The Postmistress of Paris(18)

“Don’t be afraid, Pemmy,” she whispered as the lid of the trunk closed them into darkness. “You’re really fast, like all kangaroos. You could run away from anyone.” Pemmy didn’t like this hiding game, which wasn’t really a game now.

She heard Brigitte’s voice say, “They’re at the door, Maman,” along with some metal clicking just outside the trunk, above her ear. Then footsteps, Tante Berthe and Brigitte leaving.

The sound of the sea outside the window was wilder here than it had been with Papa at the cottage, but still Luki listened to it, like she used to listen in bed at night. She listened inside her head too, to Papa singing like he did at the dreaming log, Wie ist die Welt so stille.

Tante Berthe was speaking with some men. The men weren’t quiet like she and Pemmy were. Their voices were loud and raspy. They didn’t sound nice. Luki lay with her hand on Pemmy, trying to keep Papa’s voice singing in her head.

Pemmy was very hot and very scared and wanting to know, silently, how long the song would continue, when the not-nice voices came close. Tante Berthe kept saying to the men that she would do whatever they wanted, but she was sorry, she didn’t understand what they were asking. The words the men were using were some of the words of the song, Papa’s words. Would these men know where Papa was? She wanted to ask them, but she’d promised Tante Berthe she wouldn’t make a sound.

The men were asking about the trunk now, about the lock.

Luki felt a rush of fear. Was she locked inside? Didn’t Tante Berthe know she would be good? She was a good girl and Pemmy was a good kangaroo and even Flat Joey was very well behaved.

“I don’t understand, I’m sorry.” Tante Berthe’s voice was all wrong. Too high. She sounded like Pemmy when Pemmy was scared.

“Diese franz?sischen Idioten,” the man said.

A loud rattle sounded right near Luki’s ear—an angry rattle and a man’s voice demanding Tante Berthe unlock the trunk.

Luki wet herself. She didn’t even know she had done it until it was done. She couldn’t stop herself. But going tinkle didn’t make noise.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Tante Berthe kept saying.

“Der Schlüssel!” the man insisted.

Luki understood. He wanted the key. Should she tell Tante Berthe that? The man sounded so angry, like he was about to hit someone.





Monday, June 17, 1940





LA BOURBOULE


You can get out, Nanée,” T said. “You can go to America. You could take Peterkin with you. You could claim he’s yours.”

They were in La Bourboule, up in the salt peaks of Auvergne where the Angladas, husband and wife doctors and friends of Danny’s family, ran a spa for children with respiratory diseases. The trees here were full of birds calling to the morning sunrise, and Dagobert could not be more loved by the children already, and there were no signs of war—although whether that was because France had asked for peace or because they were too far away, Nanée wasn’t sure. As they prepared to go on, unhitching the trailer to save gas now that they had help, she tried to imagine what it might be like if they stayed. But there were still ships sailing from Bordeaux to England, or that was the rumor, and in just days, after the armistice was signed, a berth on a ship to an enemy country might be impossible to get.

“From Bordeaux, we’ll get a ship to England, T,” she said. “All four of us. You, me, Peterkin, and Dagobert.”

T looked across the hitch to Nanée. “I became French when I married Danny. I’m no longer British, and Peterkin never has been.”

Dagobert, sensing Nanée’s alarm, nudged her arm and snuggled up under her hand. She petted his just-washed fur as she tried to calm herself. She had her American passport. Her American neutrality. She would remain safe enough even in a Nazi-occupied France, at least for a few days. But T was married to a man who had helped so many who defied Hitler. Peterkin—Pierre Ungemach Bénédite—was the son of a man who could so easily be on one of those lists the Nazis brought to each country they conquered, to be arrested for defying the Reich.

T said, “I can petition to have my British nationality reinstated and leave France only if Danny is . . .”

Is dead.

A desire to flee washed over Nanée. Even armed with her American neutrality, she was afraid of what was to come, what life would be like living under German occupation. It was an irrational fear, and it wasn’t. She was helping Danny by helping his family, and the Gestapo were no kinder to those who helped their foes than to the foes themselves.

Nanée focused on the rough scratch of Dagobert licking her wrist, the soothing warmth of his love. She could take Peterkin. No one could fault her for helping a child. And taking Peterkin to safety in the United States would allow her to leave with her dignity intact.

Good lord, was she really concerned with her dignity?

She hugged Dagobert to her as if he were her child, hearing her father’s voice, What a brave girl you are. She was seven again. At Marigold Lodge. They’d made a bonfire down by the lake, or the staff had made it for them, and she and her brothers were sitting on a fallen tree they called the log sofa, roasting marshmallows. The adults sat in chairs brought down for the season and a photographer from one of the Grand Rapids papers was taking photos for their society pages when the fire popped, spraying a magnificent spark cloud. A red ember struck Nanée’s palm, so startling her that she only stared at the burn as Daddy stooped to her level, took her hand, and kissed the spot. “What a brave girl you are,” he said. “You don’t even cry.” And the next morning, a photograph of the moment ran in the newspaper, with a caption suggesting Nanée was cut from the same strong cloth as Daddy was—a photograph he framed and set on his desk. He’d left Marigold Lodge to her too. The house and the land all the way to the log sofa and the lake. To my brave girl, he’d written in his will, as if what that newspaper had written about Nanée had ever been one bit true. Still, after Daddy died, she’d asked her mother to send her that photo. But the photograph Mother sent her was the one of Nanée with Daddy after she won that shooting contest when she was fourteen, and when she asked again for the newspaper photo, her mother had no idea what she was talking about.