But it’s life and death for these kids, so there’s no time to stop.
I make a big show of sneezing, then plead illness to get out of teaching class. I’m convincing because my eyes are bloodshot, running, and blurry. My neck aches. My shoulders throb with fatigue. Even my fingers are stiff. I keep going, and by the time I’m done, I’ve been awake for more than forty-eight hours.
I ask Travert to take me to Paulhaguet, because it’s the easiest way to bypass a Gestapo checkpoint and because I think I’ll faint if I try to walk. I’ve told him I want to visit Madame Pinton. I don’t say why, and he doesn’t ask. But after the trip, when he takes me back to his house and I nearly fall asleep in a bowl of soup, he figures it out, and the jig is up. “I told you to stop forging. Didn’t I forbid it?”
“Forbid . . . who are you, the Führer?”
I don’t want to argue. I just want to sleep. I have to be back at the castle in the morning. A Haitian nun from a nearby order will bring the girls to the preventorium, and I should be there to make sure nothing goes wrong. So I remind him, “After Bastille Day, you wanted to tell me what life is. Well, let me tell you. It’s hard. We lose people we love. Our dreams fall to shit. Then we die. It happens to everyone. But at least we can go down fighting.”
He leans against the doorway, shaking his head. “So it’s contagious. Whatever madness is in that damned castle that makes people forget good sense, you’ve caught it.”
I suppose I have. On Monday, the nun pulls a rusted, mud-spattered red truck into the drive just before two in the afternoon. Perfect timing, because the village is overrun by parents either checking their children into the preventorium or checking them out. The lines are long, winding into the village, and the hope is that our fifteen Jewish girls will blend in.
I watch from the castle window and tell myself I don’t have any reason to worry. The girls are just girls—not the ugly cartoon the newspapers make Jews out to be. I go down to help usher the newcomers into the lazaret for quarantine and get them undressed for examinations and vaccinations. Some will need ultraviolet ray treatment, others will need radiography and radioscopy. Some will need blood tests or dental treatment. None of the fifteen has any condition serious enough to attract special notice.
A few have rosary beads, so I’m guessing they’ve been taught to fake being Catholic. They’ve likely also been instructed that no one knows their secret and that they should keep it from everyone, but wanting to make them feel safe, I say, “Hello, girls. I’m Madame Travert. I grew up here, so I know it may seem a little lonely at first, but in a few weeks you’re going to get to play outside with all the other children. Even better, you’ll get to go into the castle, where you’ll get special slippers and can pretend to be little princesses . . .”
Rachel, the eldest, meets my eyes and manages a wobbly smile. She’s terrified, but I think maybe she does know I’m a friend. Or that I will be.
The examinations go quickly. I hold my breath the whole time, wondering if Dr. Anglade’s replacement will realize that while some of the girls really are so malnourished as to belong here, some aren’t. Fortunately, my forgeries are excellent, and he seems happy to accept the girls and their paperwork.
The nurses get them into bed and bring bowls of broth, and I breathe a sigh of relief to think that it’s been a perfectly ordinary admissions day. I almost float back to the castle, ready to collapse in triumph and exhaustion, but as I pass the library, I catch a glimpse of Madame Xavier on a telephone call.
“I recognized a Jewish girl from another town,” she’s saying. I freeze, peering through the crack of the partially opened door to see her talking into the receiver. “She arrived with about a dozen others from a convent. I called the local gendarmerie, but they say they can’t come till tomorrow.”
You bitch.
“Thank you, Obersturmführer,” she continues. “I won’t say anything to anyone. Just get here soon.”
You hateful, rancid bitch. As she hangs up the phone, I want to storm into the library, grab Faustine Xavier by her bun, and break her neck.
Unfortunately, there isn’t time. The Gestapo usually prefers dawn raids, but Wolff isn’t a man to wait. If he’s coming from Brioude, it will take him no more than twenty-five minutes, and then, my God, what will he do?
FIFTY-EIGHT
ADRIENNE
The Prison of Olmütz
Austria
December 1795
It was the same every day in this prison, this Austrian Bastille. My daughters were permitted to come to us each morning at eight o’clock for a breakfast of bitter coffee or weak chocolate. At noon, the Prussian guards delivered food upon dirtied plates swarmed by flies. A thin soup, braised meat of indeterminate animal, and a slop of vegetables, usually garnished with little bits of tobacco and ash from someone’s pipe. Even the most bloodthirsty French Jacobin jailer had more pride than to abuse cuisine this way!