André turned his head against the wall. He could read the names and messages written there by others on the eve of their departure. ‘Léon Reich’. ‘Last convoy. We will be back.’ And next to his head: ‘Natalie Stern. Still in good heart.’
He broke down and fell to the floor.
Through a window on the other side of the courtyard, Hartmann and Levi were able to watch the people entering the departure staircase in the path of the searchlight fixed on the corner of the courtyard.
Levi said, ‘In the war, did you ever take part in an attack?’
‘Once.’
‘Do you remember the night before?’
The two men looked at each other.
Hartmann said, ‘When time collapses.’
Levi nodded. ‘I wish I had faith.’
‘You’re here because of your faith.’
‘My father’s faith.’
Neither spoke for a long time as they watched the last of the deportees going in. He was a man of about their age and they could hear his violent protestations. ‘I’m a Frenchman! I was decorated at Verdun! You cannot do this to me!’
‘You’re a filthy Jew like all the others.’
The door to the staircase was closed.
Hartmann looked at his watch. ‘About five hours to go.’
From the deportation staircase they could hear the beginnings of the Marseillaise, followed by a boy-scout song, ‘It’s only a short goodbye’.
Hartmann said, ‘You believe me now, don’t you?’
‘About the destination?’
‘Yes.’
‘All logic is against it.’
‘I’m a German. I’m a reasonable man.’ Levi stared into the darkness where the gendarme had turned off the searchlight. ‘I cannot permit myself such beliefs.’
André was lying on the floor when a Jewish orderly came with postcards on which the deportees might write a final message. He advised them to leave them at the station or throw them from the train as camp orders forbade access to the post. Two or three pencils that had survived the barracks search were passed round among the people in the room. Some wrote with sobbing passion, some with punctilious care, as though their safety, or at least the way in which they were remembered, depended upon their choice of words.
A woman came with a sandwich for each child to take on the journey. She also had a pail of water, round which they clustered, holding out sardine cans they passed from one to another. One of the older boys embraced her in his gratitude, but the bucket was soon empty.
When she was gone, there were only the small hours of the night to go through. André was lying on the straw, the soft bloom of his cheek laid, uncaring, in the dung. Jacob’s limbs were intertwined with his for warmth.
The adults in the room sat slumped against the walls, wakeful and talking in lowered voices. Somehow, the children were spared the last hours of the wait by their ability to fall asleep where they lay, to dream of other places.
It was still the low part of the night when Hartmann and the head of another staircase came into the room with coffee. Many of the adults refused to drink because they knew it meant breakfast, and therefore the departure. The children were at the deepest moments of their sleep.
Those who drank from the half dozen cups that circulated drank in silence. Then there went through the room a sudden ripple, a quickening of muscle and nerve as a sound came to them from below: it was the noise of an engine – a familiar sound to many of them, the homely thudding of a Parisian bus.
At once the gendarmes were in the room, moving quickly and violently, as though anxious to have them gone. Cowering, the adults clasped their cases and bundles and stumbled down the dark stairs out into the courtyard, where the sudden heat of searchlights flared up from the guard posts.
Five white-and-green municipal buses had come in through the main entrance, and now stood trembling in the wired-off corner of the yard. At a long table in front of the Red Castle, the commandant of the camp himself sat with a list of names that another policeman was calling out in alphabetical order. In the place where its suburban destination was normally signalled, each bus carried the number of a wagon on the eastbound train.
Many of the children were too deeply asleep to be roused, and those who were awake refused to come down when the gendarmes were sent up to fetch them. In the filthy straw they dug in their heels and screamed. They clung to walls and floors and bits of plumbing; they held on to one another and gripped the cold steps as they were dragged out beneath the thrashing truncheons. For every sound of wood cracking on bone they screamed more loudly in their frenzy not to leave.
The gendarmes staggered down with their arms full of children, blood on their truncheons, out into the sweeping light. Some of them were sobbing as they hurled their living bundles on to the ground and turned back into the building. In the glare of the hurricane lamps at his table, the police commandant’s face was drawn with impatient anguish.
André heard his name and moved with Jacob towards the bus. From the other side of the courtyard, from windows open on the dawn, a shower of food was thrown towards them by women wailing and calling out their names, though none of the scraps reached as far as the enclosure.
André looked up, and in a chance angle of light he saw a woman’s face in which the eyes were fixed with terrible ferocity on a child beside him. Why did she stare as though she hated him? Then it came to André that she was not looking in hatred, but had kept her eyes so intensely open in order to fix the picture of her child in her mind. She was looking to remember, for ever.
He held on hard to Jacob as they mounted the platform of the bus. Some of the children were too small to manage the step up and had to be helped on by gendarmes, or pulled in by grown-ups already on board.
André’s bus was given the signal to depart, but was delayed. A baby of a few weeks was being lifted on to the back, and the gendarme needed time to work the wooden crib over the passenger rail and into the crammed interior.
Eventually, the bus roared as the driver engaged the gear and bumped slowly out through the entrance, the headlights for a moment lighting up the café opposite before the driver turned the wheel and headed for the station.
When the last bus had gone, it was daylight and the cleaners went into the departure staircase, wearing clogs with high soles.
There were people going early to work or taking their dogs to the park on the straight road to the station. They looked curiously on the small convoy of buses that rumbled past, down the broad, empty street. They saw faces pressed against glass and, where the destination should have been, a number.
At Le Bourget-Drancy station there were German soldiers as well as gendarmes. In the milling turbulence of the platform, André Duguay held on hard to his brother and the suitcase which for once he had remembered.
The soldiers prodded the throng down to a siding, where there was a line of boxcars normally used for the transportation of horses. With a screaming of German words, they pushed and herded the sullen mass towards the doors.
Commuters on the main platform looked on, while the gendarmes, who had relinquished their charges to the German soldiers, shuffled from foot to foot and looked away from the local travellers’ puzzled gaze.
Jacob could not manage the height of the boxcar and had to be lifted by an adult. The inside of the wagon was crammed with standing people of all ages. There were two buckets, one of which held water and a cup.
As André clambered up, a German soldier took his case and threw it down the platform, where it joined a pile of bags and bundles that the soldiers told them they would not be needing. A woman in the wagon who spoke German translated to the others.
André and Jacob stood among the taller people, their vision blocked by coats and legs and bulky adult hips. Then a German soldier heaved the sliding door along its runners and bolted it.
It was by now a bright morning, and André could still see a little patch of cloud through an opening in the wagon. Then, from outside, came the noise of hammering, and the last glimpse of French sky was suddenly obliterated.
‘What was all that noise in the night?’ said Charlotte to the proprietress as she settled her bill.
‘The buses. Another load of them.’ The woman counted the notes carefully on the zinc-topped bar and slid them into the cash till.
‘I see. Where do they take them?’
‘To the station.’
Charlotte squared her shoulders and breathed in deeply as she stepped out into the winter morning. She walked a short distance to a large crossroads, where she saw people waiting for a bus. A few minutes later they were on their way, the big engine throbbing, the destination clearly marked.
Charlotte had slept late, and it was almost eleven o’clock by the time the bus crossed the railway bridge and deposited the passengers at the top of the slope down to the station. The next train into Paris was not for half an hour, and she had time to telephone ‘Félix’ on the number she had memorised.
She had no idea what sort of street the rue Villaret de Joyeuse was, though, being in the seventeenth arrondissement, on the western outskirts, it was likely to be filled with large semi-suburban apartment blocks rather than small cafés and cobbled yards. Félix agreed to be there at four in the afternoon to meet her, and Charlotte strolled out through the booking hall and on to the platform.
As she walked up and down, she glanced over to a siding, where she noticed a large number of apparently abandoned suitcases and bundles. After checking to see if anyone was watching her, she walked over to inspect them.
The contents of the bags had spilled on to the platform. They were mostly old clothes, filthy or torn, odd shoes and the occasional child’s toy. Charlotte wondered if they had been rejected by their owners on some hygienic grounds: perhaps this was a rubbish dump waiting to be cleared. Then her eye was caught by something white that stuck out from under a grey woollen jacket. It was a bundle of unposted letters and cards.
Making sure once more that no one was watching her, Charlotte stooped down on the platform and picked them up.
Some were composed and thoughtful. Some were mere scribbles: ‘My dear parents, they’re taking us to work in Germany. I hope I will see you again soon’; ‘To whoever finds this card. Please, please post it to the right address, to my old Mayor who can save me.’
Others seemed heavy with knowledge. ‘We are being taken to the east. I embrace you, dear parents, with all my heart. Goodbye for ever.’
Charlotte put the little bundle in her pocket and stood up. Towards the end of the pile was a small suitcase with brass locks, canted over to one side, its mouth gaping. Inside was a soiled pair of boy’s shorts. Between the locks, on the front, a leather label that was glued to the case bore the word ‘CARITEAU’.
On the train, Charlotte found a compartment to herself, in which she looked at the letters. She did not like to read their contents too closely, but there was one she returned to twice, despite herself.
It was written in a sloping, educated hand, in blotted pale blue ink, with no crossings-out or corrections. It was the letter of a man to his daughter. The handwriting suggested someone in middle age, and the girl must have been in her late teens or older, to judge from the tone her father had chosen.
They allowed us some post last week and I was delighted to receive your card and to know that you and Maman are in good health. I too am extremely well and in excellent spirits. Alas, I am to be deported in the morning by train to a destination as yet unknown. I am going with plenty of old friends from Paris and I am very much hoping that I’ll find Charles and Léonore at the other end.
Please look after yourself, my little squirrel. That is the best thing you can do for me today and every day. Don’t worry about me, think only of yourself: eat well – as well as you can! – keep your clothes clean, make yourself pretty and work hard for Maman and for yourself. The sweetest joy of my life was buying little things for you when you were younger. How I loved your solemn face, the way, when you were tired, your laughter hovered on the brink of tears; above all, the way you loved me as only a little girl can, with no resentment or fear of me and such trust.
I will return in good health, quite soon, I think. Even if this letter does not reach you – the orderly was unsure of the facilities for posting – I hope my previous letter has got there. Please keep the photograph of me as a souvenir until such time as you see me again.
Look after yourself, my darling little girl. I am not lost; I will return. I embrace you with all my heart.
Charlotte put down the letter. ‘No resentment or fear of me.’ Were fear and resentment the normal emotions between a daughter and her father? ‘Such trust . . .’ She was touched by the unknown man’s tenderness. She had not imagined fathers to feel such vulnerability or to rely on their daughters for comfort.
From the Métro station Argentine, Charlotte emerged into the wide spaces of the Avenue de la Grande Armée. It was only a few steps to a triangle of street-ends, from which the rue Villaret de Joyeuse led gently downhill.
The door of the building was open, and Charlotte proceeded cautiously over the scarlet carpet of the hall. In front of her was a lift, with broad stone stairs to the left. She needed only to climb half a flight to reach a glass door with the name of a company printed in black. She pressed the lower bell, as instructed, and a few seconds later the door was opened by a plump, fair-haired man with a brightly coloured cravat. He ushered her across a gloomy vestibule and through the front door of a dark apartment with low ceilings. He showed her to a hard, upholstered chair in the sitting room, then went down the corridor and returned with a bottle of brandy and two glasses.
‘Chin-chin, Danièle.’ He sounded English.
‘Yes . . . Chin-chin.’
A white Persian cat slunk into the room and rubbed itself against Félix’s legs.
‘So. How did you manage to get up here?’
‘Trains. Buses. I’ve done a lot of travelling. Are you English?’
‘Yes, but my dear Mama was French. I have a little shop in the Place des Ternes. It’s a perfect front.’
‘And can you help with transport?’
‘Stop it, Marat! He’s scratched all the furniture and it’s not my flat. As a matter of fact, you’re in luck. On Wednesday night, weather permitting, a Lysander is leaving from a field near Rouen. I’ve been in touch and they’ve got room for a small one.’
‘How will I get there?’
‘I can arrange everything. You look awfully tired.’
‘Tired? Do I?’
‘Yes. A lot of people who pass through here look the same way. They’ve been active for several weeks and I think they’ve got used to being short of sleep. I notice these things, though.’
Charlotte thought guiltily of her late start that morning, and how she had missed the departure of the buses from Drancy. Yet Félix was right. Now that she sat in this domestic room, each spare surface of which was covered with small ornaments, she felt an ache in her arms and back, while her legs felt almost boneless with fatigue.
Félix stood up and pushed the cat away. ‘I expect you’d like a rest. Then this evening I’ll find you some nice dinner. You’re hungry, I expect, aren’t you?’
Charlotte nodded. Speech seemed suddenly beyond her. Félix led her down a dark corridor, and opened a door on the left. It was a large shadowy room with a huge oak desk, a narrow window hung with net curtains and a low bed with a tasselled cover. ‘Will you please take care of these?’ she said, handing him the bundle of letters and cards from the train. ‘Perhaps you could post them.’
‘I’ll call you later,’ said Félix as he shut the door, the letters in his hand.
Charlotte lay down and closed her eyes.
André Duguay was standing in the darkness. Three hours in the truck, and still the train had not moved. Some people were still talking; an old woman was moaning her prayers.
The wheels ground suddenly on the track, and they were thrown against one another. The full pail of water had been drunk, and the empty one was already full of waste, which slopped beneath their feet as the train jerked forward.
Jacob had slumped to the wooden plank floor, through whose narrow gaps he could see slivers of French ground.
The hours would not pass. High up there was a small slit in the wall of the boxcar. A tall man stood by it and told them what he could see. ‘Epernay,’ he said, when the train had pulled into a station, and another man began to weep, as though with longing for the lost associations of the name.
Although it was winter outside, the air was rank. When it grew dark the train stood motionless for many hours. The slit man said there was no light. They seemed lost in a night without direction.
André had fallen against other children. They leaned on one another, half sleeping, with no room to lie down. A man near him was thrusting himself at a woman. She had lifted her skirt and moaned when he pushed.
The old woman was still muttering in Hebrew; sometimes she sang with a wailing voice that sounded to André very foreign, from a strange, far-off land.
I will see Maman, thought André; when I get there, I will see Maman.
‘Metz,’ said the slit man. Each time the train stopped, there was a beat of hope. A destination, any place on earth, was better than being lost in the bottomless night. The doors were thrown back and they saw a snowy countryside. A German soldier was shouting at them and a woman translated.
‘If anyone tries to escape he will be shot. If anyone has died, throw out the body.’
They begged him for water. Even a handful of snow.
The old woman was almost mad. The doors were closed again. The stretched hours would not amount to days; there was no sense of time passing, though by now it was the second night. Someone had died in their wagon, and the others were edging away from the body.
André held Jacob in his arms.
There was another stop. The slit man said they were at a station with a German name. ‘There are ordinary people. It’s morning. They’re going to work. They’re staring at our train.’
They moved on again into another day. André held tight to hope. His life had been ordered properly: bad things did not happen. If he could believe strongly enough in the normal world that he inhabited, it would return.
The stench of the boxcar was making him feel sick. He had almost forgotten the darkness. They went through fatigue and its boundaries so many times that they were beyond exhaustion.
It was deep night. The train stopped.
The slit man said, ‘There’s no town, only fields. This is it. We’re there.’
There was elation: at last they had arrived. Then some smoke came through the slit, a pungent smoke.
‘There’s a long platform. Hundreds of people. German soldiers. There are dogs. It’s very bright, there are searchlights. There are people in striped uniforms. They must be the workers. They’re unpacking the wagons. Hey!’ In German, the slit man called out, ‘What happens here?’
‘What do they say, what do they say?’
A sweep of light came through the narrow grille as the slit man turned back into the packed wagon. ‘One went like this.’ He ran his index finger like a knife across his throat. ‘And one went like this.’ He made a twisting gesture with his fingers that, to André, conjured rising smoke.
With a scream of metal runners, the doors were pulled back and the wagon was filled with light. ‘’Raus, ’raus, alles ’raus!’ There were men shouting. There were dogs howling.
André held Jacob as they stumbled forward. Two dead men were on the step. Someone helped the boys down.
‘Say you’re older than you are.’
‘Say you’re younger than you are.’
A huge dog was tearing at its chain. It was the closest thing André could see to a world he had lost. He forgot his parents’ firm instructions and made to stroke it.
He was pushed away by a man in stripes. His wooden clogs went clacking up and down the ramp. The striped men were hunched and hurrying; they would not look at you. Their faces were tight on their bones.
André saw a tall woman with fair hair. She was like his mother: he would follow her. ‘Come on, Jacob.’
Up ahead, from a remote, high building, they saw flames pouring into the black sky, and there was this burning, melting smell. Was it the rails, hot beneath the iron wheels? It seemed too rich.
Shuffling up the platform, André made his effort of belief. From his memories of being alive, from the trust of normality and in his parents’ world, he tried to dredge up faith. That certainty was invincible; no hell could overcome it. He would see his mother.
The people were dividing. The fair-haired woman was pushed one way, and André saw her child steered into another line. The woman screamed at the man in uniform. He merely shrugged and pushed her, too, into the line of children. André was pleased. He would be with her.
The dogs were leaping at him, but he held Jacob hard. They were coming to a tall man who stood on the platform with a stick, like a man doing music.
He moved his baton gently, inclined his head, gazing with wise eyes on those in front of him, directing them this way or that. He was like the doctor in Drancy, who tapped the children’s chests and made them better with his touch.
André had trust in the man; but when their time came he barely glanced at the Duguay boys.
Now they were in a line of children and old people. They were climbing into lorries.
André was at the back. They went past a long ditch in which ragged flames were rising. From a tipped lorry, what looked to André like giant dolls with broken limbs were being poured into the trench.
They stopped at two whitewashed farmhouses with thatched roofs. The lorry’s headlights showed up pretty fruit trees.
Now they were naked. It was very cold in this room. Jacob took André’s hand and found that there was already something in it – a tin soldier.
André kissed Jacob’s shorn head, the stubble tender on his lips.
There was another room, another door, with bolts and rubber seals, over whose threshold the two boys, among many others, went through icy air, and disappeared.