Serge was more than a brother to her. He was her comrade, her loyal and caring friend.
The room was dimly lit, but the faces of the bride and groom were radiant with joy. Madeleine leaned close so that she might more easily read the lips of the elderly rabbi whose wispy voice was too faint for her to hear. The intoned prayers entered her heart. Tears came to her eyes as Serge turned to Simone and murmured the ancient oath.
“Behold, you are consecrated unto me according to the laws of Moses and Israel.”
He crushed the traditional glass, a symbol of Jewish loss and longing, beneath his boot and shouts of “L’Chaim” rang out. Madeleine added her voice to the joyous chorus, flushed with pride in her tenacious community of friends and relatives. Pursued as they were by hatred, confronted each day with danger and death, they retained their love of life and their hope for the future. The mandate of Moses would outlive the foul edicts of Adolf Hitler.
“L’Chaim, to life,” she repeated and joined the circle of women who danced around the bride, their skirts swirling as they celebrated peace and happiness. “Hava Nagila,” they sang. “Let us be joyful.”
Small Anna gripped Madeleine’s hand and laughed as she trilled the song that had become the optimistic anthem of the Jewish Scouts.
“Anu banu artza, livnot ulhibanot ba. We will go up to the land to build and be built by her.”
“And so we will, Anna, so we will,” Madeleine promised the child whose graceful steps matched her own.
Lucie Dreyfus, leaning heavily on her cane, kissed Madeleine on her cheek.
“Today belongs to Simone, but your turn will come,” she said.
“I hope so, Grand-mère,” Madeleine said as she fixed her gaze at the door, willing it to open, willing Claude to enter.
She had sent him news of the wedding with a Résistance courier but had received no reply. His silence had been worrisome, but his absence was ominous.
How could he not have come? How could he not at last have sent word to me? she thought, torn between anxiety and anger.
She reproached herself. She had no right to either emotion. War raged, people were dying, and yet she was stupidly immersed in self-pity.
“Stop!” she commanded her inner self, but anger and anxiety persisted.
She went to the window, lifted a corner of drapery, and peered down into the street. The rue de la Dalbade was deserted except for the occasional Vichy police vehicle that lumbered down, its headlights covered with lampblack, its invasive loudspeakers silenced. Such patrols had neither purpose nor destination. Their presence was simply a hectoring reminder that France was a country under Nazi occupation.
Pedestrians sheltered fearfully in doorways when police vehicles passed. A battered auto with Paris plates parked in a space often claimed by Claude. Madeleine’s heart soared, but it was an elderly man who emerged from the vehicle. He glanced furtively around and hurriedly ran around the corner.
She did not avert her gaze. Claude might yet come. There could be many reasons for his delay, she told herself but even as she stood there, Serge Perl moved to stand beside her. She smiled at her new brother-in-law.
Serge was an instinctive leader, emanating quiet authority. His muscular body rippled with strength and his voice, although often harsh, was oddly reassuring. He was now the leader of an elite group known as “The Sixth,” a sobriquet for the “Jewish Army,” created by Toulouse Zionists to coordinate all Résistance efforts involving the Jewish community. His network extended from villages near Castres to Toulouse and the Mediterranean coast. He was one of the very few leaders entrusted with the details of every Résistance operation in France. He, of course, would be able to explain Claude’s absence. Madeleine was seized with fear, certain that he had news and certain too that it was news she did not want to hear.
He took firm hold of her trembling hand and led her away from the window.
“Claude will not come, Madeleine,” he said. “He is leading a group of children across the Alps to Switzerland. He sent a radio message from a safe house en route that he is halfway there. The weather cooperates and the trek goes well. So we believe he is safe. You must not worry.”
He enunciated carefully, making certain that whatever eluded her ears would be captured by her eyes. She read his lips; she felt his kindness.
“Thank you, Serge.” She dredged up the strength to utter those few words. “I will try not to worry.”
It was, she knew, a promise that she could not keep. Worry was her constant companion, shadowing her days, haunting her nights.
She kissed his cheek and turned away, wondering what it might be like to live without worry. She thought of the reassuring words he had offered, turned them over in her mind, spoke them aloud.
“The weather cooperates. The trek goes well. We believe he is safe.”
The words brought comfort but anxiety adhered, pressing hard upon her heart.
“Let him come back to me. Let him be safe.”
Her whispered prayer offered solace, however brief and transitory.
“Are you all right, Madeleine? Why are you not dancing?”
Anna stood beside her, her hand outstretched.
“I am fine, Anna. Come, let us dance.”
She willed herself to smile. Sadness was a luxury she could not afford. It was also contagious, and she would not allow it to infect Anna, whose life was now so oddly intertwined with her own.
Hand in hand then, they rejoined the circle of dancing women. Simone, the bride, drew Madeleine into the center, and the sisters whirled in a lively depka, a dance of joy, a dance of hope.
Twenty
One week passed. Then another. Worry trailed Madeleine through the days and morphed into terror as daylight died. Dreams became nightmares in which she chased through darkness hoping to catch a glimmer of light. But just as hope faded, Claude returned. Pale and drawn, he arrived at the Levy apartment and stumbled into Madeleine’s outstretched arms. It saddened her to see how pale and depleted he was, but her spirits soared when he told her that he had been assigned to coordinate Résistance efforts in the Unoccupied Zone and would be based in Toulouse.
“The south is in turmoil,” he said. “The Germans are focusing on this area.”
“We have noticed,” she replied wryly, and he laughed.
“Of course you have,” he said and held her close. “It would have been difficult not to notice.”
German troop movements had accelerated, rafles occurred daily, and deportation camps were established in obscure rural provinces throughout the zone. Barracks, surrounded by barbed wire and studded with searchlights, had been swiftly erected at Gers, Noe, and Recebedou, all hamlets that were gateways to the Pyrenees. Similar encampments sprang up along the Mediterranean coast. It was clear that Berlin had instituted a determined effort to block all escape routes in their wild and irrational determination to imprison and deport every Jew in France.
The Résistance leadership moved swiftly to counter that effort. Courageous volunteers undertook dangerous operations, ignoring life-threatening risks. Jean Louis and Etienne Levy led a team of Jewish Scouts on nocturnal missions of sabotage. Their targets were the trains that transported German troops as well as the railroad tracks across which those troop trains thundered. Jeanne Levy’s kitchen became a laboratory for the creation of explosives. She fried an abundance of onions and garlic to mask the odor of death-dealing chemicals.
The increase of rafles left more and more Jewish children without parental protection and with a desperate need for new documents and hiding places. Simone worked through the night, creating new identity cards and passports, her quill pens dancing across stressed paper, rubber stamps wet with doctored ink adding illegible authenticity. Madeleine cycled through the countryside, seeking refuges for the vulnerable youngsters, the forged documents concealed in her undergarments. She carried large amount
s of money, solicited from mysterious sources, which she offered to farmers and householders who, with great courage, agreed to shelter a Jewish child. The hiding place offered might be in an attic, a cellar, a hayloft, even a chicken coop, and the francs she distributed were used to buy food, supplies, and silence.
At a scattering of convents and monasteries, nuns and monks offered protection, furnishing the children with school uniforms and teaching them the catechism. Every small Jewish girl carried a rosary. Every small Jewish boy was cautioned to shield his penis with his hand when urinating so that his circumcision would be concealed. No one could be trusted. Anyone might inform on a Jewish friend if it bought a family an extra ration card or a liter of vin ordinaire.
Lucie Dreyfus knew that the Mother Superior of the Sisters of Valence, ever smiling, ever calm, concealed a knife within her robes even as she spoke with disarming courtesy to the Vichy police who now and again appeared at the convent. The nun would not stab the officers, she confided to Lucie, but she would sooner kill herself than divulge information about those she had sworn to protect.
“But doesn’t the church teach that suicide is a mortal sin?” Lucie asked.
“God will forgive me. I am protecting His children,” the nun replied.
Madeleine and her combat group of elite Résistance fighters packed cartons of food, clothing, and soap, which she requisitioned from the General Service Unit, to be smuggled into Vichy prisons and transit camps. The drivers of milk trucks, bakery vans, and grocery lorries were willing accomplices. Hidden within packaged bread and sacks of cereal were Simone’s forged documents.
The Résistance prepared parcels of clothing which reluctant International Red Cross workers and somewhat more acquiescent Quakers agreed to distribute to internees. Wire cutters were concealed in the sleeves of sweaters, metal files thrust into the folds of knitted scarves. Apples were sliced open and razors inserted into them. Madeleine cut her finger on such a razor and sucked her own blood, pleased that the tiny weapon was so sharp. It might earn a prisoner freedom; it might save a life.
“How much did it cost us in bribes to get the Red Cross to cooperate?” Serge asked her bitterly after her return from a pleading visit to the international charity’s offices.
“A few thousand francs. But in the end they agreed. They themselves are frightened,” Madeleine replied, wondering why she made excuses for aid workers so reluctant to offer their aid to Jews. “The Fascists have threatened them.”
“The Fascists threaten all of us,” he said impatiently even as he flashed her an approving smile. He and Claude were both aware of Madeleine’s daring and persistence. It was known that when she was stopped by Vichy police, she stared them down and produced her credentials as a social work supervisor for the Secours National.
“How dare you detain Madeleine Dupuy who is on a special mission for Márechal Pétain himself?” she would ask haughtily before speeding away on her bicycle, never waiting for their response. She gripped the handlebars so tightly that her fingers were white-knuckled. Her eyes were always riveted to the road because she could not hear the warning sounds of traffic. It was a small but manageable impediment, she assured herself even as she trembled with a fear that she struggled to control.
“You must be more cautious,” Claude shouted one night, and she shrugged, pleased by his concern but indifferent to the words which she tossed back at him.
“And you too must be more cautious,” she retorted.
“We will be cautious together,” he told her. “Tomorrow you and I will cycle to Gers.”
Her heart soared. She did not ask why he had been ordered to accompany her. It did not matter. All that mattered was the brief journey that would grant them precious hours of togetherness.
The very next day, both of them wearing the uniform of Red Cross relief workers, they cycled side by side down country roads. The soft winds of autumn brushed their upturned faces, and their hands touched now and again as they pedaled slowly eastward, toward the distant mountains on which crowns of ice already gleamed. The sun was high when they reached Gers and approached the grim prison camp.
Claude daringly and authoritatively presented the guards on duty with documents embossed with the seal of the International Red Cross. One such document stipulated that he be allowed to personally deliver the parcels to specific addresses. The other was a demand that Madeleine be allowed to speak with female prisoners and distribute items necessary for feminine hygiene.
The guards looked at each other in bewilderment, then summoned their commandant. The overweight, red-faced Gestapo officer stared at them angrily.
“Why is such a request being made? Does the Red Cross believe that soldiers of the Third Reich are dishonest enough to pilfer the packages they send? Do they think that Hitler’s army does not know how to treat women—that pure-blooded Aryans would mistreat or molest Jewish and Roma women—women who are beneath our contempt? These requests are outrageous. We will not comply,” he shouted and waved his swagger stick threateningly.
Claude replied calmly, his gaze steady.
“A news conference will be held tomorrow in Paris, and the assembled journalists will be informed of your decision. They will wonder why you refuse the request of the Red Cross, a recognized international humanitarian organization. They will, I am sure, demand to know what you are hiding. The Paris correspondents of the New York Times and the Herald Tribune will be attending and will surely report your intransigence. I do not think Herr Hitler will be pleased to see such stories on the front pages of American newspapers.”
The commandant glared and studied the proffered documents again. He turned away, turned back, dropped his swagger stick, and cursed angrily at the guard who did not hand it to him swiftly enough.
“Very well. You may carry out your instructions. You have exactly one hour,” he spat out at last.
Claude nodded. Within an hour he had completed the distribution of unexamined parcels of contraband to Résistance leaders, and Madeleine had met with a small group of woman Résistantes. She had handed each of them packets of gauze-wrapped cotton pads stuffed with forged identity papers, maps, and currency. Few words were exchanged. They contented themselves with whispers of hope.
As the autumn sun began its slow descent, Madeleine and Claude left the compound, ignoring the muttered curses of the guards who slammed the gates behind them. They cycled back to Toulouse through the gathering darkness.
“Will they escape?” she asked Claude as they paused to rest at a wayside inn.
“They will have more of a chance tomorrow than they had yesterday,” he replied. “Thanks to your courage.”
“Our courage,” she corrected him gently.
“Notre courage,” he agreed and pressed his lips to hers.
* * *
Claude left Toulouse again the next day, embarking on a mission he could not discuss. Madeleine resumed her frenetic and lonely life. Every free hour that she scavenged was devoted to the small group of children, Anna among them, whom she was training for their escape through the Pyrenees to Spain. She taught them to march single file, maintaining absolute silence. She taught them a hymn that they were to sing as they marched through mountain hamlets. They would be masquerading as a church-sponsored hiking group.
“His eye is on the sparrow, and He also watches me,” they sang, and she prayed that that much at least was true.
All the children had memorized the Hail Mary, dubious protection but it would have to suffice.
“Will we leave soon?” Anna pleaded.
“Soon,” Madeleine lied.
They braced themselves for winter. Madeleine raided her mother’s storage closet for warm clothing for Anna. She found a heavy sweater and an anorak to give to Claude on his return.
“He is always cold, always exhausted,” she told Simone worriedly.
Light snows fell but ceased before
the city could be blanketed in wondrous whiteness. A slippery gray frost covered the streets of Toulouse, and ill-shaped glaucous clouds drifted through a darkening sky. It occurred to Madeleine, as she maneuvered her bicycle down ice-coated intersections, that Nazi malevolence had robbed the world of winter’s alabaster beauty.
Twenty-One
On December 7, as harsh winds wailed across France, Japanese aircraft rained bombs on American naval vessels in Pearl Harbor. One day later, Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States. In London, Charles de Gaulle and the Free French celebrated America’s entry into the war. The airwaves trembled with the sounds of “La Marseillaise” and “The Star-Spangled Banner” played in rapid succession, twin anthems of solidarity. Madeleine, both elated and apprehensive, listened to conflicting rumors.
Speculation was rampant, hope and fear colliding. American military would be turned on Germany. France would soon be free, but not before many battles would be fought, many lives lost. Loyalties shifted from one day to the next.
Allegiance to Vichy was much diluted as Pétain’s shocking duplicity and his submissive obedience to his German masters became apparent, all subterfuge abandoned. He swore revenge against any group that defied him. His methods were now as cruel as those of the Nazis, his anti-Semitic pronouncements and edicts as harsh and relentless. But his governance was no longer submissively accepted. Scores of volunteers besieged Résistance networks.
The Résistance symbol, the Cross of Lorraine with two bars, beneath the inscribed motto Vive de Gaulle, was newly prominent. Scrawled on colored paper, the symbols littered Metro platforms in Paris, dangled from the railings of bridges, appeared on the counters of boulangeries, and were concealed within the pages of Le Monde and other newspapers. Daring children drew them in colored chalk on the pavement of narrow streets and broad avenues, scurrying away to avoid the wrath of the Vichy police.
“France is experiencing a somewhat belated surge of patriotism,” Claude said bitterly to Madeleine as they met in a small café on one of his infrequent visits to Toulouse where he was based. “Suddenly I am asked to find guides for an army of volunteers who claim they want to join the Free French in North Africa or reach de Gaulle in London or form guerrilla units to fight the Nazis in the borderlands. They need papers, they need money, and they turn to the Jewish Scouts for help. One such latecomer had the nerve to tell me they turned to us because Jews always know how to get money. The chutzpah!”
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