“Something to eat, mademoiselle?”
The waiter is here to take my order.
“Oh, um . . .” I squint at the chalkboard on the wall. “Un pain au chocolat, s’il vous plaît.”
“And would you like anything to drink?”
Yes—but I don’t want to make the same mistake as I did this morning, when I tried to place my order in French. This time, I think I’ll stick to English.
“Can I just have a cup of black coffee, please?”
“Un café?”
“Yes, thank you.”
I turn back to the diary. It’s slow going; sometimes it’s hard to make out certain letters, and my French isn’t good enough that I can make an educated guess about what the word actually is. I end up opening a second Google Translate tab where I can enter the different possibilities until an English word pops up that seems like it fits. My glasses keep sliding down my nose because I’m hunched so low over the page.
The waiter returns with my order. One flaky pastry that looks like heaven on a plate, and one—oh no. It’s another tiny coffee cup. How did I let this happen again?
“Un pain au chocolat et un café, mademoiselle.”
Eventually I’ll get to the bottom of this, but for now I thank him and get back to work. Every time I get through a particularly dense section, I reward myself with another bite of pain au chocolat. I love how it practically melts on my tongue.
At last, I finish going through the first diary entry. I roll out my neck and stretch my wrists. I take a minuscule sip of coffee—Jesus Christ, that is powerful—and then I read.
I have never kept a diary before.
I am starting one now because it feels like the only way I can begin to make sense of the past few weeks. If I don’t write it all down, I may not believe some of the things I have seen with my own eyes.
I found this empty notebook when I was searching for bandages to wrap my feet. Uncle Gérard said I deserved to keep it after what I’d been through. So now I am writing from the attic of Gérard’s farmhouse—more specifically, from the mattress that Chloe and I are to share for the time being. Who knows for how long? My sister is complaining about the cramped sleeping arrangements (as she complains about most things), but I find this dreary little attic is the only place I can hear myself think. Between Maman, Papa, Gérard, and four of his friends who also left Paris, the house is terribly crowded and the nervous energy is too much to bear.
Where to begin this wretched story? In May, the Germans invaded France. At school they always told us not to worry, that Hitler would never get past the Maginot Line, but they were wrong.
Everything happened very quickly after that. Papa said we were leaving Paris for Gérard’s farm in Jonzac. We had to pack up the car as fast as we could. Maman put on three dresses and two coats and packed a carrying case of jewelry, and told Chloe and me to do the same. She left the apartment in her most expensive pair of high heels because she didn’t want to leave them behind. I wonder what became of them.
Fleeing was meant to be for our safety, but there was nothing safe about that road out of Paris. Picture a filthy, weary current of humanity stretching as far as the eye can see. Some families pushed their belongings in teetering wagons. Others had nothing but the ragged clothes on their backs. Papa drove the car for as long as he could, inching through the congestion. Eventually we ran out of petrol near Orléans. Because there was none to be had anywhere, we had to abandon our beloved Citroën like a corpse at the side of the road—many of our things still inside it—and continue our journey on foot.
We walked for three days. Our feet ached and bled. Even with all the money Papa took out of the bank, we could not find a room anywhere. We slept—or tried to sleep—in the grass beside the road. We nibbled at the bread, cheese, and sausage we had thankfully thought to pack.
There are things I saw on the road that I will never forget for as long as I live. The crowd was a living thing. It could swallow you. There were children shrieking in terror because they’d been separated from their parents. How would they ever find them again, when they were too young to know where they were going? There were elderly people splayed out on the ground because they were too weak to go on walking. Some were alive. Some weren’t. I was desperate to stop and help these people, but Maman and Papa kept marching on ahead, and I couldn’t lose them. I had the food.
The worst of all was when the bombers came. We were tired, filthy, starving. And then we heard the dull drone, getting louder and louder by the second. We looked up and saw German planes flying toward a section of the road up ahead of us. Three of them. At first I assumed they were heading someplace else, but then they dove with a terrible screaming sound. They shot at the people on the ground. Innocent people who had nothing—who had been walking for days. And then they were gone.
The screaming of the planes gave Papa terrible flashbacks. His whole body trembled and he struggled to breathe, so we stopped to comfort him for quite some time. My poor, sweet Papa. Before, I had only seen him like that around fireworks.
Eventually we continued our march, but he was still shaken up. Then, as we got closer to where the airplanes had attacked, I had to run off the road to be sick. There were bodies with their insides spilling out. Grown-ups screaming like animals. I will not go into more detail because I might be sick again. I despise this war, and I despise the Germans.
I need to pause for a second to remember how to breathe. I’d never heard of this mass exodus out of Paris, but it’s the most sickening thing I’ve ever read. So is that how the apartment became abandoned—when the family fled the city for Uncle Gérard’s? No . . . that doesn’t seem right, because Adalyn’s diary ended up back in her bedroom somehow. The family—or Adalyn, at least—must have come back to Paris.
I turn to the following page of the diary. Adalyn’s next two entries are shorter than the first, and this time, her handwriting is messier. There’s a sense of urgency in the lines of text darting across the page. I need to know what happened next. I press my glasses into the bridge of my nose and start typing.
June 14th, 1940
Today Paris fell to the Germans. The men who killed all those innocent refugees are marching unopposed down the Champs-Élysées. I don’t know what is to happen. Papa is hardly speaking these days. I suspect his memories of the Great War are haunting him terribly. He lost three of his fingers at Passchendaele, but that was the least of it. He also lost his younger brother, Mathieu. Gérard says things will get worse for France. Maman is hopeful things will get better. Chloe is very afraid. She fears that our home will not be there when we return. I am afraid, too, but I am trying not to show it. I love our apartment. I love our beautiful city. I must go—Chloe is stirring in her sleep and says she wants me to lie down with her.
June 17th, 1940
It is over. France is surrendering to Nazi Germany. Marshal Pétain spoke on the radio tonight. (He is running the government now.) He said it is his duty to alleviate France’s suffering. He said it is time to stop fighting.
Maman is relieved. She trusts in the Old Marshal. Now no more men have to die for this war, she says. I am trying to see where she is coming from, but I cannot. It feels like the world is disintegrating. How could Pétain make peace with the Germans? Why are we not defending ourselves against this force of evil?