I watch Yves drive off in a cloud of dust.
If you’re caught, you’d be on your own . . .
I’ll go down alone, and it’s better that way. By now, the girls are likely out of the tunnels. I can almost see them, in my mind’s eye, helping one another hop from stone to stone in crossing the stream. It’s a pretty thought . . .
When we crash into the lazaret, there are only three girls present, and Wolff barks at Madame Xavier, “You said at least a dozen Israelites?”
The nurse on duty, confused, looks to me, then to the Gestapo officers. Before she can lie or betray me, I say, “These girls aren’t Israelites. I hid the Jewish girls away. You should have listened when I said I’d show you.”
A sudden blow to the cheek knocks me back, and because my hands are handcuffed, I lose balance, crashing into a medical tray, syringes and medical equipment scattering to the floor. It takes me a minute to realize that Wolff has hit me, and now his face is in mine. “Where are the Jews?”
“At the boys’ dormitory.” I choke out the lie. “Not far.”
I think Wolff realizes he’s being drawn away from his quarry. Nevertheless, we take a short ride to the boys’ dormitory, and he marches the length of the empty open-air solarium in fury, boots thumping on the loose floorboards. “You think you’re clever, do you?”
“I don’t know about clever,” I say, because I know I’m not going to survive what comes next, and that’s freeing in a way. “But I did make you look like a nitwit, and that’s good enough for me.”
It’s dusk now. The girls have probably found the campsite. Gestapo officers won’t risk going into maquisard-infested forests after dark. He seems to know what I’m thinking as he pushes me down the stairs, into the empty yard where the shepherd dogs are still barking. “We’ll hunt them down eventually.”
“Have you ever wondered if maybe you picked on people your own size, you wouldn’t be losing the war? All the man-hours you’ve wasted hunting down kids . . .”
His smile glints like a blade, but he pulls a baton from his boot, and the memory of that baton kills my bravado.
“I don’t enjoy this, Madame Travert. These tedious roundups. Forcing children into trucks and trains.” For a split second, I dare to hope for a sliver of humanity, but then he says, “It would be easier to shoot them. Of course, I’ve always hated the ugliness of shooting a beautiful woman, though. It’s impersonal. Nothing intimate about it.” He draws closer, and I shudder. “I once killed a woman by drowning her in a lake. She looked like an angel as she sank and her hair fanned out in the water. Just beautiful. But there’s no lake here . . .”
I want to think of a smart remark but my mouth is bone-dry. I want to be brave and defiant, but I can smell my own fear-sweat. I’m so frightened that I feel almost outside of myself, watching it all from a distance.
“Perhaps your husband is not the upright policeman we supposed. Did he involve you in this? Perhaps you did it to please him. A wife must obey . . .”
He’s holding out false hope, and my voice, when I find it, is no more than a scrape. “Travert knows nothing.”
The baton blow hits me in the ribs, knocking the wind out of me. I bend at the waist, and while I’m gasping for breath, he pokes at the sore spot. “Why did you do it?”
I’m so scared I can sputter only a tearful, terrified laugh. “Why not?”
He has no idea why that’s funny, and grabs my hair. “Are you a secret Jew?”
I laugh harder. I can’t help it, even though it shoots pain through my abused ribs. The truth is, I don’t know.
I don’t know who my father was, I don’t know who my mother was, I don’t know if they were rich or poor, if they had a noble title, or if they were of peasant stock. I don’t know if my parents were French or German or Catholic or Protestant or Jewish. And I’ll die without knowing . . .
“It doesn’t matter,” I choke out.
We’re all equally human. All deserving of compassion and justice. All capable of love and courage . . .
He hits me in the same spot, and I crumple to the ground, where little boys in shorts were doing jumping jacks and calisthenics only yesterday. As Wolff stands over me, I know he’s going to beat my brains out, and I almost wish he’d just get it over with, but he pauses to say, “What a waste. To throw away your life for vermin—for nothing that matters.”
I’m in too much pain to speak, but I want to tell him that he’s wrong. It matters. Even if we lose this war, even if the Reich lasts a thousand years, then a thousand years from now, someone will need to know that we stood up against the darkest forces of humanity. And that we did it here at Chavaniac, just like those who came before us.