Brandenburg Gate

Chapter 3

 

Wednesday, October 31st, 1945
2:00 p.m.
7eme Arrondissement
Paris

 

I walked fast, and I walked with no particular destination in mind.

First, it was across the grounds of Les Invalides, its huge facade still under repair, all these months after the fighting during the liberation of Paris. Then, it was down Rue de Grenelle, for no other reason than it was Rhys' favorite street in this part of the city. He'd said walking along it always made him feel like being home … 

I wondered where he was now, instead.

 

I shut down that line of thinking, that runaway line of thinking, fast; and instead I made myself concentrate on my surroundings. For a change. Seeing things for myself, uninfluenced by the bliss of Rhys' presence by my side.

 

I dimly remembered this street, from my first trip here. It'd been busy, crowded with people, and traffic, and bright colors. I remembered an open-air market, somewhere around here, anyway, with beautiful fruits and vegetables, and fish and mussels and shrimp on ice. I remembered all the shops, doors open, windows filled with clothes and furniture and sweets, and everything one could imagine, for sale … 

I had to admit to myself; things looked a lot grimmer, now.

The street still had some traffic, but it was mostly pedestrian. The people walking along did not look like the prosperous, well-dressed Parisians I remembered. The women looked thin, to me; and although they tried, their clothes seemed makeshift, home-made, and a little — odd, maybe.

Some of them wore fashionable shoes. More of them wore shoes with wooden soles, which made 'clack-clack-clack' sounds on the sidewalks, as they passed.

As for the men — they were mostly older; and that was a sinister fact in and of itself — for the most part, they seemed even thinner, and rather shabby.

I knew from the newspapers, that during the Occupation, a great many men had been shipped off to what were essentially slave labor camps in Germany. It was called, Sérvice de Travail Obligatoire — meaning, Obligatory Work Service — and when the trains carrying the survivors started arriving back in Paris, it had shocked and horrified the whole population of Paris. The survivors had … well, they'd looked like me and my campmates, at the end. Starving. Near death. The people of Paris had had no idea.

The franc coins of the pre-war French Republic were heavy, gold-colored things, with the slogan, 'Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité'. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. The franc coins of Vichy France had, 'Travail, Famille, Patrie'. Work, Family, Country. They were ugly, brutal, gray things, and feather-light, made out of aluminum, and Rhys had told me that nobody in the cafés wanted to take them, anymore, although it happened … The Third Republic, versus Vichy France.

I walked on. The day was chilly and windy, which fit my mood. The afternoon already felt late, and dark.

The cafés.

I passed one; and although it was crowded, I knew nobody was drinking coffee, real coffee. There was none to be had in France, outside of U.S. military bases and posts. What was served instead was a concoction made out of chicory, and the best that could be said of it was, that it was hot.

Well, usually it was hot.

I hadn't known that, before coming over; and that had made my surprise gift for Rhys all the better, all the more sweet, although we hadn't really had the chance to enjoy it, before his — 

 

Stop it.

 

I pushed the thought away, with an effort; before my mind started chasing down a dozen useless, fear-ridden rabbit-holes, all at once.

 

I turned to my left, down the Rue du Bac, headed to the river. Walking a little faster, still. I crossed the broad Boulevard St.-Germain, and I didn't even have to look right and left for traffic; it was that empty. Down to the river, then, walking through dry leaves pushed by the breeze, and I turned right, by instinct; heading to the Latin Quarter. Again. The place Rhys and I just naturally seemed to gravitate towards.

The walls of the Quai on this stretch of the Seine were free of bouquenistes, at least for now. Once I noticed some bullet-pockmarks, not yet repaired; but for the most part, the walls were covered with political posters, from last week's elections. There were plenty of hammers-and-sickles, and red stars. More than a few posters showed the Cross of Lorraine, for the more moderate Gaullist-oriented parties … 

And, then, Rhys' personal favorite, that he'd pointed out to me. A white Bourbon lilly on blue, with the words underneath; 'Pourquoi pas?' It was a poster for the Monarchist party — or one of them, anyway, there were apparently several — and as election slogans went, 'Why not?' was about as far from a ringing call to action as you can get. Seeing one of these always made Rhys laugh. And I laughed at it too, as I walked on — 

Straight into a checkpoint, a U.S. Army checkpoint.

* * *

"Sir! Good afternoon, sir!"

The sergeant saluting me wore a white-painted helmet, and black armbands showing "MP", in large white letters. The other five men in his detachment wore the same; they looked like they were cold. The two Jeeps parked at angles on the Quai had 'MILITARY POLICE' painted in big letters under the glass windshield panes, and oversized serial numbers on the sides of their hoods.

I saluted back, thinking that I'd saluted and been saluted more in Paris, than I had since leaving Basic Training.

"Good afternoon, Sergeant."

"Sir. May I see your ID and your orders, please, sir?"

It wasn't really a request.

"All right," I said, mildly. I fished out the blue folder holding my ID, and the slender manila envelope holding my leave papers, and handed them over.

The sergeant — he was large, and older, and looked like any beat cop in New York City — opened up the folder and lifted it up, obviously comparing my face to my ID photo. I obligingly took off my cap. Then, after a good, long look, he lowered the blue folder, and took my ID completely out of it. He spent more time, considerably more time examining each page very carefully, front and back, paying attention to every detail, I thought.

I put my cap back on.

Without saying anything, the sergeant passed the ID and the folder to the corporal standing next to him; and then he undid the string closing the envelope of my leave papers, pulled them out, unfolded them, and starting reading.

After a few seconds, he looked up at me, blinking.

"Sir … You are on detached medical status — ? In England?"

"That's right, Sergeant. I was a POW for about five months, after I was shot down. And, well, after we were liberated, and after I got out of the hospital, they sent me to a sanitarium, to get better. We call it 'Uncle Sam's Rest Home For Just Slightly Less Successful Aircrew'."

I shrugged, and I grinned at him. Somebody had actually posted a mock sign with that slogan on it, in the dining hall. Underneath was a cartoon of Donald Duck, wearing a leather aviator's helmet and goggles, one arm in a sling, looking nonplussed. It was very well-done.

The sergeant went on reading, all the way through. Then he looked up at me. His face was carefully expressionless.

"Sir. May I ask what unit you served in?" He watched my face, carefully.

"743rd Squadron, 455th Bomb Group, 304th Bomb Wing, 15th U.S. Air Force." The response came automatically. As if I would ever forget, to my dying day. "We flew out of Cerignola, Italy."

A pause. A kind of echoing silence, for a moment.

"And … you decided to come to Paris, for a month's leave — ?" He said it, as though it was a crazy idea.

He had a point. Paris was no tourist destination, right then.

I shrugged, and smiled. "Yep."

Something in his face hardened, a little. I saw the corporal glance at one of the other men.

"Begging your pardon, sir. This country, this whole continent is full of American GI's, adding up their points, just dying to get their turn to go home. But you're an ex-POW, and you're on medical detachment. You could've gone home any time. Could you tell me, why you're still here? Sir."

He was right, of course. For most American soldiers, there was an elaborate point system that determined when you could go home; time in uniform, time outside the country, time in combat, other factors. The more points you accumulated, the sooner you could leave. But I could have gone home by hospital ship, as soon as I was well enough to survive the trip.

But I'd found out early on that Rhys was alive, and in Paris. And then had come his first wire, and then his first letter. And since then I'd used every trick in the book to stay on, to keep from getting shipped home.

I shrugged again, and chose my words, carefully.

"I'm staying with a … friend … here, in Paris. Not too far from here, actually." I paused a few seconds, to let that sink in. "I'm hoping to persuade this, friend, to come home with me."

Silence, for a few heartbeats.

I saw a warm bloom of understanding, on the sergeant's face; and I saw the corporal try hard not to smile. I thought I saw the other men relaxing, a little; they'd been looking — well, on alert — before.

"Ah. I see, sir. And, can you give us the address, where you're staying — ?"

"Sure. It's a place called Le Square de la Tour Maubourg — that's T, O, U, R, then M, A, U, B, O, … "

What I'd just done, was to tell the sergeant that I was cohabiting with someone. Sharing a bed. In the Service, this was called being 'shacked up'; and it was a time-honored and highly-admired thing.

And of course they assumed I was shacked up with a woman. That she would be French, and a Parisian, made it all the bigger score.

I tried to keep myself from grinning, as I finished giving him Rhys' address.

The fact was, I'd told the truth. I'd come over to Paris with the possibility of getting Rhys home, the biggest item on my agenda. I'd figured he'd have to have the points, by now; I knew nothing of what he'd been doing, but I did know he'd been overseas, over here, for years. And if it was just a matter of waiting for a cabin on some troopship … well. I was owed favors, from the pilots who'd jumped places up in line, because of me. I could get us on a C-54 for home in a flash.

 

I wished it had worked out that way. Oh, God, how I wished it. I felt that stab of fear, again.

 

I shook my head.

"Look, Sarge," I said at last. "If there's any question at all about my identity … well. I've got a friend at the U.S. Embassy, who will vouch for me. He's the Assistant Military Attaché, he's an Army Captain, and he knows I'm here, and so does the Ambassador, we've met before — "

"That won't be necessary, sir." The sergeant began hastily putting my leave papers back into the long envelope, and re-tying the string. Then he handed me back the envelope, and my ID folder. "Sorry to have bothered you, sir." His expression said, he had no desire to get tangled up with Military Attachés or the Embassy.

"'S'okay." I shrugged.

"Sir … may I give you some advice? Sir?"

He said it a little urgently, and I blinked at it.

"Sure."

"Sir, by walking around on your own like this, well, you stick out like a sore thumb. Standing orders for American personnel are to always travel in groups, or at least in pairs, whenever possible. It isn't really safe to be by yourself … and, you'll get the attention of MPs like us, every time."

I had heard something like that from my CO, before leaving England. But it had sounded like the old, stale advice about avoiding venereal diseases and pickpockets.

"Why the extra attention, Sarge?"

"Well, sir. There are still some Germans impersonating American military, in this town; it's the safest place for them to lose themselves, after all, while they're trying to figure out how to get home without getting shot."

While the American Army was driving through France, the Germans had flooded the area behind the lines with impersonators in American uniforms, to do as much damage through sabotage as possible. It'd been a headache, I knew.

" … But the real problem is with the deserters." He turned and spat into the gutter. "The fucking deserters."

"American ones?" from me.

"If you can call them that, sir. Yeah, they're American soldiers, who decided to discharge themselves a little early, you might say." The tone was ironic. "And there's lots of guns and lots of ammunition around, and plenty of American uniforms … so, they give themselves 'promotions'. And then they set themselves up in business. As gangsters." Another contemptuous hawk, into the gutter. "The locals call them the 'Ricans', and they mostly run protection rackets, and they sure as hell don't make things any better or safer for the rest of us here. Fucking bastards."

I stared at him.

"They run protection rackets — ? What do they get paid in? Turnips — ?"

I saw his cop's face relax a little, at my honest amazement. Turnips and beets were about the only things the local cafés had in plenty. And most everybody in Paris seemed to be broke, or near to it.

"Well, sir, no. There's actually money in the black market; and that's who these bastards hit. If you're dealing in the black market, you're not going to go to the police, are you?" An ironic look from him. "But they're beginning to come to us, to U.S. MPs, I mean. We don't care what the locals get up to. It's their own fucking country. But we care about our own deserters, and we're beginning to catch more all the time."

"Good," I said. My heart was sinking. "Good. Well, thanks for the heads-up, Sarge. I appreciate it."

I wondered if Rhys knew all this. I thought he had. I figured he'd probably known where all the Military Police checkpoints in Paris were, and steered us clear of them.

This was going to make it a lot harder for me to get out, and get around … at least, by myself. Before Rhys came back.

The sergeant looked over at me, not unsympathetically.

"It gets a little worse, sir. See, just about everyone in this place says now they were with the Resistance … but a lot of them, weren't. A lot of them were Vichy, through and through, and they don't like us one bit. And Pierre Laval getting executed a couple of weeks ago, hasn't made them any happier." He started to turn to spit, again, then thought better of it. "It's a good idea to watch your back around here, sir; especially at night. And if you have to use the Métro, it's best to stand well back from the edge of the platform."

My CO in England had warned me about the Métro. I hadn't taken him seriously.

I sighed.

"Thanks again, Sarge."

"Look, sir. I can send you home in a Jeep, right now, if you want." He eyed me, a little apologetically. "And, I didn't mean to scare you, too much. I'm sure you and your friend will be just fine, in your own neighborhood. It's a pretty ritzy part of town."

I grinned over at him.

"Thanks, Sarge. I think I'll just walk back the way I came. It's about time for me to get home, anyway."

The word, home, hung there in the air between us, for a second. We both felt it, although I hadn't intended it that way.

"Yes, sir. Sorry again to bother you, sir!" The sergeant snapped into a salute. I returned it.

"Good afternoon, Sergeant."

* * *

Back along the way I'd came. Back along the chilly Quai Malaquais, and then the Quai Voltaire. Up the Rue du Bac; across the Boulevard Saint Germain, more brown leaves scattering across the sidewalks in the breeze.

I was trying not to get my hopes up.

I am by nature an optimist. I try not to let my optimism get out of hand, but it is my nature to think things will come out all right in the end, to believe that things will come out all right in the end. Of course, for a long stretch of our lives, I've had Rhys to help keep me grounded, keep me from crashing down too heavily, when things go wrong — 

Poor metaphor. I winced at it.

But. Right then, right at that moment, I felt an irrational stab of hope.

I'd been gone for just a few hours; but it was a few hours in the middle of the day, in the middle of a workday.

I wasn't fool enough to think that I'd come back to Rhys' flat and find him waiting there for me, with a long story to come after the intensity of the reunion. No.

But I did hope I'd find … something. A letter, from him; a cable, from him, saying he was fine, and coming home shortly. My mind constructed the scene, and it felt so real, I anticipated the flood of relief I'd feel, the dread just melting away into joy … I could feel, against all reason, that there'd be something waiting for me back at Rhys' flat.

"Bonjour, M. le Capitaine," from Madame Duplessis, the concierge. "This was left for you here, while you were out. Not two hours ago, actually." She picked an envelope up from the tray on the little table in the entryway, and handed it to me.

My heartbeat started hammering up and up, as I took the envelope; and then I looked at it. It was small, and blue, of the kind used for personal notes; and the address on its face was not in Rhys' handwriting.

My heart fell to earth, again.

"Thank you, Madame."

"De rien, Monsieur."

Up the marble steps, to the front door of Rhys' flat. Then, fumbling with the elaborate key in the elaborate lock, that seemed more suitable for a bank than a private flat. Finally I was inside, the door was closed, and I opened the envelope.

Inside was a brief note, in small, neat handwriting on cream-colored paper:

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