Page 5 of One of Them
On a sickening June day in 1940, Nazi troops marched into Paris.
Almost at once it became a different city, one Delia no longer knew.
The beautiful edifices were obscured by bloodred bunting, always emblazoned with a circle on which a black swastika sat, intimidating and hideous.
The Palais-Bourbon was converted into the office of the Kommandant von Gross-Paris, and a huge banner was spread across the front of the building.
The German words— DEUTSCHLAND SIEGT AN ALLEN FRONTEN —meant nothing at first, but Delia soon learned they proclaimed Germany is victorious on all fronts!
Instead of the familiar red, white, and blue tricolore , swastika-emblazoned flags snapped in the breeze.
Rifle-toting soldiers were everywhere, their black leather boots polished to a menacing gleam.
Most Parisians were on edge, waiting for the worst. Delia, to her shock, was no longer welcome at the homes of her gentile friends.
Even Gaby, who lived upstairs, was now avoiding her; likewise, many of her parents’ friends and patrons stopped coming to the gallery, and the apartment too.
The dinners and parties stopped abruptly, and now it was only the three of them, an uneasy triangle in which Delia was largely ignored while Sophie and Simon sat across the oval dining table like a pair of adversaries.
Delia didn’t like to see her parents like this, glaring at each other, barely civil when they did speak.
So she slipped off to her room, but once she was gone, they began to quarrel, their voices escalating as if they had totally forgotten that she could hear them.
She turned out the light and put her pillow over her head as she tried to sleep, those angry voices snaking through her dreams.
One morning after a particularly vicious quarrel, Delia came to the table where her parents sat in a fraught silence that was even more frightening than their fighting.
Delia looked down at the tartine her mother had prepared, the butter and jam spread in a smooth coating, just the way she liked it.
But she had no appetite and went off to school without eating.
The atmosphere—her erstwhile friends keeping their distance, the way the teacher would not call on her, even when she waved her hand earnestly—was deeply unsettling.
Soon the term would be over, though, and she would be released from this new reality, the one in which she felt she was both invisible and at the same time marked by an indelible stain.
The bell rang, signaling the end of the school day; she gathered her things quickly and was one of the first ones out the door.
But there was no refuge at home either. “You need to start packing,” her father said before she’d even put down her satchel. “Right away.”
“Packing? What for? Where are we going?”
“New York,” he said. He wasn’t looking at her, though; he was looking at Sophie, who, clearly agitated, was moving quickly around the apartment, rifling through drawers, opening cabinet doors, and almost immediately slamming them shut.
“I don’t want to go to New York,” Delia said.
What she didn’t say was that she didn’t want any of this—her parents’ brittle, barely concealed anger, the snubs at school, the growing unease in the city.
She wanted to go back to the previous summer, the sun-filled days at Le Piol where her parents had seemed happy and the house was always filled with guests, bees buzzing and bobbing lazily through the jasmine-scented air.
“I don’t want to go either,” said her father. “But we have to.”
“Why?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.
“We’re not welcome here anymore.”
Yet they were luckier than most. They held American passports, and so Simon had been able to secure train tickets to Lisbon; from there they would be among the first group of Americans to set sail for New York since the occupation had begun.
They were to leave in two days, days in which the tension in the apartment continued to grow.
From the room in which Delia was hastily packing her belongings, she could hear her parents quarreling again, their words clear and biting.
You never—
Why can’t you—
Don’t lie to me—
I can’t look at you anymore—
Liar! You’re nothing but a liar—
Then the words had stopped, replaced by the ragged sound of her mother weeping.
Delia stood there holding her by now old and very worn plush leopard, Coco.
At twelve, she was too old for such a thing, she knew that.
But even though her attachment to the toy embarrassed her, she couldn’t bear to give it up.
She pressed the animal tightly to her chest. How she wanted to comfort her mother, to say something that would stop the tears.
Yet she remained where she was, unable to summon whatever it would have taken to walk into the other room.
A moment later she heard the rushed, staccato sound of her mother’s high heels.
“Where do you think you’re going?” her father shouted.
The loud bang of the door was the only reply.
Warily, Delia emerged from her room. Her father was sitting at the table, sipping a glass of wine; the bottle, nearly empty, sat beside it.
“Is she gone?” Delia already knew the answer. This was not the first time her mother had stormed out of the apartment.
Her father avoided looking at her, and instead gazed intently at his glass before he nodded.
“When is she coming back?”
“Soon enough.” He poured the remaining wine into his glass and downed it quickly.
Delia was not terribly worried; her father was right about Sophie’s return, which usually happened within hours of her departure.
There would be tears and apologies, then embracing and kissing; sometimes this was followed by her parents going into their bedroom, the door slamming and bolting shut behind them.
But this time was different. Sophie did not come back at dinner, and she was not back at bedtime either.
And even more concerning was the fact that they were supposed to leave the day after the next.
Now Delia was worried. Would Sophie stay out all night?
Her father had changed into his pajamas and robe.
“Let’s get some sleep,” he said. “I’m sure she’ll be home in the morning.
” Delia lay awake for a long time, listening for the sound of the key turning in the lock. It never came.
In the morning, she awoke with a vague sense of dread. As soon as she remembered about Sophie’s disappearance, she rushed into her parents’ room to see if her mother had returned. She hadn’t.
“Should we call the police?” Delia asked. “Maybe she’s hurt. Or sick.”
“Calling the police would not be a good idea,” her father said.
He looked haggard and pale; was his hand actually shaking as he poured the coffee?
“We have to keep packing. The train leaves at noon tomorrow. I’m sure she’ll show up soon.
” When Delia didn’t move, he added, “Maybe you want to start gathering some of her things? That would be a big help.”
Delia was grateful for the suggestion. Her mother had taken the handbag she always wore—cognac-colored leather with brass trim and clasp—but her valise was here, so Delia began to fill it.
First in was Sophie’s favorite nightgown—ice-blue satin with lace straps and a matching robe.
Then this gauzy dress, splattered with enormous cabbage roses in all shades of pink—Sophie had worn it often last summer at Le Piol.
Next was her favorite Hermès scarf, still faintly redolent of her signature perfume, Guerlain’s Shalimar; she sometimes dabbed a bit behind Delia’s ears and on her wrists, promising to buy her a bottle when she was older.
Handling all these familiar objects was reassuring; it made Sophie’s return seem expected, even inevitable.
She’d be back any time now, of course she would.
It was late afternoon; there was still time.
After dealing with the clothes, she turned to the rosewood writing desk Sophie had used.
In the bottom drawer, way at the back, Delia found a journal with an olive-green embossed leather cover.
She’d never seen it before. Not sure if she ought to open it, she turned it over.
There on the back was a tiny sticker from the shop where it had been purchased.
Delia knew that shop; it was on the rue Madame in the sixth arrondissement, and it was where her mother had gone to buy pens, ink, and the creamy, deckle-edged notecards she used for correspondence. So most likely it did belong to Sophie.
“Delia?” her father called from the other room.
“I’ll be right there.” She hastily stuffed the journal into the valise. Something told her that if she did decide to read it, she would want to be alone.