Michael at the Invasion of France, 1943

by Laurie Calkhoven

  “Merci, monsieur,” I said. “I am very grateful.”

  He waved me off and told the driver to hurry away. “Take good care of your papa,” he said. “Very good care.”

  The driver pedaled away like he was told. Only then did I realize how smart the helpful man was—he made sure we got away from the Nazi soldier before I had to give the driver an address.

  When we reached the corner, he slowed down. “Where to?” he asked.

  Where to? The American couldn’t get on a train, not in his condition. Both safe houses were overloaded. I didn’t think they’d be willing to take in a sick man—doing that would risk the health and safely of the other aviators and their guides. I didn’t know what else to do, so I gave the driver my own address.

  By the time we got there, the man had revived enough to walk on his own. Madame Cassou, as always, was at her concierge window.

  “Our cousin from the south,” I said. “Here for a visit.”

  Thank goodness the elevator was working—I didn’t think the man could handle the stairs. I got him inside and into Georges’s bed.

  “You’re going to be fine,” I told him.

  He nodded. “Thank you,” he mumbled, and drifted off to sleep.

  A couple of hours later, I greeted Maman and Charlotte when they came through the door. Maman took one look at my face and knew something was wrong. “What is it?” she asked.

  I led her to Georges’s room. “An American aviator,” I said. “Sick.”

  The man opened his eyes, saw Maman, and tried to get to his feet. “Bone joor,” he said.

  Maman pushed past me. “I’m American too,” she said. “Get back into bed before you fall and hurt yourself.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The New York Dodgers

  August 1943

  The doctor said the man had pneumonia. There was nothing he could do. The Germans guarded hospitals and pharmacies so closely that he couldn’t bring the sick man any medicine. We had to wait and hope he would get better with rest and food. Maman and I took turns nursing him.

  For the first two days, his fever burned so hot that I was afraid he was going to die. He thrashed around muttering to crewmen only he could see. Every once in a while he would sit bolt upright.

  “Watch out! Messerschmitt at twelve o’clock,” he’d yell. Or he’d give the order to jump. “Bail out! Bail out!” Then he’d drop back onto the mattress, exhausted and terrified. “My fault,” he muttered over and over. “My fault.”

  When I asked François what we would do if the man died, he merely shrugged. “A dead aviator will be a lot harder to move out of Paris than a live one,” he said. “Let’s hope he lives.”

  A couple of days later, the aviator’s fever broke. The worst was over.

  By the end of the week Second Lieutenant Charles “Mack” Mackey from Pennsylvania was able to sit up and feed himself. Unlike Steve Jones and some of the other aviators, Mack wasn’t eager to tell his story. We learned only the most basic of details. He was a pilot and he was shot down over Belgium. It had taken him weeks to get from Belgium to Paris, but no one on the escape line was able to tell him anything about the members of his crew. He was desperate to find out if any of them had survived the jump and made it into the hands of the Resistance. He recited their names to me over and over, asking me to check.

  I recognized his need for answers. I felt that way when Georges was first arrested. Mack felt responsible for his crew like I felt responsible for Georges’s arrest.

  When I dropped aviators at the safe house in the Marais, I asked the man whom I knew only as Hippo.

  “No one keeps such a list,” he told me. “Too dangerous.”

  I recited the names for him, but he didn’t recognize any of them.

  “I almost never know their names,” he said. “Or I forget as soon as you bring me a new one.”

  Every time I went out and came back in again, Mack turned to me with a hopeful look. Each time I had to shake my head in a silent no and watch Mack’s hope melt into disappointment. His health improved but his spirits didn’t.

  Maman did not share Mack’s shyness or the Resistance’s caution. She told him all about her family on Long Island, about Papa in England, and about Georges in Germany. He told her all about his wife and children in Pennsylvania. It wasn’t long before Mack was calling me Michael instead of the Wolf.

  “Maman, it’s dangerous for him to know so much about us,” I told her.

  Maman waved me off. “The man needs to talk about his family.”

  “Yes, but you’re telling him too much about us. What if he gets picked up by the Gestapo?”

  I think it was only then that Maman recognized the danger we were in, but it was too late. I knew I had to send Mack on his journey as soon as he was strong enough to leave.

  In the meantime, I helped other aviators whenever I was given a mission. One day in early October, François asked me to meet him on the roof. “I need you to talk to someone,” he said. “Make sure he’s really American.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nazis spies pretend to be downed aviators,” he said. “We have a man who says he’s American, but England can’t back up his claim.”

  The Resistance checked out every single aviator to make sure they were real Allies and not Nazi spies. Radio operators communicated with England using small radios and Morse code. The Nazis had special trucks that picked up the radio signals and rushed to arrest the résistants. It was one of the most dangerous jobs in the Resistance. Radio operators were constantly on the run.

  “Talk to the man about America,” François said. “See what you think.”

  The idea scared me. How would I know for sure? But François was still a little mad at me for bringing Mack home. I needed to make up for that. I slipped an American novel of Maman’s into a rucksack and took the métro to the safe house. When I got there, I checked to make sure our signal, an ivy plant, was in the window. Then I climbed the stairs.

  The Hippo met me in the hall. “There’s something not right about this one.”

  “What will you do if he’s a Nazi?” I asked.

  “Interrogate him and then—” The Hippo ran his finger across his throat.

  One Nazi spy could lead to hundreds of arrests. I understood that the man would have to die, but what if I was wrong?

  “Ready?” he asked.

  I wasn’t, but I pretended to be. “Ready.”

  He ushered me into the apartment and led me to the back room where the aviators slept. The man had opened the curtains and the window. He was leaning out, breathing in the fresh air. I was immediately on alert. A man in hiding—even a stupid man—didn’t do such things.

  The Hippo rushed to the window and pulled the curtains closed.

  “Sorry,” the man said sheepishly in English. “I haven’t been outside in days.”

  “Soon. Soon you go south,” the Hippo said in his broken English. He turned to me and switched to French. “Introduce yourself.”

  “Hello,” I said. “I’m the Wolf.”

  “You’re American?” he asked.

  I made sure my answer was vague. “I was there once or twice.”

  “Bob Jackson,” he said shaking my hand. “From New York City.”

  I forced myself to smile. “I’ve been to New York City,” I said.

  Hippo left the room. Bob and I talked about the sights in New York—the Empire State Building and Radio City Music Hall. Everything seemed to be correct. Then I asked him about my favorite American sport. I never could get my French friends interested playing, but before the war I followed the baseball teams on the radio. One of my uncles loved the Yankees. The other one rooted for the Dodgers. I loved to watch them argue about which team was better.

  “I
saw a baseball game when I was in New York before the war,” I said. “Do you have a favorite team?”

  “Of course,” the aviator said. “The New York Dodgers.”

  It was the Brooklyn Dodgers, everyone knew that. I was instantly on alert. Bob stiffened. Did he sense my distrust?

  “Aha,” I said, pretending to laugh. “Then you are my enemy. I am a Yankee fan.”

  “I’ll take you to a game after the war,” he said. “You’ll see whose team is better.”

  “I went to a game at the Yankee Stadium in Brooklyn,” I said. “Have you ever been there?” Anyone from New York would know that Yankee Stadium was in the Bronx, not Brooklyn.

  “No,” he answered with a smile. “I’m a Dodger man through and through.”

  I lowered my head so that he would not see my face. He was opening and closing his hands. Was he going to strangle me? “My uncle likes the Chicago Red Sox,” I said.

  I saw confusion cross the man’s face. I waited for him to tell me the Red Sox were from Boston. He didn’t.

  “Did I get that right?” I asked. “The Chicago Red Sox? I always get the cities confused.”

  “Yes,” he said with a firm nod. “The Chicago Red Sox. But the New York Dodgers are a better team.”

  New York again, not Brooklyn. It’s one thing not to like baseball, but everyone knows it’s the Brooklyn Dodgers. Especially someone who pretended to be a baseball fan.

  “I have to go,” I said, “but I have something for you.” I pulled the book out of my rucksack and gripped it so that he would not see that my hands were trembling. “Something to read until you can get away.”

  He took it from me and read the title. “Of Mice and Men,” he said. Then he looked up with a smile. “Who is the mouse and who is the man?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer. His words felt like a threat. If I was the mouse, then he was the trap. I couldn’t wait to get out of that room. “Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye,” he said. “I’ll see you again.”

  I nodded and left. I found Hippo in the living room with a couple of men I hadn’t seen before. He held a finger to his lips and then raised his hands in a question.

  I didn’t say a word. I ran my finger across my throat the same way he had earlier. My hand was shaking. That motion, so simple, would lead to a man’s death.

  I tossed and turned all night. If I was wrong about Bob Jackson, an innocent man—an American man—would die. But if he was a Nazi and they let him go, my comrades in the Resistance would die.

  The next afternoon after school, I headed to the safe house to find out what had happened. Jacques offered to come with me, but I told him to go home. If there was danger, I wanted to face it alone.

  There was a Nazi truck and two black Mercedes on the street in front of the apartment building. The plant in the window had been knocked over. I tried to tell myself that that didn’t mean anything either. But it did.

  Two seconds later I watched soldiers drag the Hippo and the two other men out of the building. Behind them was Bob Jackson, his face a mass of bruises. He was arm in arm with the Gestapo. I didn’t wait for him to see me. I ran.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Gestapo

  October 1943

  I was desperate to warn François and Jacques about what I had seen. I ran all the way home. I stopped short when I saw two more black Mercedes in front of our apartment building. Two soldiers were leaning casually against the cars, chatting. They were regular soldiers, but those cars were unmistakable: Gestapo.

  I was watching from the corner when the soldiers jumped to attention and saluted before opening the car doors. I held my breath.

  Seconds later I watched a Gestapo officer drag Jacques and François out of the building.

  No!

  It couldn’t be.

  I wanted to scream, but I clamped a hand over my mouth, keeping the words inside.

  François was talking quickly. I was too far away to hear, but he seemed to be pleading. Jacques’s eyes were on his feet. There was as stain on the front of his pants and I wondered what the Gestapo had done to make him wet himself. I felt a wave of sympathy for my friend, for how frightened he must be.

  The officer threw the brothers into the backseat of the first car. Jacques’s head hit the roof and he staggered, but the officer only pushed him hard. Then he slammed the door and gave what sounded like an order to the driver. Another Gestapo officer led Jacques’s parents to the second car. Mrs. Dubois was crying. Mr. Dubois stared straight ahead.

  I stepped back into the shadows of a doorway and watched the cars speed past. My whole body was shaking and I fought not to cry. I had to think. My survival—my family’s survival—depended on my staying calm and coming up with a plan.

  A German or a collabo had managed to worm his way into the escape line again. It wouldn’t matter how much evidence the Nazis had. François and Jacques would go before a German military judge and be sent to prison or to a firing squad. Did the Nazis kill children? Jacques had just turned thirteen. François was sixteen. And what about their parents? They were innocent, but the Nazis didn’t care. What was better, a quick death at the end of a Nazi rifle or a long, slow death in prison?

  I stamped my foot in rage, then took a deep, shaky breath. Anger was better than fear. Anger stopped my trembling, but I still had to come up with a plan. Jacques and François were the only two members of our resistance cell who knew my real name and where I lived. How long would it be before one of them broke under torture and gave me away?

  Now I knew who was the mouse. Me. And I was caught in a trap. How long before the Gestapo showed up to finish me off?

  Stop! I said to myself. Stop and think.

  The first thing I had to do was make sure Maman and Charlotte were all right, and Mack too. I took a few more deep breaths and then stepped out of the doorway and onto the sidewalk. I wanted to run, but I forced myself to walk at a normal pace. Showing fear right now would only make me seem suspicious.

  I tried to whistle a tune as I sauntered up to my building, but my mouth was too dry.

  Madame Cassou was at her concierge window, as always, keeping an eye on everything that happened. Collecting gossip. She waved me over.

  “Gestapo,” she said. “They just left.”

  I pretended to be surprised. “Again?” I asked. “I thought they were satisfied that Maman wasn’t an American spy.” I forced myself to laugh.

  “Not your maman. Your friends—the Duboises. Résistants,” she said.

  “No! I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding,” I told her.

  She cocked an eyebrow. How much did she know? Had she been the one to turn us in?

  I kept on pretending and headed for the stairs. “They’ll be back later today—like my family was when the Gestapo took us in for questioning,” I said over my shoulder. As soon as I was out of her sight, I ran. I took the stairs two at a time.

  When I got to my floor, I heard German voices coming from the floor above, along with crashing sounds. They were searching Jacques’s apartment, looking for evidence. Was there anything that would lead them to me?

  I tried my own door and it was locked. I knocked softly, afraid to be heard by the men upstairs.

  Maman answered and pulled me to her. “You’re safe,” she said, burying her nose in my hair. I felt her tears on my head.

  “They got Jacques’s family,” I said.

  She nodded and wiped her eyes. “I know.”

  Mack walked into the room. He had a rucksack over his shoulders. “I’m going to leave,” he said, “before I cause any more trouble. I’ll make my way to the train station and take my chances. I’ll get south to the mountains somehow.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Maman said. “You’re not strong enough, and you don’t speak the language
.”

  “I’ve already put you in too much danger,” he said.

  “We all have to leave,” I told him. I hadn’t known that this was true until I said the words. But we couldn’t stay in Paris. If I wasn’t here, the Gestapo would still arrest Maman. “It’s just a matter of time before someone cracks under torture, or identifies a photo of me. Who knows how long the boches have been watching, waiting to arrest us all.”

  Maman let out a cry.

  I had never seen her look so scared or so desperate—not even when I told her about Georges’s arrest. I had caused this, and now I had to come up with a plan to save her and Charlotte. If I thought any one of those Nazis had a heart, I’d throw myself on their mercy and tell them anything they wanted to know if they’d let Maman and Charlotte go. But they had no hearts.

  Was there anyone left in my resistance group? I didn’t know where false identity papers came from, but if I could get my hands on a set for Maman and Charlotte, they could get away. Hide out in a small village where no one knew them. I had memorized the phone number of the safe house in the Pigalle in case of an emergency. The Germans listened in on phone calls, so I had to be careful. At least I’d know if the people there were still free, and I could alert them to the danger.

  I picked up our phone and dialed the number. I came up with something that would let them know there was trouble, without giving myself away. I decided to tell whoever answered that his cousin was very ill and take it from there.

  But it didn’t matter what I said, because my comrades didn’t answer. A German did. “Ja? Ja?” he said.

  I slammed the phone down.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  On the Run

  Maman jumped when I hung up the phone. I didn’t want her to see that I was starting to panic. I turned my back and ran through a mental list of people we knew in Paris, trying to figure out who might take us in for a few days. Then I dismissed that idea. It would be too dangerous to get any of our friends mixed up in our troubles. And what would I tell them about Mack?