Village of Scoundrels

by Margi Preus

  PARTY PREPARATIONS AT THE BEEHIVE

  Henni stomped the snow off her shoes before she entered through the front door, then brushed the snow from her coat and hung it up. She turned to see Madeleine’s head sticking out from the kitchen door, tears streaming down her face.

  “What happened?” Henni said. “Why are you crying?”

  Madeleine wiped her eyes on her apron and said, “Onions.”

  “Onions?” Henni said.

  “I’m grating them,” Madeleine explained. “For the latkes. Don’t you remember? We’re getting ready for the party. We won’t have time to do everything tomorrow.” She took Henni’s arm and pulled her into the kitchen, which seemed to be, like the house’s name suggested, a hive of activity, presided over by Monsieur Boulet, the house director.

  It all looked so festive and, she realized, a little bit miraculous. It hadn’t been so long ago that these kids had been barely human—that one, standing at the sink scrubbing potatoes, and that one, polishing a menorah, and that one, whittling a dreidel.

  They’d come here thin as rails or with bellies swollen from malnutrition. Some had shaved heads or shorn hair to rid it of lice. With closed mouths and watchful eyes, with crushed spirits or lashing out in anger, they’d arrived, bedraggled little creatures.

  Hunger and deprivation had at first turned them into scavenging rodents—some of them swiped food whenever the opportunity arose. Two boys she knew had crept into a neighbor’s barn and sliced hunks off a side of bacon hanging from the rafters—Jewish boys, stealing bacon! That’s how hungry they were. Henni herself had not been above sneaking into the pantry, lifting the lid off the tin of chestnut butter, and gouging out fingersful of the sweet, honey-thick paste.

  Now here they were with shining faces and glossy hair, smiling, being courteous to one another. How had this transformation occurred? In part, it was thanks to food. Not a lot of it—nobody had a lot of food anymore—but real farm food, cheese and bread, milk, sometimes butter. Cabbage and lentils and potatoes and, best of all, jam—glowing purple blueberry; rosy strawberry; dark, seedy blackberry—made from fruit they’d picked themselves.

  Their transformation was also due to Madame Desault, who’d rescued them from the French concentration camps and who, as a Jew, risked her own life every trip up the mountain to bring them here. And to the kind guidance of Monsieur Boulet.

  The day she’d arrived, Madeleine had greeted her and said, “The houseparents are kind.” Then she whispered in Henni’s ear, “You know some of them are also Jewish. You’ll go to school at the high school, and everyone will be your friend.”

  “But my French is not very good,” Henni said.

  “Well, that is how it will get better!” Madeleine said, laughing.

  Since then she’d seen how the adults kept their young charges busy with storytelling, singing, long hikes in the mountains, and hunting for berries, mushrooms, or pine cones for winter fuel. And with schoolwork, of course.

  Now, inhaling the smell of onions, Henni felt a horrible gnawing at the pit of her stomach. Like hunger, but deeper, more insistent, more aching.

  “Maybe we should cancel the party,” she whispered to her friend.

  “No!” squawked Madeleine. “Why?”

  “There’s a policeman in town,” Henni said. “An inspector. From the national police.”

  “Well, let’s not invite him!” Madeleine said.

  “He doesn’t have to know what we’re doing,” someone else piped up.

  “It just seems a little dangerous,” Henni said.

  Monsieur Boulet looked up from sweeping, adjusted his glasses, and said gently, “Do you remember why we celebrate Hanukkah?”

  “We remember the miracle of the oil to light the candelabra in the temple,” one of the children said. “It was only supposed to last one day, but it lasted eight.”

  M. Boulet nodded. “Hanukkah celebrates the miracle of triumph against overwhelming odds,” he said. “Maybe it would be good to remind ourselves of that right now?”

  “I suppose,” Henni whispered. It would be good to remember that miracles could happen, because it looked like they were going to need one.

  PATH OF THE DRAGOON

  It was foggy when Inspector Perdant stepped out of the café into the chill of the evening air. Falling snow blurred the edges of the stone houses and buildings and veiled everything beyond the end of the block.

  He shivered a little and tucked his head down into his jacket collar to begin the short walk back to his hotel.

  He’d managed to strike up a friendly conversation with a pleasant fellow—a blacksmith—who sat at the bar peeling roasted chestnuts. He’d asked if the man knew a certain house located on the Chemin du Dragon. What did he know about its inhabitants?

  “I don’t know anything about who lives there,” the blacksmith said, “but I can tell you about the Chemin du Dragon—the path of the dragoon.” He slowly worked at peeling the dark brown shell away from a creamy-colored nut.

  After a few moments, Perdant, anxious to get on with his questions, said, “I’d like to know.”

  “That road gets its name from the king’s soldiers.”

  “The king?” Perdant said.

  “Louis XIV,” said the blacksmith.

  Here we go, Perdant thought. Now I’m going to hear stories from the 1600s!

  “You know that the Huguenots—French Protestants—were persecuted during that time,” the blacksmith continued.

  “Yes, I know,” Perdant said. “I am a Protestant myself.”

  The man lifted his eyebrows in acknowledgment. “Well, back then, many Huguenots came here, to this remote plateau, hoping to escape the terror they suffered at the hands of the Catholics.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Perdant said.

  “The people here are descendants of those Huguenots.”

  “Yes, I know,” Perdant said impatiently. This was getting him nowhere. “But all that happened a long time ago.”

  The man let out a little bof through pooched lips as if to say, Maybe, maybe not.

  “Then Louis XIV sent his most despicable soldiers—his personal dragoons—the nastiest psychopathic killers he had—to hunt down the Huguenots.” The fellow had finished peeling the chestnuts and now slid the plate toward Perdant, offering them to him.

  Perdant shook his head. Chestnuts, as far as he was concerned, were food for livestock.

  “The dragoons were encouraged to loot, steal, and abuse the inhabitants of the homes,” the man went on, “to terrorize them until the Protestants either fled or converted to Catholicism.”

  “Yes, I know!” Perdant said, openly exhibiting his disgust at the direction of the conversation. “But that was three hundred years ago! It doesn’t have anything to do with what’s going on now.”

  “No?” the man said, gesturing with the chestnut in his hand.

  “If you are suggesting that I am like a dragoon, you have it all wrong,” Perdant protested. “I’ve been sent to protect you, not persecute you.”

  Again, the man let out a little puff of air, this time accompanied with a shrug of his shoulders.

  Changing tacks, Perdant said, “I thought you were going to tell me something about the Chemin du Dragon, the street.”

  “Ah, yes,” said the blacksmith. He rested his elbows on the bar and lowered his voice, and Perdant leaned forward, hoping that the next part would be the payoff.

  “It is said,” the fellow whispered, “that on foggy nights on the Chemin du Dragon, you can sometimes feel a sudden breeze, as if horses are riding past, and hear the jingling of a dragoon’s spurs. Some have said they have even seen a ghostly dragoon astride a white horse.”

  Perdant heaved a sigh and said, “I thought you good Huguenots did not believe in ghosts.”

  “Of course I don’t!” the man said. “I am just telling you what others say.”

  »«

  Now, thinking about that story as he walked the dark streets, Perdant tucke
d his head farther down into his jacket—the cold had a bite to it. He resented the suggestion that he, himself, was like a dragoon. “Ça n’a aucun sens—What nonsense!” he said aloud.

  He stopped and looked around and realized he didn’t recognize these buildings. Between the fog and mulling over that silly story, he’d become disoriented. He must have turned the wrong way a few blocks back, or maybe gone too far, but it became apparent that he was walking the very street he and the blacksmith had so recently been talking about: the Chemin du Dragon.

  Standing there, trying to get his bearings, he heard something odd. A metallic rattle. Almost a . . . jingling.

  “Nonsense!” he muttered, walking on.

  But the sound did not go away. And now he also detected a kind of humming whir. Both sounds seemed to be growing closer, getting louder. But it was the metallic rattle that made his heart feel as if it were ricocheting from one rib to another, because it sounded just like the jingling of spurs.

  A gust of wind blew the wet mist into his face, and he turned his head away and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw something emerging out of the fog. Something that looked like a horse and rider. Perdant clutched at his chest, feeling his heart throbbing even under his heavy coat. But as the apparition moved closer, it became apparent that it was just a bicyclist on a jingly bicycle.

  “Halte!” he tried to yell as the rider whizzed past him. The word came out a kind of strangled cry.

  The bicycle skidded on the snowy street and wobbled to a stop ahead of him.

  Perdant took a deep breath, pressed his hand against his chest as if to slow his heart, and fished his flashlight out of his pocket. The beam swung along the road in front of him, illuminating the trees before settling on the rider and his bicycle.

  As he walked toward the bicyclist, Perdant realized he needed a reason for stopping him. If he said, You scared the living daylights out of me, he’d make himself a local laughingstock right off the bat.

  Well, he thought, a fit young man like this should have signed up for the compulsory work service. He would check his identification card.

  “Carte d’identité, s’il vous plaît,” Perdant said, shining the flashlight at the young man.

  Squinting against the glare, the fellow dug in his pockets and retrieved a card that identified him as Jean-Paul Filon, age seventeen.

  So, the bicyclist was too young for the labor service. But Perdant wasn’t about to let him off the hook yet. Then it came to him. The bicycle had no light, and it was dark. That was a ticketable offense.

  “You realize you are riding at night without a light?” he said.

  “Yes, you see, the light is broken,” young Filon explained. He gestured to the light dangling from the handlebars. Perhaps that was what made the jingling sound.

  “Well, you should have it fixed before you go riding at night,” Perdant said. He scribbled out a ticket, citing Jean-Paul Filon for riding without a light.

  The young man took it without a word, folded it neatly, and placed it in his wallet as if it were a gift.

  “Now, walk your bicycle at night until you get the light repaired!” Perdant scolded.

  The boy nodded, and Perdant watched him wheel his bicycle down the street. At the bottom of the hill, the bicyclist did something Perdant puzzled over for a long time. He kicked up his feet and clicked his heels together.

  JEAN-PAUL AT SUNNYSIDE

  Jean-Paul stood at the kitchen window inside Sunnyside, the boardinghouse where he was staying, and fiddled with the ticket he’d just been given by that policeman, Perdant.

  The fog outside seemed to press against the window, as if someone had pinned a wool blanket to the glass. It made him feel far away from everything, especially his mother, who was—

  “What do you have there?” Sylvie asked, interrupting his thoughts. Turning her head away from the sink, where she was washing dishes, she nodded at the paper in his hand.

  “Oh!” Jean-Paul looked up, smiling. “It’s a ticket I got from that policeman.”

  “You seem . . .” She hesitated. “Kind of happy about it.”

  “Well, I’m not happy about the policeman, but, I mean, it could have been so much worse.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “I might give you a ticket for not helping with the dishes.” She snapped him with the dishcloth.

  “Oh, sorry,” Jean-Paul said. He put the ticket in his pocket, took the offered cloth, and started drying silverware.

  Sylvie tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear before plunging her hands back into the dishwater. “What did you get a ticket for?” she asked.

  “Riding my bike without a light.”

  “You were riding a bike in the snow? I know you’re new here, but why not do what the rest of us do? Use a sled or skis to get around.”

  “You use sleds for transportation?”

  “Sure! They’re great for getting from class to class. First-hour Italian is at the top of the hill, and second-hour English is at the bottom. So, why not? Even the teachers use them.”

  “Huh!” Jean-Paul said. “I don’t see myself as much of a sledder, but we’ll see.”

  “So . . .” Sylvie said. “Sorry if I’m being too nosy, but about that ticket?”

  Jean-Paul picked up a platter and slowly wiped it dry. He had to make a decision about whom to trust and how much information to trust them with. “It’s never bad to have a few extra pieces of paper in your pocket to prove who you are,” he said. “Just in case the police question your identity. I guess you could call them plausibility papers. This one, signed by the local policeman, gives me a bit of credibility. It’s worth the small fine I’ll have to pay.”

  Sylvie was on the same page immediately. “Can I see your carte d’identité?”

  Jean-Paul was anxious to see if it was good enough to fool someone even in a well-lit kitchen, so he finished drying the platter, set it on the table, and for the second time that evening, pulled the card out of his pocket. He held it out so she could see.

  “Mmmm!” Sylvie said, wiping her hands as she stood next to him.

  Léon came into the room and looked over her shoulder at the identification card of Jean-Paul Filon.

  “May I?” Léon took the card and held the paper up to the light, tilting it this way and that. “Gosh. It’s so well done I’d almost—almost say it was real.”

  “What’s the almost part?” Jean-Paul said.

  “You mean you really are Jean-Paul Filon?” Léon asked.

  Jean-Paul hesitated. He had planned to not tell anyone his real identity.

  Sylvie tipped her head to look at him. “It’s only that I’ve done a bit of forgery myself,” she admitted, then, cheeks flushed, rushed on. “We’re always looking for good people. I’m terrible at it, you see; there are some good people, but everybody’s so busy and I thought maybe you knew someone . . .”

  “Take a look at my sister’s work.” Léon pulled his own card from his pocket and held it out for Jean-Paul to examine.

  “You did this?” Jean-Paul asked Sylvie.

  She nodded.

  He took a deep breath and hoped he wasn’t being reckless when he said, “It’s true, I’m not Jean-Paul Filon, but there is one. He’s a friend of mine who gave me his card.”

  “But it has your picture on it,” Sylvie pointed out.

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “How did you get the seal to look so real—I mean, the part of the seal that covers the photo—how did you do that?”

  “I used an art pen to trace the missing part of the official seal onto the photo.”

  “Well done!” Léon said.

  “Have you done any more of these?” Sylvie asked.

  Once again, he wondered how much to tell them. “In Nice, where I lived before, I had a job as an office equipment repairman,” he said. “And I often worked at the office of the prefect.”

  “The prefect!” Léon exclaimed, clearly impressed. “You mean the official in
charge of issuing identity cards, passports, and all things dealing with immigration issues? Go on . . .”

  Sylvie and Léon leaned forward in their chairs, and Jean-Paul told them about the day he had gone to the prefect’s office on a mission of his own. This was back when his name was still Otto.

  He had parked his bike outside the government office buildings, unstrapped his toolbox from the back of the bike, and had gone inside . . .

  “Good. You’re here,” the secretary said briskly, not bothering with a customary “Bonjour” in greeting. Then she added, her lips twisted into a mean little sneer, “Here to doctor the typewriter?”

  Otto shoved his glasses up on his nose and didn’t speak. He had already planned on never talking to her again.

  “The g is sticking and the t is blurry,” she said. “Change the ribbon while you’re at it, will you?”

  Otto nodded. His mouth was so dry, he wasn’t sure he could speak, even if he had planned on ever talking to her again.

  “Well, go on,” the secretary said impatiently, tilting her head toward the rear door.

  Otto slunk past her into the prefect’s office. There was, as he had hoped, no one in it.

  He shut the door. Moving quickly but deliberately, he set the toolbox on the desk, opened it, laid out a cloth, and set his tools neatly one by one on top of the cloth, so everything would look like it usually did if anyone came in.

  But instead of going to the typewriter, he went to the prefect’s desk, slid open the top left-hand drawer, took out two sheets of official government stationery, and carried it back to the typewriter desk. Turning the typewriter so he would be facing the door, he cranked the sheet of paper into the roller and placed his fingers on the keys.

  He paused, conscious of every little noise: The scraping of shoes on the tiled floor outside the office. A small cough. People passing by outside the window. Even the chirping sparrows trying to stay warm near the steam grate. Every sound made him flinch.

  November 1942, he typed.

  To the immediate attention of the director of Rivesaltes Internment Camp . . .