The Postmistress of Paris(13)
Adolf Sieberth, who’d been head of Radio Vienna at twenty-four, waited for everyone’s attention. “‘Courage,’” he announced. He turned to the musicians, his back to the audience, and began to conduct his refugee orchestra with as much dignity as if they were in a real symphony hall.
“Courage always, and forge ahead,” they played and sang, the beginning of a performance that would have been lauded in any of the world’s most famous venues. Comedy. Parody. Theater. The man the performance was dedicated to, camp commander Charles Goruchon, gave the internees there as much freedom as he could: Observant Jews prayed in the central courtyard. Internees received letters and packages. They bought things from a little camp store and received visitors. They spent whole evenings creating and sharing, imagining for a few hours that crystal chandeliers illuminated their art in some world other than this French internment camp surrounded by a barbed-wire-topped iron fence.
WHEN THE DAY’S-END call sounded that first night, Max Ernst suggested Edouard set up next to him, and because everyone admired Max, the men shifted their straw mattresses on the hard factory floor—an entire level of the building dedicated to row after row of straw sleeping mats. Men contributed bits of their own straw to make a mat on which Edouard spread the blanket he’d brought. He opened his suitcase to his pajamas neatly folded on top. His day clothes were filthy, but warmer. He was filthy, his very pores filled with brick dust.
“Stay with your routine as much as possible,” Max said. “It pays to remember we’re human. Use your suitcase for a semblance of privacy.”
Edouard took the framed photograph from the pocket of the jacket he’d worn since being taken from Sanary—Elza’s impish mouth and direct gaze, Luki just six months old, and Edouard’s face above theirs, looking to the camera. The photo had been taken more than a year after the German military stood by as Hitler conducted his R?hm Purge, murdering the military leaders and the prior chancellor, along with dozens or perhaps even hundreds of anti-Nazi journalists. Within weeks the military was swearing unconditional obedience not to Germany or its constitution but to Hitler. How had he not seen then that it was time to flee? How had he not seen how much he was putting at risk? He’d had this grand idea that his photos might bring the world to his country’s defense, his one single camera, when all of Europe could not stop the madness that was Nazi Germany.
Edouard quickly stripped and pulled on his nightclothes. He carefully folded his day clothes and tucked them into his suitcase, under the clean things. He pulled out his Leica and stationery and pen, then set the suitcase like a low wall between Max and him. He placed the framed photograph atop the suitcase and sat on his straw mat, glad to be under one of the vast room’s three bare bulbs, the only light the dim factory floor offered. He touched a finger to the photo, then to his camera, imagining Luki in Paris, wondering where he was. My Luki, he wrote. Perhaps it was just as well that she was far away. How very frightened she would be to see him like this.
“Lights off now,” came the call from the bugler.
First one, then another of the three bare bulbs that lit the room were turned off with a pull of a string, leaving only the one above Edouard as a barrier against the dark.
“Lights off,” the bugler repeated.
Edouard, unable to find words to explain to Luki where he was or why, how long it might be before he joined her in Paris, set the page beside the photograph atop the suitcase and settled the Leica on top of it, to keep it in place.
“All right, then?” Max Ernst asked.
Eduard nodded, and Max stood and turned off the light.
“Good night, Luki,” Edouard whispered as he lay in the darkness, his eyes adjusting. Soon he could see the outline of the frame atop his suitcase. He could know it was there, even if he could no longer make out the shape of the family they had been.
Sunday, October 15, 1939
?LE SAINT-LOUIS, PARIS
Luki lay in the dark, holding tightly to Professor Ellie-Mouse as voices drifted up from outside the window. She said, “It’s okay, Pemmy. Papa said he would be here today, but today isn’t over.” She nuzzled the pale-green ribbon at Pemmy’s neck, smooth and slidey on her nose and lavender-and-olive-smelling from where she’d washed under Pemmy’s chin with soap, but not with water, because even though Pemmy stayed wrapped in the towel in the suitcase all the way on the train, she was still damp from her swim. Luki wished she had Joey. She wished she could turn his key to make his music. Pemmy liked to go to sleep to Joey singing. Luki hadn’t meant to leave him behind after they’d found him yet again, but surely Papa would bring him. “Papa only stayed to pack our things,” she said to Pemmy. “It’s easier for him to pack without you hopping all around, knocking things out of boxes.”
Eight Months Later: Wednesday, June 5, 1940
AVENUE FOCH, PARIS
Nanée, with T, Peterkin, and a well-loved Bunnykins dragged by his ears, watched in the sweltering heat as French soldiers passed, uneven lines of exhausted and bedraggled men already shedding their French military uniforms lest the Germans catch up with them.
“We can’t stay in Paris, T,” Nanée began again. “It’s been two weeks since the government prayed in Notre-Dame to save France from their incompetence, and pffft, still nothing. I’m afraid God has gone off on the French.”