“But I don’t know how—”
“Tuck this underneath the typewriter,” he continued, rolling over her objections as he grabbed the typewriter case from her and opened it on his desk. He carefully lifted the machine from its case, slid the envelope in, added a stapler, and tucked the typewriter on top, closing the latch again. He handed it to her. “Walk out like you know what you’re doing. They won’t stop you, and if they do, simply act offended. Most of the soldiers here are young boys simply pretending to be tough.”
She tightened her grip on the handle with her right hand. “Monsieur Goujon, I am not a forger! This is all impossible.”
“It is all I can do. What is it your father used to tell you? That God gave you the gift of artistic skills? Well, now is your chance to use that gift.”
Her head was spinning with a thousand questions, but the one that finally escaped her lips was, “But… where will we go?”
He stared at her for what felt like a long time. “I have heard from my wife’s cousin of a town called Aurignon, some eighty kilometers south of Vichy.” His words fell swiftly. “I have heard that they are sheltering children there, helping them to get to Switzerland. Perhaps they would do the same for you and your mother.”
“Aurignon?” She had never heard of it. “And it’s near Vichy?” The spa town had become synonymous with the puppet government of Prime Minister Philippe Pétain; surely it was crawling with Nazis.
“Aurignon is a tiny town, tucked into the hills at the foot of some old volcanoes, nothing strategic about it. No reason the Germans would have any interest in it, which makes it a perfect place to hide. Now go, Eva, and don’t look back. Godspeed. I have done all I can do.” He turned around so quickly that she wondered if she had imagined the conversation.
“Merci, Monsieur Goujon.” Ducking her head, she left his office and strode confidently down the stairs, every muscle in her body tense, a smile frozen on her face. The young German officer was still there at the bottom, and his eyes narrowed slightly as she passed.
“I thought you were dropping that typewriter off,” he said, stepping in front of her.
“This is a different one that needs repair,” she said without missing a beat. She batted her eyes again. “I really must go.”
“Why are you in such a hurry?” His eyes were on her breasts again, shamelessly, like she was something he could have, something he had the right to possess.
She forced herself to remain calm and to widen her smile. “Lots of work to do, you see. The prefecture is busy with all the arrests of last night, I imagine.”
The German nodded, but he was still frowning. “They deserved it, you know.”
She felt suddenly ill. “Pardon?”
“The Jews. I know the arrests seemed cruel, but those people are a menace.”
“Well,” Eva said, already walking away, “I, for one, am hopeful that all the vermin who pollute our grand city will get what they deserve one day soon.”
The German nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly right, mademoiselle. Listen, if you’re ever interested, there’s a group of us who meet most days at five o’clock at a café in the Latin Quarter called Le Petit Pont. I could buy you a drink…”
“What a grand invitation. Perhaps I’ll join you.”
He beamed at her. “That would be terrific.”
She waved goodbye, her smile genuine, for she knew that with any luck, she and her mother would already be on a train bound for the south by the time the German sat down for his first beer.
Chapter Four
Twenty minutes later, Eva let herself into her family’s apartment again. She would need to move quickly, before a neighbor came scavenging.
On the dresser sat a framed formal photograph of her parents on their twenty-fifth anniversary three years earlier, one of her father holding two typewriter cases and beaming, and another of her mother in Cabourg on holiday in the late thirties. There was also one of Eva on the same Côte Fleurie vacation, and one taken after she graduated le lycée four years earlier. She grabbed them all and removed them from their frames.
She found a pair of scissors in the parlor, beside one of the typewriters, and quickly carried it into the kitchen. Using the existing picture on her mother’s identity card to measure the correct size, she carefully cut her mother’s face and shoulders from the anniversary photograph, and then did the same with the images of herself, her mother, and her father from the other photographs, too.
Eva stuffed the identity cards and the six makeshift identity photos into the typewriter case and closed it again.
She took one last look at the wooden shelves that lined the walls, stacked from floor to ceiling with beautiful books, their pages full of knowledge she had eagerly absorbed over the years. Most of them had belonged to her father before her: texts on typewriter repair techniques, reference books about medicine, the solar system, chemistry, even a first edition of the English-language The Adventures of Tom Sawyer—one of the first novels written on a typewriter, and one of her father’s most prized possessions. She had devoured them all and saved up her own money to buy more. They had been her escape, her refuge, and now they would be all that was left of her in an apartment she might never return to. “Goodbye,” she whispered, wiping away a tear.
Then, with a final glance back at the only home she’d ever known, she left, grabbing the packed suitcase and the typewriter in its case before locking the door behind her.
When Eva knocked on the Fontains’ door seconds later, it was Colette who answered, her eyes wide. “Where is my maman?” she asked. “She hasn’t come back yet, and you said she would, Mademoiselle Traube.”
“And she will, Colette,” Eva said firmly as she stepped past the child and closed the door behind them. “Don’t worry.” After all, Madame Fontain was as Christian as they came. If an officer tried to sweep her up with the Jews, no doubt she would pray so loudly and indignantly for his soul that he’d be convinced of her allegiance to Jesus even before she produced her papers.
The problem was that Eva couldn’t in good conscience leave the girls alone. She and her mother would have to wait to flee until Madame Fontain returned.
Mamusia was exactly where Eva had left her two hours earlier, curled up on the sofa, staring blankly into space. “Mamusia?” Eva said, crossing to her mother and placing a hand on her shoulder. She was trembling. “Are you all right?”
“She still doesn’t want to play dress-up,” Colette reported when Mamusia didn’t answer.
“You know, Colette, I think she might be feeling rather ill. Dear, would you and your sister put away your dress-up things before your mother returns? You wouldn’t want her getting upset.”
“Yes, mademoiselle.” Colette scooped up the ribbons and dresses she had strewn about and beckoned to her sister. The two of them scampered away.
Eva bent quickly beside her mother. “I have a plan, Mamusia, but you need to snap out of it. We need to get out of Paris as soon as possible. You must keep the girls occupied while I get to work. And if Madame Fontain returns, distract her while I finish.”
Mamusia blinked at Eva a few times. “What is it you’re doing?”