Days of Winter

by Cynthia Freeman

  That evening at a diplomatic reception Jean-Paul actually had the opportunity to observe Hitler at close range. After waiting in line to shake hands with Der Führer, Jean-Paul stood near him, a glass of champagne in his hand, observing every detail of his features. He concluded that Hitler was neither the caricature he was made to appear in the cartoons nor the madman seen in the movie newsreels. Instead, he seemed rather shy and retiring. Even when he laughed there was, Jean-Paul thought, an inner reserve about the man. His deepset eyes seemed to take in everything at a glance, as though he were making mental notes to be made use of later. To Jean-Paul there was also a magnetic strength and fascination about his presence that was undeniable. He was commanding, he was intense. He had taken a broken, degraded nation left to die after the Treaty of Versailles and transformed it into a world power, ready to respond to his will. The German people worshipped him, and why shouldn’t they? He had given them back their dignity … even his enemies admitted that. Germans could once again hold up their heads. He was their leader, their Führer, their savior, but beyond that, he apparently had the ability to outmaneuver every nation he set his sights on. Why had his troops been allowed to take Czechoslovakia when they could have been stopped in their tracks? Adolf Hitler was a force to be reckoned with. Some people said that if Mussolini had been stopped in Ethiopia, then Hitler might never have realized how easy it was to grab. But Hitler was smarter than Mussolini. He didn’t have to fight, he merely took what he wanted, then waited for the outcries of indignation that were not backed up by force.

  The next night Jean-Paul witnessed a special open-air celebration. Corps of young men and women paraded for their leader. When Hitler himself appeared, they became hysterical and chanted, “Heil Hitler!” with their arms shooting up like spears. Jean-Paul was convinced of his power. Perhaps Hitler would rule the world for the foreseeable future. The old order of things was dying, that was indisputable. And the new order of Nazism led by Hitler was dawning. At the time of Mein Kampf few people had taken the little man in the baggy trousers seriously. Many did now. More would later. …

  When Jean-Paul returned to Paris, he submitted his findings. Hitler, he reported, wanted only peace. The threat of war was slight.

  By 1939 Germany was at war with France. The French Maginot Line had been considered impenetrable. Hitler destroyed it like a row of wooden blocks. France surrendered soon after and the house painter danced a jig on France’s soul. Paris was declared an open city, not to be destroyed. It was to be the Nazis’ pleasure dome. A showpiece of their Teutonic benevolence. Barbarians, indeed.

  By 1940 France was completely occupied. Jean-Paul’s private judgment had been vindicated. He was on the winning side, his allegiance was to Pétain and the Vichy government, of which he was now a high-ranking official.

  The Jews of Paris were in the process of being systematically rounded up. Etienne, frantic with fear that something would happen to Jeanette, worked feverishly, and paid lavishly, to have all her official records changed. Birth certificate, marriage license, passport—anything and everything pertaining to Jeanette Hack Dupré was adjusted to hide the fact of her Jewish heritage. Etienne paid a visit to the priest and exacted a promise from him that Jeanette would be certified Catholic. The monsignor crossed himself and vowed that if questioned he would say nothing about falsified records.

  Etienne breathed a little easier … and prayed that he had indeed protected Jeanette. …

  Etienne was not the only one concerned with Jeanette’s future safety.

  Tonight, in a mansion on the Isle of Saint Louis, the Countess Alexis Maximov shared his same concern as she was entertaining at a lavish dinner the most important officials of the Nazi Party in Paris, together with those who controlled the Vichy government, among whom was Jean-Paul Dupré. Looking around at the assemblage of butchers, dressed so elegantly in their bemedalled uniforms, she was pleased. They all looked, she decided, extremely useful for her purposes.

  After the party was over Magda sat at her dressing table, looking at her own image in the mirror, and laughing sardonically. Alexis hadn’t been there tonight, but he might have been whispering in her ear from the distant past, telling her now as he had then that she couldn’t stop being an actress, she owed it to the world to share her talent that God had given her. …And she remembered that she’d told him she didn’t want to be an actress, she wanted to have a fine salon to help her child do well in society. …Well, her ambitions for Jeanette hadn’t worked out quite as she’d hoped they would, but Magda couldn’t complain. It’s strange, Alexis, she thought, I’m both an actress and a lady with a grand salon. The trick, of course, is to be convincing, whatever one is at, whatever role one is playing. Do that and one can manage anything. Well, almost anything. …Some things, dear Alexis, are beyond our powers, out of our hands. …

  One day a year and a half ago, Magda thought her life had come to an end. She had gone into the library and had discovered Alexis unconscious on the floor. She watched helplessly as servants took him upstairs and laid him on the bed. She summoned the doctor, and waiting for him had almost driven her out of her mind. When the doctor finally arrived, she was asked to wait outside the bedroom while Alexis was examined. Afterward he’d told her her husband was gravely ill, that he had suffered a massive stroke and was almost completely paralyzed.

  “Almost …?”

  “Yes. Except for a slight mobility in the right hand, I’m very much afraid he is totally para—”

  “His mind, what about his mind?”

  “That doesn’t appear to be impaired. He’ll have his memory … he’ll be able to hear, to comprehend, to see. Eventually his speech should improve, but at first it may be difficult to understand him. …”

  No … she would not go to pieces … she would be calm, ask sensible questions. “And what would you suggest?”

  “He must have constant care. I will arrange for a capable staff of nurses to—”

  “No, you won’t … so long as I’m alive, my husband will be in my care … Alexis will be taken care of by people who love him. … Now please tell me what he’ll need.”

  “He will need someone with him twenty-four hours a day.” The doctor taught her to use a syringe. “Small amounts, to relax his mind. … That’s usually the problem with stroke patients who can still use their minds … their apprehensions sometimes cause insomnia. …Also, he’ll need an anti-coagulant to thin his blood. …I will let you know when he can be moved to a wheel chair, but that won’t be for some weeks. Meantime, he must be turned and massaged, and this should be done about every four hours, so he won’t develop bed sores. …Now, do you still insist on this?”

  “Doctor, I know what you’re trying to do, and I appreciate it, but I repeat, I will take care of my husband.”

  He left then, shaking his head, and Magda immediately went to Alexis’ room, a room they had happily shared for so many years. The bed in which Alexis now lay so still, in which he had known so much love and tenderness. …She still couldn’t absorb it—Alexis paralyzed? She moved a chair next to him, and sat down, taking his hand in hers. … “Dearest Alexis, why you? It was your strength that kept me going while Rubin was away in the war … your strength that kept me sane, wouldn’t let me give up when my daughter told me I was not her mother, that I was dead, as she’d told her husband. …Well, my love, now I will be your strength. …You’ve been my life, now I will try to be yours. …”

  For months letters of sympathy arrived, along with flowers, gifts, telephone calls, all of which were acknowledged by letter, but she herself would neither see nor speak to anyone.

  It was a quiet afternoon some three months after his stroke. “Alexis, my dearest,” Magda was saying to him, “the library could be turned into a lovely bed-sitting room. …It’s so pleasant, with the woods outside and the fireplace … you always enjoyed the terrace, the way it looks out on the Seine. …Dr. Roget says that you soon will be able to be helped into a wheel chair. The coming and going
would be so simple. … Would you enjoy that? Blink your eyes if you would. …”

  Patiently she asked the question three times. She was about to repeat it when he blinked his eyes. …

  “Oh, Alexis, I’m so glad … I want you to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air and I’ll sleep on a very comfortable couch, both of us will move downstairs. …”

  He stared at her … by now she knew every look.

  “You think I’m giving up this room as a sacrifice? Don’t be so conceited, my dearest. I’m selfish, I want to be with and near you.”

  He blinked … the blink was angry. The decision was no.

  Alexis was moved downstairs, and on those days when he could be wheeled outside, he basked in the warmth of the sun. He seemed to be happier, at least life had become tolerable. The haunting, pathetic look was no longer written in his eyes. Magda had someone to care for … to love and to comfort. …

  When rumors of war reached her ears, they came as a shock. She hadn’t read a newspaper, or listened to the radio in months. Suddenly, once again, she seemed to be a prisoner of her memories, locked into a world of déjà vu. “England will not allow a small nation to be invaded … Germany is destined for war. …”

  One day Pierre, her old friend from those earliest days in Paris before Rubin, and now officially the butler and really her friend, confessed to belonging to the underground. Her people … Jews, he told her, were being slaughtered like cattle, by the thousands. … “We have an underground in Germany,” he said, “and all over Europe. …Will you help us?”

  Two friends of Pierre’s were in the small salon waiting to meet her. Without another word, Magda went in to meet them.

  They looked like ordinary men, not in the least menacing. After the introductions, they came straight to the point.

  “You have an underground tunnel that leads to the Seine. Under your house, you also have an enormous labyrinth, and a maze of tunnels. They’re exactly what we need as an escape route—”

  “You really think it will come to that?”

  “It already has. …Tomorrow Germany will declare war on France. Believe me. …May we count on your cooperation?”

  Magda agreed and told Pierre to take the men down to the maze, and they thanked her for her help—

  “My help? Pierre tells me that thousands of Jews are being killed. …”

  “That’s true …although the Germans deny it. The American government and ours have spoken out against it, but the reprimands are not strong enough. …What are the Jews to Hitler, he is after the world. ‘tomorrow the world’ … that’s what he says. …”

  Magda shuddered. Everything was changing. Her whole world was falling to pieces. … “Is there anything else I can do … money …? Do you need money?”

  They, of course, did, and Magda wrote a check.

  “Please don’t concern yourself … we won’t be seen coming or going … there are two hidden doors which don’t appear to have been used in years. I doubt if anyone knows they exist … even you. Well, again, our thanks … good-bye.”

  That had been almost a year ago, but to this day every time she thought about a small band of men carrying on the dangerous task of espionage just beneath the floors she walked on, she found herself breathing a little harder. Alexis knew nothing of this. He often sat on the terrace, as he had today, and watched the German patrol boats going up and down the Seine. But what he thought, after having it explained to him that a war was raging in Europe, Magda could only guess. …

  Alexis had now been given his medication and had fallen asleep when Pierre came to ask if, once again, she would see his friend, and she went with him at once.

  “Anjou wants to talk to you alone,” Pierre said. “I’ll go back to the Count.”

  She found Anjou standing before the fireplace.

  “Bon soir, Countess.”

  “Bonsoir …”

  “The last time we sat in this room, you made it clear we could count on your help—”

  “Yes, anything. Please don’t hesitate.”

  He looked at her searchingly. “Well, this time we are asking a great deal … it involves a very great personal sacrifice.”

  “You make it sound ominous. And what does it involve?”

  He paused, then: “A liaison with the top … with the head of the Gestapo here in Paris …”

  She sat motionless, then, shaking her head and smiling mirthlessly, she said, “That, monsieur, is indeed a personal sacrifice. …But really you must have … others working with you who could do this. …Why me?”

  “No one else, I’m afraid, quite fits the part as well as—”

  “The part?” In spite of herself and knowing the seriousness of the situation to bring him to make such a request, she realized she was feeling a certain defensiveness … perhaps even indignation?

  “Exactly.”

  “I must say, you make it sound like some sort of farfetched play in which, I presume, I am to play the femme fatale—”

  “That’s just about it, Countess … and you are perfect for the part … you have the beauty … the prestige… the elegance. …But most important of all, you have the intelligence and dedication. Pierre has made that’ clear, but it was fairly obvious even on first meeting you.”

  “This is, I suppose, all very flattering, but did it also occur to you that I also have a … husband to whom I’m completely devoted … who needs me … who would certainly not approve of such conduct … And did it occur to you how much, how deeply, I despise these Nazi bastards?”

  “Yes … we know that …”

  “And yet you want me to have a liaison with one of them? Really, Anjou, I’m afraid this time you’re asking too much—”

  “Are we …? Do you know how many Jews we’ve saved because we had access to your tunnel? With the Germans at our heels, it wasn’t always easy, but we saved the lives of hundreds of children who would otherwise have been slaughtered.”

  Magda was pacing back and forth. …Her mind kept whispering to her … children … children … Jeanette, my daughter … Henri, my grandchild. …I am a mother, and a grandmother even if it isn’t acknowledged … my children … children must be saved. …She sat down, lit a cigarette. “If I agree, do you have a plan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  The man you would make contact with is Christian Reichart.” Apparently Anjou was too caught up to see the absurd, indeed, disgusting, irony in the name for a Gestapo chief, but she couldn’t overlook it, and winced when she heard it… But Anjou was going on: “He’s chief of the Gestapo in Paris. He’s handsome, blond, very Aryan, of course. Also calculating and ruthless. …His fondness for extraordinarily attractive women is almost a joke, but I assure you he is not a joke. He is not easily fooled or taken in. One would need to be very clever.”

  “And you think that I—”

  “Yes. I believe, Madame, that you have all the credentials, including that of being a good listener.” (She had to smile briefly at that. A good listener, yes, she’d learned that as the mistress of a fine salon, but she also was a good talker. She’d surely have to work on that if …)

  “And what if they discovered that I am a Jew?”

  “I don’t think that’s at all, even remotely, likely—”

  “But I’ve lived in Paris many years, you know.”

  “Yes, we know. Your old friend Pierre has known you from your earliest days, and at that time you had no friends except Pierre. And your husband—for reasons that we understand and you needn’t worry will ever be revealed by us … they are, frankly, of no interest to us—has done a brilliant job in creating a new identity for you and demolishing the old. Your papers show that you come from a Polish family of royal connections. I think you know the rest. …I’m sorry”—and it was clear he meant this personally—“but it does seem that you’re the most likely of all people to undertake this.” (She took it he was also being delicate in not mentioning Alexis’ condition, which, practicall
y at least gave her a “freedom” she would not otherwise have.) “You are an actress, and as I understand it, what is known as a ‘natural.’ Perhaps you can think of this—although I offended you when I first mentioned it as such—as a role in a play, a very important role in a not very pleasant, but nonetheless, as I’m sure you’d agree, very important play.”

  She sat looking at him for several moments. Well, Magda Charascu, welcome back … not that you really ever left … but now the countess needs you, and so do your children. …What the hell are you waiting for …?

  “How … how would I meet this Reichart?”

  Anjou nodded emphatically, as though to seal the deal. “Next Thursday at the German Embassy, at a gala there. You will be invited, we will see to it. After that … the rest is up to you. May I assume we have your commitment?”

  “…You already know that the answer is yes.” He nodded again. “Pierre will be your contact. We will communicate only through him.”

  No thank yous, no good-byes. No time.

  There was also no sleep for her that night. Alexis stood in the shadows of her memory, along with her promise of fidelity to him. There had been no conditions set then. It had been unqualified.

  Grateful for the morning, finally, she dressed and went downstairs to him. “Good morning, my love. …I see you’ve already been shaved, you look very handsome, I must say.” His eyes followed as she straightened the covers. As usual, coffee and croissants were served. She talked of unimportant things, and gave answers to her own questions as though they were his. By now she understood the nuance of every look. … “You want to see out, of course, darling,” and she cranked the handle at the foot of the bed so that his back was in a slight sitting position. Later she would need help from Pierre to put him in the chair.

  By now he had recovered to the extent of being able to make sounds that only vaguely resembled articulate speech but which she had learned to translate with considerable accuracy and intuition. And when they made no sense at all, she answered casually, vaguely, as though they did and as though she understood completely. She was very good at it. Just now he was mumbling something. She listened carefully. … “Oh, so you think I look tired?” Immensely frustrated by his attempts to communicate with his garbled speech, Alexis fell back, as he usually did, on answering “Yes” with his blinking signal. … “Well I’m not really tired, darling … it’s more than that. Alexis, something extraordinary has happened. I want to do something. I mean, I don’t want to but I feel I have to. …Oh dear, I don’t seem to be getting to the point, forgive me. Alexis, this may sound like something out of a bad melodrama, and indeed it would be at any other time, except as you know this is not any other time, this is wartime and the damned Nazis are all over Paris and I have a daughter who is Jewish and I have a grandson who’s Jewish too. He has Jewish blood, never mind how they raise him as a good little Catholic. He is a Jew, one drop is all the Nazis need, you know that …” She looked at him, shook her head and smiled. “I really do go on, don’t I, darling? Well, the point is, Magda Charascu, alias Margot Maximov, has come back for her premiere performance, to be a … a spy for the underground. I know, I know, I’ll have to learn to keep my mouth shut, which won’t be easy, but I do have big ears and they have usually been wide open, so I’ve had good training there. …” She rushed on, wanting to get it all out at once and not sure she could in a way that wouldn’t be ruinous to both of them. … “Pierre—he’s one of them—brought his friends here and we talked and they seem to feel I can be of help … going to parties, giving parties, which I already do, of course, being friendly with some of the right people … that sort of thing. …”