The Siren of Paris (11 page)

The two officers returned to the bridge after their inspection, each wearing a life jacket.

“Take those off. You are going to frighten the passengers,” the captain barked as he emerged from the navigation room.

“We thought you ordered it.” The officers looked at one another and then back at the captain. “They told us we have seen a U-boat.” The captain’s face turned red with a grimace and expression of disgust. He took a few deep breaths and then took the microphone. “Request permission to leave now. U-boat.” He then looked out over the bridge and started to walk back to the navigation room but stopped. He turned and picked up his pace toward the radio room.

“Yes, that is correct. Can you advise us how much longer?” the radio room officer said to the British officer on the other end. Just then, the captain took the transmitter from his hand and hit the button.

“Five minutes more. Starting engines in five minutes. We have a U-boat in the area,” and then silence.

“Sir, there is no U-boat. I have not been advised of any U—” Then the sound stopped as the captain hit the mic again.

“You can keep the fucking mail. We don’t need it if you are going to let us take a hit like some goddamn sitting duck,” followed by total silence on the other end.

“Over on the port side,” one passenger said to another.

“Really?” the man asked the other man passing to the starboard deck.

“I saw it myself, just missed us,” the woman said with a confident snort.

“Do you think …?” Margarette looked up at David.

“Think what?”

“Well, that there really is a U-boat.”

“Probably not,” David said, glancing back and forth over the passengers, “but I have to believe there must have been something. Otherwise, the crew would be calming everyone down.”

Robert held Maji’s hand, and the Puddle-ducks of
The
Tale of Tom Kitten
rested face down on the cot, alone in the lounge.

June 3, 1940
Paris, France

M
arc decided to walk home instead of taking the Metro. He approached one of the main boulevards that led from the east train station. All along the road, people carried whatever baggage they could manage. A few were injured. Marc stood on the side of the street and watched as they passed. At first he was going to cross over, but then decided to join the crowd and walk for a bit.

He knew after a few moments where they were going. He could overhear them speaking among themselves in French or Dutch. After crossing the Seine, and walking a few more blocks, Marc briefly lost track of time. It had not been long, maybe only twenty minutes or so.

The crowds grew denser. There was less room to walk on the sidewalks or even the street. In another block, he could see the façade of the station in front of him. He did not walk any further, and instead turned around.

He walked against the crowds coming down the street, turning his back to the south train station with a horde of people before it. A herd of goats being led by a peasant farmer did not faze him, because livestock had now become common in Paris.

After another thirty or so minutes, he stood in the street below his apartment. Bricks crushed a car on the other side of the street. People took what they could from the building. Marc stood in shock, as he looked directly up into the parlor room of his fourth-floor flat. He made his way in through the door and up the marble staircase as others were coming down.

Marc opened the door to his apartment, and the evening breeze gently flapped the drawing he’d done of Marie back in early December. He turned over the armoire, pulled out the clothes, and packed his bags. He found the keys that Nigel and Dora had given him. The bowl’s rose-colored glass lay shattered on the floor. He stuffed the francs from Dora into his jacket.

Marc felt cold and detached as he gathered his belongings. He fully accepted the loss of the wall to the outside street below. It did not bother him at all that he was not sure where he was going to stay. He had two sets of keys, after all, for two other Parisian apartments.
They could not have got all of them,
he thought to himself.

Nothing could take his mind off the crowds at the south station. The desperate voices, the stares of the other refugees looking to flee the city, echoed in his mind. Before he left the apartment, he looked around. He saw the drawing again on the wall, and remembered with a small laugh what the instructor had said. “This is what you came to France for, Marc.”

He took a deep breath and decided to leave it on the wall, turned and made his way down the stairs, thinking of sleeping that night at the YMCA. He knew it would be crowded, but it was better than sleeping alone in an apartment if another raid should come.

June 5, 1940
Bordeaux, France

Nigel walked through the masses of men, women and children moving toward the city. He could see the Bordeaux skyline in the distance. The bus he had taken ran out of petrol five miles back. On both sides of the road, refugees plodded forward toward the city. Some pulled handcarts containing what belongings they could carry; a few had horse-drawn carriages.

People talked, but in a hushed tones, as if their voices could somehow draw down the planes. As they began to approach the outer parts of Bordeaux, the mood became somber. From time to time, a car or truck would pass, but this was rare.

Nigel crested a small hill and in front of him was a scene he was not prepared for. A truck lay on its side in a ditch. About thirty yards in front of that, two dead horses stretched across the road. Beyond the horses laid a dead farmer who appeared to be maybe fifty years old. No one spoke a word. People just kept moving toward the city. In the distance, Nigel could see a column of smoke come from south of the city and knew that meant a bombing raid.

A teenaged girl walked with her father in front of Nigel. A truck sped by in the opposite direction, just as a second truck was coming from behind Nigel and the girl. The truck swerved to miss the oncoming vehicle, and the truck’s mirror struck the girl in the back of the head.

She fell to the ground, rolling into the ditch on the side of the road. The father yelled in horror and Nigel ran to see if he could help. The father took the girl into his arms and began to rock her back and forth, yelling for anyone to help. Nigel removed his wallet first and then took off his jacket to give her a pillow. He tried to see if the girl was bleeding on the back of her head and then pulled back. The rear of her skull collapsed inward, mixed with blood and hair.

More trucks and cars passed, but none stopped. Others came running forward to see if they could help, but it was pointless. There was nothing anyone could do. Nigel felt horribly sick to his stomach and helpless as he started to walk away. The girl had died in her father’s arms, but the farmer refused to leave her on the side of the road.

June 7, 1940
Hendaye, France

The train came to a full stop. All the passengers rose at once. Dora clutched her bag tightly. The conductor yelled out, “
Gare des Deux-Jumeaux, la fin, la fin
.”

She was exhausted from the transfers since leaving the phone exchange in Vichy. Limoges, Périgueux, Bordeaux were now behind her. This was the end of France and the beginning of Spain. The tracks were different in Spain and she now needed to change trains again and go through the border crossing.

She walked quickly to the line, which was very long. She barely remembered the questions regarding her passport and travel plans. She sat for three hours on a bench, waiting for the connecting train. Once, she considered leaving to get a drink, but another hour went by and she had not moved.

The train arrived. She boarded it with the other passengers. The cars appeared nearly identical to the French, or at least inside. She clutched the armrest, focusing on her index finger. She never looked the passenger across from her in the eyes. Her lip quivered and she gazed out the window at the passing countryside.

It had been four hours now, but she could not shake it. The woman was gone. In Bordeaux, Dora boarded a direct train for the border. It was extra money, but worth it to her in order to avoid all the stops. The woman across from her had come from Tours.

“Mum, I am hungry, please,” her little ones pleaded for some food. But the woman had none left. The older sister then left the car to go buy some bread for the family while the mother waited. The boy was maybe four years old, and the little girl was five or six.

The train’s whistle blew and the car began to move forward. The woman looked frantically out the window calling, “Ranette! Ranette!” and then ran to the front of the car. She pleaded in French with the conductor to stop the train, but he said he could do nothing. She screamed Ranette’s name over and over again out the door, looking for her amongst the hectic hoard of people moving in every direction.

Passengers tried to calm her down. “You can turn around at the next station,” one suggested.

“She is old enough and she will be fine,” another man said, trying to help her see that it was not the end of the world. It was true. Her daughter was at least a teenager.

The woman sobbed relentlessly, for hours on end across from Dora. Her two children tried even to console her between their own tears. Dora held the little boy in her lap and the little girl climbed into the lap of the man sitting next to her. There would be no turning around because the train was direct to the border with no stops.

The woman would look up from time to time at the window and would murmur “Ranette,” even though it was hopeless. No one knew where her husband was. Maybe he was a soldier at the front.

Dora thought to ask where her husband was, but then didn’t, out of fear that he had been wounded or even worse. Instead, she thought about what she would do if it had been her who had lost her daughter at a train station in the middle of a war. Dora could see in the woman’s reaction far more than just a single drama of separation, but a breakdown brought about by the cumulative loss of a long, unknown journey.

Dora gave her a handkerchief and tried to comfort her. Others in the car attempted to bring some relief to this woman. Soon, the car was silent except for the click-clack of the tracks and the sobbing of this woman.

Dora clutched the armrest, holding it firm. She sank her spine against the core of the seat, to give a posture that seemed strong for the children. Dora could not let them down or break her masked belief that everything would turn out fine.

Dora was still clutching the armrest of her chair on the train leaving France behind. She focused on her breathing and her index finger held so tight to the wood, she could have drilled through it. But the woman was now gone, and Dora was in Spain. Only the landscape outside passed by. She still felt the little boy in her lap. She still saw the woman sobbing and crumpled across from her. Dora still heard her call out her daughter’s name: “Ranette!”

The train came to a stop. Passengers rose to exit the car. The conductor called out, “Madrid, Madrid.”

June 9, 1940
Paris, France

“You work at the American Embassy?” the little boy asked Marc in French.

“Yes, and my friend, Allen, over there, he works as a translator at the British Embassy,” Marc said as he pointed.

“He is the one who brought us here,” the boy then said from his position on the floor of the Paris YMCA. “That is my papa. He has a big factory that makes planes that fly in the sky,” the little boy said, pointing and then spreading his arms wide to show the size of the factory. Marc looked and noticed that the man-tall, slender, gray-haired-was speaking with Allen. Next to him was another boy of about eleven years old and another girl with long, blond curls.

“What kind of planes?” Marc asked.

“Uh, I don’t know. I am from Belgium. Where are you from?” the boy asked next.

“New York. And is this your dog?” Marc petted the golden retriever sitting next to the boy.

“Yes, this is my dog, and this is my little sister and her dog,” he said in a rather simplistic way, almost as if he were younger than his actual age.

“You have a very large family.” Marc smiled at the young girl.

Allen then looked up, and then the father. Marc heard the air raid sirens outside of the building.

“In here, now, everyone downstairs now!” Sister Clayton yelled through the room. She looked to be about thirty-five years old, wore glasses, and held a no-nonsense attitude.

Everyone stayed that night in the basement and the air raid sirens announced the arrival of another group of bombings soon after 10 p.m. Marc woke in the morning unsure of the time and found the little boy snuggled up against him.

In the morning, Marc stood half awake, while the ambassador spoke to the staff.

“Anyone who wishes to leave should do so now. I am choosing to stay on, but I do not expect this of you. Please just let me know,” he asked.

Marc wondered to himself, if I stay, I wonder if it would be safer to sleep in the basement of the embassy than at the YMCA?

“Sir, may I ask you a question?” Marc stood before the ambassador in his office. “I was wondering if you know if …”

“Marc, I have no idea. None. I don’t know at all what I am doing,” he said, going through his papers. “You know, they are going to make me mayor. They are all leaving and they are giving me the honor of mayor,” he mumbled to himself.

“Sir, I was going to ask you whether, if I need to, I could stay here, at the embassy.”

“There is nothing at all for a situation like this. It has never happened before. And all they can say in DC is leave. No one has left this post, even during the revolution. I have no idea. I am sure this is the end of my career, but I don’t care anymore. Someone has to stay and try and maintain some order.”

“Can I?” Marc asked.

“Can you what?”

“Can I stay here if I need to? My apartment has been bombed and I have been staying with the YMCA, but I might need to move soon.”