by Heather Munn
After a minute Rosa crossed herself, and stood up. She smiled shyly at me, and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Thanks for coming with me, Magali,” she whispered.
We walked out of the church in silence, back into the bright light of the day. My feet took the road to the river, without my really thinking about it, and Rosa followed. I wanted something. I wanted the sound of the river, to look at the shifting water like I’d looked at the flame. I wanted something that would make the ache in my breastbone go away.
We walked down to the river, to a place where there’s a little footpath along a low stone wall. We stood on the grass right by the water’s edge, looking downstream where the water swirls around the rocks and leaves the town and goes out between the hills, round a bend where you can’t see. We watched it swirling away, always away, toward those green fields.
“Rosa?” I said quietly. “What d’you pray for?”
She looked at me and then quickly back at the water. “Oh. You know.”
I didn’t really know, though. Papa had told me Catholics pray for the souls of the dead. But I didn’t really want to ask her that. “Rosa … do you think babies go to heaven?”
She looked at me, surprised. “Of course. Don’t you?”
I nodded, looking at the river. Neither of us spoke for a moment. “D’you think they get to … you know … grow up?”
She shrugged. I could see tears starting to gleam in her eyes again. I hadn’t meant to do that. I trailed my fingers through the grass. There were tiny white flowers in it, little stars as small as grass seeds. I picked one and looked at it for a moment, so tiny I could crush it between two fingers. I leaned over and dropped it in the water.
One tiny flash of white in the current, and it was gone. So fast. I looked toward the riverbend, picturing it swept along in the current, out of sight.
I opened my mouth. “Rosa,” I said slowly. “My mother changed her mind. I can travel with Paquerette this summer.”
She looked down at me and her dark eyes widened. “Magali! When?”
I looked down at the grass again. “Day before yesterday.”
“Oh.”
“When I came home. From l’Espoir.”
“Oh.”
There was a long, long silence. I watched the swirl and speed of the water, and shivered. I thought of Rivesaltes. Thought, oddly, of Adrián’s bleeding feet. I should pack some rags this time. I felt it rise up in me then, sudden but slow, like something out of the earth, a plant pushing its way through the soil: it was true. I was going. I stood up. “Rosa! I’m gonna go!”
She took my hand and squeezed it. “You’re gonna go,” she said.
THE FIRST night I went back to l’Espoir, I was almost afraid to open the door. Rosa was there on the couch feeding Lilli, and there was the coffee table and the exact spot where the bassinet had sat. The spot where Madeleine had stood, holding him— I swallowed and walked forward, and gave Rosa the bise.
That night after the babies had gone to sleep, Madame Sabatier and Madeleine made tea, and seemed to want us to stay. We sat around the coffee table in silence for a little while. I couldn’t take my eyes off that spot. Madame Sabatier started talking about her late husband, who’d died four years ago, and Madeleine joined in. They talked about him for almost an hour. How he used to get up at three to start baking in his boulangerie, and how much he liked dogs, and how he’d spend hours and hours in the woods in the spring, hunting for mushrooms. They didn’t even talk about how he died. They talked slowly. They looked at each other a lot, and at Rosa and me, like their eyes were saying what they really meant. I’m not sure what they meant. But it was good to be with them.
WHEN PAQUERETTE came in I took the kids from her—three toddlers from Gurs for a private home—and didn’t see her till the next afternoon. I didn’t want to be the one to tell her. I wanted to be the one bringing good news after the bad.
I looked up at the blue June sky as I walked down to l’Espoir, and I saw the swallows were back, swooping over the town in dizzying curves. I stopped and stood there following one with my eyes, feeling the dive and lift of it in my body as if it was me that was flying. I’m going. I’m going to tell her I can go.
Madame Sabatier hugged and kissed me. Paquerette gave me the bise and stood looking at me, her gray eyes warm and sad. “I’m told you were a great help. I hope it wasn’t too hard on you.”
“I …”
“I was afraid it would happen from the beginning, Magali. It was always a possibility. We had to try.”
A lump rose in my throat. We had to try. I took a fast breath, then another. “I can travel with you,” I blurted.
Paquerette’s eyebrows shot up. “Your mother said yes?”
I looked into her eyes. “Yes.” Hard, hot triumph warmed the center of my chest.
Paquerette stood for a moment with her mouth open. “Well now,” she said finally. “I thought— Well now. Actually, that solves a problem I have.”
Well, yes …
“Yes. Hm.” Her eyes had an inward look now. “Magali, do you think your parents would let you travel to Perpignan without me if you were with Rosa?”
“Rosa?”
“Yes. She’s agreed to travel with me. I’ve arranged it with her parents. And now both of you can come—that’s going to be a tremendous asset. Now I think switching off may be the right method ordinarily, but you see, I leave tomorrow for my headquarters in Nîmes, and I’ll continue on from there to Rivesaltes on Monday. I’d hoped to have Rosa meet me at Madame Alençon’s, but her parents object to her traveling alone. With you along, on the other hand …”
I tried to swallow, but my throat was too dry. Have Rosa meet me at Madame Alençon’s, she said, as if it was something she said every day. Had they already been on a trip together? Rosa, nice little Rosa walking into Rivesaltes? Rosa sprinting across a train platform, catching a toddler before he went off the edge? Really?
“Do you think your parents would let you?”
“Um. Um, yeah. I think so.” A tremendous asset, she’d said. Not having me. Having both of us.
“Should I ask them myself? That seems to be the approach I ought to have taken last time.”
“Um, yeah. Yeah. That’s a good idea.”
Paquerette smiled and put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m glad you’re coming,” she said kindly.
I gave her what I hoped was a smile.
I PRETENDED to Rosa that I hadn’t noticed she’d been keeping secrets from me. I didn’t say a thing, from then till the day we left on our trip.
It was raining hard the day we left. I stood under Papa’s umbrella, Rosa under her mother’s, as la Galoche pulled in, her white steam heavy in the rainy air. I boarded, and heard Rosa following me. I sat on the far end of the bench. She joined me. On the platform Papa waved goodbye. The whistle sounded, and I watched the houses begin to go by, and then the open country.
“Magali?”
“Mm.”
“What … what’s it like? Rivesaltes?”
I turned to her. “Pretty bad.” I wondered how she’d take it, when we got there.
“What was it like? The first time you went?”
I turned away and looked out the window. The rain was letting up. Everything was blurred and watery; the grass in the pastures was so green it glowed. I shrugged. “There’s barbed wire around the place,” I said. “There’re men with guns. Little kids fight each other over food. It’s not nice.”
She shut up, and looked out the window. The fields went past. Then the first houses of Saint-Agrève. “Magali?”
“Mm.”
“Did Paquerette say anything about … if there’ll be any babies on this trip?” she asked in a low voice.
I sat up a little straighter. “There might be,” I said.
“I keep thinking about … Magali, do you suppose … we’ll see …”
I drew in a sharp breath. Oh. “I guess … Paquerette needs to, you know. Tell her.”
Tears
filled Rosa’s eyes. “I couldn’t bear it, if I had to.”
My throat was tightening. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah.”
“Paquerette’s so brave.”
I glanced over at her. “Yeah,” I said.
The train went round its sharp bend, then, and began to pick up speed as it plunged down into the gorge.
THE TRAINS ran on time. We made it all the way to Perpignan by nightfall. I led Rosa through the darkening streets to Madame Alençon’s. Paquerette wasn’t there.
Instead there was a telegram:
DELAYED STOP MEET ME AT THE CAMP
STOP PAQUERETTE
We lay awake a long time in our room at the guesthouse, hearing each other’s breathing in the dark. I lay there wondering if Rosa would say anything. About Benjamin, maybe, or about Zvi. I lay there thinking about tomorrow’s walk to the camp, about seeing Zvi’s mother. I looked up at things I couldn’t see and tried not to remember the harsh sound of Zvi’s last breaths. And then I stopped trying not to and just remembered them. This is the kind of world we live in. I shivered and turned over, and thought of Rosa’s face as she lit the candle, Rosa’s face as she cradled Zvi, my mother holding me close, then letting me go. Paquerette’s drawing of her valley. The green fields beneath the rain. The hateful gates of Rivesaltes and the men with guns. This is the kind of world we live in, I thought, and I could not make sense of it. I just couldn’t. I went to sleep.
AFTER BREAKFAST we took the Rivesaltes train, and then I led Rosa along the road to the camp.
The tramontane was bad that morning—hard and hot and wild. The sky was dark and heavy. I pulled handkerchiefs out of my bag to cover our mouths. The dust stung our eyes. We walked.
As the camp came in sight, I watched Rosa draw into herself. She couldn’t stop looking at it. That wide plain bounded with barbed wire, those guard towers. She stopped suddenly, fumbled in her bag.
I pulled my dusty handkerchief off my mouth. “You okay?”
“I’m thirsty.” She got out a water bottle and took a long pull, not taking her eyes off the camp. She held it out to me. “Want some?”
I took it, and watched her as I drank. She was still looking straight ahead. She was very still. “You sure you’re okay?”
She put the bottle away. For a moment she didn’t speak. Then, “You know what the difference is,” she said, “between Sonia and me?”
I shook my head.
“My family left Spain a year earlier. That’s the difference. I could’ve been in there.” She was still staring at it.
“Rosa.” I grabbed her hand. “Rosa, look at me. You know what you’re here for?” She looked at me. “You’re here to get people out. You’re a rescuer. That’s who we are. Remember?”
She glanced again at the camp. She tore her eyes from it, looked at me. Nodded slowly.
“Ready to go on?”
She nodded.
We went on.
When we walked up to the gate, Paquerette came out of the poste de commande. The guard let us in and we began our walk down the dusty road between the blocks. Three of us walking into Rivesaltes, carrying bad news and hope, one in each hand.
BLOCK J looked deserted in the gusting, gritty wind. Still, I glanced between the barracks as we passed them, my eyes searching for a tall thin woman in a patched skirt. I don’t want to be there when she finds out. Please. Please. The block guard let us in; we followed Paquerette into Marylise’s quarters. Rosa stopped in the doorway, looking round the bare little room. Paquerette and Marylise embraced like they hadn’t seen each other in months. Paquerette straightened, her face clouding.
“Marylise, how is Madame Novak? Is she still in the infirmary? I have a letter here for her. I … I have some news.”
Marylise’s smiling face fell. I swallowed, watching her. “I’m sorry, Paquerette,” she said. “She’s dead.”
Paquerette stood motionless for a second. “Oh.”
Relief washed through me. Followed instantly by shame.
“I saw her start to fail as soon as her son was gone,” said Marylise. “I really think she was only hanging on until she could get him to safety.”
A sick feeling went through me, a feeling of awful, awful waste. Paquerette stood with a face like stone. She died believing he’d live. Some people would say that made it better. Looking at Paquerette’s face I saw the truth: it made it worse.
“Well,” said Paquerette finally, hoarsely, “he’s dead too.”
They looked at each other for a long moment in silence. Marylise sighed. “Well,” she said very quietly, “would you like to see the list for today?”
THEY SENT me and Rosa off to Block D, where a lot of the Spanish women and children were. I was moral support, I guess. Rosa did keep hold of my hand for the first two minutes, but by the time we’d found the family we were looking for, she was a part of their world, and I was not.
I sat beside Rosa on the end of Madame Villanueva’s bedroll in the dark, stifling barrack, listening to Spanish, watching Rosa’s expressive face move with every sentence she heard. She fed me bits and pieces in the pauses—“and then they had to climb the mountains,” or “she says her nieces and nephew went to some town on the plateau, Magali, d’you suppose”—and then someone would say something, and she’d be gone again. When the bell for the lunch line sounded, we brought our group back to Marylise: Madame Villanueva and her three kids, a whole family released this time. There was a pot of turnip-and-rice soup on Marylise’s stove; she and Paquerette sat at the table talking. They looked up as the group of us trooped in.
“Excellent. I have something to ask you, Magali.”
“Yes, Paquerette.”
“Do you think you can handle a really wild eight-year-old boy? If he’s your sole responsibility?”
I stood up straight. That look in her eyes: can I count on you? I found myself breathing deeper than I had in months. “I—”
“I have to warn you,” said Marylise. “Severe behavior problems. That’s one reason we need to get him out—he’s tried to escape his block several times, almost got himself shot. He did get himself hit with a gun butt. His aunt’s very worried. She’s his guardian here, his mother died of the typhoid that was going round earlier in the spring.”
Paquerette nodded. “It’s going to be tough. Don’t undertake it lightly, Magali.”
What was I going to say? No?
I took a deep breath. “I’ll be in charge of him, Paquerette.”
She turned to Marylise. “We’ll take him.”
His name was Marek. He had a dark bruise on his left cheekbone, and the eyes of a cornered animal.
He stopped in Marylise’s doorway, his eyes darting round the room for danger. His tired-looking aunt prodded him to go on in. I had to rise from where I sat among our growing group and go out to him. His aunt said he spoke French. I went down on one knee but he wouldn’t look me in the eye. He had this way of looking at your hands, as if you were going to hit him. I told him it was my job to take him to a place where he’d be safe, where there was food and no barbed wire, and it was his job to do as I said till we got there. You would’ve thought he hadn’t understood a word. His aunt swore again that he spoke French.
When we walked out of the block—and later when we walked out of the camp—Marek looked at the open gate, looked at the guard, and then dashed. I caught a fold of his shirt and held him back to my own pace, wondering how a kid as scared as this had gotten himself hit with a gun butt.
For the next twenty-four hours Marek was my world. The rest of the group was a vague crowd whom I became aware of during head counts. The Villanueva family; two brothers who spoke only to each other, quietly, in Yiddish; a girl named Chloe, who spoke to no one, ever. A couple of other kids I don’t even remember; and a thin, clingy toddler whom Rosa carried and sang to in Spanish. A ragged, dusty, exhausted group straggling into the train station in the center of town, finally, even Marek dragging his feet.
At Madame Alençon’s that
night everyone drank glass after glass of water. Marek tried to take his food from the table and go; I stood behind his chair and blocked him in. He wolfed it down, eyes darting round. They put me in the same room with him; he went to sleep in his clothes and broken shoes, on top of the covers.
By the next morning he’d decided I was just another jailer.
He tried to bolt, in Perpignan station. The crowd was pressing in around us and I saw his eyes go white and wild like a horse about to shy, and just in time I grabbed a fold of his shirt and hung on hard as he almost pulled me off my feet.
“Marek!” I shouted. “Calm down!”
I put my other hand on his shoulder and he jumped like I’d cut him. I yanked him along after the group. After about ten seconds of that—which is a pretty long time when you’re dragging someone as hard as you can—he gave up and started following.
He tried to bolt again on the train. I caught him and brought him back to his seat, put him by the window, sat in the aisle seat and boxed him in. He kicked the seat in front of him, again and again, for hours. It’s absolutely incredible what that can do to your nerves. Once in a while he stopped to turn and look at me, with hatred on his bruised face.
Our train was shunted into a siding just before Montélimar. Problems up ahead—no one would tell us what. Marek kicked and kicked, Rosa’s little girl cried, Paquerette looked at her watch. Two hours in all.
We started moving again. Stopped in Montélimar. A boy got on and sat down in the seat in front of Marek. After about three kicks he’d swiveled back to look at us. “Hey, quit!” Marek glared at him, and kicked again. The boy jumped up, angry-faced, moving toward us. Marek jumped up and punched him in the mouth.