Read Online Carnival by J. Robert Janes - Free Book Online Page A

weren’t more recent photos, even those that must have been taken just before the Blitzkrieg, but perhaps they were still pinned up beside his bunk. ‘You didn’t tear them, too, did you?’ he asked.
    Thomas would likely have received a few photos in relief parcels from home and would, most probably, have been made aware by the camp’s administration that the Renault Works had been bombed by the RAF on the night of 3 March last year. Five hundred dead; 1,500 wounded, but had Paulette Thomas been terrified or had she been elsewhere on that night, having left their little son in the care of a neighbour as so many unlicenced filles de joie were now doing?
    â€˜Let’s face it, mon ami , the pay of a private is next to nothing and as the wife of a common soldier, conscripted in ’39, all she can hope for are the allowances Vichy doles out per child and per wife or dependent parent. Granted, after much debate and thousands of complaints, the Maréchal Pétain, our illustrious Head of State, and his ministers in Vichy where the government resides, reluctantly agreed to an additional two francs per day to ease the burden POW wives suffer when sending parcels to their husbands. After all, there are 1,500,000 of you, n’est-ce pas , and that’s one hell of a lot of unhappy wives since almost sixty percent of you are married and forty percent have children at home. She did send you parcels, didn’t she?’
    They would have to find out. ‘Two lousy francs,’ he grated­, ‘at a time when five kilos of potatoes in Paris cost 2,000 on the marché noir , the half a kilo of sugar another 2,000. An inner tube for the bicycle of necessity everyone has to have these days, costs 250; a new tyre, 1,000 if you can get any of these items and avoid arrest, since it’s illegal to deal on that market, though the Church now says one can buy but not sell on it.’
    He would toss a hand at such idiocy, would add, ‘There’s no milk available in a country that once produced so much its milk trains were a regular feature. Granted, those wives whose incomes fail to reach 5,000 francs a year, can apply for a supplement and relief from all but the land tax, and a reduction in their rent. But to get these, one has to go down on the knees, and even then, there are over 30,000 POW wives in Paris alone who must exist on less than 1,000 francs a month.’
    One couldn’t do it without help and that, if not the terrible loneliness and uncertainty plus being the sole caregiver, was the problem. Two and a half years of it now.
    Four hundred and seventy-one Lagermark, the ‘Lagergeld’ or Lager Gold, had been in a tight roll, in the right-hand pocket­. Worthless outside the camp, no doubt. Certainly the money couldn’t be sent home, although Vichy had said that if working prisoners could be allowed home on holiday—yes, on holiday!—they would be able to exchange the Lagermark for francs. There were eleven tens, six fifties, the rest being in fives, twos and ones and all with serial numbers well into their tens of millions.
    A postcard, sent a good six weeks ago but only just received, had been forgotten in a back pocket. Saved from the bitter haste of the tearing, it said: “ Mon cher Eugène, Each day we pray for your return, each night I long for the moment we’ll be together again .”
    â€˜Those aren’t the words of a betrayer, Monsieur Thomas. They’re those of a wife who loved you desperately.’
    There wasn’t much more on the postcard. Only seven lines were allowed and the censors had been at the rest. Those of the Pétain Government first, and then those of the Lagerführung . ‘One can but imagine the humility you felt at having others read your personal mail and then delete as much as they pleased, but had she had another child? One that you were unaware of until word came through from another source, an