Last Train to Paris (21 page)

“She's an
AMERICAN
! Ma, say something. Tell him you're sorry,” I screamed over the din. “Tell him right now, or they'll arrest you.” But she sneered at me.

“I mean it, Ma, this is it,” I was shrieking. “They can do whatever they like with you—there's no law here that protects you!”

And like a marionette, she smiled at the blond, blue-eyed soldier and said in English, “I'm sorry. Please excuse me. I was so frightened—I'm—”

The SS man with the dog obviously didn't understand her, and yelled, “Get her.”

The dog lunged toward my mother, grabbing her bright red coat.

“No,” Mr. Greenleaf, now using his German, hollered, “let her alone. She has immunity! She's an American!”

The SS man called off his dog and my mother sank to the platform in a faint.

Stiff with rage, they each viciously kicked her. And with precision, they spun on their heels and left.

But, for me, the circumstance was horrifyingly clear. I had to take care of my mother. She wasn't moving.

Mr. Greenleaf was yelling for me to help.

The train was beginning to move.

“Rosie, I'll help you!” It was Richard.

“No, Richard,” I screamed. “Get back on, please—your family.”

“Leon. Go get him!” Richard shouted as he lifted my dead-weight mother.

But it was too late.

It was 12:03.

The train was leaving the station, precisely on schedule. Mr. Greenleaf grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the vestibule, and the door was slammed shut behind me.

The horrified look on Leon's face forever engraved itself upon my memory. The train picked up speed. I had betrayed Leon and his parents. I had sacrificed them for my mother.

I understood that my responsibility was primarily to her—but I also knew that I had broken my own heart. It was over. I had no choice. I had made a decision. The Moses family—a packet of essential papers that Eva Kantor had slipped to me—and, of course, my mother.

She had won again.

 

These memories are too much for me. I need to walk. Taking my cane, I set off down the dirt road, passing beneath an umbrella of maple and oak trees. I'm surprised at myself. I can taste bile, taste my dislike for my mother. I spit on the road and then remember how, in Brooklyn, my Aunt Clara used to spit in the gutter and embarrass me. That must be why my mother spat at the soldier—a family trait, a Russian tradition?

“This is ridiculous,” I say out loud to the air. But after all this time, I still feel despair. And after all this time, I'm still angry.

The scene at the train station is as clear to me as if it were yesterday. Tell him you're sorry! I must have been crazy. Why did I think such politeness could be heard in that mayhem? Absurd. Most likely, they heard the word “American,” and had been warned to avoid an incident. But the truth, ugly as it is, is this—she did sneer at me. And while I was trying to protect her, I was manifestly conscious of her dislike of me.

 

I had to make a determined effort to lead the apprehensive group of Americans down the corridors of the train. All I wanted to do was to fly over the heads of the scrambling hordes of people and, like the figures in a Chagall painting, soar toward the stars and Leon. I kept reminding myself to move straight ahead, not permitting myself to look to my right or my left. Each step I took forward was one step farther away from Leon.

The Moses family was lucky. They found an almost empty compartment and made room for me by putting the children on their laps. “Where's my mother?” I said.

“She found a seat in the car behind us,” Daria said. “She's fine. The passengers are tending to her. She'll be black and blue, but nothing's broken. I'm so sorry, Rosie. Is there anything I can do for you?”

No, I shook my head. The only thing I could do was weep into Daria's shoulder. And she had the good sense not to try to calm me.

Everyone in our compartment was quiet, listening to my sobbing, allowing me to be. Beside the Moses family, there was a Jewish family of four—unmistakable because the father and his two sons wore yarmulkes. The family looked frightened, but still the man offered me a swig from his flask, which I gratefully accepted. Richard soon took control and organized the group. The two big boys were told to sit on the floor, one leaning on the door into the aisle, the other against the outside wall of the carriage. Then he made small beds for Coleman and Annelie on the luggage racks.

As Germany rushed by, I stopped crying and stared out the window. I was lost and wandering in my sorrow. The two older boys were wide awake, each reading his own copy of
The Last of the Mohicans
in Yiddish. In English, Richard whispered, “I think that as long as they can keep their attention on the story, they'll feel safe.” The children's mother was awake, too, all the while keeping a keen eye on everyone; the father read the
Berliner Morgen-Zeitung
and turned the pages as if they were made of the softest cotton. Daria and the children soundly slept.

 

In the morning, the train's corridors were still jammed with passengers unable to find seats. The passengers, none of us familiar with this kind of discomfort, were trying to be polite. Nonetheless, we had to crawl over each other to get to the toilets—which soon overflowed. The smell was awful. And added to this was the rank smell of unwashed bodies and damp woolen coats and food. At one point my mother waylaid me when I was in line waiting to use the toilet. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I should be asking if you're okay,” I said.

“Yeah, just bruised,” she said, obviously happy to change the subject back to herself. “Imagine the nerve of that soldier pushing me as if I was a bale of hay! I know that I shouldn't have spat at him, but he made me so angry.”

“You're lucky not to have been detained,” I said. “Even after all you've seen in the past forty-eight hours, you don't believe what's going on here, do you?”

“I know, I know. Don't lecture me. And I know you're avoiding me. But at least we should be happy that we got out of Berlin in one piece, don't you agree?”

“Yeah, Ma, we're lucky. You had better get back to your seat before you lose it.”

“I've already lost it. Been in the corridor for a while now.”

“Well, take mine,” I said, and pointed to an empty place next to Richard.

“No, that's okay, I'm fine.”

She started down the corridor and then stopped—she had not finished speaking to me.

“Are you okay about losing your boyfriend? I saw him with two little old Jews. Who were they?”

I couldn't speak. I was struck mute for a moment, just looking at her.

“Those were his parents,” I said. “Do you have any idea what just happened out there?”

“Well, yes, of course,” she said. “I just saved you from a life of taking care of people who didn't have the brains to get out when they could. You'll thank me later, you'll see.”

And with that, she turned before I could say a word, moved an elderly man between the two of us, and walked off.

 

It's getting chilly. I'm thinking about the first frost, the killing frost–when the plants wilt and fall to the ground. They turn from green to yellow to gray and become mushy, slippery in their death throes. Sometimes, if I want to save a plant, I'll bring it indoors before the freeze. I've learned that I can revive a plant that's on the brink–but it's a fragile moment. I've experienced more than thirty killing frosts in my mountains. And each time, I think of that night on the train. It's become a ritual for me. I now understand that each year, a part of us dies. Our leaves and flowers are absorbed into the earth. But our roots are still here, dormant, waiting out the cold time. Some of us blossom again. Some do not.

 

The next evening, the nightmare intensified. People yelling in their sleep. Inconsolable children. Stunned adults. In the early morning, we began to get organized. Some tried to clean the two toilets for ninety-eight people. Finally, the man who ran the Teletype machine at the embassy and one of the attachés unscrewed the toilets and pushed them out of the train. Now we had two holes that were scary to use, but it was far better than before. Women knitted while groups of men played pinochle in the aisles. In our compartment, we took turns reading to the children, including the two older boys. Food was shared. Water was rationed. Each time we stopped at a station, ten designated people left the train, ran into the buffet, and tried to buy everything they could carry.

In the middle of the afternoon, Mr. Greenleaf, following his instructions, collected everyone's papers. Although we had all been told that this would happen, I had to help him convince everyone that it was all right.

The train stopped at the frontier. An official said, “Everyone off the train and form two lines. One for men. One for women and children.”

The Jewish family in our compartment was petrified. I couldn't bear another tragedy. “Mr. Greenleaf, we have to protect these people,” I whispered.

“I'm sorry, but we can do nothing,” he said. “They got on the train, I'm sure they have the papers to get off.”

“Give me all your entry papers,” I said to the father, and he handed them over.

“We're going to put their papers with ours,” I said to Mr. Greenleaf.

“No, R.B., please, you can't.”

“Oh, yes, I can,” I said in the nicest voice I could conjure. And I took the papers and slipped them in, just as the
Passkontrolle
official approached.

First, Mr. Greenleaf handed the official two letters. One was from the American Embassy in Germany, and the other from the appropriate Reich office. He read them, scribbled his initials, and handed everything back to Greenleaf. And with his fluttering hand, he dismissed us, all of us.

 

The train arrived at the Gare du Nord in Paris at eight in the morning, two days late. I was bedraggled, exhausted, short-tempered. Not Richard and his family. They were excited.

But the other family in our compartment was nervous. “Stay behind me,” I said to them. “I'll try to get you through.”

First in line, with the nervous assortment of Americans and the German family behind me, I was searching for the trustworthy official. None of them fit the description of the man with the mustache and the funny ears, so I intuitively chose the most benign-looking man I could find. I handed him my passport and leaned down to hear what he was saying. The official whispered under his breath, “I shaved it off”—and stamped my passport. “Stamp the one of the man behind me. Please,” I pleaded. And he did.

As each person was freed into Paris, I watched as he or she stood astonished at the exit. Green trolleys, automobiles, people on the streets. Blooming red geraniums in the windows. Normal life. Even the sun was shining. I could hope that Coleman and Annelie would now begin to heal. Their parents were smiling. My mother was, too. And she was the first to speak.

‘I'm going back to the Studio Hôtel, Rose. I'll be in touch in a few days.'

“Let's make a definite time,” I said. “I'll meet you Saturday night at eight at your hotel.”

And my mother left—without saying good-bye to anyone.

Next was Pete, whom I had not seen the entire trip because he had been shuttled to another part of the train. “See you later, R.B. Don't forget we have to check in with Ramsey tomorrow,” he said, and he left for home.

“Come,” I said to the Moses family, “you'll all stay with me while we sort things out.”

 

Really, the only thing to figure out was where to get the rest of the money for their steamship tickets, and in the end it was easy. I collected contributions from my friends and colleagues. And then, when I informed Mr. Clancy, the consul at the American Embassy, about what had happened to the children, there was no holding back the flood of help. It was settled. Richard and his family were to have about three months in Paris, waiting for emigration papers for Daria and the children.

 

I wrote a human-interest story about the children who had been sterilized in Germany. “I'm worried,” Ramsey said. “Worried that we'll lose our readership. Who wants to be told shit like this?
”

But I was too distressed to care about Ramsey and his concerns. I was grieving. Here I was, safely back in Paris. Without Leon. My father dead. Stella dead. Andy dead. And I was living in the same city as my mother.

 

Once, when I was a little girl, there was an explosion in one of the nearby silver mines. It was so powerful that I was thrown from my bed. Everyone ran outside and watched as a geyser of water rose into the air, taking with it a neighbor's wagon and smashing it onto the road, where it splintered into pieces. Now, I was feeling the same emotions—anxiety and awe. What I cherished most had exploded. But even though I was intact, I felt impotent, knowing that I had few choices.

 

There was no magical way to rescue Leon, but I knew that I could not give up. I had to keep reminding myself of my familial obligation to my mother; my ongoing duty to deliver the secret papers to the embassy; my need to ensure that Richard and his family made it to safety in America. Only when I went through that list did I calm down and begin to think about another planned escape for Leon and his parents.

 

Meanwhile the Moses family was enjoying the relative calm of Paris. A couple of days after they arrived, I found little Coleman and Annelie rolling a ball down the corridor outside their room. Occasionally, there would be a small yelp of pleasure and all the adults would look at each other and smile.

“What are you going to do when you get back to New York?” I asked Richard. “Will your brother look out for you?”

“Most likely he'll do what he can,” Richard said. “But I think I've figured it out. There're a number of Negro swing bands performing all over the country. I'll audition for as many as will listen. If that idea doesn't work, then I'll try to join the army as a saxophonist for one of the Negro marching bands. That should keep us safe.”