"The day seemed endless. As I passed the barbed wire for the hundredth time, I caught sight of a package wrapped in newspaper a few paces from the fence on my side. I picked it up. It contained a piece of bread, two apples, and an unsigned note saying: Tonight.' Helen must have tossed it over between my rounds. I felt so weak that I ate the bread on my knees. Then I went to my hiding place' and slept. It was afternoon when I awoke. It was a clear day; the golden light was like wine. The colors of the leaves had deepened. In the rays of the warm afternoon sun that fell into my clearing, the beeches and lindens stood there yellow and brown, as if an invisible painter had transformed them during my sleep into torches, motionless in a motionless light. Not a leaf stirred."
Schwarz broke off. "Please don't be impatient if I seem to be giving you superfluous descriptions of nature. In all that time nature was as important to us as it is to animals. Nature was what never turned us away. It demanded no passport, no certificate of Aryanism. Nature gave and took but she was impersonal, and that was like a balm. That afternoon I lay still for a long while. I was afraid I might overflow like a pitcher brimful of water. Then, in the perfect stillness, hundreds of leaves detached themselves from their branches and came floating down, as though in answer to a mysterious command. They glided serenely through the clear air, and some of them fell on me. In that moment I saw the freedom, the boundless consolation of death. I made no decision, but I knew that I had the power to end my life if Helen should die, that I wouldn't have to stay behind alone. And I knew that this power is a boon, a compensation, for those who love too much, whose love is more than human. I knew all that without thinking, and once I knew it, it was somehow, in some remote way, no longer wholly necessary for me to die.
"Helen was not in the wailing wall. She appeared only after the others had gone. She had on shorts and a blouse. She handed me a bottle of wine and a package through the wire. She looked very young in her unaccustomed attire. 'The cork has been pulled,' she said. 'Here, I have a cup.'
"She slipped deftly between the wires. 'You must be almost starved. I found something in the store that I hadn't seen since Paris.'
"'Cologne,' I said. She smelled of it, fresh in the fresh night.
"She shook her head. I saw that her hair had been cut; it was shorter than before. 'What on earth has been happening?' I asked, suddenly furious. 'Here I thought they'd taken you away or you were dying, and you come out looking as if you'd been to the beauty parlor. Have you had a manicure, too?'
" 'I did that myself.' She showed me her hands and laughed. 'Let's drink the wine.'
" 'What happened? Was the Gestapo there?*
" 'No. An Army commission. But they had two Gestapo men with them.'
" 'Did they take anyone away?'
" 'No,' she said. 'Give me a drink.'
"I saw that she was very upset. Her hands were hot, and her skin was so dry I expected it to crackle. 'They came,' she said, 'to draw up a list of the Nazis in the camp. They'll be sent back to Germany.'
" 'Are there many?'
" 'Plenty. We didn't think there were so many. Some didn't admit it. There was one I knew—all of a sudden she stepped forward and said she belonged to the party, that she had obtained important information, that she wanted to go back to the fatherland, that she had been treated disgustingly— couldn't they take her with them right away? I knew her well. Too well. She knows . . .'
"Helen drank quickly and gave me the cup. 'What does she know?' I asked.
"'I don't remember exactly. There were so many nights when we talked and talked. She knows who I am. . . .' She raised her head. 'I'm never going back! Never! I'll kill myself if they try to make me.'
" 'You won't kill yourself,' I said, 'and they won't take you back. Heaven knows where Georg is; he doesn't know everything. And why should this woman want to tell them about you? What good can it do her?'
" 'Promise you won't let them take me back.'
" 'I promise,' I said. She was so frantic I couldn't help myself—of course there was nothing I could do, but I had to talk like God Almighty.
" 'I love you,' she said in her hoarse, agitated voice. 'I love you, and, whatever happens, you've got to believe me.'
" 'I believe you,' I said, believing and not believing.
"She leaned back exhausted. 'We've got to get out of here,' I said. 'This very night.'
" 'Where to? Have you a passport?'
" 'Yes. Someone who worked in the office where the internees' papers were kept returned it to me. Who has yours?'
"She did not reply. She stared into space for a while. 'There's a Jewish family here,' she said then. 'Husband, wife, and child. They just got here a few days ago. The child is sick. They stepped forward with the Nazis. They want to go back to Germany. Weren't they Jews? the captain asked them. The husband answered that they were Germans and wanted to go home. The captain wanted to say something else, but the Gestapo men were there. "You really want to go back?" he repeated.
"' "Put them on the list, Captain," said one of the Gestapo men laughing. "If you're really so homesick, we'll do you the favor." Their names were taken. It's no use talking to them. They say they can't go on; they say the child is very sick, that all the Jews here will be rounded up anyway, so they may as well come forward now. They say we are trapped here and they may as well go voluntarily. They act like deaf mules. Would you talk to them?'
" 'I? What can I say?'
" 'You've been there. You've been in a German camp. You went back. And escaped again.'
" 'Where would I speak to them?'
" 'Here. I'll get the husband. I know where he is. We'll be right back. I told him about you. We can still save him.'
"A few minutes later she reappeared with a sickly-looking man who refused to crawl through the barbed wire. He stood across from me on the camp side, and listened to me. A little later his wife came out. She was very pale and didn't say a word. They had been picked up about ten days before. They had been in different camps; they had escaped, and by a miracle they had found each other. They had written their names on walls, on sidewalks, wherever they went."
Schwarz looked at me. "You've heard of the Via Dolorosa?"
"Who hasn't? It reaches from Belgium to the Pyrenees."
The Via Dolorosa dated back to the first days of the war. But the great exodus began after the Germans had overrun Belgium and broken through the Maginot Line. First came automobiles piled high with household goods and bedding, later vehicles of every kind, horse carts, handcarts, baby carriages, and, as time went on, endless streams of people on foot, all headed south in the lovely summer weather, pursued by dive bombers. And the refugees joined the general exodus. Members of separated families took to writing names and messages in coal, chalk, paint, or anything that was handy on walls, house fronts, road markers. It got to be something like a roadside gazette. In addition, the refugees who had already been on the run for years and were hiding from the police had developed a kind of underground railway, a network of addresses extending from Nice to Naples and from Paris to Zurich: reliable friends on whom they could count for news, information, and advice, and who could put you up for a night or two when necessary. Thanks to the gazette and this secret network, the Jew had found his wife and child, who would otherwise have been lost like the proverbial needle in the haystack.
"They were afraid," Schwarz went on, "that if they stayed in the camp they would be separated again. It was a women's camp. They had been brought in together, but had already been informed that the husband would soon be removed to a men's camp. 'We couldn't bear it,' he said. He had thought the whole thing over and was convinced that there was nothing else to do. Escape was impossible; they had tried and had nearly starved. Now the child was sick and the mother completely exhausted—and he himself was at the end of his strength. 'The rest of you,' he said, 'are no better off than cattle in a slaughterhouse yard. They'll come and get you whenever they feel like it. Why,' he asked finally, 'couldn't the French have let us go
when there was still time?' He was a frail gentle man with a thin face and a little dark mustache.
"No one knew the answer. They didn't want us, but they wouldn't let us go—but who can worry about an absurdity more or less when a whole nation has collapsed? In any case those who might have done something about it hardly gave it a thought.
"On the following afternoon two trucks came driving up the road. At the same moment I saw the barbed wire come to life. A dozen or more women helped each other crawl through and dashed into the woods. I kept hidden until I caught sight of Helen. 'We've received a warning from the Prefecture,' she said. 'The Germans have come for the ones who want to go back. The French authorities don't know what else the Germans are going to do, so they've given us permission to hide in the woods until the Germans are gone.'
"It was the first time I had seen her by daylight except for the moment on the road. Her long legs and her face were tanned, but she was very thin. Her eyes were too big and too bright, and her face seemed haggard. 'You've been giving me your food and you yourself are starving,' I said.
" 'I have plenty to eat,' she said. 'That's all taken care of. Here—' she put her hand in her pocket—'there's even a piece of chocolate. Yesterday we were able to buy pâte de foie gras and sardines. But no bread.'
" 'Is the man I spoke to going?' I asked.
" 'Yes.'
"Suddenly Helen's whole face trembled. 'I'll never go back,' she said. 'Never. You've promised. I don't want them to catch me.
They won't catch you.'
"The cars drove off again an hour later. The women were singing and the sound came to us on the breeze: Deutschland, Deutschland iiber dies.
"That night I gave Helen half the poison I had brought from Le Vernet.
"Next day she knew that Georg had found out where she was. 'Who told you?' I asked.
" 'Someone who knows.'
" 'Who?'
" 'The camp doctor.'
" 'How does he know?'
" 'From the camp commander. There had been inquiries.'
" 'Did the doctor tell you what to do?'
" 'He can hide me a few days in the camp hospital. Not very long.'
" 'Then you'll have to leave. Who was it who warned those who were in danger to hide in the woods?'
'"The Prefect.'
"'Good,' I said. 'Get your passport back and wangle a discharge from here. Maybe the doctor can help you. If not, we'll just leave. Don't breathe a word. Not to anybody. I'll try to speak to the Prefect. He seems to be human.'
" 'Don't do it. Be careful. For heaven's sake, be careful.'
"I cleaned my overalls as best I could and emerged from the woods in the morning. I fully expected to run into German patrols or French gendarmes, but I'd have to count on that from now on.
"I managed to reach the Prefect. I bluffed a gendarme and one of the clerks, passing myself off as a German technician who needed information about putting up a power line for military purposes. I'd learned from experience that sheer gall often brings results. If that gendarme had taken me for a refugee, he would have arrested me on the spot. Instead, I shouted at him. His kind reacts best to shouting.
"When I got to the Prefect, I told him the truth. His first impulse was to throw me out. Then he was amused by my impudence. He gave me a cigarette and told me to go to hell, he had seen nothing and heard nothing. Ten minutes later, he told me there was nothing he could do, because the Germans probably had lists and would hold him responsible if anyone was missing. He didn't want to end his days in a German concentration camp.
" 'Monsieur le Préfet,' I said. 'I know you have protected prisoners. And I know that you have to obey orders. But you and I also know that France is in a state of chaos, that today's orders can be tomorrow's disgrace, and that if confusion degenerates into senseless cruelty, it will be hard to find excuses later on. Why should you, against your will, hold innocent people in a barbed-wire cage, to be sent to the gas chambers and torture camps? It's conceivable that while France was still defending itself there was some justification for shutting up foreigners in internment camps, regardless of whether they were for or against the enemy. But the war's over now. A few days ago the victors took back their people; all you have left in the camps is victims, who live in terror of being dragged off to their death. I ought to ask you to intercede for them all—but I've come to plead for only one. If you are afraid of lists, put my wife down as escaped—or dead, for all I care. Say she committed suicide, if you like, that clears you of all responsibility.'
"He looked at me for a long moment. 'Come back tomorrow,' he said then.
"I didn't budge. 'By tomorrow somebody may have arrested me,' I said. 'Do it today.'
" 'Come back in two hours.'
" 'I'll wait outside your door,' I said. That's the safest place I can think of.'
"Suddenly he smiled. 'Quelle histoire d'amour!' he said. 'You're married, and you've got to live as if you weren't. Usually it's the other way around.'
"I sighed with relief. An hour later he called me in. 'I've phoned the camp commander,' he said. 'It's true that inquiries have been made about your wife. We'll follow your suggestion and put her down as dead. That should set your mind at rest, and ours, too.'
"I nodded. All at once a strange, cold fear invaded me, a vestige of superstition. I was tempting fate. But hadn't I myself died long ago, and wasn't I living with a dead man's papers?
" 'We'll fix it up tomorrow,' said the Prefect.
" 'Do it today,' I answered. 'I spent two years in a concentration camp because I was a day late in deciding to clear out.'
"I was exhausted. He must have noticed it. My face went ashen; I was on the point of fainting. He sent out for cognac. 'Coffee,' I said, and fell into a chair. The room revolved in gray and purple shadows. I mustn't fall, I thought, when the buzzing in my ears began. Helen is free. We've got to get out of here.
"A face and a voice mingled with the flitting and the buzzing. The voice was shouting, indistinctly at first, then loud and plain. I tried to follow the voice and the face, and then I heard: 'Do you think this is fun for me, merde alors? What the devil is all this? I'm not a jailer. I'm a decent, charitable man; to hell with them all—let them go, the whole lot of them!'
"Then I lost track of the voice, and I'm not sure whether it had really shouted like that or had only rung so loud in my ears. The coffee came; I staggered out and sat on a bench. A little while later a clerk came out and told me to wait a few minutes more—I had had no intention of leaving.
"Then the Prefect came out and told me everything was arranged. My fainting fit, it seemed to me, had done much more good than all my words. 'Do you feel better?' the Prefect asked. 'You don't have to be afraid of me. I'm just a little French provincial prefect.'
" 'That's more than God,' I said happily. 'All God gave me was a general residence permit for the earth, and it's perfectly useless. What I really need is a residence permit for this district, and no one can give me that but you, Monsieur le Préfet:
"He laughed. 'But if they look for you, this is where you'll be most in danger.'
" 'If they're looking for me, Marseille is worse than here. That's where they'll expect to find me, not here. Give us a permit for one week. By that time we'll have started across the Red Sea.'
" 'The Red Sea?'
" 'That's a refugee expression. We live like the Jews on their way out of Egypt. Behind us the German Army and the Gestapo, on both sides the sea of French and Spanish police, and ahead of us the Promised Land of Portugal with the Port of Lisbon, the gateway to the still more Promised Land of America.'
" 'Have you got American visas?'
" 'We'll get them.'
" 'You seem to believe in miracles.'
" 'I have no choice. And hasn't one happened today?' "
Schwarz smiled at me. "It's amazing how calculating you can be when you're desperate. I knew exactly why I had said those last words and why I had flattered the Prefect by comparing him to God. I h
ad to get a short residence permit out of him. When you're entirely dependent on another man, you get to be a psychologist, even if you're so frightened you can hardly breathe, and perhaps for that very reason. Fear and caution are separate functions, the one doesn't interfere with the other. Your fear is genuine, your misery is genuine, and so is your calculation. All have the same aim: salvation."
Schwarz had grown perceptibly calmer. "I'll be finished soon," he said. "We actually did get residence permits for a week. I was standing at the camp gate, waiting for Helen. It was late in the afternoon. A light rain was falling. The doctor was with her. I saw her speaking with him a moment before she saw me. She spoke with animation, her face showed more emotion than usual; I felt like.an unseen passer-by, looking into a room from the street. Then she caught sight of me.
The night in Lisbon Page 18