"My grandmother was fifteen the day of the roundup. She was told she was free because they were only taking small children between two and twelve with their parents. She was left behind. And they took all the others. Her little brothers, her little sister, her mother, her father, her aunt, her uncle. Her grandparents. It was the last time she ever saw them. No one came back. No one at all."
T
HE GIRL'S EYES WERE glazed over with the ghastliness of the night. In the small hours, the pregnant woman had given birth to a premature, stillborn child. The girl had witnessed the screams, the tears. She saw the baby's head, mottled with blood, appear between the woman's legs. She knew she should be looking away, but she could not help staring, appalled, fascinated. She saw the dead baby, gray and waxen, like a shrunken doll, promptly hidden behind a dirty sheet. The woman moaned constantly. No one could silence her.
At dawn, her father had fished through the girl's pocket for the key to the secret cupboard. He took it and went to talk to a policeman. He brandished the key. He explained the situation. He was trying to remain calm, the girl could tell, but he was at the breaking point. He had to go and get his four-year-old son, he told the man. He would return here, he promised. He would fetch his son and come straight back. But the policeman laughed in his face and sniggered, "You think I am going to believe you, my poor man?" The father urged the man to come with him, to accompany him, he was just going to get the boy and come back, immediately. The policeman ordered him out of the way. The father returned to his place, his shoulders stooped. He was crying.
The girl took the key from his trembling hand and put it back into her pocket. How long could her brother survive, she wondered. He must still be waiting for her. He trusted her; he trusted her implicitly.
She couldn't bear the idea of him waiting in the dark. He must be hungry, thirsty. His water had probably run out. And the battery on the flashlight. But anything was better than here, she thought. Anything was better than this hell, the stink, the heat, the dust, the people screaming, the people dying.
She looked at her mother, crouched by herself, who hadn't uttered a whimper in the last couple of hours. She looked at her father, his face haggard, his eyes hollow. She looked around her, at Eva and her exhausted, pitiful boys, at all the other families, at all these unknown people, who, like her, had yellow stars on their chests. She looked at the thousands of children, running wild, hungry, thirsty, the little ones who could not understand, who thought it was some bizarre game that had gone on too long, and who wanted their homes, their beds, their teddy bears.
She tried to rest, putting her pointed chin back onto her knees. The heat came again with the rising sun. She didn't know how she was going to face another day here. She felt weak, tired. Her throat was parched. Her stomach ached with emptiness.
After a while, she dozed off. She dreamed she was back home, back in her little room overlooking the street, back in the living room where the sun used to shine through the windows and make patterns on the fireplace and on her Polish grandmother's photograph. And she would listen to the violin teacher play to her across the leafy courtyard. "Sur le pont d'Avignon, on y danse, on y danse. Sur le pont d'Avignon, on y danse tout en rond." Her mother was making dinner, singing along,Les beaux messieurs font comme ca, et puis encore comme ca. Her brother was playing with his little red train down the long corridor, sliding it over the dark floorboards with a clatter and a bang. Les belles dames font comme ca, et puis encore comme ca. She could smell her home, its comforting scent of candle wax and spices, and all the tempting things cooking in the kitchen. She could hear her father's voice, reading to her mother. They were safe. They were happy.
She felt a cool hand on her forehead. She looked up to see a young woman wearing a blue veil branded with a cross.
The young woman smiled at her and handed her a cup of fresh water, which she drank avidly. Then the nurse gave her a papery biscuit and some canned fish.
"You must be brave," murmured the young nurse.
But the girl saw that she, too, like the girl's father, had tears in her eyes.
"I want to get out," whispered the girl. She wanted to go back to the dream, to the peace and safety she had felt.
The nurse nodded. She smiled a tiny sad smile.
"I understand. There is nothing I can do. I'm so sorry."
She got up, headed toward another family. The girl stopped her, grabbing her sleeve.
"Please, when are we going to leave?" she asked.
The nurse shook her head. She caressed the girl's cheek softly. Then she moved on to the next family.
The girl thought she was going to go crazy. She wanted to scream and kick and yell, she wanted to leave this dreadful, hideous place. She wanted to go back home, back to what her life had been before the yellow star, before the men had banged on their door.
Why was this happening to her? What had she done, or her parents done, to deserve this? Why was being Jewish so dreadful? Why were Jews being treated like this?
She remembered the first day she'd worn her star to school. That moment when she had walked into the class, and everybody's eyes had been drawn to it. A large yellow star the size of her father's palm on her small chest. And then she saw that there were other girls in the class who had the star too. Armelle wore one as well. It had made her feel a little better.
At recess, all the girls with the stars huddled together. They were pointed at by the other pupils, by all of those who used to be their friends. Mademoiselle Dixsaut had made a point of explaining that the stars should not change anything. All the pupils were to be treated the same way as before, star or no star.
But Mademoiselle Dixsaut's speech had not helped. From that day forward, most girls stopped speaking to the children with the stars. Or worse still, stared at them with disdain. She could not stand the disdain. And that boy, Daniel, had whispered to her and Armelle in the street, in front of the school, his mouth cruel and twisted, "Your parents are dirty Jews, you are dirty Jews." Why dirty? Why was being a Jew dirty? It made her feel ashamed, sad. It made her want to cry. Armelle had said nothing, biting her lip till the blood came. It was the first time she had seen Armelle look afraid.
The girl wanted to rip off the star, she told her parents she refused to go back to school with it. But her mother had said no, that she should be proud of it, she should be proud of her star. Her brother had thrown a fit because he, too, wanted a star. But he was under six, explained his mother patiently. He had to wait another couple of years. He had wailed all afternoon.
She thought of her brother in the dark, deep cupboard. She wanted to take his hot little body in her arms, to kiss his curly blond hair, his plump neck. She gripped the key as hard as she could in her pocket.
"I don't care what anybody says," she whispered to herself. "I'll find a way to go back and save him. I'll find a way."
A
FTER DINNER, HERVE OFFERED us some limoncello, an ice-cold Italian liqueur made with lemon. It had a beautiful yellow color. Guillaume sipped his slowly. He had not said much during the meal. He seemed subdued. I did not dare bring the Vel' d'Hiv' up again. But it was he who turned to speak to me as the others listened.
"My grandmother is old now," he said. "She won't talk about it anymore. But she told me everything I need to know, she told me everything about that day. I think the worst thing for her was having to live on without the others. To have to continue without them. Her entire family."
I could not think of what to say. The boys were silent.
"After the war, my grandmother went to the Hotel Lutetia on the boulevard Raspail, every day," continued Guillaume. "That's where you had to go to find out if anyone had returned from the camps. There were lists and organizations. She went there every day and waited. But after a while, she stopped going. She began to hear about the camps. She began to understand that they were all dead. That no one would come back. Nobody had really known before. But then, with survivors returning and telling their stories, ev
erybody knew."
Another silence.
"You know what I find most shocking about the Vel' d'Hiv'?" Guillaume said. "Its code name."
I knew the answer to that, thanks to my extensive reading.
"Operation Spring Breeze," I murmured.
"A sweet name, isn't it, for something so horrible?" he said. "The Gestapo had asked the French police to 'deliver' a certain number of Jews between sixteen and fifty years old. The police were so intent on deporting the maximum number of Jews that they decided to ameliorate the orders, so they arrested all those little children, the ones born in France. French children."
"The Gestapo hadn't asked for those children?" I said.
"No," he replied. "Not at first. Deporting children would have revealed the truth: it would have been obvious to all that Jews were not being sent to work camps, but to their deaths."
"So why were the children arrested?" I asked.
Guillaume took a sip of his limoncello.
"The police probably thought that children of Jews, even if they were born in France, were still Jews. In the end, France sent nearly eighty thousand Jews to the death camps. Only a couple of thousand made it back. And hardly any of the children did."
On the way home, I could not get Guillaume's dark sad eyes out of my mind. He had offered to show me photographs of his grandmother and her family, and I had given him my phone number. He had promised to call me soon.
Bertrand was watching television when I came in. He was lying flat out on the sofa, an arm under his head.
"So," he said, barely taking his eyes off the screen, "how were the boys? Up to their usual standards of refinement?"
I slipped off my sandals and sat on the sofa beside him, looking at his fine, elegant profile.
"A perfect meal. There was an interesting man. Guillaume."
"Aha," said Bertrand, looking at me, amused. "Gay?"
"No, I don't think so. But I never notice that anyway."
"And what was so interesting about this Guillaume guy?"
"He was telling us about his grandmother, who escaped the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, back in 1942."
"Hmm," he answered, changing channels with the remote control.
"Bertrand," I said, "when you were at school, were you taught about the Vel' d'Hiv'?"
"No idea, cherie."
"That's what I'm working on now for the magazine. The sixtieth anniversary is soon."
Bertrand picked up one of my bare feet and began to massage it with sure, warm fingers.
"Do you think your readers are going to be interested in the Vel' d'Hiv'?" he asked. "It's the past. It's not something most people want to read about."
"Because the French are ashamed, you mean?" I said. "So we should bury it and move on, like them?"
He took my foot off his knee and the glint in his eye appeared. I braced myself.
"My, my," he said with a devilish grin, "yet another chance to show your compatriots how devious we Frogs were, collaborating with the Nazis and sending those poor innocent families to their deaths. Little Miss Nahant bares the truth! What are you going to do, amour, rub our noses in it? Nobody cares anymore. Nobody remembers. Write about something else. Something funny, something cute. You know how to do that. Tell Joshua the Vel' d'Hiv' is a mistake. No one will read it. They'll yawn and turn to the next column."
I got up, exasperated.
"I think you're wrong," I seethed. "I think people don't know enough about it. Even Christophe didn't know much about it, and he's French."
Bertrand snorted.
"Oh, Christophe can hardly read! The only words he deciphers are Gucci and Prada."
I left the room in silence, went into the bathroom, and ran a bath. Why hadn't I told him to go to hell? Why did I put up with him, again and again? Because you're crazy about him, right? Ever since you met him, even if he's bossy, rude, and selfish? He's clever, he's handsome, he can be so funny, he's such a wonderful lover, isn't he? Memories of endless, sensual nights, kisses and caresses, crumpled sheets, his beautiful body, warm mouth, impish smile. Bertrand. So charming. So irresistible. So arduous. That's why you put up with him. Isn't it? But for how long? A recent conversation with Isabelle came back to me. Julia, do you put up with Bertrand because you're afraid of losing him? We were sitting in a small cafe by the Salle Pleyel, while our daughters were attending ballet class, and Isabelle had lit up her umpteenth cigarette and looked me straight in the eye. No, I had said. I love him. I really love him. I love the way he is. She had whistled, impressed, but unconvinced. Well, lucky him then. But for God's sake, when he goes too far, tell him. Just tell him.
Lying in the bath, I remembered the first time I met Bertrand. In some quaint discotheque in Courchevel. He was with a group of loud, tipsy friends. I was with my then-boyfriend, Henry, whom I'd met a couple of months earlier at the TV network I worked for. We had a casual, easygoing relationship. Neither of us was deeply in love with the other. We were just two fellow Americans living it up in France.
Bertrand had asked me to dance. It hadn't seemed to bother him at all that I was sitting with another man. Galled, I had refused. He had been very insistent. "Just one dance, miss. Only one dance. But such a wonderful dance, I promise you." I had glanced at Henry. Henry had shrugged. "Go ahead," he had said, winking. So I got up and danced with the audacious Frenchman.
I was rather stunning at twenty-seven. And yes, I had been Miss Nahant when I was seventeen. I still had my rhinestone tiara tucked away somewhere. Zoe used to like playing with it when she was little. I've never been vain about my looks. But I had noticed that living in Paris, I got much more attention than on the other side of the Atlantic. I did also discover that French men were more daring, more overt, when it came to flirting. And I also understood that despite the fact I had nothing of the sophisticated Parisian--too tall, too blond, too toothy--my New England allure appeared to be just the flavor of the day. In my first months in Paris, I had been amazed at the way French men--and women--stare overtly at each other. Sizing each other up, constantly. Checking out figures, clothes, accessories. I remembered my first spring in Paris and walking down the boulevard Saint-Michel with Susannah from Oregon and Jan from Virginia. We weren't even dressed up to go out, we were wearing jeans, T-shirts, and flip-flops. But we were, all three of us, tall, athletic, blond, and definitely American-looking. Men came up to us constantly. "Bonjour, Mesdemoiselles, vous etes americaines, Mesdemoiselles?" Young men, mature men, students, businessmen, endless men, demanding phone numbers, inviting us to dinner, to a drink, pleading, joking, some charming, others much less charming. This did not happen back home. American men did not tag after girls on the street and declare their flame. Jan, Susannah, and I had giggled helplessly, feeling both flattered and dismayed.
Bertrand says he fell in love with me during that first dance in the Courchevel nightclub. Right then and there. I don't believe that. I think, for him, it came a little later. Maybe the next morning, when he took me skiing. "Merde alors," French girls don't ski like that, he had panted, staring at me with blatant admiration. Like what, I had asked. They don't go half as fast, he had laughed, and kissed me passionately. However, I had fallen for him on the spot. So much so that I had hardly given poor Henry a departing look as I left the discotheque on Bertrand's arm.
Bertrand talked almost immediately about getting married. It had never been my idea so soon, I was happy enough being his girlfriend for a while. But he had insisted, and he had been so charming, and so amorous, I had finally agreed to marry him. I believe he felt I was going to be the perfect wife, the perfect mother. I was bright, cultivated, well-schooled (summa cum laude from Boston University), and well-behaved--"for an American," I could almost hear him thinking. I was healthy and wholesome and strong. I didn't smoke, didn't take drugs, hardly drank, and believed in God. And so back in Paris, I met the Tezac family. How nervous I had been on that first day. Their impeccable, classic apartment on the rue de l'Universite. Edouard's cold blue eyes, his dry s
mile. Colette and her careful makeup, her perfect clothes, trying to be friendly, handing me coffee and sugar with elegant, manicured fingers. And the two sisters. One was angular, blond, and pale: Laure. The other auburn, ruby-cheeked, and voluptuous: Cecile. Laure's fiance, Thierry, was there. He hardly spoke to me. The sisters had both looked at me with apparent interest, baffled by the fact that their Casanova of a brother had picked out an unsophisticated American, when he had le tout Paris at his feet.
I knew Bertrand--and his family, too--were expecting me to have three or four children in rapid succession. But the complications started right after our wedding. Endless complications that we had not expected. A series of early miscarriages had left me distraught.
I managed to have Zoe after six difficult years. Bertrand hoped for a long time for number two. So did I. But we never talked about it anymore.
And then there was Amelie.
But I certainly did not want to think about Amelie tonight. I had done enough of that in the past.
The bathwater was lukewarm, so I got out, shivering. Bertrand was still watching TV. Usually, I would have gone back to him, and he would have held out his arms to me, and crooned, and kissed me, and I would have said he was just too rude, but I would have said it with a little girl voice, and a little girl pout. And we would have kissed, and he would have taken me back to our room and made love to me.
But tonight I did not go to him. I slipped into bed and read some more about the Vel' d'Hiv' children.
And the last thing I saw before I turned off the light was Guillaume's face when he had told us about his grandmother.
H
OW LONG HAD THEY been here? The girl could not remember. She felt deadened, numbed. The days had mingled with the nights. At one point she had been sick, bringing up bile, moaning in pain. She had felt her father's hand upon her, comforting her. The only thing she had in mind was her brother. She could not stop thinking about him. She would take the key from her pocket and kiss it feverishly, as if kissing his plump little cheeks, his curly hair.
Sarah's Key Page 5