The Postmistress of Paris(44)

“Didn’t someone say they saw Edouard in line at the latrine?” the man said to the others around him. And into the din of their response he whispered to Nanée, “He was here two nights ago, but not since yesterday morning.”

Nanée felt she would retch from the loss and the grief and the fury. She was too late to save Edouard, just as she’d been too late to save her father on this same day twelve years ago, or even to see him. And the commandant, the vile little robe heir, had known she was too late. He’d purported to believe she wanted to offer what he wanted to take in exchange for the release of a man he knew to be dead.

“Someone was asking about him,” the old man said. “The Gestapo.”

The Gestapo? But no, that was Danny.

“The Gestapo are coming for him,” the man said. “Don’t let anyone know he isn’t here. Give him as much time as you can.”

“He’s not dead?”

The alarm in the old man’s face. She’d spoken too loudly.

He whispered, “They’ve allowed you to come in here to look for him, Nanée.”

Nanée started at the sound of her name. How did he know who she was? She peered more closely: a long, familiar face, thinning hair, hooded eyes.

“I was afraid . . . ,” he said. “Sometimes men die in the latrines at night and we don’t even know they’re gone. His photo, his wife and daughter. I was sure he was dead. I could imagine him leaving the suitcase, but not the photo. The fact that they’ve allowed you to come in here to look for him, though, suggests they think he’s still here.”

“He answered at roll call. I heard him.” Realizing even as she spoke that it was this man’s voice she’d heard. “I can’t just leave without him,” she whispered.

“If they find him, they’ll send him to Dachau, as an example to the rest of us. Dachau. It’s a German labor camp.”

Far from helping Edouard, she’d put him in greater danger by exposing the fact that he’d escaped and was on the run.

“Come with me,” she said. “Pretend you’re Edouard.”

The man looked at her, confused. “That would be too dangerous. I’m too well-known.”

“Pretend you’re Edouard,” she insisted. “I’ll get you out.”

The guard called to Nanée, trying to signal her to bring her quarry along out of the godforsaken place.

“But . . . I’m Max Ernst,” the internee said. “Even that fool of a guard knows exactly who I am.”

Nanée tried to tamp down her astonishment, but she saw in his face that it was too late. Yes, that was the same roman nose, the same deep-set eyes. Max Ernst had been at her apartment on avenue Foch the night of the Surrealist exposition, with Leonora Carrington. Nanée had seen them both at later gatherings. His hair had been white and thin even then, but now it was nearly gone, as was his health.

“That guard isn’t one to bend rules,” he said.

The guard, seeing her look in his direction, motioned her again to move this along. She could defy him; there would likely be no consequence to her. But what about these men? What about Max Ernst?

“If you allow that Edouard isn’t here,” Ernst said, “all of Vichy will be looking for him.”

But what choice was there?

“Make up something,” he said. “Anything. Say you’ll come back for him. If you tell them he’s not here, he’ll be found, and he’ll be sent to Dachau. How far can he have gotten on foot in just a day?”

He took the photograph from the suitcase and thrust it toward her. “Take it,” he said. “Find him. Give it to him, with regards from me.”

“But if he’s brought back, if he’s captured and brought back, he’ll need it more.”

“I tell you, if he’s captured, he will not be brought back here.”





Sunday, November 3, 1940





CAMP DES MILLES


Only when the men were filing out to begin the day’s work, when the courtyard would be full and she wouldn’t be so obviously walking without Edouard across the empty courtyard, did Nanée rejoin the guard.

“Your prisoner?” he demanded.

She fingered the framed photograph in one coat pocket, Edouard’s papers in the other. “At the latrines,” she said. “He has dysentery, apparently such a bad case that he isn’t able to travel.”

The guard eyed her skeptically. She supposed the whole camp had heard by now how she’d spent the night.

“I will take you back to the commandant, then.”

“I’m afraid I have to hurry or I’ll miss my train.”

No, he didn’t believe her. She wasn’t such a good liar as that. She glanced to Max Ernst, who was watching her as they’d planned. She leaned close to the guard and whispered, “It won’t help any guard in this camp for the commandant to think a prisoner he’s just agreed to release has already escaped. I don’t imagine he likes to appear a fool.” She let the thought sit there, register, alarm. “When no one is looking, you’re going to open the gate, and I’m going to walk out.” That way, if she could find Edouard, he would have his papers, and in any event it would seem he had left legally. But she couldn’t be seen leaving alone, without him.