The Secret of the Blue Trunk (14 page)

The visit chilled me even further when the nun informed me that the community required a thorough medical checkup and had to make sure I was still a virgin before it welcomed me back in its house. When she had gone, I became myself again, and felt rage and an immense sadness sweeping through me. I thought it was utterly inhuman to send someone to tell me, in the precarious state I was in, that my future might be in jeopardy. The community acted without any thought for the harrowing experience I had just gone through. I had the feeling that my family was abandoning me a second time. I cried a lot.

But I hadn’t seen anything yet. Shortly after the nun’s visit, I received a parcel containing all my personal belongings: clothes, missal, holy pictures and passport, as well as a letter informing me that I could not go back to the community. In spite of the proof of my virginity, which I had furnished, the nuns remained convinced that the German soldiers had touched me sexually during my imprisonment. So I was impure and had to renounce my life as a bride of Christ. In fact, they made a request to Rome to release me from my vows.

This decision meant that the Red Cross had to take charge of me from now on because I no longer had a home in Europe. It also had to take care of my repatriation to Quebec.

I was humiliated and angry. I lost faith in Catholicism on that day and never regained it. I continued to believe in God and the Virgin Mary, but I’ve never set foot in a church again, except for a wedding or a funeral. I was outraged, and have borne a tremendous grudge ever since against anything religious. The Catholic Church treated me like a war criminal, banishing me from my community after I spent four years in captivity just because I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was infuriated.

The only thing I felt like believing in right then was the solidarity among us, the girls with whom I’d lived through those years of horror. They had done more to help humanity than I would have as a nun. They hadn’t needed to take vows in order to show kindness and sacrifice themselves for their neighbours. Thanks to them, I had survived. It was to this type of community that I wanted to devote myself from now on.

After a few weeks I finally calmed down, although I didn’t forget the insult. I thought about my new situation, and all in all I was content with my lot. I would be going home at last. I asked the people at the Red Cross if it might be possible for them to find my brothers in Quebec. Several weeks later they managed to get hold of the address of my brother Rosaire and sent him a telegram to let him know I was alive and well.

I wanted to start a new life, completely free to do what I pleased. No more constraints, no more isolation! To dress the way I felt like, eat what I felt like, to enjoy and savour life, my new life. Yes, it was going to be fantastic.

When I saw Léon walk into the room and being reunited with Simone after all that time, I knew what I wanted to experience. The two of them were such a lovely sight. They dissolved into tears while they kissed and I couldn’t possibly say how long their embrace lasted. I, too, wanted to love and be loved.

For a while I thought about the rendezvous Franz had planned for us in Paris on May 7. But a ship had been chartered to repatriate Canadians. It was scheduled to leave in March of 1946. I knew I wouldn’t have the means to come back to Europe.

Simone gave me her address in Brittany. Since she would have more opportunities to come to Quebec than I would to return to Europe, I told her I would write to her as soon as I arrived and give her my address. To our great delight we found Mathilde in another wing of our temporary hospital. The three of us spent several days talking. Simone and I thanked her from the bottom of our hearts for all she had done for us. She told us a bit about the “services” she’d had to perform in exchange for the privileges we enjoyed, which had saved our lives more than once. We felt that our thanks were quite feeble in comparison with what she had done.

Finally I said goodbye to them, assuring them they would forever have a huge place in my heart and not a day would go by without my thinking of them. We never saw Iréna again.

O
n
March 4, 1946, at almost thirty-four years old, I boarded a Red Cross ship to return to Quebec. If I’d missed that opportunity, I would have had to work for several years to scrape together the fare for my return voyage. I will always be grateful to that organization.

The crossing lasted seven days. In the middle of the week, a storm began to rage and I was very scared. Massive waves crashed over the decks. The whole boat creaked and nearly all the passengers were ill. A foul odour pervaded the ship, mixed with a strong fuel-oil smell. I threw up more than once. It was as though the sea wanted to swallow us up, the boat feeling as light as an empty shell. We spent three days closeted in our cabins, waiting for the good weather to return.

Many of the passengers had been imprisoned in labour camps and were liberated at the same time as I was. We didn’t mention it to each other, but we just knew. It showed. It was as though traces of dirt and humiliation still clung to our bodies. None of us had any desire to talk about our past experience.

By a strange coincidence I shared my cabin with three women. I had the same sense of security as with the girls at the camp.

We were all about the same age. Two were nurses with the Red Cross. The third had suffered a fate similar to mine, in a different camp. I quickly became friends with one of the two nurses, Gabrielle, whom I called Gaby. Her hair was auburn, like the colours of fall, and she had tiny freckles on her face. She seemed somewhat brash, but was, above all, a real fighter, having what it takes to overcome life’s obstacles.

Until now, I had only met people on my path who helped me to forge ahead. I’m thinking of Sister Marguerite, Sister Adolphine, and the three girls at the camp. What would have become of me without them?

I was much less excited than on the journey that had taken me to Europe a few years earlier. I have to admit I had changed. I felt confused now. Four and a half years of imprisonment weighed on me, and I was bitterly disappointed to have been rejected by my congregation.

But something made up for this disappointment: I desperately wanted to live every moment of my new life to the full. I was going to meet up with my brothers again. I didn’t know them well and that worried me. I wondered if Rosaire would be happy to see me. Would he want to put me up until I found a job and moved into a place of my own?

In the small suitcase the Red Cross had given me, I still had my nun’s clothes. I didn’t want to get rid of them before I received the letter from Rome that was supposed to confirm I was now a laywoman, in other words free, independent and … very much alone and practically homeless …

I spent a good part of the journey pondering my future. During the crossing’s final days, Gaby, who knew nothing about my having been a nun — I was already ashamed to talk about it — told me things that made my hair stand on end. I had never heard a woman, or even a man, speak of such vulgar things. It went beyond basic sex education, which would have been kinder to my innocent ears.

Gaby went into great detail about her love affairs. As I listened to her, I thought of what Mathilde had to endure for us all. She had no choice, I’m sure. It was a matter of survival.

The information would nonetheless be useful to me, I thought, because sooner or later I was bound to walk into a lion’s den in the city of Montreal.

At the end of the voyage, Gaby gave me her mother’s telephone number; she would be living with her for a while. She also suggested sharing an apartment as soon as I had a job. I leapt at the offer. She would definitely make it easier for me to survive in that urban jungle.

The ship berthed in New York on March 11, 1946.

Gaby travelled with me on the train to Montreal and helped me find the address of my brother Rosaire.

My brother lived in a tiny apartment on rue Sainte-Élisabeth with his wife, Yvette. When I knocked on their door, I was very nervous. I had no idea what kind of welcome I would get. Rosaire was four when I last saw him. Would I recognize him? When he opened the door, we knew each other right away. We shed many tears before we could speak. I sensed in his embrace that nothing could separate us ever again. I felt a great rush of joy. I was now in the arms of someone of the same flesh and blood, who’d had the same parents, the same past. Rosaire didn’t remember his childhood, but we had suffered the same tragedies, breathed in the same smells, lived in the same house. Recalling these details brought me tremendous comfort. I just couldn’t stop looking at him. His features were familiar and I found him handsome. Rosaire was my younger brother. There were only two years between us, but I felt an urge to protect him. I thought I had finally met someone who would need me. In my heart and mind, he was still four years old.

He told me his life story, from the time when we were separated until the outbreak of the Second World War, in which he had fought in Europe. While, from a trench, he repelled an attack lasting several days, he caught pneumonia and was repatriated to Canada. He mentioned that one day, on a radio program where the list of people who died in the war was broadcast, he heard my name. He had burst into tears and had a mass said for me. I cheered him up by telling him this mass had surely helped me to survive. I asked him about Louis-Georges, who was just six months old when I left for the convent. He hadn’t heard from him in ages. That was a pity because I would have very much liked to see him again.

I told Yvette and Rosaire almost everything — the convent, the religious life, my years at the camps, how I had been abandoned by my religious community — but I kept silent about the episode with Franz. I was ashamed of it now that the war was over. And doubly so because my brother had risked his life fighting the Nazis. I showed them my nun’s habit and told them I would wait for the letter from Rome before getting rid of it. I spoke to them about the dressmaking trade I had learnt in those years. I wanted to look for work in that field. Yvette and Rosaire agreed to put me up in their small place until I could fend for myself.

After the war, everything had to be rebuilt. The economy began to grow again and I didn’t have to look long for a job. Three days after arriving in Montreal, I was hired by a menswear factory. I made trouser pockets. It wasn’t the quite the kind of sewing I would have liked to do, but I had to eat.

I called Gaby to let her know I was working and that in a month I would be able to share the expenses of the place she already had on rue Beaudry. It was an ideal location, not too far from my brother’s home, only a minute away from rue Sainte-Catherine. The apartment had large windows and was therefore very bright. I felt a tremendous need for that light, as though I had to make up for all those years spent in darkness.

Gaby’s mother had given her furniture, so the apartment was quite full. For several years Gaby had been assembling a trousseau but, being still single, she decided to use it. Her nurse’s salary was more than enough for her to live on. She wanted for nothing.

As for me, I put a few pennies aside whenever I could in order to buy myself a sewing machine and fabric. On my days off I had fun making dresses, completely by hand. Gaby encouraged me. She said I had talent and should use it to earn my living. In the meantime I lived each day with passion.

Every Thursday, my meagre salary in my pocket, I went to treat myself to a pastry at Kresge’s on rue Sainte-Catherine. As I bit into my napoleon, I thought of the camp and Simone in particular. I closed my eyes and inwardly called out to her so she might hear me in Brittany, “Here’s to you, my guardian angel, and to our survival!” And when I bought a pattern to make an elegant dress, I would remember Mathilde. I had even renamed the hemstitch “Mathilde’s stitch,” because it’s discreet but strong. That’s how in my daily work I evoked the memory of the women who had done so much for me. It was my way of paying tribute to them. As for Iréna, I would pray every day until the end of my life that she might still be alive and had found true happiness.

On May 7, 1946, I thought of Franz constantly. Was he still alive? Had he gone to the place of our rendezvous? I don’t think Germans were welcome in Paris at that time. Now that I was living a normal life again, my meeting with Franz had a completely different meaning. Such a love story was sheer madness even though I was no longer a nun.

A few months after my return, I received a letter from Rome releasing me from my vows. I was now officially free, like everyone else. I immediately destroyed my habit and hid all traces of my former life in a locked trunk. I had no regrets, but was still very angry with religion.

I lived these first weeks of my new-found freedom in a spirit of revolt. I felt like doing everything that used to be forbidden. I was thumbing my nose at the obedience I’d shown for all those years. It had been useless, after all.

Gaby, the red-haired demon, egged me on as I travelled down this rebellious road. It began by going to nightclubs, on weekends, where they put on shows. But it was also an opportunity to meet people. I loved nightlife, and luckily Gaby protected me against some wolves who were a bit too hungry. Yet it wasn’t in those cabarets that I met the most wonderful gift of my life.

One evening, Gaby brought a man home. His name was Maurice. They had seen each other a few times at the hospital, where he came to visit his sister. Gaby was mad about him and had asked him over for a drink. Although I used to think that the expression “he is like a Greek god,” when Gaby said it, might be an exaggeration, I felt it was almost too weak when I saw him. He could easily have been a movie star. Six feet two inches of elegance! He had freshly cut black hair, incredibly merry hazel eyes, hands I immediately fell for because they were broad and moved with ease. He wore a dark grey suit and his shoes glowed, having been polished to a mirror-like shine. But the ultimate weapon was his smile. I couldn’t help looking at him. Although I was happy for Gaby that she had met such a man, I was jealous. It wasn’t the kind of man I might have run into at work.

The three of us talked a lot and, without us being aware of it, Maurice noted our telephone number just before he left.

The following evening, when I answered the phone, I recognized his voice and told him Gaby wasn’t home because she was working overtime at the hospital. “It isn’t her I want to speak to, it’s you,” he said. I explained that Gaby would be angry with me if I agreed to go and have a Coke with him.

“I’m not interested in Gaby,” he replied. “I think she is nice, but you are the one I would like to know better.”

I accepted his invitation. We talked all evening. He still lived with his parents and was twenty-four years old. He had just landed a steady job at a sporting-goods warehouse. It’s what he had been waiting for in order to leave the family home. He had done his military service late, having been conscripted. Fortunately, he hadn’t had time to go and fight. His brother Robert wasn’t so lucky. He died on the battlefields of Italy when he was just twenty-one, and now his two children were fatherless. His parents had found it very hard to come to terms with his death. Then, when it was my turn, I shared a slice of my life with him. He was captivated by my story. I didn’t tell him everything, though. I kept silent about my time in the religious life and my feelings for Franz. That episode will remain forever secret.

Little by little, he cut Gaby out of his life. We went out together without her knowledge. The day Gaby found out what had been going on, she flew into an almighty rage. When I got home from work, I saw that she had put all my belongings on the balcony and the door was locked and bolted. I couldn’t get in. She had left a note on my suitcase: “A fine friend you are!”

I felt like the lowest of the low. My best friend was devastated because of me, although Maurice had told her their relationship wouldn’t go any further. I was unhappy. It was pointless to try and explain things because she was too angry with me. I took a taxi with my suitcase and boxes and went to my brother’s home to tide me over until I found a new place to live. One week later I moved into a tiny, furnished one-bedroom apartment in Rosemont. Maurice stayed with me during the week and went to his parents on weekends.

He made his family believe it was more convenient for work-related reasons to rent a room in the city. His parents lived in Cartierville, a streetcar ride of over an hour from his workplace, morning and night. When the family found out we lived together, they considered us damned souls. We lived like this for eight years. In 1954, we decided to get married in front of witnesses. We had developed a very close relationship. It was as though existing on the fringe of society had made us stronger. We also had a perfect sexual harmony, joyful and unrestrained, which further strengthened our marriage ties.

With hindsight I must admit that Maurice didn’t always have an easy life with me. He had to cope with the after-effects of my past. I still had this rage, buried deep inside, that would erupt into sudden fits of anger, often for no reason, and caused instant mood swings, whereas Maurice was always laughing. He was a fundamentally good man, who looked on the bright side of things. Even the weather never affected his disposition. If it rained, he found a way to keep himself busy indoors. When it was nice out, he planned his days accordingly. I admit this annoyed me sometimes. I wrongly thought that such a malleable nature might be a sign of weakness. How can I have made such a ridiculous judgment? For a long time I blamed myself for it, especially when all I had left to comfort me was his memory.