The Children's War

by Monique Charlesworth

  She nodded. He came nearer and gave it to her: a handsome young man with bright blue eyes and a strong chin, the sort of face she had seen a thousand times before, the face of her schoolmates in Wuppertal. The truck took off again with a roar. Waking from her paralysis, Ilse looked down and saw the German chocolate in her hand. She put it in the pocket of her coat.

  In the suburbs, the empty streets betrayed signs of panic: cars abandoned, suitcases dropped, doors gaping open. A mattress lay in the middle of one road with a pillow and folded blanket resting neatly on one end as if waiting for its occupant. Passing a bar, Ilse heard a snatch of German: “Paris is calm,” a familiar voice said. It was the rich, reasonable sound of the Voice of Germany. As they walked on, she heard music swell up.

  “Wagner,” said Otto with his most ironic smile.

  She was desperately thirsty again and hot. Among many resentments Ilse numbered the fact that, with her father there, she could not go into a church. They passed several. Tired as she was, she had a yearning to sit where it was cool and pray and go through her little routine. The sun beat on her head, which ached all the time. Eventually she stopped to rest. Her father looked at her with the look she could never fathom. Perhaps he was annoyed with her. Was she the burden he almost, but never quite, had the nerve to shake off? She shook with a rage so deep that for a time she could not speak.

  “What is it? What’s the matter?” He said it in a kindly way. “You’re tired. Shall we rest a little longer?”

  She shook her head. They went on. Very few people were on the streets here. Once a German motorbike went thundering past and they jumped to get out of the way, then a truck passed, then four more bikes. When the sound of their engines died away abruptly just up ahead, Otto held up a hand, told her to wait with the suitcases in the garden of a villa. He would go and see what was going on.

  Her feet hurt; they had been walking for four or five hours. Ilse stumbled through the ornate gate. The house was quite large, painted blue with green shutters. She went round the side and lay down on the grass in the shade to rest and looked at the flowers that belonged to another, happier world. Albert was sitting in an English garden, with a pale-skinned beauty who, when she smiled, revealed her bad teeth. He was flirting with her. She turned to the sky and let it scorch her.

  Otto returned. “It’s a roadblock,” he said. “They are stopping everyone. Nobody is being let through.”

  “What do we do?”

  “There’ll always be another way.”

  She followed him round to the back of the house. The villa seemed to be abandoned; Otto kicked the door open. They went in and drank and drank the water until they were satisfied. Then they sat at the kitchen table and ate, helping themselves to preserves from the larder and butter, and a couple of pieces of the German chocolate. With the taste of her childhood dissolving in her mouth, she watched her father. A dog whined at the door; when Ilse told it to come in, it ran away.

  “What happened to the people who live here?”

  “Panicked, probably, when they saw all the Parisians coming through.”

  He went out to scout the area.

  In the big upper bedroom with a mahogany bed, Ilse knelt in front of the little plaster saints on the shelf sheltering in their red and blue cloaks and wished she knew their names.

  “Dear Lord,” she prayed, “keep Lore Blumenthal safe and I will always honour you. And Otto Blumenthal.” God could not know who all these little people were, so she used their proper names. It struck her that this was the first time she had included her father in her prayers. She lay on the bed, then got up to keep watch from the window. After quite a long time a German soldier passed with a rifle. She saw the dog she had invited in before, the last dog in Paris. It started to bark. The German took aim. Ilse jumped to her feet, screamed, “Nein!” Did he hear? He turned and looked at the house. Then he walked on. Five minutes later she heard the sound of a shot. She was rigid.

  A moment afterwards, her father returned. “I can see a way,” he said.

  She did not dare ask him about the shot. They went downstairs. He led her through the garden of a white villa, piling the suitcases up to help her climb the fence, then pushing them over, letting them fall to the other side and scrambling over himself as best he could. She heard the clunk of the gun in his pocket against the wooden fence, worried that it might go off and wound him. They went through half a dozen gardens and alleyways, once through the back door of a house to come out on the other side. It was nearly dark. After a while, he said they had passed the roadblock. Now they needed to go as fast as they could. They heard the occasional roar of a military motorbike. They walked on, disappearing into doorways at any traffic noise.

  Around midnight, a lorry rumbled up behind. Otto went into the middle of the road, stretched out his arms wide. The headlamps lit up his face, his scalp shone under the fuzz of his hair. At the last moment it stopped. Ilse spoke to the man driving, a deserter, for he wore half uniform and half normal clothes. She asked where he had come from, wanting to know where the fighting was. But he misunderstood, said that he came from the Dordogne and wanted to get home fast. He was quite young, short and stocky, and spoke with a thick accent Ilse could just about puzzle out. He said he would give them a ride for five hundred francs. She conferred in whispers with Otto, who said that they had no choice. He got Albert’s money out, then took it back and tore the notes in half. Ilse held one half out to the soldier, who pocketed it. “At the other end,” she said. He understood.

  They climbed up into the back, where a woman lay and a very old man sat bent almost double. The driver had chalked a message on the back of the lorry, a military one that he had presumably appropriated: VENDU PAS VAINCU. Later, Ilse thought, she would explain to Otto that this meant “betrayed not beaten.” She wondered who the betrayer had been. The woman lay very still holding a little bundle of blanket that probably had a baby in it, though Ilse did not care to look for it never moved or cried. It was a bad night to be born; all over France babies were dying. Perhaps some were refusing to be born. She herself with deliberation looked outwards, all the time.

  They were jerked about, the lorry went so fast and swerved so much. Often, though, the driver spotted something in the road and braked suddenly, jumping down and looking for useful items, heaving the odd suitcase into the back, discarding shirt and then trousers for a better pair. He took his time about it, sifting through all kinds of objects. Each time, he would throw off a remark, saying words she could not understand. Perhaps he was explaining himself to himself. He picked up a pram and a bicycle, half a dozen mattresses and many suitcases. Ilse and Otto dragged the mattresses flat, so they could lie on them, trying to make the woman comfortable. They had been hot all day. Now it was cool. One time he stopped and filled his cap with apricots from somebody’s trees and as they drove he ate them, grimacing and spitting out the ones that were not good. Ilse watched through the glass panel as he put them in his mouth and then spat fruit or stone through the open window. He stopped at a café, smashed the window in and came back with a whole case of wine. Nobody seemed to care about anything anymore. Otto went in after him and came back with bottles of lemonade, which he handed round. Ilse and the old man drank eagerly. Another “fuyard”33 in uniform charged at them out of a side street and climbed into the cab, wrestling at the wheel and thinking to take the lorry away from the driver. With sidelong worried glances at one another, the passengers watched the two men scuffle and swear, the usurper desisting only when threatened with a gun. They drove off. The driver was drinking wine now.

  Desperate men and women tried to flag them down, begging for a lift. Their driver honked and kept going, swerving wildly so anyone trying to jump up on the back was forced to leap out of the way. The road was an obstacle course. Cars stood with their doors open and carts stacked with things lay at crazy angles. Some people were mad and screaming, and some quiet and some, it seemed, dead. Ilse stared at the mattresses abandoned on the road and
carts attached to dead horses and people lying down, little children who had not run fast enough. They passed many scores of men and women who were sitting down and looking as if they could not go any farther. Most just kept on going, pushing prams or carts laden high. One family rode in a hearse.

  It grew much quieter as dusk fell. Once, though it happened with such slowness that it felt as though it was not happening to her, a Stuka flew low over the slow column, the heavy drone retreating only to return with bursts of fire that did not seem to hit anyone before it flew, dreamily, away. Night came. She saw that her father—fitfully visible in the flare of a match—did not sleep, but sat hunched to one side and separate from the others. Through her slits of eyes, she was aware that his gaze rested upon her more and more frequently. It took a long time to place the emotion, but eventually Ilse understood it. He was worried about her. He did know that she was a child, his child; he did know that she was scared. It was just that he had no idea of what he himself felt about her.

  The lorry had come to a stop. The driver stood beside it, talking quietly at her in his difficult French. He sounded annoyed, but he also smiled at her. She struggled to make out what he was saying. They had run out of petrol. She had to get out, to come down to where he was. He was swaying from side to side. It was hard, very hard, even to open her eyes. Stiffly, Ilse climbed down. She stood in the road, yawning, cold. The sky was very clear; the faintest rim of light lit the horizon. Among dozens of stars there was one bright one. She pulled at and got out her little case and put it under her arm. She was waking up. The woman with the baby bundle had gone. She waited for her father to get out. When he didn’t, she climbed back up and looked around. There was nobody left on the lorry.

  Sliding back down, she fell into the arms of the driver who pinned her against the tailgate and jammed his mouth against hers. Ilse could smell the wine on his breath. She shoved him away as hard as she could. He tottered. She pushed again. He lost his footing and tilted, looking at her with an air of surprise, toppling slowly into the ditch at the side of the road.

  “Oh, la pute,”34 he said. She watched. In a moment, he stirred and then he was on his knees, flailing and crashing around. She turned and ran at full pelt down the country road. The air rushed against her face. She felt the thud of her feet, the hard plane of the suitcase against her chest and her whole body reacting still to his hand wrenching her shoulder, to his thrusting knee, to the bad taste of his mouth. Her feet, already sore, hurt at every step. She made them keep moving. Somewhere nearby a voice was calling out. It sounded weird, inhuman.

  She stumbled across the ruts, recovered, stumbled. Her legs were not working properly. Getting down to pick up the case, she fell forward and scraped her knee on something unseen, something sharp. She shot up, then bent again for the case and felt the warmth which flowed down her leg, comfortingly, her own blood. Beyond the line of trees lay the darkness and the smell of the countryside. The ditch separated her from the welcome dark. It looked deep. With an effort, she made herself jump. A scramble; the good knee hitting uneven ground, her hand reaching to steady herself grasped something with thorns on it. Snatching her hand back, she got up the slope and ran, dodging around trees, going well, getting away. Her breath rasped in her throat. Here it was much darker, the branches hid the moonlight. Her awkward flapping feet tripped and then got caught in a root. Wrenching her foot she fell hard, banging her shoulder. She lay, winded. The blood, thundering through her head, gradually slowed. She sat up. Her hand was throbbing. In a while, she got herself to a crouch. She walked, limping now, deeper into the trees. It was too dark to see much. Her shoes kicked through dry leaves. Resting her back against a tree, Ilse slid down, clutching the case to her chest. There was no pursuit. Her feet hurt, her head, her leg, her hand.

  She shuddered herself awake perhaps an hour later. The faint smear of light had brightened to day. The forest stung her nose, a sweet, rotting smell like an overripe melon. It was good that she had the warm coat. She touched her head, winced at the bruise. Turning her head the other way, she saw a blue boot. Beyond was a greeny-white leg. She sat up. It was the body of a child, head turned up. A dead fly-festering eye was looking at her. That was the smell. Hand over her mouth, forcing back the sour flux that kept rising, she got to her feet and backed away. She ran, feeling the thorns in her hands, angry red bumps. Her legs carrying her away were stranger’s legs, one brown with blood, the knee forming a large scab that was already splitting and oozing. Her socks were saturated, the knitted welt crisped with dried blood. She reached out a hand, pushed back her hair. Her hand touched burrs. A leaf floated down.

  Approaching the road she crouched, opened the case; there might be something to drink or some food. Thirst was parching her throat. There was nothing. She remembered. The food was in her father’s case. Walking in the safety of the field beyond the ditch and hidden from the road by the trees, she started back in the direction of the lorry. A cart track ran parallel with the road. She could stay on this side and look through, keeping a safe distance, toiling across the ruts. The sun was starting to burn. She took off her coat. There was no shade on this side of the ditch. After another ten minutes or so, she stopped. Her eyes hurt too much. Wearily, she slid back down into the ditch, her leg burning when she bent it, then scrambled past the nettles and up on the other side. Limping, she started back down the road, heading north, the way she had come. It was easier walking in the shade of the trees. They were a long grey band, a stripe of light first white, then dark, that blurred together and pulled her on.

  Daylight had brought people back onto the road, picking their way past the occasional car or cart. Those on foot were the tail end of the exodus, those who could still walk. In some of the cars people were sleeping or dead, their heads tipped back. Calmly, she let her face slide over them. They were not real. An old man approached pushing a cart with pots and pans and a brass bed on it. A goat was tethered to the handles. His wife plodded along behind him, staring down at her feet. They passed without looking at her. It did not matter. It was just a kind of game they were all playing.

  From a long way down the straight road, shifting from one foot to the other, she made the sun wink at her, dazzling on the windscreen. The lorry itself was a dark patch against the shimmering road. The driver’s door stood open. She stayed near the ditch, ready to run or hide, just looking. There was no sign of the driver. From time to time, someone in the oncoming trickle of people—always a man—would stop and climb up into the cab, as if it might miraculously be full of fuel and ready to go. She knew more than they did. She went closer and closer. The mattresses had been pulled off and lay on the road nearby. There was something white in the road that drew her. A little scrap of paper, on which she recognised her mother’s writing.

  A tremor went through her as she bent—to snatch up another, and another—and she turned and swivelled and looked right and left and then straight up to the sky. These were messages from heaven. Like Dr. Faustus, her father had vanished into the dry cracks of the earth. Her mother had come to save her. Where was she hiding? She was up behind the sun. She was too bright to be seen.

  “Kannst jetzt rauskommen, Mutti,”35 she sang out. It was time to end the game. But her mother didn’t come out. Ilse turned and turned again. She was a spinning top, too fast to be seen. She would see everything in the world if she went fast enough. But the motion made her so dizzy that she had to stop. Nobody noticed. Among the confusion of adults, a child was invisible. Some people talked to themselves, others cried. Three children, one quite small and wearing a school smock, plodded by. The big girl tugged the little one on. Where were their parents? The small one started to cry and the big girl picked her little sister up. They did not look at her. Perhaps she was not there. A woman came behind them walking in bare feet, carrying a pair of high heels. She did not look at Ilse either.

  “I don’t like any of you,” she said. She, facing against the flow, was different from all of them. She was either invisible
or dead. This explained everything. She climbed onto the lorry and looked. There was one mattress left. She lay down. She would wait here for her mother to come.

  Her head was resting on something hard, but she could not move it. After a while she realised that it had to be Pumpf. Pumpf always slept in her bed though he never appeared to be asleep at all. This was because he stood very upright and his legs were stiff, so he could not be made to lie down. The nicest thing about him was his ears, which stuck up straight and made him look very alert and interested in everything, which he was. His hard sawdust head often became wedged between the sides of her wooden bed and her pillow, not that he minded. He liked it. She was at home, in her wooden bed in the Landsweg. If she reached forward she would feel the loose knot in the wood that could be jiggled from side to side and nearly but never quite pushed through. She often fiddled with it, pushing it from side to side until she fell asleep. The reddish glow through her eyelids was her night lamp. It had a crescent moon on the sides and on the top there were little cut-out stars. If she were to open her eyes now—not that she would—she would see little white stars on her ceiling. She heard the distant rattle of the last tram. Then the sounds all died away. Now that the tram had gone by, she had to keep her promise to sleep and not wake up till the morning.

  “I miss you, my darling girl.”

  “Me too,” she said. “I miss you so much.”

  “We shall be together soon. Listen to me. Please give all my love, all my love, Ilse.” Her mother’s voice grew more insistent. “You must learn to go into a café. They won’t bite your head off.”

  She was so tired, she just wanted to stay where she was. Ilse thought about it. It was true that she was hungry and also very thirsty. Reaching out for Pumpf, she opened her eyes. Her face was burning. Her arm scrabbled around, hit something hard. There was no little grey dog anywhere.

  The flies, buzzing, were terrible. She opened her hand, looked at the scraps of paper. She clambered down, stiffly, picked up all the pieces that she could find in the weeds at the roadside. They were letters that had been ripped up. Most must have blown away. She found an envelope Toni had posted in Casablanca addressed to Mademoiselle Blumenthal in beautiful calligraphy. Of the letter itself there was no sign. She put the little pieces into the envelope. Her head was banging. Though it was very hot, she was shivering with cold. Her eyes could not focus properly. She climbed into the front of the cab, which gave a little shade, and concentrated on her mother’s special messages, taking out and smoothing each crumpled piece. They were so small, as if somebody had torn and torn again. “Paris was not,” her mother had written, and “wicked.” There were other words: “Ilse,” “you,” “we never,” “found together,” “Because,” “a line,” “very hard,” “not,” “visa.” There were bits of words that might have been anything.