To the left and down the street, old stone, fifteenth century surely, glowed in the hot August noon sun. A crenellated wall with a watchtower and battlements guarded a courtyard and, beyond, a huge Gothic building, the Hotel de Cluny, museum of medieval crafts. Eleanor studied the gargoyles along the balustrade. One of the things she loved the most about Paris was the unexpected glimpses of grandeur, even from the meanest of vantage points. This was where Roger Lamirand had sat, looking up from his studies to admire the pentagonal tower or the incredibly complex frieze that ran along the bottom of the main building’s roof or to shade his eyes against the sun reflected from the huge skylights.
Eleanor felt the same surge of excitement she had experienced so many times in Paris, her first view of Sacre-Couer glistening like alabaster in a hard winter sun, the gray magnificence of Notre Dame, the Rue de Conde just after dawn, looking as it must have in 1789, the year the Bastille was captured and the Revolution begun.
A sleek black Mercedes roared down the Rue du Sommerard, the staff flag snapping. The horn blared. Eleanor drew her breath in sharply.
A cart was midway across the street, moving slowly, heavily. An old woman looked up in panic and tried to pull the cart backward. The Mercedes, never slackening its speed, swerved to the left, sweeping past, the edge of its bumper just clipping the cart. The impact shattered the end and dumped mounds of flowers rolled in damp newspapers. The vendor was pulled down. The Mercedes wheeled around the corner.
Slowly, painfully, the old woman struggled upright and hobbled toward her cart. Then, she stood, her shoulders slumped, staring down at the wreckage, the splintered wood, the scattered bright bits of flowers. Tears began to spill down her face.
Eleanor closed her eyes. Damn them. Oh, damn them.
“Didn’t you find anyone who can help us?” Linda tried to keep the despair from her voice.
“Not a soul. After I left the Lamirand apartment, I went to the Café Marius, do you remember it? I used to meet Andre there for lunch. I used the telephone and I called and called. Hardly anyone is still in town.” She found only a few at home. She told Linda of her guarded inquiry to several, she had a friend, someone she trusted, who knew of someone who needed to cross the line, not openly, and did they have an idea what she might tell them? The cold long empty pauses. So sorry. No idea. None at all. Her stiff good byes.
“What if one of them turns us in?” Linda asked, her voice small.
“I don’t think anyone will. They just don’t want to get involved themselves.”
Linda clasped her hands tightly together. “What are we going to do?”
The heat pressed against them. Not a breath of air stirred, the drapes hanging heavy and lifeless by the open windows. Eleanor leaned wearily back in her chair. “I don’t know,” she said finally, “I just don’t know.”
“Mother, I could ask Franz’s father—”
“No,” Eleanor said sharply, almost angrily. “Don’t tell anyone, Robert, anyone at all. I’ll think of something. Tomorrow I’ll take the train to Senlis and talk to your Uncle Raphael.”
Robert looked surprised. “But Mother, I thought you didn’t like Uncle Raphael. I thought—”
“Robert.”
They sat for a moment in a strained silence.
The clock on the mantel chimed 11:30. “Oh my heavens, it’s almost noon. I was gone all morning, wasn’t I? Eleven-thirty. We must hurry and get Michael out of the building before the Biziens come home for lunch.”
“I’ll take him now, on the Metro,” Linda offered.
Eleanor shook her head. “We don’t dare. I went by the Metro today and I saw the Germans checking papers at three different stations. They come without any warning and check everyone as they go out. We don’t have any papers for Michael. Even if we did, he would be lost if anyone stopped him since he doesn’t speak French.”
“Let’s put him back in the trunk of the car, the way I brought him.”
“If anyone saw him get into the trunk . . .”
There were so many difficulties. The only safe place to get into the trunk would be in the garage itself but Pierre was almost always there and could they take a chance on him?
“What about riding in the front seat, just like anybody?” Robert asked.
But was there anyone anymore who could be just like anybody? Cars were conspicuous. Only Germans and the friends of Germans had cars. Their car did have the Red Cross pennant, but Michael was young and a man and that just might catch the attention of a German patrol. Would anyone be on the lookout for that particular car with its Red Cross pennant? If Krause were still suspicious of them, they might be under surveillance.
“It’s too far to walk. At least we could, but Michael is still weak from so little food.”
“My bicycle!” Robert exclaimed. “He can ride my bicycle and I’ll borrow Franz’s.”
Eleanor frowned. “Robert, do you think Franz will loan you his bicycle? You know how hard it is to find a bike and they cost almost 10,000 francs on the black market.”
“Franz will help us. You forget, Mother, Franz is Jewish.”
“Oh. Oh, yes. But Robert, if,” she stopped, took a breath, “if you should be caught with Michael, it would go doubly hard for Franz.”
“I wouldn’t tell anyone I had his bike. The Germans wouldn’t know we didn’t have two bikes.”
Slowly Eleanor nodded. “That’s all right then. That should work. Linda can go by the Metro to meet you at the apartment and bring back Franz’s bicycle. Yes, it should all work out beautifully. Hurry now, Robert. Go see if you can borrow the bicycle.”
When Robert returned with Franz’s bicycle, they left through the alley. Linda followed on foot. They were soon out of sight, Robert riding a half block in the lead, far enough ahead so that if he saw a military roadblock he could turn back and so could Michael while still out of sight of the soldiers.
The Etoile station was the nearest. Linda didn’t hurry. The mesh bag she carried, with some necessities for Michael, was fairly heavy. She would reach the apartment before them anyway. She welcomed the shade of the plane trees along the sidewalk. Many of the fine houses along here, sheltered behind grilled fences, looked empty and deserted. There, two doors ahead, soldiers were carrying furniture and paintings out of a gray stone house, filling the Army truck. Some wealthy Parisian would return one day to find his home empty and, more than likely, taken over by a high-ranking officer. She was still a block from the Champs-Elysees when she heard the music, the steady tramp of marching feet, punctuated by drum rolls and the strident blasts of trumpets. She walked a little faster. A parade? Whatever for?
She was struck first by the emptiness of the broad lovely street. No cars, no taxis, no throngs of shoppers or idlers or tourists. Only the wide street and the German band, helmeted, booted, led by a drum major, and behind the band, detachments of soldiers. She knew what it was then though this was the first time she had seen it. The changing of the German guard at noon. The few pedestrians walked quickly, heads down, eyes averted from the street.
Ba-rom-pom-pom, ba-rom-pom-pom, rom-pom, rom-pom, pom.
The soldiers looked straight ahead, their heads held high, chins up, youthful faces cold and arrogant. Their high black boots flashed in the summer sun as their stiffened legs swung up and down.
Linda looked to her right, toward the Arc de Triomphe, at the immense Nazi flag which hung motionless in the summer sun, the Swastika brilliantly red in the white circle against the black background. The band had reached the Arc now. There was an instant’s pause, then the drum major raised his baton and the band sung into Deutschland Uber Alles.
Linda turned away, walking toward the Metro steps.
“Stop. At once.”
She took another step and her elbow was roughly grabbed. She looked up into the hard red face of a German captain.
“You will wait until the music is finished.”
She saw then that German soldiers stood stiffly at attention and the few,
very few Frenchman, waited, their faces impassive.
The captain held her elbow tightly until the last chord then loosened his grip and walked away without another word, as if she were too insignificant and unimportant to merit any further attention.
Linda fled toward the Metro entrance, almost running down the broad shallow steps. It was better down here, even though the station was jammed with people. She finally got onto a car on the third train. She would change at the Chatelet station. The car was smelly and hot, claustrophobic, but better, so much better, than standing in the shade of a chestnut tree and watching Germans march past. The subway glided to a stop. Passengers struggled on and off, then it started again. Gradually Linda began to ease her way nearer the sliding doors. Not too far now. Her station was the seventh. She was near the door when the train reached the Louvre station. A young man behind her asked to get by. He was almost out of the door when he saw the green uniforms at the top of the stairs and the line beginning to form as people stopped to show their papers. He stepped backward, his heel coming down heavily on Linda’s right foot. She gave a muffled cry. He swung awkwardly around, mumbling, “Pardon.” But he still stared at the checkpoint. Behind him, coming into the car from farther up the train, were two men, both wearing hats and unremarkable gray suits, but their eyes darted from seat to seat, from face to face.
If they were looking for the man in front of her, they would be looking for a man alone. She stepped close to him, slipping her arms up around his neck, and buried her face in his neck, her lips next to his ear, “Don’t look behind, don’t. Two men. Gestapo,” then lifting her face she smiled, saying loudly, “Oh Cherie, how wonderful. You are so marvelous to have found us an apartment. It isn’t everyone who has such a wonderful husband.”
The two men, with their cold searching eyes, were even with them now, and she stood on tiptoe to kiss the stranger’s cheek, hiding his face from their view. Then the men were past. She chattered on for a moment more, but let her voice fall lower.
“They’re gone now,” he said finally.
She closed her eyes and realized she was trembling.
The stranger was trembling, too.
For a moment, they clasped hands, leaned together.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you.”
They both got off at the Louvre station, she to transfer, he after a tense searching look, to hurry up the stairs. She looked after him. “Good luck,” she whispered. Luck to everyone tricking the Germans. Luck to all of us.
She carried the memory of his face for the rest of her journey. A nice face but remarkable only for its look of strain and tension and fear, a not uncommon look in Paris now. She wondered as she came up into the sunshine and turned toward the Cluny Museum whether her own face had that look. Deliberately, she forced a half smile and swung her arms as she walked. Though if she were stopped now, all she had to do was show them her green identity card. She had nothing to fear. Not right now. But she carried fear with her. My God, what a long way for Robert and Michael to ride. How could they possibly make it without attracting some notice? If they were stopped, surely Michael would pretend he didn’t know Robert. But Robert was so young. If he saw Michael stopped, questioned, would he protect himself, realizing that his capture wouldn’t help Michael? Or would he give himself away trying to help the Englishman?
Linda paced up and down in the apartment, up and down, up and down. When they finally came, noisily, lugging the bicycles up four flights because they would be a sure loss if left on the street, Linda embarrassed Robert with her hard quick thankful hug.
“My gosh, Aunt Linda, it wasn’t anything at all. Nobody even looked at us.”
Michael saw clearer than Robert. “Miss . . .”
“Linda.”
“Linda. I’ve put all of you in danger. Haven’t I?” His face had that look, too, now. Haunted and drawn and weary. His face and that of the young man on the Metro. Hurt frightened faces. Other faces moved in her mind. Krause’s, the captain’s at the Arc de Triomphe, those two hard dangerous faces in the Metro. Anger, touched with fear but stronger than fear, stirred within Linda.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Michael pushed his hand through his thin fair hair. “Look, why don’t you go, both of you, and don’t come back. Stay away from me. I’ll rest up then see what I can do.”
Linda smiled. “Don’t worry, Michael. We’ve done all right so far. Haven’t we?”
He nodded. “But . . .”
“Trust us a little longer. We don’t know what we are going to do with you, but we’ll find a way. I know we will. Eleanor’s going to Senlis tomorrow. That will probably solve everything.”
His face didn’t change. That was what was so damnable. It didn’t change at all, looking as bland and self-possessed and unmoved as when she had first begun to talk. He was, in a way, so like Andre, intense dark eyes and angular thoughtful face. His fingers lifted occasionally to touch a smooth silky mustache. But Andre’s eyes crackled with humor and care and his mouth was broad with deep laugh lines bracketing the corners, not thin and pursed like Raphael’s. Raphael didn’t like her. Eleanor thought about it without surprise. She had always sensed it, ever since she had come to France as Andre’s wife. She remembered her first meeting with Raphael. He hadn’t come to the train station to welcome the bridal couple home. It was late afternoon before he arrived at Andre’s apartment. Even now, sixteen years later, she remembered the cool dry impersonal touch of his hand, the slight incline of his head. He had said the appropriate thing, welcoming her as a brother-in-law, but his eyes were cold and aloof. His eyes were cold and aloof now as he gazed at the dusty tapestry on his office wall, not at her.
“Raphael.” Her voice was louder than she had intended.
“I am listening, Eleanor.”
“You haven’t answered.”
“I don’t know what to say.” He pressed his fingertips together, then turned his hands palms up. “Even for a woman and a foreigner, I find your behavior surprising.”
Eleanor sat very still. A woman and a foreigner. “I am a resident of France. A French wife.”
“Then you should obey the law.”
She stared at him for a long moment, at his narrow intelligent face, immobile now, empty of all expression.
“Oh, Raphael,” she sighed finally.
A tic pulled at the corner of his mouth and a tiny flush of red tinged his cheeks. “The war is over, Eleanor. The Armistice was signed on June 21. France and Germany are no longer at war.”
She said nothing.
He said tartly, “The Germans, of course, have every right to demand that the French people surrender to them all English soldiers. Germany and England are still at war.”
Eleanor nodded. “The English have continued to fight.” She emphasized “English” ever so little.
His fist slammed onto his desk. “The French were betrayed. The English led us into this war, then, once we were committed, they abandoned us.”
“Betrayed? Oh yes, Raphael, the French people were betrayed.” She stood up angrily. “But not by the English. The fat generals betrayed the people and the rich industrialists who didn’t want the war to destroy too much property and the corrupt politicians, oh yes, Raphael, the French people were betrayed all right.” She was trembling with anger now. “But let me tell you something, Raphael, this war isn’t over. I heard that French general speak on BBC, that young general, De Gaulle, and he and other Frenchmen who escaped to England, they with the English are going to keep on fighting. And I know that Andre,” tears burned in her eyes, “Andre wouldn’t give up. I don’t know where he is, he may be dead, but if he isn’t dead, if the Germans have him in a prison, then every British soldier that makes it out of France is one more to fight the Germans and help free Andre someday.”
She was at the door.
“Eleanor, wait a moment.”
She stood stiffly at the door, her hand on the ornate metal knob.
Raphael came a
round his desk and reached out to take her arm. “Please, Eleanor, wait a moment. Don’t leave looking angry and upset. You mustn’t attract attention. Not now. Not after what you’ve told me. It could be dangerous, Eleanor.”
She managed to speak, though it was hard. “It is good of you to care.”
“You are Andre’s wife.” His hand fell away from her arm. “Have you heard nothing about him? I hoped, when you came, I hoped that you knew something of Andre.”
She faced him and recognized the anguish in his eyes. He did love his younger brother. In his own stiff and formal and rigid fashion, he loved Andre, too.
“Nothing,” she said somberly. “Nothing. Last week I spent two days on the Avenue de l’Opera, reading the lists of prisoners. But the names aren’t in any kind of order. I didn’t find his name.”
“He might be among those who escaped to England.”
“He might.” She didn’t think so. He might, but she didn’t think Andre would have fled, leaving them behind. She didn’t think so. She wished she could believe it, hold to it. But she didn’t think so.
“If you do hear . . .”
“I will let you know immediately.”
“I wish you would join me for lunch before you return to Paris.”
She tried to smile.
“Please. The café across from the bank still has some food and I’ve quite a few stamps saved up. Please, Eleanor. You can tell me what it’s like in Paris and how Robert is getting along. It has been such a long time since I’ve seen Robert.”
Escape From Paris Page 9