Last Train to Paris (13 page)

The next morning, I called Ramsey from the café and told him that I was ill and staying in bed.

I went to the morgue.

When I had seen Stella in Brooklyn, I had thought her too dramatic and talkative. She was charmingly petite and had flitted around like a bird. But I had liked her curiosity and appreciated all the questions she had asked about moving to Paris, although at moments I did grow weary of her intensity. She had wanted to see everything, go everywhere; live in London, live in Rome. Now she was going home forever.

Stella was in a plain pine coffin. There were no formalities. She was waiting on the loading dock. Her name was handwritten on a torn scrap of brown paper and taped to the side. I drove to Cherbourg in the cab of a transport truck and could hear Stella's coffin rattling in the back. When we arrived, the truck turned and backed up to the edge of the quay. Six men, rather than the eight needed for Andy, lifted her coffin and began to move up the ramp. I walked alongside as she was carefully stowed into the hold. All the ship's longshoremen had stopped what they were doing and stood silently, holding their caps across their chests. They waited until I turned around and walked down the plank.

 

By the time I arrived back in Paris, the weather had turned dismal and my mood matched it. I spent Christmas alone and then refused to join my colleagues for their annual twenty-four-hour drunken New Year's Eve celebration. I mourned both Stella and Andy.

On New Year's Eve, Mr. Hin came to my room with a bottle of wine and a book of his poems. As soon as we turned on Radio Paris
,
we heard the announcement that a decree had been issued by the Reich: Jews were now purged from the German economy.

“It's getting worse and worse, Mr. Hin,” I said. “How can one celebrate at a time like this? All I see happening in the new year is war.”

“This is true, Rosie. But let's try to be happy tonight. Now here's a toast:
“Vive la France, et ses pommes de terre frites!”
Long live France and her fried potatoes!

And I replied: “
Vive l'Amerique et le chauffage central!
” Long live America and central heating! And we laughed.

“Now,” Mr. Hin said, “I will read you a few poems that were written in a better time—we will drink some more wine—and then we'll listen to a special broadcast: Sibelius conducting his own composition,
Andante Festivo,
on the BBC
.
”

 

On January 2, I returned to the newsroom. “I've just got word,” Ramsey said, “that Aurora Sand, the granddaughter of the novelist George Sand, is a graphologist. She's been asked by the court to examine Vosberg's handwriting. And, this is a quote, ‘to see if she can find clues to his nature.' You need to interview her.”

I made an appointment with Madame Sand for the next afternoon. I have to admit that I was nervous, feeling as if I were walking into sacrosanct territory. George Sand was a literary heroine of mine. I'd read most of her books, both in French and the translations into English.

 

The only person I've ever known who has read
La Petite Fadette
by George Sand was Mr. Hin. We used to laugh about how sentimental we both were—convinced that this was why we were such good friends.
Fadette
is an obscure novel that still makes me teary when I read it, after seventy years. Primarily, the tale is about found, lost, and found-again love. Reminding me of Leon, losing Leon, and finding him again. I remembered reading it that New Year's Day in 1938.

 

Madame Aurora Lauth-Sand was seventy-three years old and still a beauty. She was far more fragile than her mother and grandmother. And unlike her female relatives, she had features that were graceful, rather than coarse. A practicing graphologist for many years, she was hired by the investigating magistrate.

“Come, sit beside me, dear
,
and have some of this lovely rose tea.”

Everything about her was so delicate that I felt like a gorilla. I kept saying, “Excuse me,” for I persisted in bumping into Madame Sand's arm, or her silk-covered leg, or the Chinese-red and gold tasseled damask pillow she was hugging. I finally folded my hands on my lap to keep from fidgeting.

“So, Madame,” I asked, “can you tell me what you think about Vosberg's handwriting?”

“Oh, no, my dear, it's too early. It wouldn't be right.”

“Well,” I said, “I do understand a tiny bit about handwriting and I've seen two of his letters.”

“Then we are equal,” she said, smiling slyly. “What do you deduce?”

“I have to admit,” I said, “that last night, before I came to see you, I went to the library. I tried to read Michon's
Système de graphologie
—so I have a thin understanding of what you do. I do remember that he said, ‘Show me a “t” crossed by the pen of a man and I'll tell you the intimate nature of his soul.'”

Madame Sand grinned. “And what else do you remember?”

“It was hard going, reading a technical book in French,” I said, “but I do remember more about the ‘t's. The writer said that people who don't cross their ‘t's are without will. People who are indecisive bring the line only halfway up to the vertical mark. And people with strong opinions cross their ‘t's with a flourish. And the last one I remember is that dictatorial-type people cross their ‘t's above the vertical line. Michon wrote that women cross their ‘t's delicately, with barely a whisper—and I don't at all agree with that. My mother crosses her ‘t's in the middle with a flourish!”

“Your mother sounds interesting,” Madame Sand said. “I would like to meet her.”

“No,” I replied, “it's best that she remain in America.”

Madame Sand laughed. “She sounds like my grandmother!”

 

Dear Rosie: Poor Stella. It's hard to believe it's over. After services at the synagogue, we walked to the West End Funeral Chapel for her funeral. I wish you could have been here—it was a beautiful service. Please come home. I don't want to lose another beloved relative. Love, Clara

 

“There's nothing more for you to do in Paris,” Ramsey said. “It'll be about a year before the trial begins. You've been reassigned to Berlin.”

“You know I don't want to cover the trial,” I said. “You'll have to assign someone else.”

“We'll see,” Ramsey said. “Never can tell. Maybe the Nazis will have captured Paris by then, and Vosberg, our ‘handsome devil,' as people are calling him, will have become a general!”

 

As I promised the consul, Clancy, I took my valise to the American Embassy to be altered. The night before I left, Miss Kovner at the embassy returned it to me. Someone had discreetly changed the lining to be able to hide papers. I tried to find the secret to the hiding place, but the only way I could see my way in was to tear the lining. I left it alone.

 

* * *

 

I returned to Berlin and was as nervous as the clattering train wheels. The dismal weather fit my disposition. It took almost three days to make the normally twelve-hour journey to the German border. The train moved at such a slow pace that I was often tempted to get off and walk beside it. We finally reached the German passport
Kontrolle,
where I nervously showed all my papers and was cleared. Once we crossed the frontier into Germany, the train was even slower. We passed many deserted, yet floodlit, railroad platforms. But when we stopped at the bigger stations, a swarm of threatening Gestapo would board and harshly demand everyone's travel documents. I remember the smell of their damp wool tunics. They moved like automatons, reminding me of wind-up tin soldiers, although far more menacing. At every stop they found one or two passengers who were suspicious and dragged them off the train. I'll never forget the smell of fear that invaded the air.

Then on the stretch between Hanover and Berlin, the train was detoured and halted at a siding. Everything was turned off. It was dark and cold, and I was grateful for my fur coat. An official came through the cars and ordered us to pull down our window shades. “It's an order,” he barked, “from the
Kommandant
.”

I watched through a gap. In an enormous rock-strewn field, sheltered on three sides by hills, troops of the Reichswehr's infantry were training. Soldiers slithered on their bellies in the cold, wet, dark night toward a make-believe enemy. Then, as if in a movie, loudspeakers blared the sounds of war: cannons, machine guns, tank artillery, screams of men and horses. I knew it was theater, but I was scared. So much elaborate preparation for death, I thought. I spent the rest of the journey longing for both Leon and the open, free, blue skies of Nevada.

 

I'm still amazed that I had the courage to take my first “journey of resistance.” I remember being much more frightened than I admitted in my notes. Even though I put on a tough face, my instincts were to head for the nearest exit to safety. Over those war years I was delegated to carry reams of confidential papers and a wide variety of verbal secrets between the two American embassies. I'm convinced that part of my good reputation as a newspaperwoman was due to my reliability. However, it cost me profound apprehension. Yes, I could be trusted. But no, I wasn't good at acting upon things that threatened my personal life.

Which reminds me of Andy Roth.

If I had gone for help on his behalf—if I had not been trustworthy and kept his secrets—maybe he would have lived a full life. After all, we were avid students of Freud, both of us interested in how, and why, we behaved the way we did. But I had thought that I understood Andy. What arrogance! It wasn't until years later that I could admit that I hardly understood him at all. Instead of us both drinking too much and wallowing in our misery, I should have insisted that he be hospitalized to dry out. Take a break from the booze. Perhaps speak to someone who could help him. I had not yet been disciplined by hardship, by grief. Now, of course, I would do it all differently.

 

Once I arrived in Berlin, I felt better. I was greeted by the sun—luminously reflecting on newly fallen snow—and fast-moving, billowing clouds. Although I had missed it that year, I liked being in Berlin at the beginning of winter. Birds, coming from the east, migrated through the city toward the west and south. The sky was almost dark with their flying bodies, and their sound in the crisp air was both melodic and out of tune.

The next day was the opposite. No sun. Soot covered the snow. Dreary.

I delivered the packet to Eva Kantor. I liked her. She was a straight shooter, even though she was from Atlanta and not the American West.

“Thanks for the papers,” she said. “Please let me know the next time you leave Germany—there's always something that needs to go back to Paris. Did they search you?”

“No, they didn't—and to tell you the truth, most of the time I forgot I had them in my case.”

She laughed. “It's most likely the reason you weren't searched. You didn't look guilty!”

 

I went to see a friend, Stefan Kluge, at his chosen office—a run-down bar on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. Stefan was a German reporter for the last liberal newspaper in Germany, the
Berliner Morgen-Zeitung
. He was often in trouble with the authorities for being a little too articulate about his views of the present government; he had chosen this bar on purpose. The Gestapo headquarters were across the street from where he sat. He could watch the comings and goings of officials, along with people being “brought” (dragged) in for “interrogation” (torture). He rarely saw them come out. With purposeful irony, he called it his
Kehlsteinhaus
, after Hitler's eagle's nest in the mountains of Berchtesgaden.

“Here,” he said, “is the spot where I'll never forget the enemy. It keeps me alert for my work.”

The “work,” I knew, included Stefan being a member of one of the many small and isolated groups of German resistance, the
Widerstand
.

“Hey, R.B.,” Stefan said. “When did you get back?”

“Just last night—what's going on in the city? It's so bleak.”

“It's your gloomy frame of mind,” Stefan said, and without missing a beat, added, “I heard that Leon threw you out.”

I felt myself turning red with embarrassment. “I don't look at it that way,” I said, “but I don't want to argue. Listen, I'm here to ask you for help. I just went to his apartment, but a Nazi officer opened the door and began to question me. I pretended not to understand German. Do you know where he is?”

“He's gone, R.B. The Nazis got him cornered.”

“Oh, no!”

“No, I don't mean that they put him in a camp or killed him—at least not yet. They're letting him stay in his apartment, but since you left, it's guarded around the clock.”

“Why?”

“Because they've added gold to his repertoire. You won't be able to visit him there any longer. You know he's engraving—”

“I know what he's engraving,” I said. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

“But,” Stefan said, “he's allowed out with permission—you can see him. That is, if he wants. We get together occasionally for a drink.”

“Will you ask him, Stefan? Will you tell him that I'll do anything, that I—”

“Take it easy, R.B. Of course, I'll get a message to him.”

“How?”

“Stop by here tomorrow evening about seven—perhaps I'll have some news.”

 

The next day, two hateful press conferences, back to back, kept me occupied. Nothing had changed. The same warmongering by the officials—the same threats to non-Aryans. Now, more than ever, I knew there would be war. And I was terrified that the Germans could win. They were well organized with their sophisticated military equipment, while the French were still using horses and cannons. And the Germans were so smug in their convictions that I felt feeble in my rage.