Benjamin's Crossing

by Jay Parini

  9

  LISA FITTKO

  Hans was still trying to get himself aboard a ship to Casablanca, and so was my brother. His wife, Eva, and their little girl, Titi, were entrusted to me. According to our plan, we would make our way over the border into Spain; the route along the sea was apparently wide open, and it was an easy hike. From Spain, one could cross into Portugal, which was deemed a more suitable place than Morocco for sitting out the war. Portugal would certainly remain a neutral zone, and the standard of living there was reasonably high. It was assumed that, somehow, we’d all meet up when the Nazi winter ended, however long that might take.

  Eva and Titi had been living temporarily in Montpellier, with friends, and they were to board my train en route to the Spanish border. I had cabled them with my exact times, but I am always nervous about connections; they are so unpredictable.

  The train pulled into the station, and as feared, I saw no Eva, no Titi. The conductor shouted, “All aboard!” The whistle blew, a sharp blast.

  I rushed to the conductor. “I’m expecting some relatives,” I said. “They were to meet me.”

  “I’m sorry, madame,” he said.

  I knew that by hanging off the steps of my car, I could delay the train, and I did so.

  “Please, madame! Step inside! We have a schedule!” the conductor said.

  I dangled from the steps, pretending not to hear a word.

  A minute passed that felt like ten, then came the welcome shriek: “Auntie Lili! Auntie Lili!” Eva was behind her, racing to keep up.

  I had saved a place for them in my compartment, much to the annoyance of the other passengers. One beastly old woman in makeup like a death mask had said, “You can’t reserve seats! It’s not allowed in France!” But I stood my ground. “It’s allowed,” I said, letting my voice slide a few registers. Even the conductor had been unable to dispute my assertion. “I would have to look this up,” he said, when questioned.

  No sooner had we sat down than Titi cried, “Have you got a piece of cake or some chocolate, Aunt Lili? Mama thought you would.”

  “I’m sorry, Titi, I’ve got nothing for you.”

  “Here is some bread,” said her mother. She fetched a small loaf from her bag and broke off a piece for Titi. “Du pain,” she said.

  The child grabbed the morsel. “In German, we say Brot. Do you say Brot or du pain, Aunt Lili?”

  Her mother and I froze. If we were taken for Germans, there was no telling what might happen.

  “I haven’t seen you in such a long time!” I said loudly, sweeping the child into my lap. “You are such a beautiful little thing!” I patted her blond curls to distract her.

  Eva sat with jaw quivering. Fortunately, none of the others in the car—most of them were soldiers—noticed what the child had said. Adults don’t often hear children when they speak; their chatter is like background music, a kind of vaguely annoying or sometimes charming prattle that does not translate into sense unless one happens to be the mother or father.

  Port-Vendres, a coastal town right on the Spanish border, was the last stop for most émigrés in flight. We arrived in the late afternoon, and as I stepped from the train, my eyes filled with tears. I had forgotten it would be so beautiful: the ragged line of blue hills in the near distance, the meadows beside the tracks now deep in hay, and the sloping village that wore the Mediterranean like a bright turquoise bib. The sky was orange in the cool of early evening, with puffy clouds making fantastic, whimsical shapes across a windbreak of cedars. The little houses tumbled on each other, pink and blue and white, like children rushing toward the sea. A nervous peace hung in the air, so unlike the mad clatter of Toulouse or Marseilles.

  Nature is always with us, I thought. It is wild and regenerative. It lifts us up or tears us down, always to rebuild, so fresh, so infinitely deep, perfectly calm but savage as well, and sweetly ignorant of human misery and greed and sorrow. One can never be sad for long or afraid in nature’s presence. What could the Germans do to me? I thought. They might kill me or even torture me. But nothing they did would last for long. I would soon enough reconnect to the earth, the rocks and rills, the mountains and trees. That was my real kingdom, and it could not be taken away from me.

  Hans gave me the name of Jean-Luc Ferrier, who apparently knew a great deal about escaping over the border, and we went to visit him after settling into the apartment my sister-in-law had found.

  He was avuncular and gave us hot chocolate to drink. “Dozens of refugees are currently hiding in Port-Vendres,” he said, his white eyebrows going up and down as he spoke. Like most of the men in French villages, he was quite elderly. The young men were either fighting or hiding in the mountains, where Resistance units were already forming.

  Whole families clustered in damp basements or dark attics, and the braver ones walked the streets, heads down, trying to attract as little attention as possible. For the most part, the villagers of Port-Vendres were sympathetic to the refugees, who were all waiting for the right moment to make their crossing into Spain.

  For several months now, refugees had been pouring steadily into Spain via Cerbere, hiking the bright coastal path for five or six hours—a day’s journey, in effect. The border guards had been lax until the week before, when orders came down from the German Kundt Commission (a Gestapo agency that was operating in unoccupied France) that all refugee traffic must be stopped immediately. Nazi sympathizers emerged within the ranks of the border guards like poisonous flowers fed by the black soil of this dark time; perhaps in anticipation of the total occupation, the entire garde mobile became fantastically zealous. Trainloads of refugees were already moving north, bound for “repatriation,” which meant they would be shipped promptly to German concentration camps.

  Banyuls-sur-Mer was another town on the border, a bit farther to the west; its mayor was a portly gentleman called Monsieur Azéma. He was an avid socialist, according to Monsieur Ferrier, and this meant he would help anyone in flight from the Nazis. I went to see him a day or two after settling in, eager to find out more about a secret route into Spain that Ferrier said was still passable. It was called la route Lister, after General Lister, the Republican hero of the Spanish Civil War who had used this route to smuggle men out of Spain.

  Azéma lived in a stone house—more of a hut than a house—on the edge of a steep, thistle-strewn path. I knocked at his door firmly. He opened it and stared at me, squinting in the sun.

  “Are you Monsieur Azéma?”

  “May I help you?”

  “Monsieur Ferrier sent me. I’m a German socialist, and I must get to Spain.”

  “Ah, Monsieur Ferrier—a marvelous man!” He lifted his eyes in a most disconcerting way, revealing their whites. “Come inside, madame.”

  It made me anxious to place my fate so directly in this man’s hands. Who could tell friend from foe in these times? But a point comes when one must simply trust, and there was something in this man’s voice that led me to trust him.

  We sat at his kitchen table, and he listened to my story intently. His face was amazingly open, rather mild in aspect. I realized that my first impression was quite wrong. I had nothing to fear from him.

  “I will help you,” he said, “but you must assist me, too. You see, there are many people in your situation. They are desperate to flee.” He began to tap his fingers on the table. “I can tell by looking into your eyes that you are a strong woman, with experience. Unfortunately, la route Lister is a difficult one—very dangerous. On the other hand, it may soon be the only way out of France.”

  I said I would do whatever I could to help, so he went on to describe the route in detail, drawing a map for me on a piece of yellow notepaper. “You must go yourself, alone. Memorize the path, so you can then teach it to others. I may not be here next month, next week….There are people watching me, you see. It’s not safe for me to take anyone into
Spain.”

  “I will do what I can,” I said, aware of how little that might be.

  The old mayor kissed me on the forehead, the coarse brown skin around his lips wrinkling, prunelike. “My dear madame, God has sent you.” His eyes were watery now. “I am so grateful, you see. I embarrass myself.”

  What else could I do? You simply do not say no in these situations. I resolved to remain in Banyuls or Port-Vendres for a discreet period, before escaping to Spain myself. La route Lister must remain an avenue of escape as long as possible. Of course I would see to it that Eva and Titi were among the first to cross the mountains: There was no telling how long it would take for the border guards to catch on, and I wanted my brother’s family to arrive safely in Portugal as soon as possible.

  Azéma handed me a large bag filled with vegetables and tins of milk. “You must give this milk to the child,” he said. “And this bottle of wine is for you. Do you like wine?”

  I was glad for the wine and the other goods, though the heavy bag made my hike back into Port-Vendres more burdensome. Still, I could hardly not enjoy the zigzag journey along the cliff wall. Somehow I had not looked at the landscape properly on my way into Banyuls-sur-Mer that morning, my mind being preoccupied with Azéma. But I felt calm now, having established this link with the mayor. I could look around at the world more calmly.

  The sea glimmered in the distance, while moss, scrub oaks, and furled cedars clung to the foothills rising to one side. Vineyards sloped into the valley on the other side, rich and hazy, with cadres of women working among them: small women, quite elderly and sun-dried, a small part of that veritable army of wizened and black-hooded widows who populate the Mediterranean basin. The sky was bluer than the sea, and deeper, and I stood for a long while in the late-morning sun and watched a gull hang on the edge of a cloud. There was no way to describe adequately what this felt like to me. You had to be there to understand.

  * * *

  —

  A day or so later, as I was resting in my room in Port-Vendres, a knock came at the door. A very faint, limp-wristed knock that I half mistook for a distant shutter banging loose. Gradually, I understood that somebody was at my door. I don’t know why it annoys me when people are so unassertive, but it does. I said, too loudly, “Who is there?”

  There was no answer.

  Puzzled, a little frightened, I opened the door to find a small, middle-aged, and potbellied man in a crumpled woolen suit and thick glasses.

  “You will please excuse my intrusion, Frau Fittko,” he said, fumbling for words, bowing and shifting from foot to foot. “It is my hope that I have not come at an inconvenient moment.” He had a bushy, dark mustache that rose and fell oddly when he spoke. He smelled strongly of dry sweat and tobacco.

  It took at least a minute to recognize Walter Benjamin, who seemed to have aged a decade in the past year. I noticed his brightly polished, black leather shoes, his out-of-fashion tie, gone shiny with age, which seemed to be strangling him. The sleeves of his jacket, like the cuffs of his trousers, were badly frayed.

  He did not look at me as he spoke but seemed to focus above me, behind me. “I have recently seen your husband, Herr Fittko, and he suggested I might contact you here. You will excuse the presumption, but he said that you might kindly take me over the border into Spain. I would go myself but, you see, I am unfamiliar with the region.”

  It was just like Hans to assume I could do anything, and of course, he was right. I could do most things pretty damn well. Nevertheless, there was a certain presumption on his part.

  “Please, Dr. Benjamin,” I said, “will you not come in?”

  He shook his head, reluctant to enter the room (probably because I was a woman and alone), so I agreed to walk with him into the village. We found a small outdoor café with a view of the sea, and we took care that nobody should overhear our conversation. Though we sat facing each other, his eyes avoided meeting mine. It was awkward, but I understood that here was a Berliner of the old school. I have never liked false manners, but his were merely formal and not false. He reminded me of my grandfather, who used to tip his hat to everyone on the street.

  I had seen Dr. Benjamin at parties and knew him glancingly. Our circle in Paris was, of course, quite small, and Dr. Benjamin had established a reputation among the émigré community as an intellectual. Hans occasionally referred to him as “the man who sits in the Bibliothèque Nationale and produces nothing.”

  Herr Benjamin (or Old Benjamin, as I took to calling him in my head) had not been as unproductive as Hans imagined. He kept beside him at all times a decrepit leather briefcase containing a huge masterwork. “Everything I know is in these pages,” he said, showing me the manuscript, “and this is the only copy.”

  “What you need is a roomful of monks,” I said.

  He looked at me queerly.

  “To copy the book.”

  “Ah, scribes,” he said, smiling gravely. Though devoid of rollicking humor, he was subject to slight rumbling chuckles, often accompanied by a strange breath, as though he were sucking the joke into his lungs. I guessed that very little in his life had been conducive to humor. Indeed, he had recently been flung into the sea in Marseilles, and it was only the chance passing of a rowboat that saved him and his manuscript from watery oblivion.

  “Please, would you have a cigarette?” he asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  He lit one himself, meticulously placing it between his lips and then cupping his hands so his match would not falter in the stiff breeze coming off the sea.

  After taking a long puff, he said, “I will go to Madrid first, and then perhaps to Tangiers, where I am assured of safe passage to Cuba—should that seem appropriate. After the war, I expect to live in New York.”

  “New York is apparently quite beautiful,” I said.

  “So I’m told. I have friends there, you see.” A glaze came over his eyes. “The truth is, I know several people in New York quite well.” The wistfulness of his tone, and the way his voice trailed off at the end of each phrase, told me he did not believe for a second that he would ever get to Cuba or New York. He may have even doubted the friendships. He was letting this rhetoric out, like a balloon on a string; it bobbed in the breeze, colorful. But it was just that, a balloon. Any sharp attention to its meaning might well prick and destroy it.

  In Marseilles, Old Benjamin had befriended a middle-aged woman by the name of Henny Gurland. She and her teenage son, José, were also frantic to get out of France, having been denied (like the rest of us) an exit visa in Marseilles. Her husband, Herr Gurland, had been killed earlier in the summer while escaping from a military prison near Tours, where he was being held for “repatriation” to Germany. Old Benjamin wanted the Gurlands to come with us over the Pyrenees.

  “So you will take us into Spain, Frau Fittko? I am right in assuming so?”

  “I will, if I can.”

  “Surely you can,” he said. “I feel terribly confident about this.”

  I explained that, so far, I had not had a chance to test the route myself. Indeed, I had nothing to go on but the rough sketch given to me by Azéma, and he had, after all, drawn that map from memory. One knows how unreliable this can be, especially when recalling turns in a path. And there were several crucial landmarks that one must not miss: a mountain hut that one must keep on one’s left, a high plateau with seven pine trees that must be kept on one’s right; apparently a vineyard appeared at one point near the crest, and if one threaded it properly, one came to the appropriate crest. Steep ravines fell off to one side of the path, which became very narrow in places, while loose rocks and gravel slides only made the crossing that much more treacherous. It was not, as Azéma emphasized, an easy climb.

  “This crossing is not without risks,” I said, rather understating the situation, since there was no point in spooking him. “And you are obviously not
in perfect health.” He had already told me more about his health than I really wanted to know, and it was not good news. His heart and lungs were weak, and he could not rely on his stamina. Even now, his hands trembled like those of an elderly man.

  “The real risk, I’m afraid, would be to stay put,” he said. “There is no alternative, is there?”

  No sane person would argue with him. The real questions I had now concerned the accuracy of Azéma’s map and, indeed, whether or not Old Benjamin could possibly survive this crossing.

  * * *

  —

  We met the next morning, as planned. The idea was that we should first speak to Mayor Azéma, who would again describe the route to both of us; this way, it would be impressed on two minds. I told Eva to hang back for a week or so: I would take her and Titi on my second crossing, when I could be sure of the route.

  My inner alarm bells began to sound as soon as we set off for Banyuls-sur-Mer. Old Benjamin was limping, and he seemed terribly short of breath, insisting—over my vehement objection—that he carry his briefcase.

  “I’m afraid I don’t trust the landlord,” he said. “There have been several incidents lately.”

  I didn’t press him about these incidents. It was clear to me that Benjamin and his manuscript were inseparable.

  By the time we reached the mayor’s house, Benjamin was—quite literally—livid: the blood had drained from his cheeks, which shone with a sickly white pallor. He sucked in deep breaths, as if frantically trying to feed his lungs. His lips were bluish pale.