Free The Rose Café by John Hanson Mitchell Page A

he get so rich?” I asked.
    â€œLe Baron?”
    â€œYes.”
    He waved his left hand and blew out a soundless whistle.
    â€œHe is very rich,” he said.
    â€œI know, but why did he settle out here?”
    He avoided the questions for a while and then reluctantly explained.
    â€œI will tell you. But it is not pleasant, so don’t think about it too much. And anyway, that was all in the past. Now he shares his wealth. He has helped us from time to time, eh Pierrot? Isn’t that so? He has helped us. He pays the tax on this land here. And we up here, we like to let bygones be bygones, if you take my meaning. He is good to the local people. Not a bad type.”
    But there was a dark side. According to the old man, the seemingly kind Baron had been a part of the Vichy government during the war. He and his informants, Fabrizio said, had identified all the Jewish families in the towns between Vence and Nice. Many of these families were rich, and these le Baron had befriended. He visited them often, sharing the stories of privation and the atrocities of the ruthless Milice, the local vigilante police.
    â€œBut then,” Fabrizio said, “you know the story. There were commandments from Berlin. From Pig Hitler. They want the French to turn in their Jews. So Vichy and the Milice and the Nazis they set out to do the work; willing too, I tell you. In the meantime, le Baron, he makes his usual rounds of certain property-rich families in the towns just ahead of the Vichy operatives. He warns them—and it was true—that orders have come down from Germany and they are in danger of deportation. But he says he can arrange the necessary papers, letters of transport, exit visas. He tells them—and this was true too—that he knows people in Paris, that he has influence. He can obtain letters. Visas will surely follow, along with the permits, and even the tickets from Marseille to Morocco and on to Lisbon.”
    Fabrizio said that in the process of the various exchanges and forgeries and permits, le Baron also managed to legally acquire titles to the properties as a cover.
    â€œTemporarily, eh?” Fabrizio said, scrunching up the side of his mouth and clucking. “We know what that means. Shortly thereafter, eh? The Milice show up. Families are marched to the town squares, and, whoosh, off they go into the trains and on to we don’t know where.”
    He swept his hands together and pointed his thumb over his shoulder, toward the beech woods.
    â€œSome Baron, eh?” he said. “But now …”
    He lowered his head, looked me in the eye, held out his right hand, and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “Le Baron, il a du fric . He’s got dough …
    â€œOf course, we had our own problems up here back then,” he continued. “But we’re good hunters here in the country. A well-placed shot. One less Nazi. But we get by. We’re used to that. The Italians, they see the way things are going and switch camps. They throw away their uniforms and dress like the locals. Even marry locally. You hear that, Pierrot? Even the little Italian fascist conscripts with no family name. They find womens.”
    Back in the town square, the old men were bowling. They formed a double line and watched as a middle-aged man in a serge suit stepped forward. He eyed the cochonnet at the end of the pitch. He crouched and swung back his arm, hooking the ball underhanded, stepped forward, and then, with a long swing, let fly.
    The ball arched over the course, struck ground, and rolled toward the cochonnet.
    â€œ Ai yo ,” the spectators shouted. “Not bad. Not too bad …”
    Another took his place, crouched, swung his arm back, and threw. The ball arched, landed, and knocked the first ball away.
    More shouting.
    Another player. Another round.
    At my table in the square, the hunchbacked barber watched.
    â€œNot so bad,” he said. “Fiero is good.