Michael at the Invasion of France, 1943

by Laurie Calkhoven

  Jacques nodded.

  François glared at me and then at his brother. “You shouldn’t have gotten him involved,” he said to Jacques.

  “I had no choice,” Jacques told his brother. “You said to split them up.” Then he turned to me. “Can you take Sophie to the train station?” he asked. “The Gare d’Austerlitz?”

  I nodded, but I was confused. “She and Ernst can’t take a train by themselves,” I said.

  “A nun will be on the platform, waiting for the three-fifteen train to Bordeaux,” Jacques said. “She’s bringing orphans to a convent in the country. Sophie and Ernst will be with them.”

  “Does it have to be today? What if the police are still around?” I asked.

  “The nun leaves today,” François said. “If we don’t get Sophie and Ernst on that train, I don’t know when—or if—we’ll be able to get them out of Paris.”

  “What if there’s more than one nun on the platform?” I asked. “What’s her name?”

  “No names,” François snapped. “She’ll be the nun surrounded by children.”

  I felt my cheeks redden. I had asked a stupid question. “You can trust me,” I told him. “Do you want me to take Ernst too?”

  “Jacques will bring Ernst. It’s safer that way,” François said. “If one of you gets picked up by the boches, the other will get away.”

  I was shocked that he could speak of one of us getting picked up in such a matter-of-fact way. Jacques rolled his eyes and smiled at me, as if to say, Don’t worry.

  “Jacques will leave first,” François continued. “He’ll knock on your door when he leaves. You’ll follow ten minutes later. Take the métro.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Get rid of her yellow star,” François told me. “If anyone recognizes Sophie or calls her name, pretend you don’t hear them. Keep your head down and keep going.”

  François’s serious tone scared me, but I only nodded.

  “Go now,” he said. “Wait for Jacques’s signal. Be ready.”

  I tried to ignore the fear that had begun to grip me and climbed out the window. I took one last look at Jacques before I set off down the stairs.

  “À bientôt,” he said. “I’ll wait for you at the station.”

  “See you later,” I said. I tried to smile at him, but I could tell my expression was grim.

  While Maman quickly packed food for Sophie, I went to my room to collect the little girl. I used a pair of scissors to snip the careful stitches holding the yellow star in place and plucked the loose threads.

  “I am taking you to Ernst,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. “And then a nice lady is going to bring you both to the country on a train. You’ll be safe there until the Nazis let your parents go.” No one knew what happened to the Jews they sent out of Paris, but I couldn’t send Sophie away without saying something hopeful. “You have to be very brave until we get there. Can you do that?”

  Sophie nodded. The corners of her mouth seemed to be turned down permanently.

  “You’re a big girl,” I said. “I know you can.”

  We waited in the living room for Jacques’s knock. Charlotte gave Sophie a rag doll made from one of Maman’s old dresses, and Maman made sure that Sophie had enough food for at least three meals.

  We all jumped when it came. Three quick taps and then a harder knock. I checked the clock—set to French time, not German—and waited exactly ten minutes.

  After a hurried good-bye, I walked Sophie quickly past the concierge, hoping that Madame Cassou wouldn’t stop me and see that I had Sophie and not my sister, Charlotte, by the hand. The concierge took care of our apartment building and saw everything from her first-floor window. There was little that escaped her attention. Today I rushed by without a hello or a even a nod—an insult that could lead to “lost” pieces of mail and misplaced deliveries, if not a week’s worth of gossip.

  The street was quiet. There was nothing to indicate the uproar of this morning. On the next block, the police were still rounding up Jews. People like the Grossmans were being herded onto ordinary green-and-white buses. The kind of buses we saw every day. Children had their faces and hands plastered up against the windows as if they were on a field trip for school. What if Sophie’s mother and father were on one of those buses? What if she saw them and called out to them, or someone called out to her?

  I knelt and pretended to tie Sophie’s shoe, whispering instructions. “Keep your head down,” I said. “If someone calls your name, don’t look. Don’t answer. Pretend you don’t hear. Keep walking.”

  She nodded and I stood to take her hand again. She clutched Charlotte’s doll in the other, while I carried her food package. I had to force myself not to run. The walk to the métro station seemed to take forever. I could feel Sophie’s hand trembling in mine. She kept her head down, her eyes on her feet, but one tear and then another plopped onto her shoes.

  I tried to steady myself with deep breaths, but when we passed a policeman my heart raced. He didn’t look up from his clipboard. Was Sophie’s name on one of his lists?

  We rode the métro without anything unusual happening. It was crowded, but I nudged Sophie into an open seat and stood in front of her, blocking her from as many people as I could. There was still a chance that someone might recognize her.

  At the Gare d’Austerlitz stop I breathed a sigh of relief and tried to sound cheerful. “You’ll see your brother any minute,” I told her as we climbed the stairs to the street. “He’ll be happy to see you.”

  We rounded the corner and almost banged right into a German checkpoint.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Nazi Checkpoint

  A Nazi checkpoint. I could feel myself beginning to panic, but I didn’t want to alarm Sophie. Normally they only demanded the papers of the people arriving at the station, not those who were leaving the city. Did they know that Jewish children were slipping out of Paris, or was this just bad luck—one of those surprise inspections the Nazis used to keep us off balance?

  Questions raced through my mind. Had Jacques and Ernst gotten past the checkpoint? I could go back home and hide Sophie until François could find another way to get her out of Paris, but then what would happen to Ernst? Would he and Sophie ever find each other again? I had to come up with a plan. I had my student identity card with me. Sophie’s—if she even had hers—was stamped with the word Jew. There was no way we could hand it over.

  The closer we got to the soldier the more my heart raced. Sophie’s hand held mine with an iron grip. Could I pretend we had forgotten Sophie’s card? I had to hope she would play along.

  “Papers,” the soldier demanded in a bored way.

  I handed him my card. He looked at it, and then glanced at Sophie.

  “Charlotte,” I said. “Give the soldier your identity card.”

  Sophie kept her eyes trained on her shoes. Her whole body began to tremble.

  “Don’t tell me you forgot it,” I said, in the sternest voice I could muster. “I told you to get it from Maman’s purse. You’re old enough to remember. Now we have to go back home. We’ll be late to meet Auntie Colette’s train.”

  Sophie crumpled into me and began to weep. I wanted to take her in my arms, but I continued to act the part of the irritated big brother. “Maman will be very angry with us, and it’s all your fault.”

  It was only then that I noticed a single yellow thread sticking out of her lapel. It seemed as bright as the July sun against her gray coat. My mouth went dry. I waited for the Nazi to grab her arm and shout that she was a Jew. Instead, he seemed amused. He patted Sophie on the head. She flinched and let out a wail.

  “Go ahead, little one,” he said. “Don’t keep your auntie waiting. But don’t forget your papers next time.”

  “Merci,” I muttered, and dragged Sophie pas
t him. “Thank you.”

  As soon as we were out of his sight and in the busy train station, I pulled Sophie aside and tried to calm her. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” I said. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

  Her sobs quieted to gentle sniffles. “Come,” I whispered. “It’s time to find Ernst.”

  We made our way to the platform for the three-fifteen train to Bordeaux with a few minutes to spare. Scared-looking children surrounded a nun. Sophie ran to Ernst with a cry. As soon I saw that the nun had registered Sophie’s presence, I handed Sophie her food parcel and edged away. Three more children arrived, all carrying bundles.

  I waited at the back of the platform. The train arrived belching black smoke. Passengers got off and the nun herded the children and their small parcels into a compartment. Sophie and Ernst clung to each other. Suddenly I was terribly sad to see them go. I almost felt as if I was putting Charlotte on a train, not knowing who would take care of her or if I would ever see her again. Sophie and Ernst looked so small, and so unable to defend themselves.

  I waited until the train pulled out. Only then did I see Jacques at the other end of the platform. He was leaning against the wall with a newspaper tucked under his arm. He nodded slightly and slipped into the busy station. I kept my eyes trained on my friend and rushed to catch up. A businessman banged into him, and Jacques handed the man his newspaper. Then he vanished into the crowd while the businessman rushed in the other direction. One minute Jacques was there and the next he was gone. When did he learn to do that?

  Now I knew what Jacques was doing all those afternoons he couldn’t walk home with me, all those times I had asked him to plan resistance missions. Jacques had become a soldier—a real solider for France. While I had been playing at being a résistant like a child, scrawling Vs on walls and giving the boches wrong directions, Jacques had taken on the work of a man.

  I walked across the station to an exit on the opposite side of the building so that the same boche wouldn’t ask what had become of my sister and my aunt. I found myself imagining a conversation with Papa after the war. He would tell us about the work he did for General de Gaulle in London, and Georges would describe the terrible things the Nazis did to him before he led his fellow prisoners in a daring escape and blew up a Nazi munitions factory.

  Then Papa would turn to me. “And what did you do, little one, besides hand your brother over to the enemy?”

  He would laugh at my resistance efforts and my small black-market business. “Children’s games,” he would scoff. “You played games and nursed bunnies while your brother was forced to slave for the Nazis.”

  I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted him to believe that I had done something important. Now I realized that I would have to do more.

  Jacques waited for me at the entrance to the métro. We got on the subway and rode home together as if nothing had happened. I had a million questions, but couldn’t ask until there was no chance that we would be overheard.

  Finally we reached our stop and were back on the street. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. “Why didn’t you ask for my help?”

  “François wouldn’t let me,” Jacques explained quietly.

  “I understand,” I said, although that was a lie. Didn’t Jacques know he could trust me with anything? But now wasn’t the time for hurt feelings. Now was the time for action. “I want to join the real Resistance. Tell me how.”

  “It’s dangerous,” he warned.

  “I know. I’m still in.”

  “I’ll tell François,” he said. “We need you.”

  I shook his hand solemnly. “The flame of resistance,” I said.

  “Must not be extinguished,” he answered.

  I headed to my apartment knowing that there was no turning back. From now on I would lead a double life. In one, I would continue to be a good son and student, a child. In the other, I would be a soldier, striking out at the Nazis in any way possible.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Wolf

  September 1942

  I waited weeks for Jacques to give me a secret job. Finally, one day after school, he asked me to join him upstairs. Everyone in the Dubois family was out except for him and François.

  The three of us sat at the kitchen table. François laid out the rules. Rule number one was never use your real name, or refer to other people by theirs.

  “It’s unfortunate that you know us and we know you,” François said. “You must remember to call Jacques by his real name in your everyday life, and by his nom de guerre when you are working.”

  “My war name is Fox,” Jacques said.

  François nodded. “I am Lion.”

  Lion? I almost snorted about the idea of François as king of the jungle, but he and Jacques were so serious that I bit my tongue.

  I would have to choose a secret name myself. My first thought was Rabbit, because I had to go home and feed mine, but I did not want to be a gentle creature. I wanted to be fierce. “I will be Wolf,” I told them.

  I waited for them to laugh, but Jacques nodded seriously.

  “Wolf,” François repeated. “Don’t tell anyone your real name or anything about yourself. It’s safer that way,” he explained. “If you get picked up by the Gestapo, you won’t be able to do too much damage to the rest of the operation.”

  I drew myself up. “I would never tell resistance secrets to the Gestapo,” I insisted.

  “They torture people for information,” François said flatly. “They threaten your family. Many people older and stronger than you have cracked under the pressure.”

  Jacques nodded solemnly.

  Torture? I thought about putting an end to the whole adventure, but then I thought about Papa and what I would tell him after the war and about how brave my teacher had been in speaking out against the new motto. I shook off my fear. “What will I have to do?” I asked.

  “You’ll know when the time comes,” François snapped. “Follow orders. Don’t ask questions. You’re a soldier in a secret war. A dangerous war. The smallest mistake could lead to many arrests.”

  I felt like I had been slapped. “Fine,” I snapped back. “Let me know when the time comes.”

  Jacques followed me to the door and gave me a sarcastic smile. “Don’t mind the Lion,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  “It’s just that if I’m going to risk my life, I should at least know what I’m going to do,” I said.

  “I don’t think he knows,” Jacques said. “He gets instructions from one person and passes them on. We do what’s necessary,” he told me. “The less we know, the better, but the work is important.”

  “What do your parents think you’re doing?” I asked.

  “François announced one night at dinner that he was joining the Resistance and it was best if they never asked him any questions. They tried to talk him out of it, but he refused to change his mind. What could they do?” Jacques asked. “Turn him in to the Kommandantur?”

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “I talked François into letting me help. It’s easier for boys to move around the city than grown-ups,” Jacques said.

  Maman had figured out that Jacques and I wrote on Nazi posters and posted victory stickers in the subway, but I didn’t think she’d let me do the kind of work Jacques and his brother did.

  “Does your maman know?” I asked.

  “She spends so many afternoons on line at the shops that I’m not sure she does,” Jacques said. “I’m never out at night, only after school.”

  I nodded. It was possible that Maman would never find out that my resistance activities had changed. Like Mrs. Dubois, she spent a good part of her day lining up in front of shops, hoping to buy food, or trading rabbits on the black market. If she didn’t know, then I wouldn’t be putting her or Charlotte in
any danger. Besides, I told myself, the real danger was in letting the Germans win.

  A few days went by with no word from the Lion. I worried that he had changed his mind. Then, one afternoon after school, Jacques asked me to join him for a bike ride. Finally, I thought, real resistance work!

  “It’s best not to take the métro if you can avoid it,” Jacques explained later. “Too many German patrols.”

  We bicycled to a street near the Bastille and stopped in front of an apartment building. Jacques, or the Fox, casually looked up at a window on the fourth floor. “Remember this address,” he said. “Never write it down.”

  I closed my eyes and committed the address to memory.

  “If there is a mop hanging from the third window from the left, we must not go up,” Jacques said. “Don’t make it obvious that you’re looking.”

  I tried to look without looking. There was no mop.

  The building’s concierge eyed us with a bored expression. Jacques waved to her as we parked our bikes in the courtyard. I followed him up the stairs to the fourth floor.

  Jacques gave the door three light taps. A woman answered and drew us inside with a smile.

  “This is Wolf,” Jacques told her. “He’ll come in my place sometimes.”

  “I’m Bluebird,” she said.

  She looked like a bluebird. Small and cheerful and happy with big, blue eyes. She offered us a snack, which Jacques refused. I also shook my head no. I was almost always hungry, but today my stomach churned with anxiety. I still had no idea what dangerous mission Jacques and I would carry out.

  Bluebird handed me a sealed envelope. Jacques told me to slip it inside my jacket. I tucked it under my arm. Then we set off again.

  I knew not to ask questions, but I wondered what was in the envelope. It was thin. Was it money to bribe boches? False identity cards? Blueprints of Nazi headquarters that the Resistance wanted to bomb? I kept my arm clamped tight to my side to make sure I wouldn’t lose whatever I carried.