The Postmistress of Paris(93)

“What about our other friends there?” Varian asked.

Maurice explained to Nanée that Hans and Lisa Fittko were running a new escape route over the Pyrenees from Banyuls. “Hans and Lisa are still in place,” he told Varian. “The new mayor called Lisa in and told her he wasn’t fooled; he knows exactly who she is.”

Varian looked alarmed. “And does he?”

“He imagines her a British spy. He said he could see right through her, but that he could also ‘keep silent’ if she didn’t ‘give him any trouble’—perhaps an invitation for a bribe or perhaps merely staking his ground to ward off charges of being a collaborator should the winds change. I don’t have to tell you that Hans and Lisa are nervous. They’ll be happy to have the last of our refugees out of France and the American visas you promised them in hand.”

“I don’t know how Edouard will get a child over the Pyrenees,” Varian said. “We can’t risk asking to expedite travel or exit papers for Luki; that would attract too much attention, with Edouard’s name already on the Gestapo list.” That was, they’d determined, the reason for those on the ship being detained while the rest were let free—they were wanted by the Gestapo. “And there isn’t time anyway. We need to get them out now. The child makes passing them off as farm laborers improbable, so they’ll have to set out as weekend picnickers or something. They won’t be able to take out anything more than a string bag of the type that might hold a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. But the Fittkos might be able to get some of Edouard’s work out on the train.”

Varian handed Nanée half of a torn strip of colored paper with numbers written on it.

“The Fittkos have the other half?” Nanée hadn’t thought about the details of how this was done, how the Fittkos could be sure the people who showed up were legitimate CAS protégés and not impostors meant to flush them out.

Varian stood and poked the fire, which sparked and crackled. “A man traveling alone with a daughter like Luki will draw attention.”

“I see.” She was to take Luki. “Just to the border?”

“That will be up to you, Nanée.”

Her French transit visa was still good, but she didn’t have a French exit visa, or time enough to get one. If she left illegally, she would not easily return to France.

“Everyone here would understand if you chose to go,” Varian said.

Dagobert made a little whining sound, and Varian reached down and pet his head. “I’ve been thinking I might like a dog myself,” he said. “Do you suppose Dagobert here would tolerate sharing the chateau with another dog?”

“Villa Espère un Ami Chien,” Nanée said. Yes, Varian would do well with a dog.

“We have Edouard’s American visa, and Luki’s passport,” Varian continued. “Edouard will have to travel under an alias to Portugal; those documents are in process.”

They had a line on an identity card for someone who’d died that morning, whose description would be close enough to Edouard’s for him to use the deceased’s documents.

“So with any luck, Sunday,” Varian said.

“The day after tomorrow? I . . . What about . . .” She glanced down at Dagobert, who looked up at her expectantly.

Varian reached down and rubbed the dog’s ears the way only Nanée ever did, and Dagobert shook his head. “I’m afraid he’d draw too much attention to you and Luki.” Varian too knew not to say Dagobert’s name aloud.





Saturday, December 7, 1940





VILLA AIR-BEL


Nanée stopped a few paces outside the door to Edouard’s bedroom. She’d come to get Luki’s things, which were to go in her own suitcase until they got to Banyuls. Edouard would be traveling as prosperous businessman Henri Roux, the wealthy being so much less likely to be questioned than the poor, while Nanée was Nanée, and Luki was her niece. Edouard would have the first-class cabin adjacent to theirs—tickets Varian had already arranged. It was safer for Nanée and Luki to travel separately, in case Edouard’s alias was discovered, but the proximity would allow Luki the comfort of her father just the other side of the wall and give Nanée some chance to help him if he found himself in a fix and sent up a flare by, say, tapping his fingers on the adjoining wall.

Edouard’s bedroom door was ajar. He was packing, his back to her, his bony shoulders curled forward under a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, bony hips under pants that he would not have begun to fit into that night she first met him, before the internment camps that were first French and then Vichy. He’d neatly laid out on his bed the espadrilles Varian had brought for better purchase on the rocky path over the Pyrenees, the uppers leather to keep them warmer. One pair for him and one for Luki. In small piles next to the shoes were thick wool socks and warm clothes for the climb through the mountains, and his Leica, eight film canisters full of as many negatives as he could fit, a stale baguette, and a Bibliothèque Rose book—the one with the rocking horse, which Nanée had found in Marseille and bought for the excuse of sitting alone with Luki, just the two of them reading together. Also, the letter from Luki he’d brought from Camp des Milles, and the ones he’d written to Luki but never sent.