by Alex Amit
“What is the Final Solution to the Jewish Question?”
“I don’t know. How are you? How do you feel?” Philip tries to get closer to me, but I walk backwards until the basement wall’s rough stones stop me.
“Check with your Communist friends about the Final Solution.”
“They are not just my friends; they are your friends too. If they were not, you would not be here.” He keeps his distance. When will he get tired of me?
“The Germans are losing on the Russian front; they’ve taken huge casualties, whole units have been dissolved.”
“I’ll give them that; how are you?”
I do not want to tell him how I am. It won’t change anything anyway.
“Here in Paris, they are afraid they will be transferred to the East. They are talking about it amongst themselves.”
“And what are your feelings, and how is their morale?”
“Their morale is still high, especially here in Paris where they enjoy all the pleasures of the city, holding French women like me in their arms.”
“You are different, you are not like them; you don’t have to think of yourself like that.”
“I know I’m different from them.” Really? What’s the difference? That I’m telling you what I read at night? Believe me, I’m licking German boots just like Anaïs and Violette. They at least believe it will help them.
“You are one of us, important and precious.”
“I’m aware of that.” One of you? One of the resistance? One of the Communists? One who betrays her dead girlfriend? One that everyone abandons in the end? I will stop being one of you as soon as it does not suit you. I know exactly how precious I am.
“I’m worried about you. You’re taking too many risks.”
“I can take care of myself. Please check with your Russian friends about what I asked, this matter of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. I have to go.”
“Monique, wait.” He calls after me, but he no longer chases and hugs me on the stairs. He too has got used to the cold.
On the narrow street where old crates are thrown on their sides, I go to the shop entrance on the other side of the alley, take out a sausage packed in a paper bag and serve it to the small dirty girl who always stands in the doorway, looking at me. She snatches the bag and runs inside the dim shop, disappearing from my sight.
I have learned not to cry.
“Darling, what do you want to do this morning?” Herr Ernest asks me a few days later after he gets off my body, and I cover myself, wiping away a tear with the tip of the blanket.
“What were you thinking of doing?”
On Sundays he tends to stay with me until later, looking for something to do for himself and his companion whore.
“Maybe we can go see some art?”
As we go down the building’s stairs, passing the third floor, I hear a rustle from the neighbor’s apartment door. She peeks at me from the peephole every time I go downstairs. Once, I asked her who owned the apartment I live in, but she refused to tell me and just looked at me with hatred in her eyes, slamming her apartment door in my face.
“Put on your coat. It is cold outside.” Herr Ernest holds the front door for me.
In the grey street, his driver faithfully waits for us in the military vehicle, and I wonder if he sat like that all night inside the frozen car.
“Good morning,” Oberst Ernest greets him as the engine chokes from an effort to start at low temperatures. “Please take us to the Tuileries Gardens.”
“I thought we were going to the Louvre.”
“The Louvre is almost empty. The ungrateful French managed to hide away all the paintings. We don’t know where.”
“I thought you knew everything.”
“We Germans have the patience to discover everything about traitors like them.” He smiles at me. “And you are one of us, you were born in Strasbourg, remember?”
“I remember.”
“I’m happy you are not like them.” He puts his gloved hand on my thigh. “You’re like us.” And I look out the car window and think he is right. I’m like them. I eat German food, warming myself in the cold winter with firewood his driver brings me, and I’m being driven in a German military vehicle on a Sunday morning, watching the almost-empty streets.
“Can you bring more candles the next time you come over?” Power outages have intensified recently, causing a shortage of candles.
“Already finished? I thought there were enough.” Even Simone allows herself to smile at me more often, occasionally asking if I can bring her some.
“I used them up.”
“Yes, I’ll bring you some. Is anything else missing? Stop the car here by the plaza,” he instructs the driver.
“No, nothing more.”
“Wait for us here, please,” he instructs the driver as he opens the car door for me near the entrance to the Tuileries Gardens. Several other military vehicles like ours are already parked next to ours. What exhibition is this?
“This way.” Herr Ernest hurries to wrap me in my thick fur coat.
The only sound I can hear as we pass through the gardens’ large gate is the gravel under my leather boots, the ones he bought me. The wooden sign is still hanging by the entrance, but I’m not stopping anymore, just looking at the white letters beginning to peel, revealing a rotting wooden board beneath.
“Here.” He holds my arm and points to a hall in the corner of the garden.
A couple is approaching ahead of us, holding a wrapped package, and while the officers salute each other with ‘Heil Hitler,’ we, the mistresses, examine each other’s coats with embarrassed smiles.
“What’s this place?”
“It’s time to keep my promise.”
“What promise?”
The guard at the entrance to the hall salutes and taps his heels, but I am used to it and no longer get tense, just smiling at him politely, hurrying to escape from the cold wind outside, into the hall full of framed paintings.
“What exhibition is this?” I look around. There are thousands of paintings hanging on the walls, in piles on top of each other, or just standing in simple wooden crates in the center of the hall. “Who do these belong to?”
“We came to purchase some paintings,” Herr Ernest addresses the older man who approaches us, nodding politely and turning to me.
“What style does the madame like? Or maybe the gentleman decides?”
“The madame decides at home,” Herr Ernest smiles and does not scold him. “What style do you like?”
“What is this here? Who do all these paintings belong to?”
“This is a painting store,” Herr Ernest answers me. Like us, several German officers walk around, some with their spouses, some with an assistant who follows them, holding open notebooks and writing down the names of paintings they point at.
“And the price, how much does it cost?”
The older man takes a few steps aside out of politeness, patiently waiting for us to finish the discussion and decide on the style I like.
“These are paintings for sale at an excellent price,” Herr Ernest is staring at me with a blank look.
“Who sells these paintings here?” I lower my eyes, but I can’t hold myself back. I should be quiet.
“These collections belong to families who wanted to get rid of them, or did not need them anymore, so they sold them, this is a real opportunity. I promised you I would buy you some paintings for your apartment, and I keep my promises.” He smiles at me. “What style of art do you like?” He signals to the older man in the suit that the discussion between us is over, and orders him to come close again.
“What would the madame like me to show her?”
“I have to see myself,” I answer him hesitantly.
At first, I walk step by step between the paintings, quietly examining the richness that lies before me, raising my eyes and looking at the walls around me, or lowering them and watching the piles that lie on the floor. But then I start to hurry,
going through the paintings, checking them one by one, and removing pile after pile while the older man in the suit helps me examine the ones at the bottom, box after box. He is gasping from the effort but keeps calm, and all that time, Herr Oberst Ernest accompanies us in silence, patient with my crazy behavior.
“I want that one,” I finally point to a drawing of a smiling dancer, raising her arms high above her head.
“I can see madame loves modern art. You have good taste,” the older man compliments me and turns to Herr Ernest for his approval. “It’s a painting by a well-known painter.”
It seems to me that Herr Ernest is not happy with my selection, but I insist, and he approves with a nod of his head, signaling to a young man standing aside to come take the painting for payment and packaging.
“Is that all you want?”
“Yes, that’s all I want, now it’s your turn.”
Herr Ernest walks slowly, pointing with his finger at the old man to follow him, and chooses a large drawing of a horse race and a painting of hunters hunting a fox in the woods. “It will be perfect for the living room and my study,” he explains when the man in the suit marks the paintings for packaging.
As we go out to the car, followed by two employees carrying the paintings we purchased and keeping a respectful distance behind, I give Herr Ernest a hand and thank him for the new purchases.
“You’re welcome, my dear. It will make your apartment more pleasant.”
The driver standing next to the grey vehicle hurries to open the door, and I wait outside in the chill wind for the store workers to put the packaged paintings in the car.
“Be careful,” I ask them, not before looking one last time at the garden gate and the peeling sign. I’m so glad I did not find the painting that hung in my bedroom.
Mom and Dad had given it to me for my tenth birthday. A dancer bending forward, tying her ballet shoes. I’d once wanted to be a ballet dancer very much.
The nightclub dancers raise their legs high in the air, stomping to the beat of the loud music, and I watch them through the cigarette smoke that fills the crowded place, trying to look in another direction.
“Try it. You’ll love it,” Anaïs yells as she brings her lips close to my ears, trying to overcome the noise of the band playing and the crowd loudly talking around us.
“Herr Ernest will not be pleased with that,” I answer as I lean towards her, looking through the smoke at the line of dancers on the stage.
“What will he not like?” Violette joins, grimacing as Anaïs points to the pack of cigarettes lying on the table.
“Everyone should have at least one obscene habit,” Anaïs laughs, “it will make you feel good, try.”
“They say it will soon be impossible to get cigarettes,” Violette is almost shouting to overcome the noise.
“It will always be possible to get cigarettes. You just have to know the right way to get them,” Anaïs leans back and lights another one for herself. “For what purpose were soldiers invented?”
Oberst Ernest and the two Fritzes sit on the other side of the table, bending towards each other with their backs on us, looking at the dancers and talking, maybe about the war.
“I don’t think they’re talking about your cigarette stock right now.” I laugh with Anaïs.
“They surely are not. They are wondering how high the dancers will lift their legs, and how much they will be able to see.” She points with her eyes to the black garters that occasionally flash under the fabric of their dresses.
“It’s disgusting.”
“You have to get used to it. That’s how it is with men. They can sit with you, reading poetry and talking about art and culture, but when they are alone, they go to peep shows in Pigalle.”
“Do you think they go to strip shows in those clubs?”
“Even though you were taken to the opera, you remain a little innocent, aren’t you?” She blows the cigarette smoke into the dark hall and smiles.
“I think they are talking about the situation in Russia,” I try to change the subject and shout in her ear, even though I do not believe it. For a while now, Oberst Ernest has not been talking about the great victories in the East. The rumors about the success of the Russian winter offensive have reached the city’s grocery stores, giving the people standing in the endless lines something to gossip about. Even the few people walking on the streets, curled up in their coats, believe that the Germans are in retreat.
“Do they talk about Russia?” asks Violette.
“Yes, but he says we have nothing to worry here in Paris.” I answer.
“I want to experience the culture of this city,” Herr Ernest pulls me outside almost every evening he comes. “We must be strong against false rumors,” he adds as we drive through the cold, dark streets.
The cafés are still full of soldiers, even though some are not heated, and I have to sit wrapped in the fur coat Herr Ernest bought me, looking back at the people outside when they watch me. What does it matter if they spit on the sidewalk? It is wet from the rain anyway.
The telegrams I read at night about the eastern front tell of crushed German armored columns on the sides of roads and frozen soldiers dead in the snow. Even the French-language German army newspaper, still sold at a stall on the boulevard, has stopped reporting on the German army’s strength, concentrating on articles about fighting spirit in battle.
“I promise you they are not talking about Russia unless the dancer in front of them was born in Moscow,” Anaïs approaches as if whispering a secret. “Maybe they want to start practicing their Russian.” She bursts out laughing, looking at us dismissively.
“What will happen? I’m scared of the Communists,” Violette asks, not smiling tonight at all.
“What are you afraid of?”
“Fritz treats me so nicely, I’m afraid they’ll send him to the east,” she approaches us and tries to whisper, though her whisper sounds more like weeping. “I heard terrible things are happening there.”
“They will not send him to the East,” I place my hand on hers, trying to calm her down, “they need him here in France.”
“I’m afraid it will end one day.”
“It will not end,” Anaïs answers her, and smiles at me as she puts out her cigarette in the ashtray. “We were promised a thousand-year Reich, weren’t we?”
“Sorry, we neglected you.” Fritz hugs his Violette, who clings to him tightly, putting her head on his shoulder and looking at us with a smile.
“We thought you were more interested in the dancers,” Anaïs answers him, making us laugh.
“Are you going to strip shows?” I bring my lips to Herr Ernest’s ear and ask him, trying to be quiet, but he just smiles at me and doesn’t answer. Why does Anaïs know such things that I don’t? Are all men like that? Does Philip also go to such clubs in the Latin Quarter, ending the night in the bed of a sweaty cabaret dancer? What does it matter at all?
“I want to try,” I shout across the table and reach for the cigarette box placed between us. The music bothers me, and in my eyes, the dancers are ugly.
“It’s not for you,” laughs Anaïs, snatching the box away, “it’s just for simple women like me.”
“Give her a try. I’ll get you more,” her Fritz says, but one look at Herr Oberst Ernest silences him, and he places his hand on Anaïs’ arm, turning her towards him and kissing her passionately while she strokes his fair hair with her fingers.
“To Paris.” I lift my glass of champagne, covering the insult, and everyone joins.
“To German-French friendship.”
“To the thousand-year Reich,” Anaïs raises her hand, and we all drink again.
“Pour me more,” I shout at Ernest. Trying to overcome the noise of the band and the dancers’ footsteps in their black garters. At least he allows me to drink.
If I drink a little more, I may be able to stop all my fears and feelings of shame.
“Shall I stop?”
“No, it’s ok
ay, you can go on.”
I can hear the roar of American bombers in the distance. The German searchlights are probably traveling through the dark sky, looking to aim their anti-aircraft cannon batteries and hunt down bombers.
“Does it feel good?”
“Yes, don’t stop.”
I’m sprawled on the bed with an awful headache. I drank too much tonight.
The whimper of the alarms sounds every few minutes, and the roar doesn’t stop, like a muffled gurgle that shakes the window and the parquet floor, causing the iron bed to creak with a shrill sound. But perhaps these are all the movements of Herr Ernest lying on top of me while I close my eyes.
“They are looking for Renault’s factories in the suburbs. They will pass us,” he whispers hatefully as he continues to shake the bed, and I groan, thinking of the pain that awaits an anonymous young woman now soldering metal plate for a German truck on Renault’s production line, somewhere in the suburbs. She doesn’t know that in a few minutes, her fate will be sealed. Which of us will hurt more?
“Don’t stop.” It doesn’t matter; death will come for both of us, sooner or later.
“Mademoiselle.” They approach me the next day on the street, near the opera square.
“I’m in a hurry to the metro, he’ll stop working soon, and I have to buy Christmas presents.”
“Do not worry about the metro,” the tallest smiles, “what do you have in the bag?” And I want to scream.
“I have nothing in the bag.” I hand them my ID card with shaking hands, also because of the cold.
“Monique?” he asks in good French, sifting through the certificate, comparing the picture to my face. They stand close to me, hiding me from the other people on the street with their black leather coats. Those few who take a quick look continue walking, thankful for their good luck. I knew it was coming. It was only a matter of time before they got me.
“Were you born in Strasbourg?”
“Yes.”
“Date of birth?”
“Fourteenth of December nineteen twenty-five.”
“Where did you live in Strasbourg?” He compares the details to the notebook he has taken out of his pocket. What is written there? What does he know about me? Is he just trying to scare me?
