The Room on Rue Amélie

by Kristin Harmel

  “I’ve lived here nearly all my life, as has my wife.”

  The policeman laughed. “And you think that makes you French like us?” He didn’t wait for an answer before shoving past Monsieur Dacher. “We will find where your daughter is hiding.”

  Monsieur Dacher stood rigid in the doorway as two other officers followed the first into the apartment. The fourth policeman stayed outside, looking uncomfortable. Ruby watched him as he glanced between Monsieur Dacher’s white face and the floor several times. She prayed the pilot, who was hidden just a few feet away, wouldn’t make a sound. She had the feeling that this particular officer was distressed to be a part of these roundups, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t do his job if it came down to it.

  After a moment, Monsieur Dacher turned and went into the apartment, and Ruby could hear him saying something. He emerged a few minutes later, clutching Madame Dacher’s hand. Each of them held a suitcase as the four policemen escorted them out of the building. Neither of the Dachers looked back, and Ruby knew it must have been tearing Madame Dacher apart to leave Charlotte behind. Ruby wished she had said more to reassure the Dachers that she would protect their daughter with her life, but there simply hadn’t been time.

  Ruby waited until the policemen were long gone before she slipped into the hall outside the apartment. She said a silent prayer of thanks that the pilot hadn’t been discovered, and then she moved to the front windows of the building and looked out. The street outside was deserted again. If she hadn’t witnessed it herself, she never would have known anything had happened here at all.

  She took a deep breath. She had to get ahold of herself before going back inside and facing Charlotte. She’d do that before tending to the pilot, because the girl was probably beside herself by now.

  A few minutes later, she opened the door to the wardrobe to find Charlotte staring at her. “What happened?” the girl asked, her voice flat.

  “The police took them away.” Ruby was trying to sound as unconcerned as possible, although her insides were screaming.

  “Well, we have to go after them.”

  “Honey, we can’t. They had you on their list too. There’s no way I’d risk anything happening to you. Your parents told them you were in Aubergenville, and they must have believed it.”

  “But . . . we have to do something.”

  “I’m certain things will be sorted out in a few days,” Ruby said, trying to project a confidence she didn’t feel. “Surely there’s been a mistake. In the meantime, let’s get you out of this wardrobe, shall we?”

  Charlotte’s hand was ice-cold as she slipped it into Ruby’s. Ruby could feel the girl shaking as she led her to the sofa in the living room.

  “Papa is so sure that being French will save him,” Charlotte said softly once she sat down.

  “Yes.”

  “But there is no French anymore, Ruby. There are just Jews, those who hate us, and people who are too scared for their own lives to fight back.”

  “But there are also people like you and me, Charlotte, people who are doing what they can to help. We’ll win in the end.”

  “It will be too late for my parents by then.”

  “No,” Ruby said firmly. “When morning comes, I’ll see what I can find out, all right? I don’t know what these raids were about, but your parents must have been included by mistake. I’ll fix this.”

  Charlotte shook her head. “But what if you can’t, Ruby? What if you can’t?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  July 1942

  It took Ruby more than an hour to get Charlotte settled down, but finally the girl fell asleep on the couch. Just before dawn, Ruby slipped into the hallway and rapped lightly on the door to the hidden closet. “It’s Fleur,” she whispered. “You can come out.” She slid the panel back to find Samuel crouched in the crawl space, clutching a knife.

  “What in God’s name was that?” he demanded. “Those voices in the hall . . . I was right, wasn’t I? Something terrible has happened.”

  Ruby put a hand on his arm. “It was a raid,” she said calmly. “To take Jews away.” And then, somehow, she was crying, and she couldn’t stop. The pilot quietly climbed out and wrapped his arms around her.

  “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s all going to be okay.”

  His words of comfort just made her cry harder, because he didn’t really understand. He only knew the war from the sky.

  “We need to get into my apartment before someone sees you,” Ruby said, drying her tears and suddenly realizing how stupid it was to be embracing a fugitive in plain sight. She suspected that the building’s residents were still battened down for the night, but she couldn’t take that chance. “We need to be quiet, because Charlotte is finally asleep,” she added in a whisper as she opened her front door.

  “Charlotte?”

  “The daughter of the couple next door who were taken away.”

  “Dear God,” Samuel murmured, glancing at the girl asleep on the couch as Ruby ushered him inside, shut the door quietly, and locked it behind them.

  Ruby gestured for him to follow her to the bedroom, and once they were inside, she left the door ajar and sat down on the edge of the bed, indicating that he should join her.

  “What happened?” Samuel asked. “To the girl’s parents?”

  Ruby recounted the events of the past several hours, explaining that Madame Dacher had asked her to keep Charlotte safe. “Charlotte’s father is convinced that they’ll be returning soon. But I fear he’s wrong.”

  “But what could the police possibly be doing with the Jews?”

  Ruby shook her head. “I only know the rumors of what’s happening in eastern Europe. They’re putting Jews in camps. There are rumors that they’re putting some to death.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Samuel crossed himself and looked heavenward. “So what are you going to do about the girl?”

  Ruby was silent for a moment. She’d been thinking about it all night. “I don’t think she’s safe here. What if the police come for her again?”

  Samuel nodded slowly. “What if I take her with me? To the Pyrenees? I could help her get out of the country.”

  Ruby could feel her eyes filling with tears. “Samuel, that’s a very kind offer. But that’s not what the line is designed for, and I’m afraid it would put all of you, especially Charlotte, in danger. It’s perilous enough for grown men. She’s just a girl.”

  “I’m not just a girl.” Charlotte’s voice from the doorway interrupted them, startling Ruby.

  “Charlotte.” Ruby jumped up from the bed. “I thought you were asleep.”

  Charlotte glanced at Samuel and then back at Ruby. “I’m not just a girl,” she repeated. “I want to do something. And I’m not leaving France.”

  Ruby could feel her chest tightening. “How much of that did you hear?”

  “Enough.”

  Ruby prayed she hadn’t heard her repeat the rumors of putting Jews to death. Besides, there was no reason to think that would happen to Charlotte’s parents. Surely the French police wouldn’t be complicit in doing that to their own people. “Charlotte, we need to do everything we can to keep you safe.”

  Charlotte shook her head. “This is my country too. I want to help. I want to do something, just like you are. Saving these pilots has given you a life back. It’s made you feel that you’re making a difference. I want to make a difference too. I want to make sure Maman and Papa come home safely.”

  “And they will.” Ruby regretted the words as soon as she’d said them because it wasn’t a promise she could keep. It was all out of her hands. “But, Charlotte, I won’t put you in harm’s way. You’re a child.”

  Charlotte stared at her, and in the silence, Ruby heard the words the girl hadn’t spoken. She wasn’t a child anymore. She hadn’t been for a long time; the war had changed them all. “I need to know what’s happened to them,” Charlotte said at last.

  “I will see what I can find out. But for now, you must get so
me rest. All of us must. If we’re going to fight, we need to keep our strength.” Ruby glanced at Samuel. “You can return to the closet in the hall if you’d like, but I don’t think the police are coming back tonight. Why don’t you take the couch? You can hide in the wardrobe if anyone comes. And, Charlotte, why don’t you sleep here with me?” Ruby gestured to the other side of her bed. “We’ll figure everything out in a few hours.”

  JUST PAST TEN IN THE morning, Ruby left the apartment to find Aubert, who would surely know what was going on. Samuel had promised he’d stay to protect Charlotte. “I’ll be fine alone,” Charlotte had protested, but he’d been unwavering.

  “This is what the war is about,” he’d said solemnly in English. Charlotte’s eyes had filled with tears as Ruby translated the words for her. “I’m here to fight for you and your parents. I’ll keep you safe. I swear it on my life.”

  The streets were eerily quiet, save for the police lorries and buses that rumbled by every few minutes. Ruby felt sick as she looked at the faces of the people staring out from the bus windows; there were at least as many women and children as there were men, and they all looked terrified. It seemed that the roundups were continuing and that most people had stayed inside their apartments to avoid it all. Ruby felt conspicuous as she hurried along, head down, toward the dance studio.

  “You shouldn’t have come.” Aubert’s face was drawn and pale as he answered the studio door after five minutes of Ruby’s insistent pounding. “If you’d been followed . . .”

  “I wasn’t followed. They’re too busy arresting innocent Jews to pay attention to me.”

  “Quickly, come inside.” Aubert put a hand on her arm and led her into the back room. She was surprised to find Laure already standing there.

  “Hello, Fleur,” Laure said, kissing Ruby on both cheeks. Ruby reciprocated stiffly.

  “Laure here was just telling me what she’s been able to find out about the roundups,” Aubert said, taking a seat and gesturing for Ruby to sit down too.

  Laure nodded, and Ruby realized the other woman looked rattled. She’d never seen Laure in anything less than total control. “The roundups aren’t over,” Laure said solemnly. “They’re continuing through many parts of the city, although thank God, many people have gotten word now and have gone into hiding. So there will be at least a few saved.”

  “Saved from what?” Ruby asked, afraid to know the answer.

  “Word is they’re being sent out of the country from Drancy.”

  “Drancy?” Ruby knew the place only as a suburb of Paris.

  “It’s the location of a new internment camp,” Aubert explained. “The French police control it, and people are shipped east by rail from there.”

  “To Germany. And Poland. To work camps.” Laure glanced at Aubert. “And death camps.”

  “No.” Ruby’s reply was instant. “The French police wouldn’t do that. They couldn’t.”

  Laure sighed. “Don’t be naïve. It’s happening. You saw it with your own eyes last night, didn’t you? That’s why you’re here?”

  “Yes. But they’re taking children. They couldn’t possibly be sending them east to work.” Ruby felt nauseated as she heard the truth in her own words. They were being sent east to die.

  Laure and Aubert exchanged looks, but neither of them said anything for a long while. “It’s why the things we’re doing are so important.” It was Aubert who finally broke the silence. “We have to put a stop to this, and helping the Allies is the best way we know how.”

  “My neighbors were taken,” Ruby said softly. “The Dachers.”

  “Foreign-born Jews?” Laure asked.

  Ruby nodded. “The parents are from Poland, but they’ve been French for years. The husband fought in the Great War, for goodness’ sake.”

  “That might help them,” Laure said. “I understand they’re not deporting veterans for now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Aubert interrupted. “Did you say your neighbors were taken?”

  Ruby nodded. “They live just next door.”

  “So the French police have been in your building? But you have a pilot staying with you at the moment, don’t you?”

  “Yes. But he remained well hidden. I think we’re all right.”

  Aubert rubbed his temples. “It’s impossible to know for sure.”

  The three of them were silent for a moment.

  “I took their daughter in,” Ruby blurted out.

  Aubert and Laure both snapped their heads up to stare at her. “You . . . what?” Aubert asked.

  “The Dachers’ daughter. Charlotte. I’ve been tutoring her in English. She’s thirteen; she has become like a sister to me. When her parents heard that the police were on their way, they asked me to take her.”

  Aubert gaped at her. “What have you done? You could be jeopardizing the line!”

  “No, I don’t think they’ll come back for her.”

  “You can’t know that!” Aubert’s face was turning red. “You’ve put us all at risk.”

  “No, she did what was right,” Laure cut in, surprising Ruby. “That’s what our mission is—protecting innocent people from falling into the hands of the Germans. Who is more innocent than a child? Now we must decide how to proceed.”

  “Is there any way to find out where Charlotte’s parents have gone?” Ruby ventured. “Maybe we can get them out.”

  “They’re almost certainly in the Vel’ d’Hiv right now,” Laure said.

  “The cycling stadium?” Ruby asked. “In the fifteenth?”

  Aubert cleared his throat. “It has apparently been rented by the French police as a sort of holding site.”

  “But for how many people?” Ruby asked. “It’s not that large.” She’d been there only once for a boxing match with Marcel, just after they’d moved to Paris. She’d found it stuffy and outdated.

  “There are rumors,” Laure said slowly, “that the French police have a list of nearly thirty thousand Jews.”

  “Thirty thousand?”

  “Not that we believe they’ve rounded up nearly that many,” Laure hurried to say. “But even if the number is half that, it’s quite a lot of people.”

  “They can’t possibly keep them all in the stadium,” Ruby protested. “They’d have to stand on top of each other.”

  “And you think that would bother the Germans?” Aubert asked.

  “I’ll go later today and see what I can find out,” Laure said, her tone soothing. “I will ask around about Charlotte’s parents too. The Dachers, you say?”

  “Yes. Reuven and Sarah. This won’t put them in more danger?”

  “I’ll be very discreet. I promise.”

  “Thank you.” Ruby turned to Aubert. “Perhaps I should stop taking pilots for now. I mustn’t do anything to put Charlotte in danger.”

  “No.” His reply was instant. “Please, you’re too important to the line.”

  “I thought I was useless. Isn’t that what you said? That you didn’t need me?” Ruby could see Laure hiding a smile, and she had the feeling it was an expression of solidarity. Perhaps Aubert had behaved the same way toward her at first.

  “Yes, well, I was mistaken,” he said crisply. “Please, you must continue to help.”

  “But I also must keep Charlotte safe,” Ruby said. “That has to be my priority now. I could help save a thousand pilots, but if I let the Germans come take a little girl I’ve promised to protect, I could never forgive myself.”

  Aubert stared at her for a moment. “If her parents aren’t returned in the next few days, we’ll forge some identity papers for her. It will help.”

  “How?”

  “We forge them for the pilots all the time. We’ll invent a cousin of Marcel’s in Brittany. This girl will be their daughter. You can tell people her parents have died, and you have adopted her.”

  “Will that actually work?”

  “It’s a plausible story. As long as she’s bright enough to play along.”

  “She’s one o
f the smartest people I’ve ever met.”

  “If her parents haven’t returned by Sunday, I’ll send someone with papers to your apartment.” Aubert paused. “In the meantime, you’ll need to keep your current pilot for a few days more, until life returns to normal in Paris.”

  “Normal?” Ruby asked. “I don’t think any of us knows what that is anymore.”

  BY THE TIME RUBY HAD stood in line for rations and made her way home in the early evening, the streets were quiet again. It appeared that the roundups were over, but had the police managed to arrest most of the Jews they were after, or was this merely the quiet eye of the storm? Was Charlotte still in danger? And what would happen to the girl’s parents? Ruby could still see Madame Dacher’s woeful, frightened expression as she said good-bye to her daughter. It was as if she knew it would be the last time.

  I must stop being a pessimist, Ruby reminded herself as she walked down the rue Amélie. Surely the Dachers will be back soon. But she’d been thinking all day about Laure’s reports of the Vel’ d’Hiv. Ten, twenty, thirty thousand people packed into the tiny stadium; it was horrific. And a government that would preside over that kind of inhumanity wasn’t the type that would make exceptions for people who didn’t really belong there. None of them belonged there, but that didn’t seem to be stopping anyone.

  Ruby turned the key to her apartment door and entered quietly. She almost screamed when a large figure emerged from the shadows and rushed toward her.

  “Oh, it’s just you,” Samuel said in his deep, Boston-accented voice as Ruby recoiled, clutching her chest.

  “Samuel! You scared the daylights out of me!” As Ruby’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could see that he was holding the same knife he’d been clutching in the hall closet the night before.

  “I swore I would protect the girl,” he said weakly. “She’s in the bedroom. She’s been crying a lot today. I couldn’t comfort her without knowing any French. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sure it helped just to know you were here.”

  “Did you find out anything about her parents?”

  She shook her head and lowered her voice. “Nothing. But the news in general isn’t good.”