by Bodie Thoene
The entrance to Hospital de la Charité, where Uncle Jambonneau had been moved, was in the Rue Jacob among a warren of little shops and old buildings. The hospital was itself a dreary place. Its stone facade was black with years of exposure to coal smoke.
Marie now stood on the steps and craned her head back to peer up at the sooty windows.
“Stay here,” Jerome instructed her firmly. He tried to sound like he was not really worried at all about her. “There are nuns and nurses inside. They will think Papillon is just a common rat. They will not like him in their establishment, ma chèrie. So you will have to stay out here with him.”
She nodded wordlessly. Jerome, in an impulse of compassion that surprised even him, leaned down and kissed her quickly on the head. Papillon leaped up and clung to his shirtfront.
“No, Papillon, dear little dog. You must stay here with Marie. She is afraid of the nuns, you see.” He pulled Papillon loose and replaced him in Marie’s pocket.
Marie would watch over Papillon. Papillon would watch over Marie.
The inside of the hospital smelled like antiseptic and mold. The plaster of the ceiling was flaking. The green linoleum squares of the floor were chipped. Two long benches in the foyer held grim-faced men and old women cradling cranky children. Above their heads was a crucifix. On the opposite wall was a large framed photograph of the pope. In an alcove was a statue of Mary and the Christ child.
This was familiar to Jerome because his mother had died in this place. He remembered sitting on the long bench and wondering when it would be time for lunch. Even now he could recall the red, swollen face of his papa. From that day on, Papa had blamed the sisters and the priests and the doctors—and especially God—that Mama was gone. Jerome wished very much that Uncle Jambonneau was in a different hospital than this one.
There was a nun behind a very tidy desk. She was talking on the telephone when Jerome approached her. She smiled at him as she spoke to someone else. She winked at him and held up a finger to ask him to be patient. And then . . .
“Yes, young man? How may I help you?” She looked at his cap to indicate that he should take it off.
He snatched off the cap and kneaded it in his hands. “My Uncle Jambonneau?”
“Your uncle’s name is Jambonneau? You call him Uncle Pigs-knuckles?”
Jerome scratched his cheek. He could not remember Uncle Jambonneau’s real name. He had always been called Pigs-knuckles. “He has the same last name as me, Sister. It is Jardin. He is an old soldier from des Invalides who has pneumonia. He is here. I must get word to him.”
The nun busily pored over her book. “Jardin. Jardin . . . oui. Jacob Alfred Jardin. He is here, but you may not see him. He is better but still a very sick man. Children are not allowed. But I shall see he gets a message that you have come by.”
Jerome twisted his hat in his hands. How could he tell this woman who wore the black garb of the enemy that he and his sister had no place to go? that he needed help? Surely she would swoop down like a terrible black crow and lock him and Marie into a room until they could be deposited in an institution for homeless waifs. Papa would not like it. Marie would die from terror.
“Madame,” he said quietly and respectfully, “please tell my Uncle Jambonneau Jardin that his niece and nephew, Marie and Jerome, have come by to wish him well. Tell him also that his dog, Papillon, is fat and happy. That everything is fine and that he must get well because we all miss him very much.”
She copied Jerome’s words. “I will take him the note myself,” she promised.
“Uncle Jambonneau is blind,” Jerome warned her. “You must also read the note to him aloud or he will not know what is on the paper, Madame.”
She agreed, and he hurried out of the hospital with his head spinning. What could he tell Marie? What were they to do now?
Horst placed the telephone call to the Associated Press office in Berlin at nine o’clock on the morning of December 27 as the priest had instructed him. The telephone was answered by a German receptionist. In English, Horst asked for Josephine Marlow.
“Marlow?” The receptionist was puzzled by the request. “She is not in the office.”
“When do you expect her?”
“Expect Josie Marlow? Well, I can’t say. She doesn’t work in Berlin, you see. She might have gone home to America.”
Horst glanced at the baby, who was happily investigating a small space that Katrina had hemmed in with furniture. The priest had not told him what to do if the American journalist was not there!
Attempting to remain businesslike, Horst asked for some member of the staff who might know how she could be reached. A few moments passed before a man came on the line.
“Bill Cooper here.”
It was a friendly male American voice. Horst breathed a sigh of relief. “I am trying to speak with Fräulein Josephine Marlow, you see.”
“Josie Marlow? Sorry. She’s on Paris staff.”
Paris. There was no hope of Horst speaking with her directly. It was still possible to send wires to Paris—they were routed through Holland or Belgium—but those were subject to strictest scrutiny by the Gestapo. Any German attempting to contact someone on the outside could be arrested at the whim of the secret police and charged with treason.
Horst was certain that even this call was being monitored by the Gestapo. To say more now could cast some suspicion on Bill Cooper, as well as make the reentry of Josephine Marlow into the Reich very difficult when and if the time came.
“Is there something I can do to help?” Cooper asked.
“No. Herr Cooper, is it?” Horst wrote down the name, thanked the man, and quickly hung up the telephone.
Katrina did not speak English, but she clearly understood the disappointment in her husband’s expression. “The woman is not in Berlin?”
“Paris.”
She shrugged and smiled down at the child, who was picking at the bows on her black pumps with tiny, persistent fingers. “I will keep him here.” Katrina scooped Yacov up. “He is a fine baby. And I will just keep him.”
“No, Kat. Not a boy. It is dangerous enough what you have here. How many little girls learning to act like good Catholics? If it is possible, for your safety and the child’s, I must do as the priest instructed.”
“But if the woman is not in Berlin, then she is not in Berlin.”
“If I could speak privately to Herr Cooper. He knows her. He could get word to her.”
“Horst! You cannot dare go to the office of the foreign press! Every door is watched by the Gestapo. You know that! Such an act could land you in Sachsenhausen tomorrow!”
“Yes. Maybe if the baby can stay with you awhile . . . I must go to the Führer’s speech in Berlin on New Year’s Eve. There is always good attendance by the foreign press. If I can find this Bill Cooper among them, perhaps there is some hope to contact Fräulein Marlow after all.”
“And if you contact her, what will the message be? There is no passage from France into Germany. How can she come here?”
He sat down hard in the rocking chair and took the baby from Katrina. “How can we send you on your way to Jerusalem, little man?”
“I will keep—”
“No, Katrina! I forbid it! He has a grandfather who no doubt would not think kindly of a Wehrmacht major keeping his grandson. Now help me think!”
It was clear she resented the command, but Katrina did as he wished. “There is my Aunt Lottie’s house in Treves,” she said thoughtfully. “It is just across the border from Luxembourg. Luxembourg is a neutral, so . . .”
He snapped his fingers as if that was the solution. “She is a journalist. Treves is full of neutral journalists. The Porta Nigra Hotel is crawling with journalists.”
“And Gestapo?”
“Of course. The Gestapo is everywhere. Like fleas. Treves is no different. But it is right on the border. Fräulein Marlow can enter Germany over the Wasserbillig Bridge. That is it! I will contact this Bill Cooper, and he will carry the
message to her. We must give her time to get the proper documents for him, of course. American documents.”
“Can she do that?”
“If she cannot, then we will have a son.”
Jerome hoped that Marie would not ask him any questions for a while, because he needed time to think up answers.
They trudged silently back along the Quai Voltaire. The water of the Seine seemed very dark today. No longer like home.
Two large women, heads covered with scarves, walked past them. They nudged one another and made unkind comments about Papillon and the fact that Marie was skinny and her shoes were much too large for her feet.
Jerome turned and glared hotly at their retreating backs. He cocked a snook at them and muttered savagely that women who were fat as pigs should not say unkind things about such a little girl as Marie.
Marie’s head went down. She looked at her shoes. “What will we do, Jerome?” she whispered.
The moment of truth. He did not yet have an answer.
“Uncle Jambonneau said—” he hesitated— “what do you think he said?”
Marie shrugged. “How should I know?”
“Guess.” He was stalling for time.
“Tell me, Jerome. I am too tired to guess.”
“Come on. I will surprise you. He has a very good solution. You know Uncle Jambonneau. He always has good ideas. He is a very smart man. He told me to take you . . . someplace . . . and surprise you.” He held his head up as if he knew where he was going. “But do not ask me any more questions, Marie. And you must stop leaking all these tears.”
She stopped crying. She did not ask any questions. Finally Jerome found himself back in Buci Market, leading her among the stalls of flowers and vegetables and pâtisseries and the open shop of the butcher. Only then did it come to him. Like a flash of lightning, his dim brain lit up.
“Stop here.” They halted beside a basket of blue flowers. “This is what Uncle Jambonneau told me to do, ma chèrie.”
“He told you to bring me to Buci? But we have no money to buy food.”
“Listen.” Jerome took Papillon from her. “Uncle Jambonneau says that you must go to the window of Monsieur Turenne, the butcher. You must ask him where Madame Rose lives.”
“Who is Madame Rose?”
“A friend of Uncle Jambonneau.”
“Oh no!” she wailed. “Not another one like Madame Hilaire! What more can happen to us?”
“No! No, Marie, ma chèrie. Listen! Madame Rose is American. Nothing like Madame Hilaire. She does not drink.”
“Not ever?”
“I do not think so. But anyway, go ask the butcher where she may be found. It is like a treasure hunt, Uncle Jambonneau says. When we find this Madame Rose, we shall find our treasure! Chicken to eat maybe, like in the old days. Like visiting day at des Invalides! A happy ending, Marie!” He nudged her forward as the great hulk of the butcher appeared, framed in his window by naked poultry and rabbits and loops of sausages.
Jerome ducked behind a handcart of flowers as Marie walked cautiously forward. He did not dare to look but strained his ears to hear.
“Pardon, Monsieur Butcher. My Uncle Jambonneau says I must find Madame Rose. The American.”
“And how should I know where such a Madame Rose person is?”
“Uncle Jambonneau says you will know where she is. Like a treasure, Monsieur. And so I am sent to ask you.”
“Why should you want to know?”
“Because he says I must.”
Silence. “You look like something that would interest Madame Rose. Something the cat would leave on her threshold.”
“What cat, Monsieur?”
“Never mind. If I give you her place of residence, you must say I sent you to her. She will like that, I think. She will think well of me.”
“Oui, Monsieur Butcher.”
“All right then. She lives with her sister and the urchins at No. 5 Rue de la Huchette. The house is a large one behind a heavy wood gate where the coaches used to go in and out of the courtyard. Ring the bell, little one. Wait beside the gate even if it seems like no one is home. By and by someone will come and let you in.”
Jerome cheered behind the bunches of petunias. He kissed Papillon on the nose. He congratulated himself for the brilliance of his idea. Marie came back smiling. It was the first time she had smiled since they left the Garlic.
“No. 5 Rue de la Huchette. I heard. Well done, Marie!”
“Now what?”
“Now we go there. It is all so simple. Uncle Jambonneau says this is the kindest of all ladies in the Latin Quarter. She is nothing at all like Madame Hilaire. She is a large woman and has a mouth like a bullfrog, but you must not be frightened of her. She also has a sister who is scrawny. Her name is Betsy. There are many other children who are there. They eat chicken sometimes for dinner.”
Marie caught Jerome’s excitement. Madame Rose with a mouth like a bullfrog! Beautiful Rose! The treasure of Uncle Jambonneau! Chicken for dinner!
Located one block from the Seine, Rue de la Huchette was a short, narrow street bordered by Place St. Michel to the west and Rue St. Jacques on the east.
It was a close-packed street, lined with houses Uncle Jambonneau said were several hundred years old. A single gutter ran down the center of the cobbles. This had been used as a sewer in the old days when the contents of chamber pots were tossed out of the upper-story windows. But now Huchette was a much cleaner place, though still quite poor. Napoleon himself had lived in one of the houses when he was impoverished. This fact had always been used by Papa to remind Jerome that even poor boys could make good and end up with a nice tomb like the one Napoleon now occupied at des Invalides.
The neighborhood was ideally situated for student riots, rebellions, barricades, and bloody battles. Such events came around every few decades on the Left Bank, and the Huchette was a very popular street in those times. Beneath the buildings were deep cellars where the unfortunate prisoners of the Reign of Terror had been confined and tortured. Devices of torment were still to be found in some of those basements. Uncle Jambonneau had cheerfully informed Marie about this historical fact, which made her hesitant at first to walk down Rue de la Huchette.
But it was getting on toward dinnertime, and the scent of cooking food wafted through the air. Jerome wisely talked about Madame Rose and chicken dinner and how well liked the place was by all the children who lived there. And besides, No. 5 was only a few houses from the corner. Jerome told his sister that it was a newer house and that it had no skeletons in the basement.
“How can you know this, Jerome?”
“I know this because the house has no basement.” He lied because it was easier than arguing. By the time Marie found out that this was one of the oldest houses and also that it had a cellar deeper than all the rest, it would be too late. “No. 5. And there it is.”
An enormous arched wood gate sealed off the house from the street. The stone around the portal was rounded and chipped from the days when wagons and carriages had turned into the courtyard and clipped the edges with iron hubs. The heavy wood planks of the gate were black with age and scarred from ten thousand small encounters over four hundred years. It was a venerable gate that had experienced the knocking of Latin scholars, pilgrims, prostitutes, musketeers, and the angry fists of the Revolution’s mob in search of priests or terrified aristocrats hiding within.
This evening, as twilight closed over the strip of sky, Jerome added the rapping of his knuckles to the history of the gate.
He waited patiently for some minutes. No one came. It was dark.
“Monsieur the butcher said to ring the bell,” Marie insisted as the smells of garlic and fried potatoes made her stomach growl.
Jerome could not see a bell. A frayed red rope dangled from a hole in the wood. He pulled it violently, and a bell rang inside the courtyard.
More waiting. Another pull.
A woman’s gruff voice called, “Patience! I am coming!”
The clank of a metal latch sounded, and the gate swung open a sliver. The aroma of food escaped like a strong current of water. Jerome could easily see Madame Rose framed in the light behind her. She was peering out into the street at an angle much above the heads of Jerome and Marie.
“A prank!” She spat and slammed the gate.
“No! No! Madame Rose!” Jerome grasped for the cord and pulled hard. He held tight to it as if it were a lifeline thrown out to someone drowning.
The hinges groaned back again, and the big face of Madame Rose peered out now at his level. The thin lips of the wide, bullfrog mouth curved up in a smile. “Who is there?”
“It is me, Madame Rose. Jerome Jardin . . . salami?” He attempted to jar her memory without giving away to Marie that Madame Rose did not know Uncle Jambonneau.
Silence. The crack widened. “Salami?”
“The butcher told us where to find you, Madame Rose,” Marie interjected eagerly. “And Uncle Jambonneau says you will feed us if we come here.”
The gate opened wide. The two stepped in. Madame Rose studied Jerome in the shadowed light. “But of course! Jerome Jardin! Did you bring your rat?” She closed the gate.
“And my sister, Marie, also.”
Marie giggled. “You know Papillon, too!” Such relief. Such joy. “Papa is at the war. Uncle Jambonneau is in hospital. Madame Hilaire has sold our Garlic, and now we have no place to sleep. But you do not have devices of torture in your cellar because you do not have a cellar. So I am not frightened. And Uncle Jambonneau says you are a treasure, and Monsieur the butcher says you will think well of him since he told us how to find you! And you will also have chicken sometimes for dinner.”
Jerome did not need to say a word. Marie was doing all the talking. Very little of it made sense to Madame Rose, but she put her big hand on Marie’s scrawny shoulder and nodded and made contented noises as though she was interested in everything. Jerome was relieved. Marie babbled on gleefully.
