The Room on Rue Amélie

by Kristin Harmel

“I’m sorry,” he said, his tone softening. He placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s only that I don’t know how I’d forgive myself if anything happened to you.”

  “I know.” Ruby relaxed slightly, reminding herself that every marriage was bound to hit some snags. And really, who could blame Marcel for his sense of powerlessness? “But I feel that I’m meant to be here, Marcel. Here with you.”

  She expected him to make a face, but instead, he just stared at her for a long time. “Oh, Ruby. I’ve ruined everything for you. I pretended to be the man I wanted to be, but now you’ve seen the real me, a man whose pathetic injury has taken away his ability to protect you.”

  She took a step closer, putting a hand on his stubbled jaw. “I see you, Marcel,” she said. “I have always seen you. Do you think the French soldiers retreating from the front feel any more in control than you do? We are all powerless for now.”

  “I suppose I should be thankful that you still see the world through rose-colored glasses. Perhaps it’s helpful not to see the coming storm so plainly.”

  She wanted to protest, to tell him that she saw things as clearly as he did, but then he pulled her toward him, folding her in, and she held her tongue. Being in his arms again for the first time in weeks felt like coming home, even if it had turned out not to be the home she expected.

  An hour later, when the three tones of the all-clear siren sounded, she led him upstairs, back into their apartment in the nearly deserted building, to the bedroom that had once been a sanctuary. It felt like a battleground now, and she knew they had to change that if they were to survive.

  “You can’t possibly want me,” he whispered as she kissed him. “I’m nothing.”

  “You’re my husband, and I stand by you,” she said firmly, covering his mouth with hers.

  He made love to her quickly, almost violently. She tried to hold on, to focus on his eyes, to make him come back to her, but he was somewhere else entirely until he collapsed on her, spent and panting, his skin damp. “I’m sorry,” he murmured into her breasts. “I love you, you know. I do.”

  She waited until his chest was rising and falling against her before she replied, “I love you too.”

  Yes, Ruby would stay. Storms were meant to be weathered, after all.

  “MADAME BENOIT?” A SMALL, TIMID voice jolted Ruby out of her fog later that night. She had been unable to sleep, and after tossing and turning for an hour, she had stepped onto the terrace. The air still carried the scent of burning rubber and smoldering metal; the German bombs had found their mark. She looked over to see Charlotte silhouetted in the moonlight next door.

  “Charlotte,” she said warmly, relieved to see her. The girl and her parents hadn’t appeared in the shelter during the air raid, and Ruby thought perhaps they had fled. There were reports coming in of cars bombed to pieces while snarled in traffic on country roads, and Ruby had had the terrible feeling that something had happened to the Dachers. Even with Charlotte in front of her now, Ruby couldn’t erase her sense of foreboding.

  “Good evening, Madame Benoit,” Charlotte said formally.

  “Please. Call me Ruby, or you’ll make me feel old.”

  “That is an American thing, I think,” Charlotte said after a long pause. “Calling adults by their first names.”

  Ruby smiled into the darkness. “Yes, perhaps it is. Or perhaps it’s simply a neighbor thing. Times are too dark now for us to be anything but friends, don’t you think?”

  “Well . . . all right.” Charlotte hesitated. “Can I ask you a question, Madame? Er, Ruby?”

  “Anything.”

  “Why are you still here?”

  Ruby laughed at the girl’s bluntness.

  “Here in France, I mean,” Charlotte clarified, a hint of embarrassment in her tone now. “Since you’re American. Maman and Papa said you should have left months ago. Why didn’t you?”

  Ruby sighed. “Maybe because I’m stubborn. Or maybe because I don’t feel that anyone—German or otherwise—should force me into fleeing. I think that’s part of it, Charlotte. But I also think it’s because once I make a decision, I try to stick to it. I made Marcel a promise to be his wife, to join my life to his. And so here I will stay.”

  “You’re loyal. And brave.”

  Ruby thought of Marcel’s words, hating how much they wounded her. “Some would say foolish.”

  “But staying makes you French, doesn’t it? All of those people who would judge you, they didn’t have a choice. But you did. And you chose Paris.”

  “I chose Paris,” Ruby repeated slowly. “Well, maybe I am French after all. Thank you, Charlotte. You’ve just made me feel lots better.”

  Charlotte went inside soon after, but Ruby stayed on the terrace, lost in thought. When she finally stepped back inside, shutting the doors softly behind her, Marcel was sitting in the darkness of the kitchen, staring at her.

  “What were you doing out there?” he asked her, an edge to his voice.

  “Just getting some air,” she said, feeling suddenly guilty, though she’d done nothing wrong.

  “I heard you talking.”

  “Yes, to the Dacher girl.”

  Marcel lit a cigarette, the match flaring for a second in the darkness. Ruby watched as he exhaled a mouthful of smoke, obscuring her view of him. “You talk too much, I think.”

  Ruby’s heart sank. An hour ago, she’d felt that things between them might be changing for the better, but now he was in another one of his moods. “She’s a nice girl, Marcel. I think she feels very alone right now. I’m just trying to help.”

  “There are lots of nice people who are alone in the world.” He took another long draw from his cigarette. “It’s very American, you know, this need to talk to anyone and everyone. If you were truly as French as you’d like to be, you’d know when to keep to yourself.”

  “MARCEL, MON AMI!”

  Marcel’s old friend Aubert—a short, bespectacled man around forty with a receding hairline, hooded eyes, and a flat, wide nose—approached the table outside the Café Ciel where Ruby and Marcel sat. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and they were playing at being normal, pretending that Paris wasn’t about to be occupied, that life could still go on as it had before. The Germans hadn’t reached the capital yet, but they would be here any day now. The French government had departed for Vichy the day before, and the streets were filled with injured soldiers telling tales of horrors at the front.

  Aubert embraced Marcel and leaned down to kiss Ruby on both cheeks. “You are looking radiant, my dear.” He sat and beckoned to a waiter. “Champagne, my boy! Champagne for my friends!”

  Marcel looked amused, but Ruby was troubled. The café—one of the few in their arrondissement that had actually stayed open—was nearly deserted, but the other customers were staring at them. “What is there to celebrate, Aubert?” she whispered. “Life as we know it is about to end.”

  “Ah, but it’s not over yet, is it?” Aubert lit a cigarette and took a long drag. “Paris is still ours. And if you want to know, Ruby, I’m toasting to the future. I can see it already. We’ll defeat them yet.”

  “Surely you’re joking. Things couldn’t possibly be bleaker right now.”

  Aubert smiled. “But it’s only a matter of time. The Huns may be here for a little while, but with the help of the Brits, we’ll push them out. Isn’t that right, Marcel?”

  Ruby glanced at her husband, expecting him to share her doubt, but he was staring at Aubert, his eyes gleaming. “Do you two know something about the invasion that I don’t?” Ruby asked.

  The waiter arrived then, popping the cork on their champagne and pouring the bubbly for them. Aubert didn’t reply until they’d clinked glasses. “No, Ruby, of course not. I’m only saying there’s hope if we band together. But it’s nothing for you to worry about, dear. Things like this are better left to the men, don’t you think?”

  Ruby drew herself up a bit taller in her chair. “Aubert, I follow the news too. You can’t think I’m not
aware of what’s going on.”

  “Of course,” Aubert said, and Ruby could hear his amusement as he added, “Our university girl.” He and Marcel exchanged smiles.

  “Excuse me,” Ruby said stiffly, rising from her chair. Aubert and Marcel half-stood too, but she ignored them as she made her way inside to find the toilette.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this, she thought as she descended the spiral staircase at the back of the café. Especially with Marcel, and especially in Paris. Hadn’t Gertrude Stein commanded respect here? Zelda Fitzgerald had run the town in the twenties, and now, it was common knowledge that a woman—the Comtesse Hélène de Portes—was pulling the strings of Reynaud’s government. Ruby had met her; she was a shrill, irascible person known as much for her temper tantrums as for her extravagant parties. If someone like that could wield such power, what was Ruby doing wrong? Should she be speaking up more? Standing up for herself when Marcel intimated that she was incapable of grasping the truth? Or would that only drive him further away?

  She touched up her lipstick and stared into the mirror. There were dark circles under her eyes, evidence of her lack of sleep. Her curls were loose and frizzy from the heat, something she would have fixed if she cared more. But it was impossible to think about things like that with the invasion on the horizon. What horrors would come with it? What would happen to the people she loved? To her?

  She splashed water on her face and pinched her cheeks to restore some color. She smoothed her hair, gave her reflection one last resolute look, and headed back upstairs.

  When she returned to the table, Marcel and Aubert were whispering, their heads bent together. As she approached, they pulled back and flashed her identical smiles. Was it her imagination that they looked almost guilty?

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Just discussing the Germans,” Marcel said. “Those bastards.”

  Unease crawled under Ruby’s skin. “You two mustn’t do anything foolish.”

  “Foolish?” Marcel’s eyes locked on hers.

  “It’s best to keep our heads down until we figure out what the occupation will mean for us.”

  Marcel’s face darkened. “We should just lie down like dogs?” he demanded. Aubert was smirking, as if she was proving him right.

  “I just don’t want you to do anything reckless.”

  “So you do think I’m powerless to fight for my country.” Marcel looked triumphant and wounded at the same time.

  “No!”

  His eyes blazed, and they stared at each other until the silence became uncomfortable.

  “Well, we are certainly not going to solve the problems of France this afternoon,” Aubert said, cutting through the discomfort. He raised his glass and glanced from Ruby to Marcel. “To France. And what is to come.”

  “To France,” Marcel and Ruby muttered in unison, raising their glasses.

  But the tension lingered, and as they drank their champagne, no one spoke again. Ruby stared down the deserted Avenue Rapp toward the river. Though the Germans were still miles from Paris, she could already see them coming. She could feel the city changing. And though he was just inches away, she could feel Marcel drifting further from her by the day. All the champagne in the world couldn’t turn back the clock.

  CHAPTER SIX

  October 1940

  By October, it was clear that Paris had forever changed. The Germans had gotten comfortable, their officers settling into swanky accommodations at the Crillon, the Meurice, the George V, the Ritz. The French government had long ago decamped to Vichy, replacing the proud French motto of Liberté, egalité, fraternité with the Germanic Travail, famille, patrie: Work, family, fatherland. Huge German street signs had been erected, directing traffic to the Zentra-Kraft on the Champs-Élysées or the local village hospital in the Orts Lazarett Suresnes. German soldiers relaxed in cafés, dined at restaurants, and toured the monuments and museums as if they were on holiday.

  The colder weather moved in, accompanied by a growing sense of unease. Ruby queued each morning to receive rationed portions of foods and supplies. She learned, along with the rest of Paris, to make fuel from wood and charcoal, oil from grape seeds, and cigarettes for Marcel from a strange mixture of Jerusalem artichokes, sunflowers, maize, and a small amount of tobacco. At first, it had seemed that food would still be readily available during the Occupation, but now that winter was approaching, it was clear that had been a clever mirage, affected by the Nazis to lull Parisians into a false feeling of normalcy.

  There was a sense throughout the city that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel, though. A little-known general named Charles de Gaulle had emerged as a leader over the summer, stirring the pot of Resistance through a series of radio broadcasts from England. “Somewhere must shine and burn the flame of French resistance,” he said, and so it began, simply at first, with Vs for victory appearing throughout Paris, scrawled in lipstick or crayon or coal on German cars, German flyers, and visible spots throughout the city.

  Early one autumn afternoon, Ruby was returning to the apartment after waiting in line for more than two hours for bread when she encountered Charlotte’s mother standing in the first-floor hallway of their building crying. Her dress was wrinkled, as if she’d given up on ironing, and there were dark circles under her eyes.

  “Madame Dacher?” Ruby asked hesitantly, approaching the older woman and putting a hand on her shoulder.

  Madame Dacher whirled around, her eyes wild and wet. She blinked a few times, and her expression softened. “Oh, I’m very sorry, Madame Benoit. I’m terribly embarrassed. I thought I was alone. I didn’t hear you approach.”

  “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Madame Dacher. Are you all right?”

  “Yes, yes. I just don’t want to upset Charlotte. I was trying to calm myself before going inside.”

  “What’s happened?”

  Madame Dacher sighed. “Have you heard about the Jewish statutes?”

  Ruby nodded, her heart heavy. The Statut des Juifs, passed two weeks earlier, banned Jews from positions in academia, medicine, law, and government. Jews were to ride in the last car on the Métro, relinquish their radios and bicycles, and stay out of cinemas, museums, libraries, and cafés. It was appalling. Ruby had tried to talk to Marcel about what might be done to fight the new rules, but he’d laughed at her, accusing her of coming to her senses about the Germans far too late. “You were the one who wanted me to keep my head down,” he’d snapped, as if the oppressive new restrictions were her fault.

  “We had to register, you see,” Madame Dacher went on, tears coursing down her face now. “Just after Rosh Hashanah. We obeyed, of course. But my husband believes that something terrible is going to happen now. There is talk of Jews losing their businesses too.”

  “Surely that won’t happen to you,” Ruby said. Monsieur Dacher was a successful and well-respected furrier, a pillar of the community. “The French government won’t allow things to go that far.”

  “But you see, it isn’t the France we know anymore. As the weeks pass, I feel less and less in control of my own life.”

  “We’ve all lost control to the Germans, Madame Dacher,” Ruby said, trying to reassure her.

  Madame Dacher’s expression was dazed as she looked up. “It’s different for us, Madame Benoit. Surely you see that.”

  Ruby felt a strange gnawing in the pit of her stomach. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry.”

  “You must make me a promise,” Madame Dacher said, suddenly reaching for Ruby’s hands and squeezing so tightly that Ruby’s fingers felt like bones in a sack. “If something happens to my husband and myself, you will look after Charlotte.”

  “But surely nothing will happen.”

  “Please. Give me your word.”

  Ruby felt a surge of hope, a sense that perhaps she could do something to help after all, even if only to assuage her neighbor’s fears. “Of course. You have my word.”

  “Thank you,” Madame Dacher said
, releasing Ruby’s hands and stepping away. She turned and disappeared into her own apartment, leaving Ruby alone in the hallway, breathless and uneasy.

  RUBY WAS SITTING IN THE darkness that night, just past eight o’clock, turning Madame Dacher’s words over in her head, when Marcel’s key clicked in the lock.

  “Hello, darling,” he said, his words slightly slurred as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “How are you?”

  “Marcel?” He was so uncharacteristically cheerful that Ruby was confused for a moment. “Are you all right?”

  “All right?” he repeated with a grin. He lit a candle and sat down across from her in the kitchen. “Of course, my dear. And you?”

  “I’m fine,” she answered cautiously. “Where have you been?” She hated that it sounded like an accusation, for she hadn’t meant it that way. She braced herself for one of his moods, but he merely smiled at her.

  “I’ve had some drinks with a few friends at the Ritz, you see. Right under the noses of the Germans! They even bought us a round, with no idea that we are their enemies!”

  “Marcel! How could you take such a risk?”

  “You think that is risky? Toasting with the enemy? Oh, Ruby, how little you understand.”

  She clenched her fists. “I hate this occupation as much as you do, Marcel. You have to stop speaking to me as if I’m an uneducated fool.”

  “I know you’re educated.” He raked a hand through his thick, dark hair and gave her a perplexed look. “But you must admit that as an American, you lack a certain perspective.”

  “It’s always about me being an American, isn’t it? My God, Marcel, why did you marry me if you felt I was so inferior?”

  “Inferior?” The confusion on his face deepened. “I’ve never thought you inferior, Ruby. I admire you. I admire your intelligence, your wit.”

  “But you talk down to me all the time.”

  “I don’t.” He was silent for a moment and then looked away as he swayed once more. “I don’t mean to, in any case. I just wasn’t prepared for someone who wanted to argue with me the way you do.”