Benjamin's Crossing Read online

  I gave him a letter for Hans, with my address. It was written in code, of course, with a false name that he would recognize. A lot of letters were being passed among the refugee community this way, and it proved an efficient system. I sent messages to a dozen people over the next day or so, and before long I received another confirmation that Hans was alive.

  The note came from my brother, himself a refugee, within a matter of days. “Your husband was seen on a bicycle between Limoges and Montauban,” he wrote in his straight up-and-down hand. It was enough.

  The decision now rested on when, not if, we should move, and in what direction. A trickle of refugees had started in early summer and swollen to a great river by mid-July, yet before we actually joined this conduit of human misery and fear, we thought it wise to test the waters. One morning Paulette and I hitched a ride into the countryside with two young men who were driving a military supply truck. They quizzed us about our origins.

  “So you’re from the north?” the driver asked.

  “From Belgium,” I said.

  “Where in Belgium? My cousin lives there.”

  He knew we were lying, but I decided to play along. I mentioned a town, trying to seem casual about it.

  “Ah, that’s where my cousin lives. Do you know the gas station across from the town hall?” His friend grinned ear to ear. They were cleverly attempting to catch us out.

  “You are not very nice to us,” I said, with a scolding air whose underside was coyness. “Is this any way to treat the wives of prisoners of war?”

  To my surprise, this little ploy worked; their grins evaporated, and the conversation ended. We continued on in what felt like embarrassed silence, but this was preferable to talking with these louts.

  It was a dewy morning, with sunlight glazing the hay, the long fields rich and deep in grain. Drab tents were pitched in the fields, and cots were lined up in rows outside them. Most of the soldiers slept out under the stars, by preference. There was maybe something comforting about the stars, whose pinpoint legends never change, despite the vagaries of life on earth. Alfred had talked a lot about the comforts of nature in time of war, and I understood this now. So much is already given, and it cannot be taken away.

  We got out at Tarbes, near a crossroad that had become a meeting place for refugees and so a good place to find out about our husbands. I milled about, trying to discover if anyone had seen or heard anything about Hans. I was by now desperate for each morsel, which I devoured greedily. We heard fresh reports of the exodus from Paris, of millions caught in the stream of history and swept southward, with human rivulets cutting into the landscape. Everyone was trying to get out of France, but there were few escape routes left. No one doubted that even these would close soon.

  I struck up a conversation with a dashing French officer who was standing by an expensive Italian car. He seemed to like me, so I asked for a lift.

  With an easy smile, he said, “Come on, both of you.”

  We set off from Tarbes in high style, Paulette and I luxuriating in the red leather seats. It seemed utterly safe to be riding with an officer in such a fine car. The refugees trudging along the road looked at us anxiously as we passed, and one or two of them waved mechanically. In well-bred people, the social forms will survive long after their content has been drained of meaning. On the other hand, it was smart to wave at everyone, friend or enemy. Hedging one’s bet was a good habit to acquire in wartime.

  We came to a bridge not three miles from the city, and my stomach clenched when I saw a military blockade. This is it, I said to myself. We stopped, and the guard came over and asked for the officer’s papers.

  “You must turn back, sir,” the guard said, having examined the papers. “We have strict orders. No one may pass.”

  “I am passing,” the officer said.

  “Please, sir. I have my orders.” He glanced warily at the two of us in the back seat. “I have orders to shoot,” he added, lowering his rifle in a threatening way.

  The officer suddenly drew a revolver and pointed it straight at the guard. “I will cross the bridge,” he said.

  The guard stepped back slightly, and our car zoomed forward.

  Half expecting shots to be fired into the back windshield, I ducked my head. But no, we were going to be all right, once again. Another miracle had saved us.

  Some miles from Pontacq the officer dropped us off when the road divided. “Please, ladies,” he said, “all you need do is cut through that field. You’ll arrive in Pontacq within the hour.”

  We thanked him and began our walk through a field of cornflowers. Bees zummed by our ears and butterflies scattered in our wake. At the edge of a pond, where we stopped to drink, a woman about my age was sitting beneath a large oak, reading a book in German. When my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw it was Hannah Arendt, whom I’d met several times before in Paris. She had studied in Germany at several universities and was said to be brilliant.

  After hearing a brief account of her wanderings over the past few months, I invited her to come back to Pontacq with us.

  “I think it’s safer to travel alone,” she said. “In any case, I prefer it.”

  I tried to persuade her to join us, but she was adamant. So we left her there, reading in the shade of that spreading oak, her face dappled by shadows. It was one of those peculiar meetings that stays with you in memory.

  Der Alte’s frantic desire to go to Lourdes swayed us, and we decided to accompany him. As Arendt said, it was less conspicuous to travel singly or in pairs, so Paulette and I decided to hang back for a few days. We would meet der Alte and Alfred in the city’s main square at a prearranged time. Staying in Pontacq, however comfortable, was not a permanent solution, since the Germans were definitely coming. Nobody doubted this now.

  * * *

  —

  We entered Lourdes on the handlebars of two bicycles, having been picked up on the outskirts of the city by two benevolent soldiers, who claimed we were their girlfriends. This helped whenever we encountered a checkpoint: They waved us through with a wink. Any touch of romance was welcome in these dismal days.

  The city itself teemed with refugees, lost soldiers, men and women given up for dead by relatives in distant places. Paulette and I strolled arm in arm along a wide boulevard thick with people, stopping now and then to press our noses against the windows of a pastry shop.

  Every major city in France had opened a Centre d’Accueil to welcome refugees, but we had been warned to stay away from them; people without valid passports were being arrested and thrown into holding camps. The lucky ones were merely turned away, homeless, without provisions.

  As planned, we met up with Alfred, who had found a hotel room for us by tricking the authorities into giving him billeting slips. I congratulated him on his deceptiveness. We had all become such fast talkers that we thought we could get anything from anybody! If the Germans caught me, I planned to tell them I was Hitler’s cousin from Austria. I had the whole family tree outlined in my head. Why not? Who would risk killing Hitler’s cousin? Or even someone who might be Hitler’s cousin if she wasn’t lying? Was that a risk anybody in his right mind would take?

  The hotel room was glorious, with faucets that worked, a full-length mirror with a chipped but gilded frame, a bidet with a curtain around it. The beds were made up with crisp, clean linens that smelled wonderfully of soap, and there were fresh towels for everyone. One could even manage to draw a trickle of warm water from the tap!

  Luck was definitely with us, since we managed the same day to find der Alte. When he saw the hotel room, he beamed. “You see, you listen to your father,” he said, “I told you Lourdes was the place for us! I am very happy here.”

  It was all splendid, though we knew it was temporary. Even in Lourdes, one could not escape the Germans forever.

  Meanwhile, I called at the post office each
day to inquire if any mail had come for Lise Duchamps, the name I’d given to Hans for such purposes. This paid off one Saturday afternoon. A telegram had arrived, saying Hans awaited me at Mountauban. It was signed with a false name and addressed to General Delivery.

  My sense was that now we must get to Marseilles as soon as possible. This was the only place where one could hope to find passage to America or Cuba or somewhere far from the black dogs of Europe barking at our heels. I wrote explaining this to Hans, and set about getting us railway tickets to Marseilles. I told him to meet us in Toulouse, though such a rendezvous was predicated on our having acquired a certificate of safe conduct. These were currently available, I was told, from the Commandant Spécial Militaire de la Gare de Lourdes, so I set off immediately to find him.

  He was a small man, clean shaven, smelling of hair tonic. Paulette and I presented ourselves, as usual, as Belgians.

  “May I see your papers, please?” he asked, adding, “I would be much obliged.” The politeness was noticeable and rare. The war had a way of stripping away the niceties, leaving a kind of jungle talk: “Give me this! Don’t take that!”

  I said, “I’m afraid they were lost in flight.”

  He looked at me with sympathy. “Have you got anything I can see?”

  I handed over our moldy certificates of release from the camp at Gurs and der Alte’s dog-eared carte d’identité.

  He looked at us with genuine sadness. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “I wish I could help. You see, I’m in charge of military transportation, nothing more.”

  Something in his voice, his hesitancy, encouraged me to press on. “Listen, mon capitaine,” I said. “You must help us. I will tell you the truth: We are running from the Nazis. We were forced to flee our homeland, and we came to France because it has always welcomed political exiles. Hitler is our enemy as much as yours.”

  The man wearily drew a stamp from his drawer and marked our papers one by one. He wrote pour marseilles in large blue letters on each page and signed his name. “This may work, but on the other hand it may not. I can’t say. In any case, you must try. Good luck to you.”

  I began to thank him, but he waved me off. “You must not insult me with your thanks. I am a citizen of France and an officer in its army. We’ve behaved so badly in this war. In fact, it is I who am in your debt.”

  I will never forget this lovely man. He was a real Frenchman, not a traitorous swine like Pétain or Weygand or Laval. He gave me courage.

  That evening I wrote to Hans to explain our plans, and we left several days later on the train for Marseilles, stopping in Toulouse well before lunch; the idea was that Hans should join us there. To my horror, he was not at the station as planned.

  I told Paulette, Alfred, and der Alte that I was not going anywhere without Hans, and they knew I meant it. They agreed to wait at the station while I made my way by train to Montauban, which was close by.

  “If you aren’t back in time for the last train,” Paulette said, “should we assume you’re not coming?” The poor girl wrung her hands.

  “Assume I’m dead,” I said, keeping a straight face.

  In Montauban, an hour or so later, I ran into an old acquaintance, the brother of a friend, who told me that Hans was living in a half-built villa in the hills to the west of the town. I set off on foot, intermittently running and walking. In my head, I kept rehearsing what might happen. It was a scene I had already played a thousand times in the theater of my mind, with a thousand different scripts.

  I turned a corner to see the villa in the near distance, a structure that recalled a Greek ruin. The owner had apparently begun the project with grandiose plans, laying out elaborate gardens and creating a paved courtyard, but the war had frightened him, or bankrupted him, and he’d run away. Hans stood on the front steps, his arms crossed, the walls of the villa roofless but brilliant.

  The reunion plays itself out in memory like a series of time-lapse photographs: Lisa running, knees high, head back, tense. Hans, eyes fixed, white eyes, burning. Sun-glazed walls, long cypress trees. Lisa’s head on his chest, crying. Hans folding arms around Lisa. Big hands on shoulder blades. Big hands on sides of face. Lisa and Hans, kissing. Lisa crying. Hans laughing, looking over her shoulder at the camera.

  A long time passed before I remembered how angry I was. “Why didn’t you meet us as planned? We all could be in Marseilles by now!”

  He had a good explanation, of course. I’d almost forgotten how nimble he was with words. He needed a few more days to acquire a safe-conduct pass, and in any case, he wasn’t at all sure that going to Marseilles was the right plan. Everyone was going to Marseilles, even the Germans. Shouldn’t we lose ourselves in the countryside? France was a big country, and the French peasants were hiding refugees rather well in lofts, in cellars. One could also disappear into the woods and live like primitives: eating roots, hunting small animals, drinking rainwater. Notions tumbled from his lips, played off the cracked smile.

  “Why didn’t you write to me with your objections?” I asked. “This is holding everybody up.”

  “There wasn’t time.” He stood back, offended. “You’re so bossy, Lisa. You just issued a command for me to appear in Toulouse. It’s not so easy.”

  I should have guessed that Hans would not be told what to do. It wasn’t his way. You would think I hadn’t lived with him long enough to know this.

  It also must be said that Hans had a good point. Rumor had it they were arresting people right off the train in Marseilles. Without the right papers, they would simply turn us over.

  I saw at once that we must stop Paulette, Alfred, and der Alte, who would be boarding the last train for Marseilles at five p.m. It was already three-thirty, so we didn’t have time to chat. “Let’s go!” I shrieked, grabbing his arm.

  “Where?”

  “Don’t ask questions! Hurry!”

  After a breakneck journey, we arrived in Toulouse with ten minutes to spare.

  “Get on the train, anywhere!” Paulette shouted, her head sticking out the window. “It leaves any moment!”

  I explained quickly that we must not go to Marseilles.

  “If I believed every rumor I heard, I’d do nothing. I would die on the spot,” said der Alte. “I am going to Marseilles.” Despite this declaration of independence, he stayed with us. At this point in the war, he’d had enough of striking out by himself.

  We went straight back to Montauban, to the villa. It was idyllic there: a camp with nobody to bother us. We got provisions from the town, and the weather was perfect: warm but not sweltering, rainless. I didn’t mind sleeping out under the stars, and there were flowers blooming everywhere. The natural world seemed wonderfully ignorant of the war.

  A week later, news spread that the inspection of trains coming into Marseilles had become lax again, so we decided to move while movement was possible. Hans, in particular, was eager to get back in touch with the anti-fascist elements of the emigration. And der Alte was champing at the bit, sure that the Nazis were just over the hilltop behind the villa. “If we sit here, we are dead, kaput,” he said. “They will shoot us on sight.” Alfred, too, was afraid to stay any longer. Only Paulette seemed reluctant to risk the venture. “It is so quiet here, so peaceful,” she said wistfully. “I don’t want to go anywhere, not again. I want to stay.”

  “You can’t stay,” I said. “They will kill you if you do.”

  Paulette sighed. “I wish, Lisa, you were not always so goddamned reasonable. It is boring.”

  The journey into Marseilles was uneventful, but as the train approached the station everyone grew tense and silent. We had agreed beforehand to separate upon disembarkation, so as not to draw attention to ourselves.

  “Let me go first,” said Hans.

  “No, I will go first,” der Alte insisted, pulling his suitcase from the luggage rack overhead. “
Old men are perfectly useless.”

  We knew there was no point in arguing with him—that would only attract stares. Nervously, we followed him with our eyes as he stepped onto the platform, adjusted his tie, and began to walk toward the gate. Within moments, he was approached by two policemen, who asked him to produce his papers.

  “Nix comprend, nix parle!” he shouted.

  He was arrested on the spot, but with amazing presence of mind he did not look over his shoulder as they led him away.

  Paulette settled back into her seat, trembling. She was convinced that she would never see der Alte again, but Hans and Alfred reassured her. “They will take him to the station, then to a staging point for refugees. I will get him back,” Hans said with his usual authority. One simply believed him when he said these things, and it certainly reassured Paulette.

  Der Alte had, in effect, created a distraction. The rest of us passed through the station as if invisible. Aware that hotel rooms were impossible to find, we went straight to Belle de Mai, a school where refugees were encamped in the high-ceilinged auditorium. There, no papers were required, no questions asked. It was unspeakable in every other way, however, with few sanitary facilities, no fresh drinking water.

  “The good side is there are no rats,” I said to Hans, who had insisted we come here.

  “Even rats have a little dignity,” Hans replied.

  Everyone at Belle de Mai had the same wish: to get out of Marseilles as soon as possible—to Portugal, Casablanca, Cuba, Santo Domingo, even China. One heard outlandish stories of escape, a fair portion of which I dismissed as dangerous fiction. I consistently argued that we must bide our time and await the right opportunity.

  The days grew steadily hotter and more miserable. Hans and Alfred searched, without luck, for der Alte. Paulette fretted, making us all frantic, while I stood in line at the Spanish embassy, hoping to acquire exit visas from France. Rumors of a German invasion of Marseilles spread like a late-summer grass fire among the refugees, putting even more pressure on everyone to get out.