Whatever is on my mind

An American in Paris

Paris, France

August 21, 1941

(2:00 pm) 

"Combien?" I asked the lady at the counter in French. 

Purchasing a loaf of bread so late in the day. It was hardly my fault that I could not get work but during the night. I had few skills, what could I be expected to do but take my clothes off. I can barely speak French as it is. Just a few phrases I've caught onto from the nearly two years I've been here. 

The language still was out of reach to me, no one wanted to speak to the American. For some reason, they thought I was solely responsible for the US not getting involved in this blasted war. I hate the damn Nazis just as much as they did. They were why I couldn't get home. What'd I'd give to get home. But the US had decided to cut supplies to this region of France since the occupation had begun. Now all I had to do was wait for the war to be over and the Brits to liberate it. 

I don't have the money to be smuggled out of France. Besides, what good would it do for me to just be stuck in Africa for the next two years when the war could be over and I wind up stuck there. I'll just stick here in Paris and hope for the best. 

"Deux francs," The counter woman replied as she rung up the baguette at the cash register. "Two francs." 

Bread was still cheap. For now. 

I haven't eaten anything but bread and cheese for the past two months. Soon it will be hard to come across bread and cheese, just as it was to come across the decent meat. A chicken cost 25 francs, and from what I've heard the quality is getting shitter and shitter with each passing week. All the fat chickens went straight to the front for the war machine to keep their troops fat and happy. 

Perhaps just fat. 

Taking the baguette, I walked out of the bakery and back onto the crowded streets of Paris. My apartment is on the Rue des Mathurins, not too far from the Palais Garnier, and not too much farther to my current place of employment. The apartment had been something my landlady left me before she departed for Spain. The Nazis are not fond of Jews, what happens to them when caught is a matter of debate. Some say they are deported to Palestine, others... It's horrible. 

The old landlady had given the apartment to me for to care for until the war was over and she could return. She had been one of the few kind souls that had helped me when I became trapped in this city when the Nazis had bombasted their way into Paris. I would pay back her kindness someday, how I don't know. But I promise somehow I will. For now, I just have to keep going about my life until I find away home. 

I had heard from some that there were still ships departing with people in them from the Seine to the Atlantic and back home. I didn't entirely trust the folks that had given me that rumor, so it's for the best if I don't get my hopes up for false hope. 

The streets of Paris were similar to what they had been prior to the war. When I had come here merely for treatment the streets had been filled with much more joy and music. Now it was just as crowded, but the same joy that had once been Paris had been lost with the Nazis invasion. Of course, some areas were hit harder than others. 

The Cabaret I worked in was still functioning at full capacity night after night. The photographs on the walls showed the same happy customers that still graced the dinner seats night after night all the way back 50 years. The Folies Bergère still thrived even with the Nazi curfews and restrictions on music. It was rather ironic that some of the most frequent customers now were German soldiers on leave from the front. 

It's strange to see the differences between the propaganda and officers, to the average German soldier. I doubt many of them are even interested in this war, they just fight and hope to come back to Paris for a striptease performed by pretty French girls, or in my case, a pretty American. I didn't speak on stage unless they requested my ID I was just another pretty French face on stage.