AS WORLD WAR II tightens its grip on Europe, living conditions for its inhabitants become extremely difficult, even in our unoccupied zone. Transportation is slow, unreliable, and uncomfortably crowded. Food, soap, clothes, and other ordinary necessities formerly taken for granted become a rarity. Each winter is bad, and each spring is worse because last year’s crops have been eaten. In the early spring of each year, we wait in line to buy seeds at the general store so we can plant them and grow food.
Like Charlot, the average person soon uses a suitcase as the main means of carrying goods. Paris is fed almost entirely out of suitcases in the last years of the war. On trains, buses, bicycle, or on foot, everybody has one—or better yet, two. The suitcase is king of Europe during wartime. Inside a bag, you might find a real supermarket: potatoes, melting butter, olive oil, and every kind of bean: black beans, white beans, brown beans. Beans are saving our lives. The phrase C’est la fin des haricots! It’s the end of the beans! becomes the most feared doomsday expression.
The black market flourishes. Some are getting rich while others are thrown into abject poverty. The opportunists are black marketeers, who are open for business wherever they take their suitcases. The ultimate gold is cigarettes and tobacco.
Dry tobacco leaves become the currency of choice. With a few cigarettes, you can buy or bribe your way in or out of anything. Smokers will do anything for a cigarette, including trading their limited food ration for a puff of smoke. But everyone must be careful; thieves boldly steal suitcases left and right.
The French Vichy police chase the black market businessmen with their suitcases. Government agencies go after starving consumers to find and confiscate illegal suitcase goods, usually appropriating the goods for themselves.
The Gestapo is only interested in what is in Mister Charlot’s type of suitcase—explosives, detonators, and grenades. Fortunately, there are so many suitcases circulating that adversaries can’t possibly get their dirty hands on all of them.
Still, Charlot’s suitcase nightmare becomes everyone’s. We later hear that Paris is fed almost entirely out of suitcases in the last years of the war. If you lose your suitcase, you have lost everything. Farewell to the suitcase!
In these dark days, the loss of a suitcase is the end of the game. For some, it will be the end of their lives.
11
A PERFECT STUDENT
Do you believe in fairies? Say quick that you believe. If you believe, clap your hands!
PETER PAN
THE SUMMER OF 1941 in Mouans-Sartoux comes to an end. We overhear news about the war and the people we know who are missing or dead. Tata’s prophecy of the coming war, made at the Paris Exposition, is now a reality.
For me, September means my return to a formal program of study. My parents enroll me in the Catholic Don Bosco Boarding College in Nice. The idle frolicking in the countryside has come to an end. It is time for formal education again.
From the first of September to July 14, 1942, I must remain locked in this institution. Freedom is what I miss most. Give me liberty or give me death! The American patriot Patrick Henry’s words take on a new meaning for me.
Each day is regimented, and like clockwork I go from my dormitory to classes, to a short exercise period in the inner yard, to the study hall, and to the refectory for a meal—on and on, week after week, one month after another. The only relief is a movie every two weeks. After a month in this uncomfortable hole, I want out. But there is no easy way to escape, with the high walls all around the school and twenty-four-hour supervision.
Don Bosco is certainly not home to the fancy high-class society I encountered at the Bordeaux boarding school. In fact, Don Bosco soon reveals itself to be more like something out of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield.
ONE EVENING AT DINNER, I am sitting on the hard bench at my assigned table with eleven others. No one talks while a student reads a classical literature selection during mealtime. The reader’s monotone voice is accompanied by the clinking of spoons and forks on plates.
At the head of my table is the school bully. For some time, he has been insulting me while stealing the best pieces of food right off my plate. He is taller, stronger, and older than me. Tonight, I have had it! Something has to be done. When he comes for my food, I stand up, take my steaming hot plate of spaghetti, and smash it into his face.
The priest supervising the meal jumps to his feet and shouts, “Shocking! How dare you! Both of you come here right now.”
When the bully and I start arguing, the priest firmly grabs us both by our collars and drags us to the yard.
“Go ahead, sort this out between yourselves.”
My behavior has been borderline insubordinate for some time. This priest thinks that finally I am about to get a licking to tame me.
My opponent, sure of his superiority, wipes the spaghetti sauce from his eyes. His moves are cocky; he’s confident that he’s easily going to mop up the yard with me.
I don’t wait for him to get ready. From someplace deep within, I draw up all my strength, and every frustration I feel rises up. Realizing I will only get one chance, I hit my adversary in the upper stomach, right under the rib cage.
Without a sound, he bends over, folded in half. Now I must finish him off fast, or he will kill me. Using both hands, I grab the long scarf rolled around his neck and turn him round and round until he hits one of the marble columns decorating the yard.
Bang!
Again and again he hits his head. I am pleased. Things are looking pretty good. There is blood all over.
“Stop! Stop! Are you crazy, you little monster? You are going to kill him!” The priest on guard duty comes to rescue the bully, but I am in a fury. I kick the priest in the shins and when another priest comes to help, I kick him, too. Finally, a third priest arrives on the battlefield and slaps me on the face so hard that I land on the ground. I feel dizzy and rest my hands and head on my knees to stop the spinning stars from the blow and to catch my breath. I look up and get back to my feet.
The fight is over. Hands down, I am the champ. Apart from a burning red cheek, I don’t have a scratch. I glance over at the bully. He is flat on his back, unconscious and bleeding from his head. This should officially remove my name from his victims list.
“You come with me!” I barely hear the order. The voice is muffled by the buzzing in my ear. The priest’s slap was stronger than I first thought. Sometimes rage hides pain.
“You! To the director’s office.” Priest number three grabs my other ear and marches me to the office. Now both ears hurt.
“I HAVE HEARD only bad reports about you, Pierre Leroy. What do you have to say in your defense?”
I am a little dazed when I look at who is talking to me, seeing only an enormous red nose planted on a piglike face. It is the director, whom we students have nicknamed Piff, which in Parisian slang means “big nose.” Seated at his huge mahogany desk with beady black eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, he scrutinizes me.
“I do not like it here. I want to go back to my parents.”
As soon as the words come out, it’s difficult for me to hold back my tears. All this excitement is getting to be too much, and suddenly I feel dizzy again. I drop into an armchair across from the director, hoping to hide my weakness. I feel something crunch under my bottom.
“Stand up! You have ruined my biretta. And who gave you permission to sit down?” he says angrily.
Still wobbly, I stand up and look at the chair. Smashed against the seat is his ridiculous black hat lined with purple silk. The symbol of his authority is as flat as a pancake.
At this moment I don’t give one whit about his crazy hat. I throw it on the floor and stomp on it.
Piff’s eyes widen. He’s completely flabbergasted. He has never seen a student quite like me. I pick up what’s left of his biretta and throw it on his desk.
“I want out of this Devil’s Island right now! You get that? And as for you and your silly hat, I say—” I let the i
nsults fly uncontrollably out of my mouth in an array of languages.
I am feeling better. And I’m certain that this incident will get me thrown out of the school immediately.
“Siéntese,” Piff orders calmly in Spanish. Sit.
“¿Hablas español?” I ask. I can’t believe that this jail warden speaks a human language.
“I am Spanish. I can return the insults in eight languages.” The director is almost smiling.
“Why are you in France, instead of Spain? Franco likes priests. And by the way, I hate Franco,” I say. Tit for tat. I hope that a little political controversy will alienate him even more against me and expedite my expulsion.
He looks me straight in the eyes, hard, like a dark cloud passing over the sky, and then the sun comes as he smiles. “Tell me, Pierre, who won the fight today?”
“I did, sir.”
“Ah! Good. By the way, I hate Franco too.”
The director rings a bell, and a priest comes in.
“Take this gentleman to his quarters and keep an eye on him. At the first sign of rebellion or insolence, bring him back to me.”
I never return to Piff’s office. From that day on, the bullies leave me alone, and I extend them the same courtesy.
However, I make one last attempt to escape. I write Maman, telling her about the abuses to which I’m subjected in this awful institution. We have been corresponding regularly, and I know that she will not have Papa’s attitude of “sink or swim.” Our mail is censored both ways, so saying a prayer, I tie my letter to a stone and throw it over the high wall. Miraculously, she gets it, and her response comes back to me uncensored.
Dear Pierre,
I received your letter. Complaints read and noted. Never forget that I love you very much. However, at this time what you need to know is this: Nobody owes you a thing. Remember that. Sooner or later you are going to have to figure out life for yourself. Today is a good day to get started. Whether you like it or not, you are staying in Don Bosco until July.
Then, only if you have consistent good reports, you will spend the summer with us.
My advice to you is this: Make the best of it by studying seriously. Besides giving you a good education, it will make the time pass faster.
Your loving Mother
I read the letter again. The double-underlined nobody owes you a thing pierces me to the core. It sounds like total rejection.
I am on my own. Even though I am in Nice, it never crosses my mind to contact Grandfather Matisse. I know that he is too busy creating art.
With no alternatives left, I follow my mother’s advice and bury my nose in my studies and library books.
Still, I am miserable. An unusually cold winter by French Riviera standards doesn’t help. With no heat in the buildings, I’m cold to the bone day and night for several months. The fingers on both of my hands get chilblains, which are extremely painful. My fingers swell up like sausages and look frostbitten.
Our food supply is becoming meager. In the rice ration, there are rat droppings. It’s the worst rice recipe I’ve ever eaten.
We all have lice in our hair. Even the weekly ice-cold showers can’t chase them away. “The Boches brought the little critters from Germany,” says Piff. We all scratch, scratch, and scratch some more.
ON ONE MOVIE NIGHT, the newsreel shown before the feature film is of the bombing raids on London, probably courtesy of the Germans as propaganda. The bombs fall and buildings explode beneath them. I watch with my hands clenched, vividly remembering the claustrophobic bomb shelter, the half-destroyed building with the man calling for his pants, the bodies covered by blankets and lined up on the street. I remember Tata telling me stories while I shook uncontrollably. I am not entertained or impressed by the movie and can’t wait for it to end.
Piff always sits close to the projector during movie nights. If something is too risqué, such as a girl with a “big balcony,” for instance, Piff blocks the lens with his new biretta. These priests love to censor to the point that even some of the library books have entire pages missing and certain classics are banned altogether.
Of course, the priests serve us a heavy dose of repetitious brainwashing. We must spend an awful lot of time at the church attached to the complex. I just can’t get used to this church business. Instead of learning about God, I’m just bored to tears. The services are too long, and it is the same show every time. I don’t feel God’s presence in church at all. But then I find out that the choir boys are given red wine, so I quickly join the choir. Soon enough, someone notices that I’m a lip-syncher, not an actual singer, and I’m kicked out. Even though I adore music, I never could sing or play anything.
THIS EDUCATIONAL ROUTINE goes on like an annoying toothache. The only good moments are with my math teacher, Tosello, whom I nickname Hibou. Hibou, or “owl,” is an appropriate nickname because he wears large-framed glasses over his unusually big, dark eyes.
Hibou reminds me of Tata. He has the same kind, intuitive eyes and seems to look straight inside your heart. This devoted gentleman is constantly worrying about the world in which his children will have to live, how they will survive and make a living after the war. “The world is mad. What are my children going to do after the war?” he says to anyone who will listen.
One class period, instead of paying attention, I draw a caricature of Hibou. It’s not a mocking drawing, but a serious character study.
Completely absorbed in my work, I don’t hear him coming up behind me. As fast as lightning, Hibou whacks me on my back with his ruler while he snaps up my drawing with his other hand. Without a word to me or interrupting the class with my exposé, he walks straight to his desk and slides my drawing inside a folder.
When class is over, he asks me to remain. Alone in the empty classroom, he takes the drawing from his desk. Without a word, he studies it for a long time.
“How much?” he asks with a serious face.
“It’s a gift to you, Monsieur,” I hear myself say.
“Then you must sign it,” he says with a satisfied smile.
So I write Tatiou.
“Tatiou. Who is that?” he asks, puzzled.
“It’s my real name,” I state with conviction.
“Ha!” He pauses, then adds, “I understand.”
Just like Tata, Hibou understands everything.
But then he explains at great length that although he supports the visual arts, his class is strictly about math, not art. From then on, I must adhere to his curriculum.
“Besides,” he informs me, “an artist has to know a lot about math.”
In the next week, Hibou proudly shows my drawing to the entire Don Bosco personnel, from Piff all the way down to the janitors.
Years later, I will learn from a former Don Bosco student that Hibou went insane and was locked up in a mental institution like Brouchard, my teacher in Paris. Both men seemed to love their students deeply, and when the war came, the traumas became too much.
ONE AFTERNOON, I accidentally spill nearly a whole bottle of black ink on my trousers. I am sent to the dormitory to clean myself up, but I don’t have many clothes because of the war and the fact that I am growing taller. Alone in the deserted dormitory bathroom, I’m mopping up the mess when “Cockroach,” the priest in charge of discipline, enters the bathroom. He is tall and austere and reminds me of Goya’s drawing of Don Quixote de la Mancha. “Pierre, what happened to you?” he asks, seeming genuinely concerned.
“I spilled some ink. It is almost cleaned up,” I reply, as I squeeze into a smaller pair of trousers.
“Those do not fit you very well,” Cockroach says. “Come with me. I think I have something your size.”
“That is nice of you, but I am all set now.” I detest charity. I would prefer to steal than beg.
He insists that I follow him to his quarters, and I go halfheartedly. His room is clean and Spartan, a monk’s cell. Apart from a small wooden cross above the headboard of the bed, there is nothing on the walls. A sm
all dormer lets in a weak ray of light. He closes the door behind us, and I immediately feel ill at ease.
As he forages in the closet, a strange premonition tells me that something is fishy. He turns back, empty-handed, and sits next to me on the bed.
I try to move away from him. He is breathing heavily, and his eyes have taken on a strange look. This is getting very scary. I jump up, run for the door, hit the lock, and shoot down the stairs like a jackrabbit, not stopping until I am back in the classroom.
“What’s the matter with you, Pierre?” Hibou asks. “You seem very upset.”
“Nothing, sir. Just short of breath. I was running back too fast.”
For a while afterward, Cockroach would glance at me with a certain uneasy look. I did my best to avoid him altogether or, at the very least, not to look him straight in the eyes. A few weeks later, I noticed that he seemed overly friendly with another boy about my age. I firmly made up my mind that once I was out of this hated place, I would never return.
IN APRIL, Maman comes to the school and takes me out of my jail for an entire day.
We are going to see Grandfather Matisse.
Even in wartime, Grandfather is tremendously busy, consumed with his passion for art, and difficult to see. However, Maman never needs to worry about that. Grandfather Matisse always finds time for my mother.
In the rooms where Grandfather lives and works, there is a large aviary with lovely songbirds and doves, plants everywhere, tables loaded with sketches, and painting tools in curious ceramic pots. Shelves are tightly packed with books on every subject. The rooms are decorated with everything he needs to create art. I like this artistic environment, which projects a sense of organized comfort, both homey and secure.
“Welcome, welcome, Louise. Ha, Pierre, look how you have grown,” Grandfather Matisse says warmly.
He ushers us into his studio, where he has just finished a morning drawing session. I look around at the studio with its walls painted white, fascinated by the paintings and drawings spread everywhere. It probably isn’t very different from the day Grandfather Matisse gave me my color lesson nearly three years before, but at that time I was focused only on impressing him with my box of paints and not on my surroundings.
The Missing Matisse Page 12