The Battle at Hannut in Belgium took place 12–14 May between Belgian and Nazi tanks. It was the largest clash of armoured warfare in history.
The bus driver took us to Calais, and from Calais I took a train to Biarritz in southern France, as far from the Nazi invasion as I could go.
When I stepped off the train that morning, I felt a sudden surge of peace. The engine was silent. There were no refugees, and squawking gulls replaced the throb of Nazi planes. All I had was my journal in my hand, Hava’s necklace, and Benjamin’s drawing in my pocket.
I had nearly forgotten it was spring. The warm sea air almost made me forget the way Hava had been thrown brutally into the truck. The lapis lazuli sky almost blotted out the Nazis’ red and black flags. I had heard about Biarritz, the famous coastal resort town on the south-western coast of France.
Quickly though, reality returned to my aching body. My dress was stained, my face smeared with dirt and tears, my hair tangled. As I walked out of the train station and into the open streets of the town, people looked at me as if I was an urchin, something to be avoided, or looked through as if I were invisible.
I was alone. My father had disappeared. My aunt was in Luxemburg. Hava was on her way to a relocation centre of some sort. Brussels was over 1,000 kilometres away. It was there, at that moment, that I thought about my mother.
My steps were slow. I nearly staggered from fatigue and hunger. With each step I asked myself a question. ‘Had my mother been happy that I was about to be born? Why did she name me Simone? How did her laugh sound? Did she know that she was going to die in childbirth?’ I had never asked my father these questions, but he did tell me once that my mother had loved the idea of me very much.
I didn’t know that I was walking towards the ocean until I heard the distant waves curling on the beach.
Did my mother like daffodils? Had she read Romeo and Juliet? I felt faint with sorrow. I pulled each step from the last amounts of energy that I possessed. The sound of the waves increased just beyond the dunes. Was my mother waiting for me there, stretched on the sand like a film star?
I climbed the dunes, stumbling again and again. Sand slipped into my shoes, mingled with my matted hair. I heard Hava’s voice in my delirium: ‘The Nazis will not find a filthy Belgian girl, Simone.’
When I reached the top of the dunes, the Atlantic Ocean spread out like a painting, all foam and blue water, all sky and eternity. It was the end of my journey. I could not run any further from the Nazis. I looked to my left and saw the Hotel du Palais. When I looked to my right, I began to sway. My heart raced. In the distance I saw a woman on the rocks, a woman dressed in white. I touched my cheek. The woman in white stood tall and aloof. ‘Maman?’ I asked aloud, as the surging waves drowned my voice, and then I fainted.
I do not know for how long I had been unconscious, but I awoke with the feeling of a hand behind my head and water touching my lips. As I drank slowly, I opened my eyes.
‘You had me worried, mademoiselle.’
I closed my eyes again for a moment, not remembering where I was.
‘What is your name, mademoiselle?’
I opened my eyes and saw an old woman with the bluest eyes peering back at me. Her wrinkled face offered a small, reassuring smile. ‘Simone. I am Simone Lyon.’
The woman sat beside me and helped me sit up. She offered me more water from a small canteen, which I accepted immediately and drank and drank.
‘Are you the woman?’ I asked in a daze.
‘Woman?’
‘I saw you, dressed in white, on the rocks. You were standing there so confidently.’
The old woman took the canteen, replaced the cap, and pointed towards the ocean. ‘There, mademoiselle Simone. There is your woman in white.’
On the tip of a large outcrop of rocks stood a statue of Mary, visible from a great distance.
‘It’s the Rocher de la Vierge, the Virgin Rock, Simone. She is holding the Christ child in her arms.’
I wish the virgin on the rock would hold me, I thought.
‘It’s a great tourist attraction. But, mademoiselle, you are not a tourist. Where do you come from?’
I looked up at the statue again, thought about my mother, looked at the curling foam of the waves and whispered, ‘Brussels. I’m from Brussels. The Nazis . . . Where am I?’ When I tried to stand up, I stumbled onto the sand again.
‘You don’t want to be like a shell, mademoiselle, and be swept up by the ocean. You will come home with me. Don’t be frightened. Stand up, but let me help you this time.’
I was in such a daze that I complied easily. As I leaned against the woman and as she looped my arm around her waist, she said, ‘My name is Madame Bisset. I’ve lived here in Biarritz for over forty years.’
As she spoke, we made our way slowly back to the other side of the dunes and towards the streets.
‘Each morning I come to the sea and look for shells. I collect them.’
Madame Bisset’s strength surprised me.
She stopped for a moment so that she could get a better balance. ‘This morning, I looked across the dunes and saw you. At first I thought you were just a clump of seaweed, but then you moved a bit.’
‘Thank you,’ I whispered.
‘Save your strength. Just walk with me. We don’t have far to go.’
With each step, and with each breath of the fresh, salted, air, I began to revive a bit.
‘You said something about the Nazis?’ Madame Bisset asked after a few moments.
‘We tried to run away. We kept ahead of them. My friend Hava and I . . . we tried our best.’
‘Who is this friend of yours? Where is she?’
‘Hava Daniels. We were almost free. Then they took her away in a truck. I have to find her.’
Madame Bisset guided me down a wide street and when we both stood before a grand, stone house with a blue door and blue shutters, she said, ‘Tell me about your friend later. For now, you need food, fresh clothes, and rest.’
She produced a key from her pocket, inserted it in the large blue door, and looked at my puzzled face. ‘This is my house. I live alone now, but my husband and I bought this place together as a summer home, many years ago. We liked the view. I still do.’ She turned me around and there stretched before us was Biarritz: its grand hotels, its squares, the ocean, and the beach.
‘Come inside, Simone.’
The interior of the house was made of stone, polished wood, and mirrors. Tapestries hung from the walls. Portraits of society women and officers in uniform hung in a large room to the right.
In the front room was a glass shelf filled with shells: white shells, orange shells, shells that looked like swirls of fresh cream. I picked up the one I liked best: a soft pink shell.
Madame Bisset smiled. ‘That is a French scallop. I found it on the beach after a violent storm. It’s one of my favourites too. I call it the Fan of a Japanese Empress.’
I held the shell in my hand and looked around the room filled with books, silver goblets, and an ivory statue of St George and the Dragon.
‘People think that I live in a museum.’
As I stood in the room, I began to shiver.
‘What am I doing? You’re cold, of course! Let me help you, mademoiselle.’
That first evening, Madame Bisset offered me a warm bath, a room, and a wardrobe of clothes to choose from; and later as I sat at her dining-room table with a plate of chicken, green beans, and even a scone, I asked, ‘Why did you help me? I’m a stranger. No one wanted to help me. I must have looked like a savage.’
Madame Bisset stirred a hot cup of tea. ‘My husband and I moved here after the First World War. We are German.’
I stiffened visibly.
‘No, no, not those Germans, Mademoiselle Lyon. You’d be surprised how many German people are good, decent people, but also just victims of fear. My husband was an engineer in the car industry in Germany, and in the 1930s, when Hitler became head of the Nazi Party, my husband was hired to work on a project. Hitler wanted to strengthen his appeal to the people and provide inexpensive cars for everyone, so he developed a car company.
‘When my husband refused to work for Hitler, he was shot, and his body buried in an unmarked grave somewhere north of Berlin.
‘So, like you I, too, ran away from Hitler. I’m a refugee of the First World War, and when I saw you, I knew you were like me – escaping. I didn’t know from what, but now I know that, ironically, you are running from the same Hitler, from the same hate. You are lucky. You made it.’
Madame Bisset sipped her tea.
I began to cry.
‘What is it, Simone?’
And I told Madame Bisset about Hava, and how unlucky she was. ‘They dragged her by her hair,’ I wept.
Madame Bisset stood up from her chair and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. I wept as she comforted me. ‘The woman in white that you saw, Simone, the Rock of the Virgin . . . All who live here know the story about the fishermen from Biarritz who were caught in a terrible storm when hunting for whales. When they finally returned battered and exhausted, they spoke about a divine light that had guided them back. Those men were so grateful that they built a statue to Mary in gratitude. We must believe in divine light, Simone.’
I stayed with Madame Bisset for two months, until 10 July 1940. She fed me, let me take long baths, and gave me a soft bed. She provided me with a candle for my room, and with the warmth I had been so desperate for. I spent my time regaining my strength, walking along the shore collecting shells, and plotting how I would find Hava.
One night, when I was nearly asleep, there was a sudden brightness outside. I said to myself as I yawned and rubbed my eyes, ‘The divine light.’
I pushed back the blanket from my body, and walked to the window. The radiant light dissipated, danced around the cobblestone square, and melted into the headlights of three army transport trucks flying the Nazi flag.
My thoughts drifted to Hava, to the day we met at the Red Cross, the fun we had at her house during Benjamin’s play. I thought about the way Hava had given Joff his medicine. Hava Daniels, my friend. Where was she beyond the dark sky outside my window? I thought.
After those short restful months, Nazi troops bled into that coastal town as well, marching past Madame Bisset’s house in their frightening goose steps. All of France had been taken over, conquered, and occupied. It was no use. My journey of escape was over, and there was nowhere else to run.