None But The Brave: A Novel of the Surgeons of World War II

by Anthony A. Goodman

  Molly kissed Steve, then took his hand and said, “Come. It’s time to find a place to stay.”

  They headed back toward the Champs Élysées, mercifully downhill most of the way. The streets were still filled with people, grownups and children celebrating their great day. They took a circuitous route, paying no attention to their direction, just continuing downhill.

  Along the way they passed a synagogue where they learned a US Army chaplain, a rabbi from the 12th Regiment, was conducting a service to remember and honor the French Jews who were deported to the German concentration camps before the liberation of Paris. Schneider wondered if his uncle, too, had been deported to those same camps. He was sorry to learn that they had missed the service. For, in the short time he was at war, Schneider’s Jewish heritage had surfaced almost without his consent. He had no idea where it had come from, but the threat from the Nazis, not only to him but to his German-Jewish family, had become very personal, and he was, without understanding why, ready to die in this cause. It came to him in a flash of insight that only his parents courage to emigrate had saved him from whatever hell his relatives were suffering now. An accident of history.

  There were many Parisian Jews in the streets around the synagogue, crying with gratitude for their deliverance from the Nazis. Schneider and Molly were passing through the crowd, with Molly clinging tightly to Schneider’s arm, when a hand tapped him on the shoulder. Schneider turned to see a small elderly man in an old black, pinstriped, double-breasted suit coat, which did not match his trousers. The jacket was faded from its original color, evident from the darker area over the left chest where a Star of David patch had been. Threads dangled around its the edges, as if the patch had been torn off in haste. And surely it had been.

  Schneider looked at the man’s face. He did not move an inch as Schneider inspected him. The man looked directly into his eyes and then reached out. In his hand was a piece of felt. It was yellow, and it took Schneider a long moment to realize that it was the very Star of David that the man had been forced to wear over his left breast for the last four years by order of the Nazis.

  Schneider took the star from the man, numb with the horror of what it must have meant to have to wear this sign of his Jewishness all those years. He also realized the relief the old man must have felt as he handed it to Schneider, one of his perceived saviors, in a tacit act of thanks.

  The man took Steve’s and Molly’s hands. He leaned forward, standing on his toes to reach up and kiss Steve on the cheek. Then, with tears in his eyes, he said, nodding, “Landsmann!”

  The man gave Molly a kiss as well, then turned and walked away.

  Molly turned to Steve and asked, “What did he say?”

  “Countryman,” he answered with tears now forming in his eyes. “He called me his countryman.”

  Molly started to speak, but Schneider interrupted. “Not Frenchmen. He meant that we are Jews, he and I.”

  “How could he know?”

  Schneider smiled, now beginning to cry openly, and said, “Oh, we know. Somehow we always know.”

  Schneider stared quietly into the far distance. Molly took his hand and waited for him to return to her. He shook his head slowly as if pushing thoughts from his mind. Finally, Molly said, “Where are you, Steve?”

  Schneider shook himself back to the present and then went on. “I’m thinking about my uncle.”

  “Who?”

  “I have an uncle, my mother’s brother, in Munich. A surgeon. We haven’t heard anything from him since the war started. We don’t know what happened to him and his family. They’re the only ones of my mother’s family who didn’t leave Germany when the war started.”

  Molly waited, saying nothing.

  Schneider said, “When this is over, I have to try to find him and my aunt. And their kids. He was like…hmmm…. Well, he wasn’t really a father to me, but he was a role model. The time I spent in Germany was like the foundation of everything I thought a surgeon should be. He used to take me on hospital rounds with him. I was still in my teens then. I even fainted on him once,” he said with a smile.

  “What happened?”

  “Oh, he was making rounds and took me in to see an older lady who had her thyroid out the day before. He took down the dressing and removed a Penrose drain from her neck incision. She let out a terrible howl. I got all flushed and hot in the face, and I heard ringing in my ears, but I didn’t know what that meant then. The next sound was the banging of something hard on wood: my head hitting the side rails of the next bed as I slid to the floor. All I recall is waking up in the hallway with a bunch of faces staring at me and speaking in German. My uncle said, ‘Don’t worry about it, Stephen. It happens to everyone sooner or later. You’ll get used to it.’ I remember being so afraid that I would never be a surgeon. I had a similar reaction to my first autopsy. The heat in my face, the tingling. But by then I knew enough to sit down and put my head between my legs until I felt better. And he was right. I got used to all of it.”

  Schneider looked away again. “I can’t even begin to believe he might be dead. God, if he’d only come to America with the rest of the family! He was so stubborn.”

  “Perhaps that stubborn streak has kept him alive,” Molly said.

  Schneider nodded. “I hope so, but….” He shook his head again. “I’ll find him. I’ll just stay here until I find out something. One way or the other.”

  Schneider reverently put the yellow Jewish star in his pocket and started to walk again with Molly on his arm. He looked again at the diminishing crowd around the synagogue. There were many of these poor people who had torn off the loathsome yellow stars, the symbols the Nazis had forced the Jews to wear, branding them as the Untermenschen. In these crowded streets, they were now handing them to the young GIs—Jews and Gentiles both—who had joined them in their services and had awakened them from the nightmare of the Nazi regime.

  After that, it took Schneider some time to regain his equilibrium. The day had been so long and filled with so many ups and downs: the dangerous drive into Paris from the field hospital; the joys of the liberation; the beatings of the collaborators and the shaven women; the triumphal march of De Gaulle and the shooting at Notre Dame; watching the lighting of Paris from Sacré-Coeur; and now this, the French Jews freed from the death threat of the Germans.

  Schneider was exhausted, and so was Molly. They tore themselves away from the synagogue and headed down toward the Opéra and the Place Vendôme. Schneider was determined to make this the most memorable day of the war. They would find a room at the Hotel Meurice or the Ritz or the Crillon or the Georges V—any one of the great Paris landmarks. He was not above using his rank to get them in, and there was no doubt in his mind that one of these grand dames of the hotel world would have a room for them.

  When they arrived at the Rue de Rivoli, there in front of them at number 228 was the famous sign:

  Hotel Meurice – Thé – Restaurant

  Nothing had changed in the many years since he had met there, quite by accident, his Uncle Mike and Aunt Charlotte, walking down the Rue de Rivoli. They invited him into the Meurice, where they were staying, and treated him to dinner and a bath. The Meurice had then become his personal definition of opulence since, at the time, he had been staying in a two-dollar-a-night hotel without private toilet or bath.

  So, Molly and Schneider stopped at the Meurice first.

  But, it was not the place of his memories. The lobby was a shambles. The elevator cage, he learned, had been destroyed by a hand grenade the day before. The Meurice had been the headquarters for General von Choltitz and his staff, as well as some of the senior officers of the SS. The FFI took the hotel by storm. Bullet holes marked the marble of the lobby. Broken glass and shattered furnishings lay everywhere. A burned portrait of Hitler hung askew in a charred frame. Schneider later learned that the general and his staff were marched through the streets, caught by the FFI while trying to carry their booty in suitcases. They, too, were abused by t
he populace, and one of von Choltitz’s officers was shot dead as a woman burst from the crowd and fired a small pistol into his temple at point blank range before being disarmed by the Resistance.

  Although the concierge acted helpful and accommodating, Schneider could not shake the feeling that he and his staff had been too cozy with the Nazis. He pictured the soiled sheets and empty wine bottles, and his mind revolted at the thought of the SS screwing the now shaven-headed women in the rooms above on the very same linen.

  He took Molly by the elbow. “Let’s just try The Ritz. I think we’ll be happier there.”

  Molly didn’t argue. The Hotel Continental, just behind the Meurice, was in ruins, as were several other buildings nearby. They wandered over to the Place de la Concorde where the Hotel Crillon was located. It, too, had taken a pounding, apparently from the guns of the FFI tanks. They kept on walking.

  From the Crillon, they walked up to the Place Vendôme where, happily, the Ritz was relatively intact. In fact, it looked quite appealing compared with much of the rest of the neighborhood. The Ritz was set in the relative calm of the Place Vendôme, with its ornate obelisk set in the center of the square. Couples were lounging around the monument, more reflective than the mobs along the Champs Élysées. Schneider glanced up at the mansard roof of the Ritz as they approached the arched stone entryway and walked through wrought iron gates. They went directly to the reception desk. Schneider looked around and saw that the place was jumping, but now with a mixture of Parisians as well as Americans. The bar and the restaurant were packed. Soldiers—French and American—drinking together, toasting the defeat of the Germans in Paris. The babel of several languages competed to be heard. Of course, German was conspicuously absent.

  Schneider asked the flustered desk clerk if he had a room for the night, and to his complete amazement, the man said yes. In fact, he said, “Bien sûr, Monsieur Major.” Of course.

  Schneider had been fully prepared to bribe, cajole, or even fight for a room. Instead he signed the register with a flush of guilt. Checking into this famed hotel with a woman other than his wife felt like a greater betrayal than his physical infidelity. Odd that it should be that way, but there it was.

  There were no porters around, but they had no luggage anyway. Schneider took the key on its huge brass pendant and made his way to the staircase. He stopped before starting up and asked Molly, “Do you want to stop at the bar for a while before we go upstairs?”

  “No, thanks,” she said, tucking her chin toward her chest and grinning. “Let’s just go right on up.”

  Schneider was relieved not to have to spend any more time among the crowds. Even more, he was relieved that they were now unlikely to run into any of their colleagues in the mob at the bar and the restaurant, as they had at the Café Aux Deux Maggots.

  Food had not entered Schneider’s mind anyway. He was hungry only for Molly now and had reached the limit of his tolerance. And so, it seemed, had she.

  Schneider unlocked the door with the big brass key, and pushed the door open. He turned to Molly and kissed her gently on the lips.

  Then he guided her into the room with his hand on the small of her back.

  The two of them stood in the foyer and took it all in.

  The room was larger and more grand than either of them had ever been in. There were floor to ceiling crimson velvet drapes on each of the tall windows, held open by golden tasseled cords. Paris was still dark, but the view of the city was still shockingly clear in the starlit night. The large double bed had been turned down for the night, with four enormous pillows, plump and soft. Molly crossed her arms in front of her, holding her shoulders, and sighed. She dropped her shoulder bag to the floor and wandered the room, running her hands over the soft clean surfaces of the bed and the chairs and the small sofa. She pushed open the bathroom door with its gilded mirror and stood in the threshold.

  Steve came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. He tucked his chin into her hair. The two of them stared at the huge tub and sparkling clean bathroom with its mirrors and towels and even some small soaps.

  “We’re not in Field Hospital Charlie-7 any more, Dorothy,” Schneider said.

  Molly laughed. She turned in his arms and hugged him close to her. “I guess not. At least for tonight.”

  By the time they had settled into their magnificent, top-floor room, it was past eleven. Schneider thought they might be hungry before long, so he called down for some wine and a light dinner while Molly stood at the windows overlooking the city. He came up behind her again and put his arms around her waist. She folded his arms into hers and leaning back against him, watched the few remaining street lights begin to go out all over Paris, section by section. The engineers had made their point in lighting up their city, and now it was time to go back to the safety of the blackout. Paris was not going to make itself an easy target for the Luftwaffe that night.

  The two backed away from the window and drew the heavy ornate curtains to keep the room lights from showing through.

  “I’m sorry now I didn’t think of bringing my razor and a change of clothing,” Schneider said, feeling for the first time the griminess of his body in this elegant setting.

  Molly smiled and said, “Well, I didn’t forget.”

  She walked over to the table where she had placed her shoulder bag, and emptied it out on the bed. There were all the goodies they needed to become human again. She had brought toothpaste and a toothbrush, a comb and brush, some shampoo in a khaki bottle, and even a change of underwear. There was a lipstick and a razor, plus a few other things Schneider didn’t recognize. When he beamed at her foresight, she said, “Oh, you think I’m sharing these with you?”

  “You certainly might be a lot happier if you shared that razor with me.”

  She hugged him again and said, “Go take the first bath. You need it more than I do, and I intend to take a very long time.”

  He kissed her and said, “Not too long, please. I don’t know if I can stand it.”

  “It’ll be worth it.” She kissed him again, this time lingering to run her hands through his hair.

  Schneider disappeared into the bathroom, which was bigger than the whole hotel room he had stayed in so many years ago as a student. He dropped his khakis on the floor and sank into the luxurious tub. He washed, changing the water twice, and then with Molly’s razor he attacked his two-day-old beard while still in the tub. He dried with the biggest bath towel in history, then cleaned and dried the whole place like new. He brushed his teeth with Molly’s toothbrush and dried it off as well. He didn’t think he’d fooled her though, as the taste of her Ipana was very distinctive.

  He came out into the bedroom again with the towel wrapped around his waist, feeling a little self-conscious. She touched him lightly on his bare shoulder before she disappeared into the bathroom. One light touch on his shoulder, and he found himself standing in the middle of the room with an erection.

  While Steve was bathing, room service had arrived. Molly had opened the wine and poured two glasses, setting them down on the little wheeled table. She had placed the table at the foot of the bed and put two chairs there for them, next to each other rather than across. Schneider was marveling at her organization when he realized that she was, after all, an operating room nurse, and organization was her forte.

  He took a sip of wine then waited in the chair. He realized that there was no way he could eat that dinner with everything else on his mind, so he left the towel on the arm of a chair and crawled into bed with the covers pulled just high enough to maintain a semblance of dignity.

  And there he lay, in the semidarkness of the room, listening to the sounds of this woman at her bath.

  Then he paced, ending up at one of the windows, where he stared into the darkness trying to make out the silhouettes of the city. He sat again, then paced some more. Finally he settled into the arm chair and waited some more. With a sigh he moved to the bed. He slipped partially under the turned-down comforter and s
at up against the pillows.

  Then the bathroom door opened. Molly hesitated in the doorway and adjusted her eyes to the darkness. She was wrapped in a bath towel, with her hair down over her shoulders. Standing there in her towel with her hair that way made him dizzy.

  She came to the side of the bed and removed her towel. Against his will, Schneider gasped. Then she slipped in beside him and put her head on his chest. Her hair was still damp, red and curling against his black chest hair. Even in the darkness he could see the whiteness of her skin punctuated with a light spray of freckles along her shoulders. For the first time he felt her body align with his: her soft warm skin against his thigh, her cheek and lips against his chest. He placed his hand on her back and let it slowly slide down across her buttocks to her thighs. Then he traced her body with his fingers, closing his eyes to intensify the sensations in his finger tips.

  Molly nuzzled closer to him, running her hands over his chest and abdomen, lingering over his pubic hair and settling against his thigh.

  An old, wind-up Victrola sat on the night table. Schneider leaned over and cranked the handle until the spring was tight. Then he placed the needle in the groove. At once a woman’s husky voice began to sing in French of love and loss and passion. It brought tears to his eyes, and though she understood no French, it made Molly weep as well.

  “Who is that?” she asked, barely whispering so as not to break the mood.

  “It’s Edith Piaf,” he said. “France’s most famous chanteuse.”