Shattered Crystals, Mia Amalia Kanner [cat reading book txt] 📗

of thousands of years ago. I felt buoyed. We would survive, with God’s help, as our forebears had done.

People walked along the road, an endless stream of men, women and children, knapsacks strapped on their backs, carrying suitcases, cardboard cartons and blankets. Some sat on the ground to rest and eat, pulling out loaves of bread and thermoses from their knapsacks. Then they moved on.

I saw a young woman, a slight figure in her dark skirt and sweater, a kerchief tied under her chin. She was walking alone, pushing a perambulator with a suitcase on top. When we caught up to her, we heard an infant crying. I could not see the baby, but I heard the mother humming softly, her pace slow so she could rock the carriage back and forth as she walked.

A young boy with dusty shoes and bare knees pulled a toy wagon. A box was anchored to it with string and a stuffed bear sat on top, in imitation of the farmer driving to market.

Every ten or fifteen minutes, a horn would blare insistently, and the animal-drawn wagons would be steered to the side, while cyclists and those on foot veered left and right to let a row of motorized vehicles pass. Some watched with envy, others with resignation as the vehicles disappeared into the distance. The movement was all in one direction. At every crossroad, more people entered the highway. They all paused for a moment as though they had not expected to see so many others in the same act of flight upon which they were embarking.

It became warmer as the day wore on, but the skies remained overcast. Looking up, Eugene said, “I remember now why it’s so gray all the time. I heard that the French use a chemical spray to prevent the German planes from seeing their target. This must be an artificial cloud cover.”

“Probably right,” Peter said. “The air doesn’t even feel damp. It’s rare for the sky to be so dark for so long without rain. I grew up on a farm in Poland. I can feel rain before it comes.”

“I don’t think we’ll be able to make it to Paris in one day,” Hilda said. “We’ll have to sleep outdoors tonight.”

In the evening, we found space in a crowded field off the road and became part of a vast camp-out. No one bothered to seek out the owner of the land to ask for permission to make camp. I did not realize how tired I was until I sat down on the ground and unbuckled my shoes. My shoulders ached when I bent forward to massage my aching feet. I remembered the days long ago when I had camped out in the German countryside with the Blauweiss, as a young Zionist. We had tents, and an open fire over which we cooked. Now we had neither shelter, nor food, nor fire. We had some money, but there was no place to buy food.

Eugene went off to find water. When he came back with the filled canteens, we ate the last of the dry bread we had carried. Hilda produced a bar of chocolate that we shared. “I have another,” she said. “It can be breakfast tomorrow morning.”

I looked for the first time at the letter Lene had handed me when she informed me that I could not accompany the children. It was from the Zionist Organization in Germany. I read the typed paragraphs, and began to laugh.

“Our number has been reached. Can you believe it? Do you know how long ago my husband applied for visas to Palestine? Five years. We paid 20,000 marks. I’ve lost count of the number of times my husband went to Berlin. After a while, our name was at the head of the list, but the Zionist Organization kept coming up with people who were in greater danger. Those people couldn’t wait and were pushed ahead of us. I used to go to the organization when Sal was in Buchenwald. I told them we were in terrible danger then, but it was like arguing with a stone wall. Now the Paris office has a document for me. I’m to pick it up and present it in London where the visas are waiting for my family.”

“How wonderful,” Hilda said.

“Wonderful? It’s ludicrous. How am I going to get to London? Why does everything come a little too late? Just the same, my friends, I’d like to have that document in my hand. When I pick up my papers, I’ll see if they can help us get out of Paris.”

“We must be at least two thirds of the way to the city,” Peter said. “Maybe when we get to Paris, I’ll locate Phillipe.”

“Good idea,” Hilda said. “Let’s each search out the people we know and see what help we can get. You look for Phillipe. Amalia will see if the Zionist organization can help us. And I know a woman from my home town. I got in touch with her when I first came from Austria. Eugene, you said you had a friend in Paris, too.”

When we reached Paris mid-morning, we separated and agreed to meet at four-thirty in the afternoon near a bistro a mile from the railroad station.

When I entered the building where the Zionist Organization Office was located, a concierge rose slowly from a scratched wooden chair and faced me. “The Zionist Office, please,” I said.

“Ah, they left, Madame. I am alone here. All the offices in the building have been abandoned. I would leave, too, but I am too old, and I have no place to go.” She fingered the fringes of the black shawl draped over her shoulders. “�a va, Madame. So it goes.”

I raced out of the building. What on earth had possessed me to go there? If somehow I managed to get to London, surely the letter should be sufficient for the visas. And after all my futile dealings with the Zionists, the mere idea of any help from them now was preposterous. Why hadn’t I stayed with Hilda? This was the second time I had separated from my Montmorency friends, the only people I knew in this vast city where everyone was rushing.

I rushed, too. The trip to the bistro seemed to last forever. My feet hurt again. It seemed as though my feet had been hurting for days. The wool coat over my arm, a useful blanket during the cool night in the field, was a burden on the sticky June afternoon. Passing an open cafe, I longed for a cool drink, but was afraid to take time to sit in the bistro.

A half block from the meeting place, I saw the familiar blond head above the crowd. Thank God, Peter was so tall. “Wait, I’m coming! Wait!” I shouted. I pushed through the crowd and saw Eugene coming from the opposite direction.

“My friend’s apartment was deserted,” he said.

“I didn’t find Phillipe either,” Peter said.

Hilda arrived five minutes later. “Frau Fuller gave me half a pound of cheese. I didn’t want to take it, but she insisted. She said the only thing to do is try to catch a train to the south. The Germans are expected to reach Paris in a day or two at most. It was on the news. There is fighting in the streets of Montmorency, right where we were yesterday morning.”

The crowds on the route to the railroad station were huge. Hilda stumbled over a valise, apparently lost or abandoned by its owner. We passed a woman sitting on a suitcase in front of a dress shop, her arms encircling three small children. It occurred to me that there was no way anyone could get through that mob with small children. It was then that I whispered to myself, “Thank you, Lene, for taking my children.”

Inside the terminal, we found every available train was traveling south. Even freight cars were carrying fleeing Frenchmen. There were no ticket-sellers on duty. People simply boarded any train they could. As soon as the cars were filled, the train pulled out. No one asked where the trains were heading. Everyone knew that the trains were south-bound, away from Paris and the rapidly approaching German armies. That was all that mattered.

We came to a freight train, already packed with travelers. Peter and Eugene grabbed the edge of the open car and hoisted themselves up. Hilda and I followed, but the train began to move. The edge of the car dug painfully into my waist, my legs dangling out of the moving train. Hands grasped my shoulders, pushing me down.

“No more room, no more room!” a man bellowed above me. His blood-shot eyes were filled with rage. A fierce pain seared through my shoulders, and I fell back on the platform.

Suddenly two people lifted me up, one of them screaming in outrage: “How could you? She was already on the train!”

In seconds, I was slung over someone’s shoulder. I felt myself being shoved against the moving train. From above, hands grabbed me and hoisted me onto the open freight car.

“Thank you, thank you forever,” I managed to shout toward the receding figures who had helped me.

The overfilled freight train gathered speed and pulled out of the station. The crowd left behind on the platform waved and cheered, forgetting for a moment that they were still waiting for their own deliverance.