We were never caught, but we were close, very close. Two kilometers from the border, we came across a German checkpoint. It was impossible to get around it without taking a detour of several days. Matis made a crazy decision. He neatly put his uniform back on, adjusted his cap, took Henri in his arms, and told me to walk beside him as if we were an ordinary couple. “You are my wife,” he said. “We are going home after visiting your family in France. You don’t speak, you just smile if we ask you something.” My heart was pounding so hard I was sure the soldiers would hear it. We walked toward the checkpoint. A young soldier stopped us, looked at Matis, looked at Henri, looked at me. “Papiere?” (Papers). Matis pulled out an old, battered, and half-illegible military ID card. The soldier examined it, frowning. “And this one?” He gestured towards me with his chin. Matis smiled: “My French wife. We got permission to visit her family in Mulhouse.” The soldier stared at me, I smiled. My heart was pounding. Henri cooed in Matis’s arms. The soldier looked at the baby, smiled in spite of himself, then handed the papers back to Matis. “Durchgehen” (go through). We walked slowly, calmly, until the checkpoint disappeared behind us, then we ran.
The Swiss border was an invisible line in the mountains. No barrier, no sign, just trees, rocks, and the promise of freedom on the other side. Matis knew the area; he’d studied the maps for weeks. We walked all night, scrambling up steep slopes, slipping on wet stones, Henri strapped to my chest with strips of cloth. At dawn, Matis stopped at the top of a ridge and pointed: “Over there, that’s Switzerland. We’re almost there.” We started the descent. Henri was asleep, the sun was rising. For a magnificent, foolish moment, I believed we were going to make it. And then I heard the metallic click of a gun being cocked behind us. Three German soldiers, out of nowhere, surrounded us like wolves. The oldest, a non-commissioned officer with a scar on his cheek, smiled coldly. “Look at this. A deserter and his little French whore.” Matis raised his hands slowly. “Let her go, she has nothing to do with this.” The NCO laughed. “Oh really? And the baby? Did it fall from the sky?” He came up to me and snatched Henri from my arms. I screamed. Matis took a step forward. One of the soldiers pointed his rifle at him. “Don’t move, traitor.” The NCO looked at Henri and grimaced. “A mixed-race bastard. What a disgrace.” He held Henri by the ankles, head down, like a dead rabbit. My son started to cry, and I screamed, “Give him back!” The NCO ignored me. He looked at Matis. “You know what we do to deserters, Keller?” Matis didn’t answer. “We shoot them, right here, right now. And your whore and her kid, we take them back to camp.” He gestured to one of his men. “Tie it to this tree.”
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