As soon as she’d closed her apartment door behind her, leaving the filled suitcase behind for the time being, she took off briskly for the stairs, grasping the handle of the typewriter case with white knuckles and keeping her head down. Venturing out without her star was a risk, but she was banking on the fact that the police were too busy arresting other Jews to pay her much mind, especially if she looked confident about where she was going. After all, why would a Jew be fleeing straight into the heart of Paris with a typewriter and a smile?
* * *
It took Eva twenty minutes to walk as casually as she could to the soaring préfecture de police, the city’s police and administrative headquarters, situated just across the Seine on the Île de la Cité. It was where her father had worked before the first anti-Jewish statutes had come down, and it was surely where last night’s raids had been orchestrated. She was walking into the belly of the beast, but there was no other way.
Holding her head high, she glanced back at the soaring twin towers of Notre-Dame, which loomed just behind her. As she opened the door to the prefecture confidently and strode inside, she wondered how the police commanders who worked here every day, the ones who were carting Jews off like yesterday’s trash, could do such evil things in the shadow of God’s house.
“Mademoiselle?” A voice to her left startled her as the door slammed closed. She turned and swallowed hard when she realized it was a German soldier standing there, staring at her.
“Oui, monsieur?” She was trembling, sweating.
But he merely looked exhausted, not suspicious. “Where are you going?” he asked, his German accent thick. As she hesitated, he looked her up and down, his eyes lingering on the swell of her breasts beneath her dress. By the time his gaze returned to her face, she knew how to play this.
With a deep breath, she flashed him her most flirtatious smile, batting her eyelashes. “I hadn’t realized how handsome those uniforms are up close, all those perfect creases.” His face turned red as she added quickly, “You see, I am delivering this typewriter on my father’s behalf. He repairs them, but he is ill, and I’m told it’s needed today.”
She held her breath as the German, who couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen, studied her. If he asked for her identity papers or searched the typewriter case, she was done for. “Who are you going to see?”
“Monsieur Goujon, second floor.”
“You know where his office is?”
“Oh yes, I’ve been here many times before.” It was true. When she was a young teenager, long before the Germans had come, Eva had loved accompanying her father to work when classes were out. All the stamps and pens and machines fascinated her, and Monsieur Goujon had often given her a stack of paper and a pencil to occupy her while her father fiddled with the typewriters. She had loved sketching and had become good at it, good enough that Monsieur Goujon told her father that she should think of pursuing a career in art. But drawing was never her passion the way words were, and she told her father that just because one was good at something did not mean that one had to spend a lifetime doing it. Her father had chuckled and told her to count herself lucky that she had such a talent. One day, he said, you will appreciate God’s gifts.
“Go ahead, then,” the young German said, his shoulders sagging again with fatigue.
Eva was already moving toward the stairs. “Merci!” she called over her shoulder.
Her heart was still thudding after she’d scaled the second flight and opened the door to Monsieur Goujon’s office without knocking. He was alone behind his desk and he looked up, his eyes round and surprised beneath bushy gray eyebrows, as she pulled the door quickly closed behind her.
“Eva Traube?” he asked, blinking at her as if certain he was seeing things. His hair had grown much whiter since she’d last seen him, and he looked a decade older than her father did, though she knew they were roughly the same age. The circles under his eyes were pronounced, and his jowls sagged as if they hadn’t the energy to keep up with the rest of his face. “Why, I haven’t seen you in years.”
“Monsieur Goujon, forgive the intrusion.”
He stood and embraced her. “I heard about the roundups, and I thought perhaps—”
“My father was arrested,” she said firmly, cutting him off. “My mother and I were on their list, too, but we were fortunate enough to be out of the apartment.”
The color drained from Monsieur Goujon’s face and he took a step back. “Oh dear.”
“We haven’t much time, monsieur. Please, I need your help. My father told me he had spoken with you, arranged things. He said you would make me false papers. My mother and I need to leave Paris as soon as possible.”
Monsieur Goujon’s eyes went first to the typewriter case in Eva’s hands and then to the door behind her. Finally, his gaze settled back on her, his lips drawn tightly together. “But what can I do? I promised him only that I would help you, not your mother.”
“I can’t leave her behind. I won’t.”
“She has an accent, Eva, and frankly, she looks like a Jew. It would be too risky. She’ll surely be caught. And then if she reports me…”
“Surely you’re not refusing to help us.” Eva’s panic began to harden into anger. “My father worked for you for many years, yes? He was reliable, kind.”
Monsieur Goujon’s forehead creased, and for a second or two he looked as if he might cry. “Eva, I want to help you, but if I were to be caught forging documents, especially for a Polish-born Jew…”
“You would be arrested, maybe executed. I know.” Eva took a step closer and lowered her voice. “Monsieur Goujon, I know what I am asking you. But the only chance we have is escaping to the free zone, and then I can figure out a way to come back for my father.”
“I—I cannot do what you’re asking.” He looked away. “I have a wife and child to think about, and—”
“My father trusted you. He paid you the last of what he had.”
He took a deep breath, but he didn’t say anything.
“Please, monsieur.” She waited until he looked at her again. “I’m begging you.”
Finally, he sighed. “I will give you some blank identification cards, Eva, some blank travel permits. This is all I can do. You were always a good artist, I remember that.”
“You—you want me to do the forgeries?” The spaces for personal details—name, place of birth, date of birth—would be easy enough to fill in, but how would she fake the rest? “But you promised my father, Monsieur Goujon!”
He ignored her protests, continuing in a voice that was barely audible. “I will try to find you some art pens in the colors of the stamps. There should be some in our supply cupboard. But you can’t stay here. And if anyone finds out what you’ve done, I will deny any knowledge. I will say you stole the documents.”
“But—” Eva began as he brushed past her, out the door of his office. She stood there, breathing hard, considering her options. Should she insist, beg for his help? She had never attempted anything like what he was suggesting.
He reappeared after a few minutes and held up a small envelope. “Here. It should be all you need. Use your real documents as a guide, and see if you can cut up some old photographs to serve as pictures for your identity cards; your current ones are probably stamped indelibly in red. I also included a canceled travel permit so you can see how they’re meant to look. You and your mother will each need one to cross to the free zone. I added a blank naturalization certificate for your mother, too, to explain her accent, as well as a blank birth certificate for you. They should be easy enough to fill out.”