“As sure as you can say Shazam.”
On Thursday, I see Travert. It’s supposed to be my day off, and I’m supposed to spend it with him at his house. It’s the arrangement I agreed to before German tanks rolled into the Free Zone—now there’s too much to do at the chateau. I expect an argument, but he doesn’t give me one. He only asks how he can help.
Meanwhile, his fingers tentatively brush my shoulder. It’s a question. One he doesn’t voice, but he doesn’t need to. I know what he wants, and I want it too, so before returning to the castle, we settle for a few minutes’ diversion in the front seat of his police car on a deserted road.
It’s better this time because we don’t talk or try to examine our feelings. I’ve already learned hard lessons about how dangerous feelings can be during a war, but sex is like getting blackout drunk without the headache or hangover. And thankfully Travert doesn’t make it more complicated than that.
After, we roll down the windows because we’ve fogged them, and pulling my sweater back down, I ask, “Do you think I should tell Mr. Kohn’s children that he’s been sent to an internment camp?”
Travert grinds his jaw. “Not yet. With the German invasion, no one knows who is in charge of the camp. Now might be the time to take advantage. Maybe we can get him out before they ever have to know.”
“How?”
“If you falsify a permit of travel from the prefect in Nice, the French guards are in no mood to question. If I can get the permit to Monsieur Kohn, we might get lucky.”
I don’t hesitate. “I just need tracing paper, ink, and an example of the permit with the stamp of the prefect.”
Travert doesn’t hesitate either. “I’ll get one from a friend at the gendarmerie in Brioude. I’ll have to buy him lunch, so I’ll take you on Sunday morning to buy supplies and send you back on the train with what you need.”
It’s a thirty-minute drive to Brioude, which means that on Sunday morning, I have at least thirty minutes alone with Travert that won’t involve taking my clothes off. We’ve been married for exactly seven days, during which time what remains of my country has been invaded by two different armies, so we should have a lot to say. For some reason, we’re quiet almost the whole way—maybe because we both know the risk we’re taking now. The stakes are higher; if it goes wrong, it’s not the French authorities we’ll have to deal with, but the Gestapo.
I find everything I need at the stationery store, and Travert meets me outside the train station near a poster of Hitler someone has tacked up under the arched green doorway. Travert gives me an old document with the stamp and signature. I put the document in my purse and ask, “You’re not going to invite me to lunch with your friend?”
He looks surprised and a little pleased. “You want to meet my friends?”
I smirk. “Maybe I just want lunch.”
Travert is the hard-boiled type, but he almost laughs. “Better you don’t meet him.”
He’s right. If his friend is questioned, he shouldn’t connect me to this.
In saying farewell, I’m not sure if Travert and I are supposed to hug or kiss. Sex is one thing—the easiest thing. The marital peck he gives me on the cheek is somehow more intimate. I’m not used to it, and I don’t know that I’ll ever be, so I’m relieved when he leaves me alone on the train station platform.
At least, that is, until I notice all the German soldiers. Down the tracks, they’re shoveling coal into a railway car—looting us, loading everything valuable we have onto trains for Germany. Coal, food, lumber, art, people . . .
Well, I hope they’ll get one person less because of me and the piece of paper in my handbag. That’s what I’m thinking when one of the young Germans puts down his shovel and, with an impish smile, approaches me.
“Guten Tag,” he says, leaning against one of the posts and offering me a chocolate bar from his pocket.
He’s shockingly young. Under that uniform is a kid no older than the boys in the preventorium. I’m so incredulous that I sputter, “How old are you?”
“Sixteen for my Führer!” the kid boasts, pushing out his chest.
I’ll eat my handbag if he’s sixteen. He’s no more than fourteen if he’s a day. I’m tempted to tell him so and snatch that chocolate for good measure, but someone barks something at the boy in German and he stiffens to attention.
I turn to see an officer in polished boots, black leather trench coat snapping at the hem as he makes his way to us on the concrete platform. “Hallo, Fr?ulein,” says the officer, greeting me by touching the visor of his cap, its silvered imperial eagle and swastika glinting in the light. “I see this soldier is bothering you.”