Chapter 37

We cadets stood in neat rows, facing our lieutenant. He had a narrow brow, narrow chin, narrow everything—including his thinking.

He had kept us busy building a fence topped with barbed wire around an old, abandoned barracks on the outskirts of town—a solitary, lonely place. I shuddered at the feeling of despair around the ramshackle building, missing some windows and gaping boards letting in the elements.

I was hoping for news from the front as my father was off fighting to keep the Germans out of France. But the lieutenant was single focused on the barracks, and we could only guess what it would be used for. We had, of course, heard about some of the atrocities in other countries.

Now that the fence was finished, he ordered, “You are to round up all the undesirables in this area! They will be housed here!” He waved his arms expansively. “The Saumur Internment Camp.”

My heart sank at his order. But what exactly was an undesirable? My thoughts were scampering around my head, but my body remained completely still. I had the urge to move my feet; my toes were freezing on the bare stone floor. I concentrated on something else and willed my feet to stay stuck to the floor.

As if reading my mind, the lieutenant continued, “The undesirables are the imbeciles, the Jews, the crippled, the sick, foreigners, and the Gypsies.” The word Gypsies shot from his mouth, a pop from a handgun. “They bring sickness and lawlessness to our communities. You are dismissed,” the lieutenant said, his words bouncing off the stone walls.

I stood frozen in place, thinking of the wagons and people in Chaton’s caravan, until someone elbowed me. I couldn’t imagine Chaton’s family living in those dismal barracks.

“Pardon,” Louis said with a grin. “You going after the Gypsies?” He gave me a smile that hinted at amusement, but something else.

“Of course,” I said loudly, perhaps to convince myself as much as those around me, hoping the lieutenant overheard my words. “My duty. But I was thinking about the imbeciles.” I watched the lieutenant’s retreating figure.

“Ah, yes,” Louis said before nodding his head and turning toward the exit.

Foremost in my mind was warning Chaton and her family they were to be rounded up and imprisoned in the newly created Saumur-barracks-turned-internment-camp.

I lost sight of Louis in the jumble of bodies and high-pitched voices and slipped away while the hall was in disarray, and people settled into small groups with plans for their task.

Chaton and her parents and grandmother were about six kilometers away. If someone were to report my black uniform to the commander, I’d say I was rounding up the Gypsies as ordered. After dodging bushes and trees, I reached their small band in the forest. All was quiet in the camp; not even the dogs whimpered.

I called softly, “Chaton. It’s me, Jean Claude.”

She stepped out from behind a tree, her hair in tangles from the wind and brambles. A boy was with her, and when he saw me, he slipped away. Jealousy stabbed at my gut, wondering what she had been doing with him.

“Jean Claude. You are early.” Her cheeks glowed from the wind. The weather was changing, and the scent of dying leaves left an undertone of decay.

I didn’t like seeing Chaton with other boys, and pushed my chest against my uniform to show her my medals of accomplishment. “I’ve come to warn you.”

“Warn us of what?” she asked, wrapping her arms around her thin cotton blouse, the outlines of her breasts and nipples visible.

“We are to round up all the Gypsies and others.” I looked instead at her head to avoid the unsettling thoughts I was having.

“Round us up?” She frowned and licked at her chapped lips, red as berries.

“I know where you can hide.” I stepped closer.

“We don’t like hiding,” she said stubbornly. “Papa says we must stand our ground.”

“You have no ground of your own.” I placed my hands on her shoulders, and she stepped closer.

“He believes the land is for everyone…”

I pulled her to me and nuzzled her neck and whispered, “But you must hide, or you will be imprisoned.”

Chaton looked back at her family’s wagons, shifting feet with indecision.

I continued talking. “The lime caves by the Loire are perfect hiding places.” Louis and I had played in them as boys, always careful not to disturb the mushrooms that grew on the walls and floors. The monks, at one time, had stored their barrels of wines and spirits in the caves. They were little used now and rarely considered for hiding places after one had collapsed many years ago.

“We must talk to my papa,” Chaton said stubbornly and pulled away from my embrace.

“As you wish, but we must hurry.” She took my hand, and together we walked toward her family.

Chaton’s father was a small man but with sinewy arms that belied his strength. He was short but powerful and fearless. He was sitting by the fire with one of the boys I had seen buzzing around Chaton.

“Papa, Jean Claude says we must hide.”

Her papa looked around their small encampment enclosed by the thick forest of pine, oak, and beech. “More than this?”

“Oui, Papa, to another place that is safer.”

“They are coming for you,” I said, feeling panic push past the logical part of my brain.

“More like you, you mean,” her papa said.

“Yes, like me, but I’m here to help.”

“I see.” He looked first to his daughter’s face and then to me, his eyes sizing me up and down, deciding.

“I have kept Adella safe for you,” I said.

“That is true,” her papa said with a small nod.

Chaton’s eyes darted between them. “We will do as you say.”

“The lime caves by the Loire. I know one such cave that is farther away and won’t be searched.”

“When will we go?”

“Tonight. Meet me around midnight at the river by where you were camped before. We will go from there.”

****

I slipped back to the Cadre Noir for my lessons and duties. No one questioned my two-hour absence, but I felt the lieutenant’s eyes on me. He always watched me.

“You there, Jean Claude,” the lieutenant called. “Come to me.”

I stood and approached him where he looked me up and down, eyes stopping on my boots.

My boots were dirty from going into the forest.

“What happened to your boots?” the lieutenant asked. “Were you rounding up the undesirables?”

“Of course,” I said.

“You know of the Gypsies’ camps.” A statement, not a question. “I want you personally to round up all those heathens.”

“They have all left the area, sir,” I said as respectfully as I could and still differ with the lieutenant.

“They are not all gone!” he hissed, spittle hitting my cheeks as he talked.

I had the urge to wipe it away but stood motionless, urging my eyes to remain neutral and unemotional, but inside, I was anything but calm.

“Oui, I will round them up.”

But first I would hide Chaton and her family deep in the lime caves.

“I want to see them tonight!” barked the lieutenant, his words as sharp as the growl of a dog sensing a bone.

Where to locate other Gypsies? I would need to travel toward Lyon and hope to find other small camps.

Would Louis help me? I needed to find him.