In This Hospitable Land (32 page)

On the tenth of April, Pastor Donadille returned with several members of the Resistance and a bit of equipment. The mayor of Saint-Michel-de-Dèze had agreed to sign new false identity cards for the Sauverins, but since the small village was some thirty-seven kilometers distant, the terrain somewhat treacherous still at that time of year, and Denise seven months pregnant, a roundtrip had been deemed impractical. So the Resistance had come to the Sauverins and they proceeded to photograph them, take their fingerprints, and obtain their signatures on the official documents in question. “Sauverin” became “Milard” and the visitors went away.

The Sauverins fretted through the weekend: what if their photos, fingerprints, and fake signatures somehow went astray, subjecting them to investigation? But their fears were allayed early on Tuesday the fourteenth when Donadille returned with the properly executed identity cards, duly stamped, attested by the mayor and dated 13
avril
1942.

In late April, with the snows gone from even the farthest reaches of the Lozère, André resumed regular attendance of Sunday services at the Protestant temple in Vialas. Pleased to see him again Pastor Burnard greeted the news of Denise’s pregnancy as a sign of divine favor.

The pastor was excited to introduce André to another occasional visitor: Irene Bastide, who lived in Le Salson, an even more isolated hamlet than Soleyrols. André and she shared a common interest: Irene was one of the few Quakers in all of the Cévennes.

Irene was thrilled by André’s fascination with her faith. “There’s always room for one more,” she said, going on to describe their infrequent gatherings: the
veillée
as she called it—an evening gathering around a fire. She invited André to attend the next, though she couldn’t say where or when since the meetings were held in varying locations.

André wondered aloud whether he couldn’t offer La Font for the purpose. The suggestion pleased Irene and they picked a date. André hoped to convince Alex to leave during the session, for even if Alex kept his mouth shut, his skepticism could permeate and poison the atmosphere.

The planned evening in early May more than fulfilled André’s hopes and expectations. Sitting in a circle of thoughtful caring Friends silently communing with each other and their God brought peace and hopefulness into his soul such as he had only dreamed possible. Denise and Geneviève, though in their rooms, were impressed with the way La Font felt throughout the veillée. Even the children were wordlessly responsive to the atmosphere created by meditating Quakers.

Afterward Irene thanked the Sauverins profusely and offered her very best wishes to Denise, whom she would keep in her prayers. Then Irene caressed little Christel’s face and told her she hoped they would have a chance to spend some time together someday.

The baby seemed certain to arrive in late May but the Sauverins had still not made arrangements. Max had agreed to help if available, but that couldn’t be counted on.

“You should go to aunts Leonore and Regine in Aubenas, Denise,” Alex insisted after dinner one evening. “Surely you’d be welcomed by your aunts.”

Geneviève agreed. “It would be a mistake for us to try to deliver the baby up here without a doctor,” she said gently, looking at her sister with large, sad eyes. “We both know how hard labor is and how dangerous confinement can be. If there are any complications…”

“But I don’t want to leave the farm, you, André, or the children!” Denise responded subbornly.

“Sweetheart,” André said softly but firmly, “it will be much safer for you and the baby in Aubenas. The aunts will see to you and we know they have a doctor who cares for Beatrice.”

Denise focused a look of trepidation on André. Geneviève knew the baby was kicking.

“It’s settled then,” André announced with quiet authority. “I’ll go down to the café in the morning and make the call.”

The bus was cramped for the very pregnant Denise but the train from Génolhac to Aubenas was more comfortable. Though terribly excited, the girls were well behaved. Their first view of Aubenas was an impressive thirteenth-century castle, the tallest structure on the highest point in the center of town, surrounded by narrow, crooked streets. Silk pennants flew before resort hotels crowded onto little open squares, many perched above the town walls, overlooking the river below.

Aunts Regine and Leonore and Cousin Pierre waited for them at the station and proved as gracious and accommodating as could have been wished in their pleasantly appointed apartment.

Pierrot was busy that summer drawing and studying for his baccalauréat exam. But with his older brother away—presumably a prisoner of war in German hands—Pierre was the man of the house, a role he fulfilled admirably despite his relative youth.

Grandmother Beatrice was on her deathbed so she couldn’t terrorize the children as she had at weekly teas in Brussels by crooking her cane’s handle around one of their ankles or knees. When Denise asked why no one had told her how ill her grandmother was, Aunt Leonore bit her lower lip and said, “We were afraid you wouldn’t come.”

Leonore led Denise into the dimly lit back room. Ida and Christel followed timidly. The elderly woman—once so strong, stern, and determined—rested almost motionlessly in a tall bed, her beautiful white hair spread out on the pillow.

“Ah, Denise, Ida,” she said softly. “Is little Christel with you?”

Still at the door Christel strode forward boldly as if no longer afraid of the family’s ill-tempered matriarch. Going straight to the bed she rose up on tiptoes, presented herself, and called loudly and distinctly, “Great Grandmother, are you going to die like Tante Fanny?”

Aunt Fanny? Toward the end of the Sauverins’ life in Brussels, the death of Jack Freedman’s sister may have been mentioned in Christel’s presence but no one would have guessed the words would hold any meaning for her, that she would remember them from such a tender age, or that she would bring them up in such a circumstance.

“It’s all right,” Aunt Regine said later, making Denise feel better about the embarrassing incident. “Mother’s well aware of her condition and Christel has always been a favorite.”

Then Denise presented Regine the monogrammed tablecloth brought out of Belgium and said, “A small token of appreciation for taking us in at a time of need.”

“It’s lovely,” Regine said, clutching it to her chest and crying softly.

Oddly, being a Jew or the descendant of Jews could be beneficial as well as dangerous. The Nazis had only banned Jews from practicing medicine in occupied France so the Vichy government didn’t even acknowledge the few Jewish doctors who hadn’t yet fled the unoccupied zone, such as the one caring for Beatrice Herz. The doctor, a member of the small Hebraic community that had lived and thrived in Aubenas for generations, now attended to Denise too.

He recommended “little walks in the park” as a daily regimen and assured her his clinic wasn’t far. “It won’t be a long ride when the moment arrives,” he told her. “And if you have problems getting a taxicab, phone and I will come get you.”

Late Friday the twenty-ninth of May, Beatrice Herz passed away quietly. The Sauverins’ great tablecloth served as the dead woman’s shroud.

Denise went into labor the next morning. Life and death so close together! Aunt Leonore took Denise to the clinic. Pierrot looked after Christel and Ida. Aunt Regine arranged the funeral.

The phone call to the Brignand café—late Saturday, May thirtieth, brought André news of the birth of Cristian Louis Sauverin and the death of Beatrice Herz. Since he couldn’t ascertain that a train would be running from Génolhac to Aubenas on Sunday, he borrowed a bicycle from Louis Brignand. Louis worried that eighty kilometers over very rough terrain would be too much for André but André laughed, remembering his bike ride from Brussels to Le Coq—a longer trip in much worse circumstances. And André was much stronger now.

After a grueling ride with many steep hills and hairpin turns, André went straight to the clinic, where he was asked to sign his son’s birth certificate in a great leather-bound book. Reading his son’s name for the first time, André flushed with pride and then suffered a brief spasm of panic: had he and Denise chosen rightly to assume that it would be safe to use the name Sauverin instead of Milard, which now appeared on their identity cards? But Aubenas and Vialas were in different départements and there was more than enough distance between them to make communication between officials of the two towns unlikely if not impossible. There had been no need for Denise to declare any residence other than Brussels.