In This Hospitable Land (34 page)

“Yes,” André said gravely, adding hoarsely, “I can’t believe I had Cristian circumcised.”

“You need to know,” the pastor said softly, “that many of our young men are leaving their homes and going into the mountains.”

“Yes, like…”

Alex made a quick gesture cutting André off. Best not to name names. But the Sauverins knew from the young man’s sister that Max Maurel had left Alès for a mountain redoubt.

“You know these young men?” Alex asked.

“Some of them have come to me,” Robert Burnard replied evenly, “seeking advice. Should they obey the law and sign up with the gendarmes? I suggest that they consider their actions carefully.”

“That’s very noncommittal of you.”

“I choose my words carefully,” Pastor Burnard allowed, “but my message gets across.” Averting his eyes, he continued quietly, “I believe the danger to you is growing. The gendarmes know you are here and it appears that government agents in Vichy will soon attempt to rid themselves of all refugees, particularly Jews—practicing and nonpracticing alike.”

“What should we do?” André asked huskily.

“Prepare to go into hiding at a moment’s notice—to join the others in the mountains.”

“And you can help us find them?” Alex inquired.

“I believe we can help, yes,” the pastor said. “Preparations are being made.”

“We?” André quizzed.

“Obviously I am not alone.”

“Is our family in danger?” Alex asked. “Are ‘preparations’ being made for them too?”

“We think they will be safe for the time being,” Pastor Burnard answered somberly. “The Germans are not interested in women and children. Yet.”

“I knew we should never have registered,” Alex angrily told his brother.

“What choice did we have?” André muttered, resigned yet despairing.

“They would find you soon enough either way,” the pastor said pacifically. “Remember there are many who support Pétain—maybe even in Soleyrols—who will do anything to preserve the present peace of France. Who knows who would come to your aid at their own peril and who would turn you in to the authorities as though that were a patriotic act?”

André turned the newspaper over in his hands. The pastor gently relieved him of it.

“Best not leave evidence of your interests lying about,” he said, secreting the paper in his clothes. “For now, act as if everything’s normal. Until someone comes. As someone surely will.”

The brothers focused on their hay. Though they spoke of their concerns and fears rarely, they thought of them constantly, their minds freed by the monotony of the movement of their scythes.

Alex couldn’t stop thinking about a BBC report he’d heard:
Vichy’s Jewish victims, children deported to Germany.
André mulled over the Vichy government’s latest distressing moves: firing the military governor of Lyon for refusing to participate in the arrest of local Jewish citizens and ordering the arrest of all Catholic priests caught sheltering Jews.

“Did you hear?” a familiar voice called, startling both André and Alex out of their reveries as they worked the lower field. It was the postman climbing up to La Font on his daily rounds. “New regulations have been posted at the mayor’s office in Vialas. All male foreign refugees are to report to French authorities to volunteer for an additional work force in Germany. The gendarmes are making a wide sweep looking for potential ‘volunteers’ everywhere.”

“So the last roundup wasn’t enough,” André said neutrally, resting on the handle of his scythe. “Have the local police started looking?”

“Not that I know of,” the postman replied. “They don’t like the Germans. But sooner or later they won’t have a choice. They’ll even come up here.” He encompassed the surrounding mountains with a wave of his hand. Then he pulled a worn, stained envelope out of his old leather pouch, smiled, and handed it to André. “From the Belgian Congo. Originally mailed from England.”

The letter from Jack Freedman provided the relief Denise and Geneviève had longed for. But André and Alex had other news from the postman that was no comfort at all.

“The roundup,” André said mournfully, “in which Pierrot was picked up was not an isolated incident.”

Alex railed, “It was coordinated not just in Aubenas but everywhere—Nîmes, Marseille, Mende, Lyon. All over southern France.”

“So the danger gets closer and closer,” Geneviève breathed.

That night the danger seemed closer still. The family was surprised and terrified when Cristian unexpectedly began singing tunefully—unmistakably—the distinctive opening notes of the BBC news fanfare.

André and Alex went into Vialas the next day to purchase canvas bags to pack against the need for a sudden departure.

Then they heard from Aunt Paulette in Switzerland about an underground movement to smuggle imperiled children out of France into the safety of her neutral host country. If the Sauverins could find their way across the Rhône to Chamonix-Mont Blanc—a journey fraught with dangers, including discovery, throughout its four-hundred-kilometer length—Paulette would send a guide to lead the children to the other side.

How to respond? The Sauverins wanted to preserve their children from harm but couldn’t bear the thought of separation. And Cristian was simply too young to leave his mother’s care.

The agonizing decision was taken from their hands. Pastor Marc Donadille paid a special visit to say that after several groups of children had made their way into Switzerland the Germans and the Vichy French had found their route and shut it down. Some children had been caught and sent to German prison camps.

In the dusky gloom of late afternoon on the Sunday marking mid-October, Max Maurel hurried up the path to La Font hoping not to be detected by unfriendly eyes. He was relieved and gratified by the warmth of his reception. They were just finishing supper but insisted he sit and eat. He was more than glad because he and his compatriots in their hidden camps found food and other necessities in perpetually short supply.

The Sauverins spoke of their failed attempts to leave the country.

Max asked, “So what will you do?”

“Watch,” André answered. “Wait.”

“Keep an eye out for interlopers and the police,” Alex added angrily.

Trying to steer back to what she hoped would be a happier subject, Denise asked Max about his family.

“We worry about father,” he answered dispiritedly. “Mother misses Françoise.”

“How is Fela?” Geneviève inquired. “She’s rather special to you, isn’t she?”

“Certainly she’s very nice,” Denise suggested leadingly.

“You really do like her?” André asked.

“Maybe even love?” Alex added teasingly.

Max blushed charmingly. “Love,” he said tentatively. “I don’t know. I like her and I miss her more and more. She’s different. Special.” There was a catch in his voice. He looked around.

“One day the Germans had rounded all the Jews in the Klinghofers’ hometown in Poland into the town square. A German officer grabbed a crying baby by its feet and flung it against a wall, smashing its head and killing it instantly in front of its mother and everyone else. Without a moment’s hesitation Fela’s father, the town’s doctor, took his wife by the hand and kissed her. ‘Good-bye,’ he said softly and then walked over to the murderer and spat in his face. The soldier pulled out his pistol and shot Dr. Klinghofer dead.

“When the Germans sent everyone home Fela’s mother had to drag Fela’s brother away. As a lesson the Germans left Dr. Klinghofer’s body where it had fallen. The townspeople were afraid to move it but Fela’s brother slipped out after dark, gathered his dead father into his arms, carried him home, kissed the cold body, hugged his mother tight, and fled into the night.”

“Horrible,” Denise said miserably.

“It can’t last,” Geneviève said with the coldness of fury. “It can’t go on forever.”

André still had a few cigarettes left from his month’s ration so after dinner the three men went out onto the veranda and smoked quietly, enjoying the crisp air and bright stars.

“I’d like to get Fela up here,” Max said softly. “She’d be safer at La Planche.”

“I’m sure your mother wouldn’t object,” André said, “and Françoise would be delighted.”

Max smiled broadly. “But Fela has a mind of her own. I’ll have to go to Alès to try to talk her into it when the time is right. But not with winter coming on.”

“And where might you spend the winter?” Alex asked. “We don’t even know where you stay now.”

Max tensed and then relaxed, knowing he could trust these people with his life.

“You know of the Resistance,” he said fervently. “It has begun to spread from the towns to the countryside. Some stay in private homes even more secluded than yours. Others stay in the woods and forests in cabins and camps, many built by the young men themselves when they were in Les Chantiers. And I…for now I stay in a camp a little way from here. I won’t say precisely where to protect you as much as us.”

“Very wise,” André agreed. “But what is it like for you?”

Max laughed. “I’m the camp doctor! I try to make sure no one gets sick. So far so good: only fungus of the feet and the occasional cough—inevitable for newcomers to mountain living.” Instinctively Max lowered his voice. “We’ve begun to coordinate with the Gaullists. The Resistance has moved well beyond leafleting. There’s going to be shooting sooner or later so I guess we’ll find out how much doctoring I learned at school.”

This was serious business but the three men chuckled softly. Max marveled at the persistence of natural human feelings and reactions in an increasingly inhuman unnatural time. He felt so warmly toward the Sauverins that he finally said what he had really come to say.

“You two may find yourselves in a Resistance camp soon enough.” Max extinguished his cigarette. “I know you’ve thought about leaving. Today I tell you it’s going to be necessary. I can’t say when. But we’ll know. Be prepared and don’t worry.”

“I do worry!” Alex exploded. “If André and I must leave, what about the family?”

“We’ll look after them too,” Max assured him. “We know what we have to do and we’re determined to do it.”

After a long silence André said, “I wonder what it’s like to be in one of those camps.”

“Hard,” Max replied forthrightly. “Tense. There’s a good deal of grumbling and arguing. We suffer from short supplies and short tempers. And we all have such different views. You can’t imagine the fights that break out between the socialists and the Communists.”

“That’s terrible,” André declared. “They need to overcome their differences, to unite against the common enemy.” An even longer silence followed. André pondered deeply before asking, “Is it possible I could help? I hold no truck with either philosophy: the socialists seem naïve to me and the Communists are dangerous. But that doesn’t matter. Perhaps I as a neutral party can talk sense to them. Do these groups have leaders? Could you conceivably get them to come to La Font? Away from the camp perhaps I could try to broker a peace.”

“Possibly,” Max answered noncommittally. Then he said he must go.

André asked if Max wouldn’t consider spending the night.

“Isn’t traveling in the dark dangerous?” Alex demanded.

“Less than in the light,” Max replied laughing again. “I’ve got to get back to the camp anyway—in case some socialist coughs on a Communist!”

Several nights later Max brought the socialist and Communist chiefs of his Resistance camp to La Font. André masterfully managed these tough argumentative men, patiently convincing them—over not a little food and wine, tobacco, and soybean-enhanced coffee—to “bury the hatchet” at least until their mutual oppressors had been overcome and their own future and that of France as a proud, independent nation had been secured.

Alex came away from the meeting impressed by the willingness of these hard-bitten determined figures to fight—and half-convinced he should join them.