struck gold: molasses, oatmeal, and tea bags. Eventually I found one could buy anything for a price on the black market.
Each day I served Paul an old family remedy my great-grandmother Woolsey gave her soldier patients at Gettysburg: one egg and soda water beaten into a glass of wine. Several other Woolsey remedies were on the menu as well, including beef tea, milk punch, and rice with molasses. I told Paul they were old New England favorites from my distaff side. Thanks to them, he grew stronger every day.
“Would it help to talk about the camp?” I asked one night.
“I can’t talk about it, Caroline. You have good intentions—”
“You have to at least try, Paul. Maybe start with the night you left here. Baby steps.”
He was quiet for a long moment.
“They came for me with no warning thinking I might be good for their cause. Rena was sick in bed with the flu. Took me to headquarters and told me very nicely they wanted me to film some things: propaganda, of course, but I wouldn’t do it. They kept me in Paris for a while and then sent me to Drancy. I guess they came back later to get Rena and her father. That was the beginning of the roundups, taking the Jews.”
“How did they know Rena was here?”
“They knew everything. Maybe from the visa application. I don’t know. Drancy was horrible, Caroline. They took the children from their mothers.”
Paul bent his head, chin to chest, and pressed his palm to his mouth.
“I’m sorry, Paul. Maybe this is too much for you.”
“No, you are right. I have to talk about it. You would not have believed the camp—Natzweiler.”
“In Alsace? Roger thought you might be there.”
“Yes, in the Vosges Mountains. Many died from the cold and the high altitude alone. I was such a coward. I prayed I would die. We built part of the camp. New barracks and…” He tried to take a sip of tea but put the cup back in the saucer. “Maybe we can finish later.”
“Of course,” I said. “Doesn’t it help to talk about it?”
“Perhaps.”
I tucked Paul into bed that night, happy to be making progress.
—
THE AFTERNOON OF MAY 8, I was ankle deep in the stream behind Paul’s house picking watercress from the banks, marveling at the chestnut blossoms and emerging wisteria. Purple foxglove, a flower I’d had to pamper back in Connecticut, sprang up everywhere like weeds. I could hear Paul whistling in the house, and it made me smile. Men only whistle when they are happy. At least that was true for Father.
All at once the whistling stopped, and Paul called out.
“Caroline…”
I ran through the grass toward the sound of his voice. Had he fallen? Heart pounding, I raced into the kitchen, tracking wet footprints.
“De Gaulle is on,” Paul said.
I found Paul, right as rain, standing near the radio. I caught my breath, relieved, just in time to hear General De Gaulle announce the end of the war in Europe.
Forever honor our armed forces and their leaders. Honor our people that terrible trials could not reduce or decline. Honor the United Nations, which have mingled their blood with our blood, their sorrows our sorrows, their hopes our hope, and now triumph with us. Ah, vive la France!
Paul and I hurried to the front garden and heard the cathedral bells.
“It’s hard to believe it,” I said.
Though the first act of the German capitulation had been signed in Reims the day before, it wasn’t until we heard General De Gaulle and our neighbors in their cars, honking horns and flying a tricolore out the window, that it all sank in.
The war in Europe was over.
I threw on one of Mother’s scarves and drove us to her apartment in Paris. We flung the windows open wide expecting to hear a great celebration, but Paris was strangely quiet that afternoon considering the momentous news of the war’s end. All that changed, however, as the afternoon wore on, and young people streamed out into the parks and squares.
“Let’s go to the Place de la Concorde,” Paul said.
“Why don’t we just listen to the radio here?” I said. “The crowds may be too much for you.”
“I’m not a cripple, Caroline. Let me enjoy this.”
It was a lovely warm day, and we walked to the Hôtel de Crillon at the Place de la Concorde. The lovely old building rose up from the square, the tricolore flying between the columns. It was all so surreal, to celebrate a free France, in