The French War Bride

by Robin Wells

  “And say what? That you are sorry?”

  “Yes. Tell her anything that you think will help. Tell me what to say to her, and I will say it.”

  “But would you mean any of it?”

  The tight set of his mouth, the impatience in his eyes told me he saw no reason that should matter. I held up my hand before he could form a lie or excuse. “You know what, Pierre? There is truly nothing to be done.”

  “I cannot accept that.”

  I could see that I would never extract myself from this conversation without giving him some course of hopeful action. “Well, then, if you must do something, do this: give her some time. Because one thing is certain—the more you push her right now, the more you push her away.”

  “I am doing that, aren’t I? I am pushing her away.” He gazed down, blinking hard. He truly loved her; it was clear to see. “Yes, yes, I know I am, but I can’t seem to help myself.” He blew out a long sigh, looked up at the sky, turned away from me, then turned back. “How long must I wait?”

  “At least six months.”

  “Six months! That is a lifetime.”

  In this war, it well could be. “You asked me what I thought, Pierre. I cannot help it if you don’t like the answer.” I rose. “I need to get back to the hotel.”

  He started to walk with me.

  “I can make it on my own,” I said. “Good-bye, Pierre. Don’t contact me again.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Oh, but I do. I do.” I turned on my heel and walked away.

  23

  AMÉLIE

  1942–43

  Over the next year, the German stranglehold on Paris tightened. At the same time, the caliber of soldiers guarding the city declined; the strapping blond warriors who had initially invaded Paris were replaced by older reservists or soldiers with limps or eye patches. Germany was calling up all able-bodied soldiers to fight the Allies on the front.

  This did not mean that their rule over Parisians was less harsh. Quite the opposite; citizens were stopped more and more frequently for no reason at all and forced to show their papers. Food, already scarce, became even scarcer. Leather was practically impossible to find, which was a serious issue to me when my shoes wore through the soles. I stuffed cardboard in the bottoms, but it did a poor job in the snow.

  Even the weather was brutal. The winter was, again, bone-chillingly cold, with record amounts of snow in Paris.

  The worst of it, however, were the reports of what had happened to those captured in the Vel’ d’Hiv roundup. All of them had been sent to Auschwitz. Little was actually known about this camp, but it was rumored to be a place of death and horror—the most terrible of the terrible. Yvette consoled me that the stories about the camp were too outlandish to be credible. I could not sleep for thoughts of Joshua suffering or being tortured. I wondered if he were still alive. If he were not, I did not want to be alive, either.

  Yvette took up with an officer in the Wehrmacht in late October. Gerhard was highly positioned and clearly smitten with her. He installed her in his rooms at a luxury hotel and he bought her new clothes. She gave me her old shoes, which were a godsend. They were too large, but they tied on top, thank God, which helped me to keep them on my feet. With three pairs of heavy woolen socks—she gave me thick socks for Christmas, which were very dear and hard to find—the shoes actually fit.

  In November, the Germans occupied the Zone libre, doing away with the Vichy government and any illusion that France was determining its own fate. Free France had never been truly free, anyway, so there wasn’t much difference to the average French citizen. It did mean, however, that there were more soldiers in southern France, and that they kept a tighter eye on the populace. This made things a little more difficult for resistance workers—including me, because I had finally convinced M. Henri to let me serve as a transport.

  I had first contacted him and asked to help transport Jewish children to safety. This, I thought, was the only way I could make amends to Joshua.

  “The Children’s Aid Society is not part of our program,” he said. “We assist them when we can, but we are not directly involved.” He had given me a very serious look. “You are needed where you are, Amélie. You have moved up at the hotel and it would take us years to replace you. And your calligraphy skills—do you know how many people you have helped?”

  I was now spending two hours every Wednesday evening at a convent, forging signatures on identification papers, ration coupons, and travel papers.

  “Every time you write the name of an official, you are aiding the cause.”

  “But I want to do more!” I said. “I now have an entire day off twice a month. I want to use it to help the cause. I can serve as a courier.”

  “That is dangerous.”

  “I have no fear.” And I didn’t, because I felt I had nothing to live for. I was in a depression so deep that everything was colored in shades of gray.

  “Alas, that might be a problem.” He sighed and rubbed his jaw. “Lack of fear makes one reckless.”

  I persisted, however, and when they fell into desperate need of a courier—the last one had been caught, the one before had just mysteriously disappeared—they turned to me.

  I began traveling, once a month, to Tours, taking information and film. My alibi was that I was visiting my ailing elderly aunt, Tante Beatrice.

  Yvette’s beau, ironically, helped secure my travel papers. Yvette and I, after all, were legally sisters, so it was a natural favor for him to grant. Indeed, it would have seemed strange for me not to ask him.

  There was a problem with that, though: I had to use my real name. Most couriers—indeed, almost everyone working for the underground—used phony names, to prevent those that were captured from turning in other resistance members. I lacked that extra layer of protection.

  “It isn’t a matter of if, but a matter of when, you will spill information if you are caught,” M. Henri told me. He held up his hand as I started to protest. “Do not be insulted by this; professional spies, clergymen, people of the highest training and character . . . they all break under enough pressure. There is only so much a human being can take. God knows this, and so do the Nazis.”

  “Then I must be extra cautious.”

  “Yes. You must agree to take no chances.”

  I agreed, but in those dark days in France, life itself was a chance.

  My “aunt,” Beatrice Zouet, was far from infirm. She was elderly, to be sure, but she was a lively sprite of a woman who ran a safe house in the country for Resistance workers, occasional downed Allied airmen, and, to my great satisfaction, Jewish children being smuggled to the border of Switzerland.

  I was always met at the station by a middle-aged widow, Mme Molin, who gave me a ride in a donkey cart to Mme Zouet’s run-down farmhouse, four miles out of town. Mme Molin was the neighbor of my “aunt,” and her caretaker—and, if rumors could be believed, her sometimes lover.

  “Bonjour, Mme Molin,” I greeted her in January. “It is wonderful to see you.”

  “You too, my dear.” We exchanged la bise, and put on a little act for the soldiers and passersby at the station.

  “How is Tante Beatrice?”

  “Oh, she has been under the weather, I am afraid. But she is slightly better. The doctor came by this morning.”

  “Her heart again?”

  “Yes. And she has a little cold.”

  “I brought her a poultice for her arthritis.” I lifted the large basket I carried. Inside was, indeed, a very smelly concoction—smelly enough to discourage too much investigation by soldiers. Underneath, among the cloths that padded the covered bowl, were the papers I was smuggling.

  “How very thoughtful.” I climbed into the cart and set the basket on the floor by my feet. The pouch belt hiding the film under my dress rubbed against the hard backboard as I sat
down. I leaned forward to ease the pressure as Mme Molin flicked the reins.

  Once we were out of town, we could talk more freely.

  “Did the doctor really come?” I asked.

  “Yes. He was treating a mother and child who jumped off a train headed for the camps. The mother broke her arm. The child just got some cuts and scrapes.”

  “They’re staying at Tante Beatrice’s?”

  “They were, but it was too dangerous. We transported them to an abandoned house this morning. We’ll pass it on the way.” The mule turned off the main road, onto a dirt path through a copse of trees. The snow from the last storm had largely melted, but occasional large drifts remained, and the clouds threatened more snow before the day was out. “The SS are looking for her.”

  “Why?”

  “She was a renowned forger. She made excellent papers for many, many Jews, helping them to sneak out of the country. Her escape embarrasses them.”

  “Eh, bien.” The news that the SS were so keen to capture a forger made me squirm on the wooden seat.

  “The Nazis have vowed harsh retribution to anyone who helps them. Did you know that they shot four Resistance workers last week?”

  “I heard that. I am so sorry.”

  “They are very intent on finding this woman. They have searched Mme Zouet’s farm and been back twice. We are trying to keep a very low profile.”

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t have come today.”

  “Your visit is expected. If you had not, that would have created suspicion.”

  As we turned the corner, I heard large dogs barking.

  “This is not good,” Mme Molin muttered. “The Boches have their dogs out searching. And the house where the woman and child are staying is right ahead.”

  A low-flying airplane roared overhead.

  I gazed up and Mme Molin’s weathered forehead creased in a frown as the mule clopped slowly around the bend. As we turned the corner, a woman with her arm in a sling came out of the outhouse.

  “Oh, mon Dieu!” Mme Molin gasped. “I told her to stay inside!”

  The plane apparently had spotted the woman, as well. It turned and circled back toward us. Mme Molin yanked the mule to a stop under a tree. She tossed the reins to me.

  “Wrap these around the tree branch!”

  I did as she ordered.

  “Get down. Get down!”

  I dove to the floor of the cart. Machine gun fire strafed the ground. A loud explosion rocked the cart, causing a flash of red I could see through my closed eyelids.

  “Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!” Mme Molin muttered. The donkey was trying to buck, but his tethers to the cart prevented him from rearing, and the reins wrapped around the branch held.

  I raised my head. The roof of the house was an orange and yellow blaze.

  “My baby! My baby is in the house!” wailed the woman, flapping her good arm. The dried grass around her, as well as her skirt, was on fire.

  Mme Molin clamored down from the cart and raced for the house, her black skirt billowing against the snow drifts on the roadside like the wings of a crow. At the same time, a man darted from the woods and knocked the woman to the ground. I first thought he was a Nazi trying to harm her, and then I realized he was putting out her flaming clothes by rolling her.

  “My baby! My baby!” the woman cried as the man helped her to her feet.

  “What room is she in?” Mme Molin called, peeling off her coat.

  “The front.”

  Mme Molin dipped her coat into a snowdrift by the firewood. Yanking it over her head, she dashed through the front door. A long moment later, she emerged—a screaming child in her arms, under the coat.

  The house exploded behind her, throwing them to the ground. My legs shook as I climbed down from the cart to go help them. By the time my foot hit the snow the man had seized the child, grabbed the woman’s arm, and hustled them to the woods. I hurried toward Mme Molin and helped her to her feet.

  “Are there others in the house?” I asked.

  “Perhaps, but it is too late to help now.”

  “But . . .”

  Mme Molin shook out her coat. “We must get back in the cart. The plane will be back and the Boches are undoubtedly in the woods. We must not be spotted here.”

  “But what about the woman and her child?”

  “Leave it to our men. They will hide them. It is best that we do not know anything further.”

  She was right, of course. We piled back into the cart. I pulled the reins from the branch as Mme Molin yanked on her coat. The donkey raced down the path. Mme Molin let him have his head. He carried us from the burning house as fast as his legs and lungs would let him, racing as if he wished he had wings.

  I hung onto the side of the cart, stunned by what I had seen. So quickly things could change! So quickly one must decide to act! And I had sat there like a stone, while Mme Molin and a Resistance worker hiding in the woods had sprung into action.

  “Was the woman badly burned?”

  “I do not think so.”

  “The child?”

  “No. She was unconscious from the smoke, but quickly found her lungs—as you heard.”

  We rocked wildly for a while as the mule sped down the road.

  “How did the man know to put out the fire on the woman’s clothes like that?”

  “The local firefighters taught us after the first bombings. If you are on fire, the best thing to do is roll on the ground.”

  “I never knew that.”

  “Yes, well . . . war has taught us many things we never thought we would need to know.”

  Too many, I thought. I had always wondered how I would react in an emergency if someone needed to be saved. There were two types of people, I had always thought—those who jumped into action and those who froze. I was chagrined to learn that I was one of the frozen. “How did you have the presence of mind to take off your coat and put it over your head before you went into the house?”

  “Again, it is something I was taught. If I perish of smoke or fire before I save someone else, I will help not the cause. Plus a wet coat is a protection from the fire.”

  “I was paralyzed by fear.”

  “It is just as well. Unless you know how to properly assist, you only become one more person who needs to be saved.”

  I vowed, then and there, that I would not be paralyzed again. If war was a fast teacher, I intended to be a fast learner.

  —

  We had to go past the burned house again on the way back to the train station. Thanks to fresh snow, the fire was extinguished, but a cloud of smoke still hovered. The mule balked as we neared it; we had to get down out of the cart and lead him past.

  A crowd of townspeople had gathered to gawk at the destruction. One couple, a man with a beard and a woman with a long, gaunt face, greeted Mme Molin, who introduced me as Mme Zouet’s niece.

  “The Germans are saying that the woman they were hunting was killed,” said the woman, in a low voice. “I don’t believe it. There were two bodies inside, but they were both men.”

  “Oh, no,” I gasped.

  “I think one was René Foret,” the man said. “It looked like his boots.”

  “Oh, poor Hélène.” Mme Molin crossed herself. I did the same. “And the other victim?”

  “No one yet knows,” the woman said.

  “Do you think the woman made it to the border?” the man asked.

  “I think she made it away from here,” Mme Molin said. “That in and of itself is a victory. Only God knows how it will end for her.”

  Only God knew how it would end for any of us, I thought. I sometimes wondered if anyone would be left alive from this war, or if we would all just kill each other.

  24

  AMÉLIE

  1943

  The train ride home
seemed extra long. I leaned against the window, my head bouncing against the glass. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw fire rain down from heaven. I thought of Mme Molin’s words, of how we should count any escape a victory, but the math didn’t work. Two lives had been lost in the saving of two. And we were by no means certain that the two we’d tried to save were still alive—or, if alive, would make it through the following day.

  My heart was heavy. The train was delayed at two stops along the way, and it was very late—well after the nine o’clock civilian curfew—when I arrived in Paris. I stepped out of the train station onto a dark street and headed down the rue Aignon toward the hotel. Three drunk German soldiers staggered out of a tavern.

  I tried to walk around them, but they deliberately blocked my path. “Oho! What have we here?” asked one in slurred German.

  “Let’s see if we can get an evening’s pleasure without having to pay anything,” said a second. They all laughed raucously, insolently certain I couldn’t understand their language.

  My heart pattered hard in my chest. The first soldier grabbed my sleeve and leered, his beer breath steaming in the cold night. “Want to have a little fun, mademoiselle?” he asked in heavily accented French.

  “No, thank you,” I responded.

  “That is not how you get cooperation,” the tallest soldier said in German to his peers. “I’ll show you how it’s done.” He turned to me, straightened his cap, and addressed me in bad French. “You are out after curfew, mademoiselle. You are breaking the law.”

  “I—I just got off the train. Would you like to see my travel papers?”

  “No, we want to see your cootch,” said the second soldier in German.

  They all laughed uproariously.

  Fear welled up in my chest. I pretended not to understand. “I am heading back to my residence.”

  “And where is that?”

  “The Hotel Palais.”

  “Oh, you live at a hotel?” Their eyebrows shot up. They looked at each other and laughed.

  “I work as a maid there,” I said, wanting to shoot down any ideas that I was a hooker or kept woman.