Page 41 of After Paris
Chapter Forty-One
Dominique
Avignon, France
Tuesday, October 2, 1945
The roundups in Paris began July 16, 1942. The police arrested thirteen thousand Jewish men, women, and children and packed them into the sports arena, the Vélodrome d’Hiver. After grueling days and weeks in hot, unsanitary conditions, they were transported to concentration camps and executed.
I thought about my Emile, trying to warn people. She’d given her life in vain for people who couldn’t or didn’t heed her warnings.
I’d sold all the gems I’d stowed in Sylvia’s jacket pockets and used the money to bribe officials. After months of questions and searching, I’d learned in the fall of 1942 that my sister had been transported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
I never knew what the police had done to her in the local prison, but after the Germans left Paris in 1944, I returned to the city and tracked down the few survivors from Ravensbrück. I’d learned that Emile had been broken and battered but defiant when she’d arrived in the camp. Soon after, she contracted typhus, and she died six months later.
When the Allies entered Provence through Marseille in August of 1944, I decided to go home. The Germans were either dead, captured, or returned to Germany.
I’d arrived at the LeClaire family farm on foot, not expecting to see Daniel. I’d planned to rest for several days and head to Marseilles, but I found him standing at the front gate as if he’d known I was coming.
He had left the port of Marseille and returned to his family farm when the Allies landed. I wasn’t sure how he’d take me, but he wrapped his arms around me and held me tight. I cried, never more grateful to be there.
Daniel told me about a woman and her baby he’d smuggled onto a freighter bound for Portugal. I knew he’d help Sylvia escape France. If only I’d been able to save Emile.
Daniel and I became lovers again, and unlike the first time we’d been together, I was content in his arms. We married one month after my return.
The departure of the Boche had unleashed the anger simmering among the French. France no longer had the occupiers to hate, so the fury turned inward.
Angry citizens hunted collaborators, and soon, there were executions and the public degradation of women who’d worked with the Germans. Images of the actresses Arletty and Cécile became the faces of Frenchwomen who’d betrayed their kind to the Nazis. Arletty was publicly humiliated and sent to prison. But Cécile had vanished.
In the last few weeks, that hatred had ignited again in Provence, and I’d heard stories of Frenchmen attacking women who’d slept with Germans. Last week, an angry mob stripped a woman to her undergarments and shaved her head.
Though I’d done my best to shed Cécile’s skin and lose myself in the role of the farmer’s wife, rumors stirred every few weeks that the famous actress was alive and well, living in disguise.
Daniel encouraged me to stay away from town, but after months of hiding, I became restless. Would I ever not want more?
So today, I rode my bicycle into town. It was a stunning, beautiful day, with vivid blue skies and warm, dry air. The olive harvest had been pressed and bottled, and many in the valley were optimistic that next year would be so much better. These were some of the sweetest days in Provence.
And now the cold, hard knife blade pressed against my skin. “I know you all,” I said. “You know me. I’m Dominique LeClaire.”
“We know you,” Charles said. “We know what you did in Paris.”
“You have no idea what you are talking about,” I shouted.
Reasoning with drunks was always a gambler’s game.
Harsh lines now angled around Charles’s mouth and across his forehead. He twisted my hair in his fist as he pulled at the roots. He sneered as he raised a knife to my face. “Those Boche made my life hell. And you spread your legs for them and lived like a queen.”
“Let go of me, Charles. The war is over. We should not be fighting each other.”
“Easy for you to say.” He pulled my hair so hard that strands pulled free from my scalp. I refused to cry out. And when I met his gaze, I spit on him.
Charles slapped me so hard across the face I dropped to the floor. He was on top of me seconds later, pinning my arms flat with his knees as he grabbed my hair and sliced off a chunk with the sharp blade. A blood fever took control of him as he held up the locks of hair like a prized hunting trophy. I kicked my feet, trying to wrestle free as other men grabbed my bare ankles and pinned me to the floor. The men cheered.
The knife scraped my scalp, and warm blood oozed through my remaining hair. I’d survived Paris, the Germans, and the police, and now I would die at the hands of my neighbors.
A shotgun blasted into the room. The sound was so loud in the small space that it echoed in my ears. The knife eased away from my scalp as Charles whirled around.
I couldn’t see past him. But I sensed the shift in mood from the men as reason tamed some of their uncontrolled anger.
“Get off of her.” Daniel’s voice rang with a rage I’d never heard.
When none of the men moved, Daniel stuck the barrel of his shotgun to the first man’s head. The man raised his hands and left the cottage. The gun trained on another intruder, and as each man left, he moved closer to Charles and me.
“We’ve all suffered, Charles,” he said. “I know you lost brothers and a son. I’ll give you this one mistake if you leave now and never touch my wife again. If you do not listen to me now, I’ll splatter your brains right here.”
Charles’s breathing slowed as his grip on my remaining hair eased. He raised the hand with the knife, and Daniel took it. “You know what she is,” he said.
“She is my wife. Get out.”
With Charles’s weight lifted, I drew in a deep breath and sat up. I tried to shield my hair and face from him. I’d done what I’d done over the years. Perhaps my choices were questionable, but I’d never felt shame. Now, in front of my husband, I was humiliated.
After Charles left, Daniel closed the door and locked it. As he came toward me, I rose on shaky feet and turned away from him. When I’d returned home, we’d found a way to pretend that the last few years had never happened. Now, there was no denying it. I didn’t want to see the disappointment on his face.
He placed his hands on my shoulders. “Look at me.”
Tears welled in my eyes and then spilled down my cheeks. “I can’t. There are too many sins.”
He turned me to face him, and I began to weep when I saw the compassion in his gaze. I hadn’t cried even when I’d learned Emile’s fate, but now all the wounds opened wide, pouring out sorrow.
Daniel held me close, enclosing me in an embrace that smelled of olives and sunshine. “There’s nothing to forgive. Now is all that matters.” He ran his hand over my chopped hair, which, until moments ago, had been thick and lush. “It’ll grow back. We’ll grow together, and life will go on.”
I met his gaze. “People will always whisper about me. Always.”
He wiped a tear away. “Thankfully, my hearing was never excellent.”
“It can’t be that simple.”
He kissed me on the lips. “It can.”