Charlotte
Page 11
Everyone except me! yells Charlotte.
Disordered syllables resonate within her.
She can no longer articulate sentences.
She can’t find the words.
To express the devastation.
Of what she has just discovered.
Not once did she suspect.
Never, never, never.
She cannot use words.
Do the words even exist to express such vertigo?
She understands the strangeness that has always been inside her.
That excessive fear of abandonment.
The certainty of being rejected by everyone.
What should she do?
Cry, or die, or nothing?
She gets to her feet, then lets herself fall to the ground again.
A puppet dropped on the empty beach.
Night falls, but this time it is different.
Night falls only on her.
…
She shivers with cold.
And crawls over to the Promenade des Anglais.
Looking as if she’s just swum to the shore.
Now she walks quickly.
Advances through the night.
A wet shadow coming to life.
She thinks her grandparents are waiting up for her.
But no, they’re asleep, and what a strange vision it is.
The bedroom window is still open.
Allowing the moonlight to illuminate the edge of the bed.
The light is soft, even friendly.
The moment is such a contrast to recent days.
They look like sweet children.
Charlotte sits on a chair to watch them.
And falls asleep in turn, close to them.
10
A few days pass, in rediscovered calm.
Can hours be described as looking pale?
Even their gestures are silent.
The grandmother brushes Charlotte’s hair.
Something she hasn’t done for years.
And so they re-enter a period of happiness.
Charlotte is incapable of asking a single question.
Why did no one ever tell her?
Why?
No, she stays silent.
She does not want to hear their explanations.
Besides, what good would it do?
She prefers to savor these moments of respite.
It would seem that her grandmother is finally at peace.
Unless this is a strategy?
Intended to make her jailer lower her guard.
The grandmother remembers her own mother.
Her craziness was constant, so they could never leave her alone.
She was watched day and night, her own potential murderer.
Charlotte hopes that everything will be better now.
She is her grandmother’s mother.
For weeks, she has protected her, reassured her, warmed her.
Something very strong unites them.
And so she lets herself be lulled by an illusion.
And falls asleep.
When she opens her eyes, there is no one there.
How could her grandmother have gotten up without waking her?
Usually, Charlotte is such a light sleeper.
She freed herself from the bed without the slightest sound.
As if vanishing into thin air.
At that moment, there is a terrible sound.
The muffled thud of an impact.
Understanding, Charlotte runs to the window.
The grandfather wakes up too.
With a gasp, suddenly fearful.
What?
What’s happening? he shouts.
The panic in his voice is something rarely heard.
Just like Charlotte, he knows exactly what is happening.
From the apartment, they can’t see anything.
The interior courtyard is a black space.
The radiant moon of recent days has gone.
They both cry out the grandmother’s name.
Several times, but without any real hope.
Go, go quickly and fetch a candle! orders the grandfather.
Charlotte obeys, trembling.
The two of them walk slowly downstairs.
Inside the courtyard, a cool wind blows.
They must try to protect the flickering flame.
They move forward, inch by inch.
Charlotte, barefoot, feels liquid under her feet.
Holding the candle, she kneels down.
And discovers a trickle of blood.
She utters a cry, puts a hand to her mouth.
The grandfather leans down in turn.
And, for once, says nothing.
11
The body lies on a bed for three days.
Strangely, the grandmother seems almost unchanged by death.
She already looked like this for a long time before.
Charlotte cries constantly.
She cries the tears that her grandfather cannot.
With Dr. Moridis’s help, they organize the funeral.
Ottilie takes care of all the expenses.
The ceremony takes place on the morning of March 8, 1940.
The refugee children from the Ermitage are there.
Which makes the moment a little less gloomy.
They are happy to see Charlotte again.
They surround her with great warmth.
The coffin sinks into the ground.
Everything appears so calm.
Only the grandfather’s lucidity is disturbed.
Apparently he no longer knows who they are burying.
Then he pulls himself together.
He cannot remember a single day without his wife’s presence.
Has he ever lived without her?
After the ceremony, Ottilie invites them to her house.
Charlotte and her grandfather prefer to go home.
They feel the need to be alone.
And walk slowly down the cemetery path.
Charlotte deciphers all those names that were once lives.
Her mind is filled with images she cannot grasp.
Suddenly the grandfather grunts, as if he’s been shot.
The pain awakens, and puts him in a rage.
The same rage that led him to tell Charlotte everything.
Hateful words pour from his mouth.
Words, more words, set free.
Then he grabs the young woman by her sleeve.
What? she says, head lowered, exhausted by the tragedy.
Why is he grabbing her like that?
What does he want now?
He grips her so violently.
She wants to fight back, to push him away, but she lacks the strength.
You’re asking me what? he screams.
You’re asking me what?
Just look.
Look all around.
Seriously, what are you waiting for?
You may as well go ahead and kill yourself too!
Part Seven
1
Charlotte informs her family of the grandmother’s death.
Paula worries about her stepdaughter’s mental state.
Every line in her letter seems filled with sorrow.
Even the commas appear adrift.
Paula tries to find the right words to send in reply.
But words no longer have any value.
They should simply be there, to hold her in their arms.
Charlotte is suffering physically from their absence.
She thought the separation would be temporary.
But it has been more than a year already.
With not even the faintest prospect of being reunited.
The reply Charlotte receives will be the last.
Never again will she hear from her father and Paula.
There is unease on the borders and they are closing.
All Germans living in France have been asked to declare themselves.
&n
bsp; Although it is obvious that they are refugees.
All the same, they are associated with the enemy nation.
The French State decides to lock them up.
In June 1940, Charlotte and her grandfather find themselves on a train.
Headed to the Gurs camp, in the Pyrenees.
The camp was initially constructed for Spanish refugees.
What is going to happen to them?
Charlotte remembers her father’s face when he came back from Sachsenhausen.
Around her, she sees distraught Germans.
The journey lasts for hours.
This adds to the anguish of not knowing what will happen next.
Is she going to die?
Not one woman in her family has escaped their morbid fate.
Thirteen years separate the death of her mother from that of her aunt.
And another thirteen passed between her mother’s death and her grandmother’s.
Yes, exactly the same time lapse.
And all three died in almost exactly the same way.
A leap into the void.
Death has three different ages.
The girl, the mother, the grandmother.
So no age is worth living.
In the train that rolls toward the camp, Charlotte makes a calculation.
1940 + 13 = 1953.
So 1953 will be the year of her suicide.
If she doesn’t die before that.
2
On their arrival at the camp in Gurs, families are separated.
Her grandfather joins the group of men.
He seems to be the oldest of them all.
The doyen of the shadows.
Charlotte asks a gendarme to let him stay with her.
He is too old to be alone, and he’s sick.
No, no, just go into the women’s shelter.
This is an order, so she backs down.
The young man has a billy club, and a dog at his side.
She realizes that there is no place for reasoned arguments here.
She leaves her grandfather and joins the line of women.
Among them, there is Hannah Arendt.
In Gurs, Charlotte is struck by the absence of any vegetation.
It is a total extermination of greenness.
She has gone from a wildly fertile landscape to a lunar landscape.
She examines the place, in search of even the faintest color.
Something attacks her in her flesh.
Her relationship with the world becomes purely aesthetic.
She paints incessantly in her head.
Unknown to Charlotte, her work is already breathing inside her.
Ugliness contaminates every detail.
In the shelter, there are no beds, only piles of mattresses.
The sanitary conditions are appalling.
Each night, they hear the squeaking of rats.
They rub against the women’s hollow cheeks.
But that is not the worst thing.
The worst thing is the man who marches.
He comes and goes in front of the building with his flashlight.
From inside, the women can see the thread of light.
The unbearable sign of his presence.
It can go on for more than an hour.
They all know that he will end up coming in.
And here he comes now.
He opens the door, blinding the prone women.
He ventures between the mattresses.
The dog sniffs and licks its prey.
Wagging its tail, a happy accomplice in domination.
More than ever, it feels itself man’s best friend.
Every night, the guard enters like this.
It is his wonderful ritual.
He goes in search of a prisoner to rape.
If any of them put up a fight, he can simply shoot them.
Shaking with fear, they curl up in balls.
He stops next to one of them.
With his flashlight, he examines her face and body.
Before moving on to another one.
Their fear excites him even more.
Finally he chooses a redhead.
Get up and come with me.
She obeys.
And he leads her to another hut.
3
Several weeks pass this way.
Between torpor and terror.
All everyone talks about is the German attack.
The French army’s incredibly swift defeat.
How is that even possible?
Charlotte is petrified by the news.
The Nazis are going to control the country to which she fled.
Her refuge has become her prison.
So there will never be any end to her wandering.
…
Thankfully, the South is not part of Occupied France.
It is designated a free zone.
But free for whom?
Not for her, apparently.
She is barely even allowed to visit her grandfather.
He spends most of his days lying on a pallet.
Scarily thin, he is close to collapse.
When he coughs, a thread of blood trickles from his mouth.
Often he does not recognize Charlotte.
She feels utterly lost.
She begs the guards for help.
Finally, this young woman’s distress stirs the compassion of a nurse.
She says she will see what she can do.
These are not empty words.
The management finally decides to liberate them.
Does Charlotte start to hope again?
She tells her grandfather that the horror is coming to an end.
They will return to the Ermitage, and he’ll be able to rest.
She takes his hand, and he likes that physical contact.
The next day, they leave the camp.
But public transport is no longer working.
They must make their own way there.
Walking hundreds of miles with a cantankerous, sick old man.
They cross the Pyrenees.
In the sweltering heat of July.
Two months later, Walter Benjamin will commit suicide.
On the other side of the mountain range.
There is a rumor that stateless people can no longer cross the border.
Benjamin feels sure he will soon be arrested.
Exhausted by years of wandering and fear, he collapses.
And poisons himself with morphine.
I think of his words, which sound like a goodbye.
There is happiness—such as could arouse envy in us—
only in the air we have breathed,
among people we could have talked to …
German geniuses are scattered all over the mountains.
Hannah Arendt will succeed in leaving Europe.
Charlotte had a deep love of Walter Benjamin.
She had read his books, and listened devotedly to his radio broadcasts.
One of his lines could have been an epigraph for Charlotte’s work:
The true measure of life is memory.
4
On the road, they ask to rest at people’s houses.
Most of the time, they are refused.
No one wants to shelter Germans.
Finally, a young refugee comes to their aid.
He too is originally from Berlin.
He knows a place where they can sleep.
On the path there, in the darkness, he pushes Charlotte into a ditch.
Her grandfather is resting on a bench and doesn’t see any of this.
His granddaughter fights back with all her strength.
She scratches her assailant’s face.
And he runs off, cursing her.
You don’t know what the hell you want, you stupid bitch!
Charlotte rearranges her clothes.
And rejoins her grandfather without a word.
She is used
to burying her pain.
Even the rawest and most immediate.
She knows better than anyone how to cover a wound.
So accustomed has she grown to suffering.
At last they find an inn that will accept them.
But there is only one bed in the room.
Charlotte says she will lie on the floor.
The grandfather insists they sleep together.
A granddaughter and her grandfather, he says: it’s normal.
Has she understood him correctly?
Yes, he becomes more specific.
He encourages her to undress and come close to him.
The earth reels on its axis.
All points of reference are gone.
So she goes outside for some air.
And waits for him to fall asleep before returning to the bedroom.
She sits in a corner, hiding her face between her knees.
In order to find sleep, she goes through her memories.
They are the only place where tenderness remains.
She hears Paula’s voice, feels Alfred’s kisses.
Eyes closed, she travels through beauty.
Now a painting by Chagall appears.
She reconstructs it precisely, visualizing each detail.
For a long time, Charlotte strolls among the warm colors.
And finally she is able to fall asleep.
Charlotte knows she cannot continue her journey like this.
Not with her grandfather watching her body, her every gesture, like a hawk.
Thankfully, they are told about a bus that runs along the coast.
Two days later, they are in Nice.
Their arrival at the Ermitage is a cause for celebration.
Everyone is so relieved.
No one had heard anything.
Charlotte, worn out, goes off to bed.
Ottilie comes to see her a little later.
And touches a hand to her forehead.
Charlotte opens her eyes then.
And a tear runs down her cheek.
It is so rare for anyone to show such gentleness toward her.
Ottilie realizes that this girl needs help.
She knows her family history.
Charlotte seems unable to stop crying.
Months of tears are finally released.
Thankfully, she manages to fall back asleep.
But her breathing is irregular.
The American lady sees shadows on the girl’s face.
Shadows moving over her.
She knows that the last few weeks have disoriented her.
Her grandmother’s suicide, the revelation of her mother’s.
Then the imprisonment and the long walk back.
Ottilie is deeply affected by this vision of a ruined life.
She wants to save her.
I must help her and heal her, she thinks.