Last Train to Paris

by Michele Zackheim

  I shook my head no.

  “What kind of stupid games have the two of you been playing? What do you know about his life?”

  “Very little,” I admitted.

  “That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard,” Pete said. “What in the world were you thinking?”

  I pushed my drink away. “I’m not sure,” I said. “In this atmosphere, it just seemed the thing to do. We got used to it. Perhaps it was a way to create our own little safe world, since the outside one has gone berserk. I really don’t know. I didn’t even know he was Jewish.”

  “Keep your voice down, R.B.,” Pete said. “This isn’t the place to be saying that word. His parents,” he quietly continued, “were fired from their university positions because they’re Jews. As a result, they’ve been relying on Leon to support them, and—”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” I said, “but how can he support them as an engraver?”

  “You know, for a bright woman, you’re acting alarmingly stupid!”

  God, I thought. This is the second time in a week that I’ve been called stupid.

  “Look,” Pete said, “Leon’s under arrest. Has been for almost a year. But his job’s so rarefied that they give him a little leeway. As long as he obeys his masters, he’ll be left alone. At least until Churchill and Roosevelt decide what to do.”

  “Under arrest—he never told me this. What kind of arrest? And why is he engraving swastikas? It seems stupid to me.”

  “Look—he doesn’t have a choice. Because he’s one of the best engravers in Berlin, those selfish bastards are convinced that they need him. He’s been ordered to decorate all the tableware, candelabras, and serving platters for the high commanders. Hitler’s first on the list.”

  “I saw. They’re beautifully ornate, with leaves and flowers. You have to look closely to see the swastikas. But it all seems impossible to me. I don’t get it.”

  “C’mon,” Pete said. “Do you think any of those horses’ asses would eat off the simple plates of the masses?”

  “No, I don’t mean that,” I said. “That I understand. But how can he work for the enemy?”

  “Because he doesn’t have a choice, R.B. They pay him a minuscule salary, which keeps his family from starving. And his contacts with the Reich keep everyone safe—at least for the time being. So, now do you get it?”

  “Yeah, I get it.”

  “Well, Ramsey wants you back in Paris for a few days—so you’d better get yourself together. You look awful.”

  I sensed that Leon was gone forever. I couldn’t believe how much I missed him. I wondered why he hadn’t asked me to help him and his family. I wondered why the two of us had played our silly game of noncommitment. And I wondered why he had said he loved me; he had never said it before. It all made my heart ache with longing for him. I felt stranded between the safety of being an American and the dark reality that was beginning to take shape in Europe.

  * * *

  I returned to Paris. Two days later, even though it was the middle of the night, I took a walk to try to clear my head. There was no moon as I strolled along the Seine. The river had become a dark mirror reflecting the shimmering winter stars. I walked beside the leafless plane trees whose shadows were projected on the walls from the feeble bridge lamps. Every now and then a cloud would appear and block the starlight. In those moments the river became menacing and mournful. I saw vagrants trying to stay warm around small fires that had been set against the damp gray walls along the river; I saw night-foragers picking through garbage bins; I saw a man walking with a battered guitar over his shoulder; I saw streetwalkers hobbling home on their high-heeled shoes; I heard the staccato clattering of hooves and then saw a shepherd leading two sheep to the market. I saw lurking men, but I had moved beyond my natural fear, and paid them no mind.

  I reached Les Halles. The marketplace offered up the splendid aromas and noises of life. It was a balm to the merciless ugliness and despair I was wallowing in. Les Halles was illuminated by bonfires made from broken wooden vegetable crates, along with kerosene lanterns hanging off the horse-drawn wagons and gas-driven trucks. The market was bustling with life and light in the middle of the night. Every so often, the men who were unloading crates of food stopped to throw back a shot of calvados, obviously convinced that this gave them the strength to carry on. Although it was winter and the only vegetables were potatoes and turnips, onions, some carrots, and cabbages, the scene made me hungry. But the huge hunks of bleeding horsemeat in the abattoir section threatened my reverie. Even though I chose not to look, I could not escape seeing the gutters flowing with blood and bilious water.

  As I entered a café favored by journalists, I saw Andy Roth sitting morosely at one of the tables, obviously having had a lot to drink. I knew that Ruby was back in England.

  “Andy. Are you okay?”

  He didn’t answer, but I could see his trembling hands, see the weeks of heavy drinking and depression. I felt guilty for having been so tied up with my own troubles. I really hadn’t paid Andy much notice.

  “Ruby has someone else and wants a divorce,” Andy said, and his already rummy eyes looked even more miserable. “I don’t want to talk about it, R.B., it’s too upsetting.”

  So neither of us spoke—two sad people, elbows on a wine-stained tabletop, drinking wine without a name.

  I was lost in thought when I heard Andy. “This is stupid,” he said. “I’m going to Madame Beloit’s.” And he stood, obviously drunk. “Come with me, R.B. It won’t hurt for you to see another side of life—especially from a woman’s point of view. It’ll make a good story.”

  Madame Beloit’s brothel, La Petite India, was above a bookbinding shop on the rue de Rosiers in the Marais. It was primarily frequented by journalists and men from Les Halles, along with a few tourists looking for a story to take back home. It opened at midnight, closed at seven in the morning, and was run by the firm, bejeweled hand of Madame Beloit.

  I tagged along, feeling ridiculous, but also curious. We climbed the stairs to be met by Madame herself. “No women, Mr. Roth,” she said in a husky voice. “You know better.”

  “I’ll leave,” I said, embarrassed.

  “No, I need you to stay. Just sit here.” He pointed to a chair in the corner.

  “My friend, here,” he said to Madame Beloit, trying to stand straight and look presentable, “is a famous writer and it would behoove you to let her sit for a while. Yes?”

  “Yes,” Madame agreed, with a glint in her eyes.

  I took out my notebook and officiously flipped it open.

  Madame was a huge woman with many chins, dressed in billowing black taffeta, with white lace over her bosom, and just a bit of nipple showing. Her face must have been pretty at one time and she still had startlingly beautiful blue eyes. Before taking more than five steps into her house, a client had to place the mandatory francs into Madame’s fat, outstretched hand. The parlor smelled as if someone had sprayed an entire bottle of Shalimar in the air.

  The electric piano was playing “You’re Driving Me Crazy,” adding a slice of mournful humor to our evening. The room was almost proper in its furnishings, except for small pictures that had been cut out of a magazine and placed in cheap frames. They depicted (I counted) fifty-seven positions of the Kama Sutra.

  Lounging on the deep red velvet sofas was an array of women waiting to be chosen by the leering men. They were dressed in transparent yellow or red saris that left one breast exposed, in keeping with the theme.

  ‘That’s my favorite,’ Andy whispered, poking me in the side. ‘Her name’s Effie–reminds me of the Rocky Mountains.’

  “But, Andy,” I whispered, “I thought you were true to Ruby,” and he turned and looked at me as if I was born yesterday.

  Effie was much taller than a typical Frenchwoman, and thin and wiry—like a ranch hand. “Every time I see her,” he sa
id, “I’m reminded of lassoing steers and half expect her to slap her thighs, do a jig, and sing, ‘I’m an Old Cowhand.’”

  “Come on, handsome,” Effie said to Andy.

  “No Berlin, Mr. Ramsey,” I said firmly, while leaning against the doorjamb. “I won’t go back. Go ahead and fire me. I don’t care.” I waited for an explosion.

  And it happened.

  But coldly. Seriously. Without space to move. “I don’t give a good goddamn what your reason is, Miss High-falutin’. You’re going back.” And he brought his furious pink face right up to mine. I could hear chairs scraping behind me.

  “Let her be!” I heard a reporter yell.

  “Yeah,” boomed the chorus of employees.

  “Don’t you dare touch me, Mr. Ramsey,” I said quietly, while feeling my lip snarl like a fox’s.

  He stepped away, grabbed a beer from someone’s desk, took a swig, then slammed the bottle on a table, sending glass shards and beer everywhere.

  “No Berlin, no job,” he shouted and left the newsroom.

  One man, Leon, had threatened me. Another man, Ramsey, was threatening me, too. I felt torn in half—as if every man who was important in my life had a pronouncement about how I was to behave, including my father. It was funny. I felt I could do battle with my mother and survive—but the opinions of these three men petrified me.

  I knew I had a few days to get things back on track. It was Andy who came to the rescue. “Quietly,” he said, “propose to New York that you write a series of six articles, one a week, on Germans living in Paris. It’ll make Ramsey look good. And it’ll give you six weeks to get yourself together. Now, come on—let’s go have dinner. At least when I’m with someone, I actually eat food.”

  Later, we arrived home to find Madame Pleven, the concierge, fast asleep with her folded arms upon the table, cradling her snoring head. She was supposed to check all the residents as they came in and went out, but it was two in the morning and she had obviously lost her battle with wakefulness. Slipped into a crack beside her bell was a formal envelope addressed to me from the American Embassy.

  Dear Miss Manon, I need to speak to you. There will be a Christmas party Saturday night at the Embassy. I would appreciate your coming about 9:00 P.M. and we’ll find a quiet moment to speak. Formal dress is required.

  Sincerely yours, John Clancy, American Consul.

  I had no idea what Clancy wanted to talk to me about. Perhaps, I thought, something to do with Stella’s disappearance? Perhaps he wanted to recruit me? I knew that some American correspondents had been convinced to feed information from their private sources to the embassy. But I had never been asked. Sexy and beautiful women were used for gathering information, not someone like me.

  Formal dress? That was a joke. Shopping for clothes in Paris had become a grim enterprise. The shelves were not stocked as they had been. Fabric was being manufactured for the army, not the fashion-conscious. People were mending, or refashioning, old clothes. Nevertheless, I needed to find a dress. Ridiculous. I hadn’t worn a dress since I left New York. Under the cold blue lights of the dressing room in La Samaritaine, I looked drained of blood–like a cadaver. Every pore, every blemish, was amplified a hundred times. As I was trying on dresses I became more and more depressed. Fancy clothes and I are not compatible. I settled for a pair of dark gray trousers and a teal-blue silk blouse. After all, I was a journalist, not a socialite. But I would wear Clara’s mink coat.

  It was snowing, and by three in the afternoon it was dark. I walked to the boulevard to get a bath and a haircut. “Cut off the curls,” I told the barber, “I want my hair to look smooth.” The barber, Louis, shrugged as he whipped the blue-and-white-striped cloth around my shoulders. “You can’t smooth your kind of hair, Mademoiselle,” he said. “Your hair’s naturally curly from the beginning of its roots. I’ll have to shave your head to get rid of the curls.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Just do it, please.”

  “Shave your head?” asked Louis, and I laughed.

  “No, no,” I said, “just a regular trim.”

  When I returned to the hotel, I went to Andy’s room to ask if I could borrow a pair of Ruby’s galoshes to wear over my dress-up shoes. “Hey, Andy, you there?” I asked as I knocked and pushed the door open.

  The room was a pigsty. Clothes strewn about, a bed without sheets, a saliva-stained pillow without a case, an old green and black plaid blanket on the floor. It was freezing. There were empty whiskey bottles scattered here and there, old crusts of bread, hardened pieces of cheese. It was alarming; he had rubbed out his cigarettes right into the tabletop and left the butts there.

  Andy wasn’t home.

  I had not realized that my friend had slid downhill so drastically. He was obviously in deep trouble. I could understand why. Andy’s wife, Ruby, wasn’t only a stunner, but a flirt, too. I could certainly see why Andy had fallen for her, but could never figure out what she had seen in the bespectacled, introverted Andy—except that he would bring her to gay Paris. It had not been unusual to walk by their door and hear Ruby screeching. Most likely, Andy had gone mute, since this was his nature, which apparently had made her even angrier. I wondered how such a shrew could be so beautiful. It didn’t fit. And now she had left him.

  I borrowed the galoshes.

  It was a bitterly cold night. Arriving promptly at nine at the American Embassy on the avenue Gabriel, I left my coat, and almost forgot to leave the galoshes. I entered the main reception room. All the fireplaces were lit, candles were burning on the Christmas tree, candelabras were ablaze. I was mesmerized by the glitter. There must have been more than two hundred people there, and in that light everyone looked beautiful.

  Before I could get something to drink, I felt someone tapping me on the shoulder.

  “Evening, Miss Manon,” Mr. Clancy said. “Come with me. Let’s get away from this crowd.” We walked into an anteroom. “Have a seat,” he said, and we both sat on an apple-green silk-upholstered sofa. All I could think about was how my shimmering blue silk blouse was so beautiful against that color.

  ”I want to ask you, Miss Manon, to do me a favor. We need people like you—who go back and forth over the border with immunity—to carry papers for us to the American Embassy in Berlin.”

  “But,” I asked, “isn’t there still a diplomatic pouch that goes out each day?”

  “Yes,” he said, “there is. However, it’s becoming obvious that this won’t be allowed much longer and we need to establish a trusted network. Will you do it?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Clancy.”

  “Miss Manon,” he said, and I could tell he was trying to be polite, “this is really no longer a question. You correspondents know better than anyone what’s going on. Seriously, do I need to say more?”

  He was right. I did know what was going on, in nightmarish detail.

  “I’ll do what I can,” I said.

  “Good, Miss Manon, I knew you would understand. Now, each time you travel to Berlin, please let my assistant, Miss Kovner, know. She’ll arrange for you to receive the papers.”

  Well, there goes my theory about beauty and spying, I thought.

  “Now, let’s sit for a moment longer. I need to talk to you about another serious matter. Listen carefully. We’re warning our Jewish citizens and strongly suggesting that they leave Europe.”

  “So, what does that have to do with me?”

  “Miss Manon,” he said, obviously irritated, “I know you’re Jewish through your aunt, Clara Silverman.”

  “Well, I’m only half Jewish,” I said, “so I should be fine. And with a name like Manon—”

  “Don’t count on it, Miss Manon. You know what mischlingmann means?” And he didn’t wait for my translation. “It means that half-Jewish people, like you, will not be protected much longer. So, please listen to me—believe me. Get out while you can.”


  “But if you’re telling me to leave because I’m in danger, why are you placing me in more jeopardy by having me be your courier?”

  “Ah, of course—good question. To be honest, we’ll use you as long as you’re freely moving back and forth over the border. What matters most is the job you’re doing for us. You’re a grown-up. You make your own decisions.”

  “That sounds like cold logic to me,” I said.

  “It is, Miss Manon. Sadly, it is. But we need trustworthy people—and you’re a trustworthy person. Now, I need to get back inside,” Clancy said. “Thanks for helping us, Miss Manon.” We shook hands. “Give me a few moments before you join the party.”

  I didn’t like any of it. But I really had no choice. I had never been patriotic, but my weariness about patriotism was being replaced with an overwhelming desire to do the honorable thing. How odd. Walking to the door, I paused and looked around the room for the bar.

  No. I was seeing things.

  It must be the lights.

  No. That couldn’t be Leon.

  But it was. I was sure.

  He had not seen me. What to do? I began to walk in his direction, making my way through the crowd of people, keeping him in my line of vision. When I was a few feet away he spotted me and turned to go out the nearest door. The look on his face was not welcoming. I began to shove against people until I reached the door and then looked around. There he was in an alcove, waiting—debonair in a tuxedo.

  “What’s going on, Leon?” I said. “What are you doing here? What—”

  “Wait a minute, Rosie,” he said.

  I grabbed him by the arm.

  “Let me go, Rosie. I can’t tell you anything,” he said. “Nothing at all.” He stood straight as a pole. “Turn around and walk out of here, as if you’ve just been to the ladies’ room. Just do it, Rosie. If I see you in Berlin, you’ll hear the story. Now go. And don’t look back.”