I Looked for the One My Heart Loves (4 page)

“Good morning,” Anne said. “I'm looking for Alexis.”

“Alexis? I don't know any Alexis.”

“He lives here.”

“Not anymore, he doesn't.”

“But …”

“He left during the exodus?”

“Yes.”

“We've been living here since my husband was demobilized. The place was for rent.”

Seeing the sadness in Anne's face, the woman's voice softened.

“With the occupation, it can be hard to know where people are. … You'll hear from him someday.”

Anne felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her. What had become of Alexis and his mother? She didn't even want to imagine the worst-case scenario, and so she tried to convince herself that they would come back sooner or later. One thing puzzled her though. Why was their apartment given to someone else?

The first day of school was very odd. Some teachers were missing, as well as a few students. Most had probably remained in the free zone. Anne convinced herself that this was the choice Alexis's family had made. Never before had she looked so closely at a map of France. If only she could put a finger on the city or village where Alexis was now living. With him gone, Anne's life made little sense. The one thing that gave her pleasure was her dance lessons. A new pianist had been hired. Her name was Irina, and she didn't speak to the students. Her braided black hair formed a thick crown around her head. Long lashes shaded her sad brown eyes. When she let her fingers run across the keyboard, she seemed to lose herself in her thoughts. No doubt she was trying to get away from a daily existence that, for everybody, was becoming more and more difficult to bear.

5

As early
as the
end of October
, the cold weather came. With the already rampant shortages, finding coal became almost impossible. Yves brought hot water bottles­ from the pharmacy. In order to buy an electric heater, Monique had to stand in line for five hours. During the day, the family stayed in the kitchen, huddled around the oven. Bundled up in heavy sweaters, Anne did her homework while trying to ignore her growling stomach. Everything was rationed, even flour. Her mother put the precious food tickets in a special case. Some days, all she could bring back home were potatoes, turnips, or split peas. Sometimes, a food package arrived from Cormery. To compensate for their deprivations, Yves and Monique took their children to the movies. On Sundays, the movie theater on the Place de Clichy was packed. As soon as the lights went off, people tried to forget about the Germans, some of whom were among the audience. German soldiers were everywhere: in stores, which they cleaned out; in restaurants, where they got whatever they wanted; in theaters and cabarets …

As Christmas approached, the cultural society decided to put on a new play, but Anne refused the role she was offered. As long as Alexis was away, she wouldn't act! The harsher the occupation became, the less hope she had of ever seeing him again. When would this war finally end? People around her said that the nightmare was only beginning. In Montmartre, stores owned by Jews were closed down. Monique explained to her daughter that Jewish people were no longer allowed to work in certain fields or own businesses. Many were trying to flee to the free zone, but the trip was becoming more and more difficult and dangerous.

“How come they can't work like before?”

“Because the Germans don't like them.”

“Why?”

“I don't know,” Monique said, evading the question.

One long, painstaking year passed. A thriving black market developed for people with financial means. At a high price, it was possible to obtain meat, cheese, foie gras, and even caviar! Some restaurants had two menus: the official one and the unofficial one. Buying clothing was even more difficult than getting food. Almost nothing could be found in stores, and so people had to make something new out of something old. Kids kept growing, and so sleeves had to be lengthened, waistbands had to be adjusted, buttons had to be replaced. Anne was wearing dresses that no longer reached her knees, worn-out sweaters, and faded underwear. But shoes were her biggest source of shame. Since the beginning of the war, her feet had grown a full size, and now they were packed into sandals with holes in the bottom.

In Cormery, Anne got to eat well again. Her grandmother had a knack for preparing delicious meals from vegetables as unsavory as rutabagas and knotroot. With a cigarette dangling from his lips, her grandfather would wait for dinner while reading the paper. The way he spoke, there would be no peaceful spot on Earth in the near future. His only source of satisfaction: the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Wehrmacht would sooner or later weaken the Germans.

“The Boches are going to get bogged down in the Russian steppes,” he predicted.

“And as long as they are, they won't bomb England,” Yvonne added.

When they talked about the war, one name kept coming up: Charles de Gaulle.

“Who's that?” Anne asked one morning.

“A military man.”

“Like Marshal Pétain?”

“In a way,” her grandmother said.

“No, he's not!” Marcel said. “De Gaulle is a military man who didn't cower to the Nazis. He's fighting for the liberation of France. And those who joined him in London were right to do so.”

Since the radio speech that Charles de Gaulle had given on June 18 of the last year, the Birons were supporters of the general who, from England, urged the French people to resist. Over at the teacher's house, they listened to English radio, at the risk of arrest and imprisonment.

“This little girl is too young to understand what we're talking about,” Yvonne said.

The comment aroused Anne's curiosity even more. And so, she thought, people in the same family can have different opinions. The proof was that Anne's own father appreciated Marshal Pétain, saying he was a responsible man.

1942 proved that the majority of the French people supported the Vichy regime. To the point of not even opposing unacceptable measures, such as forcing Jews to wear a star. At the dance studio, two students showed up with the yellow badge on their sweaters. Both were filled with shame. Embarrassed, Anne gave them a tight-lipped smile. Later, on her way home, she regretted not having been friendlier toward them. Next time, she wouldn't be so reserved.

Once on the staircase, she realized she had forgotten her house keys that morning, even though her mother had warned that she wouldn't be home until late afternoon. Her first reflex was to ring her friend Agnès's doorbell on the ground floor, but no one was there. And so she sat in the stairwell halfway between the second and third floors, and opened her geography book. She began studying when someone slowly opened a door on the third floor. Did the woman who usually worked at night, have a new schedule? Anne heard a few whispers, and then someone coming down the stairs. A young man appeared, wearing a cap and knickerbockers. Seeing a girl sitting there on a step, he stopped in his tracks. Anne even thought he was going to head back up.

“Hi,” Anne said to him.

“Hi,” he muttered as he went past her.

She had time to see his brown eyes, turned-up nose, and freckles.

As soon as he disappeared, she began wondering. That boy couldn't have been more than sixteen or seventeen. What was he doing with a woman twice his age? Maybe he was her younger brother, or a cousin? If so, why did he behave that way in the staircase? Unless he was her lover? As far as relationships between men and women, Anne knew only that they got engaged when they loved each other, and then they got married and had children. … Sometimes she looked at grown-up magazines and saw photos of celebrity couples. You could see them smiling at each other with stars in their eyes, in each other's arms, sometimes kissing. Once in a while, she and Agnès talked about this, her friend sharing her interest for love stories. Both felt that there was something they were missing. …

Anne told no one about the man in the staircase. But she did pay more attention to what her neighbor was doing. With their different schedules, this was no easy task. Once, she passed her on the sidewalk, just before arriving at the entrance to their building. With curlers hiding under the scarf that covered her head, the woman had her arms filled with shopping bags.

“Can I help you with those?” Anne said.

“Thanks. I can manage.”

Feeling that she shouldn't insist, Anne stepped to the side.

That same evening, Monique walked into her daughter's room.

“I don't want you to talk to our neighbor,” she said.

“I don't talk to her.”

“The landlady saw you through her window. …”

“We just said a few words!”

“I don't want you to say anything to her.”

“Why? She didn't do anything to us.”

“She's collaborating with the Germans.”

“The Germans! At the hospital?”

“I was wrong. She's not a nurse. She works in a bar where German soldiers go. Now you understand why you have to stay away from her. …”

Marcel Biron had to undergo emergency surgery for appendicitis, disrupting Anne and Bernard's vacation. There was no way they would be able to spend the summer in Cormery as usual, since their grandmother would have her arms full taking care of her husband. Bernard was lucky enough to be invited by a friend whose parents had a house near Chartres. Anne wound up being alone in Montmartre. The July heat was blistering and Anne wanted to go for a swim, but her parents didn't want her to go to the public pool because of the type of children that hung out there. The neighborhood's distractions were limited, and her days were filled with boredom. Nothing made her want to wake up in the morning, let alone get out of bed. And yet, she brushed her hair and got dressed before breakfast. Then, she tried concentrating on a drawing, on reading a book, but nothing captivated her. Quickly, she took refuge in her favorite reveries. When would she see Alexis again? For the past two years, he had vanished. Just like thousands of others. What did his current life look like? What kind of friends did he have? He had no doubt changed as much as Bernard had! At the age of thirteen, her brother didn't have the same voice. His body had almost become that of a man. Dark peach fuzz grew above his upper lip. If Alexis showed up right now, would she even recognize him?

A few words snapped her out of her lethargy and state of melancholy. While at the store to pick up some thread for her mother, Anne overheard one of the customers.

“They arrested thousands of Jews in their homes,” she said. “Men, women, and even children! They forced them to get into buses, and off they went!”

“The Germans did that?”

“No, not the Germans! It was the French police that conducted the roundup. Our own police officers!”

“Are you sure of what you're saying?” the saleslady asked.

“My brother lives in Réaumur. He just called me about it. Some children were still sleeping as they were carried away. … It's got me so upset!”

Dazed by what she heard, Anne forgot all about her errand. She thought of the two kids who took dancing lessons with her, the ones with the yellow stars. Had they also been arrested and taken away? She imagined children, kids her age. Their parents must have tried to protect them! As the two women continued discussing the news, Anne began to shiver and she left the store.

Out in the street, people were going about their business. Nobody seemed to know what had happened.

“You're pale as a ghost!” Anne's mother said when she got home.

In a few sentences, Anne told her what she had heard.

“The French police! That's impossible! You misunderstood. …”

Throughout the day, the radio reported on the story. Jewish foreign nationals were taken by requisitioned buses to the Paris Vélodrome, where they were “parked” without food, water, or latrines. Entire families had been sent there—elderly men, women with their children, people of all ages …

From that day on, Anne doubted everything she was taught. In practical terms: How could a police force supposed to maintain law and order commit such a horrible act? In religious terms: If God truly was synonymous with goodness and justice, why did He allow this? Anne felt revolt and anger rising from deep inside her. Where was the line separating good and evil?

When school began again, the two Jewish teens didn't show up for dance class.

“They're not going to come anymore?” Anne asked the teacher, Mademoiselle Flamant.

“They didn't sign up for this year. Did you use to see them outside the studio?”

“No, but …”

“I don't think they were deported. On the other hand, Irina was arrested. She left for Germany.”

“Irina!”

“They took her with her parents. I learned it from her doorman.”

The former ballerina's gaze landed on the piano.

“Irina came from Courland, and she was looking for work,” she said. “My pianist was retiring, and so I offered her the job.”

Anne heard the sadness in Mademoiselle Flamant's voice.

Before class began, she announced, “Irina has left Paris. We're not going to have an accompanist today.”

Without offering any more detail, she put a record on the gramophone.

“You're going to work on a Chopin nocturne. Left hand on the bar, right arm curved above the head. Your feet in first position! Let's start with the petits battements. …”

6

When winter came,
Monique
b
rough
t in the vegetable patch from her balcony. In order to keep out the cold air, she insulated the windows. At night, she put hot bricks wrapped in newspaper in the beds to warm them. The sight of her mother depriving herself of food for the sake of her children saddened Anne.

“But what about you, Mama?”

“My stomach shrank. I'm not hungry.”

“That's not true,” Anne said.

“Stop arguing and eat. Otherwise you won't be able to concentrate in school.”

Some mornings, the neighborhood's streets and squares were shrouded in fog, to the point where the streetlights could barely be seen. Wrapped in shapeless heavy coats, passersby hurried from one place to another, shivering. Sometimes the bells of the Church of Saint-Pierre de Montmartre rang to announce a religious service or a funeral. On particularly cold days, kids slid on icy patches in the streets. Watching them, Anne imagined herself at their age. Her childhood seemed at once near and far. She had been ten at the time of the exodus. Next spring, she would be thirteen. She felt that nothing except the war had counted during those three years, as though the constant hunger, the cold, and the fear had taken over everything else. In reaction to the British-American invasion of French North Africa, the German army had taken over the entire country. Those who'd sought refuge in the free zone were now under the boots of the Nazis. Fleeing to Spain was no longer safe, and boarding a ship was now impossible. The only option was to go into hiding, hoping that you wouldn't get caught or wouldn't be denounced. Many times, Anne witnessed arrests. A Gestapo car would come to a halt in front of a building, men would run up the stairs, break a door down … With the creation of the Service du Travail Obligatoire (STO)—the compulsory work service—street roundups were more and more frequent. For men old enough to work in German factories, cafés and public places no longer were safe. Trying to escape this nightmare, the Chastels kept on going to the movies. In celebration of a birthday or an excellent report card, Yves and Monique sometimes took their children to the Comédie-Française, where Anne truly discovered Molière's work. It wasn't just a bunch of lines blurted clumsily by kids in class, but savagely brutal scenes that revealed people's foibles. As for reading, she used to like the Bécassine comic strip,
La Semaine de Suzette
magazine, the Grimm brothers' fairy tales, as well as Charles Perrault's. For the past few months, she had turned to adult novels: Roger Martin du Gard's
The Thibaults
, Charlotte Brontë's
Jane Eyre
, Jane Austen's books. In her bed at night, she read until she was overtaken by sleep. Her room adjoined her neighbor's apartment, and sometimes she could hear muffled sounds coming through the wall. The neighbor lived alone and only came home at dawn, and so she wondered what the noises were all about. She preferred keeping quiet about it, but that didn't prevent her from spying on the woman when she left her place every night to go to work.

In the middle of 1943, things took a turn for the worse for France's occupiers. Hitler's Wehrmacht suffered heavy losses in the Soviet Union, where the Red Army fought like wild dogs. Same thing in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia! In Paris, people were beginning to talk about a favorable outcome to the war.

“Let's not get ahead of ourselves!” Yves said.

But Anne refused to listen to him and began to hope. Soon, they were going to be free from their oppressors. Soon, they would be able to come and go as they pleased!

On January 1, 1944, France was still occupied by the enemy. And as the overall situation worsened for the Germans, they became twice as cruel as before. A number of Résistance fighters were tortured before being killed, and entire networks were dismantled. On top of that, the Allied air raids multiplied all over the country.

In the middle of the night, on April 20, Anne was sound asleep when the air raid sirens began to wail. Her first reaction was to light the candle on her nightstand. In the hallway, she heard her father's steps.

“Get ready to go downstairs,” he ordered as he headed for Bernard's bedroom.

Anne put on a coat and shoes. Her mother appeared on the threshold. She had curlers in her hair, under a net.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

As soon as she had asked the question, the first bombs began to fall.

“Hurry up! Let's go!” Yves said.

Everyone grabbed a flashlight and headed for the exit. Through a small slit of the drape, Bernard saw the sky alight.

“It's like they're aiming for us!” he said.

“Impossible!” Yves replied. “There's no ammo depot in Montmartre. It's not a strategic location, either.”

More bombs fell, even closer. Anne was sure they wouldn't escape the deluge of fire raining down all around them. The building started to shake. Someone screamed. Neighbors were running down the staircase.

“Let's go!” Yves said.

Stiff as a robot, Anne began going down the stairs. Down below, a woman was having a breakdown. Some children were crying. The roar of the airplanes in the sky was nonstop. As she reached the first floor, Agnès's parents suggested they come in their apartment.

“It's better than going in the basement,” they said. “If the building is on fire, we can jump out the windows.”

Anne saw that her father was hesitating.

“Yes, Papa,” she said. “Let's do that!”

Anything except waiting in a dark basement.

Through the open window, Anne saw the landlady running for cover, her baby in her arms. Unable to sit down, she went over to Agnès, who was keeping away from the windows. They held hands for courage. Each explosion startled them. Plates hanging on the dining room wall crashed to the floor. No one was going to survive this massacre, Anne thought. She watched her mother cross herself, and saw Agnès's father hold his youngest son in his arms. Suddenly, the power went out. They could hear the howling of planes diving toward the city to unload their bombs. Anne could feel Agnès's nails digging into the palm of her hand. After several long minutes, the power was back on. The antiaircraft guns kept firing, in vain.

“Do you think we're going to die?” Agnès asked her friend.

“I don't know.”

Anne didn't add that she would rather die than lose any member of her family. A very long time passed, and then the sirens announced the end of the air raid, only to be quickly replaced by the blaring of the fire trucks and emergency vehicle sirens.

“That was a close call,” Agnès's father said before taking a long breath.

The following day, the Montmartre residents were able to see the extent of the devastation. It was considerable. All around Sacré-Coeur, whose stained-glass windows had been shattered, were a dozen craters caused by the bombs. On the southern side of the hill, buildings had collapsed, as well as near the Eighteenth Arrondissment's town hall.

“They were going for the Porte de la Chapelle and the métro repair shops in Saint-Ouen,” explained one of the police officers cordoning off the rubble. “You can't go near there. We think there might be unexploded bombs.”

From afar, Anne saw some nuns wearing headdresses handing out water to those who had lost their homes. Six hundred and fifty people had died overnight, a stunning figure that Nazi propaganda quickly exploited, saying that British and American allies were bloodthirsty criminals. Anne thought that people she knew might have perished, people she had seen in church or in a store. Never before had she been so close to death.

The school year was coming to a close. Nothing really stood in the way of spending the summer in Cormery. Still, Anne didn't like the idea of being separated from her parents. When her mother got stuck in the metro one day because of a power outage and came back home four hours late, Anne had gotten herself worried sick. When Monique finally did walk into the apartment, Anne threw herself into her mother's arms, crying.

“Come now,” Monique said in a soothing voice. “A lot of things are out of our control now.”

On top of all the intangibles were drastic restrictions. Nothing could be bought anywhere, not even in the larger stores. The shelves were empty. The Allied air raids continued. Since the bombing that had terrified them, the Chastels sought refuge in the Rue Girardon shelter, among a motley crowd of people, both friends and foes. There were collaborators, some who openly supported General de Gaulle, others who still backed Marshal Pétain. Underground, everybody had to put up with one another.

The only one who remained invisible during those difficult hours was the so-called “slut,” who still came home at dawn every day. One evening, as Anne was struggling with her algebra homework, she heard cars stop in front of her apartment building, and then people stomping up the staircase and coming to a halt on her landing. There was loud banging on the neighbor's door, followed by shouting in German. Anne was alone in the apartment, and she feared that the men might tell her to open the door. She looked out the window and saw people down in the street milling around the two parked Citroens, but keeping their distance. In the apartment next door, men were knocking over furniture. The commotion lasted until Gestapo agents stormed out of the apartment with the woman. They violently threw her into one of the cars and she disappeared.

The search of the apartment continued. Bernard, who was coming back from school, wasn't allowed to go up until everything was over. When he opened the door, Anne ran to him.

“What's going on?” she asked.

“They're interrogating the landlady,” Bernard said. “She looks pretty shaken.”

“They took the neighbor away. What did she do?”

Agnès ran up the stairs as fast as she could, and she was the one who told them.

“She was working for the Résistance!”

“No way,” Bernard said. “She was buddy-buddy with the Boches.”

“She only pretended. For years, no one suspected her. She had a two-way radio in her apartment, and she gave London all kinds of information. The landlady thinks that some of her supposed friends who stayed with her were really agents.”

Anne remembered the noises she'd heard through her wall.

“Someone in her network was arrested, and he revealed the names.”

A few weeks later, Anne had a strange dream about her neighbor­. She was speaking in an unknown language. No one could understand what she was saying. And so she cried silently. … When she woke up, Anne had the feeling that someone was breathing heavily on the other side of the wall. Which was impossible since the apartment's door had been sealed off. She turned on her flashlight. The sight of her things set neatly on her nightstand reassured her. As she turned to the side, she felt something sticky between her legs. She looked down and saw bloodstains on her bedsheets. At first, she thought she'd cut herself in her sleep, but then she remembered­ hearing about periods. Without providing much information, her mother had warned her. It would soon happen­. After cleaning up in the bathroom, Anne had a hard time falling back asleep. At last, she was no longer a child!

At dawn, she got up to look at herself in the mirror. Taller than most girls her age, she was skinny like all the others who didn't have enough to eat. Proud of her budding breasts, she examined them from all angles. As soon as underwear was available again in stores, she would buy a bra. She grabbed her hair and gathered it on top of her head. There was something childlike about her slender arms, which annoyed her. She then scrutinized her oval, plain-featured face. Her eyes were filled with contained emotions and inquisitiveness. “Intuitive, creative, and determined,” her teachers wrote on her report card. Anne grimaced instead of smiling. Those darn crooked teeth weren't getting any better. Was she pretty? Boys were beginning to look at her on the street and whistle as she walked by them. Unfortunately, the one boy she was interested in remained absent!