Last Train to Paris

by Michele Zackheim

  “I’ve no idea,” I said, “but we’re going to the embassy.”

  I took turns with Richard carrying Annelie. Daria appeared to be moving in slow motion, dazed, stumbling. She would be leaving behind her parents, her past, the safety of familiarity.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “No, Rose, I’m not okay, but I can manage,” she said, even though tears were streaming down her distraught face.

  I was desperate for a cigarette, but I was holding Annelie on my hip.

  I tried singing a cowboy song that I remembered from childhood: Come sit by my side if you love me. / Do not hasten to bid me adieu. / Just remember the Red River Valley, / And the one who has loved you so true.

  “Such a sad song,” Annelie said. “Do you know a happier one?”

  “Sorry,” I said, “can’t think of one right now. Do you want me to sing it again?”

  Annelie shook her head.

  It was much worse than I had written in these pages of notes. Perhaps I was too close to take in the details—or couldn’t tolerate seeing what I was seeing. But now I remember more about our struggle to reach the embassy. We stepped over dead bodies while trying to shelter the children’s eyes. At certain places we had to cover our noses because the stench of burning flesh was overwhelming. I don’t think we spoke. Maybe I didn’t sing to Annelie. Maybe I made it up, trying to be dramatic. I don’t remember. The only sound I do remember hearing was the keening of a woman who was standing in the middle of the street, with her gray dress torn at the shoulder, shoeless.

  Exhausted, downhearted, we arrived at the embassy. It smelled like a library on fire. In the many fireplaces, the staff was burning files. Everyone was moving efficiently, as if they had rehearsed this many times before. There was an amazing calm in the place. I found my mother feeding one of the fireplaces with papers.

  “Ma, this is my friend Richard, his wife Daria, and their children, Annelie and Coleman.”

  My mother didn’t rise. She had an incredulous look on her face.

  “How do you do?” Richard and Daria said, and held out their hands to shake. Mother shook only Daria’s hand, but barely.

  She’s impossible, I thought, deeply embarrassed.

  “Come,” I said to the family, “let’s get you settled. We have a long night ahead of us.”

  I took them to an anteroom outside the pressroom. There were two long brown leather sofas. “Make yourselves comfortable here and try to sleep, or at least rest. I’ll let the kitchen know you’re here. I don’t know what to say about my mother,” I apologized. “She has a way of perpetually embarrassing me.”

  “Don’t worry, Rosie,” Richard said, “we’re used to it.”

  “Well, I am too, but I still hate it.”

  Now there was no time for reflection, but I knew the blow-up with her would happen sooner or later, and a part of me was already writing the script in my head.

  When I finished in the embassy’s pressroom, the Moses family was fast asleep. My mother was nowhere to be seen.

  “Christ, she’s going to cause me more problems,” I said to Pete, who was also being evacuated to Paris.

  “She’s in the newsroom burning papers,” he said. “She’s happy as a lark. Perhaps you should just leave her here.”

  “Oh, how I wish I could!”

  An hour before it was time to leave, I found her. “Let’s go, Ma. It’s time.”

  Eva Kantor had everyone gather in the main meeting room. She stood on a chair. “Please listen carefully, all of you. We were able to get all your travel documents ready.” And there was a relieved murmur in the room. “We’ll pass them out after I finish speaking. Now. You’ll all get on the midnight train—that has been assured by the German government. But you’ll be lucky to get a seat. Please take turns. I know, considering the situation, that this sounds silly, but you still have to set a good example while representing the American government. Check that you have all your important papers and take as much money and jewelry as you can easily carry. You’re allowed only one small valise—and I’m very serious about that. If we see you with more, it will be confiscated. We can’t promise that this is going to be an easy ride. Anywhere along the way, German officials can board the train and cause problems. Try to be diplomatic. Don’t anyone reveal your religion. Pretend you can’t speak German. When you disembark in Paris, you’ll have to go through customs. This may be tricky. There will be passport officials sitting at tables near all the exits. Take your time. R.B. Manon will try to find this particular official—a placid-looking man. He has very little hair. What he does have, though, is gray and he combs it over his head. Also, his ears have tufts of gray hair popping out of them like wires, and he has a small moustache.” Everyone laughed at her description. “We were able to get a message to him to look out for you. If for some unforeseen reason, he isn’t there and you have to go through normal channels, don’t try to explain anything—simply give the officer your papers. Stick together. Mr. Greenleaf and Miss Manon,” she said, pointing to us, “will lead you through. Good luck.”

  “But what if we can’t get past the passport control in Paris?” one of the men asked.

  “Stand aside,” she said, “and Mr. Greenleaf will contact the embassy.”

  As soon as I could catch Eva’s attention, I asked about the documents for Leon and his parents. “Got them,” she said, and handed them over.

  It was after ten in the evening. Time to go. We were traveling in diplomatic automobiles, with all the authority the embassy could muster. No sneaking. In all, there were fifteen cars, carrying ninety-six adults and five children. Each car had an American flag tied with twine to its antenna. A small staff would be staying behind.

  In single file, we walked out to the cars. American soldiers created a barrier between a smaller but still angry crowd and the wall of the embassy. An undistinguished-looking woman, whom I had never seen before, was counting the appropriate number of people into each car. My mother was in front of the Moses family and was placed in one car, while the Moses family and I were placed in the next one. She turned around looking for me. I pretended not see her.

  I still couldn’t believe the chaos I saw on the streets. Even at this late hour, elderly Jewish men and women were being forced to sweep up the glass. Under the dictatorial eye of the SS, they had no choice. I was nauseated with grief. The German Jews were sweeping the streets so the American Jews could get out safely. It was heartbreaking—they had no similar road to freedom.

  The convoy departed under a ceiling of thick clouds that was still hanging just above the streets. We drove past mounds of sodden books, some still smoldering. We drove past groups of people huddled together trying to stay warm and dry. The whole world was gray. There wasn’t a spot of color to be seen anywhere. We drove past complete devastation. People looked like their own shadows. It appeared to me that they had already abandoned their real selves to destiny.

  Anhalter Bahnhof was mobbed with desperate people. There were people yelling, babies crying, packages being handed up to passengers through the windows. Most frightening of all were the Alsatian shepherd dogs straining at their leather leashes, frenzied by the crowds, teeth bared—waiting for instructions. Huge spotlights roamed over the platform.

  As soon as I stepped out of the car, I looked for Leon but couldn’t see him anywhere. “Keep moving,” I kept repeating to the embassy people, while my eyes fanned the crowds. “Keep moving, please.”

  A path was made for the Americans. Greenleaf, wearing a pearl-gray homburg, headed the line. I was on the edge, urging people forward. Suddenly, I saw someone grab Greenleaf’s arm. “Papers? Now!” A young official, puffed up like a peacock, in a brand-new gray wool uniform with shiny buttons and a serious gun holstered on his thick black leather belt, led Greenleaf to a table.

  “Your travel documents,” he commanded. Greenleaf fumbled with hi
s briefcase. The soldier watched, bored. Finally, Greenleaf pulled out an impressive-looking document. The official took his time reading it, looked at Greenleaf with a disdainful expression, and stamped it: Anerkannt, Approved. Without checking our papers, the soldier pointed, and then herded us down the platform to the last cars of the train.

  I was trying to honor my responsibilities to the embassy people while at the same time looking for Leon.

  The noise was unbearable. The crush of people was suffocating.

  Then I heard my mother shouting, “There’s your Jewish friend,” and she pointed directly at Leon, obviously with his parents.

  His parents!

  An SS officer looked toward where she was pointing. Richard moved surreptitiously to block his view while I waved the tickets and papers for Leon to see. His parents, I thought with joy. They’re all coming!

  Then I heard my mother screech, “They’re trying to kill me! Help! Rose!” I turned. She was being dragged from the train steps.

  I ran toward her.

  “What are you doing?” I screamed in German to the two new soldiers, one with a roaring dog. “She has her papers!”

  “Out of the way,” one of them ordered, and pushed me aside. “No one spits at me without being punished!”

  “She’s an AMERICAN! Ma, say something. Tell him you’re sorry,” I screamed over the din. “Tell him right now, or they’ll arrest you.” But she sneered at me.

  “I mean it, Ma, this is it,” I was shrieking. “They can do whatever they like with you—there’s no law here that protects you!”

  And like a marionette, she smiled at the blond, blue-eyed soldier and said in English, “I’m sorry. Please excuse me. I was so frightened—I’m—”

  The SS man with the dog obviously didn’t understand her, and yelled, “Get her.”

  The dog lunged toward my mother, grabbing her bright red coat.

  “No,” Mr. Greenleaf, now using his German, hollered, “let her alone. She has immunity! She’s an American!”

  The SS man called off his dog and my mother sank to the platform in a faint.

  Stiff with rage, they each viciously kicked her. And with precision, they spun on their heels and left.

  But, for me, the circumstance was horrifyingly clear. I had to take care of my mother. She wasn’t moving.

  Mr. Greenleaf was yelling for me to help.

  The train was beginning to move.

  “Rosie, I’ll help you!” It was Richard.

  “No, Richard,” I screamed. “Get back on, please—your family.”

  “Leon. Go get him!” Richard shouted as he lifted my dead-weight mother.

  But it was too late.

  It was 12:03.

  The train was leaving the station, precisely on schedule. Mr. Greenleaf grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the vestibule, and the door was slammed shut behind me.

  The horrified look on Leon’s face forever engraved itself upon my memory. The train picked up speed. I had betrayed Leon and his parents. I had sacrificed them for my mother.

  I understood that my responsibility was primarily to her—but I also knew that I had broken my own heart. It was over. I had no choice. I had made a decision. The Moses family—a packet of essential papers that Eva Kantor had slipped to me—and, of course, my mother.

  She had won again.

  These memories are too much for me. I need to walk. Taking my cane, I set off down the dirt road, passing beneath an umbrella of maple and oak trees. I’m surprised at myself. I can taste bile, taste my dislike for my mother. I spit on the road and then remember how, in Brooklyn, my Aunt Clara used to spit in the gutter and embarrass me. That must be why my mother spat at the soldier—a family trait, a Russian tradition?

  “This is ridiculous,” I say out loud to the air. But after all this time, I still feel despair. And after all this time, I’m still angry.

  The scene at the train station is as clear to me as if it were yesterday. Tell him you’re sorry! I must have been crazy. Why did I think such politeness could be heard in that mayhem? Absurd. Most likely, they heard the word “American,” and had been warned to avoid an incident. But the truth, ugly as it is, is this—she did sneer at me. And while I was trying to protect her, I was manifestly conscious of her dislike of me.

  I had to make a determined effort to lead the apprehensive group of Americans down the corridors of the train. All I wanted to do was to fly over the heads of the scrambling hordes of people and, like the figures in a Chagall painting, soar toward the stars and Leon. I kept reminding myself to move straight ahead, not permitting myself to look to my right or my left. Each step I took forward was one step farther away from Leon.

  The Moses family was lucky. They found an almost empty compartment and made room for me by putting the children on their laps. “Where’s my mother?” I said.

  “She found a seat in the car behind us,” Daria said. “She’s fine. The passengers are tending to her. She’ll be black and blue, but nothing’s broken. I’m so sorry, Rosie. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  No, I shook my head. The only thing I could do was weep into Daria’s shoulder. And she had the good sense not to try to calm me.

  Everyone in our compartment was quiet, listening to my sobbing, allowing me to be. Beside the Moses family, there was a Jewish family of four—unmistakable because the father and his two sons wore yarmulkes. The family looked frightened, but still the man offered me a swig from his flask, which I gratefully accepted. Richard soon took control and organized the group. The two big boys were told to sit on the floor, one leaning on the door into the aisle, the other against the outside wall of the carriage. Then he made small beds for Coleman and Annelie on the luggage racks.

  As Germany rushed by, I stopped crying and stared out the window. I was lost and wandering in my sorrow. The two older boys were wide awake, each reading his own copy of The Last of the Mohicans in Yiddish. In English, Richard whispered, “I think that as long as they can keep their attention on the story, they’ll feel safe.” The children’s mother was awake, too, all the while keeping a keen eye on everyone; the father read the Berliner Morgen-Zeitung and turned the pages as if they were made of the softest cotton. Daria and the children soundly slept.

  In the morning, the train’s corridors were still jammed with passengers unable to find seats. The passengers, none of us familiar with this kind of discomfort, were trying to be polite. Nonetheless, we had to crawl over each other to get to the toilets—which soon overflowed. The smell was awful. And added to this was the rank smell of unwashed bodies and damp woolen coats and food. At one point my mother waylaid me when I was in line waiting to use the toilet. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I should be asking if you’re okay,” I said.

  “Yeah, just bruised,” she said, obviously happy to change the subject back to herself. “Imagine the nerve of that soldier pushing me as if I was a bale of hay! I know that I shouldn’t have spat at him, but he made me so angry.”

  “You’re lucky not to have been detained,” I said. “Even after all you’ve seen in the past forty-eight hours, you don’t believe what’s going on here, do you?”

  “I know, I know. Don’t lecture me. And I know you’re avoiding me. But at least we should be happy that we got out of Berlin in one piece, don’t you agree?”

  “Yeah, Ma, we’re lucky. You had better get back to your seat before you lose it.”

  “I’ve already lost it. Been in the corridor for a while now.”

  “Well, take mine,” I said, and pointed to an empty place next to Richard.

  “No, that’s okay, I’m fine.”

  She started down the corridor and then stopped—she had not finished speaking to me.

  “Are you okay about losing your boyfriend? I saw him with two little old Jews. Who were they?”

  I
couldn’t speak. I was struck mute for a moment, just looking at her.

  “Those were his parents,” I said. “Do you have any idea what just happened out there?”

  “Well, yes, of course,” she said. “I just saved you from a life of taking care of people who didn’t have the brains to get out when they could. You’ll thank me later, you’ll see.”

  And with that, she turned before I could say a word, moved an elderly man between the two of us, and walked off.

  It’s getting chilly. I’m thinking about the first frost, the killing frost–when the plants wilt and fall to the ground. They turn from green to yellow to gray and become mushy, slippery in their death throes. Sometimes, if I want to save a plant, I’ll bring it indoors before the freeze. I’ve learned that I can revive a plant that’s on the brink–but it’s a fragile moment. I’ve experienced more than thirty killing frosts in my mountains. And each time, I think of that night on the train. It’s become a ritual for me. I now understand that each year, a part of us dies. Our leaves and flowers are absorbed into the earth. But our roots are still here, dormant, waiting out the cold time. Some of us blossom again. Some do not.

  The next evening, the nightmare intensified. People yelling in their sleep. Inconsolable children. Stunned adults. In the early morning, we began to get organized. Some tried to clean the two toilets for ninety-eight people. Finally, the man who ran the Teletype machine at the embassy and one of the attachés unscrewed the toilets and pushed them out of the train. Now we had two holes that were scary to use, but it was far better than before. Women knitted while groups of men played pinochle in the aisles. In our compartment, we took turns reading to the children, including the two older boys. Food was shared. Water was rationed. Each time we stopped at a station, ten designated people left the train, ran into the buffet, and tried to buy everything they could carry.

  In the middle of the afternoon, Mr. Greenleaf, following his instructions, collected everyone’s papers. Although we had all been told that this would happen, I had to help him convince everyone that it was all right.