April , 1943
Dear Dandelion,
I think I'm being haunted; either I'm being haunted or I'm the ghost.
You see, when I pulled open the door to Le Chiot, the place was packed with Nazi soldiers. They laughed and chatted, drank cocktails and smoked cigarettes, just like we used to do. No one paid any attention to me when I entered, as if I weren't there at all. And if I hadn't spotted Madame Bijou in her usual spot in the back of the room, I would have thought that I'd come to the wrong place altogether.
But no, it was the right place, and when I tried to ask Bijou about the change in clientele, she said something about keeping her enemies close. I swallowed hard as she led me out onto the street and over to the bakery.
She gave me a room on the second floor. There is a wardrobe, a nightstand with a lamp, and two beds. She never told me who the second bed was for. She told me to wait there in that room, to not come out until she had new papers for me. She asked me what name I wanted, and I asked her what I should do with the pistol and the cash. She told me to keep both, because you never know.
I asked how long I had to wait for the new papers. She said, sometimes days, sometimes weeks, sometimes… She trailed off before that last one. I asked if she could bring me a pen and some paper. She said she'd see what she could do.
And so I sat in that room like a phantom.
I heard people come and go in the bakery downstairs, and sometimes a girl brought me food. She was young, maybe fifteen. Her name was Mae and she had a nice smile. I never asked her about her family, and she never asked about mine. She slept in a room down the hall. It has two beds and a wardrobe, just like mine.
I sat there quietly for nearly two weeks.
That was when I first heard the lighter.
That was when I first heard it, and I think I still do.
At night, I think I hear the lighter Laurent gave me. I think I hear it in the dark.
Flick, flick, flick.
I sit up. I turn on the lamp. I open the wardrobe and reach into my coat pocket. But when I pull the thing out it is quiet and still.
It has happened enough times, that I don't put it in the pocket any more. I leave it on the nightstand in plain view, but I swear, when I close my eyes…
Flick, flick, flick.
And once, I thought I heard Mae whistling a cheerful tune in her room. I thought I heard it through the wall, and when she brought me my dinner I asked her what was the name of the song, and she asked what I was talking about, what song?
"The one you were whistling," I said.
"I wasn't whistling," she said.
And that's when I realized that perhaps, I'm being haunted.
Or perhaps, I'm losing my mind.
I'm not sure which proposition is more terrifying.
Mae is gone now, but when I ask where she went, the other bakers fall silent. I think they are trying to protect me, but from what, I don't want to guess.
And after two weeks of being a ghost, my new papers arrived and with them, my new name. I chose the name Arianne, after my mother, and every time someone calls me by that name I can't help but think of my father.
Yes, I'm reminded of his weary voice. I'm reminded of the nights when he sat with the dusty atlas at the kitchen table and plotted our escape into Switzerland.
I still remember it clearly, the way he leaned over the table with his pencil between his teeth, running his finger over the page and scowling in concentration. I still remember the way he sat — as still as a stone. And even though he barely moved, I knew his mind was churning. I knew he was treading the currents of unforeseen emotions and unforeseeable obstacles.
I probably should have gone to bed, but I stood there a little bit longer, watching from the hallway, careful not to interrupt him, because I knew that I was witnessing something miraculous. I was watching my father become buoyant, a thing that must have terrified him, and I knew that he was doing it not for himself, but for all of us.
When my feet grew weary, I shifted my weight and the floorboards shifted beneath me. I remember the way he turned his head, and when he saw me, the way his scowl relaxed into a smile.
"What are you doing awake?" he asked.
"Nothing," I said.
"You should get your rest," he said. "We have a lot of work to do tomorrow..."
He trailed off for a moment, and his words echoed through the quiet house. Then, as if hearing himself, he paused and glanced around the room. When our eyes met again, he chuckled.
"You're doing the right thing," I said.
At that, his face became soft.
"You always have," I said.
He smiled a humble smile, as if he didn't really believe my words, but he nodded his head anyway and turned back to the map.
"Well, the worst thing we can do in our situation is deviate from the routine… not until we absolutely have to, that is. So, that means an early morning and a good night's rest."
"Yes, father," I had said.
Perhaps that was the most important gift my father had given me that night — the gift of routine.
And when I came to Le Chiot; when I threw myself at Madame Bijou's mercy, not only did she give me a roof over my head and a new name, she also gave me a new routine.
She gave me the morning shift at her bakery.
And every day since, I have woken up before the sun and baked the day's bread. I do this so that when the morning customers arrive, their croissants are warm and fluffy, and for a moment they can forget that they are prisoners in their own city.
"That's what you're selling," Bijou had said that first day. "You're not just selling pastries. No, no, no. You're selling something much more valuable than that — you're selling the illusion of la normalité."
And things have been normal, I suppose, for the most part. I have a normal room with a normal bed on the second floor of this seemingly normal bakery, which sits on the corner of two normal streets in the German district of Strasbourg. I have a new name, one that I chose, and to everyone else is sounds normal.
I have a regular schedule, with regular customers.
There is a housewife who comes every morning for her husband's breakfast. She complains about the heat. She complains about the cold. She complains about her children and her sore feet. She complains about the soldiers, and then, in the next breath, she complains about the Jews, as if this was all their fault. I bite my tongue. I smile and nod. She thanks me for the bread, and she heads on her way.
There is an SS Officer who will come in everyday for several weeks and then disappear, only to reappear a month later looking for the same chocolate croissant, his eyes lighting up at the sight — no, that's not entirely correct. I should say his "eye" because one eye is covered up with a black, leather eyepatch, and behind it his skin is raw and freshly scarred, as if by fire. He is a chatty fellow, and some might call him charming, but to me, his smile — which sits smack between the black eye patch and the bright white SS insignia on his collar — is misplaced and uneasy. He makes jokes and I pretend to laugh, if only to appear "normal."
There is even a little cat who will politely wait on the front step until I open the door and give it a piece of cheese. The cat never says anything, but licks its lips expectantly, and when I have nothing left, it walks off with its tail high, seemingly unconcerned with the superficial changes in the city; the crumbling apartments with lights that never turn on, the Swastika banners that flap in the wind, the khaki colored Panzer tanks that now prowl its territory. No, the cat simply moves off down the block, perhaps to the butcher or the cafe, perhaps looking for more handouts.
Some days I think that cat is much braver than me. I can barely step foot from this building. Instead, I roam the staircases, up and down all day, haunting the place, still feeling like a ghost, fearful that if I cross the threshold, I might disappear forever.
In the afternoon I close up shop, return to the basement and lock myself into a secret room behind a false door.
This is where I must complete one last task that Madame Bijou has asked of me. This is where I am supposed to sit, every night, at this tiny desk with a pen in hand, listening to the BBC on the radio. Actually, there are two radios, if you can believe it. I have one radio tuned to the English BBC and the other tuned to the BBC French service.
I have to listen to both, you see, because, as Madame Bijou says, you can never be sure where the important information is going to come from.
I have to listen, and I have to write down the things I hear; not just the news, but also the entertainment programs. I have to take down notes on which production is playing, what is the title, what is the subject, who are the voice actors, etc.
And most importantly, I have to listen to the those personal dedications, you know the ones, the kind where a romantic young lady will dedicate a poem or passage to her soldier abroad. I even have to listen to those and write them down.
Madame Bijou was very clear about it.
"Write down every word of the dedications," she said. "Every word."
"Why? Is it some sort of code?"
"Something like that," she said.
"Then should I be searching for certain words or phrases?"
"Don't you worry about that," she said. "Just write down as much as you can and let someone else do the rest."
And so I do it. Every night I write down the dedications in a logbook, and in the morning someone arrives and asks if we have any choux à la crème, and I always say, oh no, we are sold out of crème fraîche until Thursday, and then that person says, in that case, I will come back on Thursday so please prepare two dozen. And that's how I know that person is my contact.
Perhaps I'm exaggerating. I don't have that conversation every single day, because usually the same person comes for several weeks straight, but then they disappear, and a stranger suddenly asks for choux à la crème, and the whole routine repeats itself; same dance, new partner.
I pass off the logbook in the morning, and find it returned with the afternoon delivery of eggs. Sometimes there are loose pages tucked into the book. They are written in German and I must translate them by the morning.
And that is how my days go, for the most part predictable, for the most part normal.
But there are times, like when the Allied bombers fly overhead, and we are all forced into the basement; or when the Panzers rumble by, shaking the window panes; or when the Gestapo run down the street, guns drawn and whistles in their mouths; those are the times when the seams threaten to split wide open. They are the seams of the veil that I have thrown over my own face and over the face of others.
It is during those times — the unpredictable, churning times — that I feel a terrible scream rise up in my throat, a scream that I will never let loose, a scream that if I ever did let loose, would certainly bring my own death upon me.
I remain silent. I smile. I bake bread and I listen to the radio.
I sleep alone and I think of you.
That is the last part of my day, the very end of the routine.
That is the moment when I crawl into my bed and lay as stiff as a board on my back, eyes open, hands on my chest, breath shallow and quiet; that is the time I think of you.
It's been so long since I've seen your face. I lost the picture you sent me. I lost it somewhere between the back door of my house and the front door of this bakery.
I must compose you anew every night, patching together all the pieces that I can remember; the sunlight on your glasses, the hair on the back of your neck, the swoop of your earlobe, an open mouth, an inhalation of breath, a laugh and a sigh, a red handkerchief against your dirty cheek. These are the pieces I remember, and I put them together in the dark.
And when you are whole, I test myself against you. I imagine your shape and size next to me on the bed. I move over to make room for you, or I roll onto my side to curl myself around your back.
I imagine my hand on your hip, on your waist, or higher still.
In the dark, I become brave with my imaginings.
I imagine you standing before me in your white cotton shirt and your trousers. I imagine the top button of the shirt is undone. I imagine my own hands reaching out, unbuttoning the next, and the next one. I push the shirt away… and oh! What a thrill!
I imagine how it would be to undress you completely, from head to toe, your whole body bare. I imagine the ways in which your body might be different from mine; the color of your skin, the color of your hair, the shape of your breasts, the length of your legs, the width of your hips.
I imagine all of these things, and my hands begin to move. I want so badly to touch you, and I think that this is the best evidence that I have that I am not a ghost, that I am still alive, and that I want to go on living.
And in the dark, I tell myself that you must be alive, too. I tell myself that it is impossible to catch fire like I do; not if I'm a ghost, not if you're a ghost.
Is that naive? Maybe so.
Either way, I end my nights imagining all the ways I will love you, all the places I will touch you and kiss you. Sometimes I kiss the inside of my own arm and pretend it's your cheek. I tell myself that I am not dead.
I whisper my new name into my arm and pretend that you can hear me.
"I'm no longer Delphine Cormier," I whisper. "My name is Arianne Niehaus."
And so we are family now. We are family forever.
Yours always,
Yours