“I walked, day after day, from Grenoble to Toulouse because I knew it was too dangerous to use public transport. Vichy and Gestapo police were everywhere. But today a farmer in Villefranche let me ride in his wagon all the way to Toulouse, and I went at once to your sister’s home. I knew that Serge would know where you were, and I could not wait another moment to see you. Not a moment.”
He held her close and she pressed her fingers to his lips, as though to capture words as yet unspoken. He kissed her hand and spoke even more rapidly.
“Once there, Serge told me of the plans to sabotage the bridge and why you had to proceed alone. He was desperate that I find you and help you, and I was desperate to make sure that you were safe. He gave me his gloves, his boots, his jacket and told me how to reach the Pont St. Pierre, how to find you.”
She nodded, suffused with gratitude, impelled by urgency. They had little time and precious minutes had been forfeit.
“I am safe. But now we must work quickly.”
“Tell me what we must do.”
He was her lover. He was her confederate. He would obey any order she issued.
“This rope,” she explained. “It is our igniting fuse. We must get it into the arch. The incendiaries are in these milk bottles. I will pull the rope, and you will carry the crate of bottles. Then everything will be in place for the detonation.”
In silence they moved through the darkness. She crawled once again across the ground, so drenched in nocturnal dew that moisture saturated her dark clothing. Claude hoisted the crate of bottles packed tightly with bullets and primers. In the shelter of the arch, he followed her hissed directions and set the crate down at the correct angle. The necks of the bottles were directed toward the cemented and camouflaged sticks of dynamite on the ceiling. She placed the rope accordingly. Moving quickly, she thrust a long candle, the wax at the wick scraped away, into the lethal contents of the milk bottles. She removed the wooden matches and flint from the pockets of her vest, lit a match, and handed it to Claude, who held the flickering flame to the candle. The wick burned slowly, emitting an odd fragrance. She lit a second match, held it to the end of the rope, watched the flickering flame crawl steadily across the hemp. Satisfied, she gripped Claude’s hand and together, never turning, they raced out of the arch, away from the flame, now fiercely burning.
They dashed across the field, never slowing their steps until they reached the burrow. They flung themselves into it, lying prone and shuddering as the thunderous explosion shattered the nocturnal stillness.
They sat up and stared. Blazing crimson and golden arrows of flame shot skyward and cascaded in a fiery torrent across the night scape. The boulders fell with cacophonous thuds.
“It’s done,” Madeleine whispered.
“You did it, my Madeleine,” he said.
“No. We did it.”
Together then, hand in hand, they raced away, aware that within minutes, armies of Vichy police, Milice brigades, and Gestapo troops would swarm the Ponts Jambeaux.
Only when they were at a safe distance did she ask the question that had haunted her every hour of that night of doubt and danger.
“Simone? When you were there, when you spoke to Serge, was she all right? Had the baby been born?”
He hesitated.
“I did not see Simone,” he said quietly. “But I heard her. A whimper. Not a scream. Serge only said that the labor was progressing, that Hélène was optimistic. I would have wanted to bring you better news, but that is all that I know.”
“Yes,” she said. “All right.”
She would have wanted better news but she was grateful that he had not dissembled. He had said enough to offer her some relief, however vague. Her sister was alive. Hélène was not one to offer false predictions. She would know soon enough. For the moment, hope, fragile hope, would have to suffice.
She leaned against Claude and they walked on, at last pausing to rest beneath a tree in a meadow at a distance from the bridges. The tall wild grass swayed in the gentle predawn breeze. Exhausted, they lay side by side on the moist and fragrant ground. Claude drew her close. She stared up at the gathering light of the new day, grateful that they were together, and that together, they had managed a small triumph for the Résistance, for their people. Their patience had been rewarded.
His lips found hers. His hand rested tenderly on her head. They were quiet, entwined in each other’s arms. Their embrace was a pledge. The golden rays of the nascent sun brushed their faces and they closed their eyes, laying claim to a brief, precious hour of silence and solitude.
At last they began their walk back to Simone’s home, careful to avoid the main roadways already crowded with squad cars and earthmovers, repair trucks and even the occasional tank.
“Can a tank repair a damaged bridge?” Madeleine whispered and they laughed.
It was full daylight when they arrived. The Perls’ windows were dark, and an ominous silence prevailed. They hesitated, as restrained by fear as they were impelled by hope. At last, Madeleine thrust the door open and, not daring to look at each other, they entered.
Joy burst upon them as the plaintive wail, peculiar to newborn infants, penetrated that fearful silence. Happiness came with a burst. Their hearts grew light; laughter lingered on their lips. Across the room, Simone smiled at them, her baby swaddled in a soft white blanket and pressed to her breast. Madeleine rushed to her side.
“A girl, Madeleine,” Simone said. Her voice was hoarse with exhaustion, but her face was aglow with happiness.
“She’s beautiful,” Madeleine murmured as she very gently stroked the infant’s feathery wisps of hair. “And her name?”
“Yael. Grand-mère suggested it. It means ‘glory to God.’”
“Yael,” Madeleine repeated.
She understood that Lucie Dreyfus would choose that name for a Dreyfus infant, a name that was an affirmation of the faith that had sustained her through all the years of her life, years of war, years of peace.
She smiled gratefully as Simone handed her the baby. She looked down at the newborn’s tiny face, her skin lucent, her eyes tightly closed. Serenity took her by surprise. The anxieties of all those long weeks and months evaporated. All her fears were erased. Simone had survived her difficult pregnancy. A healthy baby had been born. Claude sat beside her. The strike against the Ponts Jumeaux had succeeded. A miracle. Many miracles.
Their daring act would bring reprisals, she knew. She and Claude would face new dangers, new challenges. But on this sun-bright morning, after the long night of terror and uncertainty, she felt only gratitude. Her infant niece rested in her arms, and tears came unbidden. Tears of joy.
“Yael,” she murmured. “Yael. Glory to God. Glory to God in the highest.”
Thirty-Five
Reprisals did come, fierce and immediate. Determined to arrest and punish the saboteurs of the bridges, the Milice, the Vichy police, and their German masters combed the city, arresting dozens of suspects and subjecting them to harsh interrogations and torture. Despite their draconian efforts, they obtained no information. The disciplined teams responsible for the demolition at Pont St. Michel and Pont Neuf were gone from Toulouse, having fled to distant safe houses in Arles and Avignon.
Serge was arrested and questioned, but he remained stoic. His alibi was incontrovertible.
“My baby was born that very night. I was at my wife’s side throughout her long and difficult labor. You have spies who keep watch on my house. They themselves will confirm that I never left. And of course the midwife was with me.”
The surveillance team, not daring to reveal their dereliction, insisted that he had not left the house.
Hélène, summoned to Gestapo headquarters, calmly confirmed Serge’s account.
“Were any other witnesses present?” the Gestapo interrogator asked.
His face was turned away from her, but Hélène recognized
his voice. She had delivered his baby only months earlier and saved his wife from toxemia by plunging her hand into the gaping cervix to remove the placenta.
“Only the newborn infant,” she replied sardonically, unintimidated by the man who had wept and pleaded for her help when he thought his wife might die. His tears had made him vulnerable to her. That she had saved his wife’s life placed him in her debt.
“Your sarcasm does not impress me, mademoiselle,” he said angrily.
“It is not my intent to impress you,” she continued daringly. “But then you yourself know that a worried husband does not leave the side of his beloved wife at such an hour. It is said that even in the animal kingdom, the male hovers near the laboring female. The lion stays with the lioness. Perhaps even your Führer would not leave his wife at such a time. But then, of course, Herr Hitler has neither children nor a wife. I have heard that he never cries, that he thinks tears are unmanly. Perhaps he does not know that even his Gestapo officers have been known to weep.”
“You go too far, mademoiselle,” her interrogator shouted. “Get her out of here!” he commanded to the soldier at the door.
“I leave. I hope your little son is doing well. And your wife.”
He did not reply. His debt was paid. The Jewish bitch was entitled to no further demands on him.
Hélène smiled, but she did not stop trembling until she left the building. Serge waited for her on the corner.
“Thank you, Hélène,” he said quietly as they walked on, passing convoys of Citroën Traction Avants, the official Gestapo vehicles, their sirens blasting as they headed toward the Ponts Jumeaux.
With each passing day, rumors proliferated. The damage to the bridges was extensive, beyond repair. No. The damage was minimal. Repair groups were at work. No. It seemed that skilled workers could not be found. The masons of Toulouse had mysteriously disappeared. Crews would have to be brought from Paris.
The pursuit of the saboteurs continued unabated. The Secretary General of the Police issued adamant announcements.
“Every suspect will be arrested. Anyone with any information must come forward,” officers shouted from loudspeakers mounted on the trucks that traversed the city.
“Death to the perpetrators! Death to the Maquis, death to the Résistance! Heil Hitler!” blared for hours on end throughout the city.
Madeleine and Claude were spirited out of Toulouse on a farmer’s cart, hidden beneath rough blankets that reeked of manure. They traveled southward to Carcassone, and in that small village, Madeleine was given refuge in the modest home of Madame Fauchere, a widowed seamstress, while Claude found shelter in a monastery.
It surprised them to learn that neither Madame Fauchere nor Père Louis, the abbot of the monastery, had been members of the Résistance during the early period of the Occupation. Each had felt called to action only after seeing the horrifying photographs in “The Fruits of Hatred.” The Gaullists in London had been prescient when they gambled that when confronted with the incontrovertible photographic reality of German cruelty, even the most pragmatic French citizens would experience a crisis of conscience and join the battle against Nazi cruelty.
“I must atone for my silence,” Madame Fauchere told Madeleine when she expressed her gratitude. “You must not thank me. I am proud that you are a guest in my home.”
“We should have acted sooner,” the abbot confided regretfully to Claude. “We might have saved the children whose photos we saw in ‘The Fruits of Hatred.’ I will never forget their faces, their poor little faces. Those photographs of horror. God Himself, and Christ our Lord, must be weeping.”
“We are grateful that you are acting now,” Claude said. “You are courageous. I know that you risk your own life in offering me sanctuary.”
“If only I could help endangered children,” the monk said regretfully.
“That is why I am here,” Claude assured him. “To pluck our children from danger.”
Claude, wearing a monk’s brown robe, and Madeleine, dressed in the seamstress’s plain black dress, her thick, dark hair covered with the white lace caplet of a lay sister, met in a small garden café. Seated on the rough wooden bench, they stared at each other, their eyes bright with affection and gratitude.
“Is it Purim?” she asked. “Is that why we are in costume?”
She smiled teasingly. He laughed. Gaiety was restored to them. Briefly and blessedly, they were at a remove from danger. Briefly and blessedly, they were together. Now and again they reached across the table. Their hands touched. Palm upon palm. Finger brushing finger.
In hushed tones, they planned for the days and weeks to come. Now, at last, they would reunite with Anna Hofberg and the other children in her group. Their trek across the Pyrenees to Spain was imminent. Time was of the essence. It would be dangerous to wait any longer. Spanish couriers reported the increased presence of German patrols along escape routes. Winter was approaching. Ice and snow would render the mountain passes treacherous. Even now, the nights were cold, and lacy white coverlets of frost glittered on the ground at the break of dawn.
“We must move very soon,” Claude said.
“We must move now,” Madeleine corrected him.
He nodded.
They met again the next day and walked down a mountain path, following a ribbon of pale autumn sunlight, to the hamlet of Lézignan-Corbières. On a narrow road obscured by a grove of conifers, a small order of nuns maintained the orphanage where Anna and her friends, guided by Jeanne Levy, had found refuge. Their arrival at the convent was greeted with dismay by the elderly Mother Superior.
“You have placed yourself and all of us in great danger,” she said. “The Germans are already suspicious. A Gestapo unit was here only last week, searching for Jewish children. Luckily, Anna’s blond hair, her fair complexion, and her ability to recite the catechism deceived them. We prevented them from searching the dormitory by telling them that some of the children were ill with mumps. Ah, how those mighty storm troopers fear the disease that might threaten their manhood. But they will be back. They are persistent, those trained haters. What if they were to see you? What if they were to discover the children?”
Her voice trembled. Her arthritic fingers toyed nervously with the beads of her rosary.
“We will not be here,” Madeleine assured her. “Nor will the little ones. We hope to guide the children across the border to Spain very soon.”
“You must be very careful,” the nun cautioned, concern replacing her anger. “Our informants in Pau tell us that the Germans have increased their presence. Because of the destruction of the bridges in Toulouse and the murders in Paris, the Germans are ever more vigilant, ever more vicious.”
“What murders in Paris?” Claude asked. “Forgive our ignorance, ma mere. We have neither read a newspaper nor heard a radio report for several days. Not since the sabotage in Toulouse.”
“Of course. You, of course, know about the bridges in Toulouse?” she asked, and they understood that it was a question that required no answer.
“But we do not know what happened in Paris,” Madeleine said. “Can you enlighten us?”
The elderly nun sighed.
“It is very sad. Dr. Julius Ritter, the Nazi official who initiated that terrible program of Service de Travail Obligatoire, was assassinated. My own nephew was among the many young Frenchmen sent to Germany as a slave laborer by that cruel man. The Gestapo searched for his assassin, but when they were unsuccessful, they took revenge on the Résistance and arrested fifty Parisians. They held them hostage, hoping for informants, but when no one came forward, they shot them all in a public square. They left them there in pools of their own blood, forbidding their loved ones to bury them. I say novenas for those fifty poor souls, murdered to avenge the death of one evil Nazi. A travesty. I do not condone murder, but I hope that God will forgive me because I do not regret the assassination of
Julius Ritter. I am, in fact, glad that he is gone from this earth. My only sorrow is for those he harmed in life as well as in death.”
She reached for the cross that dangled from a heavy chain at her chest and held it to her lips.
“Of course God will forgive you,” Madeleine said. “Our one God, yours and mine, blesses those who abhor evil and do good. You are surely blessed for all the good you have done for our children.”
Still fingering her crucifix, the nun lowered her head and smiled gratefully, her anger forgotten.
“Come. I will take you to your Anna,” she said.
They followed her down a narrow corridor to a small room where Anna crouched near a window, reading in the pale light that seeped through the narrow pane. She turned, tossed her book to the floor, and sprinted across the room into Madeleine’s outstretched arms.
“Madeleine, Madeleine. I knew you would come. I waited and waited. I hoped and I hoped. And now you are here. Are we going to Spain? When will we go? Can we go today? Tomorrow?”
She laughed, flushed with excitement, her blue eyes sparkling as she turned to Claude.
“Claude. Oh, Claude, how wonderful that you are here, that you will go with us to Spain. And then to Palestine. I will see my brothers. Will we go to Palestine together? Oh, we must do that.”
Her words tumbled forth in a wild delirium of hope and joy. She squealed with delight when they held out the small, very small, gifts they had brought her, a small bunch of dried blue flowers that Claude had gathered on his alpine trek and Madeleine had sewn into a sachet and a crescent-shaped shell with violet veins Madeleine had found on the banks of the Garonne.
Madeleine held Anna close as the child prattled on.
“Oh, how happy I am that you are here. How soon am I to join my brothers in distant Palestine? Is the journey to Palestine very long?”
She was so weary of running, of being shunted from one hiding place to another, she said again and again. She hugged Madeleine.
“Soon, so very soon, I will know happiness. Oh, it is wonderful that you are here. My friends will be so excited. All of us are ready. When do we leave? Today? Tomorrow?” she asked again.
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