Scheisshaus Luck (4 page)

What did I do? Well, it was pretty bad luck on my part to have popped up twice in Fatso’s presence in the span of a week. From his 14

SCHEISSHAUS LUCK

vantage point I had to be guilty of something. And that was all the excuse a Nazi needed.

They hustled us out of the house. Bernard was between the two soldiers and I was behind the corporal and Fatso, who was carrying the transmitter and a bag of loot from the house. What a dirty thief, I thought. Luigi, the gardener for the estate next door, watched from behind the iron fence that my bicycle was chained to. He had seen me lock up my bike that day and many other times. I managed to get the key for my lock out of my pants’ rear pocket and drop it when I passed him. I knew he wasn’t a collaborator, so I was pretty sure I could trust him. This was crucial. I was a courier for the French Resistance, and there was a message hidden in the air pump of my bike. That’s why I had false I.D. papers. I used them to get past roadblocks when delivering messages.

The gardener gave me a wink. Hopefully he would hide my bike in his tool shed. If the Nazis found that message and connected it to me, it would be certain torture and death.

Bernard and his guards got into one of the two Citroe¨ns parked at the curb. I had noticed the cars when I locked my bike, but hadn’t given much thought that they didn’t have the cumbersome
gazogene
coal burners that civilian cars dragged behind them to fuel their engines. How stupid of me! Only the cars of Nazis and Vichy officials ran on gasoline. Fatso shoved me into the rear seat of his Citroe¨n.

During the drive to the Nice railroad station, I listened carefully to the conversation between the corporal, who was driving, and Fatso, who was inspecting the confiscated valuables.

‘‘I’ll return in a week. Meantime, see if you can get the other little bastard to talk, but keep him alive. Understand? He might be worth a ransom. His family is definitely wealthy and well connected. With his ever-expanding quotas, the one in the back will make Speer happy.’’

I breathed a little easier. It seemed that Bernard and I would survive for a while. Speer was Albert Speer, the head of Nazi weapon production, and I, it appeared, was going to become one of PART I | DRANCY

15

the millions of sprockets in their war machine. This meant, if I was smart, my involvement in the Maquis would stay a secret and I would be spared any interrogation and torture.

The corporal took back roads to the train station, a shortcut I had volunteered after he pulled out a map in front of Bernard’s house. The way I saw it, the shorter the trip, the sooner I would be rid of the handcuffs. During the drive, the only person I saw whom I knew was the coffee merchant who was sweeping the sidewalk in front of his shop. I would tag along with my mother when she went to his shop because I loved the dense, invigorating aroma of the freshly roasted coffee beans. With the war came blocked shipping lanes and the aroma disappeared, replaced by the harsh smell of roasted date pits brought in from the French territories in North Africa.

At the station, a passenger train bound for Paris was waiting for us—waiting for Fatso to board, to be exact. The corporal led me to a passenger car behind the caboose. The windows were wired shut and armed guards stood on the platforms at either end of the car.

Once inside, the corporal removed the handcuffs and I was finally able to scratch some very nervous itches. He shoved me into a passenger compartment that had a vacant seat next to a girl a couple years younger than I was. Her freckled, turned-up nose gave her a cocky air, but she greeted me with a shy smile. A feeble ‘‘Hello’’

squeaked from my throat as I sat down. Any other time I would have played the cafe´ Don Juan with such a
belle moˆme
.

I eyed my traveling companions with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. Any of them could have been a collaborator, a Nazi plant, or desperate enough to sell out a fellow countryman to save his or her own hide. A slip of the tongue could be a noose slipped around my neck. No one talked except for the whispers shared among loved ones. It could have been that we were all leery of a rat in our midst.

When the train pulled out of the station it seemed to ease those suspicions and slowly bring home that we shared a common plight.

Conversations were struck and soon enough I was acquainted with my fellow prisoners.

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SCHEISSHAUS LUCK

Across from me at the window sat Marius, a middle-aged man with a handlebar mustache stained yellow from nicotine. He wore a leather jacket, corduroy pants, work boots, and a cap as dirty as his fingernails. A corncob pipe was stuffed in one jacket pocket while cloves of garlic, which he munched on like bonbons, were stuffed in the other pocket. Marius was a Corsican plumber and a low-level official of the French Communist Party. Next to him sat a beautiful young Honduran with shoulder-length jet-black hair and flawless olive skin. She was a stunning mix of Central American Indian and Conquistador. Her Austrian-Jewish husband, sitting on her other side, was at least twice her age. He was some kind of professor and had a coiffure like Albert Einstein. Every time I looked at him I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a correlation between high IQ and crazy hair growth. She constantly fussed over their two-year-old twin daughters sitting between them. They were headed to an enemy civilian internment camp because of their Honduras citizenship.

Sitting at the window on my side was a refined lady who was constantly wiping her nose and dabbing at tears with a lace handkerchief. Her husband I recognized from photos in the newspapers.

He had been an official in the French Socialist Front Populaire government, which had been in power from 1936 to 1938. From their conversations I gathered that the girl next to me was their daughter, Stella.

For some reason the monotonous clicking of the car’s wheels on the rails reminded me of the metronome my mother used when she rehearsed for a recital. She was a contralto who had performed all over Europe before I was born. After I arrived, my father decreed that there would be no more tours, but she still performed locally.

There were times her rehearsals drove me out of the house. I closed my eyes and thought, if only now my homework was being disturbed by her practicing scales.

Stella leaned toward me. Her breath tickled my ear.

‘‘Would you like to step out with me?’’

I nodded, welcoming the chance to stretch my legs.

PART I | DRANCY

17

‘‘I can’t bear watching my mother cry,’’ she said once we were outside the compartment.

‘‘Why were you and your parents arrested?’’

‘‘Because of my father’s politics and editorials and my mother being Jewish. My father’s internment has been a priority since the Nazis crossed the demarcation line. How about you?’’

‘‘Because of pure, irresponsible stupidity.’’

‘‘What do you mean?’’

‘‘It’s not important. Never mind.’’

Oh, Stella was pretty, but she was a pretty stranger. I wasn’t about to open up to her. At least not yet.

‘‘How about your parents?’’ Stella asked.

‘‘They’re safe, but I’m worried about them. I’m sure they’re going to be frantic when they realize I’m gone.’’

By giving the Nazis false identification papers I had made it impossible for my parents to trace me. Neither my parents nor any of my friends knew that I was involved in the Resistance, and the only person in the Resistance who I knew was the man who had given me the I.D. papers, Lucien Meffre. He was the man who recruited me and had been my contact.

A German officer came down the hall.

‘‘Maybe we shouldn’t be out here.’’ I whispered, touching her arm.

Once we sat down I saw the SS officer stop and peer through the glass window in the sliding door of our compartment. I stiffened. Now we’re going to get it, I thought. The
boche
opened the door. With his chest full of medals, he made a perfect poster for the

‘‘master race.’’ He smiled and addressed the mother of the twins.

‘‘I have milk for your girls,’’ he told her in perfect Spanish.

She seemed more resigned than happy about the news. Her husband stroked the heads of their daughters as she followed the officer. He looked sad. I believe there were tears in his eyes.

The mother returned a while later with her dress in disarray, her face flushed, and two cans of evaporated milk cradled in her arm. Her husband snatched them from her as she sat back down.

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SCHEISSHAUS LUCK

Not a word was uttered between them the rest of the way. Their uneasiness shrouded our compartment. From that moment, all conversation seemed trite. The couple’s unsavory predicament brought home to all of us that we were at the Nazis’ mercy. But the guards sure made an effort to seem friendly. For our journey they acted as if they had gone to charm school. During our eleven-hour ride, they even managed to get us some food—a piece of bread, some cheese, and some sausage. The professor wondered out loud if the sausage contained pork. I almost laughed. That should have been the least of his worries.

I went out to take a leak. As I walked to the end of the car, I glanced into the other compartments. There wasn’t an empty seat in any of them. All my fellow prisoners had been held at the Hotel Excelsior in Nice. Some had been locked up for two weeks, others only a day. While I was pedaling to Bernard’s, they had been herded into the street and marched to the train station.

We were all asleep when we reached Paris. The jolt of our car’s being detached from the train brought us back to our sad reality.

Stella’s head had been resting on my shoulder.

‘‘Oh, I am so sorry,’’ she said blushing.

‘‘I didn’t mind.’’

She flashed that shy smile again.

To ensure that none of us had the chance to melt into the crowd of travelers at the Paris station, the Nazis had an engine pull our car to a desolate area of the train yard. There, two green-and-white buses waited to take us to Drancy.

C H A P T E R 3

Drancy, November 1943–January 1944:
I sat next to Stella’s father. Stella sat in front of us with an arm wrapped around her mother. Two SS guards stood on the ticket-taker’s platform at the rear of the bus. I decided to memorize the street signs so if I escaped I could make my way back to the station. With Nazi goons checking papers, it would be impossible to slip onto a passenger train, but I might be able to hop a freight train.

The buses rumbled down empty boulevards. Because of the gasoline rationing there were hardly any vehicles in sight. The Parisians we passed were either on foot or on bicycle. I had never been to Paris before, but the people sitting around me remarked on how drab and dark the capital now looked. Many store windows were boarded up and the entrances were protected by stacks of sandbags.

Other shops appeared to be abandoned. Some of the streets barely hinted at human life.

‘‘How can you be proud of something that doesn’t belong to you anymore?’’ a man behind me asked.

We traveled alongside a high gray stucco wall. ‘‘
Monsieur
, you lived in Paris for some time. What’s behind this wall?’’ I asked.

‘‘
Père Lachaise
. My mother is buried there.’’

19

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SCHEISSHAUS LUCK

We passed the gated entrance to the most famous cemetery in France. Sitting on the steps was a woman breast-feeding her baby.

Stella turned around, with tears wetting her cheeks.

‘‘Daddy, I want to visit grandma’s grave.’’

‘‘I’m sure we will soon.’’

I could see in his eyes that he didn’t believe his own words, and that was unnerving. What does he know that’s making him lie to his own daughter? I asked myself. I searched for words of comfort to say to Stella. Realizing I would be deluding both of us, I sat silent and stared at her red hair.

Our bus reached Boulevard Gambetta. On the corner was an elderly gentleman relieving himself at a
pissoir
, a green kiosk with a pointed roof, encircled by a three-foot-wide metal band that obscured the user’s midriff. Some of the prisoners giggled and waved.

The man looked up and raised his hat. As we went down rue de Paris, a couple of kids on roller skates raced after our bus, trying to hitch a ride, but they backed off when they saw the German guards.

The buses turned onto avenue du Parc and we found ourselves at our destination, a horseshoe-shaped housing complex with an expansive cinder-lined courtyard. Barbed wire surrounded the four-story buildings and a large gate sealed the compound’s opening, which was manned by
gendarmes
instead of Nazis.

I turned to Stella’s father as our bus drove into the courtyard.

‘‘Is this a French military brig?’’

‘‘This is part of a new agreement between the Vichy and the Occupation administration. Frenchmen doing the Nazi’s dirty work,’’ he said. ‘‘They’re the jailers of many brave men who fought side by side with them when the Germans invaded.’’

The captain of the
gendarmes
stepped onto the rear platform and was handed a ledger by one of the SS.