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said.
    ‘‘Don’t judge them too harshly. They’re professional soldiers trained to take orders from whoever’s in charge. Believe me, some of them are working hand in hand with the resistance.’’
    ‘‘Yes, I know one in Nice who notified our network and some Jewish families on impending raids.’’
    ‘‘I may know him, too.’’
    ‘‘One of the gendarmes told me that he would close his eyes if I slipped through the wire on his shift.’’
    Mr. Binda shook his head. ‘‘You can’t chance it. He may be a rotten egg hunting for a promotion.’’
    PART I | DRANCY
    25
    ‘‘That’s why I’m still here. There’s no sure way to candle the good eggs from the bad ones.’’
    ♦ ♦ ♦
    On Christmas Eve, I had emptied my first two pails when a red armband approached me.
    ‘‘Wash your hands and come with me.’’
    ‘‘Why? Where to?’’ I asked.
    ‘‘To the administration building, but don’t ask me why.’’
    My stomach instantly knotted up. Being escorted to the Nazis’
    offices meant only one thing—trouble. A gendarme escorted us out the gate and to a high-rise building across the street. We went down a hallway on the first floor and stopped at a door where a large cardboard box was sitting. After knocking, my two companions entered the office. As I stepped into the doorway an SS officer sitting at one of three desks barked in French.
    ‘‘Stay there! You’re contaminated.’’
    Looking over papers at another desk was that Austrian Gestapo officer wearing the same black leather coat. His black hat was hanging on a coat rack. Now I knew I was in trouble. The question was who squealed on me and for what? Oddly, the Austrian looked up at me puzzled.
    ‘‘ Warum ist dieser gute Lu¨gener noch hier ?’’ (Why is this good liar still here?) he asked the officer.
    ‘‘He’s our orderly in the ward. You know him, Herr Brunner*?’’
    The officer asked.
    Again the Germans arrogantly assumed I couldn’t speak their mother tongue.
    * SS Captain Alois Brunner was the Commandant of Drancy from June 1943 until August 1944. When the Germans took over the Italian zone of France, he was sent to Nice to oversee the roundup of Jews. Brunner was responsible for deporting 24,000 people from Drancy to the extermination camps.
    26
    SCHEISSHAUS LUCK
    ‘‘He’s an accomplished liar.’’ He stared directly at me. ‘‘Someone sure did a lousy job burying a box of jewelry and gold watches in the basement of that house.’’
    I kept a blank look on my face. Obviously he hadn’t found Claude or the message in my pump, but he had kept his promise and returned to our house. After hearing that the Nazis were emptying every safe and bank in Nice, I took it upon myself to bury my mother’s best jewelry along with my father’s gold watches in the dirt floor of our basement.
    The Austrian went back to his paperwork.
    ‘‘Ship him out when the crisis is over.’’
    ‘‘I was going to send him to Compiègne. The kid is a political.
    He’s not circumcised,’’ the officer replied.
    ‘‘No. Put him on a transport to Ausch . . . Germany.’’
    The officer nodded, then turned to me.
    ‘‘Take that box of supplies to the infirmary.’’
    What a Christmas present, I thought as I walked back, a train ticket to a German prison. If only I could figure out a way to infect the incoming prisoners with the fever, then Stella and I could work in the infirmary until the end of the war.
    ♦ ♦ ♦
    Finally the dreaded moment came. All the scarlet fever patients were either cured or dead. The quarantine ward was empty and our deportation date was set. The honeymoon was over.
    ‘‘Don’t drink the wine anymore,’’ Stella instructed.
    ‘‘Why?’’
    ‘‘I want to do it like it’s supposed to be. I want to be a real woman.’’
    I wanted Stella so much, but had never attempted to make love to her and had never brought up the subject because of my fear of losing control, as I did on the staircase.