Camille
Camille Lacroix moved through the darkened apartment, her steps heavy, her progress slow, and if she didn’t hurry, she would be late for her shift at the hotel. She must not be late. The job was too important for her, for her family.
Assuming, of course, she still had a job. You still have a job.
The Hôtel Ritz needed every member of the skeleton staff to operate at its usual efficiency. Many—too many—of Camille’s fellow chambermaids had fled Paris in the mass exodus, making it possible, even necessary, for her to pick up extra shifts like she did today. She needed the hours. The additional wages. The chance to provide for her family after failing them so completely with one terrible, selfish choice.
She moved quicker now, taking rapid, purposeful steps, and stopped abruptly. A movement caught her eye at the spot where the floor met the wall. There it was again. That small flurry of motion. Camille held steady, her gaze carefully picking over the shadowy contents of the room. That’s when she heard it, the dreaded scratching of tiny little rat claws.
Her stomach dropped. This was not the first time she’d encountered her unwanted roommate. The rodent seemed to think he belonged in the crumbling old building as much as she. He’d probably been here longer, and she was wasting precious time.
She took a tentative step, listened a moment, and heard nothing. Not from the corner of the apartment or from the deserted Parisian streets outside. That lack of sound from the once bustling Rue Androuet was barely two weeks old and as jolting as a gunshot.
The noise came again. Scratch, scratch...non. Not a scratch, louder. A knock. Banging, actually. Coming from the front door.
“Mademoiselle Camille. I know you are in there. I beg you. Answer the door. You must answer the door.” The thick Polish accent belonged to her elderly neighbor from the apartment one floor below. But that couldn’t be. Madame Kauffman was supposed to have left Paris last week. Something had gone wrong.
“Mademoiselle?” The voice held the barest hint of defeat, as if the older woman was on the verge of giving up on Camille, as so many others had done in her life.
“I am here,” she called out.
“Oh, bless you, my girl. Open the door. Please, hurry.”
Camille did as her neighbor requested. She hurried through the still air, made somehow heavier due to the blackout paper on the windows. The lack of light was not unwelcome. She preferred the gray, murky veil that shrouded the cramped space she rented in the Montmartre neighborhood.
The apartment was affordable, but also shabby and threadbare, and impossibly small. So small that Camille was out of the bedroom in a handful of strides, through the sitting room with just a few more. A quick twist of her wrist to release the lock and the door swung open.
She blinked, hard and fast, forcing her vision to adjust to the dimly lit corridor, another result of the blackout rules. A few ribbons of light slipped through the darkness, falling over her neighbor. The woman was thin, white-haired, and breathing hard. But what caught Camille’s attention was the dented piece of luggage resting at her visitor’s feet, held shut by two pieces of frayed rope.
“Madame Kauffman,” she said in way of greeting, inspecting the woman a bit closer, not liking what she saw. The skin under her eyes was a purplish shade of gray. No trick of the light, Camille knew, and she wondered when was the last time her neighbor had slept through the night? Probably not since the Germans had bombed Paris eleven days ago, destroying buildings, and killing nearly a hundred innocent civilians. “You are still in the city.”
It was an inane comment, seeing as her neighbor stood on her threshold, her eyes rounded with equal parts despair and confusion. Oh, yes, something indeed had gone wrong.
Camille sensed she would be late for work, after all.
Perhaps she could dispatch the woman with a few kind words. “Madame Kauffman?” she prompted, trying to keep the impatience out of her voice. “Is there something you need?”
The woman opened her mouth, shut it, opened it again. Her bottom lip trembled, and her voice, when she finally managed to speak, was little more than a whisper. “My son,” she rasped. “He does not answer my calls. I fear he has left the city with...without me.”
Camille had no response, only a gasp. She reached out, let her hand drop just as quickly. She and Madame Kauffman weren’t close, barely passing acquaintances. “There must be an explanation for his delay.”
There had to be. Surely, a son would not leave his mother to fend for herself in the deserted city. Surely, a family member would not abandon another. You did it.
It wasn’t the same. She’d had no choice. That’s what Camille told herself, what she almost believed. But there was a part of her that secretly savored the distance from family and why she avoided going home. Why she sent money in her letters with very few words.
What was Monsieur Kauffman’s excuse? Was he like her, or more like so many other Parisians ruled by their fear and panic? Ever since the bombings a week and a half ago, most of the city had gone slightly mad. Ruled by desperation, two-thirds of them had packed up their belongings and joined what was being called the mass exodus. In their frenzy to escape death, some left elderly parents behind, family pets, even children, and not always by accident.
An unpleasant reality of war.
“My son and his wife, their daughters, they are all gone. Everyone I know is gone. Everyone, but you. Camille.” She lifted her face, her anguish clear in the limited light. “You will take me out of Paris with you when you go, yes? Oui?”
Camille’s heart wrenched. What this woman asked of her, it wasn’t possible. She couldn’t leave Paris, not today. “I think it best you wait for Monsieur Kauffman.”
“He is not coming,” she said, her voice soft, tortured. “You are all I have left.”
Something in the tilt of her head, her lingering focus on a spot just over Camille’s shoulder, spoke of pain, the pain of betrayal, and Camille felt it again. The shock, the outrage, her own guilt over her selfish choices. The need to help was too strong to ignore, and Camille was no longer torn. Her soul was not so black as to deny a person in need. Not again. Never again. And yet. What could she do?
Most Parisians had left the city weeks ago. Most, but not all. Some had waited until the last minute to flee. Perhaps one of them had space in their car or pushcart. “I will help you.”
“Oh, bless you. Bless you, my child.”
Camille drew in a tight breath and opened the door a bit wider. “Come inside,” she said, reaching down for the battered suitcase with one hand, using the other to draw her neighbor into the apartment. “Let me finish gathering my things, and we will be on our way.”
“You are a good girl.”
She wasn’t. Her sole act of selfishness had brought tragedy to her family. A loved one dead, forbidden a proper resting place among the faithful for his terrible deed. Another one changed forever, left behind for others to care for, with little hope of... Non, now was not the time to think of such things. Now was the time to act on this woman’s behalf.
Perhaps in saving her neighbor, Camille would come one step closer to achieving redemption for her own mistakes. “Wait here.” She guided the older woman to a chair in the sitting room. “I’ll be quick.”
Madame Kauffman nodded, then gave a slight turn of her head toward the lone window in the apartment. Camille followed the direction of the woman’s gaze, sighed at the slats of gloomy light that slipped past the crooked seams of the blackout paper she’d taped to the glass. Fabric had been unavailable, as had the suggested glue. Those thin threads of light proved just how badly she’d failed to follow the guidelines given to the French people.
No one had shown Camille how to do the job properly, another casualty of the government’s passive attempt to defend Paris. No more effective than the instruction to wear the gas masks only a select few owned. As useless as the air raid sirens going off without trained officials to direct the people to safety.
Was it any wonder so many Parisians had abandoned their homes and businesses?
What did it matter now? Camille shoved aside every doubt and focused on what must be done now, this morning. She would convince some kind soul to escort Madame Kauffman...somewhere.
How hard could it be? she wondered, as she reached for her chambermaid’s uniform—the black dress tailored to fit her lithe frame, the starched white pinafore and matching lace cap, the sensible shoes made for comfort rather than fashion—and tucked it into her bag.
Her movements were painstakingly slow, weary even, as if she’d lived double her twenty-one years on this earth. Every muscle ached from the hours she spent scrubbing floors, changing bedsheets, sanitizing bathrooms, and generally seeing to the guests’ every need, no matter how frivolous or absurd. One resident in particular came to mind. The wealthy American widow who’d taken a liking to the way Camille styled her hair, often calling her away from her other duties on what seemed a last-minute whim. The generous tips she paid were always sent home. More restitution, but never enough.
Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she left the bathroom and moved into the main portion of the tiny apartment. At the sight of Madame Kauffman sitting so still and resigned, Camille was once again overwhelmed with the urge to pull the older woman close, to assure her everything would turn out well.
She was not that much of a liar.
Taking the battered suitcase in one hand, she reached for her neighbor with the other, and quickly, carefully, drew the woman to her feet.
Outside, the heat hit like a fist, while an eerie silence wrapped around them. Under that shocking lack of sound, Camille could no longer feel the heavy June air. Instead, a chill prickled her skin. Today the mood was different, more solemn. The empty street felt wider, somehow, as if built to accommodate the enemy’s tanks. Panzers, they called them, short for panzerkraftwagen, massive landships made to destroy anything in their path. And they loomed just outside an unprotected Paris.
Hurry.
“Yes, well,” she said, trying not to push her companion too hard, but knowing the clock worked against them. “Come along, Madame Kauffman.”
Putting the dazzling white domes and bell towers of the Sacré-Coeur Basilica behind them, Camille took Madame Kauffman’s thin hand, wrinkled flesh over brittle bones, and headed for Rue des Trois Frères. She adopted what she hoped was an acceptable pace, even as one word kept moving through her mind. Hurry.
They’d barely taken a smattering of steps when the older woman tugged free of Camille’s hold, pivoted, then set her gaze on the building they’d just exited. “Thirty years I have called Paris home. I will miss this grand city, as much as I once missed Warsaw, and—” she turned to smile at Camille, the stain of old age and a fondness for coffee on her teeth “—I will miss you, too. Very much.”
Camille tamped down her impatience and forced herself to smile. “And I, you.”
Sighing, the older woman shook her head. “This world, it is not right anymore.”
“Non, it is not.”
“Monsters walk among us now.”
“They do.”
A bird flew overhead, squawking a sort of warning, startling them both.
“Come.” One arm locked with Madame Kauffman’s, the other carrying the battered suitcase, Camille guided her neighbor through a world turned upside down toward a destination not yet known. As they rushed along Rue des Trois Frères, then turned left onto Rue Tardieu, they had the advantage of caring little where the woman ended up, only that she escape Paris.
Another few blocks and there, at the bottom of the hill, on Boulevard Marguerite de Rochechouart, was the expansive line of automobiles, bicycles, and pushcarts overflowing with household goods. Camille tugged Madame Kauffman along at a steady pace. Entirely too slow. It could not be helped. Her elderly neighbor was already showing signs of fatigue in her hitched breathing and limping gait.
They went from one vehicle to the next, stopping at each, no matter how large or small, and Camille asked the same question, over and over: “Do you have space for a small lady with a single piece of luggage?”
The answer rarely varied. “We have no room.”
Camille refused to be discouraged. Trying not to run, she all but dragged her neighbor from car to car, doing most of the talking, her request either ignored or denied.
Was no one willing to help an old woman? Did no one care?
A drip of sweat rolled down the side of her face. Her heart pounded against her ribs. Again, Camille stopped at a car in the queue and motioned to the driver to lower his window.
The man mouthed his refusal. Non.
“Please, monsieur. I—”
He turned his head and focused on the line of cars in front of him, his message clear.
“It’s hopeless.” Camille heard the dejection in Madame Kauffman’s voice, felt it herself. Still, she made herself take a long, deep breath and offered what encouragement she could muster, which was to say not very much.
“I am not giving up.”
Even with her neighbor’s arduous, awkward pace, they moved faster on foot than anything with wheels, though it required great attention to avoid being pushed to the ground or rolled over. Then, up ahead, Camille noticed another car. A space in the back seat clearly visible.
She didn’t waste time explaining the situation. She simply pulled the older woman along with her. Come along, she wanted to yell at her neighbor. Move. She didn’t need to say the words. Madame Kauffman propelled herself forward on her own. One step, then two. Another. Finally, they were striding alongside the car, and Camille asked the driver the same question as all the ones before. “Do you have space for a small lady with a single piece of luggage?”
His response came without hesitation. “Oui.”
It took a moment for her to process the word. When she did, relief nearly buckled her knees, and she offered her gratitude with a voice barely above a whisper. “Merci.”
Her hand shook so hard, it took her three tries to open the car door. Once she had the older woman settled in the back seat, Camille leaned in through the open window and kissed the papery skin on the weathered cheek. “Take care, mon amie,” she said, wondering if she would ever see her neighbor again, thinking probably not. “Au revoir.”
“Au revoir, Camille.”
Eyes stinging, she stepped back, then suddenly realized she had no idea of the car’s destination. What if Madame Kauffman’s son came for her, after all? He would want to know what had happened to his mother. “Where?” she asked the driver, a rotund man with a bushy mustache and balding head. “Where are you going?”
“Rennes,” came his response. “My brother has a house near the train depot.”
Camille breathed in deeply, let it out in a whoosh of air. Of all the possible destinations, her neighbor would journey to Brittany, to a city barely thirty miles from Camille’s home village of Dinan.
Again, the thought whispered in her head: I want to go home.
She could leave now, right now. Better yet, she could return to her apartment and pack her things, everything that meant anything to her, in twenty minutes. She could retrieve her bicycle and join the line of cars. So easy, so simple. Home in a matter of days. Back to living in the picturesque medieval village with her mother, who even now was working in their family’s floundering bakery. Two of Camille’s sisters joined in that never-ending battle, while the other only watched with those wide, empty eyes.
Her heart gave a flutter at this thought of escape. Ah, but her mind was not so quickly led into the fantasy. How will you feed your family, yourself, if you leave Paris?
How, indeed?
It was an argument she had with herself daily, sometimes more than once, always with the same outcome. There were no jobs to be found in Dinan, or Rennes for that matter, certainly nothing that paid as well as her position at the Hôtel Ritz. It was settled, then. There would be—could be—no escape for Camille. Only duty. Obligation. And perhaps, in time, restitution, for the past, for herself, and for the lives she’d ruined with a single thoughtless act. And if a part of her was relieved she wouldn’t have to face what she’d done, well, that was between herself and her own conscience.
She offered a final farewell wave to her neighbor and hurried toward the center of Paris, her course set on the dark road that lay ahead—a road growing darker by the day.