In a moment François came out. “We can stay the night.”
He sat beside them, lit a cigarette. It was very dark, very still, a full moon lit the trees. Inside the house the woman started humming some song.
“So where is Otto?” François asked.
“Deported to Germany,” said Albert.
Ilse’s blood hammered in her head. She reached for one of François’s cigarettes, could not strike a light. He steadied her hand, struck a match, went on holding hers, for comfort, in his warm one. The lit ember of her cigarette wavered in the dark. When she had finished it they sat on, not saying anything. His touch shrank the cosmos to this one point, her hand trembling in his. She heard Albert coughing, stared at something or nothing that might be the outline of the trees or the henhouse.
“Albert, who betrayed you?”
His face, when he turned to her, held such a strained expression. Perhaps he had become deaf or did not understand.
“I mean, in Cassis?”
Then his face changed and he smiled at her, more like the old Albert. “It was good that the house was on a hill. I was standing at an upstairs window and I saw the police coming. They could only be coming to me. I had five minutes to hide my papers. That was my good fortune.”
“Good fortune?” she said. “But why?” She thought of the huge effort he had put into fabricating so many sets of papers and always being en règle.
“I hid my book, that was the important thing. A manuscript in German—that would go straight to the Gestapo. They would soon work out who wrote it. Then I thought—leave the papers. Without the papers I could be anyone. But it might be that with them, I am dead. I remembered what your father had said about the pink passport and the green. Otto and his advice, always good advice. It worked, you see, because in the roundup there were many of us. Since I didn’t have papers, they pushed me in with a vanload of similar misfits. The ones with papers went in a different lorry, straight to the Gestapo. I played the fool. If nobody recognised me, I thought I might get away with it. One day I saw myself in a piece of mirror and saw I had become the madman. I didn’t worry anymore. My old mother wouldn’t have known me.”
“Then the papers might be there still?” François was interested.
“They might.”
“But Albert, who gave you away?”
“Who knows? Perhaps the man in the shop or the landlady. Someone in the village. A Jew up on the hill, with money, is a nice catch. There is always a payment.”
The knock on the window startled them all. The woman’s face was pale.
François let go of her hand, stood and stretched. “Time to go in,” he said.
“We’ll be one minute. Albert, Vati had no papers, there was nothing to identify him,” said Ilse.
“No.”
Albert’s name was on a list. That was why, in Paris, her father had protected him. Of course her father was on a list, too.
“Tell me about Vati. You must.”
“They put him in the middle section, behind the heavy wire.” She nodded. “Where they keep the real tough nuts. The political prisoners. Separate from the others.”
“Go on,” she said. She was beginning to understand why it had taken so long even to find out that Otto was in Gurs.
“I’d have been there too if they’d realised who I was. At first, I couldn’t get near enough to speak to him.” The hands appealed for understanding. “Because they thought me mad, I didn’t count. In the second week I tried again. He’d seen me. He was waiting. I went as close as I could. I said something idiotic, how are you? I could see how he was. He smiled at me. There was a guard coming into sight. When he saw me at the wire, he raised his rifle, so I started to mumble and play the fool. I thought—well, there will be another moment. Get away quick. But in the morning the place was empty. The Kundt Commission66 must have had him on their list. They were all deported back to Germany.”
“Are you sure?”
Release and food were exhausting him. His eyes were closing.
“Albert. Don’t go to sleep yet. What happens to them when they get to Germany?”
He opened his eyes and then shrugged. “They say the camps there are not as bad as Gurs. Some people want to go back, you know.”
His hands lifted and then fell, resigned, between his thighs. His good eye stared at the ground. Ilse felt queasy. He had never fabricated an untruth before. He was very bad at it.
“They knew who he was. They knew.”
Albert said nothing.
“Albert. That’s why he was with the undesirables?”
“They knew he was German,” said Albert.
“But I can’t understand it. He knew the rules,” she said, “never to say anything. Nobody in the German underground ever says anything.” Then she understood. Of course they had tortured him: a man with no papers, a man carrying a gun. They must have hurt him terribly, to make him talk. “All men are des espèces de con,”67 she said fiercely.
Albert touched her arm. “Your father—he said something. When I said, How are you? It’s all I managed. He said, ‘The situation is hopeless, but not serious.’ He was smiling.”
“Smiling?” She blew her nose. He nodded. His good eye met hers. This was not a lie.
“Let’s go and sleep. It’s a long journey tomorrow.”
Albert slept. Ilse sat at the window and looked at the moon. Round and round her head went those improbably gallant words of her father, who knew the rules and broke them, who was so hopelessly brave.
Remotely located in the foothills of the Pyrenees, inland from Port-Vendres, the shepherd’s hut was conveniently close to the border with Spain and freedom. Ilse and François took the two wooden stools the hut contained outside, sat with their faces turned to the weak April sun. Though François had insisted that they recover the papers Albert had wedged between the dresser and the kitchen wall in Cassis, the wait for them truly irked him. From Cassis to Marseilles, then along the coast to this little harbour town had to take another day, perhaps two.
“Are you sure it’s worth the risk,” Ilse asked, “and the delay?”
“No. He could offer a refus de séjour,68 if you prefer. I’ve even met one fine fellow carrying a certified French translation of the Deutsches Reichs-Register detailing his deprivation of citizenship. Perhaps they will let Albert over the border to Spain with that, perhaps not. Then he can spend a few years kicking around in a Spanish jail, waiting for the Gestapo to pay a visit. Or he can use an excellent set of papers and from Lisbon get all the way to America. You choose.”
His sarcasm pained her. In a moment she tried again. “Have you taken so many people across?”
“Enough. British pilots. A couple of Poles. Any Jew who’ll pay enough,” he said savagely. She could not fathom what she had done to make him so angry, so restless, so perverse.
Albert was resting. Shaken about on a lorry with no load, just folded sacks that scratched, they had rumbled on country roads through the centre of France for days with little to eat and nowhere to stay, always heading east. Reaching Perpignan at last, it had taken another weary day to get from there to the hut. It was primitive and miles from the nearest shop, let alone the nearest village. Ilse was glad of the rest for Albert, whose legs visibly trembled with the effort of the last steep slope. He would need all his strength for the climb across the mountains to Spain.
“Whoever collects your papers will bring your book, too, Albert. Or shall we abandon it?”
“You’re flirting with me,” he said. “I like it. But, ma chère mademoiselle, it’s not necessary for anyone to take a risk on my behalf. I don’t care about the book. I don’t care about the papers. I am happy here, with you.”
She could not believe him. “It’s my work, too,” she said. “You must have your papers, then you can get through Spain and into Portugal.”
The main thing was that Albert had hope. That made all the difference. Soon, she too would recover a feeling of hope.
Fr
om the high ground behind the hut Ilse recognised the small stocky figure picking his way up the rough path. Raymond carried a suitcase on his head, Moroccan style. She was so happy to see him. They embraced with real warmth. She laughed at him for being so bristly, for he was one of those men who had to shave twice a day, joking that he was a “vrai poilu.”69
“Where’s François? Those bastards have issued a decree that all border areas must be clear of foreigners within ten days. That was a week ago and it’s taken me the best part of three days to get to this godforsaken place.”
“He’s gone down to the town.”
François, restless for days, had business he did not choose to tell her about.
“Did you get them?”
“My little Ilse. Can Raymond fail?”
Raymond opened the suitcase with a flourish: inside was a bundle of papers, which Ilse recognised, and some of Otto’s clothes. Renée had sent underclothes for her and a sweater. Albert, proud father, carefully took his manuscript and held it on his knee. Later, Raymond and François talked at length.
Early in the morning, awake with the sun, Ilse saw François going up the side of the hill, leaping from boulder to boulder in impossible jumps which only his long legs could have managed. Presently, he came back down. His whole body expressed restless energy, the longing to be gone. Raymond came and stood beside her.
“He’s cross with me,” she said.
“Not you. He’s angry with the world.”
“Why?”
“Warsaw, his family, the news is bad. All the Jews have been herded into a ghetto, a tiny crowded place. No food. Now the Germans are using them as forced labour.”
“Is that where his little sister is?”
Raymond shrugged. “He didn’t mention a sister.”
A stranger came up the path: the guide. He and François conferred at length. Albert put on her father’s raincoat, which, far too short for him, flapped round the knees. He took off his ruined boots and put on the smart shoes that, in another life, Renée had chosen for her father. Ilse could see from the way he pushed his feet into them and laced them up that they were too small, but he said nothing.
François came back into the hut in a fury. “He won’t do it. Not today. Not tomorrow. He doesn’t know when. The little bastard says he has to go somewhere. It’s not money, we offered plenty. And the weather is perfect—it may not stay so good.”
“I’ll take him,” she said. “Show me the map.” But despair filled her at the sight of the brown ridges and green shadings, the little symbols. She could not do it. She could recite the départements of France, but she had not learnt any kind of map reading. She could not imagine how anyone could possibly follow such a shapeless thing. Albert saw the look on her face and took it. His good eye tried to focus on the page.
“Perhaps, if you could get a magnifying glass?”
He held it nearer, then farther away, then with an apologetic, gentle shrug, handed it back. “We will do it in words.”
“What are you talking about?” François’s tone was sharp.
“She can memorise it. She has total recall. Ilse, how did you cross France?”
Ilse looked away from François and spoke quietly. “My mother taught me my journey. So no matter what happened, I wouldn’t panic.”
Learning the map in words was easy; the guide told her the journey, repeating each phrase twice, then she said it back to him. François went with them as far as the clearing, to test her prowess.
“Tell me?”
“ ‘Past the empty stable and then take the path to the left and continue. After four hundred or five hundred yards notice a boulder and then a clearing. Bear right,’ ” she said.
“Au revoir and good luck!” He shook hands with Albert. Then he leant forward and kissed Ilse on each cheek, twice. How ready he was to let them go. When Raymond embraced her, he put his arms right round her. She kissed his bristly cheeks four times, then he hugged her again, told her to take care. Ilse watched François lope away down the path. He did not look back. He was thinking of his family, of the sufferings of his sister and others in Warsaw. Ilse told herself that this urgency was natural. She was rooted to the spot by the set of his head on his shoulders, by the easy way he swung his pack, by the brilliance of his hair, which the sun turned to coppery fire so that even as he diminished, he was a beacon that the eye could not bear to abandon.
The journey would take five hours if the weather remained fine. It was a beautiful clear day. To one side the hills sloped gently down to the sea. Soon she would begin to feel calmer. She had put the manuscript and Albert’s papers in the red case, which already seemed rather heavier than it had when they left. She shifted this from one hand to the other. On her back was a knapsack with her papers, provisions, the clothing Renée had provided. If the Germans caught them, the manuscript would destroy both of them. She had not even bothered to discuss the matter with Albert.
“Don’t be angry about François leaving,” said Albert.
“I’m not angry,” she said and, because she could not help herself, “I don’t think he even knows that I am a woman.”
“He knows you’re a woman,” said Albert. “Ilse. He knows. It is much safer for a young lady to be taking people about than for him to do it. Two men attract attention. A man and a girl can get away with anything.”
Ilse felt her mouth set into a mulish line. High above, as promised, and to the left, lay the mountain crest.
Albert reached out and took her hand in his moist one. “Can you forgive me, my darling girl? For being here instead of your father?”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” she said. They walked.
“Say something.”
“Otto wrote well, didn’t he?”
“Yes. He’s a man of strong opinions,” he said.
“You’re a writer,” she said. “It’s your business to fabricate. But Vati didn’t make things up.”
“Not ‘didn’t.’ Say ‘doesn’t.’ ”
A text floated into Ilse’s head, one of her father’s that Renée had asked her to translate into French: The Russian and French revolutions produced first the wild hope of freedom and then terror, devouring the people in waves of blood. What we behold here in France is the triumph of Deutschtum70 —accomplished in a typically thorough fashion, quietly going forward day by day in an orderly way and expelling the Jews—the capitalists— without a soul protesting. The murders, when they come, will be very quiet and nobody will notice or, if they do, care.
“He’s in Germany now. His homeland. It’s all happening quietly,” she said. “If nobody protests, if nobody changes anything, then things go on and on, and everything goes horribly wrong. So he was right. People have to be made to care. All the time he was right.”
Albert would need a rest soon. The shoes were clearly pinching and the soles were slippery. It was as much as he could do to manage himself. The coat flapped open and seemed to Ilse to hamper him. Her father’s coat, so thin, had not protected him from anything. Now Albert wore it. Albert, all along, had thought to save himself and also to save her. But who could save her? Only she could. It was the unalterable character a person had that ordained all that would come to pass and nothing could ever be done to change it. She gave him a drink from the water flask. While he rested, she lay flat on her back, staring into the brilliant, empty sky.
They strained up to the narrow ridge above. From the summit of the mountain they looked down steep cliffs which split the sea, so much so that on one side the Mediterranean had glitter and brilliance, while on the other it seemed calmer and a different shade, the colour of green slate. Turning, they felt the warmth on their faces. It was a good place to rest. There was even a flat boulder to sit on. Raymond had given Ilse two hard-boiled eggs, a pear, dry sheep’s cheese and bread. Albert spread a handkerchief he found in his pocket: Renée’s fine linen, the folds sharp, never before used. Carefully they laid out the feast. Ilse tried to be slow with her egg.
&nbs
p; Above them, vultures circled. Albert saw them first. “I hope they don’t know something we don’t,” he said. “Here it’s perfect. This moment. From this point, all is downhill.” He lifted up his hands to the sun. “Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groϐ71—lay your shadow on the sundials and loose your winds over the meadows.”
“Go on.”
“I’ll tell you the last bit. Then we’ll go back and do it from the beginning.
“Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr.
Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben
wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben
und wird in den Alleen hin und her
unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben.”72
“Who wrote that?”
“Rilke. A great poet.”
“Tell me more.”
She listened. Rilke filled a good piece of mountain and brought them nearly to the frontier, where it would be dangerous to speak.
“There may be guards patrolling on the road. French sentries, looking after the border,” she told him. Then it was a long, silent walk, with Albert stumbling over stones and exhausted long before they saw the red roofs of Port Bou, the Spanish border station. Ahead was a proper road, with tarmacadam, one that led straight down to safety. She tucked the red case under Albert’s arm.
“When you’re at the bottom, show them your papers. They’ll let you through.”
“What do you mean?”
She smiled at him. Dear Albert, still he did not understand. He had a dazed look.
“You’re not coming with me?” His voice trembled a little. He had only just realised it. For Ilse, the certainty had been growing for miles. Albert took both her hands. “You know how I remember your father? Talking in the café, telling everyone what to do, knowing everything. You’re getting to be just like him. Must we part?” But he knew, of course, as he always knew everything about her.
The Children's War Page 27