A shiver runs through me; I have goose bumps from head to toe. From the way he looks at me, I understand. Together, we are going to fight these rotten Boches.
Over the next week, strangers come to our home late at night. They stay a few moments, discuss something with Papa behind closed doors, then disappear into the night.
A FEW NIGHTS LATER, Papa asks me to give him a hand with a project in the cellar, so I follow him down the stairs. He walks over to a wall and says, “We’re going to make a hole in this wall.” The wall is dirt covered with brick and stone. Working together with a hand drill, sledgehammer, pick, and shovel, it doesn’t take long to break through and create a three-foot-by-three-foot hole.
“Take that basket, shovel the dirt into it, and bury it in the garden.”
I carry out Papa’s instructions quickly and return to the cellar. There is something beside him on the floor.
“That’s Charlot’s suitcase!” I exclaim.
“Who is Charlot, Pierre?” Papa snaps at me.
“I don’t know,” I reply, realizing my mistake and looking at the floor.
“That’s better,” Papa says more kindly. “One slip like that and we are dead. From this moment, put this firmly in your head: You see nothing, you hear nothing, you know nothing, you say nothing. Clear?”
My eyes tell him yes before the words come out. “I understand, Papa.”
By now, I know better than to ask questions. A doctor who is a friend of my parents has been arrested by the Gestapo. There has been no news from him since, and it is rumored that he has been executed. Other people have disappeared mysteriously, including an architect friend of the family.
In Nice, the Boches have rounded up a lot of Jews for deportation, but to where? Again, nobody knows, or if some do, they are not talking.
Papa opens the black suitcase, which contains a few pieces of underwear. Then he lifts the false bottom inside, revealing a shortwave radio. A side compartment inside the suitcase holds a small automatic pistol with a couple of clips. Papa puts the pistol and clips in his pocket, then we hide the suitcase in the opening in the wall. I spend the rest of the day piling up firewood in front of it.
SHORTLY LATER, I start school but look forward to the evenings at home when we gather around our regular radio to listen to the forbidden BBC broadcast messages, an ingenious cloak-and-dagger operation. The radios themselves are not illegal, but the program certainly is. During the broadcasts, coded messages are being sent, embedded in sentences, and Papa is concentrating, listening for certain things. I don’t know what the messages are, so I interpret them in my own imagination.
“Uncle Arthur has the smallpox.” Somebody must be sick.
“The strawberry jam was too sweet.” Gourmet food, my mouth is watering.
“Grandmama gave birth to a baby girl.” Family problems coming on the horizon.
“My sister is going swimming.” I’d like to go for a swim with her.
“We are running without rest or dreams.” That’s the war for you.
“Toward the paradise of my dreams!” That’s a line from Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire.
Zeee! . . . Brromm . . . Crac . . . Cheee! . . . The Boches don’t seem to appreciate Baudelaire’s poetry. They are jamming the transmission with static.
Papa swears as he turns the knob to another frequency. “They haven’t blocked this one yet, but it is coming in very weak.” Papa puts his ear to the speaker. The sound comes, then fades.
“The day will come.” Enigmatic and full of promises.
“Death to the cows.” Definitely threatening.
“The sound of the guns will roar at dawn.” Musical harmony.
“The beautiful girl is still waiting.” Maybe she is waiting for me, I think with a silly grin.
Then the sound is drowned out by static at full blast.
Day after day and night after night, we listen to the same sentences, which seem meaningless to me.
THEN ONE DAY after we have listened to the broadcast, Papa tells me, “Tomorrow you are not going to school. You are going to be sick and stay in bed all day. Try to sleep. We are going fishing tomorrow night.”
I can’t fall asleep, but I do stay in bed, only getting up to eat and make short trips to the bathroom. By a preplanned arrangement between Maman and Papa, she and Gérard are spending the night with some friends.
Papa comes to the attic and says, “It’s time.” We both dress in dark clothes, with black knit watch caps pulled down over our foreheads.
“We look good,” Papa comments dryly.
We slip silently out the back door and through the garden. We head for a small promontory by the seaside and follow the edge of the rocky beach to the small fishing harbor. Once in the harbor, we walk straight to the jetty, wait for a few minutes, and move until we are hidden in the shadow of a big crate.
There is no one around. A passing cloud obstructs the quarter moon, and I become uneasy. Am I scared? No way! I am a pirate. However, I whisper to my father, “What if we are caught?”
“The gendarmes know, so we won’t be caught. We just don’t want anyone else to know, especially the neighbors.”
The moon is emerging from the clouds, and my courage grows stronger when I see it.
I feel a light tap on my shoulder. “Let’s go. Stay in the shadows.” Papa walks toward the end of the pier, where an old, half-rotted dark blue boat is tied ashore with equally rotten ropes.
“Bad choice. This one is pretty rotten,” I dare to point out.
“That’s the one we are taking. Jump in and get the oars in the gunwale. We are taking her out,” Papa commands.
Once aboard I feel safe.
Papa unties her, and we quietly row out to sea, headed for the no-good fishing spot. It seems like we row forever, much longer than in the daytime. My arms are aching. The rocking of the boat makes me slightly seasick. Finally, from the dark shore, we see a faint light that appears on starboard, coming from a house on shore.
“We’re close. Take a bearing on that window, Pierre.”
Again, clouds shroud the moon. The Cap’s outline disappears on the horizon.
Papa is not pleased that we have to wait.
From time to time, the clouds part and enough moonlight hits the Cap for us to check our position. We are at the right place. Slowly, the hours pass by.
“They are not coming tonight,” Papa laments. We row back just before sunrise and moor the boat.
A WEEK LATER, it’s the same story with the same boat. We spend a night on the sea with no results. Ten days later, we try again, to no avail. A month later, we are in the same position at the appointed time. The blue boat with its peeling paint is gently rocking in the swell, under the quarter moon.
This time something happens. A strange, gurgling noise approaches out of the darkness. Low on the water, a submarine suddenly appears!
There is hardly a sound, as she is running on battery power. My heart races. Whoa! This is exciting. We row toward the drifting sub.
A hatch opens, and I see men coming out. A line is cast, I grab it, and they pull us in close. No one says a word. Three men in civilian dress, each carrying a suitcase, board our small vessel.
“Cast off!” someone says.
Once we are a safer distance away, the sub disappears into the night.
“Straight on, for our house,” Papa orders the crew.
Papa and the three men handle the oars, and I’m at the tiller. When the wind picks up and the sea starts getting choppy, we take on water.
“Gentlemen, please move toward the center and bail. The Mediterranean is quite unpredictable,” Papa says. Morning is coming too fast for our liking, and the men row like mad.
“We have to get there before sunrise. Row harder,” Papa commands.
The waves are higher, and we are taking on more water than we can bail.
“Everybody out!” Papa says. “We will have to swim. The house is just across from our landing spot. There.” P
apa points it out for the three men. I keep the boat steady with the oars while Papa removes the rudder and helps the men quickly plunge into the water with their suitcases.
When I start to get up and follow them, Papa says, “Pierre, stay with me. There is no time to moor the boat. We have to scuttle her.”
We are far enough from shore for the current to take it away, so Papa rams an oar through the boat’s rotten hull and sinks her before we swim back to the beach.
By the time we reach the beach, where the men have been waiting, I feel as if I am dragging chains with every step, and I’m shivering in my wet clothes.
“We’re lucky it’s still dark,” Papa whispers.
Finally, we are home, soaked to our bones, but safe. One of the gentlemen opens his suitcase and says, “Cigarettes, Jean?”
Papa’s eyes grow large as he looks inside—it’s as if he is seeing a pirate’s treasure. “Gauloises? Where did you get Gauloises?”
“We have everything, Jean.” From now on, this man will be Monsieur Gauloises to me.
“Yes, we live like kings!” the tallest of the three men jokes.
“Travel first class, too,” the blond one says with a grin.
Monsieur Gauloises offers me a bar of Spanish chocolate from the suitcase. I haven’t experienced this luxury for years.
“Thank you. I’ll keep half for my brother.”
“Here is one for your brother, my friend,” he says with a smile.
Before I can open my mouth to thank him, the blond man grabs the chocolate bars out of my hands.
“It’s always the same thing with you, taking stupid risks,” he says angrily to Monsieur Gauloises. “You were told not to have anything on you at all. That is a strict regulation.” The blond one is mad as a hornet. He unwraps the chocolate and hands the treat back to me without the paper wrapper.
“Eat it. It’s all right, but not a word about this to anybody.” He wads the wrapper up into a small ball and throws it at Monsieur Gauloises.
“Burn it right away, idiot.”
“The kid is safe,” my father reassures the blond one.
I stuff both bars in my mouth like a ravenous wolf while they all watch me. The tension is broken when Papa bursts out laughing and the others join in.
I go into the kitchen to make coffee with the roasted black beans. We light the furnace and strip down. I string clotheslines in every room. The insides of some of the suitcases have gotten wet, so we also hang French and German banknotes on the line to dry.
“What is that?” I ask one of our guests, who is separating items from a pile of metal parts.
“A car jack,” someone answers.
“It’s actually a Sten submachine gun,” explains the tall one, drying the components with a rag.
“We have something else for you, Jean.”
Monsieur Gauloises hands a package wrapped up in a green, greasy, heavy paper to my father. Inside is a Thompson submachine gun. Things are taking an interesting turn. After Papa examines it, he hands it to me. I had only seen this kind of weapon in the movies, and after our long night at sea, eventually I fall asleep on the sofa with the Thompson lying in my lap.
I DON’T WAKE UP until late the next afternoon. Papa is sitting in the living room, enjoying a Gauloises. The Thompson is on the table, loaded.
“Eat something, Pierre. Those gentlemen have left some hot chocolate for you.”
Hot chocolate. How wonderful.
“Where are our guests, Papa?”
“Still sleeping upstairs.”
“When are they leaving?”
“As soon as the weather permits. This time, we need a dark and stormy night.”
Papa gets his wish a couple of days later. Two of our guests leave late during the night in a torrential storm that not even a dog would be caught in. A day later, I guide the blond one in broad daylight to the railway station. Who would have guessed that they were British spies? They are all different nationalities—possibly Czech, Hungarian, and Turkish.
A week later they are nothing but a memory, with no evidence of their visit apart from the Thompson and the Gauloises cigarettes. They leave no traces, no names, nothing.
THERE IS NO MORE FISHING for quite a while. Life returns to normal—that is, war normal. Papa has smoked all of the cigarettes, but he now sleeps with the Thompson under his bed, and a coil of heavy rope is permanently on the floor beneath the half-open window for a quick escape.
One afternoon while Papa and I are in the studio, I take a piece of paper and draw a rowboat in a rough sea with five men aboard. I hold it up and am pleased with how it looks, realistically capturing our last expedition. Papa glances over to see what I am doing and rips it out of my hands, shouting, “Are you crazy? There must be no evidence of what has taken place here. Do you have that straight, little fool?”
“Yes,” I say quietly.
“You write and illustrate your world-famous novel when the war is finished,” Papa says, giving me a kind smile. “Okay?”
I nod, understanding completely.
The war is distorting everything. It’s like life is on hold until the war is finished or until we are all gone because we have starved to death—whichever comes first.
But it doesn’t seem like the war will end any time soon. Benito Mussolini (Il Duce), the Fascist prime minister of Italy, has been Hitler’s buddy since the summer of 1940 and decides that he wants to expand his holdings in France. He sends the Italian army to occupy the French Riviera. These days we have the Gestapo undercover, a few of our own foreign guests running around, and now, the Macaronis (Italians), who think they run the place.
We hear from our secret BBC programs that the Boches are getting a licking in Russia. One evening we catch a Russian shortwave broadcast that mentions the French underground doing anti-German activities in our immediate area.
“We’re getting famous,” I proudly declare to Papa.
“Or infamous,” he says with a frown.
15
HUNGER AT THE DINING TABLE
An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
THE FOOD SITUATION is getting worse. Even the black market’s supplies are dwindling. Ever since we moved to the Cap, Papa and I have been able to put some fish on the table, but now there are no fish to be found.
“Merde! There are no fish in this cesspool. I told your mother that we should have gone to the Atlantic coast. She never listens.” Papa, who rarely swore before, is using bad language regularly.
With very few cigarettes available anymore, Papa’s mood, like everything else, is worsening. Something else is happening that disturbs me. Maman and Papa, who have always been so loving toward each other, are quarreling quite often. My mother is doing her best to accommodate everyone’s needs, which is not an easy task.
Gérard doesn’t complain too much, and neither do I. Come to think of it, nobody does, at least not away from the dining table. Unfortunately, at the table, everybody’s nerves are on edge and dangerously close to exploding.
Every meal is a volatile ordeal that begins with an empty plate in front of each one of us. Maman silently serves whatever meager food she has been able to gather. She fills our plates according to the government allocations, slightly modified to her interpretation.
“Why does Pierre always have a full plate?” Gérard asks.
“Because he is a J3,” Maman answers.
“I am hungry too,” Gérard says. I am quiet, but I understand where he is coming from.
“This is ridiculous. I don’t believe that Pierre should have so much to eat,” Papa says bitterly.
Maman ignores his comment and calmly continues to serve us. She puts a hard-boiled egg on my plate, the only one on the entire table.
“Where did you get that egg?” Papa asks.
“I got it with Pierre’s coupon.”
“What about Gérard’s coupon? And what about yours?”
“They have already been spent
.”
The tension is mounting, and I am getting uncomfortable.
“What about you, Louise? There isn’t anything on your plate!” Papa points with an accusing finger.
“I gave my portion to Pierre and Gérard, Jean. Besides, I’m not hungry.”
“This is intolerable! From now on, I’m distributing the food here. You get that?”
“No, you are not!” Maman screams.
The fight is on. My stomach is turning into a vinegar container, and I can’t swallow a bite.
“What do you mean I’m not? I’ll show you who the boss is around here!” he shouts.
“Jean, that’s enough!” Maman screams five octaves higher.
I stare in disbelief. Papa is raising his hand to slap Maman.
“I dare you . . . just once! Do you understand?” Maman isn’t backing down an inch. She stands there, defying him with a menacing finger.
Papa has met his match. His hand falls limp on the table. “Mon Dieu,” he says sadly.
“Eat, Pierre!” Maman commands me, with tears in her eyes.
That evening I go to bed realizing that war can even come between a man and a woman who love each other very deeply.
I HAVE BEEN HELPING Papa with his underground activities, but I also assist Maman on some shopping expeditions.
“Pierre, listen to me, we are going to fool the butcher. Then we are going to do the same thing to the grocer and finally in the boulangerie (bakery). You remember our chauffeur, Jacques?”
“Yes, Maman, I loved him very much. Are we going to steal food?”
“Never in our life. Where did you get the idea that we are thieves?” she says, upset at my insolence.
“But Monsieur Jacques . . .” I say, before she cuts me off.
“We are only going to chisel the system, Pierre; just a little bit. Almost like Monsieur Jacques, but not quite so outrageously. We are going to call this strategy ‘Monsieur Jacques goes shopping.’”
Before we leave the house, Maman paints my face with makeup. I look pale, like a corpse; the only color on my face is smudges of dark gray blue under my eyes. In my too-small clothes, my slimness is exaggerated. The plan is for Maman and her dying child to bring tears to the most hard-hearted shop owner’s eyes.
The Missing Matisse Page 15