... the endless hours I spent on lines. The Paris lines were practice for later lines in Toulouse and Perpignan. Let it suffice to say I stood for hours (...) And each day was another line. Another line, another crowd of people overdressed and pressed close together. We were refugees in Paris. It takes so little to turn anyone into a refugee. A winter coat and a scarf over an arm in June, jackets worn too long in too much heat; it droops the body down. There were those who gave in, coat unbuttoned, hanging off weary frame, hardly looking anymore like the doctors or businessmen they were just weeks ago in another city. Just the slightest indication of the old established life. Maybe a telltale gold watch, a woman's pearl-and-ruby brooch. Now they press forward, pushing to keep their place in line, hugging an oversized valise filled with valuables. After waiting for hours we were directed to other lines or told offices had shut for the afternoon. The word on every line was that people were being routed to Bretagne on the Atlantic coast, where displaced-persons centers were already up and running. Transit visas, we heard, were routinely being denied.
pp. 119-120
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