Defy the Night

by Heather Munn

“Here? In the … the free zone?”

  He nodded.

  “Thanks.” My hand tightened on it. “Thanks for telling me.”

  He nodded. He ran a hand through his hair, just like Papa does when he’s stressed. “Pierre wants to join them,” he said.

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. He won’t tell me … everything. He’s been talking about it to our scout troop, on the quiet. He seems to think …” His eyes got distant. “If I was organizing anything, it’d be up in the Tanières. All those caves …”

  Hang on now. “So what do you think? About … all this.”

  He looked at me for a long moment. “I think I’m a pacifist,” he said.

  “You think you are?”

  “I guess you know what you are.”

  I kind of wanted to tell him I did. If it had made sense for me to fight, I would’ve fought. It didn’t, so I transported kids. That was what I did, that was what I was. But I could see he was going through something heavy. I shrugged.

  “Look, it’s complicated, but anyway—we’ve got people hiding here. If we fight we’ll bring them right down on us—”

  My belly clenched at the thought. “And we couldn’t keep them away,” I said.

  “Well, no. Can you imagine? Maybe if we lived in real mountains, like the Swiss, but here …”

  “You think someone’ll try it? Around here?”

  “I don’t know. Pierre seems to think that might be the idea. I’ve tried to tell him, but you can’t talk to that guy.” He jammed his hands in his pockets and looked away. “He thinks I’m a coward.”

  “I don’t think you’re a coward,” I told him. “I’m not a pacifist, but I think you’re right.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You going to show it to Papa?”

  He shook his head. “Pierre made me promise.”

  “Well—thanks. Thanks a ton.”

  “Sure. I had to show it to somebody.”

  I felt so many things, walking out of his room. The hope, the danger. The fact that my brother had wanted me to know. That was a warm feeling, that part. In spite of everything it made me feel like something was still right.

  THEN PAQUERETTE came in from her next trip, with her face even grayer than usual. Rosa didn’t look much better.

  “It was a hard one. Really … hard. We got news, Magali.”

  “What?”

  She hushed me, gesturing to the children.

  I found out the news that night, from Papa. He’d been at a meeting with Pastor Alex. When he came in the door Julien took one look at him and switched off the radio.

  He stood in the doorway and looked at us. Looked at Benjamin, unhappily.

  “You promised, Monsieur Losier,” said Benjamin quietly.

  Papa nodded, and rubbed a hand over his face. It shook a little. “Yes,” he said. “You have a right to know.” He sat down, and looked into the fire, and said, “Paquerette got some disturbing news on her trip. Apparently a friend of the CIMADE sometimes gets inside information from Vichy, and … they’ve learned of a policy change. A very recent change. Regarding the internment camps in the north.”

  “What?”

  “They’re”—he cleared his throat—“they’re going to start deporting the Jewish internees from the northern camps to Germany.”

  We stared at him.

  “Why?” Julien asked.

  “Didn’t Germany deport them here?” Some of them anyway. Like Eva, in those nightmare train cars—that was why Vichy had left them sealed like that, because they were trying to send them back to Germany, and Germany wouldn’t take them back …

  “Will Germany even accept them?”

  “Germany has asked for them.”

  There was a short silence as we looked at each other. It made no sense. But it felt wrong. Wrong. The camps in the north, I reminded myself. Not ours. It didn’t help.

  “I wish I understood it,” Papa said.

  “I understand it,” said a grating voice. We turned and stared at Benjamin, at his eyes so dark in his chalk-white face, at his shaking hands. “Getting rid of us wasn’t good enough,” he said. His voice lowered. “Now they want to kill us.”

  “Benjamin,” Papa breathed. I don’t think I’d ever seen him so shocked. “Benjamin,” he said again, his voice picking up volume, “think. They can’t do that. They—the German people aren’t so lost to humanity—such a thing couldn’t be kept secret—and—what good would it do them?” He was talking too fast, stumbling over his words, he didn’t sound like himself. “What advantage? They’re planning some type of forced labor—of course they are—”

  Benjamin cut through it. “Not so lost to humanity, Monsieur Losier?” His voice was terrible. “Were you there? Have you seen?”

  Papa said nothing. I almost thought he looked scared.

  “My parents know. They were there. My parents left everything to get away from those people. Everything. Now my mother’s alone in a foreign country and my father’s in a Spanish jail and they think they’re better off, they know they’re better off than the ones who stayed.” He was trembling. Papa had risen, his eyes wide, looking at him. “They knew. They saw it coming. They tried … tried to convince—” Something shook his chest, like a sob, but without sound. I couldn’t move.

  Papa laid a hand on his shoulder. “Benjamin.” Benjamin gasped for breath, shaking. “We won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

  “We promise,” whispered Julien.

  I stared at my father and brother. Making promises like they were God. And what do you people think Paquerette should have promised Zvi’s mother? I said nothing.

  Benjamin went on shaking.

  PAQUERETTE AND I left on our next trip two days later. On the train I told her what Benjamin had said. She turned away from me for a moment. “Do you remember what I said to you, a long time ago? That you and I, we don’t talk about evil?”

  Oh, so long ago. The knowledge that is poison, she had said, and I hadn’t known what she meant. Not really, not then. “Yes, Paquerette.” I looked down at my hands. “But—the kids—”

  “They mustn’t be deported,” she said flatly. “Do you have any doubts about that?”

  “No.”

  “That’s what we need to know, then.”

  IT WAS warmer, at Rivesaltes. It was five days before Easter. In Rivesaltes village there were dabs of green on the trees, the grass was coming alive. In Rivesaltes camp there was nothing green nor ever had been. The only sign of spring was a slight easing of the misery on the people’s faces. It did my heart good, though not enough. I looked around the camp with a feeling of dislocation, of dread. What would happen to these people?

  We had a brother and sister, about thirteen and fourteen: Jakob and Sarah, whose father was dead and whose mother was missing. We had four siblings whose mother said a prayer over each of them when she said goodbye. The youngest was a frighteningly thin, silent baby girl, one year old. Trina. I carried her. Jakob carried the four-year-old, who was very weak too. Their mother hugged each of them at the block gate, whispering things in their ears. I looked back, after the guard had shut it behind us; I looked back at her standing there behind the barbed wire and my stomach clenched. She’ll never see them again. That was what went through my mind. I threw it out. You don’t know that, I yelled at myself, how do you know what’ll happen? But I sounded like Papa the other night, talking fast, panicked. There was ice-cold dread in my belly.

  I couldn’t get rid of it. Back at Marylise’s barrack, as we got ready to go, I pulled Paquerette aside and told her we could handle more kids. Trina wasn’t going to be any trouble, she clung to me like she was drowning—

  Paquerette put up a hand. “This is all there is right now.”

  “Just six?”

  “They haven’t given as many releases this month.”

  I looked at her. This is it. Oh God, help us, this really is it …

  By ten the next evening we’d gotten them to Vale
nce. The local train to la Voulte was doing only one run per day now, we were going to have to start sleeping in Valence every trip. Trina still clung to me, silent, as we bedded down in a corner. I let her sleep on my stomach, feeling the tiny rise and fall of her chest. Looking up into the dark and trying to forget Benjamin’s shaking, the fear in Papa’s voice. They’d stopped giving out releases. They were going to give the Nazis what they wanted, just like they always, always did …

  How had our lives become this nightmare?

  This can’t be real. It can’t be real. Oh God, please tell me—

  But I stopped. Please tell me it’s not real? You can’t say that. It’s cowards’ talk.

  PAQUERETTE SENT me out into the dark before dawn to buy bread for breakfast. I took Trina, because she wouldn’t let go. When I came back the others had found a bench, and we all sat on it tearing pieces off the baguette with our hands. Trina sucked her bottle, weakly. It was eight o’clock, the station filling with people and voices, footsteps echoing on the hard floor. We had an hour till our train.

  Trina’s diaper started smelling, and I got up to find somewhere to change it. I was headed into the hallway to the bathrooms when it happened.

  It happened so fast.

  Shouting. I turned round. People scattering—two security guards, running—I saw the man just as they caught him. Just beyond the bench where Paquerette and the children sat. One of them grabbed him by the shoulder and wrenched him round, while the other kicked his legs out from under him. He was screaming: “It wasn’t me, it WASN’T ME!” He was young, barely older than Julien. His clothes were torn. He was on his knees. He had black curly hair like Benjamin’s, he looked Jewish. Everyone was staring. Someone pointed—back the way he had come from. There was a hand-lettered sign pasted to the station wall. It read “Death to the Nazis.”

  “It WASN’T ME!” the young man shouted. That’s when the police reached him.

  Three Vichy police in uniform. Two of them grabbed him while the third opened a pair of handcuffs. The young man struggled, got one of his feet back under him, pushing the men who were holding him off balance. The one with the handcuffs didn’t hesitate. He pulled back and kicked him, right where you should never kick a man.

  The young man screamed.

  He doubled over on the hard tile floor of the station. The cop kicked him again. All of us, the whole hall of people, stared. Nobody moved.

  None of us lifted a finger.

  He kicked him again. For a moment I saw the young man’s face turned toward me, and his black eyes were full of pain and terror. Pleading.

  There was a roaring in my ears; my world spun out of control. For a moment I saw a circle of soldiers kicking a man, I heard a child’s scream. For a moment I saw Benjamin there on the ground, Benjamin screaming. He’s Jewish, I know he is. They’ll take him too. They’ll take him to—

  I pulled back into the mouth of the hallway, clutching Trina and trembling. No one will stop them. No one will help him. We’re all scared, we’re all sheep, we give them whatever they—

  We have to. We can’t fight them. You can’t fight them, Magali. Men with guns—

  Beside me, a few paces back, a cord hung from a lever set in the wall. A sign beneath it read “Fire Alarm.” I drifted back toward it as my heart began to race. I can’t fight them. But I can do something. Something. My heart beat a wild tattoo of fear in my chest. I was out of sight of the main hall now. I glanced round.

  Then I pulled the cord, hard.

  A loud, high, brassy bell began to scream above me. Above me. Nowhere else. Fear raced hot and cold through my body. I looked round, knowing that now I should run. Realized the only way out was forward.

  Back through the main hall.

  I stood frozen, my mouth and throat dry, Trina heavy in my arms. I was trapped. I didn’t dare go out there. No. I had to. No—

  “What’s wrong with you, girl?” An old man in a cloth cap frowned at me. Suspiciously. But he hadn’t seen. No one had seen.

  Why wasn’t he running?

  Because there isn’t any smoke, you—

  “Which way, Monsieur? The exits?”

  He pointed toward the main hall. No choice. I began to run.

  “There’s no fire!” someone in the main hall was screaming. “No fire! You! Check that hallway! There’s no smoke, check that hallway and if you don’t find a fire, you arrest everyone near it!” I came to the mouth of the hallway as he said those words. My spinning mind took a moment to take it in. One frozen moment before I had the sense to move.

  The policeman was shouting to the station guard, “Go!”

  The other two police were holding the young man, with his arms twisted up behind him.

  The station guard lifted his head and started across the space between us. Toward the mouth of the hallway where I stood.

  Every man, woman, and child between him and that hallway cringed. I saw the motion of it like a wave. I saw Paquerette and the kids in the middle of that wave. I saw Jakob’s head snap up, saw his white face look at me standing there in the fatal doorway with a child in my arms. I saw Paquerette’s head come up a moment later, saw her eyes blaze out at me. I turned and ran. I wasn’t two steps down that hallway before I heard the sounds I hadn’t even known enough to dread. I heard the policeman shout “Who did it?”

  And I heard a low clear voice. “It was me.”

  It was Paquerette.

  MY LEGS were shaking, my belly was trembling. I reached the bathroom and shut myself in a stall and clutched Trina to my chest so hard she whimpered. What have I done? What have I done?

  Oh God, please tell me it’s not real. I leaned my forehead against the stall door and within my mind I screamed. She said she did it. She said it for me. She saw me there—in the entrance—she saw me and she—

  They were arresting her. Now. It flashed through my mind—Paquerette putting her hands out for the handcuffs—it hit me like a blow. Jakob and Sarah and the kids looking on with huge eyes at the woman who was supposed to protect them. And had protected me instead.

  That was when I snapped out of it. Instantly, like being plunged into cold water, or woken by a scream. The mind of fear, the other-mind, it grabbed me by the throat and told me why she’d chosen to protect me and leave them here alone.

  Because I could get them home.

  And then my mind was racing with what I had to do. Platform 5—I had to get them there right away. Out of the main hall. Maybe split up and give Trina to one of them, in case the police came for me after all. Jakob and Sarah were probably terrified now, wondering what to do. But I had to wait. I had to.

  Because the first thing I had to do was not get arrested.

  The fire alarm cut off short. That told me one thing. They’d believed her.

  I pictured what they would be doing. The police might leave right away; the security guards would stay. Mop up, go around and tell people there was no fire … I couldn’t stay too long. We couldn’t afford to miss that train.

  I’d change Trina’s diaper. Like I’d planned. I’d change it and then go.

  I made myself come out of the stall. I took Trina’s diaper off, pulled a fresh one out of the bag, my hands didn’t shake as I pinned it on. A woman walked in and I didn’t look up. I washed my hands, took Trina, and walked out. I walked with even steps to the end of that terrible hallway and looked out.

  There were no police in the main hall. I scanned the place three times. No police and no kids. My heart stopped.

  Their bench was empty. They were gone.

  I held Trina hard against my chest and hurried through the hall, weaving between people, my heart pounding. Would they remember the platform number, could they be there? Could they be hiding? Where—in some bathroom, in—

  In the far corner a group of kids sat huddled on the ground, in the spot where we’d slept. I ran for them. Halfway there I saw one of them lift her head, and it was Sarah. I nearly died from the relief. What I saw in her face was the same
.

  I dropped to my knees beside them. For a moment I couldn’t speak. We looked at each other and for a moment again I trembled.

  Then I said, “We need to get to Platform 5.”

  I DON’T remember much of that trip, to be honest. I was underwater, deep, deep down, and someone else was living my life for me. Someone competent, who fed children and carried children and counted children, who bought tickets and knew where to go. While I drifted, far down underneath, unconscious, my heart drowsy with horror, feeling nothing.

  Jakob and Sarah had Paquerette’s purse. She’d set it down on the bench beside Sarah before she’d stood up to be arrested. I could picture her calm gray eyes as she did it. The money was in it, the papers, the releases, everything. I split them up. I sent Pesha and Trina with Sarah, Aaron and Isaac with Jakob; I gave them their papers and releases and sent them to opposite ends of the platform. I waited in the middle, alone. I’d told Sarah exactly how many stops there were before la Voulte, everything, who to ask for in Tanieux. Just in case. I kept looking over my shoulder. Once I saw police. Back in the main hall. One of them came to the door of our platform, glanced up and down. I put my head down, hearing my pulse pound in my ears. He looked familiar. I didn’t think he saw me. He went away again. I stood and waited in dull agony. The train pulled in. I stood and watched until I’d seen Sarah and her kids get into one car and Jakob and his kids into another. Then I got in too.

  I sat rocking with the rhythm of the train, barely remembering my name. Where my mind used to be there was deep water. Sitting in my seat was someone who had to get six kids to Tanieux station. That much I could remember. I got up when we passed Livron-sur-Drôme, to find Sarah and Jakob and tell them la Voulte was next. We got off. I found lunch in Paquerette’s bag, and divided it up. I didn’t eat. I would have thrown up. I took kids to the tiny station bathroom, one by one. Finally la Galoche pulled in, and I got them all on.

  And then I was almost done.

  We came into Tanieux on the five-o’clock train, and the hills and the platform and the face of Monsieur Bernard looked strange, unfamiliar, like I’d seen them only in a dream. I came out of the train with Trina in my arms, blinking in the sunlight. Rosa was there, and Nina. At the sight of Nina’s face it came back to me, and the person deep inside me, the swimmer in deep water, began to thrash. Their faces were still turned toward the train door. It closed, and no one got out.