by Richard Wake
14
We ate the pie before we ate the dinner — one slice each for Leon and I, two for Manon, although she did give us each a forkful from her second slice. “Please, please,” she said. “It’s still a tiny baby.”
After that, the fried bread and beans were an anticlimax, but in a world where all gratification seemed to be delayed — that is, when it wasn’t non-existent — we couldn’t possibly deny ourselves. I didn’t actually lick the pie plate because that would have been uncouth. But I did wipe the plate repeatedly and lick my forefinger after each pass. Leon hesitated for a second and then did the same. Then Manon followed along. As she said, “Classy is as classy does.”
After we cleaned up properly, Leon announced that he was still exhausted and heading back to bed. Between his previous night’s sleep and his afternoon nap, Leon had already clocked about 15 hours in the rack, and it was only 9 p.m. Manon looked at me a little crooked and then just blurted out, “Are you okay? Do you think you’re sick?”
“Okay is a relative term, I think,” he said. “I’m not okay. I can’t believe the world I live in. I can’t believe I’m trying to smuggle this nice woman and her innocent little daughter out of the country because that’s the only way to keep the government from killing them, or putting them on a train to God-knows-where. So, no, I’m not okay.”
He stopped himself.
“I don’t mean to sound harsh,” he said. “I know I’m not alone in this. And I don’t think I’m sick and thank you for being worried. But I just feel so stretched, stretched beyond any limits I thought I had. But you know what? Coming here, this is the first time I’ve felt safe in a very long time, and I think my adrenaline — and I’ve been living on adrenaline — has stopped being produced because I finally feel safe. So I’m just going to go back to sleep.”
He wasn’t two steps out of the kitchen when Manon said, “Well, I’m glad somebody feels safe.”
“He told me a little about what he’s been doing,” I said. “He’s writing for an underground paper. He’s secretly delivering the paper. He’s been trying to organize this Jewish transport scheme. He spends most nights sleeping on a couch in the basement of a bar where he often hangs out. He’s afraid to go home to his own flat for any length of time. He said to me, ‘I’m eating like shit, I’m not getting enough rest, I’m drinking too much, I’ve been close to being arrested a dozen times, and I have nobody to talk to after the lights are off.’”
By this time, we were on the couch in the living room. The lights were off. I said a little prayer — not exactly my style — that I would always have somebody to talk to when the lights were off, both Manon and the tiny life in her belly.
I put my hand there, hoping to feel a kick or something, but all was quiet. Then I remembered.
“Oh, shit, the doctor. I completely forgot. Tell me.”
“Not much to tell,” Manon said. “All good.”
“Nothing?”
“He listened and heard a heartbeat. He let me listen, too. It’s there. There’s a little Alex in there. Or Alexandra.”
“Hell no. Give the kid a chance. Name him after somebody else.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Did the doctor say anything else?”
“Just eat and rest,” Manon said.
“New coupons tomorrow,” I said. “We’ll have a feast.”
“Great. More rutabagas. Can’t wait. I swear to God, when this is all over, I’m never going to eat another rutabaga again.”
“What about Jerusalem artichokes?”
“Them too,” she said. “My God, how could we have so many of those damn things but no fresh green beans? No asparagus? I would kill for a spear. Just one.”
We settled into a silence, my arm around Manon’s shoulder, her head laying down on my chest. We were both avoiding the subject of Leon’s scheme for transporting Jews to Spain. Some couples finished each other’s sentences after a while. Manon and I could read each other’s silences. It was almost telepathic. As soon as I started thinking about Ruth and Rachel in the flat, Manon began talking about it.
“So why are you reluctant?” She didn’t have to elaborate.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s not the money.”
“I never thought it was the money.”
“It’s just the—”
“The what?”
“The danger,” I said.
“You blow up bridges, for God’s sake. You spied for your country. You tried to kill a Gestapo officer in Cologne. You killed a Nazi spy in Zurich. You joined the Resistance here without a second’s hesitation.”
She was right, but she couldn’t see it. How she couldn’t see it was beyond me.
“I used to be a physical coward,” I said. “I’m still cautious about things — you know that. You know I insist on running my own sabotage operations or I won’t do them. It’s because I’m careful. It’s because I don’t trust many people. And Leon’s plan, it just very dangerous.”
Then I put my hand on Manon’s belly.
“My life is already risky enough,” I said. “This would double the risk. Maybe triple. I can’t even calculate it, which scares me.”
“You calculate too much?” she said.
“What, did we just meet? Is this just dawning on you?”
I patted her stomach.
“My life is crazily dangerous right now,” I said. “With the baby, how can I add new layers of risk, many new layers? How can I do that with a clear conscience? We both run risks because we believe in our cause. We are taking risks to fight evil, and there is no greater reason. There is no more noble cause. But how can I add new risks, incalculable risks, with that baby growing bigger every day in your stomach? When is enough, enough?”
Again, the silence fell between us. It really wasn’t that I was scared. I had been scared before, earlier in my life — scared about what other people thought about me, and just a physical coward sometimes. That was the past, though, and I guess I had Adolf to thank. This really was about Manon, and especially about the baby.
We were half-dozing when Manon spoke up. Her voice was quiet, sleepy.
“I can’t tell you what to do,” she said. “And I’m not going to bring it up again, whatever you decide. I understand the risks, and you’ll be the one taking them, and it’s not my place to make this decision.”
Her voice cracked, and she jammed her head a little deeper into my chest. And then Manon said, “I love you, and I love your concern for me and our baby. And I know this is a confusing time because it’s confusing for me, too. But some things are really very clear to me, and this is one of them. I believe that a child without a father is a great sadness. But I also believe that a child without freedom is a tragedy.”
I had no answer for that. I wasn’t sure that I agreed with her. I wasn’t sure about anything. After a minute, I lifted Manon and carried her into the bedroom and placed her on her side of the bed. We both fell asleep within seconds, it seemed, still wearing our clothes.
15
Rachel was in the kitchen. Leon had found her some crayons and a coloring book, and she was determined to color in every page, it seemed.
“She appears driven,” I said.
“That’s her,” Ruth said. “That’s my Rachel. She starts something, she finishes it. I just wish I had another coloring book. This one won’t last the rest of the day.”
“How is she with the story?” Leon said.
“Better than I am,” Ruth said. “She really has accepted it as a kind of game and has been adding new details all the time. How many cows? Three. What color is the house? White. What color is the barn? Red. What is our crop? Beans. What are the cows’ names? Blackie, Brownie and Little Brownie. She is quite the little liar. Has me a little worried, to be honest.”
“And the name?” I said.
“She loves it. She went to sleep singing it, Rosemarie Belmont. She likes it better than Rachel Berger, I’m pretty sure.”
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�And you, Roxanne Belmont?”
“Not so much,” she said.
It had been four days altogether. Marcel came through with the identity cards, and they really were impossible to distinguish from the real thing. The first and last initials were the same as their real ones, which would take care of any laundry marks or other monograms.
“But where are the old ones?” Ruth said.
“It’s not safe to keep them,” I said.
“But that means I can never be Ruth anymore? And there can be no Rachel anymore?”
“Only on paper,” Leon said.
“I guess,” Ruth said.
The truth was a little more complicated. It was true that it would not be safe for Ruth and Rachel to be carrying two sets of papers. The discovery of the old set during a routine Gestapo search of their belongings would result in an instant arrest. But it also was true that there was a kind of code within the Resistance, that the forger kept the old paperwork to use it in any way possible for a future forgery. It was a pay-it-forward ethos, but it was hard to explain to people who already were paying so much. For them, the simple explanation worked best.
Rachel ran to the table to show off the latest page she had finished. It was, in fact, a farm with three cows, one black and two brown. She showed each of us in turn, and accepted our praise, and then scampered back to the kitchen table to begin another page.
“Can we go through it again,” Ruth said. “I’m sorry, b—”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Leon said.
“—but I just need to hear it again. What, for the fifth time?”
“Sixth,” Leon said, adding as big a smile as he could muster. Another little laugh from Ruth was the reply.
With that, Leon again recited the details of the plan. He had already purchased the train tickets, three third-class seats on the 6:35 p.m. train to Toulouse. It was a local train that would stop a million times and took nearly three times as long as the daily express. If the Gestapo asked, they took the local to save money. But the truth was, the Gestapo pretty much never cared who was getting on the locals.
From what Leon and the Resistance had seen — and our cell had bribed a conductor based in Lyon and contributed some to that information — the Gestapo presence was concentrated along the southern border with Spain, along the Atlantic coast, and in the bigger cities. Lyon, the second biggest city in the country, was one of those larger concentrations — and a hearty welcome to you, Klaus Barbie. But even then, they didn’t have the personnel to search every train. So they concentrated on the links between the bigger cities, and especially on the trains to Limoges and Bordeaux. But outside of those cities, and away from the coast, and before you got to the Pyrenees in the south, there was a vast area that was still mostly policed by the donkeys employed by Vichy. So as long as you stayed on the local trains, and stayed away from Limoges and Bordeaux, you were relatively safe. At least, that was the theory.
“I’ll take you part of the way,” Leon said. “And when you get to Toulouse, you will be met by a different group from the Resistance. Just walk out of the station, out of the main entrance, and they will approach you.”
“And then what?” Ruth said.
“The rest of the journey could be in the boot of a car,” Leon said. “It could be in the back of a farm wagon. It could be on foot. It could be on another local train for a while. The people there will choose the safest mode of transportation. But you should probably count on going the last few kilometers on foot. We are fortunate to have a lot of old Basque smugglers working for our side. They’ve been sneaking in and out of Spain for centuries.”
“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said.
“Thank us when you get there,” Leon said. And then he looked at me and signaled toward the door. He wanted to have a private conversation.
“More old times to talk about?” Ruth said.
“Something like that,” Leon said.
“If you hear me scream, come save me,” I said.
We sat on the front steps of the building. It was almost dark. They would have to leave for the station in a few minutes.
“So,” Leon said. One word, and it said everything. One word, and it encapsulated the entire debate. I had decided one way and then the other way in the hours since I woke up. Manon had kept her word and not brought it up during breakfast. Leon had finally refreshed himself and left the house early. Back and forth, back and forth — and then, every time she stood up in the kitchen, I tried to see if there was even the hint of a pregnant belly on Manon yet. But there wasn’t.
I’m not sure I decided until Leon spoke up. And into the silence, he repeated, “So…”
“Fuck it, I’m in.”
He started crying. I told him, “Stop fucking crying.” He put his head in both hands, and I said, “You know, I can still change my mind.”
We talked a little about what would come next. Leon figured he would be back in Paris in a week, and then he would take a day or two to recharge and organize the next group, or maybe more.
“I’m going to have to come up with different routes to Lyon, just to avoid running into the same Gestapo asshole by accident at the station. You know, maybe go north first, then south. Maybe a car out to the suburbs and then train after that. It’ll take me a while to work it all out.”
He figured he would be back in about three weeks. He said I should try to relax between now and then, and then check the flat every day after that.
“If you look at it that way, I’m only putting your life at risk one week out of four,” he said. “Two, tops.”
“I feel much better now,” I said.
He reached into his breast pocket and handed me an envelope.
“What’s this?” I said. “I told you, I would handle the money.”
“It isn’t money. It’s the identity information and the photographs for the next group.”
“Motherfucker,” I said. “You knew I was going to agree all along. How did you know if I didn’t?”
“I was 90 percent sure,” Leon said. “I was 99 percent sure after I met Manon. Never forget what a lucky jerk you are. Ten years ago, it would have been zero percent. You would have blown it off and booked your next sales trip to Dusseldorf and come back with a funny story about how drunk the factory owner got at lunch. Zero percent. But my little boy, he’s all grown up now.”
“Motherfucker,” I said. Then I was the one who was crying.
Part II
16
The basement of a brothel was where the semi-regular meetings of the Lyon Resistance Consortium met. I made up that name. It didn’t really have a name. It was just the leaders of the different Resistance groups in the city who decided that they needed to join together soon after the Gestapo came to town — but it all happened above our heads. Manon didn’t really know the details.
The brothel didn’t have a name on the door, but everyone knew it as Delilah’s. It had been a going concern for long enough that the place was run by the second generation — by Delilah’s daughter, Eve. Except everybody called her Delilah all the same. It was a tiny place by the standards of the industry, only four bedrooms. The Germans took their business elsewhere, without exception, partly because it was such a small place but mostly because it wasn’t near the center of the city where the Gestapo did most of its work and where its soldiers mainly were bedded down in hotels that had been requisitioned.
So Delilah’s was a place where a Resistance fighter on the run could hide out for a couple of days without being caught. No one had ever been spotted going in or going out, to the best of our knowledge. And the basement was big enough to hold the 20 or so leaders of the various Resistance groups when a meeting was necessary.
This meeting was called in the week after the arrests of Rene, Max and me, but that wasn’t the stated reason. It was just an “operational update,” whatever that was. Each cell was allowed two members at the meeting, which meant Manon and I out of our little group of six. And if so
me of them resented how much space we took up given our size — and they did — well, fuck them. Because they all knew, however small we were, that we punched above our weight. Our newspaper was better-written than most of their shit, and they knew what they were doing when they chose me to lead more than my share of sabotage operations. Yes, fuck them — even as the tone of the meeting grew tense, and the subject of our arrests came up.
“Wait, wait,” I said, interrupting a half-dozen people asking questions. “I’ve seen Max. He got out right after me. But has anybody seen Rene?”
Everybody looked at each other and shrugged. His people, from Combat — every group took the name of its newspaper — said they had not heard. I told them that I went to Montluc and was told he wasn’t there. I said, “That leaves Avenue Berthelot, or…”
There was no need to finish the thought.
“Who was arrested first?” It was a guy from Liberation, a particular prick who had once put his hand on Manon’s ass when I was away on a mission. She delighted in telling me how she nearly snapped it off at the wrist.
“Don’t know,” I said. “From what Max says, he was arrested about six hours after we blew up the bridge. I was arrested about 24 hours after. I have no idea about Rene.”
More conversation filled the room — actually, about six conversations at once. Everybody was worried about a leak of some sort. From one of the conversations, I heard nothing but the term “double-agent.” There was a sufficient number of people who would not look me in the eye that I noticed. I mean, I knew that some of them wondered a bit, given the piece of my background that they knew, given the German flavor to my French pronunciations, but I had proven myself to them a dozen times over. More. And there were enough people who did look me in the eye, so I wasn’t really worried. Well, not that worried.
Eventually, the conversations petered out, and the topic turned to Barbie. One guy — I didn’t know who he was, or what group he represented — had become friends with a file clerk at Avenue Berthelot. He had learned some background over the last couple of weeks and stood on a chair to recite it from a sheet of paper.
