They led us to Switzerland. Two hours of silent walking, Henri in my arms, Matis walking ahead of me, flanked by resistance fighters who never took their eyes off him. When we crossed the invisible border, marked only by a stone post, the resistance fighter stopped. “There you are, you’re in Switzerland. You’re free.” Matis nodded. “Thank you.” The resistance fighter didn’t reply; he simply turned on his heel and left with his men, leaving us alone in the Swiss mountains. Free but lost.
We walked to a village called Porrentruy. The Swiss greeted us with suspicion but without hostility. Matis was interned in a camp for military refugees. Henri and I were placed in a shelter for displaced women. We were separated for six months. I had no news of him. I thought he had been sent back to Germany; I thought he was dead. I tried to rebuild my life, to find work, to raise Henri in a world that was slowly beginning to return to normal. But I thought about him every day, every night. I wondered where he was, if he was thinking about us, if he regretted saving us.
Then, one morning in September 1945, there was a knock at my door. I opened it. It was him. Tired, but alive. He was wearing civilian clothes and carrying a small suitcase. He smiled shyly. “Hello, Éliane.” I froze, unable to speak. Henri, who was now eight months old, cooed from his crib. Matis came in, knelt before the crib, and looked at my son with infinite tenderness. “He’s grown so much.” I found my voice: “What are you doing here?” He stood up. “I’m free. The Swiss have liberated me. I can stay in Switzerland or go back to Germany.” He paused. “But I don’t want either. I want to stay with you, if you’ll have me.” I should have said yes immediately; I should have thrown myself into his arms. But I didn’t, because the war was over and now I had to face reality. The reality that he was German, that I was French, that we came from opposing sides, that the world would never forgive us. “Matis,” I said softly, “people won’t understand. They’ll hate us, they’ll hate Henri.” He nodded. “I know. But I don’t care. Do you hate me?” I looked at this man who had saved me, who had put his life on hold for mine, who had held my son in his arms the moment he was born. “No,” I whispered, “I don’t hate you.”
We tried for three years. We tried to build a life together in Switzerland. Matis found work as a carpenter, like his father. I worked in a laundry. We rented a small apartment in Fribourg. Henri was growing up, beautiful and happy. People looked at us strangely, whispered behind our backs, but we pretended not to notice. We were a family, that was all that mattered. But the weight of the past was too heavy. Matis had nightmares every night, screaming in German, waking up in a sweat. He drank more and more. He became distant, haunted. One evening, I found him sitting in the dark, crying silently. “I can’t forget,” he said, “all those I killed, all the horrible things I did before I met you. I don’t deserve this life. I don’t deserve Henri. I don’t deserve you.”
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