Chicory & Sugar

“Bonjour,” she says, with a heavy dose of longing.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle.”

Instinct guides him to greet her as he once would, with a soft kiss on her thin lips, a warm hug, and a broad smile. But the sight of two young soldiers at the counter stops him halfway. Their laughter is loud and foreign. There’s also a man in the corner reading a newspaper that hasn’t turned a page in ten minutes. So he lets his hand rest lightly on her arm instead, just for a heartbeat.

She greets him with her eyes. He has always been mesmerized by their deep blue shade, touched with the green of a spring pasture. They look weary now. But they still sparkle at the sight of him. He observes that her face has changed; there is less softness. Then again, everyone in Paris seems older these days.

As they sit, she unwraps her scarf and folds it across her lap. Her gloves come next, one finger at a time, each motion deliberate.

“I ordered for us,” he says.

“Did they have bread?”

“No, they ran out an hour ago. Just black coffee. But they still have some sugar. A treat for an already special day.”

They both smile. That’s where life has come to.

The waiter brings two small cups of coffee made with chicory, and just a smattering of sugar. “A feast,” she playfully says.

“Indeed, it is. How are the children?”

“Doing well. Michel built a fort out of flour sacks,” she says. “Your mother says he’s just like you.”

“And René?”

“She writes you letters she can’t send.”

He nods, looking down at the coffee. “Tell her I’ll read them all someday.”

“I tell her that. But they miss you. They still don’t understand why their father is gone.”

Silence follows. The time has been difficult for the family. Right before the occupation began in 1940, he moved out into a small apartment a few towns away to protect them from his work in the resistance. The cover story was that he’d left for another woman. It was easier to grieve a betrayal than a death.

“I passed the school,” she says quietly, interrupting the silence. “They’ve boarded up the library.”

He exhales through his nose. “Books make people think.”

“Imagine that,” she says, and her faint smile breaks the tension like sunlight through fog.

He studies her. The dim light softens her face, and he remembers the woman who loved painting rivers, who believed that art could help heal the world.

They had met as kids from neighboring families. Literal lifelong friends, they always said. So she understood when he told her about joining the resistance after they approached him because they needed his artistic talent. It was just who he was. He couldn’t live with himself saying no.

She held his hand and her tears until they went to bed that night. And then she quietly cried in the bathroom. But in the morning, she hugged him tight and told him they were going to do this together, even if apart.

“How’s the work?” she asks.

“The same. There is always someone who needs help.”

That’s all she’ll get. The fewer detail the better just in case one day someone asks. But she knows what “help” means: forged papers to smuggle people out of the country.

“They caught another group,” she says. “Near the station.”

“Yes.”

“Were they yours?”

He pauses. “Some.”

“Are the children safe?” he asks.

“They are. Everything in town is quiet.”

He nods. “Good. And you still have the number in case you need anything?”

“I do.”

“You look tired,” she says.

“People die when I don’t work. So I work.”

It was no exaggeration. His forged documents were the lifeline to safety for people who otherwise would be sent to concentration camps or just outright shot in the streets. And there were never enough documents. The monthly meeting with her was the only break he gave himself. Everything else tormented his soul.

“But you’re still you,” she continues.

He smiles. “Still me.”

The waiter sets down the bill. A reminder that it’s time to go.

“I brought something,” she says, opening her purse. She slides an envelope across the table. “For Michel’s birthday. He turns five next week.”

He tucks it into his coat without looking. “Tell him I’m proud.”

“I do. Every night.”

“One day this war will end.”

“That day can’t come soon enough.”

They both sigh, but then smile.

“You should go first,” he says.

She nods, pulling on her gloves.

Before standing, she touches his hand beneath the table. “Be careful,” she whispers.

“You too. See you in a few weeks, my love.”

She nods, and her eyes sparkle.

He watches her through the window until she disappears into the gray crowd. Then he opens the envelope. Inside, a child’s drawing: two stick figures and a square labeled home. In the corner, a red flower with uneven petals. A rose.

He folds it gently and slips it back into his coat. Outside, he steps into the cold rain, joining the blur of umbrellas and bicycles, a man among many. Yet very much alone.

—

Note:

• “Chicory & Sugar” is a historical fiction snapshot. While based on real events, the story, characters, and incidents are fictitious.
• Read another historical fiction snapshot.