The Postmistress of Paris(77)

At the bottom right, listed as other travel documents: This Affidavit in Lieu of Passport issued to Edouard Moss by the American Consulate at Marseille, France, dated November 29 and valid indefinitely.

Luki had an American passport. Edouard now had a visa. If Nanée could get Luki to Marseille and they could get out of France and to Lisbon, they could get to America, and they could stay.





Friday, November 29, 1940

MADAME DUPIN’S TOMB

The man pointing the gun spoke the words of Mutti and Papa. Tante Nanée didn’t understand him. She said she had come to visit the tomb.

“Das M?dchen soll auch stehen,” he said. The girl should also stand.

“The tomb,” Tante Nanée repeated. She took a step toward the man.

The German cocked the gun. “Das M?dchen!”

Luki stood slowly.

“Was machst ihr hier?” the soldier demanded. What are you doing here?

Tante Nanée hid Luki behind her. “The tomb,” she repeated. “We came to pay respects.”

Das Grab, Luki thought. Like Mutti. Mutti went to a tomb, which was the way she got to the angels. Papa had told her that, or Reverend Mother had.

“Das M?dchen!” the man repeated. Did he want Luki to answer? Did he know she understood his words?

“Sie ist deine Mutter?” the man demanded.

Luki looked up at Tante Nanée. “Maman is with the angels,” she said.

Both the soldiers’ faces softened.

Tante Nanée squeezed her hand. This was like when they walked to the castle. She was supposed to pretend she didn’t talk.

“Das ist das Grab deiner Mutter?” the one with the gun asked.

It wasn’t. It wasn’t her mother’s tomb, but Luki didn’t say that. She wished Pemmy were here to help her be brave.

He approached them. Tante Nanée tried to keep between Luki and him, but he knelt down to her level. He looked right at her.

“Ich habe eine Tochter in deinem Alter.” He had a daughter who was her age.

He put his gun away. He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a hard candy. It smelled of lemons, even over the forest and mossy tomb smells.

Luki looked up at Tante Nanée, who nodded.

The man unwrapped the candy, and Luki took it and set it on her tongue.

Danke, she thought, but she said, “Thank you.”

“Danke?” the soldier asked, and he nodded as if he knew he was right.

Tante Nanée’s hand tightened over hers again.

Luki nodded too, but she didn’t say another word.





Friday, November 29, 1940





VICHY


Nanée and Luki were well settled in a first-class sleeper compartment with a private bath, just a wealthy American and her niece who was raised in France by her mother, now deceased. The full bed was already made, and Nanée had declined turn-down service. The sitting room had a sofa, a chair, and a table at which they could take meals so they wouldn’t be seen in the dining car. It was late, somehow still the same day that Luki, with the German’s lemon candy in her mouth at that tomb, had taken Nanée’s hand and waved goodbye to the soldiers. It hadn’t been a long walk, nor was the man repairing equipment at the farm to which Simone Menier sent them surprised to see them. He drove them to a town several miles away, each inch from the demarcation line distance well gained. There they caught a local train to Vichy, where they transferred to this night train to Marseille.

“Pemmy would like this,” Luki said. “A princess train.”

Outside the train widow: the Vichy station. It was past time to leave. Still the train didn’t move.

Nanée tried not to worry. They’d cleared their documents before they boarded, simply handing the two American passports over with the single transit pass as if of course the child didn’t need her own. She hadn’t been questioned.

She opened the book Simone Menier had given Luki, and pulled the girl closer. They admired the perfectly detailed illustration facing the title page, young Thérèse and her mother in rich fabrics and gorgeous hats walking together along a harbor. “‘It was 1789,’” she read. “‘A cold autumn rain darkened the city of Le Havre. And yet a great stir reigned on the quays because one of the vessels which made the crossing to America was preparing to set sail.’” Thérèse à Sainte-Domingue—Nanée had read this a hundred times. A French girl with her family in Haiti was terrified by the dark-skinned slaves. She almost dared not touch the black hands reaching out to her. By the final page, though, Thérèse would be helping her mother end slavery on the island, which had always left Nanée longing to do something more important than reading books in a dull house in a dull town where she was to master nothing beyond the foxtrot and needlepoint.

A knock at the door startled them. “We have need of checking your papers before the train can depart,” a Frenchman called out.

Their papers specifically, or were they double-checking everyone? Nanée squeezed Luki’s hand, then opened the door slightly and said they’d cleared documents before they boarded.

“It is an extra precaution due to Maréchal Petain’s visit,” the attendant apologized.