Tickets in hand, she descended the wide white station stairs back to the boulevard d’Athènes and hurried past the pissoir with its Amer Picon aperitif ad, toward the splashing fountains of the Palais Longchamp. She passed shop after shop displaying the new ENTREPRISE FRAN?AISE signs meant to signal that they were French, not Jewish-owned, until she found a café without one, where she lingered half the day over cup after cup of ersatz coffee. If Danny or Varian knew she was taking a later train so she could appeal to the camp commandant in the soft hours of evening rather than the hard light of day, they might well prevent her from rescuing Edouard in the only way she could imagine would work.
A half hour before the train was to leave, she pulled the gray trench coat back over her suit and returned to the station. There, to avoid the attentive ticket puncher at the turnstile and the policeman beside him who might wish to see the French travel permit she didn’t have, she went into the Buffet de la Gare. She bought yet another cup of ersatz coffee and, when she was sure no one was watching, slipped out the far door, which opened directly onto the train platform. She felt rather sly and clever about it, being illegal and all. Of course her papers might be checked anywhere along the way, and if she hadn’t had the protection of her American passport, the consequences of being caught in transit without transit papers would be dire. But she did have her passport, and with it she hurried down the tunnel to the proper track, hopped on the proper train, and took a window seat, as any proper American woman traveling in France might do.
AT THE LES Milles train station, Nanée noted a modest hotel down the street where she could take rooms, then walked straight to the camp: ugly factory buildings behind an ugly fence, guards with guns staring down at her from atop hunting blinds, and filthy, emaciated men working in the yard, who unsettled her even more than the guards and guns.
“I’m here to see the commandant,” she announced at the gate. She might be anyone. The camp commander’s wife. His daughter. His sister. His mistress.
The guard hesitated.
She unbuttoned her coat with her black-gloved hand, as if heated from the exertion of the walk, to reveal her blue suit and the diamond brooch.
“One moment,” he said, inviting her to step inside the yard and closing the gate behind her.
She studied the prisoners as she waited, hoping she might see Edouard or he might see her, but if he was among the men passing bricks from one pile to another for no purpose she could see, he was no longer someone she could recognize. Their conversations stopped. They watched her. But still, they moved those bricks.
Other prisoners crossed the courtyard with vats: the men’s dinner, she supposed. Were there tables somewhere inside? A dining hall?
“What can I do for you?” a man asked, startling her.
The commandant was large for a Frenchman, with narrow eyes and what in Evanston might be called a prosperous middle. Encouragingly unattractive. Homely men, less inclined to arrogance, were so much easier to charm.
She smiled as sweetly as she could manage, knowing that even the worst of men were attracted to the nicest of girls, the ones they didn’t imagine they could have.
“I’m sorry to descend upon you at dinnertime,” she said.
He returned her smile and showed her into the guardhouse, where, as he said, she might be warmer.
Inside, she removed her coat. His eyes lingered. Yes, he liked the suit. Everyone in the guardhouse did.
She lowered her voice. “Is there perhaps somewhere more private? The matter I’m here about is . . . sensitive.” She adjusted the brooch, wishing she had a hat to shadow her face.
“Perhaps you haven’t had dinner yourself?” the man asked.
She smiled invitingly, but not too much so.
He turned to the guard. “I expect madame . . .”
“Mademoiselle,” she said.
“Please have two dinners brought up to my private rooms,” he said to the guard.
She hesitated. A good girl would hesitate. Make him want something he couldn’t quite reach.
“I apologize,” he said, “but I have no better dining facilities here to offer a lady.”
She smiled her forgiveness and followed him.
Saturday, November 2, 1940
CAMP DES MILLES
Nanée and the commandant sat at a small table in the sitting room of a sort of apartment, not across from each other but rather more intimately cornered; if she wasn’t careful to lean her folded legs away from him, they would touch his. She was carefully not careful as she removed first one black glove, then the other. She folded her hands, the diamond cluster ring facing him.
“This is so nice of you, to feed a weary traveler, Monsieur—”
“Robert,” he insisted.
She looked demurely away lest he see the disgust in her eyes. What kind of Frenchman ran a camp like this? It would be revolting enough if he were German, to oversee men made to live so wretchedly. He was a Frenchman who ought to have fought to the death to save his country. Instead, he let prisoners starve while one of his men served him herb-roasted chicken, new potatoes, and delicate green beans on china, on a table set with real silver and a vase holding the last of the season’s roses.
“Robert,” she repeated, the name softer in French than in English. Robe Heir. Bobby. Imagining the sad, pathetic little boy he must have been, playing dress-up in an old robe that had been his grandfather’s. Or his grandmother’s. Yes, a sad little robe heir in his grandmother’s ratty old robe.
He began to pour from a bottle of a local red.
She reached over and touched her hand to his, took the wine and poured first for him, then for herself, and set the bottle beside her own plate, in her control. She put the crystal to her lips, meeting his gaze over the glass and appearing to take a sip while merely wetting her lips with the wine.
Yes, this was going according to plan. But how well did he hold his liquor? Could she get him drunk enough that he might give her Edouard’s residency permit and a camp release in exchange for nothing at all? Men were such absolute fools sometimes. Could she keep him drinking through some small affections until he fell drunkenly asleep, with no memory of the night beyond his own imagining of what they might have done?
They chatted easily. Or rather Nanée asked questions and let him talk about himself, which in all of society seemed to qualify for terrific conversation. Was there a man in this world whose favorite topic wasn’t himself? The more the pathetic rooster puffed himself up, the more disgusted she became, but she was careful to appear attentive, to laugh lightly at jokes that were not the least bit funny and, as often as she could bear it, carefully allow her legs just the briefest bump against his.
A second bottle of wine was brought. She poured for the commandant and topped off her own glass. He handled his liquor unfortunately well.
“I have a friend here, Robert,” she said. Robe Heir.
“Do you? But let’s not talk of such things over dinner.”