by Robin Wells
“Alphonse, do not think about it,” Maman said.
“What else am I to think about?”
“Whatever you thought about before.”
“I cannot even remember what that was.”
“Look at the scenery, then.”
I decided to take Maman’s advice and turned my attention from the inside of the railcar to the passing scenery. The countryside was unchanged, but at each station, the military presence of the Germans was inescapable. The boarding platforms were a sea of gray-green uniforms with bottle green collars and epaulets. The sight of the Nazi flag flying where the French flag should have been made my chest feel tight and hot.
11
AMÉLIE
1940
It was late afternoon by the time we got to Paris. The first thing I noticed was the swastika hanging in the station where the French flag should have been. As we stepped out onto the street, though, I was struck by how unchanged the city looked. More stores were open than closed, which surprised me. I had thought that most of the city would be shut down.
We hailed a taxi. The driver told us that the city was peaceful enough, but that the Nazis watched everything and everybody. He said there was a shortage of everything from shoestrings to lumber, but especially a shortage of food.
“The Boches have enormous appetites,” he said. “They eat like great beasts, leaving little for the rest of us.”
It was early evening, and we were exhausted and hungry. “I am so glad I canned extra food,” Maman was saying as the taxi turned into our neighborhood. “I can heat up some vegetables for dinner. And won’t it be wonderful to sleep in our own beds!”
I peered eagerly out the window as the cab turned onto our street. My first thought was how lovely and welcoming the house looked, with the lights shining through the windows.
“Why are the lights on?” Maman asked.
Papa was busy paying the cabdriver and perhaps did not hear. He pulled out his keys as we walked up the steps to the door.
He had no sooner fit the key in the door than it jerked opened. A tall German in evening dress—he wore black tie—loomed in the doorway.
Papa gasped. I don’t know who looked more surprised—Papa or the tall German.
“May I help you?” he asked in stilted French.
Papa blinked and sputtered. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?”
“Your house?” the man echoed.
“Yes. My house.” Papa strode angrily into the entry. Maman and I meekly followed.
Once in the foyer, we noticed a group of ten or twelve men gathered around our dining table. Music poured from the living room. The scent of roast meat—so delicious and heady that my mouth watered—filled the air.
“You are mistaken. This is the residence of Colonel Schiltzen.”
“I am not mistaken.” Papa pointed. “That is my piano, and my table that your friends are sitting at—and that glass you’re holding is my wife’s wedding crystal.”
Maman pulled on Papa’s arm, her face pale and alarmed. The dining room chairs all scraped on the floor as the men scooted backward and rose.
“What’s going on out there?” a man called.
“Nothing,” replied the German. “Just someone at the wrong address.” He took a slow, impudent sip from Mama’s glass.
Papa reached out and snatched it from his hand, sloshing wine on the entry hall rug.
“Alphonse!” Maman stepped forward to tug on Papa’s arm, just as the German slapped Papa across the face. Maman fell back, as if she, too, had been struck.
Papa lunged, knocking the man off his feet. I think Maman screamed—or maybe it was me. I huddled against the wall, my heart in my throat. Papa knelt on top of the German and began choking him. All of a sudden, we were surrounded by Germans in evening attire or dress uniforms, and a gun exploded.
Papa went limp. His hands fell from the German’s neck, and his arms dropped to his side like rags. He slumped forward as the tall German scrambled out from under him. Papa’s legs collapsed as if they were boneless. His blood poured out on the Aubusson rug that had graced the entry hall for at least a century.
“Alphonse!” Maman knelt down and turned him over. His eyes were open, full of shock and pain. A sickening hole was in the center of his once white, now red shirt. Maman cradled his face in her hands, then turned imploring eyes up to the Germans. “You must take him to a hospital!”
“Get him out of here,” ordered one of the Germans in a uniform with braided shoulder boards and several medals, a squat man with a ruddy complexion. He made a flicking motion with his hand. “Be sure to put a blanket in the car so he won’t get blood everywhere.”
Two men in uniforms picked him up by the armpits and dragged him toward the door. Maman scrambled to her feet and started to follow.
A third uniformed German barred her way. “You cannot go.”
Maman’s eyes were wild and unfocused. “But I must accompany him to the hospital.”
Two officers in the foyer laughed.
“No need, madame. They will take good care of him,” one of them said in French.
As the officers pulled Papa out the door, his head was limp and lolling forward, and his eyes were closed. He was unconscious—or worse. A few moments later, a car engine roared. I heard tires squeal, and I knew Papa was gone.
I reached for Maman and put my arms around her. I must have been in shock, because my brain registered what was happening, but my emotions were numb.
“What are we to do with the woman and the girl?” one of the officers in the foyer asked in German. “They are witnesses.”
“So? They can warn others what happens to brash Frenchmen.”
“But you know our orders. We are not to create any incidents to outrage the public.”
“Those are old orders. They are about to change.”
“Yes. We will soon outrage plenty.” The men laughed.
“Still, they saw me shoot him,” said a stocky German. Until he spoke, I had not known who had pulled the weapon. I studied his face. The image of it burned into my memory, into a hot, dark part of my soul I never knew I had, a part where hate dwelled.
“He deserved to die,” said the man with the braided shoulder boards, whom I assumed to be the colonel. “He was attacking a German officer.”
A man in white tie turned to Maman and spoke in crude French. “Madame, you must leave now and you must not ever come back. Furthermore, if you speak of this, things could go very badly for you. Very badly indeed, I am afraid.”
“But my husband . . .”
“He assaulted a German officer. He was restrained.” He opened the door. “I am so sorry that you stumbled upon the wrong residence.”
“This isn’t wrong,” I said.
The soldiers looked at me.
I was surprised to find that I had spoken. My mouth was like cotton, yet I knew I must try. “This is our home. We left before the invasion, but we are back now.”
“I am sorry, mademoiselle, but the house has been requisitioned for an officer. It now belongs to the führer.”
“Please . . . just tell me, where have you taken my husband?” Maman persisted.
“You do not want to be where he is.” The man in white tie was edging us out the door.
“But—but where are we to go?” I asked. “Where are we to live?”
“That is not our concern. Perhaps wherever you have lived until now.” He stepped forward, forcing us onto the stoop. “Now go.”
As the door closed behind us with a heart-wrenchingly familiar thud, I realized that life as I had known it was over forever.
12
AMÉLIE
1940
Maman was a sobbing mess, insistent on finding Papa. She refused to believe he was dead, or soon would be; she was convinced we ne
eded to check the hospitals.
I did not think, for even a moment, that the Nazis intended to get medical help for Papa. Even if they did, I knew it would be no use. You could not save a man who had been shot in the heart at such close range.
Maman wandered into the street and wailed. For the first time—but not the last—our roles were reversed. I was the adult, and she was the child. Her need was my call to action. It was, oddly, a blessing; it gave me something concrete upon which to focus.
I felt strangely detached and bloodless—as if my veins had emptied onto the carpet along with Papa’s. My whole body felt numb, the way a leg can get when you sit with it tucked under. That night, and for the next several weeks, my brain operated like a clock. It clicked forward to the next minute, to the next task—and then to the one after that. It did not pause. It did not reflect.
“Let’s go see Mme LeMans,” I said. I led Maman to our neighbor’s door. We knocked, but the apartment was dark and abandoned.
“Perhaps we can stay at Yvette’s apartment,” I suggested next. “Yvette mentioned that her bedroom window is loose.” She used to sneak out of it and come visit me in the dead of night. We had enjoyed doing things that were daring and dangerous just for the thrill of it. How childish that seemed now!
I went around to the window and cupped my hands to the pane. There was just enough light left to see that everything inside was topsy-turvy. Someone had tossed the apartment like a salad.
Maman looked inside, as well. “Oh, mon Dieu!”
“They were looking for M. Chaussant,” I said. “It would not be safe to stay there.”
“What are we doing anyway, looking for a place to stay? We cannot rest. We must go to the hospitals to find your papa!”
“Maman.” I took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. They were strangely blank, as if she could not see. “They weren’t going to take Papa to a hospital.”
“They must! They must!” Her voice grew shriller and louder.
“Let’s try the Lauries,” I proposed, desperate to quiet her. I led her to our next-door neighbors’ house and knocked. The lights were on, but no one came to the door. I rapped louder, again and again.
At length, the door opened a fraction of an inch. “We cannot help you. You must leave us alone.”
“But, Mme Laurie—it’s Amélie and Maman.”
“I know. I heard the gunshot and the loud voices.”
“Then you know we need help!”
“I’m very sorry, but they told you to go.”
“They just meant we couldn’t stay at our home! I’m sure they didn’t mean . . .”
She held up her hand. “They watch everything that goes on in the neighborhood. I cannot risk helping.”
Maman pressed her face to the crack in the door. “Lorraine, how can you turn us away?”
“I—I have to take care of my own. My uncle and aunt are here from Poland, and . . . we cannot be under scrutiny.”
“But surely . . .”
“No. I am sorry.” She closed the door with a terrifying finality.
Maman sat on the stoop and started wailing again—a wild, loud, animal sound.
I grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet, as if she were a toddler having a tantrum. “You must stop that.” My voice was fierce, a tone I didn’t recognize as my own. “The Nazis will hear, and they will kill us.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I do.”
Her eyes seemed, finally, to focus. She looked at me, and it was if she just remembered I was her daughter. “Yes. Oh, Amélie, yes, you must live. But what are we to do? Papa had all our money. I have only a few sous.”
It is impossible to say that my heart sank, because it was already at the bottom of the deepest pit. The news of money trouble paled beside the immediate problem: where were we to go?
We knew many people in Paris, but none better than the neighbor who had just turned us away.
“We will go see Joshua. He will know what to do.”
“Joshua? Who is that?”
“A young man I sometimes studied with.”
“You never mentioned him.”
“He was part of a group Yvette and I sometimes joined,” I said vaguely.
“Do you know where he lives?”
“I know where he works,” I said. “We’ll go there and find out his address.”
—
“This is a terrible part of town,” Maman grumbled as we hauled our suitcases through Montmartre. “Why, this is a red-light district!”
I did not know what that meant, but the neighborhood seemed more dangerous than it had before the occupation. A woman in a low-cut blouse stood on the corner, a cigarette in one hand and an open bottle in the other. Down the alleyway, I saw two cigarettes glowing down in the dark. My skin prickled as a German soldier looked at us. I was relieved when we turned the corner to see the lighted sign of the La Grosse Pomme. Good. It was still open.
“What kind of place is this?”
“A club for live music.”
“But . . .”
No doorman stood outside to assist with the heavy brass door. I pushed it open. A different band was on the stage, playing a French ballad. No more jazz or Dixieland. No more Negro faces. The musicians were all Caucasian, and the music was as bland as vanilla pudding.
“Is Joshua working tonight?” I asked the maître d’hotel.
He looked from me to Maman. He did not recognize me.
“Joshua Koper,” I clarified.
He arched his eyebrows. “The busboy?”
I tilted my head and channeled the confident attitude of the chanteuse. “Yes. Can you please tell him Amélie is here to see him?”
I kept my gaze boldly locked on his until he nodded. “Wait here.”
Maman and I sat in the entry. I am sure Maman was in shock. Under normal circumstances, she would never have entered such an establishment, much less have sat down. Under normal circumstances, she would have riddled me about how I knew of such a place and what I was doing consorting with someone employed there.
The maître d’ returned. “He says he will meet you around back.”
“Thank you,” I said. I touched Maman’s arm. “Wait here. I will only be a few moments.”
Joshua was waiting for me in the alley. At first, his face lit with a smile. “Amélie! You’re back!”
His expression quickly changed as his eyes searched my face. “What’s wrong?”
I told him what had happened. The words seemed to cut my throat, as though they were made of broken glass. It hurt to get them out. My face was wet when I finished.
He pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket and jotted something down. “Go to this address and give this to the woman who answers the door. That will be my mother. She only speaks Yiddish, but she will help you. We are sheltering many friends and distant relatives, but she will put you up for tonight.”
“Thank you. Oh, thank you!” I gave him a kiss on the cheek. He held me close for just a moment and the warmth of him, the solid comfort of his chest . . . well, I started to cry. No. I must not feel anything. If I started to feel, I could not function. I straightened, took the paper, and walked away. After a few steps, I paused and turned back.
“I don’t know if Maman will come with me. She wants to go to the hospitals to look for Papa.”
“Tell her I’ll check them for you. Tomorrow will be soon enough for her to face the truth.”
13
AMÉLIE
1940
The apartment was in a run-down, unkempt neighborhood, in a building so crude it didn’t have a concierge. It didn’t even have indoor stairs. Maman and I climbed up two rickety sets of steps on the outside of the building and knocked on a grimy door.
As promised, Joshua’s mother welcomed us after r
eading his hastily scrawled note. She could speak no French—nor English, nor barely any German. She waved us inside. Paint peeled from the chipped plaster walls, and the ceilings were stained and sagging. Each of the three forlorn little rooms—there was a tiny kitchen, a combination living room and dining room, and a bedroom—were lit by a solitary lightbulb dangling from a frayed wire. The leaky, smelly bathroom was down the hall, and shared by all residents on the floor.
She indicated we were to take her bed. I started to refuse, but Maman was in such bad shape that I conceded simply so she would lie down. By now Maman was shaking, the color from her face completely gone. She had not said a word as I led her from the club to the apartment. Mme Koper heated some thin soup and offered us each a cup, with no spoon. I held the cup to Maman’s lips and forced her to sip some.
I’m not sure how many people were lodged in the apartment—at least ten when we first arrived; maybe fifteen or even twenty later. People kept coming in after we were in bed, and four that I counted—maybe more—bunked down on the floor of our room.
I was exhausted, but my nerves were spooled tight. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the hole in Papa’s chest. It looked like a weird red cave. I did not emotionally connect the vision etched on the inside of my eyelids with my father. There was a disassociation between my head and my heart.
I was sure I would never fall asleep. I held my mother and stroked her hair, as if she were a child. Her trembling stopped at length and her breathing grew slow and steady. I said a prayer thanking God for the small mercy of unconsciousness. I lay awake and listened for Joshua to come home, but at some point, fatigue overtook me.
I awoke early, when the sun was but a promise on the horizon, and sat up in bed. The memory of the day before seemed like a bad dream. When I realized it wasn’t, grief and despair and panic flashed through me, so hard and rough that I was thrown back on the pillow—but then the steel door that separated my head from my heart banged shut again, and I arose to address the day.
It was early, but there was already a line to the bathroom. Maman was sitting up when I came back to the bedroom. She had used a chamber pot in the room, which I now had to find a way to empty.