Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris

by Robb, Graham

  There were so many people in the station now that sometimes they bumped into anyone who was just standing there. Anna’s mother had come into the concourse from the Quai de Grenelle platform and thought it miraculous that she had found her daughter there, though Anna had simply got off the train and waited patiently in the part of the station where all the different lines came together. When he turned away from the map of the Métro, Nat saw a little girl being squeezed against her mother’s skirt, and he wondered if he should go and speak to them, but instead, he went past them and joined the crowd of people heading for the sign marked NATION.

  Later that day, he stood on the landing in front of the door where the Elbodes lived, and it was a moment he often relived after he crossed the demarcation line a few months later on his way to Grenoble and entered the Zone Libre.

  ALL OVER PARIS–that day and in the days to come–people were discovering new parts of the city. It was almost as if they had never lived there before. The Rimmler family at 51, Rue Piat discovered that there was a little room above the garage next door to their apartment block where ten people could sleep if they sat with their backs against the wall. At 181, Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine, the Tselnicks’ concierge unlocked one of the old maids’ rooms on the fifth floor which they had never seen or even thought about before. In the Rue des Rosiers, where people going to work were surprised by the unusual silence, a boy had been placed in the rubbish bin by his mother and was still covered in kitchen waste when he was taken to a neighbour’s house and from there to a reception centre in the Rue Lamarck. Some families moved into back staircases and attics, or into curtained cubby-holes in neighbours’ apartments, and felt as though they had been transported a great distance, though they were just a few feet from home.

  When all those previously unsuspected places were brought into use, it seemed as though the city was revealing some of its secret resources in an attempt to accommodate a new influx of people, though in reality there were thirteen thousand fewer people in Paris than a day or two before.

  While the stinking velodrome was emptied out by buses bound for Drancy in the north-eastern suburbs, and then by trains bound for somewhere in the east, the people who were left in Paris waited in their rooms and hiding-holes, never spending more than two nights in the same place. Anna and her mother lived like hunted animals for two years before they were arrested again and sent to the unknown place that children in their games called ‘Pitchi Poï’. Since none of the fugitives could venture out, they had to use other people’s food coupons and tried to make their neighbours’ generosity last as long as possible.

  As usual, concierges had to rack their brains looking for solutions to unanticipated problems. They cut off the water and the gas and the electricity, as they were told to do, but the policemen also had orders to leave any domestic animals with the concierge. Some of those snug little lodges on the ground floor of apartment blocks turned into foul and overcrowded menageries overnight. Cats were set free–there had been warnings in the paper about lethal bacilli passing from vermin to cats and from them to human beings–but when it became obvious that their owners would never return, dogs, rabbits, guinea-pigs and even songbirds were used to supplement the meat ration, which, since life showed no sign of becoming any easier, is probably what would have happened to them anyway.

  The city returned to what passed for normal, and the strange stories of arrests, suicides, abandoned children living in empty apartments and the stench of the Vel’ d’Hiv joined all the other implausible rumours that poisoned the air and filled it with mysteries that nobody wanted to solve.

  Some of the children who were left behind saw their parents again when they were tricked into going to a reception centre run by the Union Générale des Israélites de France, and then put on a train to Drancy. Others were given new names and were sent to live with new parents in other parts of France. When things became really frightening, many children behaved in a very grown-up fashion. While their parents relived the horrors of childhood, their children sent them letters telling them not to worry and using secret code: ‘The weather has been quite stormy’, or ‘The sun is beginning to shine’. They tried to think of all the things that their parents would like to hear, but it was not very easy to comfort mothers and fathers when they weren’t there any more to be comforted.

  LOVERS OF SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS

  Black and white, 35 mm.

  Silence; no titles.

  Fade in to:

  1. PLACE DE LA MADELEINE.

  The cobbles on the square.

  JULIETTE’s point of view:

  Drab figures carrying bags, going about their own business. One or two cars; bicycles everywhere; a vélo-taxi pedalled by a young woman in culottes. If possible, no pigeons.

  Medium long-shot: CHARLOTTE emerges from the thin crowd on the Rue Royale and waves at the camera. She begins to cross the square, moving purposefully, carrying a shoulder-bag. The sunlight shines through her white skirt; her hair is blown by the breeze; she looks young and cheerful.

  Camera pulls back and zooms in: CHARLOTTE seems quite close when she still has some way to go before reaching the camera.

  A black Citroën enters the square behind her to the left. Sound of doors banging. Three men in gabardines and fedoras grab Charlotte and bundle her into the car.

  CHARLOTTE screams.

  The car drives off. Juliette runs into shot, racing after the car.

  JULIETTE, banging on the windows: That’s my sister! That’s my sister!

  Close up: Charlotte’s face stares back from the retreating window in wide-eyed terror. The car brakes and swerves to a halt. The door opens; an arm pulls Juliette into the car.

  Zoom back: the black car accelerates away towards the Place de la Concorde.

  Close up: cobbles in the foreground.

  2. INSIDE THE CAR.

  Two men in front; two behind, Charlotte wedged between them. Juliette sitting on the knee of one of the Gestapo officers.

  JULIETTE, giggling: It’s ages since I had a ride in a car!

  The officer punches her very hard in the back. Pain and shock on her face.

  3. PLACE DE LA MADELEINE.

  The black Citroën accelerating away; pedestrians still going about their own business. The car is increasingly hard to pick out from the background.

  The solo trumpet begins–one long note, then the melody–brash, almost slapdash, but forlorn; it sounds like an empty room. The title scrolls rapidly across the screen: LOVERS OF SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRÉ S…

  4. TITLE SEQUENCE: LEFT BANK AND SUBURBS.

  Fade to: face of JULIETTE, staring out of the car window. Her black fringe and long, straight hair make her look like a child, but her expression is that of an adult.

  While the TITLES appear, street scenes are reflected on the window and pass over Juliette’s face. The trumpet continues, with bass and cymbal.

  NB: this should be the real route, as taken in September 1943 to Fresnes (they were first taken to Avenue Foch, but that route would be too short and familiar). Film practically the whole stretch from Place de la Concorde, across the Seine, down the Boulevard Saint-Germain and Boulevard Raspail to Place Denfert (the car is moving at speed); empty shops and café windows.

  Fade twice to increasingly deserted scenes of suburbs–walls; isolated, scraggly trees; vacant lots…Bleary sunlight. Children playing among ruins or whatever else happens to appear.

  Trumpet stops. Silence.

  Black screen for four seconds.

  5. AN OFFICE, 84, AVENUE FOCH.

  Sound of a typewriter.

  The typewriter, with an apple next to it on the table.

  WOMAN in uniform, typing; hair in a bun. A SOLDIER standing by the door. JULIETTE sits in the corner. Ornate fireplace, Second Empire mirror; the incongruous paraphernalia of military administration.

  Juliette looks down at the bag between her legs (the bag her sister was carrying in the opening scene). She looks up; the typist sees h
er looking and pushes the apple towards her across the table, and starts typing again.

  Juliette steals a glance at the contents of the bag–papers rolled up–and quickly looks up away. She raises her hand, with a meaningful expression.

  JULIETTE: Madame? My tummy’s hurting…

  The typist nods to the soldier, and gestures at a wooden door.

  TYPIST, to Juliette: Don’t lock the door, and don’t be long.

  6. TOILET.

  Art deco tiles; stained glass showing a beautiful woman in a garden full of flowers. Two polished wooden steps lead to the toilet seat.

  JULIETTE opens the bag, removes the papers, flushes the toilet, rolls up her sleeve, and begins to stuff the papers into the bowl as far as she can reach. Then she flushes the toilet again. Loud sound of flushing.

  Close up of papers (a glimpse of handwritten lists of names and addresses) swirling in the water.

  7. OFFICE.

  SOLDIER goes to the door; opens it. JULIETTE descends from the toilet and goes to sit in the corner. The woman typist has disappeared.

  Close up of clock (11.05). Occasional sounds of someone falling, crying out.

  JULIETTE (sitting) and SOLDIER (standing), with an oak-panelled wall between them.

  Close up of the empty bag between Juliette’s legs.

  Close up of clock (2.30).

  Black screen for three seconds.

  Sound of heavy boots on metal walkways. Echoing voices.

  8. FRESNES.

  Echoing, metallic sounds continue.

  The brick facades and perimeter fence of Fresnes prison, seen from a slow-moving vehicle.

  9. CONSULTATION ROOM.

  A hand in a plastic glove with blood on the fingers.

  JULIETTE, from behind, putting on her skirt, then her sweater.

  Female ORDERLY wearing a white coat over her uniform, removing the glove. She goes to a shelf and hands Juliette a towel, a folded blanket and a face-cloth.

  10. SHOWERS.

  JULIETTE under the shower, seen from behind. Her black hair falls down to her waist. The scene is cruelly lit and wholly unerotic. Inarticulate women’s voices shouting.

  Close up: water, with dark streaks, running down the drain-hole.

  Juliette under the shower, out of focus, behind the rain-like curtain of shower water. Loud sounds of gushing water…

  11. PRISON CELL.

  JULIETTE, and four slatternly prostitutes pretending not to be frightened. Camp-beds; slop-bucket. Tall windows with frosted glass and iron bars.

  WHORE 1:…then he called me a filthy fucking bitch and buggered off without paying–and bugger me if he wasn’t back a week later with his friends!

  WHORE 2, nods in Juliette’s direction, as if to say, ‘Hush; she’s just a kid.’

  WHORE 1: Bah! She’ll find out soon enough–if she hasn’t already…

  WHORE 4, inspecting Juliette: Chubby little thing…

  WHORE 3, singsong voice: Chubby little thing with a big fat nose.

  WHORE 1: Huh! She’s not hiding much under all that hair…If they did to her what they did to me…

  WHORE 4, greedily: So what did they do, then?

  Raucous voices continue. Improvised jazz trumpet, intermittent throughout the following scenes, except the flashbacks.

  Close up: Juliette bending over her blanket, which she holds on her lap. Big tears slither down her eyelashes. She begins to tease out loose threads from the hem of the blanket, and places them next to her on the bed.

  12. CHILDHOOD HOME: PLUSH APARTMENT IN RUE DE SEINE NEAR SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS.

  JULIETTE as a little girl: shorts and blouse, tights, plimsolls, pageboy haircut. Her mother and father are shouting at one another. M. GRÉCO (Corsican, 30 years older than his wife) hits Mme GRÉCO across the face. She screams, falls to the floor.

  Little JULIETTE watches this in silence. She seems to be invisible to her parents.

  Mme GRÉCO: Get out! Get out!

  Sound of door slamming. Then more banging and echoing shouts, which turn out to be noises heard in the cell.

  13. PRISON CELL.

  Prostitutes lounging about, dozing or engaged in grooming.

  JULIETTE drags her camp-bed to one of the windows, stands on the bed, cranes her neck and looks through a pane that has lost some of its frosting.

  Lingering shot–blurry at the edges but clear in the centre–of a white GOAT tethered to a post in a scrubby field beyond the perimeter fence. The goat seems to raise its head once or twice towards the prison. (Film several minutes in daylight and again at dusk.) The goat appears to be munching quite happily. Eight seconds.

  Cut to: Juliette’s blanket, in tatters. She ties the threads together and uses them in place of curl papers.

  Close up: JULIETTE twisting the threads into her hair.

  Tethered GOAT, munching. The light is fading.

  JULIETTE lying on the bed, her hair in papers.

  Black screen.

  14. CHILDHOOD HOME, RUE DE SEINE.

  The tall window of a drawing-room opens. Sounds of the city as heard from an inner courtyard; faint breathing. The camera pans across the windows opposite on the same floor, then looks down from the sixth floor to the courtyard far below.

  JULIETTE as a little girl. She steps out onto the narrow ledge that runs all around the sixth floor. She places her feet in second position like a ballet dancer. Her eyelashes brush against the wall. She begins to move along the ledge.

  The rest of the scene is through Juliette’s eyes: she looks through the neighbours’ windows, then the wall and downpipes appear as she passes on to the next window.

  –A sparsely furnished room: a man and his wife staring at each other glumly across a table, eating.

  –Wall.

  –A soldier’s uniform hung on the back of a chair; the foot of an unmade bed with a woman’s clothes draped across it.

  –Wall.

  –A little boy holding a teddy bear, looking straight at the camera. He holds the bear out to the camera.

  –Wall and drainpipes.

  –A room full of packing crates and luggage.

  –Juliette’s plimsolled feet and the courtyard below. Sound of breathing continues.

  –A woman with a cat on her lap, under the photograph of a cat. She looks vacantly at the camera as though watching someone go past on the ground floor.

  –Wall.

  –An old man sitting very close to the window, mending a watch.

  –Wall.

  –A hand comes out, pulls Juliette into the room, and slaps her across the face.

  Mme GRÉCO: I’ll kill you if I catch you doing that again!

  Black screen.

  15. INTERVIEW ROOM.

  Bare walls. Short MAN in jaunty suit and polka-dot tie behind a desk, with papers in front of him; JULIETTE on a wooden chair.

  MAN, prodding the papers: Your papers aren’t in order. What’s your real name?

  JULIETTE: Gréco. Juliette.

  MAN: You’re lying. These are false papers. What is your real name?

  JULIETTE: My real name? Juliette…What’s yours?

  Close up: the man’s face, his eyes narrowing, moves towards the camera.

  Black screen.

  16. PRISON CELL.

  Juliette sitting on her camp-bed, her knees pulled up to her chest. Her face is badly bruised. (Film her in this position for ten minutes. Reduce to fifteen seconds with dissolves.)

  17. FRESNES.

  View of the prison walls from the road, as in scene 8, but stationary. Sound of rooks cawing. Five seconds.

  Black screen, fading to light grey. Sounds of the city and the chattering of sparrows.

  18. AVENUE FOCH.

  JULIETTE sitting, clutching her knees, but this time on a bench, wearing a coat. She looks up.

  Creamy mansions on the Avenue Foch and the tall trees in the lovely light of morning. Juliette, dressed as in the opening scene, stands up and begins to walk along the avenue. Faint trumpe
t music. Passers-by look at her. (Do not use extras.)

  (MUSIC: This should not interrupt the images but seem to accompany Juliette along the street: something like Miles Davis’s ‘Générique’–long, lonesome notes. If possible, show him the whole take, uncut, and get him to improvise.)