Last Twilight in Paris

20. Helaine

20

Helaine

Paris, 1944

One morning as Helaine was preparing her counter in the department store, she heard a commotion coming from outside the shop. She and Miriam exchanged puzzled glances. What was happening? Miriam moved cautiously toward the front door. “Don’t!” Helaine whispered. The windows were blackened, but prisoners were still not permitted to go near the glass and she didn’t want her friend to risk getting in trouble. But Miriam waved her off, curious, and pressed her ear to the window. A moment later, she returned. “People are saying that the Allies have landed at Normandy,” she said quietly. Her eyes were damp.

Helaine moved toward the front of the store now, too excited to remain cautious and heed the rules about staying away from the windows. Through a space in the window where the black paint had worn away, she saw a new wave of Parisians fleeing with their belongings. This time, it was likely the collaborators running, the ones who had reason to be afraid when the Allies came because of what they had done during the war.

News that the Allies had crossed the Channel filled Helaine with hope. “The landing,” Helaine whispered, squeezing Miriam’s hand. “It’s happened. It won’t be long now.” Surely the Allies would soon reach Paris and free them. If only she and the others in Lévitan could hold on. She prayed that Gabriel, if he was still alive, could survive until liberation as well.

But Miriam’s expression changed slowly, the lines around her mouth deepening. “We will have to leave sooner than I thought.”

Miriam was still talking about trying to escape, Helaine realized. Didn’t she understand that help was on the way and they would soon be free? “Miriam, we don’t need to escape now. The Allies will liberate us.”

“Hah!” Miriam waved her hand dismissively. “You think the Germans are going to just leave us here for the Allies to find? No,” she said, answering her own question without waiting for Helaine. “They are going to try to erase all evidence of what they did here before the Allies arrive.” Helaine’s blood chilled. “We are only useful as long as the store goes on. And maybe not even then. Things are going to get much worse before they get better.”

“What are you going to do?” Helaine asked, already knowing the answer. Her eyes traveled through the window beyond the edge of the rooftop to the horizon.

“I don’t know. I’m still thinking of the best way to go.”

That night, the news on the contraband radio, hidden in the dormitory, spoke of the Allied forces landing at Normandy. And yet, the next morning, the prisoners were sent to work as if it were any other day. They continued working in the store as spring turned to summer and the days grew longer and the nights in the stuffy attic grew hotter. Helaine could tell that Miriam was still determined to escape. She saw the older woman studying the doors and windows, calculating the best way to go. Weeks passed. The Allied advance across Europe was far from steady. The battle lines moved slowly and there was word of setbacks. It seemed as though they would never reach Paris, or if they did, it would be too late.

But there were little signs that the Germans were weakening and the Allied offensive was taking its toll. The Allies had bombed the rail lines, and with the tracks destroyed, the Nazis could not ship plunder to Germany as efficiently as they wanted. There were fewer trucks bringing household goods to the store, too, though Helaine was unsure whether this was due to the war or the simple fact that there were almost no Jewish homes left to loot. The war had to be nearing its end. The remaining Nazi customers were rushed and looking only to buy goods they could carry with them. But with the shelves of the shop growing barer by the day, the undeniable reality, whispered among the prisoners, was that the department store would not remain open much longer.

What then? Helaine considered one night as she lay awake, unable to sleep in the stuffy dormitory. If the Germans closed the store before the Allies reached them, the possibilities were too awful to contemplate. No one went home; Helaine knew that now. All paths led east to places a million times worse than here. There were rumors of camps in Poland where the smokestacks were the only way out.

Escape. Helaine was overwhelmed at the notion. But the end of the war was coming, and so, too, was the end of the department store. Gabriel was not coming to save her. Helaine had always believed that if she waited, he would come for her. He had sworn it. With Gabriel arrested, though, his promise to come for her was simply one he could not keep. If she were to live, she was going to have to save herself. There was no hope left here.

All of the old doubts, her mother’s words, which Helaine had not thought about since leaving home, reverberated now in Helaine’s head. She was weak from her childhood illness. Not strong enough to survive. Except she had survived, Helaine reminded herself. She had survived these many months in the camp. She could do it; she had to, because there was simply nobody else anymore. She was not the same person she had been when Gabriel left.

The next morning as they prepared for work, Helaine approached Miriam. “Take me with you,” Helaine whispered.

Miriam looked at her with surprise. “You always refused before.”

Helaine dipped her chin in acknowledgment. “I know. I’m ready now.” She felt the words as she spoke them.

“So what changed?” Miriam asked.

“Because now,” she said slowly, only fully realizing the words as she spoke them, “there is no other choice.” She straightened, filled with newfound resolve. “Tell me,” Helaine said to Miriam. “When do we go?”

“We have to plan it,” Miriam said grimly. “I would have used the window to climb out onto the ledge and down. But I’m not strong enough now.” Miriam gestured toward her own emaciated body. It was not just the meager rations that had caused her weight loss. Miriam’s cough had worsened to near incessant and she wheezed all night trying to breathe. They both knew she had cancer or something equally dire. Yet she was still determined to try to escape, rather than living her remaining time in captivity. “We need a different way,” she added.

Helaine looked at the shop with a new eye, calculating the best route out. “What if we wait until the guard is asleep?” she asked, referring to the one gendarme who was supposed to stand watch downstairs at night. In reality, he always found a comfortable chair in the furniture department to rest in, his snores reverberating through the high ceiling of the store.

Miriam nodded in agreement. “We can sneak down the back stairwell and out.” There was a second set of stairs that led to the side alley. The prisoners seldom used them except when accessing the adjacent apartment building for their weekly showers.

“But where will we go?” Leaving the department store itself was not hard; that was the ironic part. It was surviving after escape that would be the most challenging. Paris remained a city under siege, there was hardly a single Jew left nor a friendly house where they might find shelter. Once they went, they had to leave Paris for good.

“I don’t know,” Miriam replied honestly. “But if we wait until we have all the answers, we will never get out of here and then it will be too late. We will go tomorrow after bedtime,” she added decisively.

“Miriam,” Helaine said, one more question occurring to her. “You’ve been talking about escaping for so long. Why now?”

She smiled. “Because I was waiting for you.”

The next night, Helaine lay awake. She looked around the department store and listened to the familiar chorus of people breathing in sleep. She would not miss Lévitan, to be sure. But it had protected them from so much worse. If she lived to tell about it, Helaine vowed, she would never forget this strange place.

An hour after the dormitory was settled and still, Miriam nudged her. It was time. Helaine slipped from bed and started for the door. She looked across the room and hesitated, then raced back to the hole in the wall near her bed. The necklace. She had nearly forgotten it. She fastened the locket around her neck, then pulled out her journal. She could not bear to leave it.

Miriam looked down at the journal and Helaine worried that she would object to her bringing it. Carrying objects would only slow them down. “I feel bad about the other prisoners,” Miriam said to Helaine instead. Surely there would be repercussions when it was discovered that they were gone. But there was no other choice—they could not take everyone and they could not stay here. And if they warned the others, they might try to stop them or perhaps even tell the guards.

They walked to the back stairwell door as planned. It was open every night, leading to both the lower floors and the roof. Prisoners accessed it frequently when they went up to the roof to smoke or breathe the fresh air. But when Helaine tried it now, it was locked. Was it just bad luck that the door was locked tonight, or had someone overheard their plans and told the Germans? Helaine’s eyes met Miriam’s in panic. They were trapped.

Suddenly, there were footsteps on the main stairs below. There was no other way down and the door in front of them was locked. Any minute the guard would be here and see that they were trying to escape.

From the landing below, someone shined a torch upward in their direction. “Who’s there?” It was not the guard, but Maxim.

“Just me, you fool.” Only Miriam would dare talk to the overseer that way. “Helaine is with me as well.”

Maxim shined the flashlight at Helaine, illuminating her body and leering. Normally, this would have bothered her. But she was too scared about being caught to notice or care.

“What are you doing up and about?” Maxim asked.

“She felt ill,” Miriam lied smoothly. “We were going to get some fresh air.”

“You can’t. Doors are locked from now on, von Behr’s orders. Air raids make it too dangerous.” Helaine did not know if that was a lie. Why should the German care if the prisoners lived or died? There was hardly any merchandise to sort anymore. Most likely, he did not want anything to happen to the Jews under his watch because it would be a stain on his military record, injurious to his future career aspirations. “Use the toilet if you need to be sick,” he added. “And don’t make a mess.” He turned and walked back down the stairs.

After he left, they stood silently as Helaine tried to calm her racing heart.

“That was close,” Miriam whispered. “Maxim is terrified of prisoners escaping on his watch and what would happen to him if they did. He is going to be watching us like a hawk. I’m afraid there is nothing more to be done.”

“Is there another way?” Helaine whispered. She had already begun to taste freedom, and it felt like they were so close.

Miriam shook her head. “Anything else is too risky. The elevators are noisy and the front stairs visible. And I can’t manage the window ledge.” Helaine thought she could make it from the window ledge, but she would never abandon her friend.

Their escape plan foiled, they returned silent and defeated to their beds in the dormitory. They would be forced to remain at the department store, at least for now. Reluctantly, Helaine returned her journal and the locket to their hiding place and added a hash mark to her count of days upon the wall.