The Postcard

Myriam’s story resumes at the night she arrives at the chateau across the demarcation line in 1942, whisked away by the Picabias. Her husband, Vicente, says he talked to Ephraïm and Emma, and everyone is fine. This is a lie. In Marseille, people are free, and there is no rationing. They drink beer at a cafe, dine, and shop. A local paper calls Marseille, “the new Jerusalem of the Mediterranean” (335).

Myriam spends three months in Marseille, waiting for news of her family, drinking, and having nightmares. Jeanine tells them that the young French woman who gave them the false documents was arrested and gang raped. Myriam sends a coded postcard home. Jeanine and Vicente drop Myriam at a rural youth hostel and return to Paris.

This chapter is a historical account of the emergence of youth hostels in rural France, inspired by writer Jean Giono’s The Horseman on the Roof, a naturalist novel. Francois Morenas owns an underground hostel in rural France, hidden from the government’s regulations and a hub for Jewish people, resistance fighters, pacifists, communists, and those dodging the French draft.

This chapter is an account of Jeanine and her joining the resistance, rejecting marriage and living an independent, risky life. As a Red Cross ambulance driver, she brings messages from Paris to the British in Marseille. Later, she helps aviators escape France. Her skills attract the attention of MI6, and she accepts a mission to set up a maritime spy network. She and another resistance fighter set up Gloria SMH, and through their network of spies, they provide intel that takes out three German ships in 1941. The network expands, and Jeanine tells Myriam she’s now part of their movement.

A spy in Jeanine’s network, a priest code-named Bishop, is missing. Jeanine goes to look for him in Lyon, finding instead that Bishop betrayed them. Half of the Gloria SMH are shot or sent to concentration camps. Jeanine flees in the night, saying goodbye to Myriam and Vicente at the hostel before deciding she’ll walk over the Pyrenees Mountains on foot.

Anne writes an email to Lélia; she found the second hostel Myriam stayed in with Vicente when they were warned to flee the first hostel. The house is called the Hanged Man House and is owned by Madame Chabaud. The house was up a steep hill, keeping them safe from lazy soldiers. Anne says Myriam tried to tell her something when she was a child, but she forgets what it was. She will call again to talk to the grandchild of the hostel owner.

Myriam and Vicente get to know the hostel owner, Madame Chabaud, but Vicente grows wary of their village life and returns to Paris on their anniversary, leaving Myriam alone in the hills.

Vicente goes to Paris, sneaking under barbed wire with the help of one of his mother’s resistance fighter friends. He sees his mother, who asks him to be part of her new resistance cell, which he agrees to do. She gives him money, and he does not go to Les Forges to look for Ephraïm and Emma, as promised.

Vicente visits an opium den in Paris with his mother’s money, recalling his first visit with his father at age 15. He imbibes, spends all the money, and forgets why he came to Paris, where Myriam is waiting for him, and what his mother wanted him to do. He sits in the apartment.

Myriam is invited by Widow Chabaud to Christmas mass. She practices the sign of the cross; she must not miss mass and set off suspicion. At mass, nobody pays attention to her, and she enjoys a massive traditional feast at Widow Chabaud’s before walking home with an orange in her hands, one similar to those her family grew in Palestine.

Jeanine hires a mountain guide to take her over the Pyrenees Mountains, which are brutally cold, steep, and dangerous. After three days, the guide leaves, and she continues toward Spain on her own, recalling her mother’s words that freezing to death is the easiest way to go.

Jean Sidoine appears at Myriam’s door at night, saying Vicente has sent him. He is in prison; they must leave together now. Myriam goes with him, posing as his wife as they take the train to Dijon. She gets to know Jean, who tells her how he joined the resistance. She says she wants to join, too.

Rene Char runs the resistance group in Cereste, near Dijon. He was married but fell in love with a married woman in Cereste. He sets up the powerful network using charisma and charm.

Vicente is in prison, suffering withdrawal. Myriam is oblivious as to why he is afflicted, and a local woman gives her a remedy for Vicente’s illness, which is opium. He is sentenced to four months in a French prison, which pleases Myriam, who worried he would be deported to Germany.

Vicente is in prison, and Myriam returns to Widow Chabaud’s house, where Jean finds her and gives her a mission. She is to listen to a radio broadcast every night and record it, leaving the recording in a tin at a nearby hostel. She does this nightly and enjoys having purpose.

Anne tells Lélia she is making progress and explains the various sources she’d used to trace Miriam’s actions throughout 1942-1944. She existed in the pages of memoirs from resistance fighters, hostel owners, and others. Lélia writes that Myriam once claimed her years in rural France working for the resistance were the happiest of her life. Lélia received a package from the mayor’s secretary in Les Forges.

Myriam is asked to hide a young Jewish boy, and she hopes someone is taking care of Jacques the same way she is caring for Guy. This Jewish boy hates Jewish people and tells Myriam that her sister and brother are likely dead. He claims foreign Jewish people like Myriam are the reason good French Jewish people were run out of France. His family are at a concentration camp, and he knows he will never see them again. Jean tells Myriam to take him to a rendezvous point, which she does.

Myriam is cooped up in the Hanged Man’s House: “How can you tell you’re alive, when there’s no one to witness your existence?” (396). She replays the last time she saw her family, the night Noémie and Jacques were taken away and her father told her to hide in the orchard. When she sees a winter fox, she believes it is her Uncle Boris come to remind her of the power of nature. As winter thaws to spring, Myriam comes out of her sadness. Vicente is released from jail only to return to opium.

The French government holds a draft called the STO, requiring all males between 20 and 22 to register. Many do not heed the call and turn to the resistance, which gains over 40,000 new recruits. Among them is a young man named Yves Bouveris, who will be hidden with Myriam.

Vicente returns with Jean and Yves, and Myriam is told Yves will stay with her. Myriam nurses Vicente back to health but is sick herself. When they are both healed, they celebrate. Vicente is bisexual and enjoyed the company of men before his marriage to Myriam. Yves’s history is revealed to be quite generic. Vicente becomes enamored with Yves, which irks Myriam.

Yves says they should visit a castle nearby. Vicente kisses Myriam in front of Yves, embarrassing her, though he enjoys their reaction. He grew up with his mother loving two men at once and threesomes always around. He hopes for this with Myriam and Yves.

Yves knows how to hunt rabbit using a ferret and travels to Cereste to bring one back. They are out of money, cannot get jobs, and will soon starve unless they can hunt. Madam Chabaud offers them work in exchange for rent. By summer, they have a comfortable existence, and on a warm day, the trio swims nude. They grow close, sharing a sexual encounter in a rainstorm. In the morning, the police are at the door. After they leave without incident, Myriam insists they return to Paris. From there, Myriam demands they go to Les Forges, where she finds her family’s home closed up, her parents gone, and all the postcards she’s sent in the mailbox. The neighbors say they have all gone to Germany.

Yves moves to Paris after Myriam and Vicente, but their trio has broken apart, and Yves has a breakdown. Meanwhile, Myriam is pregnant with Lélia and uses her pregnancy as cover for her clandestine resistance activities.

Myriam and Vicente await the Allies in Paris. General de Gaulle delivers a speech. Myriam gives birth to Lélia with Jeanine by her side. Jeanine had a son, Patrick, while in exile in England. There, Jeanine learned the extent of the Bishop’s betrayal. He was a German agent from the start. After the war, Jeanine was given a medal by de Gaulle, one of only two women to receive the honor. Jeanine offers to take Lélia for a while.