“I don’t know,” Edouard said. “I don’t even know.”
Max put a hand lightly on his shoulder, the way he sometimes did just for the assurance that they were still human, that they could still feel. “And yet you must know she is somewhere,” he said. “You would feel it in your heart if she were not.”
THAT NIGHT, LIKE every night, Edouard sat on his straw mat under the bare bulb and opened his suitcase. He took out his camera, set it aside. Then his box of stationery. He closed the suitcase. Opened the box. Extracted the top sheet, which was already filled on one side with his handwriting in the smallest script he could manage; he had so little paper left.
He turned it to the empty back side, and set his hand on the camera. He couldn’t say why this routine was important. He closed his eyes, feeling the metal camera body cool on his fingers, imagining Luki on the dreaming log in Sanary-sur-Mer, Luki somehow being watched over by Elza. He tried to shut out the sound of the men around him, to replace it with Luki’s voice singing and the splash of the sea, her mother joining her. He imagined Luki turning to see him. He imagined framing the shot. The smile on her face rising from a print so that he would always have it, always have her with him.
He took up the pen then, and began, My Luki—one more letter he could never send, but the writing of it kept him alive.
Monday, September 30, 1940
THE CAS OFFICE, MARSEILLE
Nanée followed Varian into the CAS office’s small washroom, where he set the water running for one of his conferences. Dagobert immediately put his paws up on the tub and took a drink, as had now become his routine, Varian always happy for his company.
“That click and buzz on the phone?” Varian said to Nanée. “It’s a tap. A friend at the prefecture confirmed that.”
He peered closely at her face, as if he suspected she’d set the bug herself. Did he imagine she would confess to it so easily if she had? He was under a lot of pressure. He’d been successful at acquiring soap on his trip to Lisbon, but less so at persuading the US government to leave him to his work here. A September 18 cable sent through the US consul general had been waiting on his return: “This government cannot—repeat cannot—countenance the activities of Mr. Fry, however well-meaning his motives may be, in carrying on activities evading the laws of countries with which the United States maintains friendly relations.” His passport was valid until January, but everyone was pressuring him to leave France immediately, before he was arrested or expelled: the American embassy in Vichy, the American consulate in Marseille, the US State Department, the Emergency Rescue Committee that had sent him, and even his own wife. Varian ignored the efforts to recall him, and worked even more urgently to get refugees out of France. But that too was getting harder, the pressure from Vichy necessitating all communications be underground and anything sensitive communicated in person. They’d even taken to unplugging the phone between calls.
He said to Nanée, “I thought it might be time to have you try delivering messages for us.”
She said, “Whatever I can do to help, boss,” glad finally to be accepted as loyal, trustworthy, and fair, and in no way a spy for the US State Department or Vichy or anyone else.
“It’s far more dangerous than you might imagine,” he said.
“You don’t have to flatter me by making this seem important. I’m happy to do anything you need.”
“You will have information that will put you on the wrong side of the law. Information we keep here, yes, but we have Charlie watching the door to warn us. You’ll be out alone, going to meet refugees wanted by Vichy. A courier of any sort . . . it’s one of the most dangerous things I ask anyone to do.”
“But Gussie—”
“Gussie looks like a beautiful schoolboy no one would suspect, but don’t imagine he doesn’t risk his life. And there are places Gussie would stand out, where his presence would be questioned.” Varian hesitated. “Places like the Panier.”
“You want me to deliver messages to the Panier?” The old city. Hideouts. Gambling dens. Killing floors. Basements linked from one building to the next, to hidden chambers attached to no buildings at all, to crypts in which one could find, sidling up next to the dead, gold bricks, jewelry, stolen art, and cocaine. It was an ideal place for a refugee to hide out, if he or she could stand it; you might disappear for weeks or months until you could escape. But while the Vichy police wouldn’t likely bother you in the Panier, the Marseille mafia might. The district was said to be the source of every severed head found floating in the sewers of Marseille; the criminal element knew which sewers led to the harbor waters for easy disposal of those who ran afoul of their desires.