Those Who Are Saved

by Alexis Landau

  Vera caught her reflection in one of the large windows, and all she saw was sleeplessness and dirt. She shook her head, tossing her greasy hair back from her face, watching Varian closely. He excused himself to retrieve his coat and hat from his office. Elsa had gone to the powder room. Varian would soon escort them to an empty attic above a bakery that had recently been vacated by other refugees who were now on their way to Ecuador.

  He returned from his office, hat in hand, a light cashmere coat folded over one arm. His loafers clacked over the parquet floor as he walked toward her. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, thank you so much for your help,” Vera said, pursing her lips. “I can’t imagine what we’d do otherwise.”

  “You don’t want to.”

  A heavy silence followed.

  She touched his coat. “I have something to ask you.”

  He gestured for her to continue.

  “My daughter is in Oradour-sur-Glane with her governess.”

  “Was she born in France?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does she possess French citizenship?”

  “Yes.” Vera paused. “But she’s Jewish.”

  He ran a hand through his silvery hair. “Oradour is quite far north. Just below the demarcation line.”

  “She was baptized a few years ago. We all were.”

  “I see.” He scanned her face. She couldn’t determine if he felt sorry for her or if he thought this was a genuine advantage.

  “It might provide some security,” she added.

  “You’re asking me if this is so?”

  Vera glanced away, fighting off the sinking feeling that he couldn’t do anything, or wouldn’t do anything. My hands are tied, there’s nothing to be done, we can’t work miracles, it’s too late now. The phrases of denial throbbed through her, as if he had already uttered them.

  He switched on one of the brass lamps, and a gentle glow filled the room.

  Elsa closed the bathroom door behind her, clicking it shut.

  He stepped into the amber pool of light. “Listen. There isn’t much that—”

  “I know how difficult it would be,” Vera said, touching his coat again.

  Varian threw an uncertain glance to Elsa, who watched them from the hallway.

  He sighed. “This could very well endanger the entire escape plan.”

  “What is happening?” Elsa asked, her voice turning harsh, more Germanic.

  Vera’s cheeks burned. Elsa would call her selfish and she would be right. But she couldn’t stop herself. “But is there any way to arrange it? She’s only four years old.”

  Varian perched on the arm of the sofa. Looking down, he frowned at a coffee stain marking the white cuff of his shirt. “I’m afraid not.”

  Elsa walked over to them. “Vera, I’m sorry. But you know that the German authorities are searching for Leon. His photograph is everywhere. He’s a hunted man. We barely have enough time as it is. God knows how long it will take Lucie to travel from there to here . . .” She softened and drew a breath.

  Varian stared at the rose carpet. Their silence communicated what no one dared to say: it was only because of Leon’s international literary fame and political connections that Varian was helping them. Otherwise Vera and Max would be left to perish with the horde, at the mercy of the lackadaisical French government, which would eventually turn them over to the Germans.

  “Perhaps,” Elsa began, “Vera could send a cryptic message, a signal of some sort to Agnes, through you, of course, and without endangering us, that we are leaving for America. At least this way, Agnes will know what has happened. It won’t just be as if, poof, she is gone!”

  Vera winced at how cutting yet true the remark was.

  Once on that ship, they would vanish from Europe.

  Poof.

  * * *

  • • •

  All Vera wrote: Little golden America. She thought of the phrase straightaway. It was what her father had often said about Russian Jews fleeing to the New World for a better life. Vera and her father had mocked those panicked White Russians who chose barbaric Manhattan or gritty Chicago over sanguine Paris. Naturally Agnes, from old French stock, agreed, and she often joined in on their mockery. Whenever news circulated of another relation immigrating to that strange and bloated country filled with roaming cowboys and hucksters, Mafia bosses and harlots, Agnes would shake her head and mutter, “Little golden America,” like a bell sounding off in the dark.

  Vera clenched the note before giving it to Varian.

  He took it, slipping it into his blazer pocket, and smoothed it down with his thin, reedy hand.

  Chapter 6

  VERA

  October 1940, Southwestern France

  For five days, Vera and Elsa hid in a pension attic outside of Marseilles, awaiting Varian Fry, who promised to take them to the small village of Cerbère, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, over which they would cross into Spain. They couldn’t go yet, as Fry first had to smuggle Leon and Max out of the internment camp. Vera secretly felt relieved. She was still in the same country as Lucie; they slept under the same night sky, and felt the same crisp October air. In unexpected moments, a wild hope stirred within her, suggesting that maybe, somehow, she could go get Lucie, or Agnes could bring her to this little pension, and together they would escape. When she imagined it, she almost felt happy, as if by believing this were true, even for a few moments, it somehow reversed the mistake she had made. But then Varian’s insistent voice from their conversations at the consulate, with his emphasis on how difficult, nearly impossible, it was to escape at all, cut into her thoughts, and she realized none of them might get out.

  * * *

  • • •

  A few days later, they took the train from Marseilles to Cerbère. Varian had managed to get Leon and Max out of the camp, but to safeguard against the exacting French police, the men traveled in first class, Vera and Elsa in third with the scant supplies Varian had been able to procure. Because there were no seats left, Vera and Elsa stood next to each other, their feet swelling in their uncomfortable shoes. As sweat trickled down the sides of her torso, a pervasive hum filled her ears, and her head lightened. She crouched down, putting her head between her legs, gripping her valise. The increasing distance from Lucie, intensifying with each jolt of the train, made her feel faint, knowing she couldn’t stop what had already been set into motion.

  * * *

  • • •

  At first light, Vera and Elsa went through the village of Cerbère, which led into the foothills of the Pyrenees. They passed early-morning workers bent over vines, snipping off bunches of grapes and tossing them into panniers fastened to their backs. The workers did not even look up when Elsa and Vera stumbled past. Sweat peppered Vera’s thin blouse. She anticipated a whipping wind drying the sweat, chilling her.

  Steep slopes rose up before them, filled with rubble and rock, covered in gnarled Grenache vines, whose knotty roots webbed over the uneven terrain. Varian had outlined their route, explaining that it would take eight hours in total, pointing out a halfway summit point where they would rest before continuing. He advised them that it was safer for the women to lead over the mountains, with Max and Leon following two hours behind, warning them that maps were forbidden. His grave voice pounded through Vera’s head: Only spies and smugglers carry maps in the mountains, and if you are caught with one, they will send you back to France, immediately.

  She swallowed hard, remembering Varian’s long straight back moving confidently through the narrow cobblestoned streets of Marseilles. He was immune to the threat of closing borders, and how quickly valid visas could turn invalid on the whim of the police, and the precariousness of getting Leon and Max out of the men’s camp. It was all because he was American and tall, Vera thought.

  Clutching an overhanging cedar branch, Elsa whispered, “We have t
o climb up to Col de Cerbère. The border is just beyond that,” making it seem as if the crossing were nothing to fear, even though Vera detected a tightening in her voice.

  The wind picked up and the sun blazed.

  They paused, taking in the barrenness of the landscape, listening to the workers’ voices carried up by the wind.

  “Leon and Max are probably starting now,” Elsa added, reassuring herself. “We’ll meet them in Portbou, at the restaurant with the yellow awning, as Varian instructed.” From there, they would take a train to Barcelona, and then from Barcelona to Lisbon.

  The steep incline of the mountain trail gave way to a blanket of pinewoods and scrub, peppered by small conical huts where the vineyard workers could rest. Without speaking, they started moving toward this plateau, chests bursting for air, Vera hoping this would be the worst part and knowing it probably wasn’t.

  * * *

  • • •

  After two hours, the sharp incline finally relented, and they stumbled over fallen pines into the shaded scrub.

  They sat for a while in silence, feasting on the meager food Elsa had packed: butter smeared over heels of bread, a few hard pears.

  Dense clouds passed over the sun.

  Elsa sipped some water from the canteen. “I was angry with you at the American consul. When you asked Varian to get Lucie and bring her with us.”

  “I know,” Vera said, examining the pine needles, luminescent, glinting green.

  “I’m proud that you’ve carried on since then.”

  Vera bent a pine needle into an arc and laughed bitterly. “What choice do I have?”

  Elsa shook her head and started to pack up the remaining pears, the dirty napkins. “Agnes will get the note. Varian promised. And you will return to France when this madness ends, and you will go to Oradour and get Lucie back. I know it in my bones.” Seeing the doubt on Vera’s face, Elsa added, “You are not abandoning her. You are saving her.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Wading through the broom and scrub, trekking up uneven paths that dead-ended only to jut off in another direction, Vera took in the silvery gray sea flecked with whitecaps, restless and wild in the distance. Tremors of hope radiated through her, a pulsing force that carried her up the mountain, hastening her pace. Ignorant hope, maybe, but hope nonetheless that her daughter was safe.

  The Pyrenees breathed, hazed in blue.

  Vera squinted through her sweat. Up ahead, Elsa traversed the rubble slopes, zigzagging up the incline, moving as steadily as a goat. She paused a moment, shielding her eyes from the sun.

  Vera waved, indicating all was well.

  Elsa made a sharp signal with her hand, drawing Vera’s gaze over the cresting slopes of the dirt paths to a red-tiled roof held up by decrepit ocher walls.

  The customs house.

  A lanky Catalan soldier smoked in the arched doorway, his eyes narrowing when Elsa and Vera approached. Tossing the smoldering cigarette butt into the debris, he ground it down with his boot while adjusting his holster. He was young, barely twenty, dark hair falling into his eyes, a thin disappointed mouth.

  “Good afternoon, Officer,” Elsa said in broken Catalan.

  His eyes lingered on Vera’s long smooth neck sheened with sweat.

  “Good afternoon,” Vera managed, forcing her dry lips into a cracked smile.

  He nodded and ushered them inside.

  Another officer sat with his feet propped up on the desk, swatting flies with a folded-over leather belt.

  Afternoon heat thickened the air, made it stand still.

  Elsa watched her with catlike intensity, her black eyes narrowed into points.

  “Oh!” Vera gasped on cue, letting the backpack slide off her shoulder, the front of her blouse slicing open to reveal her breasts encased in a brocaded brassiere. “This pack is too heavy.” She sighed, unzipping it halfway.

  The zipper stuck. Her hands shook when she tugged at it.

  The younger soldier crossed his arms over his chest.

  Vera felt Elsa tensing, and she swallowed hard, trying to maintain her focus.

  With one last violent jerk, the zipper gave way and the Camel cigarette packs cascaded onto the stone floor.

  Vera stepped back from the pile and lifted her hair off of her sweaty neck. “It’s much too burdensome to take along.” She paused, scanning the soldier’s impassive face, but then his eyes flickered over her skin and her breasts.

  She smiled again, this time more naturally. “It would help us so much if you kept all of this. Would you mind . . . ?”

  The tail end of her question was swallowed up by the jerk of the officer’s chair as he lunged to collect the cigarettes.

  The younger officer glanced over their papers, which Elsa had laid out on the desk. He took a moment to look at Vera again, his face stirring with approval, before stamping the papers.

  And then, with one limp hand, he waved them out the door, mumbling, “Déu sigui amb tu.”

  * * *

  • • •

  If there is a God, Vera thought as they stumbled toward Spain, He is in these blue mountains, and in the sea that glints before us. Too frightened that their luck could still be snatched away, they silently ran down the lower foothills, Vera’s hand clutching Elsa’s, both of them half crying with relief, but Vera also cried for Lucie, for the pain of separation that pierced her, more real and throbbing than when she was within France’s borders, when she could still turn back, even if turning back meant death. Her eyes swam with tears, blurring the sun’s golden orb as it dipped into the solid gray ocean.

  Chapter 7

  SASHA

  October 1940, Beverly Hills, California

  Sasha perched on the edge of a chaise longue in Charlie’s cool dark living room, the patio doors open to a long rectangular pool and overhanging oak trees. Charlie, his agent, sat in a low leather chair next to him, finishing off a cocktail. It was a warm Sunday afternoon, and Charlie had suggested Sasha come around for a drink while they talked over Cyclone, a script he’d recently written about a young German woman who falls in love with her literature professor who opposes the Reich, despite being engaged to a top Nazi official. She tries to save the professor—he is about to get arrested for his political beliefs—and together they make a run for it, almost reaching the Swiss border, but they are pursued by her fiancé and his gang of thugs. Accidentally, one of the thugs shoots her instead of the professor, and she dies in the professor’s arms, leaving the fiancé racked with guilt.

  Unlike most in Hollywood, Sasha couldn’t ignore the war, sensing it was only a matter of time before the European conflict would hit US soil. A dark foreboding crept over him every time he opened the paper to read a headline about another devastating air raid on London. Or when he went to the movies and the newsreels of those poor Polish Jews, with their belongings bundled onto their backs as they waded into the streets during a roundup, cut through him, as he knew it was merely luck and circumstance that separated his mother and him from those Jews. Staring plaintively into the camera, their ghostly expressions carried the knowledge that there would be no return.

  Charlie had submitted Cyclone to studios before Sasha left for the High Holidays, and now Sasha felt jittery, wondering if Charlie had heard anything yet.

  Adding to his jitters, he wanted to talk to Charlie about directing. He’d been thinking about it ever since he saw how that hack director had taken Close to the Edge and transformed the story into something entirely unrecognizable. The script Sasha had written brimmed with tension and excitement. But the picture he’d seen two months ago was so poorly made that he felt nothing. And neither had anyone else, given how the movie had bombed at the box office.

  Sitting in the dark theater watching the credits roll, Sasha had sunk farther into his seat, overcome with defeat, knowing that once any script of his was
handed over to someone else, he lost all control. He’d felt betrayed by what he’d seen on screen, worst of all by himself. Directing was a craft like any other. He would learn it.

  Nerves jangling, wondering how Charlie would react to such a thought, Sasha remembered making his first telephone call to Charlie two years ago, sweating through his shirt, staring down at the scrap of paper his mother had given him with Charlie’s number scrawled across it. When the secretary put him through, Charlie sounded rushed and unimpressed, telling Sasha to send him a few sample scripts and then they would talk. Two weeks later, Charlie agreed to meet him at the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills.

  Charlie was tall and svelte, with little pineapple cuff links that caught the late-afternoon light. Pulling his eyes away from a Betty Grable look-alike in a low-cut dress, he said, “Imagine my surprise when I get a call out of the blue from my aunt Ida in New York. She says that her good friends the Dubrows from the Hampshire Country Club have a son coming out to California, he’s new in town, even sold a script, can I help? She mentions Close to the Edge, yada yada yada, and then I say, sure, it’s good, but what else has he got? Opportunities don’t just materialize out of thin air, like I’m some kind of goddamn fairy godmother.”

  “Sure,” Sasha said, taking a stinging gulp of his gin and tonic.

  “Even if you’d single-handedly murdered Hitler and stopped this whole damn mess in its tracks, it wouldn’t matter if your writing was shit.”

  “Let the work speak for itself.”

  “That’s right.” Charlie’s gaze drifted back to the blonde, who now mouthed something to him over the rim of her frosted cocktail glass. “But then I read the first half of Double Suicide, and I thought to myself, hey, this kid’s got balls. The characters are realistic, sometimes even unlikable, but still, I found myself rooting for them.”