And that summer the commanding officer of the local German army took over the château. Gaëlle’s mother took to her bed as soon as they were notified, and her father warned Gaëlle again to steer clear of the soldiers. And when the time came, and the officers moved in, the Barbets were moved upstairs to maids’ rooms in the attic, while the officers lived downstairs in their rooms. And the family’s servants worked for the officers and soldiers now. The Barbets were allowed to come downstairs at night to cook their food. Agathe, Gaëlle’s mother, stayed in her room almost all the time. Her nerves were shattered from living in constant fear, under the same roof with the occupying army.
The commanding officer was polite, and at her father’s instructions, Gaëlle stayed upstairs most of the time too, except when she went to school, or went to see Rebekah, which she still did almost every day. She had brought her a few cotton dresses when the weather got warmer, and some for Lotte. Rebekah said her mother cried all the time, and had had a cough since the winter that wouldn’t go away. And they had Mr. Feldmann serving food, and cleaning the latrines with the other men. It was hard to imagine, and Gaëlle knew there were German officers living in the Feldmanns’ house too. But at least the ones at the château had been nice to them so far. One of them had left some chocolates for her in the kitchen, which her father wouldn’t let her take upstairs. Her father, Raphaël, was out frequently now visiting their farms and tenant farmers. He said he had to work with them, since they were short of men. And he was relieved that the commanding officer kept his men in good control. No one had bothered Gaëlle so far.
It was a long, hot summer, and Gaëlle went to see Rebekah whenever she could. Agathe was sick a lot, and Gaëlle had to stay to help her. And Rebekah said that her mother was sick all the time too, a lot of the people in the camp were. There were several doctors, but no medicine. And Gaëlle noticed how thin Rebekah had gotten, she was skin and bones, but she wore the blue hair ribbon all the time. Gaëlle had brought her a red one too, but Rebekah preferred the pale blue one, and Gaëlle still had the little piece of it at home in a drawer.
In September, Gaëlle started her last year of school. After she passed her baccalaureate degree the following June, she was supposed to go to university in Paris in the fall, but her father had already told her that she wouldn’t be going. He didn’t want her in Paris alone, with German soldiers everywhere. It was bad enough having Thomas there, but not a girl. He said she would have to wait until after the Occupation to go to university, and he needed her at home, to take care of her mother. Thomas had only come home for a few weeks in August, and then went back to Paris. He had a job in a restaurant, to help pay for his expenses. They had no money coming in, since all the food they grew and normally sold was being requisitioned by the Germans, so they had nothing to sell and barely enough to eat. Their old housekeeper Apolline kept something back from the officers’ meals occasionally, and hid it in a drawer for them, but there was never enough, and they were all growing thinner by the day.
Conditions in the camp got worse as the weather turned cold again, and it was a hard winter, and snowed early. In December, the Feldmanns had been at the camp for a year. It seemed like an eternity, and the rumors were continuing that the detainees would be sent away, but nothing changed. There were five thousand people in the camp by then, in terrible circumstances. Some had been sent there from Paris and Marseilles, and there were other camps like it springing up everywhere, as more and more Jews were taken from their homes and ordinary lives and sent to camps, waiting to be shipped to labor camps. Their final destinations were still unknown, and a source of worry for all.
Both girls had turned seventeen by then, and Rebekah asked Gaëlle one day if she thought life would ever be normal again, and Gaëlle assured her that it would. It had to be. The insanity couldn’t go on forever. She wanted to believe it too. But at least none of the Feldmanns had gotten seriously sick, and hadn’t been sent anywhere. Gaëlle was beginning to wonder if they were going to just keep them there. At least she could see Rebekah almost every day, and there were so many people in the camp now that the guards paid even less attention to the fence. In the warm weather during the summer, Gaëlle had sat on the ground sometimes, holding hands with Rebekah through the fence while they talked, and a few times her brothers had come to say hello too. Their parents didn’t know that Gaëlle was still visiting them. Nor did the Barbets. Gaëlle’s mother no longer cared what was happening beyond her room, and her father was never there, always doing something somewhere else on the estate. It left Gaëlle free to do what she chose.
It was still freezing cold in March 1942, fifteen months after they’d gotten to the camp. Rebekah had a bad cold when Gaëlle went to see her, and she looked like she had a fever. Gaëlle kissed her cheek through the fence, and felt how hot she was, although Rebekah was shivering severely. And two days later Gaëlle was sick too, and must have caught it from her. Her mother made her stay in bed for a week, and the housekeeper brought her soup to their rooms in the attic. Gaëlle was weak when she finally got on her bike to visit Rebekah at the camp on the first day she was strong enough to do so. Her legs felt like cement as she rode her bike, and it took her longer than usual. Things looked different when she arrived at the camp. She noticed it from the distance, and wasn’t sure why, and as she got close to the fence, she realized with horror that the camp was empty. Everyone who had been detained there was gone, and there was no one she could ask where they’d been sent, possibly to another camp nearby, and Gaëlle wasn’t sure how to find out. She was exhausted from the ride, after being sick for a week, and she stood there in silence, staring at the empty barn and tents, panicked over what had happened to them. And then finally she rode away, with tears streaming down her face. All she could think of was the last time she had seen Rebekah and kissed her, but she had never thought it was goodbye.