The train stopped at the frontier. An official said, “Everyone off the train and form two lines. One for men. One for women and children.”
The Jewish family in our compartment was petrified. I couldn’t bear another tragedy. “Mr. Greenleaf, we have to protect these people,” I whispered.
“I’m sorry, but we can do nothing,” he said. “They got on the train, I’m sure they have the papers to get off.”
“Give me all your entry papers,” I said to the father, and he handed them over.
“We’re going to put their papers with ours,” I said to Mr. Greenleaf.
“No, R.B., please, you can’t.”
“Oh, yes, I can,” I said in the nicest voice I could conjure. And I took the papers and slipped them in, just as the Passkontrolle official approached.
First, Mr. Greenleaf handed the official two letters. One was from the American Embassy in Germany, and the other from the appropriate Reich office. He read them, scribbled his initials, and handed everything back to Greenleaf. And with his fluttering hand, he dismissed us, all of us.
The train arrived at the Gare du Nord in Paris at eight in the morning, two days late. I was bedraggled, exhausted, short-tempered. Not Richard and his family. They were excited.
But the other family in our compartment was nervous. “Stay behind me,” I said to them. “I’ll try to get you through.”
First in line, with the nervous assortment of Americans and the German family behind me, I was searching for the trustworthy official. None of them fit the description of the man with the mustache and the funny ears, so I intuitively chose the most benign-looking man I could find. I handed him my passport and leaned down to hear what he was saying. The official whispered under his breath, “I shaved it off”—and stamped my passport. “Stamp the one of the man behind me. Please,” I pleaded. And he did.
As each person was freed into Paris, I watched as he or she stood astonished at the exit. Green trolleys, automobiles, people on the streets. Blooming red geraniums in the windows. Normal life. Even the sun was shining. I could hope that Coleman and Annelie would now begin to heal. Their parents were smiling. My mother was, too. And she was the first to speak.
‘I’m going back to the Studio Hôtel, Rose. I’ll be in touch in a few days.’
“Let’s make a definite time,” I said. “I’ll meet you Saturday night at eight at your hotel.”
And my mother left—without saying good-bye to anyone.
Next was Pete, whom I had not seen the entire trip because he had been shuttled to another part of the train. “See you later, R.B. Don’t forget we have to check in with Ramsey tomorrow,” he said, and he left for home.
“Come,” I said to the Moses family, “you’ll all stay with me while we sort things out.”
Really, the only thing to figure out was where to get the rest of the money for their steamship tickets, and in the end it was easy. I collected contributions from my friends and colleagues. And then, when I informed Mr. Clancy, the consul at the American Embassy, about what had happened to the children, there was no holding back the flood of help. It was settled. Richard and his family were to have about three months in Paris, waiting for emigration papers for Daria and the children.
I wrote a human-interest story about the children who had been sterilized in Germany. “I’m worried,” Ramsey said. “Worried that we’ll lose our readership. Who wants to be told shit like this?”
But I was too distressed to care about Ramsey and his concerns. I was grieving. Here I was, safely back in Paris. Without Leon. My father dead. Stella dead. Andy dead. And I was living in the same city as my mother.
Once, when I was a little girl, there was an explosion in one of the nearby silver mines. It was so powerful that I was thrown from my bed. Everyone ran outside and watched as a geyser of water rose into the air, taking with it a neighbor’s wagon and smashing it onto the road, where it splintered into pieces. Now, I was feeling the same emotions—anxiety and awe. What I cherished most had exploded. But even though I was intact, I felt impotent, knowing that I had few choices.
There was no magical way to rescue Leon, but I knew that I could not give up. I had to keep reminding myself of my familial obligation to my mother; my ongoing duty to deliver the secret papers to the embassy; my need to ensure that Richard and his family made it to safety in America. Only when I went through that list did I calm down and begin to think about another planned escape for Leon and his parents.
Meanwhile the Moses family was enjoying the relative calm of Paris. A couple of days after they arrived, I found little Coleman and Annelie rolling a ball down the corridor outside their room. Occasionally, there would be a small yelp of pleasure and all the adults would look at each other and smile.
“What are you going to do when you get back to New York?” I asked Richard. “Will your brother look out for you?”
“Most likely he’ll do what he can,” Richard said. “But I think I’ve figured it out. There’re a number of Negro swing bands performing all over the country. I’ll audition for as many as will listen. If that idea doesn’t work, then I’ll try to join the army as a saxophonist for one of the Negro marching bands. That should keep us safe.”
The Moses family taught me about familial love. Their son, Coleman, is such a wonderful man. I adore being with him. He’s inherited his mother’s short height and his father’s good looks. He’s a bit odd—but who wouldn’t be, coming from the circumstances of his life?
He made the table that I’m sitting at now. One day, when he was in his forties, he came to visit, as he often does. I was working at my normal desk, a card table, whose four legs rested on rubber disks, with matchbooks underneath to level everything on my old floor. He had always given me a hard time about the desk.
“Rosie,” he would say, “let me make a desk for you.”
“No, dear,” I always replied, “this is fine. I’m used to it.”
One day, he didn’t ask. He went out to the old barn, found some nice planks of wood, and went to work. I heard sawing and sanding and hammering and a good amount of cussing, but I stayed inside, not willing to nose about and cause trouble.
Finally, it became still. I watched him from the porch as he stained the wood with a big brush that had seen better days. Before it was even dry, he had it on the wheelbarrow, in front of the door.
“Can I help?” I asked.
“Yes, hold the door open, and I’ll wrangle it inside.”
“But what about getting it upstairs into my study?”
“Rosie” he said, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about this. I’ve watched you,” he said. “You can barely climb the stairs. It worries me. Wouldn’t it be better if the room off the kitchen could be made into your study? That way, the only time you would have to climb is when you go to bed.”
“You’re such a dear,” I replied, “But I have to go up and down all day long. It’s good exercise for me. If I don’t move around, I get as stiff as one of those boards you used to make my lovely new desk.”
“Well, I strongly suggest that you stop being so hardheaded,” he said. “You’re alone out here. You’re almost eighty-five. What will you do if you fall?”
“Most likely die, my dear, but that’s okay.”
“Well, it may be okay with you, but not with me,” he declared.
I realized that my being so pigheaded was upsetting to him, which didn’t make me proud of my behavior.
“You win, Coleman. Now, how are we going to do this?”
“You’re not doing anything,” he said, and laughed. He lifted the table, carrying it in front of him like a medieval shield. After much moving around, my new worktable was placed before the windows. Now I can sit and look out at the gardens and fields. And sometimes, since I lead such a quiet life, I can see red fox, and deer.
On Saturday, I met my mother in
her room at eight o’clock sharp. “Would you like to have a seat?” she asked.
“Ma, you sit on the chair, I’ll sit on the bed.”
I was still reeling from the hasty departure from Berlin; from the close calls we had with the Nazis; from observing such horrific violence; from my mother’s nasty response to Leon and his family; from the long and treacherous train ride to Paris. And, most importantly, I now understood that she had pulled her spitting act to divert my attention away from Leon—to destroy my chance for love.
“So,” she asked, “are we going to have a six-gun shoot-out?” Her hands were fidgeting on her lap. “I’m ready if you are.”
I’d been rehearsing what to say. Among the many stinging lines I had come up with were: Do you know that you’re the most selfish, narcissistic person I’ve ever known? Do you know that I gave up the love of my life for you? And do you understand that you don’t deserve my loyalty? Here I was, a grown woman conjuring up the ugliest barbs, the most poisonous rebuttals. A litany of grievances. But I had to ask myself what good could come of a geyser of rage.
“The truth is,” my mother said, “I don’t want a shoot-out. I’m craving peace and quiet. I really don’t want to be bothered by family matters.”
Ah. In the end, I’m just a “family matter,” I thought with wry amusement. My mother was secretly hoping for a reprieve. Although I felt gagged with anger, I made a conscious decision to give it to her. I was terrified of saying out loud what I was feeling, because those words, once said, could never be taken back.
We lived at opposite ends of the city. I was still at the Hôtel Espoir in the Latin Quarter, and she found a small apartment only two minutes away from the Bois de Boulogne, on the edge of the city in the sixteenth arrondissement. At least I wouldn’t run into her on the street.
What a mess, I thought. I’ve come across the sea to live my own life, and what happens? My mother moves here. It’s ridiculous.
As agreed, we stayed in our separate corners of the city. I pretended that my mother wasn’t there. But I knew through the embassy grapevine that she had begun to establish acquaintances. She was invited to their functions, introduced as ‘our brave American, Miriam Manon, from the vast state of Nevada’–who had escaped from Berlin at the last moment–by the skin of her teeth.
“How’s your mother?” Richard asked one night.
“I don’t know. I’m assuming she’s well. I’ve heard from people at the embassy that she’s been doing watercolor and pencil drawings of the wildflowers of the American West. Clancy bought an entire suite for his office, so the news quickly got around the American community that it was chic to purchase her drawings. Happily, I think she’s too busy to cause trouble.”
But even though I felt that I had my mother in an emotionally safer place, my anxiety was intensifying. What had happened to Leon? I had not heard a word.
My room at the Hôtel Espoir was a crowded and noisy haven for Richard’s family. As many of the old tenants had left, having been arrested or moved to a different country, it wasn’t difficult for me to find another room. Because it was only two doors down, I decided to take Andy’s. I replaced his smelly bed and cigarette-scarred table with furniture from other vacated rooms, but took possession of his abandoned books. He had three different editions of The Iliad; volumes of pre–Great War poetry; many of the Balzac and Zola novels; a frayed edition of Goethe; and a dog-eared copy of our much-discussed and debated Freud. When I opened the Freud, I found it filled with handwritten notations. Andy’s handwriting was crabbed and hard to read, but I had always been able to decipher it. I wished I had not opened it. It was like entering a tumultuous, ugly scream. But read I did. Poor man, he suffered far more than I ever imagined. I was struck by my friend’s intellect, his complex neuroses, and the power of his sexual fantasy. Andy’s imaginary world had been filled with a passion for words and for redheaded women. I was surprised at how much I missed him. We had lost the loves of our lives for different reasons, but I suspected that our pain was buried in the same place.
In my old room, Daria moved things around, trying to give the family a sense of space. We created a ritual. Each morning the children would open the windows and loudly wish Madame Canari ‘Bonjour.” And Madame Canari would shout “Good morning” in English, and everyone would laugh.
Daria taught the children from nine in the morning until noon, and then again from four until six. The routine clearly gave back to the children some of their happiness. Richard, meanwhile, sat in on jazz sets here and there, met musician friends, and talked about the old days.
‘Really, Rosie,’ he reported back, ‘it’s as if we’re old men talking about another world. People are nervous. Some are deeply frightened. Everyone I know is either cooking up ideas so they can safely stay here, or planning an escape. I feel kind of funny around them because I’m so clear about the threat and they’re pretty naïve. I’ll miss you. I’ll miss Paris. But I’m relieved that we’re going home.’
Three months after arriving in Paris, we all boarded the train for Le Havre. I watched, yet again, the escaping passengers and the holiday passengers. There was such a deep difference between the two groups—it was almost obscene. And Daria and Richard sensed it right away. They held the children’s hands, not allowing them to skip up the gangplank.
* * *
Not a word from Leon. And none of my newspaper friends could help. Indeed, most of them had left Germany and were scattered over Europe, still trying to make sense of what was happening for their respective newspapers.
Time dragged by. I felt that I was caught on the apex of a suspension bridge, and didn’t know which way to go. War was certain to erupt any day. Horror stories about the treatment of Jews were escaping through the barbed wire. I had tried various Jewish émigré agencies in Paris to help me find Leon, but they were too busy. They were frantically trying to get Jews out of France. But I persisted. Each day I made the rounds of different agencies and patiently waited my turn to speak to someone. One day I’d had enough. I stood in one of the dingy offices–cracked tan or gray linoleum on the floor, scarred old furniture–and shouted at the receptionist, ‘Goddammit, can’t anyone help me?’
The receptionist slowly rose, came around her desk, and stood before me. She was a small, nondescript, middle-aged woman with her gray hair pulled tightly back into a bun. Each time I had seen her, she had been wearing the same brown and black tweed suit with flat, brown-laced shoes.
“You, Madam, are one of thousands of people looking for lost family and friends. What makes you,” she said, poking me in the arm with her finger, “think your case is more important than that of the person sitting next to you?” And she pointed to a bedraggled-looking woman. “She’s trying to find both of her children and her mother. Can you beat that? Now, go back to your America—your America that won’t let the rest of us in. You’ll be safe there. Forget here. It’s over.”
“How did you know that I’m an American?”
“My dear, I was chair of the linguistics department at the University of Berlin.”
While I was stuck in Paris waiting for another assignment, I returned to the political desk. I also continued writing my column, now called ‘Paris Chronicle.’ These short essays were not particularly newsworthy, but they addressed the individual stories of émigrés. Their attempts to escape from France to a friendlier country. Their feelings about being uprooted. Agence France-Presse continued to buy everything I wrote. Even the BBC Empire Service was reading my work on the radio. It was becoming apparent to me that my style of writing was changing. My eye was becoming sharper. My descriptions were clearer. My emotional responses, crisper. Losing Leon had paradoxically unleashed in me a new way of using language.
As it grew warmer in Paris, the days became heavier. People’s anxieties were building; plans for escape were more seriously discussed. But residents were having a hard time getting up and moving ou
t of Paris. It was a disaster, this national ennui. And I continued to search for news of Leon–but with no success.
There was no escaping the apprehension. Depression came rolling toward me like a storm. My loneliness and my fears for Leon were causing periods of insomnia. At the same time, I kept reminding myself that it wasn’t just my world that was bleak; the entire world was suffering the same poverty of hope.
August. Paris was hot and muggy and empty of many of its inhabitants. The extreme heat had furled the chestnut leaves. The Seine was running, but so low that sandbars had appeared in the river. The normally luxurious grass in the parks had turned yellow. People were clustering in shady areas, sharing them with the pigeons, the ravens, and the city’s cats. Even the subterranean wine bars were sweltering with damp, creeping with mold.
Every two weeks, I wrote identical letters to Leon, to Stefan, to the bartender at the Hotel Aldon, even to Gerard (without a last name, but care of Leon’s address). They were always returned—most having been opened and sealed again with tape. On each envelope was written, Nicht mehr an dieser Adresse, No longer at this address, in formal handwriting. Each of my letters said the same thing: Please be so kind as to send me news of Leon Wolff. Thank you. Rose Manon, c/o The Paris Courier, rue de Berri, Paris. While the efficiency of the German bureaucracy amazed me, it made me furious that the bureaucrats were aggravating my own helplessness.
“Mr. Ramsey, I want to be reassigned. Being in Paris isn’t where I can do the paper the most good.”
“Well, how about China?” he said.
“No, too far. How about making me a roving correspondent?” I asked. “I could follow trouble. You could send me anywhere at a moment’s notice.”
Last Train to Paris Page 17