No Place to Lay One's Head

by Francoise Frenkel

  It was December 1920 … I was off to pay one of my customary short visits to my relatives. On the way there, I stopped in Poznan, in Warsaw, then, after holidaying with my family, I returned to Kraków.

  In my suitcase I was carrying the first two volumes of Les Thibaults by Roger Martin du Gard, Les Croix de bois by Dorgelès, and Civilisation by Duhamel, books I thought would best convey my admiration for the rich flourishing of postwar French literature to the friends and booksellers I intended to meet.

  My plan was to open a bookshop in Poland. I visited each of these cities, one after the other. Booksellers everywhere were displaying handsome collections of French books. My business plan appeared pointless.

  I resolved to stop briefly in Berlin on my return journey in order to see friends there, and then to take the night train, which would have me arrive in Paris first thing in the morning.

  We wandered along Berlin’s grand boulevards and I loitered, as I was wont to do, in front of the window displays of the big bookshops. We had walked down Unter den Linden, Friedrichstrasse and Leipziger Strasse when I exclaimed:

  ‘But you don’t have any French books!’

  ‘That’s quite possible,’ came the reply, laconic and indifferent.

  We resumed our promenade, retracing our steps, and this time I went into the bookshops. Everywhere I was assured that demand for French books was almost non-existent. ‘We still have a few classics.’

  Newspapers and journals? No trace. Vendors in their newsstands responded ungraciously to my enquiries.

  Left with this impression, I returned to Paris.

  Professor Henri Lichtenberger, to whom I recounted the outcome of my travels, said to me simply:

  ‘Well then, why don’t you go and open a bookshop in Germany?’

  One publisher exclaimed, ‘Berlin? Now that’s a major city! Why don’t you try your luck?’

  My dear professor and friend, P–, announced, ‘A bookshop in Berlin … you could almost call that a crusade.’

  My sights were not set so high: I was just after an occupation, that of bookseller, the only one that mattered to me. The prospect of working in Berlin, which I had glimpsed through the winter fog, sprawling, sad and morose, was not however without its attractions.

  It was in this frame of mind that shortly afterwards I headed back to Germany’s capital.

  My first step was to approach the French Consulate General, where I outlined my plans with all the enthusiasm of my convictions, emphasising the moral support I’d already garnered.

  The Consul General raised his arms heavenwards:

  ‘But Madame, it seems you are unaware of the current moral climate in Germany! You don’t appreciate the true state of affairs! If you knew the difficulties I already face just keeping on a few French teachers here. Our newspapers are only sold in a few rare newsstands. French people come all the way to the Consulate just to get hold of them, and you want to open an entire bookshop! They’ll turn your business upside down!’

  I discovered later that in Breslau, the Consulate had been ransacked by a German mob after the plebiscite in Upper Silesia.

  At the French Embassy, I was only able to meet with a young attaché; he was hardly more encouraging. But after a week of enquiries and some consideration, I had made my decision: there were no French books to be had there, Berlin was a capital city, a university town, you could already feel the new pulse of life. Given time, a French bookshop must succeed.

  To me, Germany was not a complete unknown. I had come here as a girl to perfect my German and to pursue my music studies with Professor Xaver Scharwenka.

  I later had a second stay in Germany and enrolled in a semester of courses at the Leipzig University for Women.

  I was not unfamiliar with the great German masters, her thinkers, poets and musicians. And every hope for the success of my bookshop in the capital drew upon their influence.

  Of course, I had to complete numerous administrative formalities in this bureaucratic town. The first civil servant I saw in Berlin revealed himself to be firmly opposed to the sale of exclusively French books. We managed to agree on the description of a Centre for Foreign Books. My German interlocutor was of the opinion, shared by others too, that it was not a favourable time to be implementing my plans.

  And so, notwithstanding official objections, my attempt to establish a French bookshop in Berlin saw the light of day. Its first manifestation was on the mezzanine of a private house, in a quiet neighbourhood, away from the city centre.

  Parcels started to pour in from Paris, bringing beautiful volumes with the colourful covers so typical of French publishers; books filled the shelves, climbed all the way to the ceiling, lay strewn all over the floor.

  Scarcely had I finished setting up when customers started to arrive. My customers were initially women, it’s fair to say, foreigners for the most part, Poles, Russians, Czechs, Turks, Norwegians, Swedes and numerous Austrians. That said, a visit by a French man or woman was a significant event. There were few expatriates. Many who had left on the eve of the war had not returned.

  It was always a big day for my clientele of beautiful women when the newspapers and fashion magazines arrived, and they would swoop on them with exclamations of delight, spellbound at the sight of the designs they had been deprived of for so long. The art publications, similarly, had their ardent admirers.

  The lending service was eagerly received. Soon readers had to register their name on a list to take their turn, for the books were taken by storm.

  Some months later, increasing customer numbers forced me to consider expanding and the bookshop opened in the capital’s fashionable quarter.

  1921! This sparkling era was marked by the resumption of international relations and the exchange of ideas. The German élite started to make an appearance, very cautiously at first, in this new French literary haven. Then Germans started to appear in ever-increasing numbers: philologists, professors, students and members of that aristocracy whose education had been so strongly influenced by French culture, those who even then were known as ‘the old generation’.

  A curiously mixed clientele. Famous artists, celebrities, well-heeled women pore over the fashion magazines, speaking in hushed tones so as not to disturb the philosopher buried in his Pascal. Next to the window display, a poet leafs reverently through a handsome edition of Verlaine, a bespectacled scholar scrutinises the catalogue of a bookshop specialising in the sciences, a high school teacher has gathered about him four grammar textbooks, solemnly comparing the chapters grappling with the agreement of participles followed by the infinitive.

  I was surprised to realise quite the extent of German interest in the French language and to see how familiar some of them were with its masterpieces. One high school teacher pointed out to me the dozen or so significant lines missing from the edition of Montaigne he held in his hand. Quite so, the edition was abridged. Upon hearing a few lines of a French poet, a philologist would be able to say the author’s name without hesitation. Another would be able to recite from memory the maxims of La Rochefoucauld, Chamfort, and Pascal’s Pensées.

  This bookseller’s life allowed me to mingle with congenial eccentrics. One German customer, a man who knew his grammar, had been on his way out after making a purchase when he’d heard one of my staff saying, ‘Au plaisir, Monsieur!’ He made an about-turn and asked for an explanation of this expression. He wanted to know if it was just a commercial pleasantry, or if one might also use it socially, and in what circumstances, et cetera and so on.

  He wrote the expression down in a notebook and thereafter never once failed to offer an ‘Au plaisir’, accompanied by a knowing smile.

  Like harbingers of diplomacy, consulate and embassy staff appeared first; soon they formed part of our regular clientele. Then came the attachés and, finally, bringing up the rear, Messieurs, the diplomats themselves, and especially their wives.

  As for His Excellency, the French Ambassador, I had already received a visit when t
he bookshop opened in Berlin’s west.

  He thanked me for my initiative, selected several volumes and, in that manner so particular to the French language that combines with ease both firmness and courteous civility, told me that Romain Rolland and Victor Margueritte, one a deserter of the French cause, the other a pornographer, hardly belonged in a self-respecting bookshop. On the other hand, His Excellency did commend to me the works of René Bazin, Barrès and Henri Bordeaux.

  When he had left, I felt both proud and wistful. Despite all my best intentions, I knew it would be impossible for me to take his advice.

  The wife of one foreign ambassador, as intelligent as she was lovely, adored browsing through books. She would spend hours looking around and would always discover some volume or other that took her fancy. One day, unafraid to sully her beautifully manicured hands fossicking among the dusty bargains piled high in a back room of the bookshop, she told me quite delightedly:

  ‘Were I not the wife of a diplomat, my dream would be to be a bookseller.’

  From that day on, our friendship was sealed. I would hunt things down for her from the bouquinistes in Paris, she would direct customers to me and alert me to the arrival in Berlin of respected French people and celebrities.

  For we used to organise lectures and receptions for famous authors who were passing through Germany.

  Claude Anet, Henri Barbusse, Julien Benda, Madame Colette, Dekobra, Duhamel, André Gide, Henri Lichtenberger, André Maurois, Philippe Soupault, Roger Martin du Gard – they all came through the bookshop.

  Some of them would give talks. They would speak on literature, art, memories and impressions; they would attract professors, students, French expatriates, an entire audience of the worldly and well-educated. The lectures would be followed by the playing of French records: songs, readings from poetry and plays.

  With the collaboration of willing French people, we also staged ‘theatrical performances’, scenes from Marivaux, Labiche, from Docteur Knock by Jules Romains, sometimes even sketches inspired by current events that we ourselves would write. We had as many as five hundred German school students at some performances.

  Similarly, the Shrove Tuesday celebrations organised by members of the French community grew to be a significant event for our customers.

  In his book Dix ans après, Jules Chancel described one of these parties, its atmosphere, what a success it was.

  In my work as a bookseller, I had come to enjoy the enlightened support of Professor Hesnard, press attaché and author of an excellent study on Baudelaire. He would help me with his discreet advice.

  The cultural attaché, too, who came to Berlin in about 1931 provided infinitely precious support, and words cannot describe how indebted I am to him for his erudition and loyalty.

  In September 1931, I saw Aristide Briand come in, accompanied by an official who was acting as his cicerone. After offering me his congratulations, he enquired whether I had established my business in the spirit of the Franco–German rapprochement.

  ‘I do indeed passionately hope for such a rapprochement, just as I hope for a strengthening of relations between all peoples in this world,’ I replied, ‘but I established my business here in Berlin on purely intellectual grounds. Politics leads to injustice, blindness and excess. And following an angry discussion between two customers of differing nationalities, I’ve always tried to ensure that politics is no longer discussed in the bookshop,’ I added.

  As an onlooker of events unfolding around me, I had made many an observation in my capacity as a bookseller, witnessed conflicts brewing, sensed the rise of various threats. I would, indeed, have welcomed a chance to speak openly with that great statesman, whose aspirations inspired confidence. But he had company.

  Instead, my suspicion of matters political won out. I do not regret not asking Briand any questions, nor having voiced my fears. How quickly thereafter was his idealism brought irreparably undone!

  I had not opened the Pandora’s box at the bottom of which slumbered a ten-millennia-old hope for possible harmony in this world.

  Briand’s visit conferred a new prestige upon my bookshop and brought increasing numbers of customers. What followed, then, were years of fellowship, peace and prosperity.

  Starting in 1935, serious complications set in.

  First came the question of currency.

  In order to pay for my French book orders, I required a new clearing authorisation each time. I had to provide evidence of the need to import the items. So I gathered references from all sorts of places. Schools issued me with order forms, as did high school teachers. Universities ordered through official channels.

  Individual customers completed forms, which I then submitted to the special department responsible for reviewing imported books. To complete my stock, I called on the support of the French Embassy. The work grew laborious.

  From time to time, the police would turn up unexpectedly. On the pretext that a particular author featured on their index, the police officers would inspect everything, confiscating volumes. Thus they removed copies of Barbusse, later those of André Gide and lastly, a great number of other works, among them those of Romain Rolland (who had already been blacklisted by the French Ambassador).

  To supplement the gaps created on my shelves and in an ironic twist, a French correspondent in Berlin reporting for a newspaper from the south of France turned up in the bookshop just at that moment, bringing me his work entitled En face de Hitler. It was … Ferdonnet, who was to become wretchedly notorious as a Radio-Stuttgart broadcaster. In self-important tones, he asked me to display a copy of his work in the window. I replied that in accordance with my publishers’ instructions, I did not display political works. He replied:

  ‘You do know that I could easily insist …’

  Then, in an imperious tone:

  ‘Well, I expect you to sell it nonetheless!’

  Police regularly came to confiscate various French newspapers that they had on their list. In turn, this prompted my customers to appear before the shop had opened in order to pre-empt the inspectors. However, the number of authorised French papers grew increasingly limited.

  For several weeks, only Le Temps was tolerated. I rushed immediately to order sufficient copies; my customers were desperate for news from abroad. Readers were able to buy it for a week or so. But one fine morning, an inspector informed me that Le Temps had now been blacklisted. He confiscated all of the stock, to the great disappointment of my customers.

  Hide newspapers? Place them off to one side? ‘Distribution of prohibited newspapers’, that would have had me sent to a concentration camp.

  From that moment onwards, French dailies were no longer available in Germany. They disappeared once and for all.

  All these restrictions were the general order of the day.

  But with the promulgation of the Nuremberg race laws (at the Party Congress in September 1935), my own personal circumstances, in turn, became very precarious.

  The Nazi Party knew that my bookshop fell, in a manner of speaking, under the protection of French publishers. The German authorities, true to their policy of anaesthetising public opinion, hesitated before causing a scandal. On the one hand, they tolerated my business representing French literature; on the other, they held my own origins against me.

  My mail included notices, invitations, orders to attend this meeting, to take part in that demonstration or rally. Booksellers’ associations instructed me to audit my stock and to turn over to the special auditing department any books contravening the spirit of the regime. Attached to all of these forms were questionnaires relating to my race and that of my grandparents and great-grandparents, on both maternal and paternal sides.

  In the end, my assistant no longer showed me these depressing documents; he took his motorcycle and made the rounds of government departments, providing them with the requested information. He emphasised my status as a foreigner to iron out difficulties in the short term and to allow me the time to prepare f
or the winding up of my business.

  Incidents kept multiplying. I remember one affront I was forced to endure a few days before Christmas. Numerous parcels containing gift books had just been delivered by two postmen. Tables were weighed down with beautiful publications for adults, colourful picture books for children. Magazines, reflecting that immaculate French taste unlike anything else in the world, burst from their packaging and were greeted with cries of wonder from the customers.

  There was that fever in the air so typical of the time of year!

  All of a sudden, the front door of the shop flew open with a crash and the Nazi ‘block warden’ burst in. This woman with the head of a gorgon was holding two empty tins in each hand.

  ‘Do you speak German?’ she shouted.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, rather astonished.

  ‘These four metal tins, do they belong to you?’

  ‘I don’t know, I’ll ask my housekeeper; may I ask why?’

  ‘They’re yours. I know they are and that’s what I’m telling you! Every German knows there’s a container to dispose of tins, and it’s not the rubbish bin, it’s a special crate with a sign on it! You’re going to have a stiff fine to pay! It’ll appear as an item on your Christmas “bargain” sales account,’ she added, her eyes full of hatred.

  The shrew departed. A diplomat who had witnessed the scene told me how, for several days, he had been uncertain as to how to dispose of an aluminium tube bearing the injunction in red: ‘Do not throw away’. He didn’t dare put the tube into the wastepaper basket in his hotel room, nor leave it in the street. At last he had the idea of leaving it at a pharmacy, where he was congratulated on behalf of the Party. This anecdote brought a laugh at the time but did not, however, dispel the general feeling of unease.

  I was outraged.

  Relying on the regulation relating to the famous ‘one-pot meal’, the same building superintendent would come to inspect my pots whenever she pleased. She would lift the lids, sniffing the contents, then depart with a Nazi salute.