Far From Home

Chapter 10

Arielle and Sebastien took the train to Paris in the second week in June. Things were still reported as chaotic in Berlin, but neither wanted to wait any longer. More and more people were arriving in Germany, trying to get news of their relatives who’d been sent to the camps. Arielle was afraid that in the disarray of Berlin, her children might leave and go somewhere else and be harder to locate. She had an old address book that she’d kept in her traveling bag, with some of Marianna’s friends listed in it. She was going to contact them systematically, as well as Jürgen’s parents, who would surely know where they were. His parents were solid, stable people, and Arielle was certain that they were still there. Her only concern was that they might be hostile about Gregor’s involvement in the conspiracy against Hitler a year ago. They were staunch supporters of the Führer and his government, but he was dead, Germany had lost, and the war was over. There was nothing to hang on to now, except the future. And their love for their children was a strong point in common that they had always shared. The two couples had gotten along well when Jürgen and Marianna married, and that couldn’t have changed and would bond them again. She was sure they would speak to her, when she called them, trying to find Marianna.

Sebastien and Arielle splurged on lunch at the Ritz in the garden to get their journey off to a festive start. They were excited to be making the trip together, and hopeful. Arielle told him about her last time there and seeing Coco Chanel at the bar. She had decided not to sell the black enamel cuffs designed by Chanel. She wanted to save them for Marianna because they were so special and unusual. But she had brought two diamond rings, a brooch, diamond earrings, and a diamond necklace to Paris to sell, as well as an antique Cartier hair ornament and a string of pearls. They would keep her solvent for quite a while. She knew a very good jeweler on the Faubourg Saint-Honoré who bought and sold expensive items. She hoped he was still in business, and Sebastien had brought his gold watch to sell. His father had given it to him when he passed the bar. It had strong sentimental value to him, along with his father’s own watch, which had been Sebastien’s grandfather’s. But having enough money to stay afloat while he searched for his family was more important. Gregor had given Arielle all the items she was selling, except the pearls, which had been her mother’s. But the Chanel cuffs had been his last gift to her, and they would be meaningful to Marianna because of it. It was like a gift from both of them. And the other items were less exceptional, and very traditional, so perhaps easier to sell. She hoped so.

After lunch, Arielle and Sebastien walked down the Faubourg looking in the shop windows. Paris had been liberated ten months before, so life had returned to nearly normal. It hardly looked different than it had when Arielle had been there a year before, and the luxury business boomed during the Occupation with the High Command buying expensive things for their wives and girlfriends. There was no evidence of change or hard times there, although some people had lost their fortunes in the war. And Jewish people had lost everything. Some had sold what they had in desperation before they were taken away, if they didn’t have time to escape.

Monsieur Mancini, the owner of the jewelry store that Arielle remembered, was there. She had bought some pretty pieces from him, but had never sold anything. This was her first time selling jewelry. And since his prices were high, she assumed he paid well too for what he bought from individuals. That proved to be less true than she had hoped.

He led them into a private room with velvet chairs and a desk. She spread her items out on a black velvet tray, and he examined them minutely with a jeweler’s loupe screwed into his eye. All of her pieces were signed by important jewelers, and Sebastien’s watch was Breguet, very distinguished-looking, and expensive. And his father’s was Patek Philippe. Monsieur Mancini wrote down a list of numbers for Arielle, after trying to show her new pieces to buy and offering a trade. She explained that she wasn’t buying or trading, which told him she needed the money, which gave him the upper hand. What he offered her was grossly inadequate and way below the value of her items, but she didn’t know where else to go, and their train to Berlin was leaving that night.

“I’m afraid that won’t do at all,” she told him bluntly, seeming rather grand. Sebastien had never heard her speak in that tone of voice and was startled. It was a side of her he didn’t know. She let the jeweler understand that if he couldn’t pay her the proper value, he would lose her patronage in future and she was most disappointed in him. He was flustered by her speech, and made some adjustments on the notepad, while she looked disapproving and uninterested. In the end, he increased his original offer by fifty percent, and, looking languid and bored, she finally agreed. He offered a decent amount for Sebastien’s watches. They sailed out of the store half an hour later, with a very respectable amount in their pockets, and Arielle giggled when they left.

“He actually paid us a fairly correct amount. His first offer was disgusting,” she said with a smile at Sebastien. He was pleased with what the jeweler had paid him, thanks to her.

“I think you scared him. You scared me,” he admitted. “How did you do that?” She was normally a very gentle person, and she had been quite tough with the jeweler, and almost insulting a few times.

“I pretended I was my German grandmother. She was a very smart, very tough, very grand, quite shrewd woman who always terrorized people by telling them how disappointed she was.” He laughed. They had gotten a little more than she wanted, and a lot more than he expected for his watches. They had more than enough money for the trip, and would have money left over for the future. She was sorry she hadn’t brought more jewelry to Paris with her a year ago. But she was glad she hadn’t sold the Chanel cuffs.

“Your husband must have been very generous with you,” Sebastien said quietly. The necklace was an impressive piece. She had worn it to Carl-Heinrich’s dinner party for the Windsors.

“Gregor was very generous,” she confirmed. “And it was nice when we had the means, but it’s not important. We’ve learned what is—our children, our lives, the people we love. The trappings can always be replaced and bought or sold. The rest can’t. I haven’t worn a piece of jewelry in a year and I don’t miss it.” He was reassured by what she said. She was very down-to-earth and had the right values. He worried sometimes that with her aristocratic background and the life she had led, he couldn’t even measure up as a friend. She put that fear to rest, and they went to have a drink at the bar at the Ritz before they caught their train. She didn’t want to go to the Crillon. Her memories of it were too vivid. She never wanted to see it again.

—

They caught their train to Berlin on time, and were due to arrive at eight in the morning. It was extremely rare to find a train running at all. They were lucky. They planned to get around Berlin with taxis, and had the money to do it now. And they were going to find any small hotel that was open and stay there. The fancy hotels were still closed, and would have been too expensive. They had second-class seats, and she had bought a cheap suitcase from Madame Laporte, leaving her alligator one at Madame Bouchon’s. It was a piece of history now, a souvenir of a lost life.

Conditions in Berlin were still difficult in June. Homeless people were wandering the streets and sleeping in doorways and bomb sites. Food was scarce and selling for a fortune on the black market, soldiers were everywhere, accosting women and getting drunk, and people were arriving in droves every day from other cities, seeking work and looking for relatives they had lost track of. The families of deportees stood in line for hours and sometimes days at all the locations where the authorities were gathering information, in some cases from official records that were becoming available as the camps were being combed for the precise ledgers the Nazis kept. Sometimes all the centers could provide were firsthand accounts from other deportees who knew of the fate of someone else’s family members.

—

Business was booming at the beer garden, but they had hired more waitresses, so the owner agreed to let Marianna leave for a week or two. She had tried to call her cousin Jeanne, and the number was disconnected. She had no way of knowing that the Germans had taken out the original phone and replaced it with their own. Jeanne had had a new phone installed when the war ended. Arielle had that number, Marianna didn’t, and she didn’t know who else to call, so she had to go there herself. It seemed like the perfect time to get out of Berlin and travel to France in search of her mother.

Tim had a fact-finding trip planned to four of the concentration camps, which was going to be grim but informative. What they already knew was bad enough, from evidence that had already been found at the camps, and mass graves. Since he was going with three other members of his team, one of them his commanding officer, he couldn’t adjust the time, and couldn’t go to France with Marianna. But conditions were much more civilized there than in Berlin. She had written to her cousins at the Chateau de Villier in Normandy, and was hoping to stay with them. She didn’t give them her address in Berlin, since she wouldn’t be there to receive their response, and was counting on their hospitality, as their second cousin, and Arielle’s daughter. With luck, maybe her mother would even be there.

Marianna left Berlin the same day as Tim, and took the trip in reverse that her mother and Sebastien had taken a few days before to go to Paris. She was going to change trains in Paris and go straight to Normandy, since she didn’t know anyone in Paris and had nowhere to stay. She wanted to talk to her cousins first.

Tim was able to see her off before he left and kissed her before her train pulled out. She looked pretty in a sky-blue cotton summer dress and a straw hat. She was a vision of youthful beauty, and she was excited to be making the trip.

They were due back in Berlin on the same day, in a week, unless she left a message with his office saying something different.

Tim stood on the platform as the train pulled away. Marianna was waving to him and blowing kisses, until the train swerved out of sight. He was still smiling when he left the station. He hoped her trip to Normandy would be fruitful, that she wouldn’t get bad news. She had had enough of that to last a lifetime. He felt guilty sometimes about the stories he heard, of terrible losses and heartbreak. Americans had lost many of their boys overseas, but they hadn’t lived through nightly bombings for years, watching their homes collapse or burst into flame when the bombs were dropped, and then digging through the rubble for their loved ones, or the brutality of occupation forces raping their women and invading their homes. The war seemed remote in the U.S., and he’d been lucky so far. He’d had easy assignments that were basically office jobs until he came to Berlin, and he had met Marianna there, and now was assigned to task forces that were important and meaningful, where he could make a difference. He had read a great deal about the camps he was going to visit, and the stories were gut-wrenching and deeply moving. He cried when he read some of them.

He had tried to capture the chaos and atmosphere of Berlin when he wrote to his sisters, and it was hard to put the reality of it on paper. There was so much going on at once at every level in a country that had virtually collapsed after six years of war.

—

Marianna had taken an overnight train that got her into the Gare du Nord early the next morning, and she had coffee and a piece of toasted bread with margarine, and spent two hours in the station before she caught the train to Normandy. Several men had approached her, and she ignored them or rebuffed them, depending on how persistent they were. Some were frankly annoying, others were young soldiers who looked like boys. There were still soldiers of all nationalities all over Europe, and many Americans in the station in Paris. Her French wasn’t quite as good as her mother’s, but her English was fluent so she had no problem letting them know that their advances weren’t welcome. She had learned to deal with persistent men at the beer garden. She had to deal with them every night. It was a relief to be away from them for a week or two.

Once on the train, she watched the countryside roll by in Normandy. The trip took three hours, and she smiled at the quaint station. Compared to Berlin, it was peaceful and seemed idyllic. It reminded her of her childhood summers, playing with Jeanne’s children, Arnaud and Sylvie. She was older than they were. She walked through the station, carrying her small bag, saw a heavyset man in overalls and a straw hat, and realized it was her cousin Louis. He had aged a lot in the last six years since she’d seen him.

He didn’t recognize her at first and thought she was just a pretty young woman, and then he saw the resemblance to her mother, though with dark hair under the straw hat instead of blond like Arielle’s, and realized that it was Marianna and she had grown up. He approached her immediately with a broad smile and hugged her. He looked like a farmer, which she thought was funny, and she walked to his truck with him. He had never been elegant but he was a kind man.

“It’s so good to see you,” he said, realizing that it had been six years since he’d seen her, the year war was declared. She was seventeen then. They hadn’t been able to attend her wedding two years ago, since France was occupied then, and Jeanne was no longer speaking to that branch of the family because they were German, so he hadn’t gone, in order not to upset his sister. He was sorry they hadn’t gone. Knowing Arielle and Gregor, even in wartime, he was sure it had been a glittering event.

They were almost at the chateau by then, and he turned to Marianna with a warm smile. “How’s your husband?” Marianna had been looking out the window, thinking of her mother, wondering if she would be at the chateau. She was afraid to ask and be disappointed.

She hesitated for a minute before she answered. “Jürgen died nine months ago. His plane was shot down over Poland.”

“I’m sorry,” he said gently, and they rode in silence for a few minutes. He was still adjusting to seeing her all grown up. She was as beautiful as her mother, with the added advantage of youth, but Arielle was still lovely too, and despite everything she’d been through, didn’t look her age. Marianna decided to wait until they got to the chateau, to see if her mother was there and if they would be reunited at last. She was hoping to see her with every fiber of her being.

They arrived at the chateau a few minutes later, and Louis told Jeanne discreetly that Marianna was a widow now. Jeanne was waiting for them, preparing lunch, and she stopped what she was doing and held Marianna tightly in her arms as soon as she saw her. She noticed the strong resemblance to her mother too.

“Welcome home,” she said, deeply moved to see her. She hadn’t seen her own daughter in five years. Sylvie was six years younger than Marianna, and Arnaud was Viktor’s age. Arielle had had her children earlier. It had taken Jeanne a long time to get pregnant.

They talked about conditions in Berlin. Marianna could see that her mother wasn’t there and asked politely about Arnaud, and saw her cousin’s face cloud over.

“He died with his father during the Occupation, in the Resistance.” Jeanne said it with a mixture of pride and grief. Inquiring about friends and relatives had become a minefield.

“I’m so sorry,” Marianna said, and hugged her.

And then Marianna couldn’t wait any longer. “I haven’t heard from my mother in eleven months. She called me the morning after she left Paris, and I never heard from her again. I thought she’d gone into hiding because of my father, and I was sure I’d hear from her at some point, but I never did. And then I moved last September, and maybe she didn’t know where to find me. I changed apartments, and I have no phone. It’s not easy to find anyone now. Have you seen her? Is she all right?” She was praying Jeanne didn’t tell her Arielle was dead.

“I saw her for the first time in a long time two weeks ago. She’s fine.” Relief washed over Marianna when she heard the words. “We couldn’t see her during the Occupation or even talk to her. It was too dangerous for her and for us. The Germans took over the chateau five years ago and we were living in the basement. She spent one night here after she left Paris. We had no use of the phone for four years. We couldn’t contact her or she us. The Americans are here now, but that’s very different. They’re very respectful. They’re living upstairs, and we’re back in our rooms. They don’t bother us. You’ll be back in your usual room while you’re here too. We just got everything put back together after the Germans left. The Americans helped us do it.” She realized that she had strayed from the subject of Arielle. Marianna looked like she was holding her breath, waiting for more news of her mother.

“Is she staying here with you now?” Marianna asked her, desperate to see her.

“No, she lives in a village fifty kilometers away. She’s been safer there. She has a job and a room, and papers under another name.”

“Can I go to see her after lunch?” Marianna was nearly jumping up and down, as she had as a child when she got excited. She could already imagine herself in her mother’s arms, and couldn’t wait a moment longer.

“She’s not there,” Jeanne said gently. “She’s been as anxious as you are. She tried to contact your parents-in-law after Berlin fell. There was no answer.”

“Their neighborhood was bombed and they may have been killed,” Marianna said in a flat voice. “I walked past where their house was one day, and it was gone. Their neighbor told me that he thought they died in the bombing. Where is my mother now?” Marianna looked desperate.

“She went to Berlin to find you. She didn’t know how to reach you. She went to find you and Viktor,” Jeanne said quietly. Marianna looked stricken when Jeanne said it. She knew it was too much to hope for, but she’d been praying to find her at the chateau.

“Is something wrong?”

“Viktor was killed in January,” Marianna said, and the weight of it crushed her again. “I guess Mama had no way of knowing, if she was in hiding in France.”

“No, she doesn’t know,” Jeanne confirmed. “And how will you find her in Berlin? I don’t know where she’s staying. They were just going to find a hotel that’s open in a decent neighborhood and stay there.”

Marianna heard the word “they” and looked at her cousin. “Is she traveling with someone?” She looked startled.

“She’s with a friend. His wife and daughter were deported to the camps. He went to Berlin for information. Your mother is safer not traveling alone, and he doesn’t speak German. So, they went together.”

“That sounds terrible. So few of those poor people survived. What you hear about it now is even worse than we suspected. You see the families and survivors line up for hours, pleading for information. The survivors of the camps look like skeletons, and they’re trying to find out about family members they got separated from who were sent to other camps. It breaks your heart just seeing the look on their faces,” Marianna said.

Their lunch was ready then and Louis sat down with them. Jeanne explained the situation to him. It was a comedy of errors. Arielle had gone to Berlin to find Marianna and Viktor. And Marianna had come to Normandy to look for her mother. But at least she knew now that her mother was alive. It was an enormous relief. For an entire year she had had no way of knowing if Arielle had been killed or not. Then Jeanne filled Louis in about Viktor.

“The war office would have notified her,” Louis said, but if her house was gone in Berlin, and she had disappeared in France under another name, they had no way to reach her. “I’m sorry about Viktor.” And Marianna was sorry about Arnaud, and his father, Jacques, Jeanne’s husband. Viktor and Arnaud were two wonderful boys. She hoped they were together now.

“What are you going to do?” Jeanne asked her. “You can wait for her here. We’d love to have you stay with us.” Jeanne missed having young people around.

“I only have a week or two off from work,” Marianna explained. “I took the time off to find my mother. I don’t want to waste it, sitting here, while she looks for me in Berlin. I’ll go back tomorrow.”

“How will you find her in that mess?” Jeanne asked her, worried about her. She was a young woman alone in a dangerous city.

“I don’t know, but I will,” Marianna said with determination. “I’ll try to look everywhere she would look for me. We’ll find each other. And I hope I find her before she finds out about Viktor. I want to tell her myself.” Her older cousins nodded. It would be a hard blow to lose her son. Jeanne had lived through it with Arnaud. “Can I still spend the night?” Marianna asked.

“Of course,” they said in unison. “And I hope you come back, and stay longer next time. Maybe with your mama.”

—

Marianna went to bed early that evening, and got up early the next morning to take the train back to Paris. Louis drove her to the station and Jeanne came to hug her before she left. She retraced her steps and bought a second-class ticket to Paris and another to Berlin.

The train pulled into the station at midnight. It was badly damaged but functioning, barely. She took a taxi to her apartment. It was expensive but safer. She had wasted two days going to Normandy, but at least she knew now for sure that her mother was alive.

Tim was on his information-gathering tour of the concentration camps. She left a message at his office the next morning that she was back in Berlin, looking for her mother. And then she set out on foot to go to all the places she used to visit. She called some of her old school friends but only reached two of them. They were surprised to hear from her. They hadn’t been in school together for six years, since before the war. Marianna told them where she worked, and gave them the address of her apartment, in case they heard from her mother, who was trying to find her. They wished her luck and she hung up, and began walking around Berlin on foot, to all the places they used to go, the parks, the playgrounds. She stood outside the museums for a while, and her family’s favorite stores. Most of them weren’t open. But she knew that somewhere in the city overflowing with humanity and despair and rubble, her mother was looking for her, and she knew they would find each other. Marianna wasn’t going to stop looking until they did.