In This Hospitable Land Read Online Free

across Belgium’s eastern border, they had declared, was “their problem.” Even the invasion of Poland had not roused them or the Belgian people to action any more than it had truly roused the British and the French. They had honored their mutual defense pact with the Poles by declaring war on Germany, yes, but whose ineffectual troop maneuvers had thus far lent legitimacy only to the term most often used to describe that war: “phony.”
    Where was Belgian opposition? Was the university’s glorious, much-ballyhooed ideal of free debate phony too? It was all too reminiscent of the university André had returned to, after his army service, from the Ruhr Valley: frightfully conservative and closed-minded. Then, he at age twenty-seven had founded Le Cercle du Libre Examen —the Circle for Free Debate—an important vehicle for undergraduate inquiry that eventually reawakened the professors. Now, however, the faculty had once more sunk, like their counterparts in the German universities, into silence.
    “Come in, come in, monsieur le professeur Sauverin,” the department chair called, rising. “How fare your students?”
    “As well as they can under the circumstances, Professor Pinkus.”
    “Yes, yes,” Pinkus replied halfheartedly, removing a snappy red handkerchief from the breast pocket of his gray herringbone suit jacket and dabbing at the droplets of sweat appearing on his brow. “I understand. But I have faith that life in Brussels will not prove as difficult as I know you expect. You plan to leave, but where would a man as set in his ways as I am go? And if everyone readied themselves to flee like you, where would Belgium be? What would happen to our dear university? What about our responsibilities?”
    “As long as there is a free Belgium and a Free University,” André informed his superior, “this is where you will find me. But once freedom is gone I shall be gone too. With my family.”
    “I spoke to the rector,” Pinkus said, blinking rapidly, his watery blue eyes magnified disturbingly by his pince-nez. “Were I you I would assume the university will remain in session until further notice.”
    “What about my students?” André asked, resuming his polite tone. “It would be a kindness to allow them to return to their families.”
    “As you see fit, professor,” Pinkus said neutrally, turning back to his work.
    André might have felt offended but understood there were far larger forces affecting Alexandre Pinkus than himself.

     
    Dismissing his class, André told them he expected to see them back as usual the next day. Then he exchanged his lab coat for his suit jacket and also left the university.
    The streets were more chaotic than before. Initially stunned, the populace was now panicked. André wasn’t, yet he decided to return to Le Coq even though he usually didn’t until after classes Saturday. But this was no ordinary day. He had no idea whether the trains were running but was determined to try to catch one.
    Hurrying to the streetcar stop, clambering aboard the arriving tram and struggling toward one of the last open seats, André realized he had forgotten to phone his family. Nothing he could do about that now. Besides, the only way his family would be fully reassured of his well-being would be to see for themselves that he was safe.
    Involuntarily he recalled the harsh if well-intended words of an old family friend who had fled for America in September, when the Sauverins had moved to Le Coq: “Don’t kid yourself, André. The Belgian constitution forbids government archives from hinting at your ‘historical affiliation,’ but the Nazis will still be able to do their dirty work. It’s your neighbors you must worry about. They might prove deadly when the Brownshirts come with questions and demands. You believe they respect and even love you. Maybe that’s so. But people say and do terrible things if they believe betraying others will keep them safe.”
    Heading toward the