must do, where we will be safe. What has happened to our parents? Our mother was crying,” Samuel said.
“I have no answers,” Madeleine said, kneeling beside Anna and holding her so close that the crumbs from the roll the child was eating fell onto her lap. “I can only tell you that those arrested in rafles are often taken to Drancy, a transit camp just north of Paris. I imagine that your parents are there.”
“Transit. Where will they go from there?” David asked.
She hesitated. She feared to tell them the truth, but neither would she lie to them.
“Most of the internees at Drancy are transported east. To Poland.”
“Poland.”
They whispered in unison, their eyes closed. Poland was a word in their lexicon of terror. They had heard of a concentration camp there called Auschwitz. Another called Treblinka. They knew what happened to Jews in Poland, the land of Auschwitz and Treblinka, the kingdom of death.
“Drancy is so close to Paris. They can be rescued. Can’t the Résistance rescue them? Can’t the scouts do something?” Samuel asked, his voice hoarse with desperation.
Madeleine shook her head.
“We éclaireurs are not magicians. We cannot liberate a camp protected by heavily armed German soldiers and the Vichy military. But we can save you. All three of you. We can help you escape from the Occupied Zone, from the Nazis.”
“How will you do that? We have no papers. We have no money. No relations. We are Jews, refugees without refuge. We will be hunted by the Vichy police, by the Gestapo,” David protested.
Madeleine glanced at François. The tall boy understood her silence.
“I will leave. It is best that I have no knowledge of your plans,” he said.
It was apparent that he knew that each and every member of the Résistance was pledged to secrecy about discrete operations. That which was not known could not be revealed. It was known that after hours of horrendous torture, even the staunchest Résistance fighters had been compelled to divulge secrets.
“You must listen to Mademoiselle Levy. You must trust her,” Francois advised the Hofberg youngsters.
He bent to pat Anna’s head, to shake hands with each of her brothers, and left the shed. Madeleine again marveled at his restraint and his courage. Not twenty-four hours had passed since his own parents and his brother had vanished from his life, but he expended no time on sorrow. Grief was a luxury that had been denied him. Courage had taken its place. He closed the door behind him.
“What is your plan?” Samuel asked Madeleine.
She opened her purse, unzipped its lining, and removed the waterproof oilskin folder that contained the forged papers Simone had prepared for the Hofberg children.
“These papers will grant you safe travel to Paris. You will be with me. The Vichy police at the checkpoints know my car. They have been bribed, and they will probably not even glance at your documents. In Paris you will be hidden in an Éclaireur safe house with other Jewish boys and girls. You will receive training that will prepare you for the trek across the Alps to safety in Switzerland.”
“The Alps? Switzerland?”
The boys stared at her, fear in their eyes, tremors in their voices. They were, she knew, imagining snow-covered mountain passes, hostile border guards, rough terrain, an unwelcoming population.
“You are frightened. Of course you are,” she said gently. “It will be dangerous but you will be well trained, well protected. The éclaireurs have engaged passeurs, Swiss guides. A senior scout will be with you throughout the journey. We have excellent maps, reliable contacts. Enough money to bribe border police. We are hopeful. And you must be brave enough to share our hope. If you remain in France, you will face great danger. But once you are in Switzerland, a route will be found to bring you to safety in Palestine.”
“But what about Anna?” David asked. “She is so little. She would not have the strength for such a trek.”
“Anna will remain with me. I will take her to my family in Toulouse. When she is stronger, when she is ready, she and I together will join another group. We will escape across the Pyrenees into Spain. If I am safe, she will be safe. And, of course, I mean to be safe.”
She smiled, and this time they returned her smile. Sadness lingered, but she had ignited a spark of hope.
She handed Samuel the packet of documents. “Memorize the names and dates. Take very good care of these papers. They are your insurance policies.”
“We will,” they promised.
“If God wills it, they will carry you all the way to Palestine. And Anna will join you there,” she added.
“If God wills it,” they echoed, despair in their voices, disbelief in their eyes, but a new determination in their posture.
When the long day ended, they scrambled into Madeleine’s car. Anna sat between her brothers on the journey to Paris. Subdued by grief, trembling with fear, the small girl nevertheless summoned the courage to smile brightly at the Gestapo officer who stopped their vehicle at a checkpoint.
“Guten Abend, mein Herr,” she said, and he smiled to hear the language of the fatherland spoken by such a pretty blond child. He assumed her to be the daughter of a Gestapo officer traveling with household servants. He handed her a piece of chocolate and waved the car on.
“Well done, Anna,” Madeleine said, but Anna was asleep, her hand resting on David’s shoulder, her small hand clasped around Samuel’s, a trio of siblings who might soon be separated forever.
Madeleine focused on the road, its new darkness silvered by a pitiless moon.
Seventeen
Claude learned of the rafle in Gentilly in at éclaireurs headquarters in Paris, but there was no news of Madeleine. He knew only that she had left for Gentilly that morning with a group of teachers, all of them unaware of what had occurred the previous evening. He worried that the Gestapo had still been there when they arrived, which might mean that they had all been arrested. He shuddered
at the thought of what such an arrest might entail. Torture. Deportation. Horror. Inconceivable horror. Bile surged up in his throat. He vomited out his anxiety, struggled to remain calm, repeating her name as though it was a mantra of comfort: Madeleine, Madeleine. Madeleine.
He thought ruefully of the news he had been so eager to share with her. Given her success in Gentilly, the national Résistance leadership wanted her to take on an important assignment in Toulouse. He knew that she would be overjoyed to be reunited with her family, but would such a reunion ever occur? Was she free and unharmed? Had she managed to avoid interrogation? Would he ever see her again? He shivered. His entire body was bathed in cold sweat. Throughout the long day, hour after hour, he grew convinced that she was lost to him, that she would disappear from his life.
Grim imaginings obsessed him. He thought of her in a Gestapo prison. He thought of her frightened and alone. He blamed himself for encouraging her to undertake the Gentilly project. He blamed himself for never speaking of the depth of his feelings for her, for maintaining their tacit agreement that all tenderness for each other would have to be shrouded in silence until the danger of war had passed. She had deserved more. He should have offered her more.
Late in the afternoon, he left the scout offices and wandered through Les Halles. Excursions to the produce market had always diverted him from descents into melancholy. Impulsively, he purchased a cluster of cherries because they were Madeleine’s favorite fruit.
He carried them back to his room and arranged them in an amber-colored glass bowl, all the while thinking of how the confluence of colors would delight her. She had a keen eye for beauty, often pointing out visual nuances lost to him. That talent, he thought, was a compensation for the auditory appreciation that was denied her.
He went to his window and stared down at the narrow street, empty of all traffic because the German Occupation Authority prohibited all vehicles except their own and those of Vichy collaborators. Bustling, cosmopolitan Paris had become a silent ghost town. Fearful of RAF bombing raids, the Germans had ordered that the bulbs of streetlamps be painted over with cobalt coloring. Eerie shafts of the resultant blue light slithered across the rain-darkened cobblestones. Now and again a police van cruised by. A drunken clochard leaned against a fence and sang a song that Claude did not recognize. Sadness overcame him as he stood there, hypnotized by the ominous darkness. He thought to light a lamp but he remained motionless, reluctant to abandon his vigil.
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