The French War Bride

by Robin Wells

  “At least you have that.”

  “Yes. I’m better off than other women who have just been dumped on the street.” We both gazed at the Seine, which was strangely empty of boats. “He was in love with me, you know. He still is, a little.”

  “I am sure of it.”

  “But life goes on, does it not? His future is back in Germany, and I am not a part of it.”

  “Do you mind terribly?”

  “I hate that my baby will be a bâtard, but personally, I don’t mind so much.” Her gaze remained fixed on the river. “I will manage. I managed during the worst of it. And because of Dierk, I provided the Resistance with a lot of important information about the movement of supplies to Paris.”

  In all our conversations, we had never talked about what, specifically, Dierk did. It fell under the rule of ignorance meant protection. “So he works with supplies.”

  She nodded. “He was one of the top officers in charge of logistics. The Resistance intercepted truckload after truckload of weapons, food, clothing, and artillery based on information I provided.”

  The importance of this was staggering. “You did a very good thing, Yvette.”

  “Not everyone will think that. They only know what they saw, which was a woman eating and laughing and sleeping with a German. They believe that is whole truth.”

  She sat very still for a moment. “Do you think my child will understand and forgive me?”

  I put my arm around her. “I’m sure he or she will think you are the finest mother in the world.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Will you help me explain how things were, when it is time?”

  “Oh, Yvette! I will help you and your child any way I can. You know I will. We will raise him or her together in America.” We stood, and I gave her a hug. “You and I and your baby—we will be a family.”

  “We already are.” She smiled at me. “We already are.”

  —

  I mulled things over for a few days, then decided I should go see Pierre. The war was ending. Perhaps he would repent. If he did, perhaps Yvette would take him back; perhaps he would marry her and take care of the baby as if it were his own.

  If that were the case, then perhaps, I, too, could forgive him. Perhaps, when all was said and done, he might even help me learn what happened to Joshua. Perhaps I would discover that he was alive after all.

  Perhaps. I knew I was telling myself a fairy tale, one that began with perhaps instead of once upon a time, but hope was scant, and when hope is all you have, you cling to it like a child to a favorite blanket.

  I went to the main police prefecture in the eleventh arrondissement. All of the officers were pulling off their caps and flooding out of the building.

  “What is going on?” I asked one.

  “We are on strike,” he said.

  More like trying to save your own skins, I thought darkly. The Nazis were fleeing the city like rats from a sinking ship, and the police were eager to get out of the uniforms that marked them as collaborateurs. I found one policeman still standing behind the front desk, although he was preoccupied gathering up his belongings. “Can you tell me where I can find my brother?” I asked. “His name is Pierre Michaud.”

  “Sorry, mademoiselle. I do not know.”

  “Can you look it up?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  All I knew to do was to go to Pierre’s apartment. I had the address, but I had never been. It was in a building far nicer than I would have thought a policeman’s salary could provide. I knocked, but got no answer. The concierge was out, so I knocked on the door of his neighbor. A stooped man with a nose like a turnip slowly opened it and peered through a crack.

  “Excuse me. Do you happen to know the whereabouts of your next-door neighbor, Pierre Michaud?”

  “The policeman?” His face screwed into a tight ball. “He moved back to his fancy family home a few weeks ago.”

  I felt my heart beat against my ribs. Was it true? Had Pierre been able to regain possession of our home? If anyone could, it would be he. He was the oldest son and therefore the legal heir. Perhaps, if he repented and we forgave him, he would let Yvette and me live there!

  I thanked the man and breathlessly hurried to my old neighborhood. The train and Métro workers were on strike, so I walked the entire way, my feet throbbing at the heat of the pavement through the cardboard soles of my shoes. Now that it was summer, I could not bear to wear three pairs of socks to make Yvette’s shoes stay on my feet, and had reverted to wearing my own.

  When I reached my old home, the familiarity of it made me want to weep. The paint was peeling from the door and a black shutter hung from a hinge—but looking at it, I could still imagine my mother inside, wearing her favorite red apron, cooking dinner. As I climbed the steps and approached the door, I realized that the heavy brass knocker had been removed. I rapped on the wood with my knuckles.

  A thin, middle-aged man answered, a pistol dangling from his right hand. “Yes?”

  “Bonjour. I am looking for Pierre Michaud.”

  “You won’t find him here.”

  “Do you know when he will be back?”

  “Yes. Never.”

  “I—I don’t understand. This is our home.”

  “Not anymore, it’s not. The deed is in my name, notarized and recorded down at city hall.”

  “Oh. Oh, my.” Tears unexpectedly filled my eyes. I hadn’t cried in a long, long time, but having such high hopes, then having them dashed, all within the space of a couple of hours . . . well, it broke something inside me.

  He scowled. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “Pierre’s sister. He—he sold it to you?”

  His eyes hardened. “Same as. I won it as a gambling debt. Like I said, it’s all registered at city hall.”

  My heart sank to my feet. “Do you have any idea where he is?”

  “No.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “A couple of weeks ago.”

  He started to close the door. I put my hand on the doorjamb to halt him. He stopped just shy of crushing my knuckles. “What about the furnishings?” I asked.

  “Furnishings?” His voice held a mocking tone. “What furnishings?” He opened the door wider. I saw the faded outline on the gold damask wallpaper where the picture of my grandmother had hung. The sideboard below it, where Maman had stored all her china and silver, was gone, as well. So was the piano across the entry hall—and all the furniture and paintings in the dining room. Only shadows remained. “The thieving Boches took everything.”

  “But . . .”

  “I’m busy, mademoiselle.” He started to close the door, then paused. “Look, if I were you, I wouldn’t waste my time searching for that worthless brother of yours. I’m pretty sure he’s no longer among the living.”

  “Wh-Why do you say that?”

  “The SS came looking for him right after I moved in. Apparently he’d stolen something from one of their officials. They were plenty ticked off and out for blood.”

  “Did you tell them where to find him?”

  “I told them where he liked to play cards.” He looked at me, and his cold eyes warmed a couple of degrees. “I’ll tell you, too, if you want to know, but I suggest you spare yourself the trouble.”

  I had to know. I owed it to my parents, to myself, and to Yvette, who had loved him. “Please,” I whispered.

  “The Silver Cat.” He gave me the address. My heart was a hard knot somewhere near my collarbone as I made my way there.

  It was a hole-in-the-wall in Montmartre, a dark cave that smelled like sour wine and acrid beer, with round tables surrounded by men playing cards. Every head lifted as I entered. I approached the barkeep, a tall man with pockmarked skin and a stained white apron, and stated my business as efficiently as I could.

  “
Pierre Michaud? Yeah, I knew him.” The bartender ran a dirty rag across the counter. “He was dragged out of here by the SS. Heard them say he was going to wish he’d never been born.”

  “Do you know where they took him?”

  “Does it matter? It’s a safe bet he’s never coming back.”

  I nodded my thanks, then left the bar, my eyes full, my head down. This time, I was unable to hold back my tears.

  32

  AMÉLIE

  August 25, 1944

  The Allies are coming! The Allies are coming!” The cry echoed through the city as Yvette and I made our way through the thick throng to the Champs-Élysées.

  It was a such a relief, so long overdue. The city had descended into anarchy over the previous two weeks. Paris had become a battlefield of haphazard gunfire as citizens took up the resistance cause and the Germans fired back to defend themselves, punish offenders, or simply buy time to escape. The violence was indiscriminate, with both sides firing at each other and into crowds. The carnage was terrifying and shocking.

  To my mind, the insurrection of the people of Paris was completely uncalled for, because the Germans were already in retreat. But we had been under the thumb of the Boches for so long—had been so bullied and debased and disheartened—that many people felt the need to take action, even useless action.

  They wanted to take back the city themselves. To that end, French citizens dug up street bricks, gathered sandbags, and built barricades. They fired on German soldiers with pistols and hunting rifles, they hurled homemade bombs, and they attacked any Boches foolish enough to go out alone or in pairs.

  The violence was still occurring as the Allies marched into Paris and yet, Yvette and I and most of the city poured into the streets and headed to the Champs-Élysées.

  “Look—here they come!” Yvette cried.

  I tried to stand on tiptoe to see. I had gotten my shoes resoled, but due to the lack of leather, they were soled with wood. Consequently, I couldn’t flex my feet, and had to settle for craning my neck to see through the crowd.

  First came the French Second Armored Division. They were dressed in American uniforms, riding American Jeeps and tanks, so it was hard to tell that they were French—but when one young man bounded off a tank to hug a girl in a crowd, and another dashed from formation into a drugstore to telephone his mother, we realized they were our boys.

  “Oh, isn’t it marvelous! Just marvelous!” a woman standing next to me said.

  “Papa!” a soldier yelled. He leapt off the back of the Jeep and ran into the crowd. An old man grabbed him by the cheeks and stared at him, then hugged him so hard and tight that the crowd eventually separated them, for fear one was smothering the other.

  Yvette was crying. Everyone was crying. I put a hand to my face and realized my cheeks were wet, as well.

  “At last. At last. At last!” Yvette kept repeating, grabbing my hand.

  Behind the French troops came the Americans. They were for the most part taller and they all sported big, wide smiles.

  “Why do the Americans smile so much?” said a lady behind me.

  “Because they are happy to be in Paris,” I said. “And seeing them here makes me smile, too!”

  “Yes,” the woman agreed. “Bien sûr, it is a joyous occasion!”

  All in all, I have not ever seen—nor felt—such massive exultation, such collective joy, before or since. It was a force unto itself, a power that lightened and lifted us all. It was as if the law of gravity were momentarily suspended. Our hearts all soared like the highest, purest note of an aria, above and beyond us all.

  “At last!” Yvette kept saying. “At last!”

  Yes, at last—at long, long last.

  And yet. And yet.

  I am sure I was not alone in being struck, there amidst all the joy, by all that we had lost. Yes, we were liberated from our occupiers—but life would never be restored to “before.” No one could ever give us back what the war had taken.

  Paris was liberated, and my soul sang a hallelujah—but I couldn’t help but wonder what meaning this really held, when everything and everyone that had made Paris my home was gone.

  33

  AMÉLIE

  August 25–September 1944

  The euphoria of the Allies’ arrival was quickly followed by some of the ugliest days of the war. L’épuration sauvage, the savage purge, began almost immediately. The French populace was eager for revenge, and they quickly turned on the collaborators—both those who had actively helped the Boche and those who had been guilty of la collaboration horizontale.

  I walked with Yvette back to her hotel, noticing the venom with which she was treated. “Putain,” a woman cursed as she walked by. Whore.

  “Collaborateur,” muttered another.

  “Putain de merde.”

  By the next day, the crowd had been whipped into a frenzy to do something more than merely name call. I was in my room when a knock sounded. It was a doorman from the front of the hotel. He sheepishly looked down.

  “Mademoiselle, the doorman at the Hotel Paris is my friend. He told me your sister has been taken by a mob to the Place de la République.”

  “Oh, mon Dieu! Why?”

  His cheeks grew red. “They are punishing the collaborateurs.”

  I grabbed my purse and pulled out a coin to tip him.

  “No, mademoiselle. I do not want your money. I just thought you would want to know.”

  “Merci. Merci beaucoup.”

  He nodded. “De rien. I am so sorry. I, too, have a sister, and . . .” He gave little shrug and turned to go.

  “Wait.”

  He turned back around.

  “What do you think . . . what are their . . .” I swallowed and asked the fear of my heart. “What do you think they intend to do to her?”

  He lifted his shoulders again in an embarrassed shrug. “I do not know.”

  I changed out of my uniform and hurried to the square as fast as my feet would carry me, leaving word with a fellow maid to please tell the supervisor I had a family emergency. I knew she would not be pleased, but so many maids had simply disappeared or not shown up after yesterday’s incredible celebration that I thought I would still have a job.

  Through the city, shots still rang out. I do not know if it was fanatical German snipers, the Vichy equivalent of the SS, or a trigger-happy FiFi—a member of the Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur, as the Resistance was now called—but I kept going. I did not think that I was a target. I tried to maintain a profile like the “Brown Mice,” as we called the German women who had been office workers under the Wehrmacht; I tried to be unobtrusive and bland and small, to blend in to the environment, to not stand out in any way or call attention to myself.

  I heard the rumblings and jeers of the crowd from two blocks away. I turned onto the rue Beaurepaire, and gasped.

  A makeshift platform had been set up. On it, three women, stripped to their undergarments, were seated in chairs, their hands tied behind them—as their heads were forcibly shaved.

  Two of the tondeurs—shearers—were bearded men with cigarettes dangling from their mouths. The third was, shockingly, a woman—a woman with shoulder-length black hair that was curled and coiffed. She yanked her victim’s head around by her remaining hair, more roughly than her male counterparts. The poor victim’s scalp was nicked with cuts and gashes.

  Tears poured down the flaming cheeks of the poor shorn women, who sat, miserably still, not daring to move for fear of their scalps being cut or of angering their captors to commit further violence against them.

  They could do nothing but submit. Shame seemed to ooze from their very pores and hovered around them like a cloud of cigarette smoke.

  As I watched, one of the tondeurs raised his hand, brandishing his razor in the air. “Voilà!” Two other Frenchmen immediately step
ped forward and yanked the shorn victim, a rather flat-chested woman in her mid-thirties, to her feet. A woman from the crowd, a blonde wearing a red dress, ran up the steps, pulled a lipstick from her pocket, and drew a bright red swastika on the woman’s forehead.

  “There! Do you think a Boche would want to shove his filthy sausage in you now, eh?” the woman asked.

  “Putain!” screamed someone in the crowd. “Ugly whore!”

  “Just look at your mother, Ursule.” The woman who’d painted the swastika—a woman who must have had some kind of axe to grind, I thought—grabbed the victim by the jaw and directed her head out to the crowd. “You are killing her. She is dying a thousand deaths from shame.”

  I could not see the poor mother in the crowd. The shorn woman on the platform sobbed, her bald head lowered so that I could not see her face.

  Another woman wearing only a slip was roughly pulled onto the stage and pushed into the freshly vacated chair. Taunts, rude suggestions, and horrible curses erupted from the onlookers. Horrified, I covered my mouth with my hand and scoured the crowd for Yvette.

  I was too short to see above the heads in front of me. Determined, I elbowed my way nearer the platform. At the very front, I saw a man and two women yanking the clothes off a familiar blonde.

  “Stop!” I yelled, running toward her, pushing people out of the way.

  Hands grasped at me, trying to hold me back. I wrested away and plunged through the crowd until I reached Yvette’s side. I tried to pry the woman’s hands off Yvette’s rose dress—one of Yvette’s favorites. It tore as she yanked it off Yvette’s back, ripping the fabric.

  Someone strong—a man—grabbed me from behind and held me in a choke hold.

  “She was with the Resistance!” I gasped, trying to break free from his hold. “She worked for France!”

  “She worked for the Germans—on her back,” someone called.

  The crowd laughed and catcalled.

  “She lived at the Hotel Paris, feasting on German food while we starved,” said another woman. “Look how plump her breasts are. Her belly was full, while I was too thin to make milk for my baby.”