She didn’t hear from her contacts at the OSE for another two weeks, and wondered what had happened to the child with bronchitis. And although she had only transported children twice so far, it had given new meaning, purpose, and depth to her life, and she was excited to do it again. It was even more meaningful to her, knowing that an entire village had committed themselves to saving these children, and she wanted to join them in their efforts and do whatever she could.
It was two weeks after her tractor trip with Isabelle to St. Chef, when the same man rode his bike past her in the village, and all he said to her while appearing not to pay attention to her was “Same place, six A.M. tomorrow.” She showed no sign of acknowledgment and rode on to the bakery, where the shelves were mostly empty, but she bought part of a loaf of dark bread and the owner gave her a cinnamon roll for her mother, from an order they had filled for the commandant. Agathe hardly ate anymore, and Gaëlle and Apolline were worried about her. She was too weak to get out of bed now, and the sleeping powder she took decreased her appetite even more. But her migraines were too severe without them. And sometimes they made them even worse.
Gaëlle got up at five-thirty in the morning the next day, and rode out to the shed to meet the child with bronchitis. It was dark and cold and dreary. And a few minutes after she got there, Simon let himself in carrying a basket that looked like he had groceries in it, and she heard a whimper, as though he had a kitten hidden somewhere. She looked startled and glanced up as he pulled aside the blanket, and there was a tiny infant in it. Gaëlle looked shocked.
“Oh my God, how old is he?” she asked, wondering how she would transport him.
“He’s eight weeks old. David is our youngest client so far. His mother left him in a garbage can when he was a month old, the day they got deported. She had a note pinned to his blanket to bring him to us. Their maid brought him, and he got sick almost immediately. He’s better now, though.” The baby was looking up at both of them and puckered up his lips to cry. It nearly broke Gaëlle’s heart to watch him, and realize that he had already lost his mother so young. “His father is a doctor and delivered him at home. They wouldn’t let her deliver at the hospital because they’re Jewish, even though her husband had practiced there for twenty years.” The stories were always shocking and agonizing, and Gaëlle picked the baby up and held him, and he nuzzled her neck, wanting to nurse.
“How am I going to transport him? And what if he cries?”
“Maybe you just have to carry him in a sling and act like he’s yours. You can say you don’t have his papers yet. I don’t think he’d be a good candidate for the tractor.” Nor for the basket on her bike. She looked pensive as she thought about it, trying to decide how to do it. This was no easy mission.
“How far does he have to go?”
“A couple of hours.” Simon had just picked him up at a nearby farm but didn’t want to risk getting him back to the safe house himself. He would have had a much harder time explaining a two-month-old infant than Gaëlle. And they couldn’t count on him remaining quiet. He would cry whenever he was hungry, tired, or wet. And he still had a nasty cough, although he seemed healthy otherwise and was a good size.
Simon left her a few minutes later, with the formula they were feeding him, which the Red Cross had provided, and she fashioned a sling to put him in, from the wool muffler she was wearing, tied it around herself, and got on her bike after she fed him, and sang to him along the way to keep him quiet. He seemed fascinated by her voice. And she got on the main road an hour later, and this time was stopped at a checkpoint, where they asked for her papers, and didn’t ask for the baby’s. Hers were in order, and the soldier asked her where she was going.
“To visit my grandmother. She hasn’t seen him yet. He’s been sick.” The baby let out a horrific cough as soon as she said it, as though to prove the point.
“You shouldn’t have him out in this cold,” the soldier scolded her, and said he had three children himself. He said he could tell this was her first and looked disapproving because she was so young and not married. But he smiled as he looked at the baby and tickled his cheek, and then told her sternly to get him into a warm house as soon as she could. It was January and bitter cold. She had been frightened for a minute, and relieved when he sent her on her way. She reached the safe house an hour later, and was happy to turn him over to one of the female workers. She’d never taken care of a baby, let alone one so young, but he seemed to have endured the trip without a problem.
“We have an opportunity to get him over the border tonight. We’re leaving with him right away,” they told her. A couple in Switzerland were taking him, to live with seven other children they had helped rescue in the last year. There were remarkably brave people everywhere. And Gaëlle just hoped she didn’t meet the same soldier on the way back, who would ask her what she had done with her baby. She was going to say she left him with her grandmother. The soldier had already thought her a bad mother on the way there, taking him out with a cough at two months in freezing weather. But much to her relief, she didn’t see that same man on the way back, and no one stopped her.
She didn’t hear from the OSE again for a while after that, and in February there was bad news, which she heard from rumors in the village. The Germans had arrested Pastor Trocmé and his assistant, Pastor Theis, and the headmaster of the school in Le Chambon sur Lignon. The local authorities had sent all three of them to an internment camp in Limoges. But there was sufficient outrage over interning religious leaders, and support from the Swiss Red Cross, the American Quakers, and the Swedish government, that they released them a month later. And when Gaëlle heard from Simon after that, he assured her they were back at work on rescue missions all over France. They were undaunted, and Gaëlle thought they were saints.