by Gene Wilder
“I—I spoke with SS Sturmbannführer Rudolph Brandt. Major Brandt told me himself that—”
“You idiot!” Tom screamed. “I work for Heinrich Himmler, not Major Brandt! I shall recommend your extraordinary stupidity to Himmler himself.”
By their faces Tom could see that the Waffen-SS soldiers weren’t sure of what to do. The women in the prison cell thought they understood what Tom was doing, even though they didn’t understand German very well, but they were terribly frightened of what would happen if it didn’t work.
Claude, Gilles, and Jamie had no idea what they were saying, but they could tell that it wasn’t good.
Tom said, “Let’s calm down, please. All of us. Perhaps I’m overreacting to Commandant Kramer’s stupid mistake. I am not used to being questioned about my rank and the job that Reichsfürer Himmler gave to me personally. Will you please forgive me, Commandant?”
“Why … yes,” the commandant said hesitantly. “Of course, Oberst Lange.”
Tom turned to Claude and Gilles. “Pas le commandant, mais tuez les autre,” he said very calmly.
Claude and Gilles blasted their submachine guns and slaughtered the four SS black shirts. Commandant Kramer was so frightened he bent over, as if he were peeing in his pants, which he probably was. Claude and Gilles checked to see if the Waffen-SS soldiers were dead. They were.
“I like your style, Monsieur,” Claude said.
“And I like your French,” Gilles said.
“And now, Commandant Kramer, you have a choice: Walk with us, all of us, without crying or signaling to the camp guards or making any strange movements—and you live. I promise. If not, you’re going to die. For sure.”
“I want to live,” Commandant Kramer said with two tears running down his cheeks.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, I swear to you.”
“All right. I want you to put your hand around my left arm, as if we’ve become friends. I hope we’re far enough away that the guards couldn’t hear the shooting, but I don’t know. So let’s walk briskly, but not too fast. And ladies, try to look lifeless, like you’re going to the gas chamber,” Tom said.
As they they left the prison and walked across the camp grounds toward the gate, they saw that the camp guards were watching their commandant holding Tom’s arm. “Sie sehen gut aus zusammen (“They look cute together.), one of them said. Another guard said, “Ja, vielleicht werden sie heiraten” (“Maybe they’ll get married.”). Most of them smiled as the women passed by. The guards knew that the women were heading for the gas chamber. Some of them whistled at the ladies. When Madame Lauro spit in Tom’s face, all the guards laughed. A big guard said, “Ich hatte gerne, dass die Dicke ihren mantel und ihre kleider aussieht und mir zeight, was sie zu bieten hat.” (“I’d like to watch that big one take off her coat and her clothes and let me see what she’s got.”) As they approached the gate, Tom told the commandant to tell the guard at the top of the small tower to open the gate.
“Open the gate,” the commandant hollered to the guard.
The guard looked down at Claude and Gilles and the women.
“Open it, open it,” the commandant hollered. “Are you deaf?”
“No, sir. Sorry sir,” he said as his face turned red. He began turning the wheel that opened the gate.
“You’re coming with us, Commandant,” Tom said.
“But … no, you said…”
“I will keep my promise, I’m not going to kill you, but you’re coming with us. Tell your man at the gate that you will be at the gas chamber for the next hour.”
“I’ll be at the gas chamber for about an hour,” the commandant barked to the guard.
“Yes, sir,” the guard shouted back.
When the gate was open, they all walked out and climbed into the Mercedes. Claude drove with their prisoner next to him and Tom on his other side. Tom squeezed Anna’s hand as she sidled into the seat behind them with the other women. Gilles and Jamie sat on the small seat behind the women. As they drove away, Claude asked in French, “Are we really going to the gas chamber?”
“No,” Tom answered in French. “I’m sure they’ll be looking for us there in a very short while. We’re going to Strasbourg.”
“You were smart, my friend,” Claude said in French. “With a little luck we can get to our destination before they know where we are.”
Claude turned off the road that would have led them to the gas chamber and pulled onto the Reichsautobahn that led to Strasbourg. “I think it would be safer to drive a little more slowly,” Tom said. Claude drove at a moderate speed. The women relaxed just a little, but as every truck that passed was filled with German soldiers, they couldn’t help wondering if they might be stopped at any moment.
TWENTY-SEVEN
When they arrived on the outskirts of Strasbourg, Claude asked Tom, in French, “Where are we going?”
“To the University Hospital,” Tom answered.
“Oh … to see my doctor friend?”
“Yes.”
“It will be a lovely surprise for him.”
“I hope so.” Tom then called out to Gilles.
“Yes, Monsieur?” Gilles called back.
Tom said, in French, “Would you please ask one of the ladies if she would be kind enough to cut two strips of her white petticoat: one to fit around a man’s head and another to tie his hands?”
“A heavy man’s head?” Gilles said with a smile.
“Yes.”
Madame Lauro poked Gilles. “I heard what he said. Do you have a knife, Monsieur?”
Gilles pulled out his knife and handed it to her. “Be careful, Madame. It’s very sharp,” he said.
“I’m very good with sharp knives, Monsieur. I’ve used them many, many times.” Then Madame Lauro lifted the skirt of her elegant dress and started cutting her petticoat. “I think I understand the purpose of ruining my petticoat. I’m very proud.” When she was finished, she handed the two strips of petticoat to Tom. “Use it in good health, Monsieur, as we say in both Jewish and French.”
When they arrived they saw that the University Hospital was huge, very white, and extraordinarily clean, with no students or doctors going in and out.
“Madame Lauro, would you please hold the commandant’s head firmly, so that he can’t see what I’m doing?” Tom said in French.
“With pleasure, Monsieur.”
Tom took out a pen from his jacket—a German pen—and began writing on one of the strips of petticoat, in German:
Doctor August Hirt—I am Jewish
Then Tom took off the commandant’s military jacket and his pants as Commandant Kramer screamed hysterically, “What are you doing? You said you weren’t going to kill me. You promised.”
In German Tom said, “I am not going to kill you, Commandant Kramer. But I don’t want you to see where we’re going, or running to a policeman. They’ll take care of you in the hospital, I promise.” Then he wrapped the strip of petticoat with the writing around the commandant’s head, tightly, and then tied the commandant’s hands behind him. “Now, let’s get you out of the car, Commandant.”
Tom placed the commandant on the hospital steps. “There are just three steps up and then the door to go inside. I’m sure you can manage this, Commandant Kramer. Just go slowly.”
When Tom got back to the Mercedes, everyone applauded. Anna was sitting in the front seat. “Is it all right Tom? They all told me that we could applaud now,” she said.
“They were right,” Tom said. “Thank you all. But now let’s get the hell out of here.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Where do we go now?” Madame Lauro asked.
“Now we go to the home of my father,” Gilles said. “He was Italian Jew, but when Mussolini and Hitler become pals, my father gets the hell out fast and goes to Alsace. He met a beautiful girl, who is French, and she becomes my mama, and they have a beautiful baby boy, who is me.”
“I think he exaggerates a little,” Claude
said.
“So what’s his name?” Madame Lauro asked.
“My father can’t keep his Italian name, which was too Jewish for the Nazis, so he uses his wife’s name: Piccard. And when I marry a beautiful Jewish woman we get another Piccard, my little boy, Didi. The Nazis think we are a very good Catholic family. If the Germans ever try to fool my little Didi with trick questions, my papa taught him to say, in Italian, ‘I am just a little boy and speak only Italiano.’ But that’s the only Italian Didi knows.”
* * *
THEY REACHED the outskirts of Strasbourg, close to the French/German border, and rode through a lovely neighborhood in Alsace where the houses had flower boxes in the windows and a river that kept traveling alongside them. Claude stopped in front of a cottage on the edge of a forest and Gilles turned to his audience: “Voilà! Here is my home. Will you please come in and meet my family? Then Claude and I will find a good spot to hide this shiny Mercedes before the Nazis see it. By the way, Claude is not Jewish. He is a good Catholic and we go hunting together almost every day … for Nazis.”
Gilles jumped out of the car and knocked on the front door. Tom and Jamie emptied their backpacks and wireless radio from the trunk and then helped the four women out of the car. Claude, Gilles, and Jamie kept their weapons with them.
When the door opened, an older woman, a younger woman, and a little boy popped out. Gilles hugged and kissed each of them, then turned to Tom, Jamie, and the ladies: “Here is my mama, Isabelle; my wife, Amalie; and my little boy, Didi. Please come say hello, get a hug from Mama, go to the bathroom, wash up, anything you like. Where is Papa?”
“Papa is here!” a handsome man with silver hair said as he came out of the house. “This is my former Italian papa,” Gilles said. “Now he is the well-known Frenchman, Emile Piccard.” Gilles hugged his father. Then Emile Piccard said hello to each of his guests in turn.
“Claude and I will return fast, Papa,” Gilles shouted as he got into the Mercedes.
“You got to go faster than that!” his father shouted.
“Why?” Gilles shouted.
“Oh, mio Dio! Gilles—when the sun goes down today IT’S PASSOVER.”
TWENTY-NINE
Three of the ladies took a shower, and what a relief it was. Anna shampooed her hair with a shampoo bar she found near the soap bar. She also scrubbed her pink bow, knowing how pretty Tom thought it looked on her auburn hair. He had told her that her dirty, gray bow was how he had realized that the woman with short blonde hair was her.
Diana Rowden, the thin English woman, was more modest than the others and didn’t want to remove all of her clothes. She chose to clean herself from the wash basin. Yolanda Beekman and Madame Lauro stayed under the shower for as long as they could until they were told that the Passover service was about to begin.
Tom and Jamie wore the authentic French clothes that the SOE had given them for the time when they wouldn’t have to be in German uniforms. After Tom shaved, he looked like a clean-cut farmer.
Claude, Gilles, and Jamie kept their submachine guns at their sides.
* * *
WHEN EVERYONE had been seated, Papa Emile said: “Who is the youngest person among us?”
“Me!” his grandson said quickly.
“You’re sure you are the youngest, Didi?”
“I am only four years old.”
“Okay, then you’re the youngest. Are you ready to ask the four questions?”
“I fink so.”
“You fink so? You fink you can ask the questions in French?”
“Oui!” Didi answered.
“Allons vite.”
“Pourquoi cette nuit … c’est différent que tous des autres nuits?”
A loud knock on the door interrupted Didi and startled everyone. Before the next knock could come a German officer barged in quickly. As he entered the room, his sergeant stood in the doorway with a submachine gun in his hands.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” the officer said. “I’m Captain Erhard Heiden. Are we having a nice time tonight?”
“It was nice until you came in so quickly,” Grandpa said.
“I’m so sorry. Do we have a little celebration here?”
“Yes,” Grandpa said.
“And is Passover the special occasion?”
“No, it’s to celebrate my grandson’s birthday. He is now four years old.”
“Oh, how wonderful,” the officer said as he walked over to Didi. “Hello, young man. Congratulations. You are a cute little boy. Can you say hello to me?”
Didi looked at grandpa, who nodded okay, so Didi said, “I am just a little boy and I speak only Italian.”
“But you just spoke in English,” the officer said.
“No, I mean, sono un ragazzino e parla solo italiano,” Didi said quickly.
“How nice,” the officer said. “May I see your penis, please?”
Grandpa stood up. “Why do you say such things to my grandson?”
“Because, Herr Piccard, I want to see if he has been circumcised, like a good little Jewish boy.”
Tom stayed seated and said calmly, “Und warum frangst du nicht alle von uns, ihnen unsere penis?” (And why don’t you ask each of us to show our penis?)
“Your German is excellent,” the officer replied. “Do you also speak French?”
“Just a little,” Tom said as he looked at Jamie, Claude, and Gilles. “Let me see if I can still remember my French … Tuez les tout.”
Claude blasted his machine gun at the sergeant while Gilles and Jamie, without even glancing at each other to coordinate their movement, slaughtered the German officer. Didi ran into his grandfather’s arms, frightened, but he didn’t cry.
“This is not exactly the Passover I imagined,” Grandpa said. Then he lifted Elijah’s wine cup. “To Elijah, who we hope will come soon to announce when all people will be free. Amen. And now, if you don’t mind, let’s pass over the rest of the Passover and eat the chickens that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, has made for this occasion. Gilles!”
“Yes, Papa?”
“Before you bury those two swine, would you please pour us all a little French wine? No! A lot of French wine.”
THIRTY
The four ladies stood outside, getting hugs from Gilles’s mother, Isabelle, and his wife, Amalie. Isabelle had sweaters and jackets that she was handing out to the other women.
“Don’t argue with me, please,” she said. “We’ve got plenty of sweaters and coats that Gilles gets from God knows where. We don’t want you catching a cold while you’re waiting for the plane. If it doesn’t land, you could freeze to death. Now get in the car.”
The ladies each accepted a last-minute hug from Grandpa and then got into the Mercedes. Didi waved good-bye as the car drove off using only its parking lights. Five minutes later they had entered the forest.
“Everything on time?” Tom asked Jamie, who sat in the front seat with the wireless radio on his lap.
“Still twenty-two hundred hours, Tom, if everything stays on schedule,” Jamie said.
“It all seems too good to be true,” Madame Lauro said. “We’re in the middle of a forest and they’re sending an airplane for us? It seems like a fantasy,” she said with a laugh.
“But won’t the Nazis see the lights?” Diana Rowden asked.
“The 161 Lysander only flies into enemy territory on moonlit nights. It’s a quiet plane and sneaky, and all it needs is the length of a football field to land and take off,” Jamie said to Miss Rowden and all the other women. “Our pilot, Chris, has landed on this field many, many times, and I’ve been with him. The moon is bright tonight or else we wouldn’t be here, so don’t worry.”
“One more mile,” Claude said.
In a few minutes they reached what had once been a soccer field. The French Resistance had kept the earth clear of branches and bottles on a regular basis. The Mercedes stopped and Claude turned off the motor. After the engine sighed into silence, all the women spoke abou
t what each of them wanted to do when they arrived in London. Madame Lauro and Yolanda had never been there before but had read about London and seen photos.
Anna was wonderfully excited. She held Tom’s hand and kissed it several times. She kept thanking him for rescuing her and the other women. “Will you take me out two or three or fifty times when we get back, and can we go to the Shepherdess Café and order all the food and wine that they won’t have again?”
“Absolutely,” Tom said.
“Do you promise?”
“I promise, if you don’t ever tell me that your job is to send radio waves to the sky. You don’t know what you put me through when Bertie said she didn’t know you.”
“I’m so sorry, Tom. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone what my real job was, not even someone I loved. Do you forgive me? Tell me that you forgive me.”
“Yes I do. I do, so calm down and let’s try to see the pilot’s signal.”
Everyone looked at the sky for a minute or two. Then Anna said, “I saw something on the other side of the field.”
“What did you see?” Tom asked.
“Lights. Like car lights that just turned off.”
“You’re sure?” Tom asked.
“That’s what I saw,” Anna said. “But I can’t say for sure that it was a car.”
Tom tapped Jamie on the shoulder. “Tell Chris not to land yet. Tell him to circle for five minutes, just to be sure.”
Jamie turned on his wireless. “The favorite horse is scratched. The favorite horse is scratched. Bet on Number Five. Can you hear me, Chris? Bet on Number Five!”
“I hear you,” the answer came back after a moment. “Number Five.”
Tom tapped Claude’s shoulder. “Turn your headlights on and off, but just once.”
Out of the darkness, a car from across the field turned its headlights on and off, also just a single time.
“Probablement les adolescents faisant whoopee dans la voiture de papa,” Claude whispered to Gilles.
“He was whispering. What did he just say?” Tom asked.
“Claude thinks it’s some kids making whoopee in papa’s car. He’s probably right,” Gilles whispered.