The Paris Children : A Novel (2020)

by Goldreich, Gloria

  “Yes. Claude and I have found moments of happiness, but we are always aware that we are surrounded by misery. So many of our friends and comrades have been arrested. So many have been deported. So many have died. So many of those dear to us have disappeared. I miss my uncle Pierre and my cousins, so far away in America. I worry that I might never see them again. I miss my parents and my brothers. I miss you. Claude and I dare not speak of the future. We know full well we might not have a future. Each time we part, I worry that he may be gone forever. So whatever happiness I feel is always shadowed by fear.”

  Her voice broke and she fought to contain her tears, yet her words had relieved the unarticulated sadness that had for so many months weighed so heavily upon her heart. As she had longed to do, she rested her head on her grandmother’s shoulder.

  Lucie nodded and spoke slowly, clearly so that Madeleine could hear her every word.

  “I understand,” she said. “I too am bereft. Like you, I find that happiness and sorrow are my twin companions. I have known a multitude of losses, grief that is often too heavy for me to bear. My son, Pierre, is in the United States, and it may well be that I will never see him and my beloved grandchildren again. I am separated from your family—your mother, my wonderful daughter, and your father who has been like my own child. Will I ever see your brothers again? Will I ever hold Simone’s Yael in my arms?

  “Loneliness and fear haunt my days. And yet I too am surprised by sudden spurts of joy. I look at the night sky and see the stars, and my heart leaps up. I hear the voices of the Sisters of Valence singing in celebration of God’s creation, and I share their wonder at the beautiful world that has been given us. I see the way Claude looks at you and I see the love in your eyes, and I am filled with contentment. So I tell you, my Madeleine, while it is true that we live in fearsome times, this life is worth its grief.”

  “Yes. This life is worth its grief,” Madeleine agreed. Her voice trembled at the beauty and wisdom of her grandmother’s words.

  She and Claude left Valence the next day. Standing in the entry of the convent, Lucie placed her hands upon their lowered heads and murmured the ancient Jewish prayer for travelers.

  “May it be your will, dear God, that you lead these, my children, to peace and cause them to reach their desired destination for life, for joy, and for peace. Grant them favor, kindness, and compassion. Amen. Selah.”

  “Amen, Selah,” Claude and Madeleine whispered in unison.

  Grandmother and granddaughter embraced. Madeleine did not look back. Hand in hand, she and Claude walked down the sun-dappled road, the brilliant leaves of the season of death crunching beneath their feet.

  They boarded the ancient autobus that would carry them to Toulouse, and Claude noted that the elderly driver wore a faded neckerchief imprinted with the Cross of Lorraine, the symbol of the Résistance. Wordlessly, he removed his own imprinted kerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. The driver smiled and nodded. Oddly reassured, Claude led Madeleine to a seat in the rear. The bus lurched forward, and they slept throughout the journey.

  Thirty-Seven

  The bus pulled into the depot of Toulouse as the bells of the Cathedral of Saint-Sernin chimed nine times. The hour was not late. Toulouse was a city whose citizens loved nocturnal strolls and evening gatherings at its many cafés and bistros. Madeleine’s heart sank as she peered through the window of the bus and saw that the streets they drove through were deserted, every window darkened. At the depot, the few disembarking passengers glanced around nervously, checked their watches, and hurried away. Perplexed and uneasy, she and Claude looked at each other, fear in their eyes, tension in every fiber of their exhausted bodies.

  “Something has happened,” Claude murmured as they, too, left the bus.

  He turned to the elderly driver who approached them, lighting his path in the darkened depot with a faintly glowing electric torch. Although there was no one to be seen, he held a finger to his lips, warning them to speak softly.

  “What is going on, mon ami?” Claude asked. “Has there been an air-raid warning?”

  “Not an air raid. But the Gestapo has ordered a curfew. They mandated that streets be cleared by 9:00 p.m. You must hurry to find shelter or you may be arrested.”

  “But something must have happened?” Claude asked insistently.

  A curfew was a drastic punitive action. It not only affected social interaction but also caused economic distress. Restaurants were shuttered, evening deliveries halted. All transportation, public and private, was prohibited.

  “You have not heard the news?” the driver asked.

  Claude and Madeleine shook their heads.

  They had not bought a newspaper when their bus made a local stop because only La Dépêche was on sale at the newsstand, and they would not support the Vichy-sponsored broadsheet. A foolish decision, he realized now.

  “We have heard nothing,” he said ruefully. “We know only that a curfew is a desperate measure.”

  “Yes. A desperate measure indeed. The Nazis and their collaborators are, we believe, at a point of desperation. They have been frustrated in their efforts to find the saboteurs of the bridges, and only yesterday the Police Commandant of Toulouse, a known collaborator, was assassinated right in front of his home. The shooter was a Jewish boy, driven to madness because his parents had been deported to Auschwitz. The Germans and their collaborators now fear every man, woman, and child in Toulouse. They are frightened and angry. And, as you say, desperate. Hence the curfew.”

  “Was the boy caught?” Claude asked.

  “They caught him, and they shot him right in front of the cathedral, left his body there, still dressed in his scout uniform. A Jewish Scout, they say. He was so young, not yet eighteen. Pauvre jeune éclaireur. Poor young scout.”

  The driver touched his neckerchief and made the sign of the cross. Madeleine, gripped by terror, clutched Claude’s arm.

  “He was a Jewish Scout. The Nazis and the Milice will seek out everyone with a connection to the Jewish Scouts. Simone. Serge. Hélène.”

  Other names came to mind. Madeleine grew faint as she thought of her sister, her endangered friends, her brave comrades, many of whom had offered her refuge, often risking their own lives for her sake.

  “Do you have a safe place to sleep tonight?” the driver asked.

  “We do. At least I hope so,” Claude said.

  “Hope is not enough these days,” he said.

  He scrawled an address on a slip of paper and handed it to Claude.

  “You may need this if your hope disappoints. It is the safest of safe houses. Just say that André sent you. André Montand.”

  “Thank you, André Montand,” Claude said gravely. He did not offer his own name. Résistance rules were in play.

  “No need to thank me. We are all Frenchmen, are we not?”

  He touched his faded neckerchief and Claude, in turn, unfurled his own.

  “Liberté, égalité, fraternité,” they whispered in unison and they went their separate ways, disappearing into the darkness of a city imprisoned in silence.

  Claude and Madeleine raced through a labyrinth of streets and alleys, avoiding the main roads. When at last they reached Simone and Serge’s apartment, they stared at each other, their eyes glazed by fear. It appeared to be abandoned. Blackout curtains covered the windows, empty storage cartons littered the courtyard, refuse bins overflowed, and a feral cat perched in the doorway. But drawing closer, they discerned shadowy movements behind the thick fabric of the black draperies. Claude kicked the cat away, and Madeleine pushed the door open. Serge leapt toward them, brandishing a pistol. Behind him, Simone stood motionless, her pale face frozen into a mask of fear.

  “Simone, it’s me, Madeleine.”

  Simone gasped and rushed to embrace her sister. Serge lowered his pistol, thrust it into his pocket, breathed a sigh of relief, and h
eld his hand out to Claude. Excuses and explanations tumbled forth, an explosion of words, a staccato exchange of news. They spoke with an urgent rapidity, their voices colliding in a chorus as chaotic as the room itself.

  A battered trunk crammed with clothing and linens yawned open. Burlap sacks overflowed with pots and pans, cutlery and tools. A haze of smoke and the scent of burning papers permeated the air. Documents were being incinerated in the kitchen, the ashes tossed into a fire pit in the rear of the small building.

  “What is happening, Simone?” Madeleine asked.

  “You came just in time,” Simone said. “Another hour and we would have been gone. We could not think of how to warn you of the danger. The Germans have a list of every Jewish Éclaireur, and they are sweeping through the area making mass arrests. Every suspect is being sent to the camp for political prisoners at Compiègne—a death camp. No one has ever been known to leave Compiègne. They also have the names of every Résistance fighter. Vichy collaborators made sure of that.”

  “And of course they have known my name since my identity was exposed on the pages of Le Ferro. I’ve just been lucky to escape their clutches thus far,” Madeleine said ruefully.

  “Yes, lucky. And smart. And resourceful,” Claude corrected her. “I assume that I am on their list as well.”

  “Assume so. We know that we are. Serge and I have long been in their sights,” Simone said.

  She spoke with calm honed over long months of confrontations with danger.

  “They were reluctant to arrest us. We were their bait. They were waiting for other Résistants to contact us,” she continued.

  “Waiting for us, I suppose,” Claude said.

  “Actually, it is Madeleine who is their prime target,” Serge interposed. “We have learned that a Milice informant reported seeing her crossing the fields to the bridge on the night of the demolitions. They are circulating her photo, offering a reward for the saboteur of les Ponts Jumeaux. Madeleine, you are now the most famous Résistante in Toulouse, perhaps in all of France. Of course, they came here asking questions, but we told them that you are no longer welcome in our home, that we are angry with you because you have a non-Jewish lover. Simone told them that you and your lover had left Toulouse and crossed the border into Spain.”

  “And did they believe you?” Madeleine asked, clutching Claude’s arm.

  “Probably not. All belief is suspended,” Simone replied. “They don’t believe us, and we don’t believe them. Sometimes they do not even believe each other. It is known that the Vichy police lie to the Gestapo, that the Gestapo lie to the Milice. But those doryphores, those despicable potato bugs in their green uniforms, continue to pursue us. They lurk outside our home. They follow us in the streets. One or two are posted on this street through the night.

  “Fortunately, they have a great fondness for wine and beer, and we keep them well supplied. They drink well and then they sleep well And we made sure that they are sleeping especially well tonight. Late this afternoon, Serge very noisily carried a case of beer and another of wine into the shed. Of course, they plundered it as soon as darkness fell. They drank very well—and they have been sleeping very well for the past several hours. That is why they did not see you arrive.”

  “What happens tonight?” Claude asked.

  He glanced around the chaotic room and realized that he already knew the answer to his question. Their flight was imminent.

  Serge replied, his tone somber but firm. He was a man who ignored fear and embraced pragmatism.

  “We have learned that they do plan to arrest us—perhaps tomorrow, perhaps the next day. Our usefulness has expired. They no longer believe that Madeleine will come here. The Résistance leadership has ordered us to leave Toulouse. They have arranged for a farmer, Monsieur Granot, to transport us to a safe house in Aveyron. He will be here just after midnight.”

  “It is a miracle that you arrived just in time to join us. Of course it is difficult to believe that miracles are possible in these dark days, and yet here you are. You must come with us,” Simone said, gripping her sister’s hands.

  “You are suggesting that we go with you to Aveyron?” Claude asked, his voice tremulous with indecision.

  “Of course. We will be together. It would mean survival. For now. It would mean safety. For now. Madeleine, please join us. I do not want us to be separated,” Simone pleaded.

  She turned to Claude, but he looked at Madeleine. She shook her head. He nodded in silent agreement. They could not go to Aveyron. Their own safety was unimportant. They were bound by the promise they had made to Anna Hofberg, by their commitment to the children who had trusted Madeleine with their lives. They would not betray the small dreamers of freedom who had trained so arduously, so fearlessly for the trek across the Pyrenees. Abandonment was not an option.

  Madeleine embraced her sister, tears burning her eyes.

  “We cannot go with you, Simone,” she said. “We have a mission to complete. There are those who rely on us.”

  “As I do. I am your sister. I rely on you. I cannot bear the thought of losing you,” Simone cried out, anger and fear distorting her beautiful face, the serenity that had sustained her for so many months shattered.

  “You will not lose me. Claude and I know how to keep ourselves safe. Please, do not be frightened for us. We know what we must do.”

  She stroked Simone’s hair and waited for her to be restored to calm.

  “What will you do now?” Simone asked at last, acknowledging defeat, braced for honesty. “Where will you go? Most of our comrades have left Toulouse.”

  Claude fingered the scrap of paper the bus driver had given him.

  “We will find shelter tonight. And tomorrow we will go to the rue de la Dalbade. Is our friend, Madame Leonie, still the concierge there?” Madeleine asked.

  “She is. She has remained an active Résistante, using our parents’ apartment as a safe house for fugitives now and again. Of course, she has all of Maman’s keys,” Simone replied.

  “Then she must have the keys to the storage room where Maman hid the winter clothing.”

  “Yes. Everything is still there. I went there only last week in search of warm jackets for my girls. But Madeleine, Maman collected boots and clothing for children. Nothing there will be of use to you and Claude.”

  “Claude and I have heavy coats, excellent boots. It is children’s clothing that we need,” Madeleine said quietly.

  Simone stared at her with fear in her eyes. She understood that despite the encroaching cold of late autumn, the ominous approach of winter, and the dangerous and frequent Nazi border patrols, Madeleine and Claude were determined to guide their cadre of children across the Pyrenees. Hence the need for boots to trod along ice-encrusted trails and warm garments for protection against the onslaught of bitter mountain winds. She trembled for her sister, for Claude, for Anna Hofberg and the other children who so bravely and trustingly defied deportations and chose the hazardous road to freedom, to survival.

  “Madeleine, I love you too much to lose you. You are brave. That I know. But you must also be careful,” she said. “You will be in great danger.”

  It was Claude who answered her.

  “Our Madeleine is both brave and careful. And I will be with her. I will protect her,” he said. “That is my promise to you.”

  Madeleine, reading his lips, stared at him gratefully and embraced her sister. She dared not tell them that tentacles of terror clutched her heart, that she agonized over the fear that both care and courage might desert her. Oh, they who loved her best must not know how weak she was, how she fought to subdue the apprehensions that invaded her thoughts and haunted her dreams.

  Simone said no more. Swiftly, they completed the packing, shutting the trunk, trussing up the laden blankets with lengths of rope, tying cords about the burlap sacks. Simone placed their precious radio in her own port
manteau, already crammed with her pens and ink, her stamps and etching tools, the lifesaving weapons of her lifesaving craft. She covered the battered radio with a ragged cloth, swaddling it with the tenderness of a mother shielding an infant.

  “Our lifeline,” she told Madeleine, who did not remind her that in Vichy France, possession of a radio might well be a death sentence.

  Farmer Granot arrived as the bells of Saint-Sernin chimed the midnight hour. The wheels of his wagon were shrouded in lengths of burlap, as were the hooves of his horses. They would retreat from the city in funereal silence. They loaded the remnants of their Toulouse life onto the rough flatbed, concealing everything beneath layers of hay.

  The sisters held each other close. Serge gripped Claude’s shoulder. The reluctant tears of brave and powerful men trickled down their unshaven cheeks. Tenderly, Serge kissed Madeleine. With equal tenderness, Claude kissed Simone. Madeleine held the infant Yael and kissed Frederica, who clung to her. The farmer helped the little family onto his wagon. Madeleine and Claude stood in the doorway and watched as it vanished into the darkness.

  “Will we ever see them again, Claude?” she whispered.

  He did not reply. The reassuring words he thought to offer were stuck in his throat. He struggled to remember the traveler’s supplication that Lucie Dreyfus had recited so reverently, but he recalled only a single fragment.

  “Please God,” he murmured, “grant them life and joy and peace.”

  “Amen. Selah,” Madeleine intoned instinctively, swaying from side to side.

  Thirty-Eight

  They waited until the farmer’s wagon disappeared from sight and then, hand in hand, they hurried down the dark, deserted street, distancing themselves from the danger of a home too familiar to the Vichy police. Claude studied the address the bus driver had scrawled on that tattered scrap of notepaper. It was, he knew, their only option. A Gestapo van rumbled by, and they huddled in the recess of a building until it turned the corner. A siren sounded, and they darted into a fetid-smelling alleyway until its shriek grew faint. Panting with exhaustion, perspiring with fear, they made their way through the deserted leather market and at last reached a modest house, dark and uninviting.