by Heather Munn
“This! This is peanuts! This’ll barely pay for—”
The officer leaned over and looked at the amount. “You’re right, Monsieur, it will certainly not go very far toward your legal fees if you choose to sue. Although, as I said …”
“That boy is a danger to the public!”
“Monsieur,” I said. “All I want is to get him out of Valence. I want for you never to have to see him again,” you racist pig, “I want to take him to the country where he’ll live on a farm and he won’t be a danger to anybody.” Except himself. That seems to be a given.
“On a farm? Where’ll he live, the pigpen? That oughta be about right, for his kind.”
I felt my face grow hot. But my mind grew icy cold. I was going to stand there and say nothing, because that was what I had to do, for Marek’s sake. I was going to stand there and say nothing, and imagine this man with a gun shoved in his face, trembling and blubbering and soiling himself.
“Well,” said the officer, my friend. “It seems to me that our business here is done. The young lady has paid you what she could and agreed to remove the child from our jurisdiction. So”—he gestured commandingly toward the door—“I wish you a good day.”
Oh yeah? I wish him a miserable death. I stood and watched as the guy stomped out. I took a deep, deep breath. And then I took another. The officer turned to me. “Will the boy behave for you? If they release him?”
I nodded. What else could I do? Marek stood between the men, not trying to kick anymore; almost calm. Worn out. I went down on one knee. “Marek,” I said. He looked at me.
He actually looked at me.
“Will you come with me, and not fight anyone? I want to take you away from here. To a good place, where there’s … grass, and three good meals a day. I promise, Marek. Will you come with me?”
It was a tiny movement, but I saw it. It was a nod.
“You can let him go now, Messieurs,” I said to the policemen. The officer nodded. One of them pulled out a key, and took the cuffs off him. He pulled away from them, rubbing his wrists, watching their hands. He came and stood by me. Of his own free will.
“Thank you,” said the officer. “Although I must say I’d prefer it if in the future you can bring in missing children without the use of handcuffs.”
One of the men reddened. I managed not to laugh.
THE OFFICER had me sign a couple of papers, then said he was getting off duty and would walk me home. We headed up the street toward the agency in the slanted light of the lowering sun, each holding one of Marek’s hands. Marek walked quietly, his eyes on the ground. I don’t think he had anything left in him. I didn’t feel so great myself.
“So,” said the officer. “I keep wondering.”
I blinked and looked at him, wariness coming back to me.
“How did a young lady like yourself end up with a child like this on your hands?”
“Well, sir, it wasn’t just me. There was a group of us, with a woman—I’m just her assistant—taking a group of children to the country for their health. Marek got lost, so I stayed here to find him.”
“For their health, you say? The officer who handed the case over to me said he was from a camp.”
“Yes,” I said quietly. “It’s, uh … not very healthy in those places.”
The young officer’s smile twisted a little in appreciation of that, and I was glad I’d managed to restrain myself. I’m learning. See, Paquerette? I am.
“Um … not to be indiscreet, Mademoiselle, but I couldn’t help wondering …” He glanced away, looking a little embarrassed. “Are you yourself Jewish?”
“No!” I turned and looked at him. “Why?”
“You don’t work for that Jewish aid organization? The O.S.E?”
“No. I work for the CIMADE, it’s a Protestant organization.”
His eyebrows went up. “But you help Jews?”
Of course we help— “Well … yes … why wouldn’t we?”
“A lot of people seem to have reasons.”
Yeah, I noticed that. “Monsieur … the store owner … how did he know Marek was Jewish?”
“I believe he might have had the men, er … check.”
“Check? But I had his identity papers,” I said. I said it with a quiet edge to my voice, because I knew he wasn’t talking about identity papers at all. It made me want to hit someone. No wonder the poor kid’d been fighting like that. I hadn’t been hard enough on that storekeeper. I should’ve finished my little fantasy by having him shot.
The policeman looked away.
“If you really want to know,” I added. “We don’t ask if they’re Jews. When kids need help, we help them. I don’t always look at their papers in detail, myself. I don’t really know why I should care.”
“Hm,” said the officer.
We walked in silence for half a minute or so.
“And you do this all the time?” he said suddenly.
“No, Monsieur. My parents wouldn’t let me. I travel with this woman for about a week every month. I wanted to help her, she wears herself out doing it. She travels almost all the time.”
“Hm,” he said again.
Silence fell. The slanting sunlight was gold everywhere now. I hoped Madame Chalmette and Rosa were back at the agency now. I wanted to see the joy on Rosa’s face. Marek walked quietly beside me. Once I saw him take a sidelong glance in my direction. I pretended I didn’t see. You, kid, you’re something else. Something wild. Like a fox, in the woods, who goes his own way, trusts no one. Who’d gnaw his own leg off rather than stay in a trap. Taming him would be a challenge for real.
I was almost starting to like him for it.
We got to the apartment building and paused. “Monsieur, I want to say thank you. You—” You ended up on my side and I don’t even know how. “You really helped us. I don’t know if I could’ve—”
“Please think nothing of it, Mademoiselle. I’m the one who’s indebted to you. I’ve found this afternoon … inspiring.” I looked at him. He cleared his throat. “In my job, you see, you get to watch a lot of people curry favor with those in power. You … you can tend to forget there’s any other kind of person.”
“Oh.” I glanced up into his eyes and then down. It was a very intense look that I’d seen in them, just for that second. He meant it. I felt odd, and a little embarrassed, but I also felt warmth spreading through my chest.
He waited with me while Madame Chalmette came down to answer her doorbell, and together we watched her face light up. He tipped his hat to us as he said goodbye. “And good luck. I think you may need some of that.”
I grinned at him. “Really?”
ROSA CRIED when she saw him. I washed his face. Madame Moulin brought us dinner from her house—soup with real meat broth; Marek drank it down Rivesaltes-style, holding the bowl in both hands. We took down three mattresses from the pile and spread them out on the office floor. I asked Madame Moulin to lock us in. She smiled a little, and said yes.
Marek was asleep on top of the covers, in his shoes, before the key even turned in the lock. I lay down on my mattress, feeling the heaviness of my body, feeling my head spin. I turned my head and looked over at Rosa in the fading light from the window.
“We did it,” I whispered. She nodded. Her eyes didn’t quite look at me. “You had a great idea.” Her eyes lifted and met mine, brightening.
“We did it,” she whispered.
Marek lay on his left side, his dark bruise hidden, his hard little face open now and relaxed. He looked strangely sweet like that; he looked just like somebody’s little boy. I saw Rosa looking at me. She smiled.
“He’s all right, I guess,” I murmured.
She smiled even wider.
I DOZED. I woke, and dozed, and woke again. It was dark outside. I got up—I couldn’t help it—and checked the door. It wouldn’t open. Then I checked every single window, all the way around the room. None of them opened either.
I crawled back under the covers, on my thin mattress on th
e floor. I don’t think I’d ever slept so deeply in my life.
Chapter 10
How to Tame a Fox
THE NEXT morning was golden. The young sun was up in a cloudless sky and the birds were singing in the wet trees and everything was all right. That lasted till we got on the train.
There were two Nazi soldiers in uniform in our car.
Marek froze like a hunted deer. I raised my eyes then, and saw them—two men in that uniform, at the back of the car, talking in loud German and laughing.
I snapped straight into that other awareness. My emergency mind. “Do you feel all right?” I said aloud to Marek. “Let’s find a window where you can get some air.” I herded him gently away from the soldiers. He went. I put him in a windowseat with a balled-up sweater for a pillow, and murmured to him that he should pretend to sleep. I rubbed his back, tried to breathe, to slow my heart down. It’s all right now, don’t be scared. There’s nothing to be afraid of.
Besides, they can smell fear.
It worked. By the time we were well underway Marek’s breathing was deep and even, his face relaxing again.
I watched the Germans. One of them spoke louder than the other, laughed out loud. The other shushed him. I craned my neck for a moment and saw something leaning against the seat beside the quieter one: crutches.
Wounded. Wounded German soldiers.
We made it to la Voulte. I woke Marek. Rosa went down the aisle in front of him and me behind—just in case. At the last minute I went back to get my balled-up sweater, and an old lady who was getting off blocked me in. Of course that’s when I saw the German soldier standing up on his crutches.
Getting ready to get off.
I was helpless. I heard it all. A shout from Rosa as the German stepped out of the train. Then the sound of running feet. I followed, trapped behind the old lady, agonizingly slow. I wanted to scream. I heard Rosa’s voice shouting from la Galoche‘s platform over to the left. I stepped down out of the train; she had Marek by the collar. It was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.
The Germans were staring.
I laughed out loud. It was pure instinct. The Germans turned to look at me instead.
“You just never know what that boy’s going to do,” I said lightly.
“Your brother, Mademoiselle?” said the one on crutches. His accent wasn’t bad, and he was smiling. I smiled back, swept forward on the crazy tide of what I’d started.
“No, Monsieur. He’s”—lying is dangerous—“an orphan. This girl is taking him to a charity children’s home in the country.”
“Ah. There he may run away and meet only cows, eh?”
I laughed again.
“And to where are you going, Mademoiselle?”
I swallowed, smiled. “Oh, only a little village on the plateau. I need to go wait for my train—” I gestured to la Galoche‘s platform. The only other platform in the tiny la Voulte station. Wait …
“Oh, is that the location for the plateau train? Excellent. We are going to the plateau also. A village called Tanieux.”
Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
“Ah. Yeah.” I forced the words through my dry throat. “That’s, um, I’m going there too.”
He made an “after you” gesture toward la Galoche’s platform. Polite, these boches. Rosa and Marek were at the far end. I led them over slowly, smiling and chatting, and stopped as far away from Marek as possible. They stopped with me. I kept them talking. I found out they were convalescents, billeted for free at the Bellevue Hotel, courtesy of Vichy. I found out the one on crutches had broken his leg when an automobile turned over and the other one, who didn’t speak French, was getting over internal injuries from a bullet wound. I wondered who’d given it to him, and hoped they were okay. They finally started talking to each other in German, and I had a moment to breathe. My heart rate began to slow down. I looked at them, standing there smiling, courteous, scaring Marek out of his mind, and suddenly I wanted to punch them.
We waited for the Nazis to come, the year they invaded. We waited in fear and trembling for them to come with their tanks and their guns and occupy us and shove us down, and then Pétain signed the surrender deal and made us the unoccupied zone and they didn’t come. And now here they were smiling, on vacation, acting like they were our friends. I hope somebody shoots them in the back, I thought, and then I couldn’t believe myself—me, the daughter of a pacifist. Not that I’d never thought about shooting people before. But never anyone I’d looked in the face. A weird shudder went down my spine.
When I heard la Galoche‘s whistle I turned to them again and smiled. “Excuse me, Mademoiselle,” said the one on crutches, “but since you are from Tanieux, might you know where the Bellevue Hotel is located?”
“It’s not far from the station,” I said. “I’ll walk you there.”
I kept them away from Marek. In a different car, in the closest seat to the entrance, ready to get out fast and clear the station of Germans before Rosa had to disembark. God willing. I prayed as the train steamed her slow way up the gorge. It wasn’t till we pulled into Tanieux that a sudden panic grabbed my guts as I remembered who was going to be on the platform waiting.
My mother.
I couldn’t stop. Not to scream at my own foolishness or even think what to do. I walked down the steps of that train and looked around, my heart pounding, and I saw Sonia and then—my heart leapt like a startled cat—I saw Julien. Not Mama. Julien.
And then I was free to turn and witness the arrival of the first German soldiers in Tanieux.
Oh, the people staring. Monsieur Bernard with murder in his eye, not bothering to hide it; Bernard has guts, I’ll give him that. Monsieur Thibaud and Monsieur Raissac and half-a-dozen other farmers in shades of suspicion and wary contempt. And Julien looking just like one of them.
And Sonia staring, her black Spanish eyes very dark in her white face.
And then there was me. Me, with the German on crutches turning to me with a broad smile, me nodding courteously and saying, “The hotel is this way.” Me with my eyes not meeting anyone else’s, especially Julien’s, and the voice in my head screaming Collabo!
It’s short for collaborator. With the Germans, that is. It is the worst insult possible.
But these people knew me. They knew my family and they knew what I did. They would see Rosa get off trailing a boy with a bruised face, and they would know. I swept past Sonia and Julien without even looking at them, playing my part. Julien frowned after me as I led the Germans past the stationhouse into the street.
Well, what can I say? The day the first two Nazi soldiers arrived in Tanieux, I walked down the Rue de la Gare with them, one of them clicking down the cobblestones on his crutches and telling me how France needed to realize what a service Germany was doing for her by keeping the menace of Communism away. While I made polite noises and pretended I couldn’t see the people stare. Step by slow step down the street, a crazy joy rising up in me as I went. I am walking with two Nazis who do not know I am their enemy. I am leading them away from a Jewish boy. A boy I rescued from a camp and then from the Vichy police. Let them stare, I decided. They’ll know, they’ll all know. Likely most of them knew already. The first Nazis in Tanieux and the first act of resistance to them. It starts now.
We were at the hotel doors, and the German was telling me his name. Erich Müller. He asked for mine, so I gave it to him. He said France was much more hospitable than he’d expected, and thanked me. I smiled, pictured myself spitting on his shoes, and wished him a good stay in Tanieux.
“SO,” SAID a voice behind me. I jumped. “Want to tell me what that was about?”
Julien. Of course.
“You were following me?”
He gave me the “You idiot” look.
“You have no idea what was going on. I had to do that.”
“Go on.” He folded his arms.
“Rosa was in the other car with Marek. That kid we were looking for in Valence? He was terrified
of those guys. If I hadn’t drawn them off he’d have run off again or given himself away or both.”
“Hm.”
“Julien?”
“Yeah?”
“How’s Mama?”
He gave me an ironic look. “You mean, do you have to clean the house now?”
I bared my teeth at him. That was so unfair. “What did I ever do to you? I washed your muddy pants all spring after your stupid soccer games and you didn’t ever say a word of thanks and now when I’m out saving children’s lives—”
“Yeah, you’re a big hero, Magali. Believe it or not we got that, after all this time. And if you really want to talk about my muddy pants, I got mud on them doing spring planting with Grandpa to put food on the table for our family. So don’t act like you’re suddenly the only grown-up in this family just because you finally learned how to work. Mama’s in bed. She met the train yesterday and Paquerette was on it without you. Not your brightest idea.”
My stomach was getting cold. “I had to. And Rosa was with me. We were fine.” I glanced down the street toward the hotel. “Um—”
“I’ll tell her about the boches. You just let me handle it.”
“B—”
“You don’t think you can keep her in the dark about that in this town, do you? Don’t worry, I don’t want her upset either, I care how she feels.” There was just the slightest emphasis on the I. My fingers clenched. “You just let me handle it, okay?”
I bit my tongue, and nodded.
HE KEPT his word, at least.
There was soup on the stove, scorching on a too-hot fire built by Papa. I scattered the fire and stirred. Mama came out of the bedroom and beamed at me through her pain lines. Everything was normal. We sat down and ate.
It was a sight to learn from, really, the way Julien handled her. Smiling, explaining that the boches had asked for my help, that I’d felt it was safer to be polite—his voice even and confident. I could see the nervousness grow and then die back in Mama’s eyes.
“It looks like we’ve got to live with them, after all,” he said calmly. “We don’t want to get them angry.”