by Jan Rehner
“Intermission,” Marcelle announced on the last note of Barouk’s lively tune.
Some of the children scurried back to the House for a costume change, while others joined the audience on the lawn, casting enquiring and hopeful glances at Marie-Antoinette’s picnic basket. Everyone, adults included, cheered when Philippe emerged with large pitchers of lemonade and Marie passed around glasses.
Twilight was deepening into a dark blue, and the air was perfumed with the resin of the pines. Sabine felt like a fresh breeze had swept away her worries. She reached for Miron’s hand and held it tight, as Marcelle reclaimed the stage.
“Act Two begins with the Procession of Heroes.” At Marcelle’s cue a double line of the youngest children emerged from the house, each carrying a large, lit candle, their flames bobbing up and down like fireflies.
“Candles? Where did they get candles?” Sabine whispered to Miron.
“I suspect Marie-Antoinette has been squirreling away votive candles from her church in Belley. Best not to ask.”
The honour guard of the Procession of Heroes took up their place on the stage. They were dressed in red or white or blue to represent the colours of the French flag, and each little face beamed with pride. There was Claudine in her trademark pigtails, Émile with his mass of blonde curls, dimpled Sami, shy Jean-Claude whose brothers, now up in the tree working the “spotlight,” cheered him on. The last of the five-year-olds was little Luci, whose mother’s eyes shone as she watched her daughter laugh and take her place among new friends. Six-year old Liane and seven-year-old Marcel filled out the group.
Next, the Heroes stepped forward from the shadows at the back of the terrace. First came regal Esther wearing a golden tiara, playing the role of Queen Esther, of course, the Jewish heroine who was honoured at Purim for saving her people from their enemies. Then, dark-haired Paula appeared in a white blouse and red skirt as Marianne, the embodiment of French spirit and liberty. Joan of Arc shone in a silvery dress to represent her armour, and had never looked as happy as Rénate did in the role. Arnold Hirsch made a magnificent and handsome Moses with a hefty staff, and Otto made the audience gasp as Joseph with his coat of many colours. Lucky Gilles brandished a slingshot as David, and Léa suspected that was one prop that would never be relinquished. Each of the Heroes told their story under the light shining from the trees, ending each speech with a bow or a curtsey or, in one case, with the shooting of a green apple aimed at Miron who caught it in one hand in mid-air.
With the help of the older Heroes, the children placed their candles along the balustrade and then merged with the audience to watch the final performance of the night.
Barouk blew a cascade of plaintive notes on his flute and, seemingly from nowhere, ten-year-old Sarah, Suzanne she always insisted, stood before the audience in a simple white cotton shift and bare feet, her straight blonde hair pulled back in a single braid.
Suddenly what had been a coltish child with too-long legs, a dandelion of a girl, metamorphosed into a magical creature, limbs swaying in graceful, fluid motions, her face transformed as she lost herself in the music. She arched her back, stretched out a leg and cast a spell, extended an arm above her head and enchanted. She leapt up on invisible wings and seemed, for an ephemeral moment, to float in space without gravity. An arabesque. A plié. The musician and the dancer in perfect harmony.
The beauty of the dance transported the audience and unleashed something in Sabine, words rising whole and perfect from somewhere deep in memory in the shadow of another house when she had promised her father she would stay true to herself. She felt hope wash over her like a caress.
A final graceful turn and then, as suddenly as it had begun, the dance was over. Suzanne folded herself up on the floor of the terrace as neatly as a cat. The performer had vanished and the little girl was back.
There was thunderous applause, and several children ran to Suzanne to hug and congratulate her.
Everyone agreed the Fête had been a triumph and now it was the adults’ turn to reward the players.
Philippe and Marie appeared with huge platters of chicken legs and potato salad and, finally, Marie-Antoinette opened her picnic basket and handed out almond cakes with white sugar frosting.
It was one of those heady summer evenings that seem to linger and stretch out endlessly, when bedtime is suspended and all the rules, like brushing your teeth and folding your clothes, are abandoned, and things seem to teeter on the edge of wildness, giddy with full-throated laughter and lit up by stars.
MAX-MARCEL BALSAM, TWELVE YEARS OLD
THERE IS SO MUCH TO DO at Izieu, lots of boy things that my brother Jean-Paul and I love. We used to live in Paris and knew nothing of the countryside until we came here. We were skinny at first—most Parisians had lost weight because food was even scarcer than kindness—but we grew strong with all the activity.
I’m the best tree climber. From my hiding place in the leaves I can see Jean-Paul and my best friend, Majer, looking for me. I have to cover my mouth to choke back a giggle. I am a sparrow in a tree with my eye on a worm, or maybe a squirrel spying a nut.
Léon taught me to swim. No one is allowed to swim alone. The river is fresh, bracing against the skin, but full of sly currents and weeds. I love it anyway. I love the cold shock to my body, and the way sound thickens when my head is submerged and I can open my eyes to the crystalline green of the surface just above me. We crawl out onto the riverbank, barefoot and barelegged with hair like waterweed dripping down our backs.
There are hikes almost every week. Philippe packs us sandwiches and we carry water and go for miles. Majer and I are older than many of the other boys, so we quickly figured out that the hikes have a purpose other than just fun. Monsieur Miron wants us to know the forest paths and all the best hiding places, just in case.
Then came the Summer Fête. Majer and I were dead set against it. We thought putting on costumes was silly stuff for girls. And dancing? Really? But Majer’s little brother, Coco, was so excited, and Marcelle cleverly promised time away from schoolwork for rehearsals, so that sealed our fate.
I have to admit that I was kind of mean to Paula when we started practising the mazurka, but she had such an earnest face under a mop of dark brown, very curly hair that she gradually won me over. On the day, I was actually excited, but convinced it would rain.
Then the sun came out and the terrace was transformed into a stage. We were all transformed, just like Marcelle promised we would be. The dancers were spinning, their arms upraised and the girls’ skirts belling out like moons, and the music and the swinging and the swaying made me want to clap and tap my feet and laugh out loud.
I was, I am, that happy.
GEORGY HALPERN, EIGHT YEARS OLD
DEAR PAPA,
I am fine and hope you are, too. The weather has been warm and we go on hikes on Thursdays and Sundays. We have a pretty teacher and we do composition, maths and French history. I am good at reading and like it best of all.
Last week we had a fête and it was really fun. We all got to dress up and I was a carrot in the first performance to give Thanks to the Garden. I was dressed in orange from head to toe, and had green feathers attached to my hair for the carrot top. My friend Gilles played the hero David and he got a slingshot as a prop that he sometimes lets me play with. We tried to shoot birds with little stones, but Léa warned us that if she found just one stunned bird the slingshot would disappear forever. So now we just shoot at leaves and each other.
Thank you for the package you sent. Madame Sabine says to especially thank you for the money hidden at the bottom that she says she will use to buy food and warm clothes for the winter. I liked the colouring book and paints. We pin our pictures up in the classroom, which has maps on the walls and four big windows.
At night before I go to sleep, I think of Vienna and pray that we might all be together there again under the linden trees
. You and me and Maman. Do you still have your moustache? Sometimes I can’t remember everything about your face, so please send me a photo. I am ending this letter with 100000000000000 kisses.
Your son who loves you very much,
Georgy
AUGUST 1943
THERE WERE DAYS IN JULY when fierce thunderstorms turned the sky purple and shook the firs on the mountainsides. In a city far away, Benito Mussolini was deposed and arrested, and the Italian soldiers in foreign lands grew restless, tasting the bitterness of disillusionment.
One day at the market, in the midst of a sudden downpour, Paul Niedermann ran for shelter under a convenient shop awning and found himself huddled next to a gendarme.
Without turning his head to look at Paul, the gendarme spoke. “You’re still at the Settlement? Don’t come back to the village. You must get away from here. The Milice will be looking for you. Tell Miron it’s time.”
Before Paul could utter a word, the gendarme turned and entered the shop, closing the door firmly behind him.
Tall as he was, Paul felt dwarfed by desolation. He had come to love Izieu and his friends there, especially Théo. He had already said goodbye to his mother in the Rivesaltes Camp. He had said goodbye to his brother, Arnold, who’d left for America with the Quakers. And now yet another goodbye was to be wrung from him.
As soon as the marketers returned to the house, Paul delivered the gendarme’s message to Miron and then sought out Théo. The two friends climbed into their attic bedroom to make promises. They would see each other again. They would find each other after the war, because someday the war would end. They would never forget the pig squealing through the Lyon train station, or the outline of the mountains at dusk, or the shine of the river. They would never forget the times they talked each other to sleep, imagining their futures. Théo tried to give Paul his most precious possession, a small knife, the very one he had used to carve his and Paulette’s initials in a heart on the attic beam, but Paul refused to take it, saying he mustn’t have any sort of weapon in his possession in case he was arrested.
At dusk, Miron knocked on the door and handed Paul a pair of heavy boots and a jacket. “You can take what you can carry. Léon is going with you. You won’t be alone.”
Paul and Théo shook hands silently, eyes memorizing each other’s face. It was as close as they could come to expressing the emotion that threatened to overwhelm them.
I’ll come back here someday, Paul vowed, and his certainty gave him courage.
He followed Miron across the sloping floor of the dormitory where the youngest children were already sleeping, down the stairs that dipped in places from decades of footsteps, past the huge wood-burning stove, and the children’s paintings in the classroom, with its shelves crammed with books, and photos tacked to the walls. He could hear the voices of the children who were still allowed to be up drifting towards him from the terrace. He felt his chest tighten.
While Miron and Léon headed to the barn, Paul stopped for a moment at the edge of the garden, and scooped a bit of earth into his hand, the good, rich earth of Izieu that had fed and nourished him. When he stood up, there was Sabine, her features slightly blurred in the gathering darkness.
She saw the look on his face and tried to make light of his imminent departure. “Look, I’ve made you something to eat.”
It was a Jewish mother’s natural first thought and it made him laugh. He held out his arms and hugged Sabine so hard she felt as if she might snap into pieces.
“Be safe,” she whispered, kissing him on both cheeks.
He was saved from having to respond by the cocker spaniel, Tomi, who pushed a wet nose into his hand. He caressed the dog’s velvet ears one last time and then turned to join Miron and Léon at the edge of the forest. The house looked bare in the moonlight, the trees more navy than green, the grass bleached grey.
A few kilometres into the beech woods, they left the familiar paths and began to file along a barely visible trail, Miron in the lead, then Paul, then Léon. A guide emerged from the darkness and spoke softly to Miron. There would be no more talking. When the trail disappeared completely, swallowed up by brush and rocks, they began to climb upward. The guide took his bearings from marks carved on tree trunks and eventually from spots of paint on the rocks that would be nearly invisible in the daylight, but that shone under the moon.
They climbed for hours, without stopping and without meeting a single human being. They were alone in a cold solitude, and Paul was sure he could smell water.
Finally, they reached a curve of river where the trunks of birch trees stood out under the moon like solid bars of silver in the night. Paul could discern another guide waiting for them in a clumsy looking shallow boat.
“This is where we part,” Miron said. “There’s a forgotten pass between two border checkpoints on the other side of the river. Friends will help you into Switzerland.”
They embraced and then Paul and Léon stepped into the boat. For them, for now, the House of Izieu was a memory.
By late August, the air was swimming with light. Two more teenagers, Henri and Alfred, soon said their goodbyes and followed Miron through the forest to the secret river pass. Paulette and Rénee packed up their tent, and two teenaged lovers bent their heads in sorrow. Marcelle kissed all the little ones and promised to return the very next summer.
Gradually, the long hot days and thundery showers were replaced by mornings that smelled of apples and chimney smoke, and mist that drifted over the river.
A five-year-old stretched out her hands to catch a falling leaf.
IZIEU, WINTER 1943-44
THAT AUTUMN THE MOON WAS ORANGE.
The countryside was redolent of wild thyme and sage, and glowed in wine reds and rusty yellows. Leaves swirled in lazy circles through the air and fluttered to the ground, carpeting the lawns and the terrace and riding the waves made by children’s hands in the fountain. The last of the milkweed drifted slowly across the river, while the shadows along the rocky mountainsides were choked and violet.
The youngest of the children were beginning to forget what their parents looked like and how their voices sounded, and so they were free to make up what had been forgotten.
The postman faithfully came and went, and one day Max jumped for joy and ran into the arms of Sabine. “I got a letter,” he crowed. “Me too, this time. My very own letter from Marcelle.”
“And what does she say?” Sabine smiled.
“She says she misses me. She says I must work at my sums so that I don’t grow up as a dimwit. And she says she will write to me every week so I never have to be sad again on mail days. And there’s a P.S. If I’m very, very good, she’s going to send a parcel.”
“Lucky Max. You can start being very good by helping to pick apples. It’s harvesting time.”
“We didn’t have to harvest in Mannheim. We lived in the city.”
“Well, do you know the story of the grasshopper and the ant? The ants work all summer and fall to store away food for the winter so that when the snow comes, they’ll have lots to eat. But the grasshopper only plays and realizes too late that he’ll be hungry all winter. Would you rather be an ant or a grasshopper?”
“Oh, I’d rather be a grasshopper, but I’ll be a smart one.”
Max ran off to help and Sabine watched him fondly. It was so kind of Marcelle to remember him. She’d had a golden touch with all the children who missed her lightness of heart and, not incidentally, her inexperience in the classroom. The day of her leaving had been full of tears, and her popularity had complicated the day of the new teacher’s arrival, for of course Pierre-Marcel had kept his promise and had sent along a fully qualified and experienced schoolmistress.
Gabrielle Perrier had a serious face, with a nose and chin that were a little too sharp, and an inclination to make rules she expected to be obeyed. Her dark eyes glistened like Sp
anish olives, the eyes of someone who can spot mischief before it even happens. There would be no paper planes in her classroom and no notes passed from desk to desk. The thought of swimming in the Rhône made her shudder.
But Mademoiselle Perrier, never just Gabrielle to the children, was not unkind. When she entered the classroom that first day, she was greeted by a rush of whispers, like a wave rippling across a pebbled shore. She didn’t take offence during art class when the youngest students all drew pictures of Marcelle, painstakingly explaining how pretty she was. She refused to play tag with the boys after lessons, but thanked them politely for their invitation. Nor was she particularly discouraged when she came upon Martha, reading a tattered copy of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables.
“Are you enjoying your book?” she asked.
“It’s for school, isn’t it?” Martha replied, as if that fact settled the question once and for all.
Mademoiselle Perrier smiled a little tightly, but she persisted. She knew the children had had too many goodbyes in their short lives. She gave praise lavishly where it was warranted, and drew upon great reserves of patience when it was needed. She had no desire to win their hearts, but every intention of improving their minds.
GABRIELLE PERRIER, SCHOOLMISTRESS
I REMEMBER THE GHOSTS of the House of Izieu. Oh, I don’t mean spooky shapes drifting like fog in the hallways, or spectres hovering inches below the ceiling sending chills down your spine. I mean the melancholy ghosts of lost families. All the children have these kinds of ghosts, lost loves that had once taken a specific shape, or had a certain smile, or a particular tone of voice.
I can always tell when a ghost is visiting. A way of looking without seeing will come into a child’s eyes. A way of walking will bend a child’s neck, or slow a child’s steps. There is often a whiff of lavender in the air, the scent of nostalgia and melancholy.