God Speed the Night Read Free Page A

If the omission was observed by anyone except Marc it was not commented on.
    A few minutes later the conductor returned alone, stuck his head in and announced, “St. Hilaire, the end of the journey. Everyone must exit forward.”
    Over the grumbling of the passengers Marc asked, “Are we on time?”
    “Monsieur, it will depend on what you wish to be on time for.”
    The others laughed, but for Marc the words signaled his next move. While the other passengers gathered their luggage, Marc took the one small valise he and Rachel shared, moved into the aisle and kept the conductor in sight. He saw him try the water closet door, then presumably lock it. Marc moved quickly but not fast enough to pass before two nuns pushed into the aisle ahead of him, shepherding four small children. Time and eternity were but one to them. Marc followed on their heels. He slipped into the washroom and locked the door behind him. The stench was such that he breathed through his mouth, shallow gulps of the foul air. He used the valise as a table, and with his penknife, a blade honed to the sharpness of a razor, he removed his and Rachel’s photographs from the identity cards of a couple named Marie and Jean Belloir. He pocketed the photos and put the cards along with the travel permit—unstamped, so that it could yet be used by the Belloirs themselves—into an old envelope of the French railways.
    He opened the valise, pried away the lining, and took from behind it his and Rachel’s own papers. It had been many months since he had used his, and Rachel’s was new, at least the photograph was, for she had grown from schoolgirl to woman since the Occupation. Both I.D. cards bore the Star of David.
    The conductor tried the door and rapped three hard knocks.
    “One moment, monsieur.” Marc was ready. He closed the valise and unlocked the door.
    The trainman came in loudly abusing him for waiting until the last minute to use the cabinet. He closed the door behind him.
    Marc gave him the railway envelope. “Thank you, monsieur. You have helped save my life.”
    The trainman put the envelope in his pouch among the official records of the journey. “What do they want you for?”
    Marc said, “I am a Jew for one thing.”
    “What else do you need?”
    “The Milice are also looking for me.”
    “Nazi bastards,” the trainman said. “They are worse than the Germans.”
    “Far worse. Do you know where I can find a Monsieur Lapin in St. Hilaire?”
    “I would look first in what they call the Old Town. But watch yourself. The prefect of police is another bastard.” He opened the door. “Out, monsieur. Out!”
    Marc had now to push his way among the crowd. He saw Rachel twist and turn, trying to watch for him. Alone and unburdened by luggage she had been shoved far ahead. He edged toward her. Everyone had too much luggage, particularly the nuns. There were several of them now and they were trying to get the children to hold onto one another’s hands. Refugees, Marc thought at once; even at that age they did not trust one another.
    He reached Rachel’s side. She prisoned his hand between her arm and her breast as together they stared out at the shabby environs of the town. Some of the buildings had the look of being carried away, piece by piece. And it might be so, Marc realized, for he could see the torn plaster where iron-railed balconies might once have hung, and the unweathered places where shutters had been removed. Like other northerners before the whole of France had been occupied, he had cursed the south as the garden of Vichy, and he had shared in a cruel satisfaction when the Boche knocked down the checkpoints and moved in.
    “Look!” a woman cried and pointed with a desperate repetition, her fingers against the glass. “The trees are gone from the promenade. They’re all gone.”
    The barren stumps, two rows of them, looked raw and somehow obscene.
    “Madame, so are the men,” an old gentleman said.
    The whole town looked to be