by Heather Munn
“Magali? Where’s Paquerette? Are you …”
I don’t know what I looked like. They stared at me. The trembling was starting to come back. Rosa’s eyes went to Paquerette’s purse hanging from my shoulder, and returned to mine dark with bewilderment and fear. But I wasn’t finished. I had to get them where they were going. I thrust the little kids’ papers at Rosa. “They’re going to le Terrier. All of them. Except the baby, I can take her to l’Espoir. Nina, I think the little ones need some help in Yiddish … and Isaac needs to be carried …”
Nina gave me a nod, and crouched down in front of the little ones, the way she does, with her bad leg stretched out. Started talking in Yiddish. Rosa stood there, holding the papers, looking at me. “Magali,” she murmured. “Where’s Paquerette?”
I opened my mouth and no sound came out. I forced the words through my thickening throat.
“She got arrested in Valence.”
Chapter 17
Into the Lion’s Den
FOR A moment no one spoke. It hurt to look at Rosa’s face.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“I—please, I’ll tell you—later. It’s been—it’s been—”
Rosa squeezed my hand. “Oh, Magali, it must’ve been awful. You got them home by yourself?”
I nodded. The tears started to my eyes. I tried to speak and couldn’t.
“I’ll take her.” Rosa held out her arms for the baby. Trina’s big eyes looked at me as I passed her over, but she didn’t open her mouth. I never saw a quieter child. “What’s her name?” Rosa asked.
“Trina,” I whispered. “Thank you.” I couldn’t meet her eyes.
“She’ll be all right, Magali. She has to be. I’ll … I’ll light a candle for her …”
I nodded, my throat tight. I turned and walked away. I was going the wrong way. Something beat and beat inside me, feverishly, a tired, urgent voice deep in my mind: I wasn’t done. There was one thing left to do.
My feet were taking me to the parsonage.
“PLEASE TELL me exactly what happened,” said Pastor Alex.
He was silhouetted by the slanting sun in his yellow-curtained window. I fingered a scar in the wood of his old oak desk, feeling like I was about to take a knife and drive it through my hand. But lying, that would be betrayal. I ran my tongue round my dry lips.
“There were police in the Valence station,” I said slowly. “They were arresting someone, a young man maybe twenty years old. I thought he looked Jewish. But … I think they were arresting him for posting a sign on the station wall against the Nazis. He kept saying it wasn’t him.”
I looked up at him suddenly. “I don’t think it was him. If he was Jewish he wouldn’t be stupid enough to do something like that—not with the way things are. And I … I’d heard the news, you know, Monsieur le Pasteur, the news that … that Paquerette told you. So I was afraid for him. I—” I stopped. Looked at the scar in the wood. “I did something stupid.”
Pastor Alex waited, didn’t move, as I took a breath.
“I pulled the fire alarm. To distract them.” I glanced up. “Only the alarm was in a cul-de-sac. I didn’t think about that. I couldn’t slip away. And I had—” I stopped again. Took a breath against the sick and dizzy pain I felt, as if I was losing blood. “I had a baby in my arms.”
I heard it. His intake of breath.
“The police didn’t believe there was a fire. They suspected, they started looking for who did it. They—I was still in the cul-de-sac, and—” I was breathing fast, too fast. The words came out in a rush. “And Paquerette told them she did it.”
I stared at the scar on the desk. I remember the exact shape of the ragged edge where the fibers of the wood were broken. I barely heard Pastor Alex’s low voice. “And then what happened?”
“I hid. Till they were gone. I couldn’t get arrested, I had to get the kids here …”
“And you did? They are safe?”
“Yes.”
He nodded, very slowly. After a moment he said, “You’ve told me everything, Magali?”
“Yes, Monsieur le Pasteur.”
“Do I understand correctly that you did not see them arrest her?”
“No, Monsieur, I didn’t. But Jakob—he’s fourteen—he told me. They did arrest her.”
“Was it the gendarmerie or the police?”
“Police, Monsieur.”
“I see. Thank you, Magali.” He looked into my eyes. “Thank you very much for being so honest with me.”
“Yes, Monsieur.” I looked down.
I COULD not face my parents. I could not. I slipped up both flights of stairs, my heart beating fast. No one was in the hallway on the third floor. I made it to my room, stripped off my coat and sweater, kicked off my shoes. If they came looking for me I’d pretend to be asleep. I was so, so tired.
I crawled under the covers. I don’t remember anything after that.
I GUESS I slept through the night. Morning light poured through my window when I woke, and sick shock went through me as I remembered. I shut my eyes against the pictures in my mind, my body knotted itself hard as rock under the covers. I didn’t move.
I stayed there until they came for me.
My mother knocked on the door. I swallowed, opened my mouth, didn’t move. “Magali? Are you awake? Are you all right? Pastor Alex is here!”
Pastor Alex? They knew, then. They already knew.
I was still dressed. I hadn’t even taken my hair down last night. I got up and opened the door. Mama took me in her arms, enfolded me. As hard as the night Zvi died. I wanted to push her away. But I didn’t. I didn’t deserve to have my own way, ever again. “Lili, my Lili,” she whispered into my hair.
She knew, all right.
Pastor Alex was at the table, and Papa, with cups of fake coffee. What was Papa doing here on a schoolday? No, it wasn’t a schoolday, I remembered suddenly. It was Good Friday.
They offered me coffee. I sipped it. It tasted horrible. Papa said Pastor Alex had told them what happened. He praised me for getting the kids home. He said there was one part of the story he didn’t understand. He cleared his throat and looked at me.
“Do you have any idea, Magali, why Paquerette thought the police suspected you of pulling the fire alarm? I mean, why she thought it so likely that she took such a drastic step.”
I looked at Pastor Alex. He was looking at his coffee.
He hadn’t told them. He had told them everything except that. It flashed through my mind that this was what people mean by tact. But I couldn’t feel grateful. I had to answer my father now.
I breathed in. They’ll know anyway. Jakob saw. Everyone’ll know. I pushed the words out. “Because I did it.”
I stared at my hands. I didn’t want to see their faces. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t, I never looked up.
“Why, Magali?” came Papa’s voice. It sounded calm. Almost.
I picked at a scab on my thumb. It came off, and a tiny spot of red blood began to grow. “I was trying to save the guy they were arresting. He looked Jewish. I thought he’d be deported.” I glanced up for a moment. Papa and Pastor Alex were looking at each other. “I forgot I was carrying a baby. She was so quiet. She never cried.” My voice sounded flat to me. I covered the bleeding place on my thumb with my finger.
There was a long, long moment of silence.
Pastor Alex broke it. “I’ve spoken with the CIMADE leaders on the telephone,” he said quietly, “as well as with Mesdames Moulin and Chalmette in Valence. I spoke with Madeleine Barot, who heads up the CIMADE, at some length. She believes we must wait. The political climate is changing, very much for the worse, and she fears that for the CIMADE to try to interfere on behalf of Paquerette might do her harm instead. I’m sorry, Magali. I know you had hoped for help from me.”
I looked at him. You can’t fight them. Oh God, please tell me it’s not real. “What … what do you think will happen to her?”
“It’s very difficult to know. Thing
s are changing … very rapidly. Earlier, I would have been confident of seeing her again after a few months. Now … I must be honest with you. Now I simply don’t know.”
I was falling, falling through the dark. “Is there nothing we can do at all, Monsieur le Pasteur?”
As I said those last words I knew they contained the answer. The answer he would give.
“Pray,” he said.
I TRIED.
I paced and paced in my dark room with my shutters closed, and I saw it happen, again and again. I screamed at my past self as her hand reached for the cord. I heard Pastor Alex’s voice saying I don’t know. I heard Benjamin, I saw his white face: they want to kill us all.
It’s not safe to walk into a lion’s den, to take his prey.
I saw myself arrested, in handcuffs, I saw Trina taken from me, roughly, some policeman rifling through her papers—send the kid back to the camp. Back to the camp to die, to die like Zvi.
I saw the black-haired man. His eyes. I saw him held, helpless, the way I’d seen him in that moment when the lightning fell on my world, when the station guard started toward me.
I saw Paquerette.
I could see how she’d done it, precisely, in my mind’s eye. Setting her purse down on the bench beside Jakob, a natural movement, unconcerned, looking at nothing. Not attracting the eye to anyone, not even herself—not till she’d stood and taken a few steps, distanced herself from everyone she had to protect. I could see her taking those steps, then standing there, her straight, tall figure, her head high, her gray eyes defiant. It was me. It was me.
I saw her walking straight-backed into the lion’s den.
I am afraid of being arrested, she had told me. I am afraid of being shot.
I could still hear her voice. So clear. So sure. It was me. Paquerette, my Joan of Arc. You didn’t sound afraid at all. Did that help them to believe you were a resistance fighter? A hero?
A hero.
Oh God, what are they doing to her?
Would she get sent to some camp herself? Paquerette sleeping in a barrack, getting thin and weak with sore, red eyes. Paquerette thin and powerless and desperate. Because of me.
Or would it be worse?
If she dies, I’ll—I’ll—
I crouched in the corner, shaking, contemplating what I would do if she died.
I didn’t eat that day, except for what I forced down to get Mama, and then Grandpa, to go away. They gave me bitter herbal teas. To calm me, maybe. Make me sleep. I didn’t sleep. Rosa came to see me. She sat on my bed and told me God would bring Paquerette back. I cried, and she hugged me. I didn’t tell her why I was crying. Finally she went away. Grandpa came, and sat by my bed, quiet. He fed me broth that Mama brought. I think I slept for a little. Waking was terrible.
There was a Good Friday service that night. They didn’t ask me to go. I couldn’t have. I paced my room, seeing the cool stone darkness of the church, the cross at the front. Then the Catholic version, with Jesus carved on it, twisting in agony. Oh God, keep her safe, oh God. I thought: they don’t know. They don’t know what it’s like, when a hero gives their life for you because you did something incredibly stupid and wrong. When it really happens, I mean when it happens right in front of you—they don’t know how it feels. It feels horrible.
I prayed the same things, over and over, into the empty air. Oh God, keep her safe. Oh God, bring her back. Please. Please. God, punish me instead. Punish me. Please.
I’ve never really heard of that kind of prayer getting answered.
DEEP IN the night, turning and turning beneath the weight of it, I started to bite my arm. Just a flap of skin on my wrist, just hard enough, deep enough, to hurt. The pain felt good. When the thoughts came back I just had to bite a little harder. I could feel the marks I’d made, feeling with my fingers in the dark. I managed not to draw blood, that night.
Eventually I slept.
ON SATURDAY Lucy came. She knocked and let herself right in, flicked the light on while I was lying on the floor behind my bed biting my wrist. I jumped up. “I didn’t say you could come in!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lucy snapped. “Look at you, what’s wrong with you? Your mother says you haven’t come out of here in—” She grabbed my wrist and pulled my sleeve back. There was a blue-black bruise now. Lucy gave me the most incredulous look, like I’d turned into a stranger in front of her eyes. I snatched my arm away.
“What do you think is wrong with me? I got Paquerette arrested!”
We stood staring at each other for a moment.
“You what?”
I swallowed. Now look what you did. Lucy looked afraid. “I …” I whispered. I cleared my throat. My heart was thumping. “Paquerette was arrested for pulling a fire alarm when there wasn’t any fire. To break up an arrest. But really it was me.”
Her eyebrows went up all the way into her hair. “You did?” she whispered. “Did it work?”
I shook my head.
Lucy chewed on her thumbnail. “Why didn’t they get you?” she asked finally.
“Paquerette told them she did it.”
She looked at my wrist again. I pulled the sleeve up over it.
“We gotta get her back,” she said.
“We can’t, Lucy. There’s nothing the CIMADE can do, even. Pastor Alex said …”
Lucy chewed on her lip. “Your mother would kill me … but … just wondering, y’know? If you … went and told them the truth …”
I drew in a sharp breath. In my mind Paquerette shouted Magali, NO! But … but … to convince them I was just a stupid kid who did a stupid thing … since that’s the truth … tell them Paquerette was just protecting me, and …
And make sure not to bring up the kids.
The dream evaporated. I gave her a painful smile. “I can’t, Lucy. Just think. There’s too many … secrets.”
She nodded, her eyes clouding. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I guess I just …”
“Don’t be sorry,” I whispered. I went to the window and opened the shutters. Weak sunlight came in. Dark clouds massed in the east. “Thanks for trying,” I said. “Really.”
IT RAINED all day on Easter Sunday. Hard, pouring rain, and thunder. Papa said I had to go to church. I said I couldn’t. He said I had to. I was too tired to make a scene.
I don’t remember much. I guess people greeted me. Pastor Alex prayed for Paquerette from the pulpit. We sang songs about graves and tombs and the stone being rolled away, and I started crying right there in front of everyone. Somehow I managed to stop before the end. It’s all right to cry during music in church.
And then Pastor Alex started preaching.
He started in on the disciples, huddled in a house after Jesus’ death, their hopes gone, afraid they’d be arrested too. Only three days before, they had walked in triumph into the city with Jesus. Had they wondered that night, mused Pastor Alex, what he meant by This is my body, broken for you?
A sharp shudder went through me.
Pastor Alex opened the Bible. “The Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed—”
It was like being shot in the gut.
I know it’s different. But it didn’t seem different. Not to me.
I was Judas.
I sat very still for a moment. Then I did a thing I’d never done before, or even thought of doing. I stood up and walked quietly down the side aisle of the church and went out the back door. I didn’t ask permission. I didn’t sneak out. I just left.
I walked home in the rain, slowly.
MAMA HAD made chicken for Easter dinner, but I gagged when I tried to eat. They let me go up to my room.
The rain beat down all afternoon. I sat and watched it. Imagined a life, stretching far out in front of me, in which she never came back. The sky darkened slowly. My mind darkened slowly. Finally I fell asleep.
I slept really deeply. I was so drained.
When I woke my mind was strangely quiet. Almost clear. I had the sense of some dream I couldn
’t quite remember, lingering. A good dream. I couldn’t imagine how I could have had a good dream. There had been something in it about sleeping. Finding a little space under a tree by a stone wall, where no one could see me, and curling up and sleeping there. It had felt so good.
I sat up in bed with my back against the wall, and closed my eyes.
I don’t know how long I stayed like that. It felt strangely good, there in the half-light that came through the shutters, my eyes almost closed, my body finally rested, and the terrible truth sitting quiet in my mind. Not thrashing anymore, not screaming. As if I’d been fleeing for my life, running through tall brush that cut my arms and face, and now I’d lain down exhausted. Okay. Kill me.
The truth was the police had Paquerette. Because of me. And I couldn’t help her. This was reality. I had made something terrible happen to the best person I knew. It had happened because I’d tried to save somebody.
Because I’d thought I could save somebody.
I’d thought it would work. The rest had never occurred to me. I hadn’t thought of pursuit, or Trina, or handcuffs, at all. I remembered Paquerette praising fear, saying it made her think. I am afraid of being arrested, said her voice in my mind. And then the same voice said: It was me.
You knew. You knew exactly. What I didn’t know.
I fingered the bruise on my wrist. It was like when I hadn’t wanted to face Rosa, but we lived in the same town.
The truth lived in the same town as me too.
I am a girl from a conquered country. That’s not an insult. It’s a fact.
That’s what she was trying to tell me. She tried so hard.
And I failed.
I’d been more afraid of the truth than I’d been of evil. Afraid of being the weak woman, the victim. Only two kinds of people in the world. So afraid I couldn’t even look into Paquerette’s eyes and see Joan of Arc herself telling me what a soldier has to know: Ignorance isn’t strength. Denial isn’t courage. Know your weakness, take it into account. So afraid she was talking about being a woman that I couldn’t see she was talking about being a human being. From a conquered country. In my mind I saw the young man doubled up on the floor in pain. This is our life. They have guns and we don’t. We all have to accept certain limitations.