The Lost Airman

by Seth Meyerowitz

  The countryside waned about an hour into the trip as towns and then large neighborhoods emerged outside the bus’s windows. On road signs, Bordeaux appeared with growing frequency. Arthur then spotted a wide, gunmetal-gray river, the Garonne. The autobus rattled across the Pont de Pierre, a long-span bridge, and onto the rue Sainte-Catherine, the longest pedestrian street in France, clogged with cars, buses, and military vehicles.

  As the autobus slowed to a virtual crawl, Arthur stared at the array of medieval and more modern buildings. On the Place de la Bourse, there stood a mammoth equestrian statue of King Louis XV. The bus passed the Grand Théâtre, a sprawling eighteenth-century neoclassical edifice. Cathedrals seemingly soared everywhere, and when the remains of the Palais Gallien, a late-second-century Roman amphitheater appeared, he was reminded of photos from high school textbooks about ancient history. It dawned on him just how old this city was, how there was nothing in New York that even came close.

  The occasional remnants of medieval turrets and defense walls hammered home the fact that this was a city that had seen warfare for over a thousand years. Now the German tanks, half-tracks, and Kubelwagens (small Volkswagen staff cars) that were parked at points along both sides of the vast boulevard testified to the reality that war was once again afflicting Bordeaux.

  The bus turned onto the Esplanade des Quinconces, the largest square in Europe. German artillery ringed the thirty-one-acre plaza, the barrels pointed at the buildings of the surrounding city. Scanning the extensive tract, Arthur marveled at the symmetrical rows of trees, known as quincunxes and the origin of the esplanade’s name. The trees were arranged in rectangles with one at each corner and one in the middle.

  The plaza was packed with people and soldiers, and Arthur observed Jean-Pierre, a few aisles to the front, glowering out his window at a group of Frenchwomen strolling arm in arm with Nazi officers past two white-marble rostral pillars that faced the nearby Garonne River. Studying the crowds more closely, Arthur realized that there were many other women who were escorted not only by German soldiers but also by black-uniformed Gestapo. Soon he would learn that in Occupied France, the sight of women in the company of Germans was not always what it seemed: many of the Frenchwomen were working for the Resistance and gathering intelligence from their German “friends.”

  Shortly after winding past a sprawling monument whose pedestal was decorated with bronze horses and surmounted by an allegorical statue of a female “Liberty,” the autobus lurched to a stop at a busy bus station at the curved edge of the esplanade. Each time a bus pulled up, a uniformed Gestapo officer holding a clipboard, and a police officer stepped in front of the exit to check the documents of every passenger boarding or debarking. Arthur closed his eyes for a minute and silently urged himself to concentrate as he had been taught.

  He opened his eyes as the bus stopped. Ahead of him, Charlotte, Christiane, and Jean-Pierre left their seats and stepped into line with the other passengers. Arthur waited until they were near the door and then moved into the aisle, his heart pounding beneath the thick overcoat.

  One by one the people in front of him stepped from the bus, a minute or two passing each time they did. The Michels and Jean-Pierre exited in turn and were waved through after brief inspections of their papers. Five passengers remained in front of Arthur. As each one’s turn to exit came, a blank expression settled across their faces. They revealed nothing—not fear, not annoyance, not anger. No one wanted the police or the Gestapo to detect the slightest flicker of emotion that could arouse suspicion.

  As Arthur reached the doorway and watched the woman in front of him hand her documents to the two officials, he saw his companions clustered on a curb some twenty feet away, waiting for him but ready to vanish into the crowd if he was detained.

  “Prochain!” the French policeman barked.

  Arthur stood on the top step, utterly still.

  “Prochain—vous!” the officer yelled, his eyes narrowing and his face flushing.

  The Gestapo agent, a stocky man with a ruddy face behind the haze of the cigarette in his raised left hand, fixed his light blue eyes in a feral stare on Arthur.

  He jabbed his right index finger at Arthur. “Vous!”

  Arthur did not even nod. He stepped off the autobus and waited. If he reached too soon for the documents in the inside pocket of his coat, either man might shoot him on the spot for making a suspicious movement.

  The German continued to glare at him and flicked the cigarette just inches past his head.

  “Vos papiers,” your papers, the policeman ordered, leaning in close to Arthur.

  Arthur looked blankly at him.

  The Nazi’s right hand moved to the holster belted to his black, shin-length greatcoat. He opened the cover and rested his hand on the exposed Luger pistol.

  The police officer took a step back and thrust out his right hand, his eyes now dark slits. “Vos papiers . . .”

  Slowly, Arthur unbuttoned his overcoat and held out the inside flap for both men. He reached slowly into the interior pocket and pulled out his ID card and papers. The Frenchman leaned forward and snatched them. He pored over the photo and the papers and, cocking his head suspiciously at Arthur, gave them to the German, who examined them for nearly a minute. While the two men muttered to each other in French, their eyes darted back and forth from the photo and papers to Arthur. He recognized a few words that Gisèle and Pierre Chauvin had insisted he must know—muet, mute, and sourd et muet, deaf and dumb, as well as his phony birthplace, Algiers.

  Because Arthur’s identification card stated that he was from Algiers, no Nazis or Vichy officials could check out “Georges Lambert”: the North African city had been liberated by the Allies. The Germans and their French collaborators had either fled the city or had been arrested. Now Marcel’s canny forgery gave Arthur an even better chance to pull off his role as Georges Lambert.

  The policeman pointed to the photo and the signature, then at Arthur. Arthur nodded. The German’s mouth twisted into a sneer as he held out his clipboard and a pen and shoved them into Arthur’s hands. Again, the Frenchman pointed to the identification card’s signature and then at the pen.

  The Chauvins had prepared Arthur for just such a challenge. Deliberately, but not so slowly as to appear hesitant, concentrating so that his hand would not shake so much that the two signatures might appear different, he signed “Georges Lambert.”

  As he did so, the German moved a few steps behind him.

  “Turn around!” the Gestapo agent bellowed in French.

  Arthur kept his back to the man, finished signing the clipboard, and handed it to the police officer, who was peering at him for any hint that he had heard the shout.

  The German walked back, and both men examined the signature. The officer returned Arthur’s documents. Arthur started to walk toward the curb where his friends waited, his hand trembling and sweaty as he slipped the ID card and papers back into his pocket.

  Jean-Pierre and the Michels did not say a word when Arthur joined them. He had played his part perfectly, convincing the German and the policeman that a deaf mute named Georges Lambert had stepped off the autobus. He would need to display that kind of nerve under pressure, a trait that all too many downed airmen understandably lacked for the nightmarish cat-and-mouse tactics necessary for any hope of a successful escape from Occupied France. It was especially true now, with the Allied invasion of France imminent and the Nazis on their highest state of alert throughout the region.

  Jean-Pierre led them to another bus, a smaller one near the curb. Several others were parked behind it, and police officers were stationed in front of each. Perhaps assuming that most of the passengers lining up in front of the vehicles had already undergone inspection from the just-arrived autobuses, Jean-Pierre, Arthur, Charlotte, and Christiane were not even ordered to present their identification cards. They were simply allowed to board.

&nbs
p; The bus plodded between tram lines and through dense traffic composed mainly of other buses and military vehicles and lumbered south to the sprawling Bordeaux suburb of Talence. Jean-Pierre rose as the bus stopped at the entrance to a narrow, cobblestone “close,” a dead-end street where Old Bordeaux’s three-story, stone-walled apartment houses and homes were separated only by tiny alleys.

  Inside one of the single homes, Number 19 rue Félix-Goulet, Mrs. Dupin, petite and blond with a vivacious smile, greeted them. She hugged Arthur and, as he was now becoming accustomed to, kissed him gently on both cheeks. She immediately made him feel like he was a welcome guest, not a dangerous burden.

  A tall, lean man with wiry salt-and-pepper hair and a friendly but guarded visage extended his hand to Arthur and introduced himself as Robert Ardichen as they shook.

  Jean-Pierre explained that since Arthur would be spending only three or four days in Bordeaux, it was better for everyone if he did not leave the house. The time for hiding in plain sight would come soon enough. Jean-Pierre and his wife apologized to their guest for having to conceal him in the attic annex until the Michels, who would leave shortly for Lesparre, returned to take him to his next destination.

  “Once you are on the move,” Jean-Pierre added, “you will frequently have to go out in the open as Lambert to receive your food rations from the Germans. You must also go out so that people will not get suspicious about you.”

  In one way, Arthur was relieved that he would have a few days’ respite from pretending to be Georges Lambert, but the sight of so many Germans everywhere in Bordeaux was not just unsettling, but frightening. Jean-Pierre said, “You must climb out of the annex and onto the roof if the Gestapo or the police come into the house.”

  The warning heightened Arthur’s uneasiness. The Dupins promised to check in on him and to bring him a valise with several changes of clothes, underwear, and socks for the days ahead. Shaking the American’s hand, Jean-Pierre assured him that his French friends knew what they were doing; Charlotte embraced him, kissing him on each cheek as Gisèle and Mrs. Dupin had done and arousing new pangs of loneliness in him. Christiane smiled and gave him a little wave.

  Before she left, Charlotte promised Arthur that she would be back in a few days and urged him not to worry. He never even considered asking where she would take him next; it would just be another unfamiliar spot on a map.

  Jean-Pierre took Arthur up several flights of stairs to a cramped, musty annex that contained an old French Army bedroll and blanket. That was all—no chair, no desk, and no room for anything except the bedroll and what looked like a covered wooden box and a porcelain vase in a corner. Arthur had to stoop, as the space was no more than five and a half feet high. There were no books or anything else to read and even if there had been, he knew only a handful of French words.

  It was then that he suddenly realized that the large porcelain vase was actually a chamber pot and the box was a portable toilet of some sort. Hunched over, he opened the box, which had a funnel that obviously sent waste to a container somewhere downstairs. A roll of toilet paper he had not noticed before sat behind the box. Bad, but not as bad as trying to go to the bathroom in one of a B-24’s waste units.

  Jean-Pierre said, “I must apologize for the accommodations.”

  Arthur grinned and shrugged. Compared to where the Gestapo might house a Jewish airman, the annex was as good as the Waldorf Astoria.

  After Jean-Pierre closed the door, the unmistakable ring of a metal latch on the other side caused Arthur to look at the grimy window, just large enough for a man to wriggle through and pull himself up onto the flat roof.

  On his knees, he unfurled the bedroll and its thin, shapeless pillow and eased himself onto it. He might as well have been lying on the floor itself, as the first stabs of pain from his back reminded him.

  Arthur languished in the annex for three days and nights, constantly shifting his position on the bedroll to relieve not only his back, but seemingly every other cramped muscle in the tight space. The wails of air-raid sirens and the thumps of flak and bombs in the distance every night made him wonder if his squadron, the 715th, was up there. The annex shook every time the unmistakable grind of half-tracks’ treads or the sudden squeals of tires rose from the surrounding streets.

  Three times a day, Mrs. Dupin unlatched the door to bring Arthur a tray with a meager ration of bread, a few vegetables, thin soup, and water. Twice a day, she gave him a basin of water, fresh towels, and soap, but no razor.

  Pierre would visit him in the morning before he left on Brutus business and in the late afternoon when he returned. When Mrs. Dupin carried up Arthur’s meals, she always sat with him, eager to learn about New York, his family, and his dreams for after the war. Grateful for the company and charmed by her laugh and gentle teasing, Arthur again felt like he had suddenly found an older sister, one who would do anything to help him.

  Early on the morning of the fourth day, urgent footsteps yanked Arthur from a restless sleep. He recoiled as the latch grated and the door opened. He feared that the Germans had found him. Then, as Jean-Pierre smiled at him, Arthur unclenched his fists. Jean-Pierre beckoned him to crawl out of the space and follow him downstairs. The Frenchman helped Arthur to his feet outside the annex, Arthur gasping from the pain in his cramped muscles. He would have fallen if not for his new friend.

  Steadying himself on Jean-Pierre’s arm, Arthur carefully navigated the stairs to the first floor, where his host offered him a razor, cup, and brush and showed him to a bathroom. The sink and a four-legged stand-up bathtub were filled with steaming water. Arthur scraped four days’ worth of stubble from his face and then sank into the tub for what he would remember as one of the best soakings of his life. Although he would have loved to stay there for an hour, he was soon out and dressed in a clean shirt and pants provided by Jean-Pierre.

  When he went downstairs, he walked straight into a meeting of Brutus operatives. Jean-Pierre introduced him to a man named Georges Tissot, and Ardichen was also seated in the room. Arthur sat, and for the next hour listened to an animated conversation among the men. He could make out a few words, such as “Gestapo,” and even though he could not speak French, he had no doubt that a crisis of some sort was being discussed. That crisis was the grim fact that the Nazis had been infiltrating Brutus since the early fall and arresting some of the network’s key leaders.

  As Arthur listened, Jean-Pierre gestured to a suitcase near Arthur’s chair. It was a valise for the airman with more clothing and a shaving kit. The suitcase was dilapidated and ripped in one corner, but an “agricultural worker” carrying stylish, expensive luggage would immediately evoke unwanted attention from the authorities.

  Arthur’s head swiveled toward the front door at the sound of knocking, but he relaxed as soon as Charlotte and Christiane entered, beaming at him. Madame Dupin handed him a little paper bag holding an apple, a pear, and a small wedge of cheese. Clasping his hand, Jean-Pierre said that Arthur was going to the city of Moissac and that while Jean-Pierre would not be going with the Michels, he would see Arthur soon. Seconds later, Arthur, in his beret and Pierre Chauvin’s overcoat, was walking back with the Michels to catch the city bus to the Esplanade des Quinconces. To his surprise, their identification cards were not checked.

  Shortly after they reached the busy terminal and disembarked from the city bus, a man in an elegantly cut cashmere coat and a dark beret appeared beside them. Arthur tensed up, but Charlotte gave his arm a squeeze and nodded at him—she did not dare whisper to the “mute” that the stranger was “a friend,” but Arthur read her gesture as she intended. The man was carrying what looked like a black doctor’s bag, and his clothes were indeed expensive but obviously a few years old, the coat patched at the right elbow.

  Moving into the line for the Bordeaux-to-Moissac autobus with the Michels and the newcomer, Arthur noticed that only one man, a police officer, was checking identification
cards and documents. With a bored, almost pained expression, the man barely seemed to glance at passengers’ papers and allowed them to board quickly. Maybe the bitter wind blowing in from the Garonne and raking the plaza had something to do with the man’s indifference, Arthur thought.

  When Arthur stood in front of him, the officer gave the photo card and papers a cursory look and sent Arthur onto the autobus. This time he sat between Charlotte and Christiane, not behind them as on the trip to Bordeaux. The man with the bag sat directly across the aisle from them, but did not look their way. Charlotte patted Arthur’s hand and smiled reassuringly as the door closed and the bus creaked out of the plaza for the ninety-seven-mile drive southeast to Moissac. He welcomed the motherly touch of Charlotte’s fingers, gentle and surprisingly soft despite the calluses raised by the toil and privations of war.

  As on the highway from Lesparre to Bordeaux, snow-covered vineyards, farms, and châteaus, as well as villages and market towns, stretched along the entire route to Moissac. Thankfully for Arthur, this autobus was in far better shape than the previous one, giving his back a bit of a rest.

  They pulled into the town square of Moissac a little over two hours after leaving Bordeaux and stopped near the twelfth-century Abbey Church of Saint-Pierre, with its graceful portico and world-famous exterior carvings. Another sight shattered any momentary sightseeing for Arthur. Two Gestapo agents, both in the blood-chilling black uniform and jackboots he had already come to loathe and fear, strode up to the autobus.

  Charlotte and Christiane went ahead of Arthur into the line, and when he started to move behind them, the man with the medical bag slipped directly behind him.

  After Charlotte’s and Christiane’s papers passed inspection and one of the men brusquely told them to move on, Arthur stepped in front of the Germans. His heart was throbbing, and despite the cold, his palms turned moist. When the German snarled for the “Frenchman” to produce his papers, Arthur hoped that his face showed no tinge of anything more than the natural fear anyone would have for the Germans at that time. This time, however, he was more frightened than in his first few encounters with the Gestapo.