My love

Fort Barraux, 20 March 1941

My love,

It’s been exactly two years, five months, and seventeen days since we last spoke.

I long to feel your breath and inhale your scent, falling asleep in your embrace, even if it meant facing bombs, hunger, and sorrow. The only things that have gone missing from my life are the bombs. Everything else is still here, clinging to my skin day and night.

My love, did I tell you they moved us to Fort Barraux? We arrived a week ago. They relocated the undesirable foreigners once more. Still in the mountains, but six hundred kilometers away.

I’m tempted to peek back through my writing to see what I’ve already told you, but I’m proud of myself for keeping my promise and acting as if this was sent. Can you believe that it’s been over two years since I posted a letter? One day, we will read this journal together.

Fort Barraux is just like the two previous camps. Fifty souls crammed into the same wooden barracks, lacking heat, drinking water, and proper toilets. The men in our group are moving the barbed wire about half a kilometer farther away. We think they’re expecting a lot more inmates. How much longer?

I’m not working yet, I spend most of my time at the infirmary. I miss my runs behind the wheel of the truck, but the cold I caught at the start of winter still troubles me. Perhaps I haven’t recovered because Le Vernet was so dreadful. Thank God, the flood ruined it, and they had to transfer us here. I’ll never pronounce the name Le Vernet again. Do not ask me anything about it, my love.

The food here is not good either. A cup of black coffee in the morning and two ladles of “soup” at noon and in the evening, the same yellowish broth of chickpeas or lentils. The piece of meat in the soup might be edible. At the other camp, one had to be extremely hungry to even consider touching it. Always green.

The barracks remain without windows, yet the crisp mountain air, intensified pine fragrance, and the awe-inspiring valley are breathtaking. My love, somewhere down there I can see a thin river. I have forgotten its name, but I’ll ask the nurse once more tomorrow.

I miss your gentle nagging. Now there is no one to remind me to smile three times a day, no one who can understand at a single glance I need a hot chocolate, no one to tuck me in at night. I miss you, my love. I miss you so much.

Fort Barraux, 23 March 1941

My love,

Last night I dreamed of La Despedida, the farewell festival for the volunteers of the International Brigades. You were not there in Barcelona—you had left two months earlier for your brother's wedding—and I wrote to you about it, though I do not know if my letters ever found you. You deserved to be there. Leaving the trenches behind made the separation final. Our closure. I can’t help but tell you again about the flowers they scattered before us. I dreamt I was once again with the thousands of Spaniards who walked alongside us, embracing us as we departed.

I miss the sea. I dream of the sea. Almost black, restless, churning. Do you remember the ruined picnic? The sea had covered the beach with seaweed, and the smell of rotting shellfish drove us away. It felt as if the sea itself were spitting toward us.

My love, you never saw the sea during the bombings. Motionless, it was like a slab of fresh ice. It was the same at Saint-Cyprien, our first camp: a still sea bordering a wide beach of silky sand.

In the beginning, the camp was just a beach with a thin fence around it. No buildings to shelter us. It wasn’t the fence that kept us inside, but the Garde Mobile, the soldiers the French brought from their desert colonies to guard us from the height of their horses, machine guns visible at their sides.

We built seven hundred wooden structures on the sand. We slept on straw, arranged like sardines: head, feet, head, feet, so we wouldn’t breathe each other’s breath. A camp drowned in sand, beaten by a piercing wind. It was a freezing winter. Many died at Saint-Cyprien. From illness, cold, and malnutrition, as our numbers dwindled.

The sea belonged to us. Please promise to view it once more.

My love, I would give anything for a coffee with milk. And sugar. My taste buds grow sweet just remembering it. Today I have a little warm water in which I infuse five rosemary needles and dream of the secret plan the others are weaving.

My love, they have moved me. I am not with the others in the barrack anymore, but by myself in the infirmary. Its name is a mystery to me. It’s equally cold and bare, without a hint of antiseptic or the clatter of medical instruments.

I’m cold all the time. Winters in the mountains are lengthy.

Fort Barraux, 26 March 1941

My love,

I was in the infirmary when a comrade died. We knew each other well. Her passing made me cry, yet gave me hope. She wanted to die. Life had been too empty after she lost her husband at Brunete. She fulfilled her dream after so deep pain.

She gave me the three newspaper clippings she had kept. I’m amazed not by how she gained them, but by how she kept them for such a long time despite undergoing daily searches in just her underwear.

My love, I will copy the first one here. I’m worried the guards will discover and seize them. This is from Paris-Soir. We used to have such a laugh, didn’t we, when we’d downed a bottle of wine and still couldn’t finish its crossword?

“The authorities prohibit the movement of nomads throughout metropolitan territory for the duration of the war.

“On April 6, 1940, President Paul Lebrun signed the decree prohibiting the circulation of nomads across the entire metropolitan territory.

”Nomads must report to the nearest gendarmerie brigade and, for the duration of the war, must live in a locality designated in each department by the competent prefect.

“Marshal Pétain has received from Francisco Franco, with whom he maintains cordial relations, the names of all members of the International Brigades.”

I remember when we learned this. We had barely arrived “there” when we realized it would not be easy to leave France again.

Tomorrow I will copy another article.

I am dying, my love. I will remain here, just as Medea remained in the forest in Spain. Do you remember her gray skin? Her eyes, reddened by dust, left open toward the azure sky. I was so sad.

But I have time to prepare myself, to arrange my thoughts, to calm my breathing, to numb my regrets. I already know the taste of earth. Pepper. Perhaps a hint of nigella. I thought I tasted fennel as well, but Anne says I am mistaken.

I miss you, my love.

Fort Barraux, 28 March 1941

My love,

Anne’s handwriting may surprise you. I am afraid I can no longer hold the pencil. She’s helping me continue writing to you. She joins me, and we amuse ourselves imagining that one day we might again eat salted butter or cabbage with sausage.

This is a secret, but I’m telling you, anyway. The group decided we should flee. It’s for my survival, they say, since I can’t last much longer in the camp. They have a mad plan. It’s funny how I almost burst out laughing when they bring it up. My love, how could I possibly run when I struggle to get out of bed on my own?

They want to carry me to Gocelin in their arms. Jump on a train at the bridge that crosses the Isère. I told you I would find out the river’s name.

My love, they want us to reach Switzerland. I may recover there before I go home. We have two guides to help us. Can you think of a more ridiculous plan? The mountain peaks gleam white and magnificent. Winter is utterly still.

Trient, near Swizerland border, 15 April 1941

Nora did not make it.

Neither she nor P— (The writing is illegible. The ink has run.)

The end