Escape From Paris

by Carolyn G. Hart

  “You’re working alone? I thought you and your brother were in practice together.”

  “Claude and Annette were in Nice when the Blitzkrieg began. I have not heard from them since Paris fell. My brother called, a few days before the Germans reached Paris, to tell me they would not be coming back.” She took a sip of wine. “So I am trying to take care of all of his patients who are still in Paris. Today I had no time for lunch. A bowl of soup for dinner.”

  Linda popped up, began to open the cupboards. “Here are some biscuits. I’m sorry I don’t have more.”

  The doctor tried to refuse, but Linda insisted and she saw, finally, how quickly and hungrily her guest ate.

  “Did your brother expect you to manage all of his patients, too?”

  Dr. Gailland shot her a quick perceptive look. “You think he did not much value his patients?”

  Linda tried to protest but Dr. Gailland rushed on. “He is the kind of doctor, Mademoiselle, who did not bill his poor patients, who stayed through the night with a sick child. Oh, yes, he cared. He cried that day when he called to say they were staying in Nice.” She tipped up her glass, finished the wine. “My sister-in-law, Annette, has never been strong. They have no children. I know that is a grief to them. Annette is about your size, and blond, as you, but she has dark eyes. She is very beautiful and very kind, a gentle creature. And Jewish.”

  Long after the slender dark-eyed doctor had left, Linda rocked sleepless in the chair, rocked and smoked. When it was time, wearily, her face drawn, she walked to the bedroom, carrying the clean basin with tepid water. She gave him a sponge bath to try and lessen the fever. When he was clean and cooler to touch, Linda gently loosened the bandage, slipped free the tubing and reached for a clean swab.

  “Uncle Erich.” The young voice was eager and happy.

  “Fritz.” Erich Krause pushed up from his chair and rushed around his desk to grab up his nephew in a warm embrace. Then he stepped back to look at Fritz. The first thing he saw was the eagle above the right breast pocket of the blue-gray gabardine uniform. “The Luftwaffe. Fritz, I didn’t know. When did this happen?”

  Fritz smiled proudly. “I didn’t let Mother write you until I was sure I had made it. I transferred from the infantry to the Luftwaffe in July. They needed more pilots.”

  “July?” Erich Krause frowned. “And you already have your wings?”

  “It’s a new accelerated program, Uncle Erich. There’s a great need for more pilots.”

  For an instant, it was silent in the shining elegant office, then Fritz said quickly, “Of course, the air war’s going splendidly. They say the RAF is barely operational. I expect I’ll just be part of the mop-up before the invasion. I wish I could have made it here sooner.”

  The Paris newspapers daily carried estimates of RAF planes downed in the previous day’s raids by the Luftwaffe, but there was no corresponding list of Luftwaffe losses. Every evening the BBC broadcast the estimate of losses for both sides. Paris drew its shades and clandestinely listened.

  “How long will you have in Paris?”

  “Until morning. I’m sorry I couldn’t let you know I was coming, but my travel plans weren’t definite until yesterday,”

  “It doesn’t matter. God, it’s so good to see you, Fritz. How long has it been now?”

  “Two years ago, after the Party Rally in Nuremburg, you came to Berlin to visit Mother and I was home on leave.”

  “Have you seen your mother recently?”

  Fritz nodded. “She told me to bring you all her love.”

  Krause smiled thinly. His sister Marta was always ebullient, irrepressible. She had teased him, that last meeting, “All right, Erich, if we’re going to have a policeman in the family, we might as well get some use out of it. I want Gertrude Friedrichs arrested. At once.” He had lounged back in the huge overstuffed chair, his shining black boots crossed. “Oh, and what has Frau Friedrichs done?” “She took my best torte recipe and gave it to everyone in her sewing club.” Everyone had laughed. The next Monday he had Gertrude Friedrichs arrested. He held her for two days. When his sister called, he had laughed. “I did you one better, Marta.” “Erich, I was only joking. I never meant for you to arrest her.” “I thought you might like to know that I can arrest anyone. Anyone at all.” “Yes,” Marta replied, “I see that you can,” and there had been no laughter in her voice.

  Marta had always been so pietistic. He controlled the rush of anger. She always irritated him because she was unimpressed with his success in the Party, disdainful of the bully-brown shirts, as she called them. Well, of course, the Brown Shirts had had to go, but they had been useful in their time.

  Krause looked at his nephew with approval. Marta had never deserved to have so fine a son as Fritz. He should have had such a son, clear blue eyes, stocky muscular build, hair as bright and shining as a golden helmet. None better in all of Germany. Krause forgot the anger that always stirred within him, moving dangerously close to the surface like the molten surge of lava pressing ever upward. Instead he enjoyed the moment as he rarely enjoyed time. To be with Fritz, that was enough for now. “When does your train leave?”

  “At nine.”

  “We have plenty of time. Come, I’ll take you on a tour of Paris. You’ve not been here before, have you?”

  “No, sir, but do you have time to spare? I didn’t mean to break in on your day. I know you are very busy.”

  Krause frowned at the piles of paper on his desk. “Nothing I do is as important as your task, Fritz. Though I do my part for you and the other fliers.”

  “Oh?” Puzzled, Fritz asked uncertainly, “Are you associated with the Luftwaffe in some way?”

  “Nothing direct. It’s my job to round up these English soldiers who are hiding in the North and the RAF fliers who parachute into France. Every English pilot less, the better for you, right, Fritz?”

  His nephew nodded vigorously. “That’s true, but I shouldn’t think you’d have too much difficulty finding them. Are there still soldiers hiding near Dunkirk?”

  “Almost ten thousand. We pick them up every day in the northern woods. We use dogs, you know, and motorcycle units. But some of them still manage to escape us.” Krause’s eyes narrowed. “The damned French. We’ve defeated them and we’ve treated them very gently. We have strict rules on the treatment of civilians, you know, unless they are involved in a crime against the Reich. Still, they don’t honor their agreements. Sly. Just like the French. But we put out a new directive the first week in September—the death penalty for anyone who is hiding an Englishman and doesn’t surrender him by October 20. It’s time to stop treating these criminals so gently.” He reached for a stack of manila folders. “Look at these—you wouldn’t believe the time and manpower it is taking to try and break up these subterranean rings of people who are smuggling Englishmen into the Unoccupied Zone.” He flipped open the first folder. “This is one of my successes. I’m putting some of my men out into the field who speak good English. They are my decoys. We’ve broken up two escape routes through them this last week. One in Bordeaux and one in Nantes. I’m getting a network of informers established. It’s like a game, Fritz. A little bit of information here, a little there. You put it together and sometimes it makes a picture, a very interesting picture. People talk.” Krause smiled. “What the fools don’t realize is that we are listening. Here’s this report, for example, from a farm laborer. We picked him up at a control. His papers weren’t quite right. Well, we told him that he could prove to us he could be trusted. All he had to do was tell us if he heard anything strange about anyone in town, a doctor calling at a house where no one was known to be sick, too much food being bought on the black market by a small family, an unusual amount of activity in a house. That kind of thing. He is to report to our office weekly.” Krause smiled again. “That puts pressure on him to tell us something every week. Much of it will be meaningless, but some of it will be helpful.” He skimmed the page, flipped to the second. “A parish priest, Fat
her Peridot, has been buying quantities of work clothes. A druggist rumored willing to provide morphine without prescription. A man seen leaving the home of a widowed schoolteacher, Mme. Moreau, in the early morning hours.” He snapped the folder shut. “That’s just one village, Fritz, Les Andelys. Soon we will have listeners in every village.” He put the folder down, looked again at his handsome nephew. “But that’s enough about my dry old desk work. Tell me more about your posting.”

  Lieutenant Fritz Weber didn’t quite hide his smile of pride. “At Guines, near Calais. I’ve been posted to the 26th Fighter Group, Third Wing at Caffier’s airfield.” He paused, then added, “Maj. Galland’s unit.”

  Maj. Galland was Germany’s premier air ace, the veteran of 280 Spanish missions, 87 Polish missions. By early August, he had already been credited with 17 victories against the RAF and had been awarded the Knight’s Cross.

  “We have much to celebrate. Come now, Fritz, I will show you Paris. We will have dinner at Maxim’s.”

  Eleanor paused in front of the art store window to study the display. The Romanesque steeple of the Church of St. Germain-des-Pres dominated the small watercolor on the easel, giving the painting a lop-sided look. The initials SW were clear and distinct in the lower left-hand corner. In front of the easel, in two uneven rows, was a collection of small matchboxes. Eleanor counted the boxes. Five in the first row, five in the second. Ten. The Englishmen were to be taken to the Southwest corner by the Church of St. Germain-des-Pres on September 10. Tomorrow was Tuesday, September 10. The rendezvous hour was always 5:30, no matter the date or the place, as the train for Bordeaux left the Gare d’Austerlitz at 7 p.m.

  Father Laurent had arranged for the display to be made by the shop owner in order to avoid so much traffic in and out of the Church. If, however, Eleanor or Linda needed to talk to him, it could be arranged. Tomorrow he would be expecting four Englishmen, but there were going to be only three.

  Eleanor pushed in the shop door. A bell tinkled. After a moment there was the sound of slow heavy footsteps. Eleanor peered through the gloom. Paintings hung from the walls, were propped against tables, stacked in corners. A dark velvet curtain at the rear of the shop swayed, parted, seemed to move toward her. Eleanor blinked. The curtain was coming forward. Then she realized it was a mountainous figure swathed in dark velveteen. The woman moved ponderously, the floor creaking beneath her weight. Her face was immense, too, bloated, the chin lost in rolls of fat that swelled in creases down to the huge yet shapeless chest. She stared blankly at Eleanor. “Yes?”

  Eleanor cleared her throat. “Is Mme. Lisette here?”

  “I am Mme. Lisette.” A deep throaty gruff voice.

  Eleanor looked at her searchingly. “I am interested,” she said slowly, “in paintings of medieval churches. Especially those by Laurent.”

  The woman nodded heavily. “I am a connoisseur, too.”

  At that correct response, the tension eased out of Eleanor’s shoulders.

  “I do not have any in stock,” Lisette continued. “If you will leave your name, you will be contacted when a painting is available.”

  So that was done, Eleanor thought, as she walked up the Boul’ Mich’ toward the Hotel de Cluny. She did need to talk to him. Not just to tell him there would only be three travelers tomorrow. That wasn’t a problem, merely a matter of information. But she did have a problem if the fourth Englishman died. Harris, that was his name, Jonathan Harris. Perhaps Father Laurent could help her get some papers in the name of Roger Lamirand. The apartment, of course, was still listed in his name and the concierge, in the official domicile records, carried him as the renter. Father Laurent might know specifically which papers would be needed.

  Would it take cooperation by the concierge?

  Eleanor recalled her face, middle-aged, hard. Which way would she jump? But she might go along with the story. She had, after all, been willing to sub-rent the apartment to Eleanor without any questions. She must have known, would surely have known, that there must be some compelling reason for someone like Eleanor to go to such trouble. Something more than just a love affair, in times such as these.

  Eleanor walked a little faster. She was willing to gamble. She must be catching something of Father Laurent’s spirit. What was it he had said Saturday? “There will be plenty to help us. We don’t need to be afraid, almost all Frenchmen will help, if we ask.”

  She didn’t subscribe to that. There were too many who had turned brusque when she had called, hinting at her need for help. But there had also been Annemarie and now Madame Lisette and Father Laurent and all those who had helped the men who were hiding now in the apartment

  The apartment door opened before Eleanor reached the top of the stairs. Robert poked his head out and looked disappointed. “We thought it might be Dr. Gailland.”

  His mother put a finger to her lips. When they were inside, the door closed, she cautioned. “Don’t use names, Robert, in a hallway. The doctor is taking a risk to help us. Let’s not take any chances on endangering her.”

  “Do you think someone here in the apartment house would turn her in?”

  Eleanor said gently, “We don’t know, Robert. But we must remember to be careful. With every word and every action. So many others are depending upon us now.”

  He nodded solemnly, his thin face grave and adult.

  Oh Robert, Robert, his mother thought, I am so proud of you. I love you so much.

  His shirt was too small. It stretched across his chest and shoulders. He was beginning to grow from a little boy into an adolescent. He was shaped so much like his father. He was going to be thick-chested like Andre. Funny, they had never foreseen that when he was small. His school trousers were short, too. How he had grown since last spring. Andre had not seen him since May 19. Oh Andre, are you somewhere? At this moment are you picturing me or Robert, tracing in your mind where we would be, what we would be doing on a sunny September afternoon?

  “Mother, do you think the doctor can do something more?”

  “Is he worse?”

  They spoke in low voices. Funereal tones. It was quiet, Eleanor realized, throughout the apartment. She could see Kittredge, standing to the left of the window, staring down into the street. One of the men, sat with his back to her, reading. The third was asleep, sprawled on his stomach on the sofa.

  “He lies too still. He looks like wax.”

  “Where’s Linda?”

  “She stays with him. He makes too much noise when he is alone. He mumbles and thrashes and sometimes almost shouts and tries to struggle up. But he hasn’t done that since early this morning. Now, he doesn’t move. Aunt Linda bathes his face and talks to him, just gently. He rests better when she is there.”

  Early this morning? “Robert, didn’t you go to school?”

  Robert avoided his mother’s eyes. “Aunt Linda wants to talk to you. She thinks we ought to try and call Dr. Gailland.”

  Eleanor wasn’t deflected. “Robert, did you miss school?”

  “I thought Aunt Linda might need me. I knew you were going to be visiting the hospitals all day and I thought I should stay here.”

  “Robert.” She tried to be stern. “You mustn’t miss school. It’s part of what we talked about. We must try to keep our usual schedule. That’s why we are going to have Linda stay here at the apartment. Our neighbors won’t notice her comings and goings but you must keep to your school schedule and I will continue to work for the Foyer du Soldat. We mustn’t do anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Sister Colette won’t turn us in.”

  “Petain is currying favor with the Church, Robert. He is easing restrictions on the clergy so many of the Church leaders are supporting Vichy and that means they won’t work against the Germans.”

  “Not Sister Colette,” Robert said stubbornly.

  “Robert, I don’t want you missing any more classes.”

  He didn’t answer.

  She slipped her arm around him, hugged him close to her. “There wil
l be plenty for you to do, my dear. You won’t be left out.” She felt his shoulders relax. “Right now you can go get some food.” She opened her purse. “I went by the bank earlier.” She drew out a wad of banknotes. “I understand there’s a new black market behind the Broken Lance restaurant. Buy whatever you can, anything that we can fix for dinner.”

  When Robert was gone, Kittredge called out to her. “Mme. Masson, have you heard anything?”

  “Yes. I have news.”

  Miller put down his book and Jamison struggled to a sitting position on the sofa.

  “You leave here tomorrow evening for Bordeaux.”

  “Bordeaux? Where’s that?” Jamison asked.

  “Southwest. It’s still in the Occupied Zone, but you will cross the Demarkation Line there and travel on to a little town near the Spanish border.”

  “Who’s taking us?” Miller rubbed his chin nervously.

  Eleanor smiled. “One of us will take you to a certain point. We will do it in the same manner that we walked across Paris Saturday. One of you may walk with me, one of you will follow a half block behind and the third will follow on the opposite side of the street. When we reach our rendezvous—the southwest corner in front of Paris’ oldest church—I will leave. You will follow a man carrying a plaid valise. He will take you to the railroad station, buy the tickets and travel in the same car with you to Bordeaux.”

  “What if we get stopped, here in Paris? Or what if they ask to see our papers on the train?” The questions spurted out of Miller.

  “Just be relaxed,” Eleanor urged. “Don’t look frightened or worried. When they ask for your papers, ‘Vous papiers, s’il vous plait,’ hand them over. Look tired, maybe a little surly. There’s no reason for anyone to ask you any more questions. Your papers will look good.”

  He nodded and turned away, walking swiftly to the window.

  I hope your papers look good, Eleanor thought, but there isn’t a thing in the world you can do or I can do to make everything go perfectly. But, later this evening, after Robert came back with something for dinner and after she had seen to Linda and her patient, she must remember to come and sit with Miller, talk to him, teach him a few more words of French, try to give him the confidence to make the journey.