Read One Hundred Twenty-One Days Online

Authors: Michèle Audin,Christiana Hills

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Historical, #Military, #War, #Literary, #World Literature, #European, #French, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Psychological Thrillers, #Historical Fiction, #Literary Fiction, #Psychological, #Thrillers

One Hundred Twenty-One Days (17 page)

BOOK: One Hundred Twenty-One Days
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Von Apfeldorf and his wife drove me back to the hotel. I’m stopping now, because it’s quite late and I have to give a second lecture tomorrow. By the way, I haven’t even said anything about the one I gave today: it went rather well, even if I may have gone a little too fast. I wrote my summary in a huge register that was started in… 1888! I was awestruck to be writing after so many well-known names. This time I’m really stopping.

With all my love, your

Harold

Note: so many linden trees! What differences were there between a summer evening at Tiedemann’s in 1943 and a summer evening at Hermann’s in 1950?

POUCH 9

RETURN TO N., JUNE 2006

(Heinrich Kürz Collection)

Letter from the medieval historian Ernst von Apfeldorf to Heinrich Kürz (6-9-50) (re-transcribed and translated from the German).

June 9, 1950

Dear Heinrich,
We had such a pleasant time at your son-in-law’s yesterday evening! Despite her youth, Mrs. Hermann is a true lady of the house and a perfect hostess. And what finesse! The dinner was exquisite and Mrs. Tiedemann’s tart was also a success, as always; Frau Schlag must ask for her recipe! Even the English guest was charming, once we got used to his accent. But the highlight of the evening was assuredly your exceptional interpretation of Beethoven’s sonata. And how right you are in saying that it expresses the true German spirit!
Please send my kindest regards to Mrs. Kürz.

Best wishes,

Apfeldorf

Von Apfeldorf describes the same evening as Smith in his letter (cf. pouch 8).

POUCH 10

ANNOUNCEMENT FROM
LE FIGARO

(Newspaper clipping)

The Mortfaus, Langlois,

Dubois, Meyer, and Besson families

regret to announce the passing of

CHRISTIAN MORTFAUS

x 1911

Croix de Guerre with one mention

Grand Croix de la Légion d’Honneur

Deceased the 11th of November, 1996, in Paris, 7th arr.,

in his one hundred and fourth year.

Succeeded by his children, grandchildren,

and great-grandchildren.

Pray for his soul

The religious service will take place

on the 18th of November at ten o’clock

at the Cathedral of Saint-Louis des Invalides.

The burial will be at two o’clock

in the vault of the Janvier and Mortfaus families

at Père-Lachaise Cemetery.

Pierre Meyer’s memories: Bernadette was sick, Pierre didn’t go. Even so, he had saved the newspaper clipping. A sign of careful editing: the 7th arrondissement is home to the Hôtel des Invalides (a miserable room, according to Pierre, but he never saw it). Died
coming home from the Armistice Day ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe (where he had been taken in his wheelchair).

POUCH 11

RETURN TO N., JUNE 2006

(Postcards, photographs, and various papers)

POSTCARDS
.

1.  The tomb of the mathematician Spankerfel, covered with ivy.
2.  The picturesque accumulation of hundreds of bikes in all colors in front of the train station.
3.  A pond with ducks swimming on it.
4.  Advertising card from the Korb & Schlag pastry shop featuring a photograph of a meringue tart, part of which is cut in such a way to show that under the meringue are apples.

RECEIPT
.

Korb & Schlag

seit 1858 in N.

Goethestrasse 23

Wir danken für Ihren Besuch

26.06.06 – 9:56

FOUR PHOTOGRAPHS
(
PRINTED ON NORMAL PAPER
).

1.  The sign for the Biergarten Paradies, with black and red letters on a yellow background (meeting with Bernhardt Hermann).
2.  The gray cement wall with a little green that ran onto a bronze plaque, its text quite readable in copper letters on the dark background: “Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings / Heinrich Heine 1821 / Bücherverbrennung May 10, 1933” (1821 for the quotation, 1933 for the book burnings, and no date for the plaque itself).
3.  An elegant house with white frilled curtains and green shutters, along with rhododendron bushes and a pergola in the garden.
4.  The little stone girl on the fountain, smiling, with her motionless spinning wheel.

POUCH 12

LIBRARY OF THE INSTITUTE OF MATHEMATICS, N. (6-27-06)

The Kolloquium register with all the names. Among others, M. on July 6, 1943, Smith on June 8, 1950. Completed in 1961. The tradition continues (in modern registers).

Back to the university archives. Still the same day. A wealth of papers. The little town wasn’t bombed. The paper didn’t burn. The letters are still here. The eagle and the lark as well.

POUCH 13

MESSAGE FROM THE ARCHIVES CONSERVATOR (7-19-06), TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN

Dear Professor-Doctor,
In response to your request of June 27, you have our authorization, provided that you obtain the authorization of the beneficiaries, to publish the letters of Professors Heinrich Kürz and Christian Mofraust.

Best regards,

Doktor H. Raffke

Following is a list of Kürz’s beneficiaries. Bernhardt Hermann, the son of Charlotte Kürz and Wilhelm Hermann (both deceased). Met at N. He gave his permission.

POUCH 14

LIST OF M.’S BENEFICIARIES

THÉRÈSE
, deceased, married Guy Langlois (deceased), six sons (Mathieu, Marc, Luc, Jean, Pierre, Paul), no response from any of them (planned? Of course).

MARTHE
, deceased, single with no children.

ANNE
, deceased, wife to Patrick Dubois (living?), one son (Pierre-Marie): no.

BERNADETTE
, deceased, wife of Pierre Meyer, two daughters, Andrée (now Andrée Daniel) and Nathalie Meyer-Lemaire: yes for both (thanks to Nathalie, contact with Pierre Meyer).

MARIE
, deceased, wife to Jean Besson, deceased, three daughters (Marie-Claude Besson, Berthe Besson, Christiane Mallet): all three, no (exactly the same wording for all three, the same as Pierre-Marie Dubois—planned).

IGNACE
, husband of Françoise Durenberger, two sons (Antoine and Georges): yes for both.

One no is enough for it to be no, so it’s no.

POUCH 15

M.: UNORGANIZED NOTES FOR AN IMPOSSIBLE BIOGRAPHY (RELEASE AROUND OCTOBER 2006)

Allegiance to Nazi Germany; Berlin talks (and others here or there, like in N.) in 1943; Croix de Guerre with one mention from the army; daughters, five daughters and finally one son; embarrassment felt by the purge committee, before whom he didn’t even need to take off his mask; freight cars of deportees that were filled, but without his help; geriatrics among whom his life came to an end after the death of his daughter Marthe; hospitalizations on a regular basis; injury of a terrible, glorious, obvious, unforgettable nature;
Jesuis partout
and other newspapers in which he participated, in sickness and in health; kudos, speeches, and homages given by the army, Catholics, politicians, scientists; longevity beyond belief, which was also full of suffering; mask of black leather, which may also have been uncomfortable; neuralgia and neuritis; operation after operation; prizes (academic) obtained for his brilliant work in mathematics; quarantine (metaphorical) after the war by certain mathematicians at foreign conventions; rages into which he flew when he feared he wasn’t being treated like the best; salons with the Catholic bourgeoisie and the evenings of poetry in which he participated; treatments of all kinds that were tried on him; university professors who gave him the cold shoulder; victim of daily and seasonal suffering; widowerhood too soon; xenografts; yperite, or mustard gas, of which he was fortunately not a victim; zone of ambiguity, the gray zone.

POUCH 16

PUBLICATION OF KÜRZ’S JOURNAL

•  Transcription of an interview with Catherine Billotte-Yersin, December 5, 2008.

Summary: her father and grandfather, after the Great War, the occupation, relationship with M.

•  Letter of acceptance from the University of Fribourg Press for Kürz’s journal, translated and annotated. Dated March 5, 2009. Publication scheduled for January 2010.

POUCH 17

HANDWRITTEN NOTES

(Page torn from a notebook)

6-18-10. Meeting with Louis Klein, the author of
Testimony of a Deportee
(he’s the one who reported Silberberg’s death at Mariahilf). Born in 1918. Meeting arranged by Pierre Meyer.

157034

Separate from the pouches, scribbled on the binder’s cardboard cover:

Pierre, April 25, 2pm, Cimetière Montmartre.

CHAPTER XI

The Form of a City…

(
PARIS, APRIL
25, 2013)

CIMETIÈRE MONTMARTRE

AVENUE HECTOR-BERLIOZ
. All the names. Massé, Pernissin, Masson, Meyer, Rolland, Ruben, Chaiche, Maccini, Fridman. On the monuments, the plaques, the tombs. Tabet (star of David and cross), Greuze, Meyer, Lew, Chaïa, Léger, Berlioz. Pierre, who has just been buried, is another Meyer. Words were spoken, rose petals were thrown on the coffin. I walk a little back from the group. The conversations have started up again. The two women in black are probably his daughters, Andrée and Nathalie. I talked to Nathalie on the phone a few years ago, but I never met her. She was the one who suggested I go see her father. There aren’t that many people. The others walking in front with the two sisters must be Ignace’s children; the youngest adults are probably the children, and the two boys, both around age ten, the grandchildren. They seem so solemn… Maybe it’s their first time attending a burial. Pierre had told me he had four great-grandchildren, but the other two must be too young. There are certainly some friends here (from the daughters’ generation) and perhaps some of his former students from the high school as well. I walk behind them—I don’t know anyone. It also happens to be a beautiful spring day here.
Im wunderschönen Monat Mai…
Although it’s still April and we’re on Avenue Berlioz, Heine’s tomb is definitely here.
Stendhal’s is on the other side, on Avenue de la Croix. I can’t see it, but I know it’s there, and I can’t help thinking about it, no more than I can help recalling his: “On the 15th of May, 1796, General Bonaparte made his entry into Milan at the head of that young army which had shortly before crossed the Bridge of Lodi and taught the world that after all these centuries Caesar and Alexander had a successor.”

AVENUE DUBUISSON
. Underneath the bridge of Rue Caulaincourt are the iron columns supporting it, forged in 1888 in the blast furnaces of Montluçon. A joyful flowerbed of red and yellow tulips has been planted on the roundabout.

AVENUE PRINCIPALE
. Armies of watering cans await the visitors who have come to look after the graves of their loved ones. I discreetly head for the cemetery gate. I will write a letter to Nathalie Meyer: “I was very fond of your father and I want to thank you for allowing me to get to know him.” Pierre taught me a lot. I exit the cemetery.

AVENUE RACHEL
. Incredibly calm. Funerary dignity (monumental masonry), bistro, funeral parlor, florist. On the 15th of May, 1796, General Bonaparte made his entry…

BOULEVARD DE CLICHY
. In contrast, sound and fury. The Moulin Rouge, red, not dark gray like the last time I saw it in a black and white archival photo showing two German soldiers joking with two blonde women. How did you say “sex toys, 2 euros” in German in 1942? Definitely two soldiers: officers like Kürz probably didn’t visit this type of neighborhood. Pierre lived right behind it at that time, in an attic room on Rue Véron, he said. He would’ve done what he’d had to do, transporting leaflets
or other things, in a peaceful manner, because I already imagine him at peace.

RUE BLANCHE
. I could take bus 68 home. But I’m going to walk for a little while, I’ll take it further along. I walk down Rue Blanche. Blanche, Dante, and then I think of Rue Dante and Rue Lagrange, for their assonance. On the sidewalk, an elderly woman walking in the opposite direction up the slope has stopped to catch her breath. I am again reminded of Pierre, who would always make the trip down and back up his three floors to buy the macaroons he used to offer me with the coffee he’d prepare whenever I arrived. I saw him for the last time in February, I believe. He had just celebrated his ninety-eighth birthday. He was invaluable and precise as an eyewitness. And he was funny. He used to challenge me: “Being the historian that you are…,” he would give me tests: for example, I managed to find the source for each of the twenty-two articles he had given me, higgledy-piggledy in a big brown envelope—articles that had been saved, over the years, by Marguerite M., Mireille Duvivier, and Pierre himself… He lived a full life and observed his entire century. I pass the Blanche-Calais bus stop—Rue Blanche is blocked, I’ll go just as fast on foot.

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