Page 109

They stumble off the buses and into blazing sunlight. Andrée feels the August heat on her skin. The air shimmers and the platform radiates heat like an oven.

Wooden cattle cars line the tracks. They’re windowless except for small barred openings high up. The doors slide open.

“Inside! Move!”

Dozens of women are pushed, shoved, beaten into each car. Then more. Then more, their bodies pressed together. There’s no room to sit and barely room to breathe.

Andrée finds herself crushed into the middle of the car. There are women on all sides. The heat is suffocating. And together with the smell of unwashed bodies, the fear and desperation of the women is overwhelming.

“Jeanette?” she calls out. “Jeanette Roussel?”

“Here!” a voice calls from near the door. “Is that you, Andrée? I’m here!”

Relief floods through her. It feels as if she’s not alone. Someone she knows is in this car.

The door slides shut and they hear it being padlocked. The small barred opening is the only source of light.

And then, nothing. The train doesn’t move. They wait.

One hour passes. Then two. Three. Four. Five.

The heat intensifies as the summer sun beats down on the wooden roof. The packed car is becoming an oven. Women gasp for air, scream for help, beat on the walls, beg for water. Some faint.

There is no water.

Andrée tries to stay calm. Tries to breathe slowly and to conserve her energy. She needs to survive this, but the heat is brutal. Her dress clings to her body, soaked with sweat. Her lips crack and her throat burns.

Around her, women continue to pass out, but there’s no room to fall. Instead, they’re held upright by the press of bodies.

“Why aren’t we moving?” someone cries. “Why are they keeping us here?”

No one answers. No one knows.

Six hours have passed in this terrible place. The sun sets and the temperature drops slightly. But the damage is done.

Finally, too late for some, the door slides open. Guards stand there, silhouetted against the lamp lights.

“Bring out your dead. Now.”

Women near the door begin passing bodies. One. Two. Five. Ten. How many died in this carriage alone? How many across the whole train?

The bodies are dumped alongside the tracks. There is no ceremony; they are discarded like rubbish.

The door slides shut and is once again padlocked. And then, just before midnight, the train finally moves.

The journey is slow. Agonizingly slow. The railway is so damaged that the train stops frequently. Then follows hours of more waiting, until they move a few kilometers and stop again.

It takes two days to cover sixty miles.

There is no food, no water. The women must even ration the air, taking turns to stand beneath the small barred opening.

More women die, but their bodies remain in the carriage. There’s no way to remove them. The living stand among the dead.

Andrée retreats into her mind and plays “Clair de Lune,” note by perfect note. The music keeps her sane.

She thinks of Josie and once again prays the girl is safe, prays to God that she knows how much they all loved her.

She thinks of her parents. Papa. Maman. Are you alive? Did you survive?