13, Rue Therese - Elena Mauli Shapiro [2]
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At the armies, the 22-11-15—20:30
My Dear Uncle,1
For a long time now, I have had something to tell you and today I finally dare announce it. It is a bit of a secret. This started last year, when I left for the regiment in Algeria in the month of September. Then, I had designs upon a young girl, and in our correspondence since then, the friendship that we shared in the beginning became love, so that when I left for the front I had a heavy heart. But one must be resigned to such things, so I carried on. Since I have been at the front I have not stopped corresponding regularly with her. When I was on leave, seeing her made me crazy with joy but we had to part once again. I saw you, my Dear Uncle, when leaving for the second time for the front, but I did not have the time to speak to you of this development. Today I count on being granted leave for new year’s, and this is why I write you, because in the month of January I would take great pleasure to call my fiancée the one that I hope to make happy as my wife. This young girl is Louisette, and, my Dear Uncle, today I ask for her hand upon my return from this carnage, where I will have changed enormously since war makes the character of a man. My Dear Uncle, you will forgive me if my request is brief, but I do not know how to make a fuss. I have to tell you that Louisette knows nothing of this as I have never properly told her what I have just told you. But I believe that if my request is accepted, she would only be happy. I have labored at the front with this happiness in mind. I hoped to redeem my faults by being at the regiment and I believe I have done so. I hope, My Dear Uncle, that you will accept this request and share it with Louisette. I have learned from her that she has left Malakoff for a spell and that she is now at my aunt Eugénie’s. I hope she will be happy at my Aunt’s as she is so good. I am still at rest and my health maintains itself. I do not have much left to tell you other than that reading your reply will grant me a great new burst of courage.
I finish by embracing you.2
Your nephew who loves you and thinks of you, Camille
A photograph dated
26 Janvier 1943
THIS MAN HERE, HE has to be a collaborator. Look at that mustache. Does it remind you of anyone? This is a mustache that he would not have worn after 1945. You know he doesn’t make it that far, yet you do not know how you know he never sees a free France again. He dies of a massive heart attack just a year after this picture is taken. You see him stricken, breaking a sudden sweat, clutching his left arm with his right hand. Moments before, his face had been so placid as he read his newspaper. Look at the face from moments before and try to read the cause of his body’s failure—
If you were a romantic, you would say: he died of a broken heart. He was, after all, a widower. His wife died when his daughter was born—in 1896. It must have been a very, very slow broken heart. Maybe it took so long because it kept getting half-mended by the young women he hired to tend to his children.
Or he died of a broken heart because his country was in bondage—though he survived the invasion by nearly four years. Really, morally, he was quite flexible. The situation was not ideal. He didn’t necessarily enjoy it, but he never fought it. He was too old. It was no longer any of his business.
He was seventy-three years old. It was just his time. His last name was Victor. His first name is yet to be found in the documentation.
AFTER THE TROOPS MARCH into Paris in June of 1940, he spends an entire month completely drunk. His daughter is concerned. Her husband says: “Leave him alone. This is how he mourns our country.”
This condition is unusual for him. He always had an even temperament. He was always a moderate person. Despite his constant state