Revolution Baby

by Joanna Gruda

  “Very good. Now, with school is finished. You’re not going back. We are hiding you here, and afterwards we find better place, farther away from me.”

  The police were looking for me! That was really something. I had to hide! At the time, the pride I felt was much greater than fear. How many people could brag about being wanted by the police, in wartime, at the age of twelve? It seemed exceptional to me. But I wanted to go back to school one last time.

  “Is not possible, not possible. For sure tomorrow they are waiting for you and they arrest you.”

  “Well, can I ask François to bring me the wooden ashtray I made in the woodworking class? I wanted to give it to Arnold, and—”

  “No, you don’t ask François anything. Or anybody. Too dangerous.”

  Annette was in charge of informing Anna that I wouldn’t be going back there. When she got back she told us that the police had been by the rue des Boulangers to ask Anna if she knew where I was, and that they told her I was a dangerous, experienced terrorist, because I must have had very serious training to learn how to throw people off the track like that.

  In the end, clandestinity is overrated. Lena quickly moved me, and then, a few days later, she came to get me and took me somewhere else, to a really nice apartment belonging to some Polish Jews, David and Maria. I wasn’t allowed out, and there were no interesting books, and they were rarely at home . . . No need to explain that the hours were long, horribly long. I was even beginning to miss school! And I no longer had the right to visit Geneviève, given my clandestine status.

  One day Lena showed up with Arnold. Even that was an event in my long day. Arnold informed me that he had new identity papers for me.

  “Does that mean I’m going to change my name?”

  “Of course.”

  “And do I get to choose my name?”

  “No, it’s already been decided, I have your birth certificate here.”

  As he spoke, Arnold handed me a document. I looked down, read the paper . . . I couldn’t believe my eyes!

  “What? But why? I mean, did something happen to him?”

  “No, no, everything’s fine, don’t worry.”

  “But why would I be called Roger Binet?”

  “It’s a little bit by chance. Roger was looking for a little job, he asked me to help him, so I remembered to tell him I needed his birth certificate. That’s all. So now there are two Roger Binets.”

  “I hope no one will start calling me Robinet . . . ”

  The memory of Roger’s nickname made Arnold burst out laughing. Lena didn’t understand what was going on. Then she explained to me that she’d found a family out in the country, in Normandy, who had agreed to take Roger Binet in. And that became my next destination.

  CHAPTER 26

  Roger Binet Goes to Normandy

  You take the train to Évreux. That is on ticket, you won’t forget. After that, you ask for bus to Verneuil. After is easy, you can walk, you ask for the way to Can­dèssiritan . . . ”

  As I couldn’t understand the name of the town—given the way Lena pronounced it, it sounded like a Spanish town—I looked on a map of Normandy that I found at David and Maria’s place. Initially I couldn’t see anything that looked remotely like what Lena had said. I kept on looking near Verneuil . . . and eventually understood: Condé-sur-Iton!

  Lena couldn’t find anyone to take me there, but she thought that a twelve-year-old boy, who was resourceful in addition to everything else, should be perfectly capable of making the journey on his own. So if she thought so . . .

  The train journey wasn’t as difficult as the time I went to Royan, we didn’t stop all the time, we didn’t have to jump off of the train because of the planes, but I wasn’t as enthusiastic about the trip, so it seemed endless. My mother didn’t give me enough to eat and this time she outdid herself by putting me on a train in the middle of January with nothing to wear but a cardigan and short trousers. I had a suitcase, but I double checked, and it contained nothing warmer. That was where the papers attesting to my new identity were, so I was careful not to let it out of my sight. In the train I had time to rehearse my life story a dozen times.

  I was Roger Binet, the eldest son of a family of six. I lived in Paris, in the 20th arrondissement, near the prison of La Santé. My mother’s name was Janine and my father’s, Maurice. Ever since the beginning of the war we hadn’t had enough food and as the eldest I was at an age where you need to eat, so they were sending me to the country to my aunt Olga’s, because they figured that there, at least, I’d have enough to eat.

  I got off at the station in Évreux. I wandered up and down the platform for a while, not knowing what to do. Eventually I went into the station and approached the ticket office. A man with a haughty air replied, “But the last bus to Verneuil already left! You should have gotten here sooner. The next one is at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  It was obvious he wasn’t in any way inclined to help me figure out what to do in the meantime. Or how I could get some food. My belly was raging with hunger pangs, and I couldn’t think straight, all I wanted was to sit on the ground and wait for someone to come and rescue me. But I wasn’t a child anymore, so I got hold of myself and looked all around, hoping to see the sort of smiling face that would encourage me to ask for help. The station buffet caught my attention. My mother had left me some change for the bus, surely she would have worked it out so there’d be enough for me to buy a little something to eat and to drink.

  I went to sit at the bar. Behind me I heard someone shout, “Glass of calvados over here!” When the waiter asked me what I wanted, I said, “I’d like a glass of calvados, please.” He gave me a funny look, then shrugged his shoulders and turned around to prepare the drink. From the smell alone I could see why the waiter was surprised. But I went ahead and took a sip, swearing I would not spit it back out . . . Well, despite the overpowering smell, I liked the taste. And it warmed me up, which in my situation was not to be underestimated. I tried to concentrate on the calvados and not think about the fact that I might well have to spend the night out of doors, in short trousers, in subzero temperature.

  A man who was at least forty, also sitting at the counter, turned and spoke to me.

  “Well, lad, looks like you like your calvados!”

  “Yes, I like it.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “ . . . Roger . . . ”

  Phew! In spite of my fatigue and the calvados, I’d gotten it right. I’d hesitated for a second, but that could be chalked up to shyness. And I didn’t add my last name, which wouldn’t have been very natural.

  “And what are you doing here all alone, Roger?”

  “I have to take the bus to Verneuil, but there aren’t any until tomorrow morning.”

  “Where have you come from?”

  “Paris. My mother got the schedule wrong, so I missed the bus to Verneuil. I don’t know where to sleep.”

  It seemed as if the calvados had loosened my tongue and given me some courage.

  “You can go to the Red Cross. They’ll give you a bed and some food there. And tomorrow you’ll be all set to take your bus.”

  “And where’s the Red Cross?”

  “I’ll be going in that direction. If you like, I can show you the way.”

  “Now?”

  “Ah no, I have to finish my drink, first. And you have to finish yours.”

  My legs were beginning to go wobbly from the calvados. The few times I’d drunk alcohol, I’d fallen asleep almost at once. This didn’t seem like the right time for a nap. So I ordered a coffee, with a few lumps of sugar, which I sucked on to ease my hunger. The man who was supposed to guide me was chatting away as he finished his drink . . . and he decided to have another one, the last one, he promised. I asked for another lump of sugar. The waiter gave me a whole handful. When my benefactor had finished his las
t drink, he said thanks and see you soon, and off we went. Outside I did everything I could to keep my teeth from chattering and my body from trembling. Fortunately the Red Cross wasn’t far from the station.

  The next morning I woke up bright and early. It was still just as cold, maybe even colder, or maybe I was more tired and less resistant. I got to the station early enough to have a cocoa and a croissant. But first I had to buy my ticket. The man at the ticket office looked kinder than the one yesterday . . . but, for all that, he didn’t have good news for me.

  “There’s no more nine o’clock bus on Fridays, hasn’t been for ages, lad.”

  “Yes but yesterday, the man at the ticket office, he said—”

  “Yes I know, but he made a mistake, it happens to everyone. He doesn’t work on Fridays, so he doesn’t know, or he forgot.”

  “And the next one, when is it?”

  “At one o’clock.”

  I let out a deep breath. I wished I could give it all up and go back to Paris. If I’d known, I would have stayed longer at the Red Cross, where it was warm. I went ahead and bought my ticket. I had enough money for two more croissants and another cocoa. My patience was exhausted—it wasn’t fun anymore to sit at the bar, and time went by so very, very slowly.

  Time at last. I got into the bus that took me to Verneuil, where all that was left to do was walk to “Candèssiritan.” I wanted to take my time, because I was uncomfortable after all at the thought of just showing up like that at the home of some people I didn’t know and who had to take me in . . . but I discovered that the cold is an excellent remedy against shyness. I asked a lady who had been on the bus with me from Évreux whether she knew how to get to Condé. She talked about a bus that went as far as Breteuil, otherwise I could walk to Breteuil and from there it would take less than an hour to reach Condé. “You’ll see, it’s not that far. In two hours you’ll be there.”

  I was still wearing my short trousers, it was still below zero, there was snow, and I didn’t have any boots. I wondered how Lena could possibly be in the Resistance, preparing tracts, handing them out, never getting caught . . . and yet she couldn’t imagine I might need warm clothes for the trip from Paris to Condé-sur-Iton in the middle of January. The walk was a good deal longer than what the lady at the station had said; two hours after I left Verneuil I still hadn’t gotten to Breteuil, and yet, in all that time walking and thinking, I couldn’t find an answer to the puzzle of my mother’s oversight.

  In Breteuil, a sign indicated that Condé was four kilometers from there! It was almost dark. I sat at the side of the road, disheartened, but the cold penetrated so quickly that I completed this last stage of my adventure practically at a run. Ah! I saw a village which had to be Condé-sur-Iton. With chimneys, and smoke rising to the sky. This time I wasn’t running, I think I was flying.

  There was no one in the streets, so I knocked on the door of a house and asked where the Buissons lived. I had to go down the street, which was very steep, and right at the end, turn right. The village café was on the ground floor of the Buissons’ house. I almost expected to be told that there was no one there by that name. But no, these people who were supposed to take me in and feed me and house me, they really did exist.

  When I entered the warm house that smelled of soup and roast chicken, and I saw these people welcoming me with big smiles, and running to fetch me a thick sweater, shouting, “Poor little mite, he must have been freezing!” I was so overcome by a sense of well-being that I would have gladly left the house just to come back in again ten times over, so as never to forget that sensation.

  CHAPTER 27

  Roger and the Buisson Family

  I quickly felt at home with the Buisson family in Condé-sur-Iton. There was Olga, with her gentle round face, framed with very short black hair; Robert, her husband, short, round and blond, reeking of snuff, occasionally a bit gruff but never nasty; Paulette, their daughter, in her twenties, very pretty, with big serious eyes; Liliane, three years old, Paulette’s little girl—the father had been taken prisoner by the Germans and no one knew what had become of him; and Mémé, Olga’s mother, Paulette’s grandmother and Liliane’s great-grandmother. She was all wrinkled, almost deaf, but she laughed like a young schoolgirl with a hoarse voice.

  My first evening was spent eating, becoming acquainted, eating some more, and settling into my bedroom . . . where I fell asleep in less than two minutes, thanks to the fatigue from the journey and the heat from a hot brick wrapped in a towel which Olga placed at my feet beneath the duvet. That first night I woke up several times. I thought about my adventures. I buried my face beneath the warm duvet. I could smell the chicken on my fingers. And I thought again about what Olga had said: “Your mother, Janine, is my cousin. I offered to take you in because I knew that she had a hard life in Paris with the six children and that you were at an age where you had to get a good meal inside you. We’ll start practicing tomorrow. You have to learn to react in the right way when you hear the name Roger. The villagers have plenty of time to watch everyone and start to wonder about things. Your story has to be perfectly consistent.”

  Saturday morning. I started my new life. I helped around the house, I brought in the firewood, they gave me newspapers to read . . . and, from time to time, someone said, “Roger,” naturally, without shouting, without placing too much stress on the name. It was only by evening that my reaction time began to seem natural. It was hard to lose such an ingrained habit in only a few days. But Olga never lost her patience and she was relentless with her “adaptation exercises.”

  On the Monday they enrolled me at the village school. I wasn’t in such a hurry to go, but Robert thought we shouldn’t waste any time and that it would be good for me to make friends. Olga taught me how to lie (something that would prove useful on numerous occasions during the war): never anticipate people, or start spouting everything you’ve learned by heart unless it’s in answer to a question. You had to have all your answers ready, but only get them out when it was necessary.

  The day I started school I was a perfect Roger Binet. I had to introduce myself to the class. I said as little as possible: I’d come from Paris, we didn’t have much to eat there, so I had come to stay with my Aunt Olga (who wasn’t exactly my aunt, but as good as). No, I didn’t miss my parents. Maybe one of my brothers, the youngest one. I told them quickly what life in Paris had been like since the beginning of the war.

  Before long no one was interested in my previous life at all. I was Roger Binet who went to the village school in Condé-sur-Iton with the other local children, who lived with Olga and Robert, and who helped Olga from time to time, because in addition to looking after the café with Paulette, she worked as the mailman and she needed help delivering the mail by bicycle. And on Tuesdays, after school, she’d ride up the steep hill on her bike with a trailer at the back to go to the bakery in Breteuil and fetch the bread for everyone in Condé, in exchange for sheets of paper covered with the ration tickets all the clients of the café had given her. When Olga first asked me if I could help her with the mail and the bread delivery, I went all red and had to confess that I didn’t know how to ride a bike.

  “Never mind, I’ll continue to take care of it. Maybe Robert can teach you?”

  But Robert always had something better to do, or not do. In the end it was Arnold, who had come to see me on a surprise visit for a few days, who taught me. By the time he left, I was ready to take over from Olga.

  They also asked me to go with Mémé on Thursdays to collect old dead branches in the park surrounding the old château. There were two châteaux in the little village of Condé-sur-Iton: the old one, which was from the twelfth century, where the “old count” lived, and the “new castle” from the seventeenth century, where the “young count” lived, and where the German garrison had been staying since the Occupation. I pulled the big wagon and sawed the wood, but Mémé was the one who chose the branches that were
dead enough so the forester wouldn’t mind if we took them. Thursday was my favorite day, because after the wood gathering I was allowed a glass of fermented cider along with the adults.

  At school the teacher was called Gérard. There were twenty or so of us boys and, in another building, Marcelline, Gérard’s wife, taught the twenty or so girls. In my class there were only four boys my age, who were only there half the time, because they had too much work at home or on the farm to come to school. Gérard was a colorful character, who knew a heap of things; he liked to talk with the children and preferred to let us find the solution rather than hand it to us on a silver platter. I never grumbled when it was time to leave for school. But what made me happiest of all in Condé was family life at home with the Buissons. I had my responsibilities, like everyone else, and sometimes I thought I had too many and I complained, but I had the impression that all of this was “real” life, that it was more like the normal life a kid my age would lead.

  Olga was the communist in the Buisson household, and she took charge of my education in history and politics. Robert didn’t give a damn, he preferred his rough red wine to politics. Olga admired the USSR.

  “In the Soviet Union, it’s not like here, where it’s every man for himself. There, everyone works for the good of the country and the nation. One of their finest inventions is the kolkhoz. Have you ever heard of kolkhozes?”

  “They’re farms, right?”

  “Collective farms. People work all together, and what they grow is redistributed. By bringing a lot of little farms together into one big one, they can buy huge machines, of the sort you don’t see here, and that enables you to do the harvest much quicker and without any loss. One day, for sure, after the war, I want to go and visit the Soviet Union.”

  “They say my father is there.”

  “In the Red Army?”

  There was a sudden commotion outside. The sound of someone banging on the barn door. Olga’s face went tense. I hurried to the window of the café and parted the curtains discreetly, and murmured to Olga, “It’s a German soldier.”