Lilac Girls (16 page)

“Me too,” I said.

T
HE MORNING OF
M
AY
10 was like any other. I could hear our reception area was full by ten, and I readied for the onslaught by neatening up my desk drawers—anything not to think about Paul.

“More postcards from your pen pals,” Pia said. She lobbed a stack of mail onto my desk. “And stop filching my cigarettes.”

It was a lovely May day, but even the tender breeze that rustled the elms outside my window couldn't cheer me that Monday morning. The prettiest days were the hardest without Paul to share them. I fanned through the mail, hoping for a letter from him. Of course the chances of a letter from Paul being included in that pile were slim, for mail delivery by transatlantic passage took at least one week each way, but I stalked the mail like a scent hound on a fox, nevertheless.

“You read my mail?” I said.

“That's a
postcard,
Caroline. Half the world has read it, if they care about some French orphanage.”

I flipped through the postcards. Château de Chaumont. Château Masgelier. Villa La Chesnaie. All once-stately French mansions converted to orphan asylums. They returned confirmation cards upon receipt of the aid packages I sent. I hoped a sweet soap, a pair of clean socks, a candy, and a piece or two of Mother's lovely hand-sewn clothes, all wrapped in neat brown paper, would raise a child's spirits.

I stood and pinned the cards to my bulletin board. It was already crammed with pictures of French children. One of a dark-haired angel holding a sign that read,
MERCI BEAUCOUP, CAROLINE!
Another of children posed in plein air art class, one child at an easel, the rest on campstools, assembled by age, pretending to read their books under a linden tree.

I assumed that photo was snapped by the lovely sounding Mme Bertillion, director of Saint-Philippe in Meudon, an orphanage southwest of Paris. I'd become friendly with Mme Bertillion by mail and waited eagerly for her letters, filled with charming anecdotes about the children and how much they appreciated my packages. There was a new letter from her in this batch of mail, and I pinned up the enclosed crayon drawing of Saint-Philippe, the imposing stone façade colored goldenrod yellow, smoke swirling out of the chimney like the icing on a Hostess Cupcake.

What would it be like to adopt one of these children? A boy? Girl? Our place up in Connecticut, which we called The Hay, was absolute heaven for children. Mother maintained my playhouse, still there in the meadow, complete with woodstove. Adopting a child would give me someone to pass it all down to. Great-grandmother Woolsey's loving cup. Our lovely duck-footed table. Mother's silver. But I put it out of my mind, for I would never raise a child alone. I knew too well the difficulties of growing up without a father, that aching hole Mother had tried too hard to fill. Feigning sick every father-daughter day at school. Being reduced to tears at the sight of fathers and daughters holding hands on the street. The gnaw of regret that I hadn't said goodbye.

At the bottom of the pile, I found a letter, written on onionskin airmail stationery in a lovely hand. The postmark read
ROUEN
. Paul.

As well as I knew Paul, how had I never seen his handwriting before? It suited him.

Dear Caroline,

I decided to write right away, since, as you say, waiting is not your strong suit. So much is happening here. Rouen has been remarkably sane about this Phoney War, but many have already left, including our neighbors who wheeled their grandmother away with them down our street in a baby carriage last night. The rest of us now are just hoping for the best. I am in talks to commit to a new play in Paris.
All's Well That Ends Well,
can you believe it? Shakespeare. I like to think it is your good influence on me.

Rena may have to close her shop. There is little fabric and notions to be had, but she will be fine. Her father has taken to smoking sunflower leaves, for there is no tobacco to be found.

I hope this counts as a newsy letter, for I have to go now to make the embassy bag. Do put a good word in with Roger for our visa situation. I think of you often, there at work. Make sure you don't let Roger bully you. Remember, he needs you.

With much love and until next time,

Paul

p.s. I dreamed last night I watched you on stage, here in Paris, in a very steamy version of
A Midsummer Night's Dream,
and you played an angel. Could this say something about your acting career? About my missing you? My dreams always come true.

Paul had made it home to Rouen, past the U-boats. At least he was safe.

For a gregarious man, he wrote a succinct letter, but it was better than none at all. A new play? Perhaps things would blow over in France. Maybe the French producers knew more about the situation than we did half a world away. And the dream! He really did miss me.

I found an April 23 copy of
Le Petit Parisien,
one of the many French newspapers Roger had delivered by bag, somewhat outdated but precious nevertheless. The lead headline read:
THE REICH IN SCANDINAVIA! BRITISH TROOPS FIGHT ON LAND AND SEA. CONSIDERABLE SUCCESS IN THE WAR IN NORWAY DESPITE LARGE DIFFICULTIES.
My mood lightened at reading that good news. Maybe the United States would continue to avoid the war, but the Brits were holding fast, despite horrific Luftwaffe bombing. Maybe France would escape Hitler after all.

I scanned the theater page. Any ads for Paul's new venture? I found no Shakespeare but did see a small ad for Rena's shop, a simple black square, bordered with a row of pearls:
Les Jolies Choses.
Lingerie et sous-vêtements pour la femme de discernement.
Lingerie and undergarments for the discerning woman?

Roger came to my doorway, tie askew, a Rorschach-test coffee stain on his shirt.

“Bad news, C. Hitler has just attacked France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium all at once. It is just hitting the news now. I'm afraid things are going to get bumpy.”

I hurled myself after him and watched him pace about his office.

“My God, Roger. Have you called Paris?”

The oscillating fan in the window cooled one side of the room and then the next. The red ribbon someone had tied to it flapped like a little Nazi flag.

“The phones are out,” Roger said. “All we can do is wait.”

I'd never seen Roger afraid before.

“What about the Maginot Line?”

“Seems Hitler went around it, over it, under it. He came right across Belgium.”

“What will Roosevelt do?”

“Nothing, probably. Has no choice but to recognize whatever government represents France.”

Pia came to Roger's door, encryption headphones around her neck. “I tried to call my father in Paris, and I can't get through. I have to go home.”

“You can't go anywhere right now, Pia,” Roger said.

“I can't stay here.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Pia,” I said. “You can't just
leave.
”

Pia stood, arms limp at her sides, heaving great sobs. I wrapped my arms around her. “It will all be fine, dear,” I said. To my immense surprise, she returned my embrace.

O
N
J
UNE 14, 1940,
the Germans took Paris, and eight days later France surrendered.

Pia and I stood in Roger's office and listened to radio reports of Nazis marching past the Arc de Triomphe. France was split into two zones, the northern zone occupied by German Wehrmacht soldiers, known as the
zone occupée,
and the so-called free zone in the south. Marshal Philippe Pétain headed up the new French Republic, called the Vichy regime, in the southern free zone, which most considered a Nazi puppet state.

“What will happen to our office here?” Pia asked.

“I don't know,” Roger said. “We'll sit tight for now. Do the best we can for our people here. Can't get any calls through.”

“Can the Brits help?”

“Already have,” Roger said. “They just shared reports of German dive-bomber activity in the English Channel.” We were lucky that Roger was close to what Pia called his “British spy friends,” our neighbors in the International and British Buildings of Rockefeller Center, who were especially generous with their classified information.

Roger's personal line rang, and Pia picked it up. “Roger Fortier's office. Oh yes. Yes, she is. Hold the line.”

Pia held the phone out to me. “It's Paul.”

“How did he get through?” Roger asked.

I grabbed the phone. “Paul?” I could barely breathe.

“I have only a minute,” Paul said.

Paul.

His voice was so clear, as if from the next room. I pressed one finger to my free ear. Was it really him?

“
Caroline.
It's so good to hear your voice.”

“My God, Paul. We just heard. How did you get a call through?”

“My friend here at the embassy let me phone. You can't imagine how crazy things are now. It's just a matter of time before Hitler's here.”

“I can ask Roger to rush the visas.”

“I don't know, Caroline. This place is practically shut down.”

“What else do you need?”

“I must be quick. I just want you—” I heard a series of clicks on the line. “Caroline? You there?”

“Paul—I'm here.”

“Caroline?”

“Don't leave me, Paul.”

The line went dead.

I listened to the vibration of the dial tone for a moment and then placed the receiver back in the cradle. We all stood there waiting for the phone to ring again. Roger and Pia just stared at me, hands at their sides. I'd seen those looks before. Pity. Like when Father died.

“I'll patch him through if he gets a free line again,” Pia said.

I started back to my office, followed by a terrible feeling that would be the last time I would ever speak to Paul.

B
efore I could even answer Zuzanna, the ticket booth door burst off its hinges, and three SS blackshirts jumped over it into the booth. One grabbed Pietrik off the floor, and the other dragged me by the arms out of the booth, the coins from the cashbox flying everywhere.

“We were just visiting,” Pietrik said. “This is my girlfriend. There's been a misunderstanding!”

Girlfriend?
The guards said nothing, just dragged us on. I scanned the crowd for Matka
.
Where was she?

“Please, I have money,” Pietrik said.

The SS guard clubbed him across the cheek. Pietrik! His beautiful face.

The SS men pulled us past the crowd, and the people in line stared and whispered to one another. I turned and saw the SS man who had followed me, close behind holding Zuzanna and Luiza, each by one arm.

Matka broke through the ticket line and ran after us. The look on her face scared me as much as anything. I'd only seen that look once before, on the wild-eyed face of a horse hit by a carriage and dying in the street. She clutched the little basket with my sandwich in it close to her chest.

“Go home, Matka
,
” I called.

“No. Please, you have the wrong people,” she said to the guards.

“Kriminelle,”
one woman in line said.

“They've done
nothing,
” Matka said, appealing to the crowd, her wild horse eyes wide. “This is my daughter. I am a nurse at the clinic.”

She went on like that, then came running after us, begging the men to release us until one of them said, “If she wants to come so badly, let her join them,” and grabbed Matka as well. He snatched her basket and threw it to one of the German women waiting in the ticket line.

“But who will sell us tickets?” a Fräulein in line asked the officers.

“Who needs tickets?” he said. “Just go in. It's free tonight.”

The Germans hesitated, confused, and stood where they were as the SS dragged us off into the dark, the trumpets of the “Horst Wessel Song” blaring into the night air.

T
HEY SEPARATED MEN FROM
women at Lublin Castle and the next day trucked a load of us to the rail station. Many around us shoved letters and bribes at the guards. Matka handed a letter to one of them.

“Please, I am German. Can you get this to
Oberscharführer
Lennart Fleischer?” She handed the man some money, and he stuffed both that and the letter in his pocket without even looking at them. They had no time for such things and simply pushed us along. Fleischer was Lennart the Brave's last name? It means butcher. This was fitting.

They shoved Matka
,
Zuzanna, Luiza, and me and at least one hundred other women into what was once the dining car of a train, now with all the tables removed, and locked the door. Metal bars stood affixed to the windows and a tin bucket for our sanitary needs sat in the corner.

I recognized a few girls from my old Girl Guide troop, including a dazed Janina Grabowski. Had the Gestapo come for her at Lipowa Street? My heart sank when I saw Mrs. Mikelsky was there too, baby daughter in her arms. They'd been arrested when the Gestapo caught Mr. Mikelsky distributing underground newspapers. Their child was almost two years old by then, aptly named Jagoda, for she did look like a blond little berry.

After a few hours, we stopped in Warsaw, but soon started moving again and picked up speed. Not one of us in that car wept. We were mostly silent, the shame of it all so heavy to bear.

I made my way to the window as night fell and watched through the iron bars as we passed moonlit fields and dark forests. There was something disturbing about those trees, so close to one another.

While Mrs. Mikelsky slept, Luiza and I busied ourselves taking turns holding Jagoda. Small for her age, the baby wore only thin cotton pajamas, so we held her close, but even with that task to distract us, Luiza was soon in a state.

“What will my mother do without me?” she said. “I always help her bake.”

“Don't worry. You'll be home before long. This is all temporary.”

“What about Pietrik?” Luiza said. “Is he on this train?”

The car lurched right, and the excrement in our toilet bucket spilled over the top, onto two women sitting on the floor, causing them to cry out and jump up.

“How should I know?” I said. “Keep your voice down. People are sleeping.”

“Will they let us write letters?”

“Of course, Luiza. We will probably go to work somewhere. Picking beets or something.”

“Will they lock us up?” Luiza asked.

“I don't know, Lou. You'll see. It won't be so bad.”

Mrs. Mikelsky came to take the baby, and the train rocked like a terrible cradle, lulling most of my fellow travelers to fitful sleep. Luiza rested against me near the window while Matka slept with Zuzanna in a corner on the floor. The two looked beautiful lying there, Zuzanna resting her head on Matka's shoulder like a baby, her long legs curled up beneath her.

Luiza traded places with Zuzanna and fell asleep at last and as we sped toward Germany, my own demons crawled out to visit. How could I have gotten us all arrested? It was one thing to suffer myself on account of my own stupidity and quite another to bring everyone I loved down with me. Why had I gone to the theater? My lack of thinking had ruined us all. Would there be a trial? They surely would release the others once they realized they'd done nothing. Only I would be detained.

Had Pietrik already been shot? They did it in the castle courtyard, we all knew. I trembled all over. Where was Papa? We needed to get off that train right away if we were to have any hope at all. I reached up to the window and unlatched the sash. Though it was night, the shapes of spruce trees sped by. The air was growing colder as we went farther west.

“It's time for you to rest,” Zuzanna said.

“We have to get out of here.”

“Get a hold of yourself, Kasia.”

“I can't stay here,” I said, the anxiety mounting. “Why can't I breathe?” Something compressed my neck, squeezing.

“Stop it,” Zuzanna said. “You'll scare Luiza. She's already bad enough.”

I doubled over at the waist. “I'm dying.”

Zuzanna turned my wrist and fixed the pads of her fingers in a row along the inside of it. “Your pulse is elevated. You are having a panic episode. Breathe. Big breath in. Deep breath out.”

I filled my lungs as best I could.

“Look at me, Kasia. Breathe again. Don't stop. This may take ten minutes to pass.” Having a sister who knew everything about medicine came in handy. It took almost exactly ten minutes for the episode to abate.

Hours later we passed through Poznan and then veered off northwest. The morning light showed the leaves on the trees, redder and more orange the farther we went. I dozed, cheek against the cool iron bars, and woke once the train slowed.

Luiza and others came to stand next to me at the window.

“What is happening?” she asked.

The whistle screamed, long and high, as the train slid into a station.

Matka pushed through the women and stood with me. “What do you see?”

I held her hand. “Sign says Fürstenberg-Mecklenburg.”

There were women on the platform, blond giantesses wearing hooded black capes over their gray uniforms. One threw a cigarette down and squashed it with her boot. A few held dark Alsatians at their sides. The dogs seemed to anticipate our arrival, watching the train cars go by much as a pet waits for its owner. Had they done this before?

“Germany,” a woman behind me said, craning her neck to see.

Luiza cried out. The train whistle screamed a second time, and my breath again started coming hard.

Matka held my hand tighter. “Must be a labor camp.”

“I can see a church steeple,” I said. The thought of the Germans of that town sitting in church on Sundays with their hymnals was comforting.

“God-fearing people,” said someone.

“Fürstenberg?” said Mrs. Mikelsky. “I know it. This is a resort town!”

“As long as we work hard, we will be fine,” Matka said.

I curled my hands around the iron window bars to steady myself as the train lurched to a stop. “At least they know the commandments,” I said.

None of us knew how wrong we were that morning as we stepped out of that train and fell headlong into hell.