NOTES FROM GIRL X
1 June 1944
To the people of Paris,
To be in hiding is boring. And yet I am always tense. I think about j all the time. Even when he is here he is like vapor, escaping through the cracks until he is entirely gone again. To be with him but never to have privacy is torture. Sometimes we sneak a kiss. Maman pretends not to see. We can go no further. It makes me want to scream. J weaves fantasies for me that always begin, ‘After liberation ...” Yesterday he said, ”After liberation we will stay in the finest hotel in Paris, drink champagne, eat caviar, and make love once for every night we missed during the war.“ When he says such things, I close my eyes, and for just a moment, I believe him. But when I open them, I am the same filthy girl stuck in the same filthy place. I have not had a bath in almost two months. I cannot wash my clothes. I know I smell wretched, because sometimes I get close to the covered window and put my nose by a crack in the glass, where I can breathe in air from outside. When I move away from the glass, I am nearly asphyxiated. I reek, we all reek. Yet J says nothing about this. He simply continues to weave magical spells that begin, ”After liberation ... ”
But ... how can he love me when I am like this? How?