Last Train to Paris (22 page)

 

The Moses family taught me about familial love. Their son, Coleman, is such a wonderful man. I adore being with him. He's inherited his mother's short height and his father's good looks. He's a bit odd—but who wouldn't be, coming from the circumstances of his life?

He made the table that I'm sitting at now. One day, when he was in his forties, he came to visit, as he often does. I was working at my normal desk, a card table, whose four legs rested on rubber disks, with matchbooks underneath to level everything on my old floor. He had always given me a hard time about the desk.

“Rosie,” he would say, “let me make a desk for you.”

“No, dear,” I always replied, “this is fine. I'm used to it.”

One day, he didn't ask. He went out to the old barn, found some nice planks of wood, and went to work. I heard sawing and sanding and hammering and a good amount of cussing, but I stayed inside, not willing to nose about and cause trouble.

Finally, it became still. I watched him from the porch as he stained the wood with a big brush that had seen better days. Before it was even dry, he had it on the wheelbarrow, in front of the door.

“Can I help?” I asked.

“Yes, hold the door open, and I'll wrangle it inside.”

“But what about getting it upstairs into my study?”

“Rosie” he said, “I've been wanting to talk to you about this. I've watched you,” he said. “You can barely climb the stairs. It worries me. Wouldn't it be better if the room off the kitchen could be made into your study? That way, the only time you would have to climb is when you go to bed.”

“You're such a dear,” I replied, “But I have to go up and down all day long. It's good exercise for me. If I don't move around, I get as stiff as one of those boards you used to make my lovely new desk.”

“Well, I strongly suggest that you stop being so hardheaded,” he said. “You're alone out here. You're almost eighty-five. What will you do if you fall?”

“Most likely die, my dear, but that's okay.”

“Well, it may be okay with you, but not with me,” he declared.

I realized that my being so pigheaded was upsetting to him, which didn't make me proud of my behavior.

“You win, Coleman. Now, how are we going to do this?”

“You're not doing anything,” he said, and laughed. He lifted the table, carrying it in front of him like a medieval shield. After much moving around, my new worktable was placed before the windows. Now I can sit and look out at the gardens and fields. And sometimes, since I lead such a quiet life, I can see red fox, and deer.

 

On Saturday, I met my mother in her room at eight o'clock sharp. “Would you like to have a seat?” she asked.

“Ma, you sit on the chair, I'll sit on the bed.”

I was still reeling from the hasty departure from Berlin; from the close calls we had with the Nazis; from observing such horrific violence; from my mother's nasty response to Leon and his family; from the long and treacherous train ride to Paris. And, most importantly, I now understood that she had pulled her spitting act to divert my attention away from Leon—to destroy my chance for love.

“So,” she asked, “are we going to have a six-gun shoot-out?” Her hands were fidgeting on her lap. “I'm ready if you are.”

I'd been rehearsing what to say. Among the many stinging lines I had come up with were: Do you know that you're the most selfish, narcissistic person I've ever known? Do you know that I gave up the love of my life for you? And do you understand that you don't deserve my loyalty? Here I was, a grown woman conjuring up the ugliest barbs, the most poisonous rebuttals. A litany of grievances. But I had to ask myself what good could come of a geyser of rage.

“The truth is,” my mother said, “I don't want a shoot-out. I'm craving peace and quiet. I really don't want to be bothered by family matters.”

Ah. In the end, I'm just a “family matter,” I thought with wry amusement. My mother was secretly hoping for a reprieve. Although I felt gagged with anger, I made a conscious decision to give it to her. I was terrified of saying out loud what I was feeling, because those words, once said, could never be taken back.

 

We lived at opposite ends of the city. I was still at the Hôtel Espoir in the Latin Quarter, and she found a small apartment only two minutes away from the Bois de Boulogne, on the edge of the city in the sixteenth arrondissement. At least I wouldn't run into her on the street.

What a mess, I thought. I've come across the sea to live my own life, and what happens? My mother moves here. It's ridiculous.

As agreed, we stayed in our separate corners of the city. I pretended that my mother wasn't there. But I knew through the embassy grapevine that she had begun to establish acquaintances. She was invited to their functions, introduced as ‘our brave American, Miriam Manon, from the vast state of Nevada'–who had escaped from Berlin at the last moment–by the skin of her teeth.

“How's your mother?” Richard asked one night.

“I don't know. I'm assuming she's well. I've heard from people at the embassy that she's been doing watercolor and pencil drawings of the wildflowers of the American West. Clancy bought an entire suite for his office, so the news quickly got around the American community that it was chic to purchase her drawings. Happily, I think she's too busy to cause trouble.”

But even though I felt that I had my mother in an emotionally safer place, my anxiety was intensifying. What had happened to Leon? I had not heard a word.

 

My room at the Hôtel Espoir was a crowded and noisy haven for Richard's family. As many of the old tenants had left, having been arrested or moved to a different country, it wasn't difficult for me to find another room. Because it was only two doors down, I decided to take Andy's. I replaced his smelly bed and cigarette-scarred table with furniture from other vacated rooms, but took possession of his abandoned books. He had three different editions of
The Iliad
; volumes of pre–Great War poetry; many of the Balzac and Zola novels; a frayed edition of Goethe; and a dog-eared copy of our much-discussed and debated Freud. When I opened the Freud, I found it filled with handwritten notations. Andy's handwriting was crabbed and hard to read, but I had always been able to decipher it. I wished I had not opened it. It was like entering a tumultuous, ugly scream. But read I did. Poor man, he suffered far more than I ever imagined. I was struck by my friend's intellect, his complex neuroses, and the power of his sexual fantasy. Andy's imaginary world had been filled with a passion for words and for redheaded women. I was surprised at how much I missed him. We had lost the loves of our lives for different reasons, but I suspected that our pain was buried in the same place.

In my old room, Daria moved things around, trying to give the family a sense of space. We created a ritual. Each morning the children would open the windows and loudly wish Madame Canari ‘Bonjour
.”
And Madame Canari would shout “Good morning” in English, and everyone would laugh.

Daria taught the children from nine in the morning until noon, and then again from four until six. The routine clearly gave back to the children some of their happiness. Richard, meanwhile, sat in on jazz sets here and there, met musician friends, and talked about the old days.

‘Really, Rosie,' he reported back, ‘it's as if we're old men talking about another world. People are nervous. Some are deeply frightened. Everyone I know is either cooking up ideas so they can safely stay here, or planning an escape. I feel kind of funny around them because I'm so clear about the threat and they're pretty naïve. I'll miss you. I'll miss Paris. But I'm relieved that we're going home.'

Three months after arriving in Paris, we all boarded the train for Le Havre. I watched, yet again, the escaping passengers and the holiday passengers. There was such a deep difference between the two groups—it was almost obscene. And Daria and Richard sensed it right away. They held the children's hands, not allowing them to skip up the gangplank.

 

* * *

 

Not a word from Leon. And none of my newspaper friends could help. Indeed, most of them had left Germany and were scattered over Europe, still trying to make sense of what was happening for their respective newspapers.

Time dragged by. I felt that I was caught on the apex of a suspension bridge, and didn't know which way to go. War was certain to erupt any day. Horror stories about the treatment of Jews were escaping through the barbed wire. I had tried various Jewish émigré agencies in Paris to help me find Leon, but they were too busy. They were frantically trying to get Jews out of France. But I persisted. Each day I made the rounds of different agencies and patiently waited my turn to speak to someone. One day I'd had enough. I stood in one of the dingy offices–cracked tan or gray linoleum on the floor, scarred old furniture–and shouted at the receptionist, ‘Goddammit, can't anyone help me?'

The receptionist slowly rose, came around her desk, and stood before me. She was a small, nondescript, middle-aged woman with her gray hair pulled tightly back into a bun. Each time I had seen her, she had been wearing the same brown and black tweed suit with flat, brown-laced shoes.

“You, Madam, are one of thousands of people looking for lost family and friends. What makes you,” she said, poking me in the arm with her finger, “think your case is more important than that of the person sitting next to you?” And she pointed to a bedraggled-looking woman. “She's trying to find both of her children and her mother. Can you beat that? Now, go back to your America—your America that won't let the rest of us in. You'll be safe there. Forget here. It's over.”

“How did you know that I'm an American?”

“My dear, I was chair of the linguistics department at the University of Berlin.”

 

While I was stuck in Paris waiting for another assignment, I returned to the political desk. I also continued writing my column, now called ‘Paris Chronicle.' These short essays were not particularly newsworthy, but they addressed the individual stories of émigrés. Their attempts to escape from France to a friendlier country. Their feelings about being uprooted.
Agence France-Presse
continued to buy everything I wrote. Even the BBC Empire Service was reading my work on the radio. It was becoming apparent to me that my style of writing was changing. My eye was becoming sharper. My descriptions were clearer. My emotional responses, crisper. Losing Leon had paradoxically unleashed in me a new way of using language.

 

As it grew warmer in Paris, the days became heavier. People's anxieties were building; plans for escape were more seriously discussed. But residents were having a hard time getting up and moving out of Paris. It was a disaster, this national ennui. And I continued to search for news of Leon–but with no success.

There was no escaping the apprehension. Depression came rolling toward me like a storm. My loneliness and my fears for Leon were causing periods of insomnia. At the same time, I kept reminding myself that it wasn't just
my
world that was bleak; the entire world was suffering the same poverty of hope.

 

August. Paris was hot and muggy and empty of many of its inhabitants. The extreme heat had furled the chestnut leaves. The Seine was running, but so low that sandbars had appeared in the river. The normally luxurious grass in the parks had turned yellow. People were clustering in shady areas, sharing them with the pigeons, the ravens, and the city's cats. Even the subterranean wine bars were sweltering with damp, creeping with mold.

Every two weeks, I wrote identical letters to Leon, to Stefan, to the bartender at the Hotel Aldon, even to Gerard (without a last name, but care of Leon's address). They were always returned—most having been opened and sealed again with tape. On each envelope was written,
Nicht mehr an dieser Adresse
, No longer at this address, in formal handwriting. Each of my letters said the same thing:
Please be so kind as to send me news of Leon Wolff. Thank you. Rose Manon, c/o
The Paris Courier
, rue de Berri, Paris.
While the efficiency of the German bureaucracy amazed me, it made me furious that the bureaucrats were aggravating my own helplessness.

 

“Mr. Ramsey, I want to be reassigned. Being in Paris isn't where I can do the paper the most good.”

“Well, how about China?” he said.

“No, too far. How about making me a roving correspondent?” I asked. “I could follow trouble. You could send me anywhere at a moment's notice.”

Ramsey shook his head and lit a cigar. “Well, that's all well and good, kid, but now that you're known as a Jew, that leaves out Germany, Poland—”

“Yeah, I know what it could leave out. But look at it this way: I don't have a family. I don't have roots anywhere in Europe. I can move around easily. My American passport doesn't have a Jewish stamp. My last name isn't a Jewish one. And ‘glamour' isn't a word that's attached to my lapel.”

“I'll cable New York,” he said, “but you'll most likely have to wait until the Vosberg circus is over.”

I reminded him, “We are going to get into that same ethical question again.”

‘Pete will cover it with you, like before,' Ramsey said. ‘It's your cousin, after all. Anyway, the ethical question doesn't matter anymore. We'll be at war soon.'

 

* * *

 

The start of the Vosberg trial created a commotion. There were reporters from the largest newspapers, along with famous writers from most European countries, the United States, and Great Britain. I was startled when I saw Colette arrive outside the court in a sleek black car. The chauffeur got out and opened her door, and there she was in all her splendor. For me, even though I had met her a number of times, seeing Colette was like seeing Greta Garbo and Edith Piaf all in one.