Monsieur Faure looked over his shoulder, rolled up his window, and stepped on the gas pedal.
Daphne said, “Come to think of it, I might raise my children to be Jewish.”
“You think Jack will go for that?” I asked.
Daphne fluttered her hand, “Jack doesn’t give one fig how I raise my children. So long as they’re his too.” She sighed and got a dazed look in her eye.
We stopped for lunch in Arras, a pretty town that was rebuilt after the Great War. When the Germans captured the town two years before, 240 suspected French Resistance members were executed in the Arras citadel. Hearing this, I lost my appetite. Then, as we drove out of town, Monsieur Faure pointed to the citadel and I threw up while imagining Paul-Henri x 240. Daphne felt my brow and said, “You must be coming down with something,” and I let her think it was true. Madame Faure cleaned up the mess, but the car smelled bad all the way to Paris.
As we neared the city, the stories became sappy and some of them had me wiggling nervously in my seat. “How did you two fall in love?” asked Daphne. The Faures were overjoyed to tell us all the gory details.
“We met in grammar school when we were only twelve,” said Madame Faure, batting her eyelashes at her husband.
Twelve! I thought. Jeez Louise.
“We sat next to each other at roll call each morning, because my maiden name is Doumer, as you know. No students with a surname beginning with E—thank God. I thought Émile had the most charming smile, the way his teeth were so straight even without the help of orthodontics.” I put my hands over my ears, but no one appeared to notice. The Faures continued in full swing:
“And Rochelle had the most beautiful dimples. Still does.” Monsieur Faure reached across the front seat and pinched his wife’s cheek. This was too much.
“It was love at first sight,” said Madame Faure.
At twelve years old, I thought. Come on!
“And how about you and Jack?” asked Monsieur Faure, eager as a Cocker Spaniel for a bone.
I skewed my eyes. I’d already heard the saga: Jack approaches Daphne on a crowded London street and offers to take her out for bangers and mash. Two seconds later and they’re madly in love. Three long days pass before Jack proposes “whilst” canoeing down the Thames—Daphne shading herself under an umbrella, “whilst” Jack stands paddling. Daphne throws herself at Jack and the canoe tips over, soaking them to the skin on an early spring day. They have to embrace to get warm, harps play in the background. And before you know it they’re holed up in some bungalow in Long Island City with six brats and living on franks and beans.
So as Daphne flapped on, I gazed out the window. I seen from a distance a small airplane come from the east and fly over the road we was driving along. The plane was so low I could identify it: a German Messerschmitt AG.
Daphne said, “I could feel his pilot wings pressing against my ches—” then stopped mid-sentence to look at the airplane too, because by now her voice was drowned out by the roar of its V-12 engine.
Monsieur Faure pulled to the side of the road when his wife began weeping. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and needed both of them. We watched as the German fighter plane let loose its guns in a valley below the road, firing on a factory less than a quarter-mile in the distance. There was an explosion, probably when the German pilot fired on a fuel tank.
“Why is a lone Messerschmitt firing at a factory?” asked Monsieur Faure, to no one in particular. “Étrange. Usually it’s the British and Americans attacking factories these days, because so many are being used for the German war machine.” Shaking his shoulders, like he wanted to forget the scene, he restarted the car.
We continued on our way to Paris, stopping once more as we men relieved ourselves against the car tire. The ladies walked into a stand of trees to do their business. While we waited, Monsieur Faure put his arm around my shoulder and took a big gulp of air. “Par-ee! Tommy,” he said, wiggling his ears. “Can’t you smell love in the air?”
Honest to God, all I could smell was throw-up.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
IT WAS TIME TO GO OUR SEPARATE WAYS. Daphne and me were headed to her aunt’s apartment. The Faures were staying with family. Monsieur didn’t seem as gung-ho as his wife. After all, he’d be staying with the in-laws.
“But there’s a view of the Eiffel Tower—so romantic,” said Madame Faure.
“Out the bathroom window,” said Monsieur Faure, lifting an eyebrow.
Madame Faure took a ballpoint pen from her pocketbook but couldn’t find any paper. Instead, she wrote her family’s address on the back of a used ration book. Daphne tucked it in her pocket where she found a receipt and scribbled the aunt’s address on the back. With any luck, we’d be eating Madame Faure’s food again. Cuisine, they call it.
A whole lot of cheek kissing followed. Then we parted from our friends and searched for the subway. Daphne called it “The Metro” and said it was a short ride to her aunt’s neighborhood.
“Couldn’t we walk?” I said. “We’ve been cooped up in the car all day.” Daphne agreed and pointed the way.
The buildings were as old as Methuselah and resembled the setting of the comic strip, Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur. Arthur might’ve been English, but Paris was more Camelot than London. And the city wasn’t all knocked to the ground like London. Daphne said that when the Germans rolled in, the French government picked up and blew town for someplace named Vichy, which until then I thought was a potato soup Mrs. Balson had invented for the Sopwiths.
It didn’t seem right to me. The only people still fighting were in the Resistance and there didn’t seem to be enough of them to do the job. By golly, you wouldn’t even know there was a war going on, if it weren’t for all the Nazis everywhere: fishing alongside the embankment of the Seine River; fräuleins dressed in uniforms, coming out of chichi shops; a Panzer tank smack in the middle of a park. We saw a brood of Luftwaffe officers go down into the Metro. Nazis were everywhere you looked—like ants swarming all over a birthday cake.
“It’s all too sick-making,” said Daphne.
We kept passing Nazis who made rude with Daphne by whistling and reaching out to pinch her. She stopped me from hauling off and punching one in the nose.
“They wouldn’t do that if I had a yellow star pinned to my jacket,” she said.
I knew there were worse things than getting flirted with, so I said: “Better not. It will ruin your ensemble.”
Daphne laughed. “Your French is really improving, Thomas.”
The problem was, her black suit was drawing attention. Even French ladies shot jealous looks her way. I held onto her hand so’s she’d feel protected. “I can fend for myself, little brother,” she said but didn’t let go.
While we walked, Daphne told me about her aunt. She’d traveled a lot, all the way to Tibet and once to Mongolia. Her life’s ambition was to write a cookbook featuring dishes from countries not known for their cooking. She’d eaten deep-fried crickets in Thailand, monkey brains in China, and stinging weeds in India. Daphne remembered her aunt saying that Icelandic food was underrated.
“What sort of food do they eat in Iceland? Ice-cream?”
“Fish mostly, I think,” said Daphne.
“On Fridays probably,” I said.
When Daphne first laid eyes on her aunt, she thought she was a giantess, maybe something out of Gulliver’s Travels. Daphne was only four, short in other words. The aunt showed up wearing a long flowing robe over wide-legged pants, an outfit she picked up in Shanghai. (First time Daphne’d seen a lady in pants, so that part stood out.) Great-Aunt Dalia had just traveled from Lapland to Russia. She brought Daphne a set of Russian nesting dolls. Come to think of it, I’d seen them in the bedroom back in London. Once little Daphne got over the shock, the giantess became her favorite aunt. But it wasn’t until the aunt settled down in France that they really got to know each other.
“Why France?” I asked.
“Aunt Dalia
says there isn’t a place on earth to compared to France foodwise. And she would know. She loves feeding people—like a Jewish mother. Why, she makes the most amazing schnitzel…and challah bread. Then for Hanukah there’s potato latkes, and for Shavuot there’s blintzes and cheesecake.”
“I love cheesecake. Ever heard of Lindy’s? Jack took me once.” My stomach growled. I couldn’t wait to meet the aunt. “Sounds good to be Jewish. All us Catholics get is a flounder on Fridays, and wafers and wine on Sundays.”
“Oh, Thomas, honestly,” she sighed.
The walk took longer than I wanted, but we came to the right neighborhood finally. Daphne called it Montparnasse, said it was where all the big-name artists lived. She started rattling off names again, not a single one I ever heard of. I asked if she’d heard of Norman Rockwell, who drew the covers for The Saturday Evening Post. But Daphne she just rolled her eyes.
We came to a busy road and a building with seven floors if you didn’t count the attic. Daphne made a happy exhale. Then she walked on.
“Hey, where are you going?” I said.
Half way down the block she stopped in front of a monster flowerpot. I tipped it over while she felt around underneath. “Bob’s your uncle,” she said, and her fingers came out dangling a key. “I hoped it would still be here! My aunt is always misplacing her key fob. Half the time, we have to use this.” Daphne opened her palm and said, “Hello Key, Are you happy to see me?”
The front door was made of black iron, rusted on the edges and left open for robbers. Daphne tore up the staircase, taking two steps at a time and I was right behind her. On the third floor, she inserted the key in a lock. “This is going to be a surprise.”
And it was.
The door swung open and Daphne stopped short. “Blast,” she said. “This isn’t the apartment. How very odd.” She peeked her head in and glanced left to right before shutting the door. Standing back, she looked at the number painted on a blue tile, while her hand mussed up her hair. I followed her down one flight and she inserted the key in a door at the same spot as the one above. The key wiggled every which way but wouldn’t work. She leaned over the bannister and counted, one, two. Looking up she said, “Three.”
We climbed the stairs again and she opened the same door as before. “Aunt Dalia?” she shouted, without stepping inside. No one answered. “Odd that. This isn’t my aunt’s furniture.”
“Maybe she redecorated?”
“This isn’t at tall decorated to my aunt’s taste. This is so…Spartan.”
“Maybe she moved?”
Daphne walked to the neighbor’s apartment and banged her fist on the wooden door. No one was home, not at that door or at any other on the floor. We returned to the lobby, not knowing what else to do, and I took a seat on a bench. It was time to put on our thinking caps, because if Aunt Dalia had moved, we had no place to stay.
“Budge up,” said Daphne, making me scoot over. She looked up at the ceiling, her thinking posture. I looked up with her. The ceiling had plasterwork around the edges that reminded me of a wedding cake. We watched a spider string a web between the beams, hanging from a thread when it needed a rest. I daydreamed until the front door creaked open and Daphne shot to her feet. An old lady came in with her back pushing the door, her hands full of parcels wrapped in brown paper.
“Madame Barrault!” said Daphne, all happy.
The lady scowled when a parcel fell to the floor, almost like she was blaming us for making it happen. Daphne rushed over to help. Madame Barrault refused. Stubborn old bitty, I thought, and kept sitting. Let her lug her own parcels if she wants. The lady bent her knees and reached for the parcel. The other packages tilted and almost tumbled over. Meanwhile, Daphne mimed a catch. Madame Barrault brushed past Daphne, headed for the staircase. Daphne began rapid-fire French, with question marks at the end of every sentence. The lady straightened her crooked back and her nose went in the air like it just caught the whiff of dog poop. Meanwhile she was as silent as the grave, not answering even one of Daphne’s questions. Maybe she’s hard of hearing, I thought.
I looked at my friend. Something was dead wrong, that’s all I could tell. The lady took two steps up. Daphne began asking questions again, this time with a pleading voice. What is wrong with the lady, I wondered. Daphne shouted, “Madame Barrault! S’il vous plaît!” Madame Barrault froze. Then she spun, so that the same parcel slipped from the stack. She finally moved her tongue. Like a snake’s it was. Her French was too fast for me to catch much of anything she said, but I got the drift by keeping my eyes glued to Daphne’s face. She was hyperventilating. Madame Barrault didn’t care. She kept at it: words like daggers.
“What do you mean ‘Rounded-up of Jews’?” said Daphne, slipping into English.
Madame Barrault said,“Sale Juifs!”
Daphne blinked. I jumped from the bench with my fist up because I understood what the words meant: dirty Jews.
That’s when Daphne had what the English call a “wobbler.” My eardrums almost burst. A door opened on the floor above and a man came running down the staircase, angry and yelling for us to leave. I pulled Daphne to the entrance. For every insult the Frenchies made, Daphne yelled two back. The man shoved me and I stumbled onto the sidewalk, taking Daphne with me.
The door slammed and metal scraped against metal: barred from the building. Daphne banged her fists against the door so hard her knuckles bled. Her voice was cracking at the higher notes. I begged her to come away. The witch shouted through the thick door. Police is one word you don’t need translated. Daphne kicked the door over and over but it wasn’t budging.
I knew this was the biggest job of my life so far: getting Daphne away from here so she wouldn’t get rounded-up. I jumped up behind her and pressed my hands to her mouth, tight. She was fighting like a boxer. Her diamond engagement ring scraped my cheek and she kicked me in places I won’t mention. She slammed an elbow into my rib.
“I’m not the enemy,” I said.
She leaned down with her hands on her knees and took deep breaths, starved for oxygen. I thought I’d done the trick, but then she ran at the door, throwing all her weight against it. After rubbing her shoulder, she ran at the door again. Next time she ramrodded the door, her head hit hard against the metal. She looked dizzy but kept throwing insults. They included words like: Hitler, Nazi, pigs, and Bloody Fascists. When I grabbed at her sleeve she bit my hand.
I tried begging and that didn’t work. Then I said: “Daphne. Do. Not. Speak.”
She weeped, “No! No! No!” and pounded on her chest.
My biggest fear: a group of German soldiers stopped to stare at us, same as if we were a circus sideshow. I made sure not to make eye contact. Daphne made eye contact though, and belted out an ear-piercing shriek; it’d be no surprise to me if window glass shattered up and down the street. The Germans moved off, scared. But here came another group and these ones were SS. Only one thing would save her: The Nutcracker.
My thumb pressed against her Adam’s apple, using a Jui Jitsu move Jack taught me to ward off bullies at Saint Brendan’s Catholic School. I guess he never imagined I’d use it to save his fiancée’s life. Daphne went limp like a rag doll but was still breathing. I grabbed under her armpits and pulled her to the curb. A bicycle taxi came down the street and I waved like a madman. The boy driving the rig screeched to a halt; his breaks needed oiling. He dismounted and helped me fold Daphne into the caboose.
He said, “Pas de problème,” and started pedaling.
Daphne took three gasps, choked for air, and began sobbing into my aching chest. It was the kind of thing might break a heart.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
WE DROVE AROUND IN CIRCLES until the bicycle driver looked like he’d pass out from exhaustion. I picked Daphne’s pocket and found the ration book. A while later we pressed on a bell labeled DOUMER. A key landed on my sneaker and we opened the building’s big double door. A redhead came leaping down the staircase. I figured this was Sophie, Madame
Faure’s sister. She went to throw herself into Daphne’s arms but stopped short. She was wearing a smock with paint smeared all over the front. Two paintbrushes held up her bun, geisha girl style.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I looked down from the balcony!” she said. “Émile mentioned you were in Paris. But I didn’t expect you so soon.”
“We haven’t anywhere else to go,” said Daphne, pulling on her friend’s thumb.
“God, you look a fright,” said Sophie.
Her eyes darted around the lobby, worried that somebody seen us come in. Turned out she knew about Daphne being half-Jewish. She threw an arm around Daphne’s shoulder, shielding her from harm. It left a good first impression. “Vite!” she said, and we bolted up the stairs.
By the time we reached the fifth floor apartment, I was huffing and puffing like an old lady. I’d let my training lapse. Out loud, I promised myself to start up calisthenics again. Sophie heard me. “We’ll let you run errands. You’ll get in shape in no time, believe me.”
When we entered the apartment, another redhead came running to Daphne, squeezing her so she couldn’t breathe. I took this to be the mother because of the grey roots. Then a third redhead joined us—fourth if you counted Madame Faure, who was nowheres in sight. This one was an inch or two taller than me, but I figured us to be about the same age because she wasn’t to the brassiere stage yet. She kissed Daphne on the mouth and turned to kiss my cheeks.
“Wait one cotton-picking minute,” I said. “I’ll have none of that!”
“I’m Juliette,” she said, holding out a hand.
The females started talking French. Feeling outnumbered, I went in search of Monsieur Faure. We’d talk about sports or toss a ball around. I’d teach him a new pitch. Or we’d discuss airplanes, tanks, and battleships. We’d find a map and pins, plot out the whole course of the war like Eisenhower and General Patton. I searched every room, even the bathroom, before circling back to the ladies. The redheads were happy to launch into a blow-by-blow of Monsieur Faure’s anniversary plan, which was already in full swing.
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