by Nadia Gould
And my torment began. I had to share everything—my parents, my life with a complete stranger. She was pretty, and that didn’t help. I was totally unprepared for this newest turn of events. My parents had no time to be concerned with my feelings at that moment, they had much bigger worries. A ball of resentment invaded me and kept growing and growing. I hated Lilo.
The Germans were entering the free zone, and my father announced we had to go, but he was still waiting to get news of the guide who had taken our friends into Spain. I was hoping, that if we left, we would also leave Lilo behind to wait for her boat. My parents didn’t know what to do about Lilo. She had a visa, and if her boat came she would be saved, while we had no visas, and who knows where we would end up once we escaped. To my dismay, Lilo insisted she wanted to stay with us. She didn’t care about the dangers we would face as long as we were together. She could not bear another separation, and she was frightened by the chaos that reigned in the house next door where the Jewish children had been left on their own. They went wild without adult supervision. Then a bully, a young boy, took charge of the children and was abusing them. Lilo begged my parents to keep her with us.
I was consumed by rage and had no one to tell my misery. Everything my parents did intensified my anguish. They treated Lilo with special care and ignored me, or so I thought. They put Lilo on their passport as their daughter so she could leave France with us. I took it as a sign of a legal adoption, even though I knew the passports were false anyway. And all that time, too, I was expected to be extra good to Lilo “my new sister!” I hated her. I liked her only when she was bad, and I wanted her to be nasty so my parents would be sorry they had kept her. Sometimes I liked her and felt all the more upset to realize she could be liked. There was no solution to the situation as far as she was concerned.
She was a pretty girl with light yellow hair, blue eyes and a turned-up nose. She had personality too. I hated her. When strangers thought she was my parents’ real daughter and I the adopted one. I wanted her dead. But she remained there with us, full of life and beauty.
Chapter 7
Spain: Illegal Border Crossing Through the Pyrennees 1942
My father decided we couldn’t wait any longer. We’d have to use the same guide. There was nothing else for us to do. Mr. and Mrs. Muchell were going with us. He was a business acquaintance of my father, tall, robust with lacquered hair parted in the middle. She had coal black hair and her face was white covered with powder. Her lips were red like cherries, her lashes, long and thick. She wore shoes with soles thicker than most shoes of the war period. We were on our way to escape through the mountains, and she was dressed in a low-necked black lace dress. Everything about Madame Muchell was bigger than life. Lilo and I exchanged looks. This was going to be a promising outing. And for a moment, I forgot my anguish about Lilo.
We met at the railroad station of Perpignan the guide who was to take us to Spain. He had his fifteen-year-old son with him. Lilo and I were pleased about that. I was sure the boy would be interested in me because I was older and more mature than Lilo.
We took a train to reach the village closest to the border and to find the nearest mountain trails to cross the frontier. These trails were well traveled then. Many people had been passing through, but the guide told us we were the last ones to cross now. This would be his last trip: it was becoming too dangerous for him to take any more people.
We walked an entire day through the woods. It was a sunny day, we were having fun—Lilo, the guide’s son and I. I was sure the boy was in love with me. Didn’t the young man in Cassis say I was beautiful? But I had to admit to myself that Lilo, too, had charm. But I kept pushing these thoughts in the back of my mind.
Monsieur Muchell had trouble walking. He whined and stopped every five minutes to adjust his shoes, which pinched him. He also had to remove pebbles from his socks. We thought he was funny and laughed at him. Madame Muchell, however, was as graceful as a swan coasting with her high platform shoes. So except for Monsieur Muchell our excursion was enjoyable.
At nightfall, the guide said, “You are in Spain and we have to leave you.” We were in Spain and delirious. Saved! The adults tore up their French papers and threw them like confetti in the air. “Ah! To be in Spain!” We danced and clapped our hands. I thought to myself, this is my first foreign country. I had never been outside of France before.
We felt we could grasp the bright stars hanging above our heads, we were so close to the sky on the mountaintop. My mother was taking out of her bag the condensed sweet milk she had been carrying and said, “Let’s treat ourselves!”
Madame Muchell let her long black hair fall down on her shoulders. She put on a dazzling maroon taffeta gown with bouffant sleeves, a very tight waist, flowing material down to the ankles. She was a sight by the moonlight. She took a huge jar out of her bag, opened the jar and jabbed into it, and slowly massaged her face with the white cold cream. Lilo and I began to laugh hysterically non-stop. We rolled in the grass with contortions of laughter. For that instant I forgot how much Lilo bothered me.
Cowbells awakened us that first morning we thought we were safe in Spain. We saw the cows, accompanied by a man and woman coming our way. My father addressed the couple in Spanish. The man answered in French. “My poor man,” he said, “Imagine, we come to check on our cows only once every six months, and I have to tell you, you are not in Spain. Spain is far over there. There are no trails only big ravines to cross. Watch out for the French police. They have mean dogs. It is fate that we are here today to warn you, you are in France. Ah! What terrible news to give you.”
As soon as they had left us, Monsieur Muchell announced, “I can’t go on. My heart is giving up. I am not moving. I don’t care if I have to die here. Go without me!” Madame Muchell, whose face had turned gray, went up to her husband and slapped him hard. “Get a hold of yourself,” she said. The whack made him regain his senses as if he had come out from under a hypnotic spell. He apologized and remained quiet. Lilo and I were ready to laugh he looked so pitiful and funny, but we were too upset. My father red with anger was shouting: “Look here, Monsieur Muchell, if you are coming with us, I don’t want to hear another word out of you. No more crying. No more complaining and from now on you obey my orders.” Madame Muchell promised that her husband would behave from then on. She would see to it, she said.
Straightaway my father tried to cut the bushes to clear a pathway but it was a hopeless task, with only his small pocketknife as a tool. Part of the way he had to carry Lilo or me over his head so we wouldn’t get scratched with the pointed bristles that surrounded us on all sides. We heard dogs barking in the distance and the sound of our breathing. It was hard to imagine we would ever go through these impassable gullies. My father was bent on seeing us go to the other side and he would not let us rest. He pressed us to move forward in the direction he had been told was Spain. Our clothes were torn and our exposed faces, legs and arms soon were bloodied.
Through the sheer determination of my father we made it to the other side of the ravine. Monsieur Muchell had been silent. We were thirsty and exhausted.
When we came out into an open field with the sun still glowing, although it was late afternoon, we saw the police waiting for us. I knew they were the Spanish police because they wore a uniform I had never seen before. Their black patent leather hat looked like upside down kitchen pans to me. To see them meant relief and that we were really in Spain.
They frisked us and took from the grownups the money and rare stamps they were carrying. Then they accompanied us to the closest village called Espolia. As we were walking they pointed out the views of the countryside they wanted us to notice. They treated us as if we were ordinary tourists. They complimented my father on his Spanish and handled us with great solicitude. It was only as we reached the village that they became formal and readjusted their shotguns. Then it became clear we were their prisoners.
It was sunset and all was quiet. The villagers had gone insid
e. We could see the oil lamps on the tables through the open windows. The guards took us to the house of a woman who was standing on her doorsteps, expecting us. She led us inside the old farmhouse. I thought to myself that this was the house of fairy tales of the ogre who wants to eat people but his wife will save us from his evil plans. The table was set with huge soup plates. A soup was simmering on the wood stove. We were famished we had had no food since the condensed milk my mother had given us the night before on the mountain when we were still in France and we thought we were in Spain. It seemed in the distant past already. The woman poured red wine in enameled cups. She tore a peasant bread into pieces and placed them near the plates. She said, “Eat! While it is hot!” as she served us a soup of carrots, potatoes, green vegetables and large marrowbones covered with tender meat. Because of the war we had not eaten like this for a long time in France. The woman looked pleased to see us stuff ourselves so voraciously. The wine went to our heads and cheered us. We were having a good time. Monsieur Muchell, very drunk, threw up before his meal was over. He made the guards laugh and even our hostess who had to clean after him. All the lights were out when the police escorted us out to night’s lodgings. We couldn’t see our feet as we walked. As soon as they locked us up we were overcome by a foul stink. Monsieur Muchell’s continuous vomiting made the stench all the more repulsive but we were so tired that in spite of the foul air we slept on what we assumed was hay. The next morning we were awakened by grunts and then we saw pigs watching us through a fence. We had spent our first night in Spain in a pigsty. I remember thinking no one will ever believe me when I tell them.
The guards told us we were being moved to the town of Figueras because there was a regular jail there. As we walked through the unpaved streets of Espolia, the people waved and smiled at us. I felt I was experiencing life as if this was like during the French Revolution. I thought that the people in the streets knew we were innocent even though we were surrounded by the police with their guns pointed in our direction. We took a bus, and the conductor ordered fellow passengers to give up their seats to the police and the prisoners. As new passengers boarded the bus they were surprised to see us, but they smiled and made us feel brave. I was wondering why should we be in such a predicament? What had we done?
In Figueras, we found my parents’ friends whose news we had been waiting for, for so long before we left Marseille. There they were at the police station where we were ourselves because the regular prison was full. The real jail as described by the people who had to stay in the police station sounded like a resort. There you had a cot to yourself and a regular routine with activities, while in the police station you had to be crushed like sardines into one room, with no facilities and nothing to do. I found myself regretting that we weren’t in the real prison that people talked about. The women and children were put in one room, the men in another. There were benches attached around the walls of our cell but nothing else. We were too numerous to lie down on the floor at the same time, so we had to take turns just as we had to take turns sitting on the benches.
The food was good: vegetable soup and bananas. We had not seen bananas for a long time. We met people from Holland and Belgium. Some were non-Jews, and there was a pregnant woman who had two big boys with her. We were not comfortable but the conversations kept us entertained. We stayed in the police station about fifteen days—miserable crowded days, and yet I don’t remember having been unhappy. Some people had been allowed to stay in a small hotel across the way from the police station. They came to visit us and brought us sweets and news from the outside. There were rumors that the authorities would be putting us in the real prison. We thought they couldn’t keep us forever in the police station. They needed room for Spanish prisoners, too. My mother worried about having taken Lilo with us. “She might have been on her way to America by now had she stayed and waited for her boat.” My mother kept saying. But Lilo insisted that she was happy to be with us and it didn’t matter that we were in jail. As it happened, her boat never reached Marseille anyway.
There were the two brothers with whom we could play cards and other games. We, the children, had the feeling on being in a train rather than in jail.
Then the prisoners had to appear before a judge. This was good. We were told that we had to be sent back to the border to obtain the correct entry visa into Spain. It was the only way they could make our stay in Spain legal until we caught the boat that was to take us to Latin America. That we were not required to have an exit visa from France was great news.
We had to leave the police station and I felt anxious—our situation in the police station had had its safe surroundings. Not everyone had received the same ruling by the judge. Some people were made to wait until they had room for them in the proper prison or camp. I wished then that I could have gone to the real prison.
We were transported by bus to the border on no man’s land. “Watch out for the French,” the Spanish guards told us. “They arrest you if you are on French soil. Get your entry visa as soon as possible, otherwise you’ll have to sleep out.” It was becoming cold and beginning to rain.
We could get an entry visa to Spain if we had and entry visa to another country. We had our false entry visa to Colombia. My father was pleased he had made the visas himself and we could be among the first in line for the entry visa into Spain. Everyone on that line felt relieved and lucky to be on the fast line. We were to be legal soon and on our way to freedom!
A young woman with arrogant good looks was ahead of us. She entered the office of the Commissar and we didn’t see her come out. The Commissar’s assistant announced that his boss was finished seeing people for the night. Not to worry, we would be the first in line tomorrow morning. All we needed were our entry visas for our next destination and boat tickets.” My father blanched when he heard boat tickets. He kept saying, “Why? Why didn’t I think to make boat tickets? That would have been easy!”
We had to get back into the cold. We were now with my parents’ friends. Our relations with the Muchells had become strained and more distant. The Muchells were on their own. We were cold and wet, quivering birds getting shelter under the trees also wet. The night was long and we couldn’t sleep. We heard the noises of owls and nocturnal animals crawling live in the grass, and we watched the first light of the day slowly pierce through the fog. In the distance, we saw Madame Muchell coming out of the Commissar’s cottage. She waved her passports triumphantly and shouted, “I did it! I have my papers!” She came close to my mother and she said, “Sleep with him and you’ll get your papers!” My mother couldn’t believe what she heard. Later she told me, Madame Muchell has served all of us well. She reasoned the Commissar had his satisfaction so she had to think of another approach. And that would be to take us, the children, to the Commissar and appeal to him as a mother.
We entered the cabin of the Commissar, and his assistant smiled and winked at us. He whispered, showing the closed door, that the Commissar was still sleeping. He said he would prepare the papers so that he would have only to sign the forms when he woke up. He made us sit near the woodstove to get dry. We dozed near the fire, sorry that our menfolk couldn’t share the warmth of that strong fire.
The Commissar came out stretching, yawning. His assistant ran to him with a cafe con leche prepared beforehand as well as all our documents, which needed his signature. As the assistant had predicted the papers were signed instantly and we were free! We had permission to stay in Spain until the departure of our boat from Vigo.
We walked to the nearest town and I remember that the people were poor. The people were cooking outdoors on grills. Now we were on our own without armed guards, no longer refugees running away from the Germans. The people were very kind and offered us whatever they had to eat. Everything was happening outside in public on the sidewalks: children getting haircuts, grandmothers peeling potatoes while the radio was playing very loud, the men sitting and talking with drinks. This was the first time I saw street life, which much late
r I recognized in Central America and in Mexico.
The Jewish Committee helped us with money. We went to Madrid and to Vigo by train.
In Vigo we didn’t have much to do, Lilo and I. My parents were busy seeking out people who might take us illegally to Portugal. We had to get out of Spain before the boat to Colombia left Vigo. This was uppermost in our minds. On our way to Vigo from Madrid we met a Spanish family on the train who were also going to take the same boat. But they were going legally. They were friendly and excited to learn we would be traveling together to the New World. We couldn’t tell them the truth—we wouldn’t be going—alas! When we met them again in town—Vigo was a small port—we were embarrassed. We had to promise that we would dine together on board the ship. We met often. It was pitiful for us because we were beginning to like the idea of our being on that boat with these friendly people.
I was thrilled to be in Vigo, a busy foreign port city, a new culture and I saw that people survived in it. It was remarkable. As a typical French child I had believed that France was the only worthwhile country on the earth. I truly couldn’t imagine people existing outside of France. Spain was a revelation: people speaking Spanish, eating Spanish food, thinking Spanish thoughts; wearing black clothes, laughing, working and being kind—so kind to strangers. I knew they had lost their Revolution and I felt for them because the French Revolution meant a lot to me. I was glad I had helped the Spanish refugees who had escaped to France when I collected money for them.