The Children's War

by Monique Charlesworth

  “Café Tournon. Tuesdays at three o’clock,” she said. “When we meet again after the war. That’s the place. Don’t forget.”

  “I will always remember everything about you and for you, Ilse,” he said. “Franzosen und Russen gehört das Land.73 The sea belongs to the British. But we Germans possess the undisputed mastery of the airy empire of dreams.” He was smiling. “My friend Heine wrote that, I think just for you. My dearest, my darling girl,” said Albert. His good eye was so full it seemed to be floating, the water spilling out and now running down one side of his cheek. He repeated the phrase. Then he bent and kissed her hand. Carrying the little red case, he trudged away. He looked very old. For a long moment she watched him go. He turned and waved, and she waved back until he was gone.

  The way back was a gentle incline and then grew steep. She raced along. She would be back in France by nightfall. It was not good to be out in these remote places too late. Though tired, though alone, she would not remain so. That was why she was not at all afraid. It was her jingle-jangle game, to follow the instructions backwards. She knew her way. She knew what direction the village was, where to catch the bus along the coast. Ilse found that she was singing an old song, a German song. She changed it to the Marseillaise. “Allons, enfants de la patrie— le jour de gloire est arrivé!”74 She sang at the top of her voice and, light as a child, floated down the path.

  Two months later, early on a brilliant June morning as the fishing boats came in to port with their catch, Ilse stole out of the house. She skipped down to the harbour, trailing a hand over the faceted stones of the Maison Diamantée for luck. Raymond insisted that she was not to wait, not even for five minutes, if he was not there. She was just to walk on by. The anxiety she felt at another delay, another frustration, was instantly assuaged when, from the other side of the tramlines, François was visible. He was the tallest man in the little queue at the base of the bridge waiting to cross the harbour. They took the lift up to the top, walked across. The view was magnificent. François was in great good spirits; she hated it when he frowned. He took her hand and squeezed it. When he let go, the touch always remained.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “I have to fight, well, try at least. My father fought.”

  She needed to be more active, if only because she could not bear to be left alone with her thoughts.

  “Bravo. There are some rules you have to remember. Of course, the first one is easy—if you are picked up by the police, you know nothing.”

  “Very good,” she said, though her heart had skipped a beat. If she was picked up and recognised as a German, she would be sent to Gurs.

  “I am your only contact in Marseilles, or anywhere. You know nobody else.”

  “Very good.”

  Of course, she already knew Raymond and Paul and Renée and the girls.

  “If they take you, and release you, afterwards I will never contact you again. Because you won’t be safe. I would walk past you in the street. You would have to promise to do and say nothing, not to know me.”

  “I see,” she said, though she did not.

  “Do you promise?”

  “I promise. When do I start?”

  “You started when you took Albert. You’re a veteran. I’ll come to you when I need you.”

  “I’ll be on constant alert.”

  She had succeeded in amusing him. Down on the quayside a woman had a bucket with mimosa in it: he bought her a sprig and, smiling, held it out. How bright the day was, his long shadow stretching out on the cobblestones, his eyes narrowed against the light, holding her there. Already the moment was passing. He moved on ahead. She slowed her pace to a crawl, as if that could slow him down and make him stay. “Remember. If you want to back out, you can,” he said.

  Ilse shook her head. “You’re not scared.”

  “It’s different for me. I’m already dead.”

  But he was smiling, as brilliantly as before. He was five metres away, then ten, walking fast, hands in his pockets, whistling and never looking back.

  In October, the mistral blew. She cycled slowly past the poste restante, decided to go in. There was always the faint hope of something from Toni. But, as usual, there was nothing for Mademoiselle Benoît.

  “Where do you go on that bicycle of yours?” Renée asked.

  “Nowhere much.”

  François had obtained it for her; she kept it safe in her room. It was a very good ladies’ bike, hardly used at all. The pump was specially hollowed out. In it she carried underground pamphlets and newsletters and the new issue of Libération, which she kept concealed under her wardrobe. Nobody stopped girls. Without the bike it was impossible to be a courier.

  “Are you all right, Renée?” Ilse put a pan of water on to boil, watched it carefully. The gas went off so often; it was easy to forget that it had been turned on. Every day La Petite scanned the Death by Domestic Gas column in the Nice-Matin to check on her friends and relatives along the coast. She turned and looked at Renée, who hardly cooked anymore. She had lost weight, was becoming a shrunken version of herself.

  “On vivote. On vivote.75 I have something for you. Here.” Renée rummaged in a drawer, then held out a lipstick. Ilse twisted it up, signalled thanks with a blown red-applied kiss. It was brand-new. “Made in Germany,” said Renée with a lopsided smile.

  Ilse decided that she would go to mass the next day after her round to say a prayer for Renée and Otto, and for her mother. She felt particularly guilty about Renée, from whom secrets had necessarily to be kept. She would never approve of her doing this work. For Renée, Ilse remained a child.

  Raymond was bemoaning his lack of dollars: they were worth a fortune on the black market. Ilse saw an announcement in the newspaper that refugees with exit visas leaving France could buy five hundred dollars at the official rate of only thirty-two francs to the dollar. That was a fraction of the going rate. She showed her friend her set of perfect German documents. “Couldn’t we do something with these?”

  “You are a natural. Really. Of course we can.” He sucked his teeth and thought about it. “I know somebody who can make a nice set of documents to go with these. An exit visa from France and a fake ticket, good enough to fool a bank. I’ll look into it. If the bank doesn’t check with Vichy, we can do it. I’ll give you the French francs to exchange.”

  She thought how pleased François would be.

  The shop in the north of Marseilles sold Moroccan leather goods. She walked around the back first, to check that there was a way out. The window displayed purses and briefcases tacked up so long that the colours had faded. A bell jingled as she went in. She picked up one of the coin purses that folded into a square, admired its gold tooling, smelt the distinctive aroma of the souk. A figure in a tight red dress wavered ahead, stepping on high heels through the long lines of light and shade.

  “Bonjour, Mademoiselle,” said a soft voice. A little man wearing a fez peered out through a beaded curtain.

  “I’m Violaine,” she said.

  He beckoned her into a back room. There was a small suitcase open containing rubber stamps and inkpads. He chose a stamp, wiped it clean, inked it up, stamped a document carefully. “Voilà.”

  He was holding something up. Ilse examined the document. It was a sauf-conduit to Châtel-Guyon, issued by the Préfecture de Marseilles for Mademoiselle Ilse Lindemann. He showed her a ticket in another envelope. “Give me your documents and I can stamp the visas, Mademoiselle.”

  All she had to do tomorrow was take the early bus to Châtel-Guyon and join the queue at the bank, and come back in the afternoon. And hope that nobody would stop her. Just the name, Ilse Lindemann, had to prove lucky. She was playing the part of a child going to America on her own, a situation full of pathos. The clerk at the bank thought so, counting out the dollars and placing them in a strong brown envelope for fear the child would lose them.

  A chill wind was blowing from the sea but Ilse did not want to go directly to
the bar. He would not go along the quay, which was heavily frequented by the police and always had a couple of Défense Passive wardens hanging about; there were usually a couple of German guards near the customs house. He would come via the bridge, if he was coming at all. And so she waited, hoping for an extra moment, a first glimpse of him. All day, she had been tight with foreknowledge of their meeting. He spent time inland, less and less in Marseilles, where too many people might recognise him. Twenty minutes passed. She paid her fifty centimes. A figure darted into sight, a man running across the cobblestones, long-legged, hair concealed under a cap, vaulting onto the platform as it left its moorings. Ilse stared across the shuddering cable that drew them over the waters. From the prickles on her back, she felt his nearness. She was taut with anticipation, thrumming with the rope of steel. Beyond that line of silver in the darkness lay the dark and severe romance of the Château d’If. At the other side, she got off ahead of him and walked with the little crowd. Turning, losing her way in the blackout, she could not hear his footsteps but when she stumbled, she felt his hand touch her sleeve, guiding her to the dark door of the café. François pushed through the curtain and went in; the gap let out its blast of light, heat and smoky air.

  Ilse waited just a moment behind the curtain, listening to the noise of the bar, then took a peep. It was not busy. A few faces were familiar, no obvious Germans. There was a small group of men, probably fishermen. Still, anyone could be an indic.76 François stood at the bar. He called for something from the middle-aged waiter, who was yawning, polishing the glasses with a meticulous disregard for his customers. Slowly, the waiter took a long glass down from the shelf and poured a bock. François turned with the glass in his hand, scanning the room. A small man at the other end of the bar with his back to her tapped a coin on the counter three times. François put the glass down, took a newspaper out of his pocket, looked at the front page, then lit a cigarette and took three slow puffs. Then he extinguished it and put it carefully back in his pocket. The small man turned: it was Raymond. The signal meant that it was safe, that there were no indics here. He came past Ilse, winking at her. She followed him out and round the side of the building to the kitchen entrance of the café. At the back there was a little room they sometimes used.

  In a few moments François came through from the café and kissed her cheeks twice. “How cold you are. Are you all right?”

  “Fine.” She tipped the dollars from the brown envelope, counted the money into two piles.

  He made an appreciative face. “You’re a most reliable operative.” She tried not to show her pleasure.

  “It’s the first time my German papers have come in useful,” she said. “Raymond. For you,” and she slid half to him. He would give her the francs later.

  “I’m off. Things to do, customers to see,” Raymond said. He slipped out. Perhaps François would leave too. But he pulled off the cap, sat, reached for a bottle of wine that stood on a table in the corner and poured her a glass. Such gestures came when he was pleased with her. She sipped at it. It was a primeur and pretty rough. She was hungry, but knew that he would not eat for hours yet. She shuddered as the wine went down. Still, it warmed her. She could hear the noise of the café next door.

  “You’ve found somebody to do your hair,” she said. It was a rich brown, as were his eyebrows.

  “A woman in Aix-en-Provence.”

  François played with one of the empty glasses, placed it beside another. She found another for him, quietly pushed it across the table. His little pyramid was always the same: three, two and one. She put two more glasses where he could play with them until they were perfectly aligned. Ilse took off the scarf which concealed her too-distinctive hair. She smoothed it down. She was wearing it rolled up in a new style. The wine rose to her head, loosened her tongue. The pyramid of glasses was nearly perfect. He readied the last glass.

  “Give me a cigarette,” she said. “I’m all out.”

  “Oh la jeune fille,”77 he said. The first in-breath was acrid. Determined not to cough, she blew out the smoke and held on to it carefully. She broke the match into a V shape, laid it on the table. She felt a little dizzy. She had not tasted strong tobacco for weeks.

  “There’s a first time for everything,” he said, with that sidelong look which made the heat rise to her cheeks.

  “It’s hardly my first.”

  “What’s a schoolgirl doing in a bar, drinking and smoking?”

  “I’m not a schoolgirl. Why did you call me a nun, that time?”

  He remembered.

  “At Gurs? I said I was taking you to a convent—that you were going to become a novice.” She did not say how much this strange idea pleased her. “I suppose we should enjoy the paradox,” he said.

  “What paradox?”

  “War as a paradigm of freedom. What should you be doing? Sitting in a schoolroom. Learning Latin verbs. Instead, you’re here.”

  “Eat something,” she said. “They might have kept something for you.”

  He shook his head. “Later.”

  She knew that he went to certain black market restaurants, places where he said he would take her one day. Her head felt very light. “When the war’s over, will you go back to art school?”

  “Did I tell you that?”

  “You never tell anyone anything,” she said severely. She longed to know more.

  “That’s all finished. The yellow star’s finished it for me. All summer, what have they done but round us up and send us away. For centuries we have run away. This time, we’ll be warriors.”

  She never liked it when he preached at her.

  “Won’t you go back to Poland?”

  “That depends.”

  “You can settle in France. I can just see it. François the farmer with some hectares and a few cows.”

  She could make him smile, sometimes, when he was in the mood.

  “Who’d want to be French? They don’t give a shit what happens to anyone else. Some of these bastards are saying that the invasion of Russia proves that the Germans are the true allies of France. Anti-Bolsheviks. Unbelievable.”

  “Come on. They’re not all like that.”

  The sweet moment had already tipped over and was turning into something sour.

  “Not all, no. But plenty. How do you think they found all the Jews in the eleventh and twelfth arrondissements? The Paris police were ready with their list. They handed over babies born in France. The Germans hadn’t even asked for the children. Did you know that?”

  She laid a hand on his arm. “It’s all right,” she said.

  “Wait until we have our country. It will all be different.”

  “You’ll go to Palestine?” It had never occurred to her that he might be a Zionist.

  “I’ll go wherever I’m sent. I’m going to fight.”

  “It won’t go on forever. The war will end,” she said. “There won’t be anyone to fight.”

  “The war against the Jews will never end. How do you think that fascist Jacques Doriot blew up the synagogue in Nice? C’est une couille molle, lui.78 He had the help of local people. And the Compagnons, of course. Do you see any protests?”

  She shook her head.

  “Where are our people who were sent on from Drancy? Nobody knows. There are bad rumours coming along the route. Four young men straight from Berlin. I met them yesterday in Spain. They said Jews are being put on a train, supposedly for Poland. To be resettled in a Jewish zone. I know that from Poland they are sending the Jews east. Blue Pass Aktion, they call it, White Pass, Pink. When they’re on the train, they gas them all. Men, women, children, babies—”

  “Stop it,” she said very sharply. “It’s all lies. What’s the matter with you? You’ll believe anything bad. But anything good—somebody trying to help—you just don’t notice.”

  She got up to go, winding the scarf round her head.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “It’s the fashion,” she said.

  “For
bleached blondes who can’t get bleach. Not for my beautiful girl.”

  He stood and put his arms round her, pulling her close, for a moment resting his cheek against the top of her head. She was a statue, holding her arms high and awkward, and never daring to clasp him.

  “Forgive me. You deserve better. I know, we’ll celebrate Chanukah together,” he said.

  Tenderness disarmed her. She did not know when the holiday was, nor how it was celebrated, but dared not ask. At the door she turned back. “Please don’t worry about your little sister. In Warsaw. I know she will be fine.”

  He looked at her with a very level expression. “My sister died. When she was six.”

  Tears were springing to her eyes, and she turned to go before he saw them. The door slammed. The wind was building up into a mistral. Ilse shuddered with cold. With François, she could never know what to expect, though anticipation was her greatest defence. With François, there would be no end to the surprises and the concomitant thousand little griefs.

  She headed towards the quay. Marseilles had grown so silent. She told herself to be calm, to keep watching at all times. She heard no cars, just the moan of the trolley-car horns and the occasional clatter of wooden-soled feet on the cobbles. Waiting at the base of the transporter bridge, trembling from head to foot, Ilse went over in her head what she had heard from him. If this about the train was true, then what? Her head was blank. She had a vision of Otto, his thin body bent, being pushed onto a train. She tried to wipe it away. If this story was true, then nobody could forestall what was to come.

  A fortnight later he was back and threw himself down on her bed, as though he belonged there, though she had never made the offer.

  “Mind your dirty shoes,” she said, mock severe, then coming to pull them off.

  “This is heaven,” he said. “Oh, to lie in a proper bed.”

  He was relaxed and smiling; his feet dangled down over the bed and he stretched back on the pillows and closed his eyes. His pale stubble made the bottom half of his face glint in the lamplight.