Michael at the Invasion of France, 1943

by Laurie Calkhoven

Jacques kept up a casual conversation about school while we rode our bikes to a café in the eighth arrondissement. We had to cross the busy Champs-Élysées. I stiffened every time I saw a Nazi soldier, but Jacques was completely relaxed.

  “Don’t worry,” he told me. “You’ll get used to it.”

  We stopped on a corner near a sidewalk café. Jacques pointed out a woman with the slightest nod of his head. She sat at a table reading a book and sipping a cup of tea. One glove had dropped to the sidewalk by her foot. Jacques took the envelope from me and rode his bike toward her. When he got close, he stopped short and bent down to pick up the glove.

  “Your glove, madame,” he said. He handed it to her along with the envelope.

  The woman’s face betrayed nothing. She accepted the glove and the envelope with a bored expression. “Merci, young man,” she said.

  “My friend and I wouldn’t want you to lose it.”

  Only then did her eyes flick to me and then away. “Thank you,” she said again.

  Jacques and I bicycled away. Our work was done for the day.

  I looked at my friend with a new admiration. He had carried out his job so smoothly that only those watching very carefully would have noticed the exchange. Would I be able to do it as well?

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Are You Looking for Me?”

  A few days later, Jacques and I picked up another envelope from the Bluebird and took it to same café on the Champs-Élysées. This time a tall man sat reading. He must have taken off his beret and set it on the table, only to have it fall to the ground. Jacques explained that sometimes the man and sometimes the woman waited for the envelope. He did not know their names—not even their code names. If the glove or the hat was not on the ground, I was to ride on.

  This time I was the one who rode toward the man and stopped short to give him his hat along with the envelope. My hand trembled and my voice was much too loud when I said, “Your hat, monsieur.”

  The man’s eyes flicked from me to Jacques and back to me again.

  “Thank you, young man,” he said with a nod.

  After that, I ran the errand myself. No one ever told me what was in the envelopes, but once or twice a week Jacques would whisper to me that the Bluebird expected a visit. The person in the café never said more than thank you. Everything went smoothly, and I even grew a little bored with my assignment. My childish version of resistance work was a lot more fun than this new job.

  Then one day in November there was a strange man at the table. No one told me to expect a new contact, but the man’s beret sat at his feet, as it should. Still, something wasn’t right. He made idle chitchat with the man at the next table instead of reading like the others had done.

  I rode past him and made a loop around the block. This time I stopped at the corner and studied this new person. I watched him call out to a pretty girl who walked by. His French was perfect. He didn’t sound German.

  Suddenly I realized why I was troubled. The man was too loud, and too well fed. Only the Germans had enough to eat, and a good résistant would never draw attention to himself in public. Even I knew that.

  The man chuckled at the way the girl ignored him and then sat back with a sigh. He took out a package of cigarettes.

  I froze.

  The package was a German brand.

  I felt as if I was being lit on fire when he brought a match to the tip of his cigarette and drew the smoke into his lungs. The man was a Nazi, or one of their collaborators, and whatever I carried in my envelope was definitely verboten.

  His eyes swept the street and came to rest on my bicycle and me. He smiled.

  “Young man, are you looking for me?”

  A résistant would never ask such a question in a public place for others to hear.

  He tapped his foot next to his beret, trying to draw my attention to it. I didn’t want to look, but my eyes darted to his feet of their own accord. I could feel my face turning red, giving me away.

  “Non, non, monsieur,” I stammered. “I’m looking for my maman. She must have already gone home. I’ll . . . I’ll go there now.”

  His face hardened and he eyed me suspiciously. I pretended not to notice. I wheeled my bike around and got ready to cross the busy Champs-Élysées. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him get to his feet.

  “Wait,” he yelled. “Wait.”

  I pretended not to hear him. I looked for a break in the traffic.

  “Stop that boy,” the man yelled in his perfect French. Then he switched to German. The only word I understood was “Halt!”

  I heard footsteps behind me, and a loud whistle. A black Mercedes roared to life.

  Gestapo!

  My whole body flinched, but I pedaled into the traffic. I couldn’t even throw the envelope away without being seen. I dodged German trucks, bicyclists, bicycle taxis, and pedestrians to reach the other side of the avenue. The Mercedes ignored every traffic law to stay on my tail. A truck barreled toward me. If I kept going, it would surely hit me. If I stopped, the Gestapo would get me.

  Bang!

  Bang!

  Was that a gun? Fear gave me the push I needed. I pedaled furiously in front of the truck. It missed hitting me by the narrowest of slivers. The Mercedes was not so lucky. It crashed right into the truck.

  I didn’t look back. I rode all over Paris at top speed, hardly even daring to look over my shoulder to see if I was being followed. About an hour later I heard another loud bang. I flinched and almost crashed into a wall. It was a truck backfiring. That’s when I realized—the boches hadn’t shot at me on the Champs-Élysées. A truck had backfired.

  That was a small relief, but I was worried about the envelope. Getting caught with it would mean death. I crossed the Seine half a dozen times. Each time I decided to throw the envelope into the river, and each time I changed my mind. No one had told me what to do if I couldn’t carry out my mission. What if whatever was in that envelope would save the life of a soldier for France?

  Finally, after riding for what felt like hours and making doubly and triply sure I wasn’t being followed, I took the envelope home. It was dark by that time, and I knew Maman would be worried, but I rode the elevator to Jacques’s floor instead of my own.

  I knocked and collapsed to the floor outside his door, exhausted and trembling. Jacques found me there a few seconds later.

  “Gestapo,” I whispered.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Arrests!

  November 1942

  Jacques helped me inside and brought me into the bedroom he shared with François. Now that my race through the streets was over, I was even more scared than I’d been when the Gestapo was on my heels. Jacques brought me a cup of tea and reached under his mattress for a chocolate bar—an American chocolate bar!

  “Where?” I asked. I hadn’t seen real chocolate since shortly after the war began.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Jacques said. “What happened?”

  I took a deep sniff of the chocolate and slipped a piece into my mouth, letting it melt. I had forgotten that something could taste so good. Then I told Jacques everything from the moment I began to suspect my contact was a Nazi to my arrival at his door.

  “Are you sure you weren’t followed?” he asked.

  “I made the Gestapo crash into a truck,” I said. “I rode through every alley in Paris—most of them too narrow for cars. There’s no way a man could run as fast as I pedaled.” My leg muscles were still twitching.

  Jacques nodded thoughtfully. “I was supposed to meet someone at the train station,” he said. “He never arrived. I wonder if—” He shook himself. “We don’t know anything yet, let’s not panic.”

  “Not panic?” I asked. “I was almost caught by the Gestapo with this.” I pointed to the envelope, which sat on t
he bed between us. My arm had been pressed so tightly to my side that there was a red welt on my skin from the edge of the envelope, and it was stained with my sweat.

  “Do you know what’s inside?” I asked.

  Jacques shook his head. “I have an idea, but François never told me.”

  “If I’m going to be tortured by the Gestapo, I want to know what for,” I said.

  Jacques didn’t argue. I opened the seal and spilled the envelope’s contents onto the bed. Two faces looked back at me. There were identity cards for two men along with everything else they would need if they were stopped at a checkpoint: ration cards and coupons, work permits, travel permits, and medical release papers from the French army.

  “Identity papers,” I said.

  Jacques nodded. “Forgeries. That’s what I thought.”

  “Who are they for?” I asked.

  Jacques leaned forward and whispered. “Aviators,” he said. “British. American. Their airplanes were shot down over Belgium and France. We help them get to Spain so they can go back to England and fight again.”

  I gasped. “Americans!”

  Jacques nodded. “We’re part of an escape line that stretches all the way across France—like the American Underground Railroad for the slaves.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

  Jacques struggled to come up with a reason. Finally he told the truth. “You’re half American. Your maman is American. The Gestapo could arrest you at any time.”

  I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach. The Resistance didn’t trust me because I was American? It made no sense.

  Jacques was about to tell me more, but we heard noise at the front door. We swept the papers back into the envelope and Jacques shoved it under his pillow.

  François clattered into the bedroom. When he saw us, he leaned back against the door and slid to the floor. His hair stood up in a crazy-looking way and his eyes were wild.

  “You’re safe,” he said, when his breathing had slowed enough for him to talk. “You’re both safe.” He closed his eyes and rested his head in his hands. His shoulders shook.

  Panic shot through me again. François was crying.

  Jacques and I pretended not to notice. By the time the Lion looked up at us again, he had gotten control of himself.

  “My friend never arrived at the train station,” Jacques said.

  “The man at the café was German,” I said, “or a collaborator. The Gestapo almost got me.”

  “Did they get the envelope?”

  “No. I saw he wasn’t right,” I said.

  Jacques pulled the envelope from under his pillow. François grabbed it and slid it under his shirt. He dragged his fingers through his black hair, making it stand up even more. “Bluebird was arrested,” he said in a shaky voice. “Along with Giraffe. Others too.”

  Bluebird—everything was fine when I stopped at her apartment this afternoon. The Gestapo must have captured her right after I left.

  François got to his feet and began to pace. “Have either of you ever shared your real name with anyone on the line?”

  Jacques and I both shook our heads.

  “We may be all right. We can only wait and see,” he said. “Could the German recognize you if he saw you again?”

  “Maybe,” I admitted. “He saw me watching him and he tried to get me to make the exchange. I pretended not to understand, but he didn’t believe me. I had to race away. The boches chased me, but I was too fast.”

  Jacques turned to François with a proud grin. “Wolf made the Gestapo drive his car right into a truck.”

  I pictured the accident and I began to laugh in a kind of hysterical way. It wasn’t funny, really, but I laughed so hard that tears ran down my face. Then I thought about Bluebird and the cheerful way she greeted me and offered me a snack every time I saw her, and the tears became real. Was the Gestapo torturing her right now?

  I hid my face in Jacques’s pillow and wept for her. Once the real tears started, I couldn’t stop. I wept for Papa and Georges. I wept for France. And I wept for America.

  Normally my tears would have been embarrassing, but even François had cried today. Jacques rubbed my shoulders the way Maman would have. When I was able to stop crying and sit up, I saw tears on his face too. We all cried for our comrades and our country.

  “Do you know what happened?” I asked François.

  He shook his head. “Someone gave us away—a collaborator or a Nazi. He wormed his way into the line, learned our secrets, and gave us up to the Gestapo.”

  “Has anyone else been arrested?” Jacques asked.

  François shrugged. “I only know a few people in the chain, and I don’t know any of their real names. The line stretches from Belgium to Spain. Many, many people help the aviators along the way.” He started to pace again, making plans with each step. “We’ll have to lie low for a while. Wait and see if the Resistance can rebuild the escape line.”

  “What about our friends who are already in Paris?” Jacques asked.

  My eyes went wide. Jacques and François had aviators hidden in Paris?

  “They’ll have to stay here for a while,” François said simply. He rubbed his belly and I heard the crinkle of paper under his shirt. “At least they have papers,” he said. “If only they spoke French.”

  He took the envelope and left the room. I could hear a muffled argument between him and his parents. No one shouted, afraid the neighbors would hear, so I couldn’t make out the words. Mr. and Mrs. Dubois sounded scared, but Francois’s tone was determined. After a few minutes a door slammed, and the Lion went out into the night.

  I had my own argument with Maman when I got home. She was worried. It was late, and the concierge had told her that I rushed into the building looking like I was being chased. She wanted me to tell her what I was doing, and where I had been—secrets I couldn’t share with her—not safely. She wanted my promise that I would stop, but I couldn’t do that either.

  “Papa would want me to do this,” I said. “I’m doing this for France. For Georges. And for Papa.”

  “Papa would want you to be safe,” she said.

  “Papa would want Georges to be safe,” I said. Even I could hear the bitterness in my voice.

  Surprise crossed her face. Did she really think I’d never noticed?

  “Besides, I’m not in any real danger.”

  She stared at me for a long moment. She knew I was lying.

  “I’m not,” I said, my voice thick with tears.

  She threw her hands up into the air. “Go to bed,” she said. “But this isn’t over. We’re going to talk about this again.”

  I was too exhausted to argue. Too exhausted to listen for the Gestapo to knock on my or Jacques’s door. But they didn’t. Things were quiet for the next few days, and I thought we were safe. Then, the next week, the Nazis began to arrest Americans.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  84 Avenue Foch

  One afternoon when Jacques and I got home from school, Madame Cassou signaled to me from her window. “Gestapo,” she whispered. “With your maman.”

  My whole body went cold. Were they here because Maman was American, or had someone identified me as the boy from the cafe?

  “Did they go to my apartment too?” Jacques asked.

  “No,” Madame Cassou answered. Then she turned to me. “They want to know where your papa is.”

  “Papa is a prisoner,” I said. Maman and I had stuck to that story since the day the Nazis marched into Paris. That’s what we told everyone.

  The concierge shrugged. “That’s what I told them. You think they listen to me?”

  The elevator wasn’t working, so Jacques and I trudged up the stairs. My heavy sabots clunked against each step. Fear made me suspicious. I wo
ndered if Jacques had turned us in to the Kommandantur to keep the Nazis from looking too closely at him and François. Then I shook off that crazy idea. My friend was no traitor.

  I nodded good-bye to Jacques and opened the front door. There was no yelling, only quiet voices.

  Maman was sitting on the couch, smoothing her skirt. Charlotte leaned into her. Two Gestapo agents sat across from them, one of them in Papa’s favorite chair.

  “Michel,” Maman said.

  She used the French pronunciation of my name instead of the more American “Michael.” She hardly ever did that. She continued speaking French even though we often spoke to each other in English. Maman wanted us to be fluent in both languages.

  I followed her lead. “Is something wrong, Maman?” I asked in French. “Has something happened to Papa or Georges?”

  “No, don’t worry,” she said. “They’re still in Germany. These officers need to ask me a few questions at their headquarters. I want you to come with us and look after Charlotte.”

  I nodded. Maman sounded so calm, so unworried. I was afraid to speak and betray my fear. My heart fluttered like a bird trying to get out of its cage. If the Gestapo just wanted to question Maman, I could look after Charlotte here at the apartment. They wanted all three of us at headquarters.

  “Do I need to pack a bag?” Maman asked in French.

  Even though Maman had asked him the question in French, the Nazi answered in heavily accented English. “Not necessary,” he said. His eyes surveyed the room. Was he taking inventory, deciding which of our pieces of furniture he would keep when he took over our apartment?

  Within minutes we were in the back of their black Mercedes. Maman gave my hand a squeeze and told me not to worry. We pulled up in front of 84 Avenue Foch, Gestapo headquarters. A soldier rushed to open the car doors, and we were led inside the most feared address in Paris.

  Maman and I had had many discussions about what to do if the Nazis questioned us about Papa. We told Charlotte the same thing that we planned to tell the Nazis—Papa had disappeared in the Battle of France. We never mentioned, even to each other, that he was with General de Gaulle in England.