“Another political purge?”
“But we don’t have any Jews or Freemasons left on the teaching staff!”
“—could they be looking to make arrests?”
We’re eventually told the Marshal is considering a visit to the preventorium come springtime. The aging leader of France likes to bask in the adoration of children, but under the pretext of security, he sends advance men to sweep away adult dissenters and so-called undesirables. That’s why Sergeant Travert and an officious little inspector from Vichy now sit across from me in the castle library, and the latter asks, “Have you ever been a member of the Communist Party, mademoiselle?”
“I’m not much of a joiner,” I say.
From his wing chair, the stately Baron de LaGrange gives me a barely perceptible warning look to let me know that now isn’t the time to wisecrack. I rein in my smart mouth, answering a few more questions before the inspector asks me to start snitching. “Tell me, mademoiselle. Are any of your colleagues at the school foreigners or Freemasons?”
All the foreigners are gone, but I’m pretty sure the Latin master used to be a Freemason. He’s an insufferable old goat, but now isn’t the time to settle scores. “None that I’m aware of . . .”
“Jews?”
“Not on the teaching staff,” I say carefully, knowing the administrative offices are another matter. “Again, none that I’m aware of.”
“Degenerates?”
Having only a vague idea what he means, I stare at the official—whose lardy complexion no one could ever want to carve in anything but wax.
“Sexual deviants, mademoiselle,” he explains. “Women of low morals, corruptors of young people, homosexual men, sapphists, or pederasts . . .”
In my indignance, my mouth falls slack. And as my silence drags on, the baron pointedly clears his throat. This time I don’t think his warning is for me, and the inspector moves on. “Any self-avowed champions of the republic?”
“I wouldn’t know.” I wouldn’t tell you if I did, I think, plastering on a dim-witted smile. “I’m not political.”
At least that much is true. Frenchwomen have never been allowed to vote, so I didn’t see the point. Before the war, everybody was so worried about the communists that I never thought to worry about the royalist imbeciles who read Action Française—or the fascist crackpots of the Parti Populaire. Now the imbeciles and crackpots have power—or at least as much as the Nazis let them have. And I wonder which kind of imbecile or crackpot this beady-eyed official is . . .
“I’m told, mademoiselle, that you’ve lived your whole life here. Perhaps that’s why your manner is so . . . American?”
It’s true that I grew up surrounded by teachers, soldiers, and doctors from the United States. Still, I snap, “I’m a Frenchwoman.”
“You must’ve been instructed here to revere General Lafayette, no?”
“Oui.” Now doesn’t seem like the time to admit I paid only half attention to those lessons, but everyone knows the new government’s persecutions go against Lafayette’s ideals of democracy, political liberty, and religious freedom.
That must be the problem, because the official says, “Individualism and the myth of human equality have brought France to her knees, mademoiselle. We cannot have our schoolteachers wedded to the old revolution, one aimed to appease the evil-minded mob. Revolution in our new age will nourish the people through discipline. Discipline teachers like you must provide.”
I steal a look at the baron to see if he’s on board with this, but he’s busy adjusting his expensive silk tie, and Sergeant Travert’s expression is like stone. I realize that if I don’t go along, I’m going to get the ax. Since I can’t afford to be fired from the only job I’ve ever had and my only means of supporting myself, I keep smiling until my cheeks hurt. “As I said, I’m not political. I just teach neutral subjects.”
“There can be no neutrality in the classroom,” the official barks. “As Marshal Pétain says, The teaching of neutrality is the teaching of nothing. You have to inculcate your students with a love—even worship—of the new order.” I nod again, gambling that this guy just likes to hear himself talk. Then he slides a piece of paper in front of me. “Sign this.”
He can’t be serious. The paper says that I solemnly swear I’m not a member of any secret society. Should I confess our old orphanage tree house club where Henri and Sam wouldn’t let me in without a code word?
The official says, “Your oath is required under the law for civil servants.”
Of which, regrettably, I’m one. Sullenly, I sign the rotten thing. Meanwhile the baron pinches the bridge of his nose, and I stand, thinking we’re finished. That’s when the inspector reads my signature aloud. “Marthe Simone . . . What type of name is that, mademoiselle?”
I know what he’s getting at and I don’t want to tell him I was named by and after our secretary-general, who is part Jewish. As the story goes, Madame Simon had to put something down on the forms for orphans with unknown parentage, so she made up some variation of her name. That’s why I grew up with an Armenian boy named Simonian. An Italian boy was called Simonetti, and I became Simone.
Before I can say any of that, the baron puts his pipe down, stands to his intimidatingly full height, and says, “Gentlemen, we’re running late and I can’t have my staff standing in the hall all day. You can go, Marthe.”
I don’t need to be told twice. Sergeant Travert tries to open the door for me, but I reach it before he can, and I want to slam it on my way out. I’m boiling mad for some reasons I understand and others I don’t. I’m in no mood to talk to anybody, but Anna waylays me on the grand staircase. “Maman wants to see you.”
Merde. The baroness probably has a whole new list of chores—the annoying ones that always fall to me because everybody else has husbands or families or something better to do.
“It’s important,” Anna says, so I go. But on my way, I keep trying to remember the exact expression on Anna’s pretty face when she said it was important. She looked serious . . . but did she look somber?
I worry when the baroness waves me into the parlor. “Ah. Ma chère mademoiselle.”
It’s not like the matter-of-fact baroness to be solicitous, and my stomach bottoms out when she comes round the front of the desk to greet me, perching on its edge. Her hair used to be dark like Anna’s, but in recent months it’s gone gray. And she’s never looked older than now. Fearing she has news about Henri, I shudder with sudden dread; I’ve told myself he’s too smart to risk an escape attempt from his POW camp, but what if he’s tried and got himself shot?