by Alex Amit
His black eyes angrily stare at me as I curl up in my chair, lowering my gaze slightly and examining his clean grey button-down shirt.
“I am working for the resistance.”
“You should forget about Philip; for you, he no longer exists.”
My fingers tighten around the knife handle in my dress pocket, unable to release the grip and place my hands on the table. But he is also sitting in front of me with his hands tucked deep in his pants pockets, taking them out only when he wags his fingers and scolds me. Why does Philip not want to meet me anymore? I have to find him.
“Monique, you are not listening to me.”
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“That you must be more efficient, certainly if you want to go back and work with Philip.” His finger is raised again in front of my face.
“I’ll be more efficient, I promise.” But I keep my hand in my dress pocket.
On my way out, I look for the little girl from the shop in the alley. I have two cans of canned milk that Herr Ernest brought me. She will probably relish the white sweetness; surely she needs the milk more than I do. The girl in the torn shoes and dirty dress approaches me in hesitating steps and stares suspiciously at my hands holding the two white cans, on which German eagles are printed, holding black swastikas.
“Take it,” I whisper to her, and she snatches them from my hand and runs from me, laughing as if she doesn’t care about the war and the Germans spreading fear.
I don’t remember myself laughing. I think I forgot how to laugh when I saw my first German soldier a few days after the occupation. He stood on our street corner and ordered Dad to bow to his hobnail boots before we could continue walking. We were on our way home, and I held Dad’s hand and smiled awkwardly at the soldier.
“What are you laughing at?” The huge soldier shouted at me in German, waving his arm and threatening me as I looked up at him and choked.
“It’s okay,” Dad whispered to me, humiliated and bowing before the soldier let us continue our way, not before throwing Dad’s hat on the pavement, forcing him to kiss the ground.
“Let’s go home. Mom made you something delicious.” He tried to cheer me up, but from that day on I did not laugh anymore.
“Don’t cry,” Dad tried to soothe me. “Mom’s waiting for us at home.” Our home with the red carpet in the living room and the kitchen that was always full of cooking aromas. The house that must have been taken over by a German officer housing his mistress.
Is one of the rooms set as his study, which she is not allowed to enter, but she does by night?
My fingers quickly go over the pile of documents in his briefcase as I carefully pull them out and carry them with me to the bathroom. Quietly I sit on the floor and read them by candlelight, trying to understand the assessments for protection from a telegram allocating barbed wire fences to various shorelines.
The noise of the bathroom handle makes me jump out on the floor, and I manage to blow out the candle.
“What are you doing?” I hear his voice through the closed door.
“I’m in here.” What to do? I’m dead, my hands hold the candle, what to do with it? And all the telegrams?
“What are you doing in there?”
“I need to be here.”
“I’ve been lying awake in bed for a long time, waiting for you.” What to answer him? What about the pages? My hands search in the dark, looking for somewhere to tuck them in. What if they wrinkle? He will kill me.
“Please don’t come in. I’m so ashamed. I ate something bad.” My fingers grope and carefully push the papers behind the radiator before I go out and quietly close the door behind me.
“Please do not go in, I beg you.” My eyes try to examine his silhouette in the darkness of the room, but after a moment, I choose to turn my back on him and quietly walk to bed; he mustn’t think I am trying to stop him from entering the bathroom.
With every step, I wait to hear him open the door or grab me by the hair and throw me on the floor for turning my back on him, but when I lie in bed and finally stop shaking, he joins me.
Only hours later, when I’m sure he is well asleep, I get up again and carefully return the telegrams to his leather bag, praying he will not notice that they are more wrinkled than they were before. I won’t do that anymore. It’s getting too dangerous.
“Are you okay? Aren’t you sick?” Simone asks me the next morning.
“No, I’m okay, everything is fine.”
“Then why are you late again? The fact that you are living with a German officer doesn’t give you special privileges. Ordinary citizens have more to struggle with than you. Look at Marie. She is always on time.”
I apologize to Mrs. Simone and hurry to stand behind the counter, waiting for the day to end so I can go back to the apartment, put my head down, and get some sleep.
The sound of the vase shattering on the floor wakes me in a panic, and I sit up in bed, trying to figure out what’s going on. My eyes are wide open, but I see nothing in the dark room. In the distance, there is a muffled noise of an explosion followed by a flash of light from the window, penetrating the room’s curtain, followed by a much louder explosion that shakes the iron bed and the window. I bend over and scream, covering my head with my hands. What’s going on?
Another flash from the window, followed by a deafening explosion; I can hear the sobs of sirens from a distance, and the cups in the kitchen shattering on the floor. As I stumble from the bed to the floor, I cover my head with my hands, clinging to the wooden floor, making myself as small as I can, trying to disappear inside the parquet. I do not want to die.
Another explosion shakes the house while I crawl towards the window, getting on my knees and opening it. What’s going on outside? The explosions blast wave immediately blows the window from my hand, slamming it against the wall, pulling back the curtain, and all the sounds of hell enter the room. The next house’s windows sparkle with orange light, fire reflected from a distance, and the skies are lit in red-orange colors. Anti-aircraft batteries are firing lines of red tracer ammunition in a monotonous rumble, painting red dots towards the orange sky, but above all, there is the noise of growls and explosions.
Like a deep gurgle that does not stop for a moment, the noise of the aircraft bomber engines in the sky fill the air as they pass in an endless stream of invisible monsters above me in the darkness, growling incessantly with a muffled voice of rage.
Another explosion shakes the air, and I am thrown back, screaming. Please don’t hit the house. While crawling on the floor and ignoring the porcelain shards of the vase wounding me, I manage to find my nightgown and make my way in the dark to the front door. Another flash, followed by an explosion, illuminates my way for a moment. I must escape.
My hands fight to unlock the door, sliding them by force, but the key falls to the floor with a sharp sound of metal, and I grope for it with my wounded hands, crying for them not to kill me. Please move on; throw your bombs elsewhere, just not on me. Another explosion shakes the house as I try to insert the key, looking for the keyhole with trembling hands.
Through the open door, I crawl down the stairs, groping in the dark and leaning against the railing. From the stairwell window, I can see the orange light of distant fires and more explosions, painting the air with shards of light that fly to the skies, making me cringe in my place on the stairs. I must reach the bottom, where I will be safe.
She is kneeling near the third-floor door, and I almost stumble and fall when I hit her, screaming in fear, but bending over and touching her body. She is silent even as I’m trying to shake her, feeling her body trembling under my touch.
“Are you okay?” Another flash of light from the window highlights her open eyes that are looking at me.
“It’s the Americans,” she answers in a hollow voice.
“Are you okay? Are you injured?”
“They’re bombing me.”
“Are you okay? Injured? Can you get up?”
/>
“It’s the Americans.”
“Come, get up, lean on me.”
“They’re bombing me.”
“We must hurry.”
“It’s the Americans.”
“Get up,” I scream and slap her, cringing again at the noise of the glass in the stairwell and the never-ending growl of planes. Stop it already. We’re both going to die here.
“Get up,” I slap her again, and finally, she slowly rises, leaning against my body, and we both go down the stairs, hiding under the staircase at the entrance. While hugging her, I whisper to the planes to go, asking them to leave and cringing with each explosion, knowing the next bomb will hit us.
Long after the growl has gone and disappeared into the night, and only the light of the fires in the city paints the clouds in the night sky grey-orange, we slowly start climbing the stairs again. Occasionally I hear people running in the street, or a fire truck’s siren whimpering and disappearing between the buildings in the distance, painted yellow.
“Here, this is your door,” I say goodbye to her at the front door of her apartment. “Do you have the key?” Maybe she will hate me less.
“The Americans bombed me.” She refuses to let go of her grip, holding me firmly, and I have to take her to my apartment, seating her in the kitchen and making her a cup of tea. I already want to be alone and curl up in bed, even though I cannot fall asleep.
“Are you okay?” I put the cup of tea in front of her.
“Was I scared?”
“No, you were not afraid. You were just fine.”
“You have a lot of food.” Her gaze wanders to my pantry shelves, filled with cans wrapped in light brown paper and marked with the sign of the German eagle.
“Want some?” And she nods her head. I do not need so much anyway.
“Have a quiet night,” I say goodbye to her later at the door of her apartment, helping her down the stairs and supporting her, holding the food I gave her. But after the door slams shut, I am left to sit in the darkness of the stairwell, unable to go up to my apartment alone. I can occasionally hear people outside shouting in the street, or the whistling sound of a passing car.
“A barbaric American bomb hits Paris, the French and the German nations in a partnership of fate!” the boy selling newspapers shouts as he walks down the street and holds the Paris Soir newspaper above his head. For a moment, I want to stop him and tuck a coin in his hand, and take the thin newspaper, which contains government propaganda insults towards the Americans, but I’m not sure I can read about people like me who ran out of luck last night.
The city is quiet this morning; fewer people walk the streets, looking to the sides, being careful not to stumble and get hurt by the glass scattered on the sidewalks—even the car traffic, which has been low lately, is hardly noticeable this morning. Here and there, I can hear a fire truck rushing to a fire that has not yet been extinguished; its horns howl as passersby quietly look at it.
One man stands inside a shattered window in the avenue, quietly collecting the glass remnants into a bucket of tin, gently removing them from the luxury clothes that hang on the dolls in the window, and estimating the damage to his store. Further down the street, several people gather and talk excitedly, recounting the experiences of the previous night, and I stop for a moment.
“I heard the Eighteenth Arrondissement was hit the hardest,” one woman babbles to the crowd gathered around her, and I get closer, even though Simone is waiting for me.
“They tried to hit the railroad tracks and hit innocent people,” another man adds. “A lot of them got killed.” And the crowd nods in approval. I’m already late, and I have to stop listening to them. What if they come again tonight? Or tomorrow?
The sky above is still full of grey smoke, and the burnt smell fills the streets and intensifies as I get closer to the opera and the boulangerie. More people are crowding in groups around the newsstands, reading the headlines and talking excitedly, but I just pass by and do not stop to stand in line. Since yesterday I haven’t stopped thinking about Philip. Has something happened to him?
“Thank God you’re fine,” Simone hugs me as I walk in the door, and I am embarrassed by the touch of her hands. “I was already afraid something had happened to you. What is going with these Americans and the British? They are unable to come free us, so they decided to try and kill us?” She’s trying to be funny, telling a joke I’d heard from someone before on the street, at one of the gatherings.
“They are trying to expel everyone from Paris, so that the city will remain only for them when they come.” I also try to contribute to the humor, feeling that I am not succeeding; the boulangerie floor is full of porcelain fragments.
“Come and help me. We’ll start cleaning.” She hands me the apron and broom, but after consulting with Martin the cook, she calls me to the back room.
“Monique, the butter delivery did not arrive this morning. I do not know what happened to the delivery truck. I want you to go to the market and try to get butter. I will give you our confirmation letter.”
For two years now, I have refrained from approaching the massive market building.
For two years, I have circled it or walked the streets around, avoiding the market, fearful that maybe one of the sellers might recognize me from those days I ran from them. Still, Simone refuses to send Marie instead, and I have no choice, I must go there.
I approach the arched structure at the city center, looking down and peeking to the sides. The market is as noisy as ever, though the trucks that used to park on the side streets are gone, and horse-drawn carriages have replaced them. The piles of crates are smaller, or maybe they just stayed huge in my memory as I hid between them, waiting for the night to sneak out for a moment. But the smell of pickled vegetables mixed with cheese and meat has not changed. And the noise and sellers’ shouts remain the same.
“My name is Monique Autin,” I whisper as I get close to the two policemen standing under the entrance gate of the cheese area, trying to examine their faces. Will they recognize me? But they seem excited, talking about yesterday’s bomb with a small man stacking crates of vegetables on a cart, not paying attention at all. They surely are not looking for a single girl who escaped from them two years ago. I take a deep breath and pass them in a steady walk, raising my eyes only when I’m inside and watching all the sellers and the merchandise guards. Step by step, I pace down the first aisle, breathing slowly and pushing between all the people, forcing myself to look around and searching for our butter supplier. My hand tightly holds the confirmation paper that allows him to sell butter to the boulangerie. I mustn’t lose it.
“Mademoiselle, he’s not here today.” The salesman at the next cheese stall returns the crumpled paper to me as he looks at me intently, trying to remember if he knows me.
“Thanks.” I snatch the paper from his hand and quickly walk away.
“Maybe he was killed at night, no one knows. Have you bought from him before?”
“Never mind, thanks.”
“Mademoiselle, I can sell to you.”
“Thanks, I’ll manage.”
“Mademoiselle, no one else will sell to you, especially after what happened in the night.”
What shall I tell Simone? The selection is meager at the cheese stalls, and he is right. They all refuse to look at the paper I’m holding, explaining that their butter is already promised to other stores. Maybe the big man will help me? The one with the filthy tank top and the sour smell of cabbage, who saved my life two years ago and disappeared? What happened to him? Is he with the resistance? I look around, but there’s no way I’d recognize him. The market is huge, and I no longer remember where I ran and hid. The rows of stalls and piles of crates look the same to me in every direction my eyes look. And if I find him, will he recognize me and want to help me again?
Finally, I return to the cheese seller with a downcast look, handing him my order and making sure to look around, just not at him, but he keeps examining me as
he slices the chunks of butter, as if trying to refresh his memory.
“Thank you,” I hurry away from him with the packages on my shoulders.
“You’re welcome, come again,” he shouts after me, but I no longer answer him.
Only at a safe distance from the market and the two policemen at the entrance do I return to my usual walk. It was just my imagination. There’s no way he recognized me from those days I ran hungry between the aisles. I must hurry; Martin is waiting for the butter, but it is difficult to walk down the streets with the stuffy smell of fire all around.
“That’s all I’ve got. It’s not enough.” I place the baskets in front of Simone.
“I knew I should have sent Marie to do that job. God knows where she disappeared to a few minutes after you left, go and search for her.”
“Is everything okay?” I sit next to Marie outside the back entrance of the boulangerie.
“I saw them hitting one of the planes, and the fire coming out of it,” she says quietly. “I didn’t know where to run.”
“They are fighting to set us free.”
“I didn’t think you would say such a thing.” She looks at me.
“Yes, I know what you think of me.” I take out a cigarette and light it, smoking in silence, thinking of the American soldiers in the burning bomber who came all the way from overseas to set me free.
“New York, San Francisco, Statue of Liberty,” I whisper the magical words of freedom; Dad once showed me postcards from America.
“What did you say?”
“That we need to get back to work. Simone is looking for us.” I throw the cigarette and step on it. “Don’t worry; they will not return tonight.”
Paris is not bombed the following nights, but the planes still pass in the dark over the town. I sit in bed and listen to the monotonous noise of their engines, my body tense while I wait to hear the explosions. “Los Angeles, Montana, Niagra Falls,” I try to whisper, but my body doesn’t stop shaking. Only in the morning do I manage to fall asleep, imagining Philip’s warm hands hugging me, like that time in the basement.
