Glass half-Full and Glass Chimera

Here’s an excerpt from Smoke, my 2014 novel of the Classic genre. The year is 1937. A young American businessman is traveling through France, in a roundabout route to visit the grave of his father who had never returned from the the Belgian battlegrounds of 1918. In chapter 14, Philip finds himself a guest at the dining table of an hospitable French family, near Strasbourg, close to the German border. Philip is on a journey in which he accompanies two sisters who have fled from Germany. The girls have escaped the third reich while their brother, Heinrich, is still imprisoned on a concentration camp called Dachau. In dinner table conversation, the French hosts are speaking forthrightly, with urgency, to the girls and their parents. This excerpt is lifted from page 161 of Smoke:

Cartier looked directly into the man’s face, then at his wife. “You do need to stay nearby until Heinrich is released, or at least until you have heard some definite news, or until this whole damned Nazi thing blows over.” Henri Leblanc then spoke excitedly, “The Third Reich is not going to go away! They will inflict their German hatefulness on Jews and some others as long as they can! They will not stop until they are forced to stop. Hitler and Goebbels have railed against the Jews since the beginning, even since ’33. It was their intention all along to rob you of your business and then run you out of Germany. But our leaders, Petain or — we need another Clemenceau, or Poincare, maybe that young man, DeGaulle — somebody needs to rise up and intervene la-bas. Ever since Hitler waltzed into the Saar last year, with no resistance whatsoever from us, those Nazi brutes who salute and follow his every command without question have been frothing at the mouth to run the Jews out of Germany. That is what the Gestapo is assigned to do, and the Third Reich will not cease its campaign against the Jews — especially the prosperous ones such as you.” “But do not despair!” said Henri’s wife. “You have come to the right place. We can help you. We’ll give you sanctuary as long as we can.”

novel by Carey Rowland set in Europe, 1937 That was a fictional scene based upon historic fact. For the complete story of 1937 told, read Smoke.