Alex's Wake

by Martin Goldsmith

  Again, I experience that curious mix of excitement and sorrow that always seems to accompany any tactile evidence of my relatives’ existence. I cherish them because I possess so few items that speak to their once having lived, breathed, and walked this earth. Yet virtually everything I discover along this journey is another strand of the net that slowly but inexorably closed around them during their time in France. I hold the cards close and, when no one is looking, kiss them quickly, one after the other.

  Our final destination for the day is another public square in Montauban, this one dedicated to the memory of the French soldiers who fought in the wars of the twentieth century. There are separate monuments for each of the world wars, for Algeria, and for Vietnam. The square is dominated by a twenty-two-foot statue called Hope Chained, a monument dedicated to the thousands of people deported to their deaths in Eastern Europe during the 1940s. I am humbled and honored to learn that Jean-Claude has organized a small memorial service in memory of Alex and Helmut.

  From the files of the central police station of Montauban in 1940, the identity cards of Alex and Helmut. The father is listed as a salesman and a poultry farmer, the son as a student. Probably more important to the authorities, though, was the defining “J.”

  About two dozen people, alerted by a notice Jean-Claude placed in the local newspaper earlier in the week, have gathered in the square as the shadows of early evening begin to lower the temperature of a blazing afternoon. Jean-Claude has asked a local florist to deliver a basket of red, yellow, and white daisies, over which is a small red banner that reads, “For my grandfather Alex and my uncle Klaus-Helmut.” He has also brought along two flags on aluminum poles. He plants them in the grass on either side of the concrete path leading to the base of the Hope monument, the site of our little ceremony. Both flags are red, white, and blue: the French Tricolour and the American Stars and Stripes. The American flag was presented to Jean-Claude by his Osage friends in Oklahoma, and it incorporates an image of End of the Trail, the doleful sculpture by James Earle Fraser, into its design. While it seems odd in this context, I reflect that it’s not so inappropriate to recall the extermination of the Native American population when mourning the evil that humans have wrought.

  Shortly after 6 p.m., Jean-Claude says a few words in French, explaining what has brought Amy and me from America to join them this evening. He introduces Eugène Daumas, a member of the Tsigane, or Gypsy, population, who speaks briefly about the six thousand men, women, and children of his kind who were deported from France between 1940 and 1946. Then I hand the basket of flowers to Amy and, in halting English, tell the assembled of my conflicted feelings, of my anger at those Montaubanians of seventy-one years ago, of my bottomless gratitude to those gathered today, and of my particular gratitude to Jean-Claude and Monique for the honor and kindness they have shown my family on this memorable day. Amy and I walk to the base of Hope Chained, where we place the flowers and I whisper a few words to Alex and Helmut. The crowd slowly disperses into the warm evening. With no further words passing between us, Jean-Claude and I embrace.

  On Thursday morning, we four take a drive north and east of Montauban to the village of Septfonds. Locally, the town is renowned for the seven springs for which it is named and for its production of colorful straw hats. But beyond the immediate horizon, the name Septfonds has a far more malevolent meaning, one that Jean-Claude wants to be sure we learn. About two miles outside the town limits, we come upon an immaculately kept cemetery, the final resting place for eighty-one Spanish men and boys who crossed the border into France as refugees from the bloody Spanish Civil War. At a camp set up in Septfonds more than fifteen thousand men, women, and children lived in cramped, highly unsanitary conditions from early 1939 until the beginning of 1941, when the camp became a prison for Jews and other undesirables subject to the racial laws of the Vichy regime. The peaceful Spanish cemetery is its own memorial to the ordeal of the Spanish refugees. To find any mention of what happened to the Jews of Septfonds, we must get back into the car and drive several more miles over the rolling countryside.

  Fortunately, Jean-Claude knows the way, as there are no road signs. We soon come to a small, enclosed patch of field set off from the surrounding farmland by a low fence. Within is an empty replica of a barracks, modeled after the inadequate shelters provided to the thousands of Jews who survived here for months until they were shipped East. There is also a granite monument in the shape of a headstone, erected in memory of those interned and deported from here between 1939 and 1944.

  It’s a cloudy day with a cool breeze, a welcome relief after yesterday’s unrelenting sun. An almost complete silence prevails, broken only by the occasional bird song or the sound of the black-and-white cows mooing in an adjacent pasture. The four of us keep the silence, my thoughts a jumble of sadness for the long-dead victims and deep appreciation for the pastoral peace of the landscape.

  Next, we drive a few miles to the stunning medieval village of Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val, founded by the ancient Celts in the ninth century. We walk the narrow, winding streets, admiring old wooden doorways and stone gargoyles, the eleventh-century abbey, and a shop selling eighteenth-century clocks. In the market square, Jean-Claude shows us a centuries-old chopping block, complete with an iron sluice for the quick disposal of blood, where many generations of chickens met a sharp, quick end. Also in the square is a stone monument to the local partisans who contributed to the Resistance. I point it out to Jean-Claude who rolls his eyes, grimaces, and says emphatically, “Oh, yes . . . every village and town in France has erected a monument to their heroic Resistance fighters. With such brave people in every corner of France, how on earth did Philippe Pétain ever come to power?” It is a question for which he seems to know the answer, so I do not press him but vow to bring it up again later.

  By the time we return to Montauban in the late afternoon, the warm southern sun has reappeared. At Jean-Claude’s suggestion, we cross to the western side of the Tarn and drive through thinning traffic to the Avenue de Mayenne, a bedraggled little boulevard of shuttered shops and posters advertising athletic shoes and an upcoming outdoor concert by an Algerian rapper. We leave the car at an unused market square, walk half a block, and suddenly I am staring at the walls of what served for four weeks as my grandfather and uncle’s forced domicile seven decades ago. Above graffiti-covered sheet metal gates are red lacquered panels bearing the words “Émile Poult” and “Biscuits.” Above that are arched windows of green glass bordered by red and white bricks. A block and a half up the avenue is the railroad station. Again, I call upon my imagination to help me visualize an image from the past, to recreate the scene of Alex and Helmut trudging in a line of their fellow prisoners down the street from the station in October and then retracing those steps in November. But my eyes only reveal to me the soiled pavement, empty save for a discarded water bottle and an underfed terrier trotting along the gutter, sniffing the ground as he goes. Once again, I tell myself ruefully, I am too late.

  The abandoned Poult cookie factory on the Avenue de Mayenne in Montauban that served as Alex and Helmut’s forced domicile for a month in 1940.

  We walk around the corner, along the Rue Ferdinard Buisson, to an alleyway that leads to the rear of the abandoned Poult factory. Once again, we are blocked by a high metal gate, but it is possible to push a section aside and glimpse the courtyard where, presumably, the prisoners slept and took what little exercise was allowed them. The concrete floor of the enclosure has been pierced by weeds; everywhere are unmistakable signs of neglect and ruin. My relatives have moved on. There is nothing to do but go home.

  This evening, our last in Montauban, Jean-Claude pours us drinks on the patio of the Drouilhet home, accompanied by the family cat whom Jean-Claude insists has no name, although Monique cuddles the cat and calls it Chou-Chou, a term of endearment that literally means “cabbage cabbage.” After a dinner of chicken, pasta, and a local vintage, Jean-Claude recalls his pleasure at visiting his Osage fri
ends in Pawhuska and breaks into a vigorous solo performance of Oklahoma, “when ze wind comes right behind ze rain!” We all join in and then warble “Tonight” from West Side Story, “Fugue for Tinhorns” from Guys and Dolls, Elvis’s “Heartbreak Hotel,” and a few more show tunes and rock ballads, leaving me to reflect, not for the first time, how successful our musical exports have been in burnishing America’s reputation around the world.

  After the laughter dies down and the sun has long set, I remind Jean-Claude of his remark regarding the Resistance memorial in Saint-Antoine-Noble-Val. I observe that he’d sounded a bit cynical and wonder what he thinks of contemporary attempts to honor those who fought both the Nazi invaders and the French collaborators.

  Grinning a bit sheepishly, he replies, “I hope I never sound cynical where the Resistance is concerned. I do get a little impatient when officials today pretend no one collaborated and everyone resisted. That is simply not true and no amount of whitewashing will make it true . . . any more than trying to whitewash away your history of annihilating your native people will make that truth go away.”

  Jean-Claude pours himself a bit more wine and continues. “My father fought in a local Resistance group called Prosper, and so did my uncle. The Nazis captured my uncle and sent him to Buchenwald, and he never returned.” He looks at Monique and then back at me. “This is why I have been so eager to help you in your search for your relatives. Doing this research is a way for me to pay tribute to my father and my uncle and all Resistance fighters.” He pauses, takes another drink. “This is my heritage, you see. And it is my duty, as a Resistance man today, to help you and to show the respect which is due to the members of your family who suffered so much.”

  I hold Amy’s hand tightly, smile at Jean-Claude, and whisper, “Merci!”

  After a moment, Jean-Claude grins at Monique and says, “There is, after all, a history of Resistance here in Occitania. We still look fondly at those bullet holes from 1621 . . . for us, 390 years is not so long ago. And 1940 and 1942, that is only yesterday. We continue to resist today. Only last year an international seed and chemical company came here and tried to get our farmers to grow genetically altered corn. We resisted . . . and we won! We kicked the bastards out!”

  Jean-Claude jumps to his feet, walks rapidly inside, and returns a minute later with a well-thumbed book in his hand: an English edition of The Plague by Albert Camus. “Camus was born in Algeria, where I fought to stay alive for more than two years,” he says passionately. “He knew that the fight against fascism and racism and corporatism is never solely in the past, and never really over. That is what la peste, the plague, is . . . an enemy of humankind that may retreat from time to time but never is truly defeated.” He opens the book to the last page and reads aloud.

  “The plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; . . . it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests . . . it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city.”

  Jean-Claude closes the book, sits down, drains his glass. After a minute, we all stand, reluctantly acknowledging the late hour and the end of this long, intense day. We wish one another goodnight. As Jean-Claude and I clasp hands, he says to me with a rueful smile, “Tomorrow as you drive south, and for the rest of your time in Europe, and when you get back to America . . . watch out for rats!”

  I will, I assure him. I will.

  9

  Agde

  FRIDAY, MAY 27, 2011. Once more this morning the southern sun is shining with all its might. We enjoy a final breakfast with Jean-Claude and Monique and after several embraces, deep expressions of thanks, and invitations for them to visit us in Maryland the next time their travels take them to Oklahoma, we point our little Meriva south and resume our pursuit of Alex and Helmut. As I do whenever I get into the driver’s seat, I gently touch the photos of my relatives that remain affixed just above the rearview mirror; today I say aloud, “OK, guys . . . meet you on the shores of the Mediterranean!”

  Today we eschew the more scenic and colorful back roads in favor of speed and simplicity, sticking mainly to the limited-access autoroute system of expressways. From Montauban, we continue south and circumvent Toulouse, the onetime capital of old Occitania and now the fourth-largest city in France. Our route then takes us southeast. One of the glories of medieval architecture, the beautiful walled city of Carcassonne—a settlement with more than twenty-five hundred years of history spanning Romans, Visigoths, Saracens, Crusaders, the kingdoms of Aragon and France—lies before us on a hill in the arid plains of Languedoc. But we content ourselves with gazing at the storied fifty-two towers of the ancient battlements from a rest stop off the autoroute. Somehow, echoes of the romantic ballads of the troubadours who lived and loved in Carcassonne waft their way to us above the roar of a six-lane turnpike.

  At Narbonne, we have the choice of heading due south again, for Perpignan and Barcelona, or swinging northeast toward Montpellier and Avignon. I have always loved road signs, and seeing these lyrical names on the familiar green overhead indicators fills me with an excitement I cannot name. Continuing straight ahead is not an option, as we have reached the shores of the magical wine-dark Mediterranean Sea. Saving the southern direction for another day, we bear left on the A9, and after another twenty miles or so we leave the expressway for a two-lane road bound for Agde, in the departement of Hérault. We easily make our way through the tangled streets of the old city, head a bit farther south to Cap d’Agde, and find our hotel. Like our hotel in Chambon-sur-Lac in the Auvergne, our inn at Agde is called Le Bellevue. Again, we find that the name is more than apt. From our cozy little balcony, our view encompasses pastel stucco houses with red-tiled roofs, agave cactus and other graceful arid-soil plants, a hilly curving shoreline, gulls bringing a shock of white to a deep blue sky, and the azure and gentle waves of the Mediterranean itself.

  We have traveled from the North Sea to the south sea, from sea to shining sea, in the space of one week. It took Alex and Helmut eighteen months to make the same journey. Our transportation has been an air-conditioned car cruising along superhighways and meandering through sometimes gentle, sometimes spectacular countryside. They made the journey on a bus and then by train at the point of a gun. We’ve lived off the fat of the land. By the time they reached Agde, they were lucky to receive two small meals a day. Tonight we will sleep on a comfortable mattress in a fine hotel with the waves of the Mediterranean murmuring in our ears as we drift off to a peaceful slumber. They spent their two months three miles inland, sleeping on unyielding wooden planks in a barracks that was made of reinforced cardboard and was open to the wind and winter weather, in a field surrounded by barbed wire.

  I’m finding it very hard to stomach the contrast.

  THERE HAS BEEN A SETTLEMENT on this spot for more than twenty-five hundred years. The Greeks founded the city in the fifth century BC and named it Agathe Tyche, or “Good Fortune.” Its fortune came largely from the waters; for centuries, Agde was one of the busiest fishing ports in the Mediterranean. The city’s fish market is still dominated by a statue of Amphitrite, a sea goddess and the wife of Poseidon in Greek mythology. In the seventeenth century, Agde became the southern terminus of the Canal du Midi, an infrastructural wonder that connected the sea with the Atlantic Ocean one hundred fifty miles to the northwest, thus enabling travelers to save a month of travel time and to avoid the hostile Barbary pirates who lurked menacingly off the coast of Spain. Since 1697, Agde’s coat of arms has featured three blue waves on a golden background, the waves representing the confluence of sea, ocean, and canal. During the last forty years, the neighboring town of Cap d’Agde has been transformed into one of the shimmering playgrounds of the Mediterranean, with many high-rise hotels on its shore and yachts moored in the safety of its slips.

  As far as Alex and Helmut were concerned, the history
of Agde began in early 1939, when the first of nearly five hundred thousand refugees from the Spanish Civil War began to stream across the French border. In February 1939, the French government gave the order to build six new camps to house those refugees, most of whom had fled over the cloud-topped passes of the Pyrenees in freezing weather and now found themselves homeless and penniless in a foreign land. The new camps, mostly in the southwestern regions of France, included facilities in Gurs, Le Vernet, Argelès-sur-Mer, Rivesaltes, and Agde, which received its first convoy of Spanish refugees on February 28.

  Built to accommodate twenty thousand people, the Agde camp’s population grew to more than twenty-four thousand by the middle of May. It was situated on what was then the outskirts of town, bordering the old Route Nationale 110, the Rue de Sète, now known as the D912. The conditions were primitive and the food scarce, but the refugees felt fortunate to no longer be in the line of Generalissimo Franco’s fire. Among the inhabitants of the camp were Spanish artists who volunteered their services to paint colorful murals in the Agde City Hall and Spanish archaeologists who assisted in excavations that unearthed artifacts from the city’s ancient Greek heritage.

  In the summer of 1939, the French government offered the Spanish refugees three options for leaving the camp. They could join the French army and thus begin the process of becoming French citizens, they could return to Spain, or they could emigrate to Mexico. By late September, the refugees had made their choices and the Agde camp was nearly empty. But not for long. The previous year’s infamous Munich Agreement had delivered a part of Czechoslovakia—the region referred to by Adolf Hitler as the Sudetenland, or South Germany—to the expanding German empire. Tens of thousands of Czech citizens fled their homes. As part of its attempt to persuade the Czech government to accede to Hitler’s demands, the French government offered temporary shelter to some of those refugees. In the autumn of 1939, about five thousand displaced Czechs moved into the same barracks in Agde that had recently housed the Spanish refugees. Then in May 1940, the Agde camp’s population was increased by about fifteen hundred former citizens of Belgium who, like their Czech counterparts, had been displaced by the advancing German army. But after the signing of the armistice in June and with the assistance of the International Red Cross, the refugees slowly began returning home, and by late August the Agde camp was empty once more.