by Heather Munn
I lay there in the dark watching the awful truth revolve slowly in my mind: Nina was right.
She did not understand what she was doing. She was … enjoying. She is not wise, Mademoiselle. I know because once, I am like this. I trust, I think I will not fail.
That was the worst thing. Nina. Nina was like me?
That broken girl. That nothing girl. Scared of her shadow, scared of the stationmaster. That girl who didn’t believe she could do, that girl whom other people protected, whose idea of helping someone was opening the door for them as someone else brought them in out of danger, and telling them they were safe. And she said she saw what I was because she used to be like me?
I jammed my face into the pillow. I punched the wall. A muffled voice came through from Julien’s room: “You okay?”
“Fine!” I yelled.
So women changed? Was that it? From strong into weak, from me into Mama? Why? Because of men? Down with men, then. In the dark my hands locked around the blond German’s throat, I saw him flailing, turning red. Die, scum. Yeah. Down with him. Not Papa or Grandpa or Monsieur Lawrence, sure, but down with him, down with Erich Müller and Pétain and Hitler and that Rivesaltes guard who’d as good as threatened me, and all the Rivesaltes guards, scum, and that German in the automobile who’d come to see if they were doing a good job. I had a knife in my hand, in my mind, I was stabbing, stabbing. There was blood. I will never be like that. I will kill them. I will fight.
The next thing I remember I was lying on the bed again, my mind drifting in and out, sleepy. But awake and sane enough to understand I would never stab Hitler with a knife. To say to myself, so I got worked up. It’s still true I’ll never be like that. I’ll be like Paquerette. There was still Paquerette. Thank God, thank God. There was always Paquerette.
I WOKE up healthy the next morning. It wasn’t as much of an improvement as you’d think.
I lay and looked at the sun coming in my window, and for the first time in that whole confusing year I seriously considered going to someone and telling them absolutely everything. Someone older this time. Someone who could help it all make sense.
The problem was who.
Not Mama. Not Papa either, because of Mama, and because I could just see his face when I told him I’d had a German soldier’s hand on my waist, and I did not want to see it in real life.
Then there was Grandpa. I used to go down to Grandpa’s winter apartment and drink tea by his fire and tell him about Rosa and Lucy. How it wasn’t fair having my friends fight over me like kids who thought I hadn’t given them equal pieces of pie. He listened really well. Then he said life wasn’t fair.
If I started asking him questions about men and women, and are women weak or strong …
Honestly, I was afraid of what he’d say. Well, yes, Magali. Life isn’t fair. Women have to accept certain limitations. I shuddered.
I wished I had a grandmother.
And then, of course, there was God. I pictured myself lying on my bed and talking to the ceiling. And then what?
Besides, the walls weren’t that thick.
That left Paquerette. I couldn’t tell her. I was already terrified someone else would—Eva, maybe. The thought chilled me to the bone. Paquerette finding out how right Nina was, how when you dug through the layers of determination and yes I’ll do it and so-called heroism in Magali Losier you’d find an inner core of stupid. So stupid that in trying to save my friends from some maybe-possible danger I’d put them in more danger, all by myself.
Yes I’ll do it, I’m a hero, I will save everybody. Stupidly.
Finally I couldn’t lie there anymore. I got up and went down to tell Mama I felt better, and ask if she needed any help.
I didn’t tell anybody what was in my head.
LATE THAT evening Benjamin came to my room. He stood leaning on the chair by my desk, looking at me.
“So,” I said finally.
“How is she?” His voice was low.
She’s going to America. “Well. I saw her.” I had to think for a moment. “She was a lot thinner than I remember her. She had dark circles under her eyes. She coughed sometimes and it sounded like she couldn’t cough anything up.”
“How long did she cough?” he said quickly. “How often?”
“I don’t know … maybe half a minute? Every … five minutes or so.”
“Was she weak?”
“Kind of. Not … terribly.”
“When’s the last time she saw a doctor? Did they say?”
I nodded slowly. “A couple of months ago they took her to the hospital. They had a close call. They got asked for their papers and had to slip out the back.”
He clenched his fist, then dropped it abruptly. “They didn’t tell me. I knew they were— They should’ve bought false papers months ago.” He turned on me. “The hospital? She was bad enough to go to the hospital? Even—” He was pale, and his eyes were very dark.
I looked at him. I wanted to tell him so bad.
He looked back at me, and the expression slowly faded from his face. “Thank you for telling me,” he said in a flat voice. He turned around and walked out, shutting the door behind him.
The next morning I told Papa the truth about the visa. He sat behind his desk, his eyebrows climbing higher as I spoke. “She really … Yes, that makes sense of everything.” He sat back. “Magali, that is … that is remarkable.”
“They asked us not to tell him. Till we get word she got there safe.”
He nodded soberly. “I’ll pray.”
I WENT down to les Chênes. I could still do that. That was worth something.
I took Marek to the stream. He’d started having episodes while I was gone, waking up screaming bloody murder. He sat and stared at the water, and ripped up long grasses by the handful, a look of deep concentration in his black eyes.
Oh, Marek.
August was ending. There was a coolness in the air that spoke of fall. It comes quickly, when it comes, on the plateau. I threw myself into les Chênes. I dug carrots with the Squirrels, I went with the girls to swim in the river one last time. We dug the potatoes, all of us together, Papa Thiély and the oldest boys turning them up with shovels while the rest of us gathered them into sacks, lumpy and brown and smelling of the earth that clung to them. The kids handled them almost reverently. They would feed us through the winter. They were beautiful.
We were at the river with the kids a few days before school started; I was crouching on the bank with Marek, teaching him how to skip a stone. They were going to try sending him to school, though he still hadn’t spoken a word. The sky was deep blue and the first few leaves had turned yellow, blazing against it. I heard one of the counselors—Julie—say to Stepan, “What’s your name?” and I listened sharp.
“Etienne Michaud,” he said.
“Very good, Etienne. What’s your sister’s name?”
“Anne Michaud.”
“Very good. Now what’s your name?” she asked Tikva, the new girl whose father had just brought her up from Marseille.
“I don’t remember, Mademoiselle.”
“It’s Marie. Marie Lenoir. Say it for me, please.”
“Marie Lenoir.”
“Do I get a new name?” It was Tonio, bursting in from a game, his chin thrust out.
“No, Tonio.”
“Why not? I want one!”
“Some of the children need new names, and some don’t. You’re safe with your old name, but some of the others need new names to be safe, so that bad people can’t find them. You’ll have to learn to keep secrets, because you mustn’t ever tell anyone their old names.”
Tonio huffed. “I’d never tell a cop anything. But I want a new name.”
Julie sighed. “How about Antonio?”
Tonio considered for a moment. “Naw,” he said. “Tonio’s better.” Marek’s eyes trailed him as he walked away. Then Marek did something incredible. He spoke.
“I don’t want a new name,” he said very softly.
&nbs
p; I stared at him. A whole sentence? He looked away.
A whole sentence.
The exact wrong one.
PAQUERETTE CAME in with kids from Gurs. She hadn’t heard. She wouldn’t hear. I would never do it again, I would be the person she needed now, and the past would not exist. That was the thought that made me able to lift my head and look into her warm eyes as she asked if I could travel with her the last week of September. That was the thought that kept my voice steady as I said yes.
She looked so much better. Calm and energy in her face. She showed me sketches she’d made. Steep mountains and streams; a straight-backed man holding a horse’s reins. That was her father. It turned out they were on good terms. Mostly. He’d given her some helpful insights on politics, in the end, she said, and on Pétain. “He’s gotten quite a bit more cynical about him lately. He’s no fool.”
“They’re giving the Jewish kids at les Chênes new names.”
Paquerette nodded. “That’s very wise. Very timely. Do they have false papers for them?”
“Claudine says they’re coming soon. I don’t know from where.”
“Of course not.”
“Marek says he doesn’t want a new name.”
“Marek spoke?”
“Just that once.”
She looked at me without speaking for a moment. Then she shook her head.
“I’ll pray for him,” she said.
I WALKED Lucy to school, on her first day. Then I walked down to les Chênes, and my new life.
Marek went to school with the others. He fidgeted, picked at the wood of his desk, we heard; he only copied half of what was on the board. We were overjoyed to hear he copied anything. He didn’t hit anyone the whole first week.
And me? I helped Claudine and Julie plan the meals and keep the budget. I took the wagon home and brought in bread from town in the mornings, brought in milk from the farms on the way. I helped the Squirrels with their homework, I helped the Hawks peel potatoes. I got roped into pranks Hanne and Aurélie and Carmela were planning—short-sheeting Claudine and Julie’s beds or hiding the Wolves’ clean underwear on laundry day. I stayed for supper on Saturdays to be there for skit night, I helped Erik practice his Papa Thiély impression, I found Carmela an old red sheet to be Red Riding Hood in. I made up little songs to help them practice their new names.
I loved it, the round of our days, the working and the playing and the songs. Little kids rode on my back, big girls whispered secrets to me. I knew Joseph liked Lise and Carmela liked Stepan. I knew how Tikva—Marie—worried about whether the food was kosher even though her parents had said it was all right to eat anything at les Chênes because God understood people had to stay alive. I thought at first I could fix it for her, but when I found out there were rules about not using the same dishes for milk and meat, I told her that her parents were right. She was still too thin to go passing up milk or meat. I knew Aurélie hadn’t had a single letter from her parents since they’d brought her here. I told her maybe they wanted to write her but couldn’t. I knew Stepan and Chana’s father had been murdered in an anti-Jewish riot in Poland before the war even started, and they’d seen their mother shot by soldiers while they fled the invasion, but she’d made it. And ended up in Gurs. That’s the reward of courageous survival these days. Gurs.
Oh, I wanted to take those kids in my arms and never let them go, I wanted to remake the world for them. I’d never felt like this before. I’d kill anyone who laid a finger on them. I could feel it in my body, how bad I wanted to keep them safe.
The only one I didn’t know any secrets about was Marek.
He didn’t speak again. If you tried to make him talk he’d pull away, stop looking you in the eye. His new name was Jean-Marc Meunier. He didn’t even turn his head at the sound of it.
Paquerette took Rosa on a trip. They brought back six kids and went through a contrôle on the train, the police asking for everyone’s papers. Rosa told me it had scared her. I bet it did, I thought.
I went on working at les Chênes.
THERE WAS another shooting up north. Someone killed a high-up German officer, the guy in charge of the city of Nantes. The Germans rounded up hostages again. Forty-eight of them.
This time they shot them all.
I saw a look in my father’s eyes that day that I’d never seen before. As if he felt just like me, as if he wanted to kill someone. My brother was red-eyed and shaking with anger. Benjamin sat watching them, his face very still.
Two nights later Lucy came and told me her aunt had gotten a telephone call. Madame Keller was in America.
I asked her if she wanted to tell him herself. She shrugged and looked down and shook her head. I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “We did it,” I whispered. Lucy grinned.
I could hardly stand it. Papa was out at a meeting. Mama was in bed early, trying to stave off a headache. It had to be one of them who told him. I had to wait till tomorrow. I walked up the dark stairwell to the third floor, my heart hammering. Your mother is safe, Benjamin. Your mother is free.
He was in the hallway, coming toward me. His eyes were red. He looked away. I wanted to blurt it out, shout it. He turned and glared at me. “What are you looking at like that?”
“Benjamin,” I said. I swallowed. “Your mother is in America.”
“What?” he breathed. He’d turned white as a sheet. “What?”
“She’s in America.” The words tumbled over each other. “Lucy gave her her visa. Monsieur Lawrence got her false papers. She went to America. We just got word she’s there safe.”
He was starting to breathe fast. “Is this—some kind—of joke?” His breath caught strangely, out of control. “You—you—”
“I’m sorry!”
“You’re lying to me! You’re lying!”
“No, it’s true!”
Julien’s door banged open and Julien stopped dead in his doorway as Benjamin screamed with tears running down his face, “Everyone lies to me! Everyone!”
“Benjamin!”
“Magali, what on earth is going on here?” Julien’s eyes were very wide.
“I … I …”
“When do I believe you? You lied to me when you came back from Marseille! I could see it in your eyes, I thought she was dying!”
“I’m sorry, Benjamin.” Tears sprang to my eyes. “I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to—”
“I can’t stand you people! I can’t stand you!”
“Magali?” said Julien.
My mouth was dry. “Lucy gave her visa to his mother. She’s safe in America now.”
Julien’s jaw dropped.
Benjamin was gasping, wiping the tears that still streamed down his face. “Magali,” he whispered, “is it true?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes.”
Julien closed his mouth. “We—”
Benjamin turned to him. “You all do it. You have no idea what it’s like being—kept in the dark—like that … And you all do it. Magali here—Magali keeping secrets …”
I flushed hot. What do you mean, Magali keeping secrets?
“Your parents told me to.” I was shaking. “They made me promise!”
He rounded on me. “Next time my parents tell you to lie to me, tell them I said no. Tell your father. I’ve had enough.” His voice cut hard, like a meat cleaver. I flinched.
Julien whispered, “I’m sorry, Benjamin. I really am.” He had tears in his eyes. We all did.
Benjamin blinked hard, looked at him, nodded. He breathed in sharply. “I’m sorry too. I’m sorry. Magali”—the tears spilled out of his eyes again—“Magali, do you swear? Swear it’s true?”
Papa says it’s superstition. But I had to, that’s all. I crossed my heart and said Croix de bois. “Cross of wood, cross of iron, if I lie I go to hell. It’s true, Benjamin. It’s true.”
He started sobbing. Julien put an arm around his shoulders. I did too, and we stood holding him up while he cried and shook and smiled through his tears. “Magali,”
he whispered, “thank her for me, will you? Thank her.”
“Of course I will,” I said.
THE NEXT day, Paquerette came in. Two days later I was to go with her. The world was going mad, the Nazis were shooting hostages, but me, I was packing sweaters and diapers and rags for Rivesaltes, I was going to rescue children. Benjamin was starting to smile again. Paquerette still wanted me. I was glad this was my life.
At les Chênes, they invited me to stay for supper. They were glad I was going, they said. It would be a test of Marek’s adjustment. They had good hopes. I walked home happy in the dark, and went to bed, and woke early, and lay there feeling my heart beat. I’m going. I couldn’t lie still. I padded down the stairs, heard Papa shuffling papers in his study, tore a piece off the fresh baguette he’d left on the kitchen table, and went on out into the fresh morning air.
I hesitated at the door of l’Espoir—it sounded so quiet in there—and glanced across at the café. They were open. I’d just drop in and say goodbye to Rosa. Maybe she’d give me something hot to drink. There was a real chill in the morning air.
The café bell dinged as I went in. Madame Santoro was behind the bar with her apron on, pouring something coffee-colored into a cup. She looked up. “Ah Magali! You have heard, yes?”
“Heard?”
“Yes yes, about Rosa.”
I looked blankly at her. About Rosa …? “No.”
“Oh, she has gone. With Paquerette.”
My stomach plunged deep, deep down. “She, she what?”
“Paquerette came here, in such a hurry. She says, the train is leaving now, where is Magali?”
“But … but the train … but she was leaving today!” Could I have gotten the wrong day? No. No. Unimaginable.
“No, you see. No train today. No train for four days at least. A problem with the rails, they are fixing it, the train is stopped. Yesterday is the last train.”
“And I was—I was—”
“She says, where is Magali? Rosa says, she is at les Chênes. Paquerette says, too far, I will miss the train. She asks me, please, can Rosa come? I say yes. I am proud of my Rosa, helping children. I can manage, for a little while, with the café.”