the films. Oh! Such scenes! When the Allied tanks roared into Paris—led by Frenchmen!—there was jubilation, and de Gaulle strode down the Champs-Elysées like a man on stilts, wearing the military hat that always reminds me of a gâteau box. ‘La Marseillaise’ was sung everywhere. There was so much joy. The church bells rang again. The champagne came out of hiding.”
Annette folded her hands across her breasts and continued in a soft monotone.
“However, we were not there. Ten days before, the Germans—who were in retreat from Paris—sent off the last convoy to Germany. My mother and I were in one of those cattle cars, creeping out of Paris toward Germany as the sun was rising.”
46.
IT WAS DARK. ANNETTE WENT TO THE KITCHEN, TAKING WITH HER the plate of toast and the pâté. Bernard followed her, and in a little while she returned. She brought candles but did not light them. Marshall tried to speak. He did not know if, in telling her story, she was offering him a gift or transferring a burden. His ears and eyes and heart were not sharp enough to catch fully all that Annette was telling him. He could not grasp the depths of her story. He felt that his mind was cemented over. She replenished the wine, and the wine made him feel easier with her, drawn to her like someone reaching across an abyss.
When she touched the inside of her forearm, he tried to remember if she had worn long sleeves throughout their visits. It was ironic, he thought, that the Nazis had kept such meticulous records, branding their victims while knowing the numbers would disappear, flecks of ash floating through the air.
He took her hand and—boldly or tenderly, he did not know which—pushed her sleeve up, nearly to the elbow.
“No, there was not a number,” she said. “We wore a cloth patch with our numbers, on our clothing.”
Gently, he kissed the spot where he thought the Nazi mark would have been, and she enfolded his head with her arms.
She held him close to her breast, an endless embrace. There was no time, just this breathless communion. The courtyard was silent.
Eventually, slowly, he raised his head.
“And that was the price you paid for helping us—for helping me.” Marshall was near tears. “I can’t bear it.”
“It was the same—you aided us and we aided you,” she said, touching his face gently. “It is no matter. Whatever I did for you, I also did for myself, for my family, for France. We were crushed, Marshall. Defeated. You cannot know the shame. Whatever any of us did, we did for ourselves—so that we could have still a little self-respect. Just a little.”
“I didn’t know that any of this happened to you,” he said.
“I didn’t want you to know. I have told very few.”
“I was safe back home, and you were still going through the war.”
She rose and gathered the napkins and wine. “I must check the dinner,” she said. “And then I want to tell you the rest.”
He didn’t know if he had had too much wine or too little. Food would not have occurred to him. He opened the kitchen door for her, bringing his glass.
“Please stay here tonight,” she said with a smile. “There is a room upstairs that can be yours. It will be like the old times. You will be in hiding, and I will take care of you.”
47.
THEY MOVED INSIDE, WITH BERNARD, TO HER SITTING ROOM. Marshall noticed that the dog seemed to trust him now, enough to leave Annette’s side and go to his bed in the corner. A table was set in the adjoining dining room, and Marshall could smell food cooking. She said they would eat soon.
They sat on a divan, side by side, and she resumed her telling. It seemed that she was telling her past to him as she had told it to herself for years. It came even more easily as they became more comfortable together. Intermittently, her expressive hands touched him, making contact, drawing him in.
“I don’t speak of it,” she reminded him. “But now I tell you. I want to tell you. I trust you, and you are part of my past. A good part.
“I know you are well aware of the Jews, their terrible fate under the Nazis. There were also thousands of résistants like us sent to Germany during the war. We were sixty women in a train carriage that had room for forty. The train journey was five days, with