by Alex Amit
“You murdered my Lizette,” I shout in the dark bedroom, stabbing him again and again.
“I’m Monique Moreno, and I’m a French Jew,” I scream, and lower the knife one last time into his twisted and quiet body, throwing it away and running out of the room.
Paris, Eighth arrondissement, August 19, 1944, early morning
When will he wake up and kill me?
I do not know how long I have been in the bathroom, curled up on the floor, waiting to hear the gunshot. My eyes close when I imagine Herr Ernest getting up out of my bed, crawling to his study where his firearm is waiting for him in the black leather case, and coming to hunt me in the bathroom. I’m too afraid to open my eyes.
The alarm clock starts ringing with a loud whirring, and my whole body cramps in fear as I cuddle my legs tightly.
“Please stop, please stop,” I whispered to the clock, closing my eyes, but it rings for more and more long minutes until it stops.
And the house is quiet again.
The morning’s twilight has painted the house in blue, and I open my eyes and examine myself, looking at my hands in disgust and nausea. My fingers are painted with clotted blood mixed with black ink stains, and I have to fight the urge to vomit. I have to grip the sink as I get up and stand, trying to wash and scrub my hands and skin until they become red and sore, splashing water on the nightgown to clean it as well. But I’m not going to my bedroom to change into a dress. He’s probably waiting for me, awake, hiding behind the door and waiting to kill me.
But he does not come out of my bedroom.
As the day goes by, I can hear the shots from the open windows, sometimes the sounds are distant, and one time a fight takes place on the street below. The bullets hit the building walls, scattering shards and causing me to crawl on the floor near the sink.
“They’re on their way,” I whisper when the phone in his study rings and does not stop, but I do not dare to approach and answer. He is waiting to kill me.
Soon they will reach me. Towards noon, I crawl to the front door, kneeling on the floor and listening through the heavy door to the voices on the staircase. Despite the wooden table I dragged against the door. I know that even if I try my best, they will break it easily if they arrive. They will put me in front of the wall and shoot me. This time it will be my turn, and I watch his hobnails boots that are standing by the door, prepared to hit me in the name of their master.
Shouts in German are heard in the street, followed by gunfire. Without thinking, I get up and run to the kitchen, trying to find a hiding place.
Holding a knife, I try to loosen the pantry boards, but the panels do not come loose and the knife slips, scratching my hand and making me scream in pain. I’m too scared to hide in the bedroom closet. He’s in the room, waiting for me.
Crawling, I return to my hiding place under the sink, holding my wounded hand and trying to prevent the blood from dripping, this is the safest place to spend the night until they come to pick me up.
“I’m Monique Moreno, I’m Monique Moreno,” I whisper to myself over and over as it gets dark outside. I must not fall asleep, but my eyes are closing, I can no longer hold them open.
“Where am I?”
My whole body aches from lying on the bathroom floor as I get up quickly. The house is still quiet.
Morning daylight illuminates the house from the open windows, and the sounds of gunfire are heard from time to time. I must get away from this apartment, it’s dangerous for me.
Carefully I enter my bedroom, looking at the wall, and ignoring the crimson stain that paints the blanket and what is underneath it. Walking in small steps, my back to the bed, concentrating only on the closet door, I open it, choosing the first simple dress I lay my hands on, and quickly run out of the room, breathing again only when I’m outside.
What to take with me? I need some food. I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday, my hands move quickly between the pantry shelves, putting a chocolate bar into my dress pocket. The thought of him lying in the other room makes me nauseous, and I grab the wooden shelf to stabilize myself. I have to hurry. What about his gun? The leather case hangs in his study. Shall I take his gun? I do not know how to use it, but I can threaten if I have to. Slowly, I pull the handgun out of the holster, surprised by the metal’s oily touch, and put it in my bag.
Anxiously I get closer to his dirty hobnail boots, kicking them as hard as I can, and I open the front door. The stairwell is empty, and I hurry out of the apartment, going down the stairs out to the street.
The intense light outside is bright in my eyes when I open the building’s front door, and I have to wait a few seconds at the entrance hall and watch outside, getting used to the sun.
A German military staff vehicle stands abandoned near the building entrance, its tires punctured, its upholstery torn. Is this the vehicle I’d been inside so many times? Several people pass me running, and I start to follow them. But then I stop and look at the black vehicle waiting for me at the end of the street.
The black car stands across the street as if trying to block it, with its doors open, waiting to put me inside and take me to the horrible building at 84 Avenue Foch. What to do?
I hear a series of shots from the other side of the block, and I cringe in place. What direction to go? Will they shoot me if I start running? The person standing next to the car is not looking in my direction, and I slowly approach the black vehicle, ready to turn around and run.
One man in a black leather coat lies on the street corner, his face to the pavement, and a wet stain of crimson surrounds him, while another man sits by the wheel, leaning on it as though sleeping between the shattered windows and the bullet holes in the dark doors and seats.
Keep on walking with the people towards the boulevard, get away from the black vehicle, assimilate among them, do not stop, and look at the tricolor flag placed on the black car’s hood. Just keep walking.
Near the Champs-Élysées, there are more people and more shouts, some citizens waving guns in their hands, some holding the flag of free France, but in every direction shots are heard, and the crowd is running to take shelter behind tree trunks or advertising columns in the street.
I’m saved. I’m one of them, one anonymous girl in the crowd. I survived, I survived.
Paris, Eighth arrondissement, 20 August 1944 10:30 AM
“She’s German. She’s a collaborator.” There is a shout in the crowd, and I look around to see who they mean.
“That’s her, in the brown dress.” I can hear the scream again, and some people stop and look at me. I have to keep walking.
“She licked a German officer’s boots,” the woman continues to shout, and the people start surrounding me until I have no choice but to stop and turn around, facing the neighbor from the third floor below my apartment. She is standing and pointing at me with a look full of hatred.
“She’s a collaborator.”
“It’s not true. I’m French, like you.”
“She’s German.” And more people crowd around with murmurs of rage.
“It’s not true.”
“She’s in love with a Nazi officer,” she shouts, and I feel a thump in my back and fold, almost falling to the ground.
“I’m French.”
“Her officer housed her in a Jewish family’s apartment. She collaborates horizontally,” she shouts to the crowd.
“Please, it’s not true.” I try to run, but they stop me, and another fist is thrown at my stomach, and hands grip me tightly.
“Look what I found in her pocket.” There is a roar of joy when a young man pulls out the package of chocolates and presents it over his head, showing the audience around him the cover with the eagle holding a swastika under the word ‘chocolate’ in German. “Only the Nazis have such delicacies.” And the crowd murmurs in agreement, and I feel spit hitting my face, followed by a kick in my stomach and slaps that send me to the ground.
“Kill the horizontal collaborator.”
“Kill her.”
“Bullet to her head.”
“Please, I’m French.” I try to get up and protect my face from the kicks and spitting. “Please.”
The gun in the bag, it will protect me, I have to live, please. But my hands looking for my bag on the sidewalk can’t find it between the shoes of strangers trying to kick me. I’ve lost my bag. It fell or was snatched from me by someone in the crowd. I want to live so much.
“We will give her the special collaborators treatment,” someone suggests and grabs me by the arm, dragging me down the avenue to the cheers of the crowd that surrounds me, still cursing and spitting in my face.
“Take care of her.”
“Engrave a swastika on her cheeks.”
“Cut off her hair that everyone knows.”
“I’ve brought you another one.” He throws me into the center of a crowd where several other young women are standing in torn dresses, eyes downcast.
“Another one,” cheers the crowd, “we’ll take care of them all.” And through my tears, I see Violette in the center of the circle.
Two men force her to sit on a chair taken out to the street from one of the cafés, a sturdy guy is holding her while another in a white tanktop cuts all her hair off with scissors. The crowd is shouting and cursing her, cheering on every clump of hair thrown into the street.
“Make her a beautiful bald spot.”
“Let everyone know what she was doing.”
“Do not forget a swastika on the forehead, she will be beautiful.”
I cannot look at her like that, and I lower my eyes. Maybe it’s better that I’m shedding so many tears and everything is blurred. Why is this happening to me?
“You’re next in line.” The man tightly holding me whispers as Violette is lifted from the chair and led to a display in front of the bloodthirsty crowd.
“Please, this is a mistake.”
“Shut up.” He slaps and kicks me again, and I stumble and fall on the sidewalk, trying to stabilize myself and holding the pavement stones with my fingers and fingernails.
A huge hand grabs my hair and lifts me to a standing position, and I scream in pain as he presses me to his body. He is a big man, really big, sweaty, wearing a grey tank top full of stains and smelling of sauerkraut, wearing a filthy beret, and his eyes look at the crowd angrily.
“She is Jewish, no one touches her.”
“She collaborated horizontally.” Voices from the crowd answer him as he begins to drag me out of the circle.
“She’s German. We’ll take care of her,” says a man who tries to grab my arm.
“No one comes near her.” I hear his thunderous voice above the roars of the crowd as he presses me close to his body with his huge hand, and I notice the resistance armband around his thick arm.
“She licked German boots.” Another young man tries to get closer to me, but the huge man pushes him away.
“Do not touch her.”
“There are no Jews in France, the Germans killed them all. She belongs to us.” The young man does not give up as the crowd closes on us.
“Anyone who gets closer will die,” the big man shouts and points his rifle at the young man, hugging me with his other arm. And the young man stops and steps back, not before spitting on me, turning to the next young woman waiting for her punishment in a torn dress and with a downcast look.
“Give her to him. We have enough horizontal collaborators.”
“We must hurry.” He supports and drags me, pushing the crowd to the sides by force and carrying me between the people gathering around the young woman who is forcibly seated in the chair in the middle of the street.
“Run.” That’s all he says, and we start running down the boulevard. I’m running as fast as I can, getting away from the crowd before anyone else tries to hit me. The pain in my ribs from the kicks does not stop, and it is difficult for me to breathe. Still, I keep running, ignoring the sounds of shooting all around and trying to be careful that my shoes do not fall off while running, but after a while I have to stop. I can’t breathe anymore.
“We must go on.” He encourages me and holds my hand, does not allow me to stop, but he too is gasping and goes for a walk as we approach Concorde Square.
I’m trying to catch my breath, ignoring the pain in my ribs and my torn and filthy dress. His sweaty hand supports my body as he leads me behind a burned-out car parked on the side of the boulevard. There is gunfire all around, and we have to lower our heads.
I cannot run anymore. The smell of the burnt vehicle penetrates my nostrils and fills them with a pungent smell, mixed with my heavy breathing and my sweat.
“I’ve been looking for you for three days,” he says.
“Who’s looking for me?” My voice sounds hoarse, like someone else’s. I’m gasping for air, tensing up every time a shot is fired from the direction of Rivoli Street, unable to raise my head.
“They are looking after you,” he answers and puts his arm around me to protect me, wrapping me in the smell of sauerkraut while I hold my head tightly between my two hands and try to bury myself in the road, wanting to escape from the round of shots in the square. Who is looking after me? Who cares about me? I’m just trying to breathe and stay alive in all the gunfire surrounding us. I’m so tired of being afraid.
Some people are running hunched towards the barriers and barbed wire fences in the square’s center, holding rifles in their hands, but the shots are getting heavier, and their bodies suddenly fold and remain lying on the road. “I can’t anymore,” I scream and bury my head in his big hand.
“We have to move towards the street.”
In front of the Nazi headquarters on Rivoli Street, several German cars are burning, raising black smoke to the sky. Occasionally, an orange flash of an ammunition explosion hits one of them, and the fire lights up again, causing me to tremble and scratch the road.
“I can’t.”
“You must.”
Down the street, there are two German armored vehicles firing machine guns in our direction, and bullets are pounding on the buildings around the square, leaving holes in them, but the huge red Nazi flag in front of the headquarters is thrown onto the street.
“I can’t.”
“Run.” He gets up and pulls me, forcing me to run next to him, and we skip and try to cross the square and reach the garden area, passing the sign at the gate which is punched through with bullet holes, kneeling next to a stone shelter, catching our breath.
“I can’t anymore.”
“We have to get to the Louvre and cross the river. The Latin Quarter is already ours.” He gasps as we look around carefully.
A German vehicle enters the square, driving fast and turning around the fountain, and the big man picks up his rifle and tries to shoot at it, but the vehicle manages to escape towards the bridge while I cringe from the gunfire, holding the big man’s legs tightly.
“We’re trying to stop them from getting to the bridges. They have a plan to blow them up, but they’re delaying. It’s not clear why,” he yells at me even though we’re close to each other.
We hear a burst of gunfire, followed by an engine’s rumble and creaking chains around the corner, and the noise gets louder.
“Run,” he yells, and we get up together as he takes my hand and pulls me after him towards the garden and the river.
The sounds of gunfire never stop. Even as we approach the river, we hear the whistling of bullets and the rumble of machine guns from the direction of Île de la Cité. But the river flows leisurely, its waters greenish in the midday sun, moving slowly and calmly, indifferent to the sounds of gunfire all around as if it does not care at all about the war taking place in the city. The Pont Des Arts stretches peacefully from side to side, empty of people with only the lanterns along it seeming to me like people walking on it.
“Germans,” the big man in the stained shirt whispers and points with his finger at the camouflaged position and the round grey helmets that reflec
t the August sun, and I feel I can no longer move. They are going to kill us.
“Wait for me here,” he whispers, but I grab his filthy shirt and move with him, even though I’m probably hampering his movement. I close my eyes tightly as he lifts his rifle and aims, and my hand squeezes his shirt with each shot fired at the German soldiers.
“Run,” he yells at me as he starts running towards the bridge.
“I can’t. They will kill me.”
“Come with me.” He turns around and pulls me, lifts me to my feet, and we start running.
Do not stop running, ignore the soldiers lying in strange positions behind the sandbags, be careful not to stumble on the wide stairs that climb to the bridge, ignore the pain, look forward to the other side of the bridge. Do not stop running.
The sound of my breathing fills all my thoughts, and the bridge is not ending. I feel so exposed as the big man runs beside me, grabs his rifle, with two more rifles from the German position on his back. Another step, and another, and I can hear the strange whistles in my ears. The other side is so close, but suddenly the big man folds and falls on the bridge while I’m screaming and stopping next to him, trying to drag him off the bridge. But he is so heavy, and I’m small, and a puddle of blood appears under his body, and I keep hearing the strange whistles all around us, cutting the air around me and the bullets splitting the wooden boards of the bridge as they penetrate. Suddenly the end of the bridge seems so far away.
“Hold on,” I keep screaming at him, “we will soon arrive.” I turn him on his back and rip the remnants of the pocket from my dress, shoving it where the blood is coming out and trying to drag him onto the wooden boards which are full of bullet holes, and someone comes from the other bank, yelling at me to keep running. And all I do is grab the big man’s hand and shout: “Help me carry him, help me carry him.”
Paris, Barricade near Pont Des Arts, August 20, 1944, 12:30 PM
