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The clerk takes the envelope without so much as a word.
“Merci beaucoup, monsieur,” Albert says with a small bow. “Please give the owner our thanks for his hospitality all these months—”
“Hospitality!” A sour-faced maid lumbers past, a bundle of linens heaped in her arms. “Who’s going to pay the bill, that’s what I want to know!”
The clerk is not heartless. He waits until the fidgety little Belgian is gone before ripping the letter into tiny pieces. The Germans will be here soon, he thinks. No sense taking a chance for a dirty Jew.
“Pace yourselves,” Umberto Giovanetti advises, waving civilians past carabinieri headquarters toward a bridge over the Vesubie. “Long, easy steps.”
A reminder, nothing more: they are practiced at this, the Jews of Sainte-Gisèle. For most, this is the second or third or fourth time they’ve fled the Wehrmacht or Gestapo or local police, moving from Austria or Czechoslovakia or Poland to Belgium or Holland or France. Many carry children. Most carry suitcases. Some have fashioned knapsacks from blankets and string. Leaderless, they will attempt to climb the Alps in street clothes, wearing whatever shoes are still intact after years on the run, one step ahead of the Nazis, but not alone this time. Among the bobbing homburgs and swaying kerchiefs are hundreds of gray-green field caps; the Italian Fourth is at their side. The armistice was supposed to be kept secret until Italy’s armies could withdraw in good order. Instead, the Germans learned of their ally’s surrender the same way Italy’s armed forces did: on Radio London, when that idiot Eisenhower told the whole world three days early. Now it’s every man for himself.
Behind Giovanetti, a squad of carabinieri dig in near the stone bridge that spans the river east of town. “Brigadiere!” one of his men says, nodding toward the crowd. “Your little admirer!”
Claudette Blum waves as she and her father work through the throng. Umberto blinks, taken aback. Mortified by his reaction, the girl’s fingers fly to her forehead. “A new hairstyle!” Umberto exclaims heartily, trying to recover. “How very becoming, Mademoiselle Blum!”
She turns away, blushing, only to confront Duno Brössler’s mocking leer. “Mmmmmmberto,” he moans, eyes closed in dreamy devotion. Claudette snarls and Duno laughs, crossing the bridge and striding down the road after his family.
Umberto Giovanetti masks amusement with official courtesy. “Here are your passports, Monsieur Blum. You’ll need photos, but they’re complete, apart from your signatures.”
“Passports?” Albert asks worriedly. “Not visas?”
“Naturally, a passport!” Umberto says, brows high. “Any good Fascist can see that you are a member of the Italian Aryan race.” He glances toward Claudette. She is preoccupied by a fervent desire to perish from embarrassment, but he drops his voice anyway. “I regret to inform you, monsieur, that your many-times-great-grandmother cuckolded her unknowing husband. You are clearly the descendant of her Italian lover, and therefore eligible for citizenship!” Albert Blum laughs incredulously. Umberto remains straight-faced. “The Romans conquered a great deal of territory, monsieur. As my father used to say, everyone in Europe is a little bit Italian.”
“Brigadiere, I don’t know how to thank you.”
“It was nothing. A telephone call to a cousin. And La Guardia di Finanza— the border police? They’re unlikely to check passports under present circumstances. I only wish I had been able—”
“You did all you could, Brigadiere,” Albert assures him, “but if you should hear of Paula—”
“Papa! How will Mama find us?” Claudette asks with sudden anxiety. “She won’t know where we’ve gone!”
The carabiniere holds up his hand. “That problem can be addressed when there’s a mountain range between you and the Wehrmacht, mademoiselle!”
Umberto Giovanetti has known this little family only a short while, but their fate has become important to him. Small and neat in his late forties, Signor Blum wears a fraying double-breasted suit with a once-fashionable tie and a dented homburg. His worn-out city shoes are buffed to a forlorn gloss. Add an umbrella, and he’d be dressed for a tram ride to an office in Antwerp, but the Hebrew does not look well. His daughter is young, and a
“Permesso?” he asks instead. Clicking his heels, he lifts the girl’s hand, brings it toward his lips. “Mademoiselle, it has been a great pleasure to know you.”
“But… aren’t you leaving, too?”
Umberto glances at his compatriots busily wiring the bridge for demolition: a rear guard of volunteers who will do what they can to slow the Wehrmacht down. He meets Albert Blum’s eyes for a moment before smiling warmly at Claudette. “This is a charming town,” he says lightly. “No doubt, some of us will remain here.”
The road is level. The breeze is pleasant. The sun is shining. The fretfulness of children and anxiety of parents yield to the novelty of a warm day in the countryside, but soon their pace slackens. Pregnant women and new mothers carrying infants perch on suitcases or lean against trees, resting in the shade. Old people and children quickly feel the strain. Alert to opportunity, French peasants have set up makeshift tables on the roadside, selling pickled eggs, rolls, tomatoes, wine, and water to the passing Jews.
“Papa! You aren’t going to pay that for an apple!” Claudette cries. “That’s profiteering!” she tells a sharp-eyed woman surrounded by cowed and ragged children. “You’re a profiteer!”
“War is hard on everyone,” Albert remarks as much to his daughter as to the peasant.
The woman pockets their coins with chilly self-possession. “Good riddance,” she mutters at their backs, and Claudette whirls to stick out her tongue.
“Claudette! You’ve made an enemy,” Albert tells her as they walk on. “That woman will always remember that a Jew was rude to her.”
“And I’ll always remember that a Frenchwoman was mean to us!”
“As long as you don’t forget how kind a French doctor was to your mother.”
Paula’s family is Sephardic-Fleming, wealthy and secure. Claudette inherited confidence from them, as well as height, but Albert himself is the child and grandchild of immigrants who moved from Poland to Germany to Belgium in three generations. His careful clothes, his correctness of ma
“What’s my name in Italian, Papa?”
“Claudia,” he tells her. “Italian is close to French, but easier to learn. Italians talk with their hands, their faces— they make it easy for strangers to understand.”
“You should teach me Italian while we walk.” She shifts her suitcase from one side to the other. “This’ll be my fourth language! German, French, Hebrew, and now Italian!”
How long has the road been her classroom? It seems a lifetime since she practiced penmanship at the kitchen table, while Czechoslovakia and Poland and Finland fell. “Will the Germans come here?” Claudette asked her mother when Holland was attacked.
“Belgium’s borders are very strong,” Paula said, “and King Leopold has a pact with the French. Finish your homework.”
A few days later the bombing began. The Blums packed. “Mama said they wouldn’t come here!” Claudette complained while Albert roped suitcases to the roof of their little Citroën. “Why do the Germans keep wi
“We expected trenches.” He yanked the knots tighter, while David wept and Jacques clambered into the backseat to claim a spot by the window. “Since 1919, we trained for trenches! This time the Germans came in tanks.”