Black Radishes

by Susan Lynn Meyer

  Nicole looked back at him over her shoulder, her brown eyes sparkling gleefully. Gustave glanced around. All the other kids were working now. No one was watching. Holding his hand in front of him where only Nicole could see it, he smiled at her and lifted up two blue-stained fingers in a V for the flicker of a moment. She flicked her own fingers up in a V and smiled back. On her right cheek was a smudge of white chalk.

  19

  Most of the Vs done in white chalk washed off in the next rain, but Gustave was glad to see that his Vs, in the blue watercolor paint, lasted longer. And someone, or maybe several people, put up new chalk Vs from time to time, often on the school building and the town hall. Gustave’s heart always leapt when he saw a new one, especially because the war news was almost always bad now. The Nazis and their allies seemed unstoppable. In April, Gustave would have needed more red paint if he hadn’t torn up his map. Yugoslavia and Greece surrendered to the Germans. And at the beginning of June, Maman came home from work with yet more bad news about the new French laws under Pétain.

  “The women at work were saying that there’s going to be a census of the Jews,” she told Papa. “We’re going to have to register at the police stations.” Sure enough, there was the news in the paper the next day. “The most severe penalties” would be imposed for not following the law. Anyone who didn’t register and was caught, French citizen or not, would be interned in a prison camp.

  “What are they going to do when they know who is Jewish?” Gustave asked, reading the newspaper over Maman’s shoulder as she sat at the kitchen table. It was a warm, sticky evening, but Maman had left the kitchen shutters closed the way she usually did now so that no one could overhear their conversation. Her hands, holding the paper, left damp smudges.

  Maman shook her head and sighed. “Nothing good. The new Jewish statute announces more restrictions on Jews. Look.” She pointed at another column of type. “Jews are being excluded from more and more professions—law, medicine, pharmacy, architecture. And here it says that only a very limited number of Jewish students will be permitted to attend French universities.”

  “So even if I do well in school, I might not be able to go to a university?” Gustave exploded. “It isn’t fair. I don’t think we should register. No one here really knows us. How would they know we’re Jewish?”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Papa answered slowly. “As you’ve said before, Lili, the last name Becker isn’t always Jewish.”

  “I don’t know,” said Maman. “We don’t have a record of being baptized or married by a priest, some people would say we look Jewish, and we don’t attend church. What if we don’t register and somehow they find out? We could all be put in a camp.”

  Gustave heard his parents talking late into the night, and by morning they had decided to register.

  “I can register our whole family,” said Papa. “You don’t have to come.”

  “No,” said Maman firmly. “I will come too. But Gustave should wait outside.”

  Maman put on her best suit and shoes, and she and Papa walked stiffly into the prefecture of police, holding their heads high. Gustave waited in the shade of a tree, watching the shadow get shorter and shorter as noon approached. When his parents came out of the police station, Maman’s face was flushed, and not only from the heat.

  “Look,” she said, holding out the two French identity cards, her hand shaking. “As if we were criminals.”

  Stamped in large red letters to the right of Maman’s photograph, it said “JUIVE.” Jew. And there it was, above his own name, “BECKER, Gustave,” and under his photograph: “JUIF.” Jew.

  Gustave looked at his father.

  “They registered me, but they didn’t stamp my Swiss identity papers,” Papa said quietly. “Apparently, the Swiss government considers that an insult to its citizens.”

  “So everyone will know we’re Jewish now?” Gustave asked on the long walk home to Saint-Georges under the blazing sun. “We don’t have to keep it a secret anymore?”

  “No, you mustn’t tell anyone!” Maman exclaimed. “The fewer people who know, the better.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to keep it quiet now, Lili,” Papa sighed, wiping his sweaty forehead with a handkerchief. “Still, it isn’t something to talk about.”

  The next day at school, Gustave avoided looking at anyone as much as possible, all day. It felt as if the word “Juif” were stamped, in red, on his forehead.

  At recess, he was sitting alone on the ground, tracing a design in the dirt with a stick, when a shadow fell over him. It was Nicole, and behind her dark silhouette was the white-hot sky.

  “Do you want to come over?” she asked. “Claude has a magnifying glass, and we’re going to set a piece of paper on fire.”

  Gustave looked with halfhearted curiosity in the direction she indicated, where Claude and another boy were squatting on the playground.

  “No.”

  “Are you all right?” Nicole asked more hesitantly.

  Gustave nodded, glancing past her at the sky, and after a moment, she ran off. A few minutes later, he heard a shriek of triumph from Claude as the paper began to smoke, and then Monsieur Brunel called out scoldingly and ran toward them. Gustave smiled faintly.

  He wished he could tell Nicole about the shameful brand on his French identity card. But she wasn’t Jewish—nobody else here was—so she wouldn’t understand. And even if she would, he wasn’t supposed to talk about it.

  The long school day came to an end without Gustave’s hearing anything about their trip to the prefecture of police, not even from Philippe. And in a week, school was over, without anybody having said anything, so Gustave thought that maybe the prefect at the police station had been discreet. It was possible.

  At the end of July, there was another announcement in the paper. Maman read it aloud one humid July evening as they sat at the kitchen table after dinner.

  “Now this,” she said. “Law number 3086, again with ‘the most severe penalties’ for noncompliance. ‘All Jews must register their place of residence and all their assets with the police.’ ” She lifted her chin and looked at Papa and Gustave, her eyes glittering. “Now, this I just won’t do,” she said. “What are they going to do with this information besides take all our money away? That must be what’s coming next. How will we survive?”

  Papa nodded slowly. “I agree,” he said. “They know where we live now. But what if we just register a small amount of money, what we’ve managed to save from your earnings since we came here, Lili? The money I got when I liquidated the store in Paris—that, we won’t register. I’ll find a way to buy something valuable with it that’s easy to hide.”

  “We can’t live in a country that makes laws like this,” Maman murmured. “What is happening with those immigration visas to America?”

  Papa got to his feet. “Yes. Enough of this waiting. I’m going to try to get to Lyon to see what I can find out about our visas from the American consulate there.”

  A week later, Papa started for Lyon, traveling by train. After a few weeks, he came back, tired and disheveled.

  “I did what I could,” he said wearily after he had bathed in the tin tub Maman had filled for him from the pump in the kitchen, rubbing a towel over his damp hair. “But I don’t know what will happen. So many refugees are trying to get into the United States, and they don’t want so many Jews.” He sighed. “But the affidavit from my cousin has come through. He promises to support our family if we need money. So, we can hope. We may be among the lucky ones.”

  20

  Saint-Georges, September 1941

  School began again on a humid day at the end of September. It was hard to believe that he was here again for another school year, Gustave thought, looking around the classroom, remembering that at first Papa had planned for them to be in Saint-Georges for only a few months.

  This morning, it was much too hot to learn anything. Gustave looked around and focused on the back of a head wit
h light brown curls. Nicole was in his class this year, and so was Claude. But, unfortunately, Philippe was too. Somehow Gustave just couldn’t get away from him.

  The teacher was the one Gustave had seen in Nicole’s classroom the year before—Monsieur Brunel, the one who had drawn the big, white Vs on the blackboard. That was good, anyway. This year his class was beginning to learn English, and Monsieur Brunel had just taught them the verb “to be”—“I am,” “you are,” “he is.” It was fun trying to say the strange words. It would be useful if he ever got to America. But it was just too hot to concentrate on English verbs.

  Gustave fidgeted and looked at the clock. The other children in the back rows of the schoolroom started to cough and shuffle their feet too as the clock hands inched toward ten-thirty, recess time. Monsieur Brunel looked up from the papers he was correcting and grinned at them.

  “OK, kids, put away your books. Recess!” he announced. Gustave jumped up, and the dusty stillness exploded into sudden noise. In the courtyard, Claude came up to Gustave.

  “Want to play marbles?” he asked.

  “Sure!” said Gustave. “But I don’t have any.”

  “No problem.” Claude shrugged. “You can borrow some of mine.”

  Under the trees on the other side of the courtyard, some other boys were sitting on the ground by a marbles circle. Claude and Gustave sat down with them. Almost immediately, Philippe came up behind them and squeezed into the circle too.

  Claude dumped a handful of marbles out of a blue bag and offered them to Gustave. “You can use these.”

  Claude was a very good player. At the end of his turn, he scooped in a big handful of marbles, laughing. Looking at Claude’s heavy bag, Gustave could see why he didn’t mind sharing. When it was Gustave’s turn, he chose a green glass shooter from the pile Claude had handed him and knocked several marbles out of the ring. One was a beautiful pinkish gray agate. As Gustave reached over to pick them up, Philippe glared at him.

  “You think you’re going to keep that agate, Jew?” he asked.

  One of the marbles slipped out of Gustave’s fingers, and he put the others down on the ground before he dropped them too. How did Philippe know? The other boys glanced from Philippe to Gustave.

  “Wh-what makes you say I’m a Jew?” Gustave finally stammered.

  But he said it just a few beats too late. Philippe snatched his marble. “Jew-thief. My grandfather says the war is all because of the Jews. Jews don’t belong in France.”

  Gustave stood up, but so many thoughts rushed through his head, along with so many reasons not to talk, that he couldn’t figure out what to say.

  Philippe grinned at Gustave’s confusion. “I knew it. I knew you were a Jew. But if you’re not, then prove it. Unzip!” He jumped up and seized the waist of Gustave’s too-loose pants and underwear and yanked them down sharply. Gustave grabbed desperately and pulled them back up, hearing laughter as he did. His face burned. He thought he had caught his pants just in time, but he wasn’t sure. Had anyone seen anything? And there were girls around! He hated Philippe—hated him.

  Holding the waistband of his pants in both hands, Gustave walked away stiffly.

  Claude started to say something, but Gustave couldn’t hear him because of the blood pounding in his ears. How had Philippe guessed that he was Jewish, anyway? If only, when Philippe had first said it, Gustave had stayed calm and suave, like actors in the movies. And now because of the way Gustave had reacted, Philippe knew for sure, even if he hadn’t seen anything when he yanked Gustave’s pants down. Stupid, stupid! He could have kicked himself for giving it away like that. He walked unsteadily back across the yard and stood with his back against the stones of the school building, wanting to disappear. He blinked sweat out of his eyes, looking unseeingly out at the blur of kids in the yard.

  Nicole must have spoken several times before Gustave heard her and turned his head. She was sitting on the steps of the school in a patch of shade. She had lined up some acorns across the stoop and was flicking them down the steps, one by one.

  “Philippe’s a jerk. Don’t let him bother you. Nobody saw anything. His grandfather says that stuff about Jews, and Philippe is always trying to be just like him. Nobody cares what he says.”

  “Yeah,” said Gustave, walking a few steps farther away. Right now, he didn’t even feel like talking to Nicole. Maybe especially not Nicole. He stood there a long time, feeling the roughness of the stone wall against his back. His cheeks gradually cooled, but inside him was a hard knot of rage.

  After a while, something rustled, and he looked at Nicole. She had a chunk of white bread on her lap, and she was pulling a whole bar of chocolate out of her skirt pocket. Gustave couldn’t help staring. Some of the luckier kids, usually ones from farm families, brought food to eat as a snack at recess, but most of the time it was something like a cold baked potato or a hard-boiled egg. Gustave watched as Nicole opened the light green wrapper with “MENIER” written on it in large letters. A whole bar of chocolate! Gustave hadn’t seen anyone eating one of those since they’d left Paris. There was never any chocolate for sale in the stores. Menier was his favorite kind of chocolate bar too. He used to buy it in Paris sometimes from kiosks on the street corners when he had pocket money, a long time ago.

  Nicole broke off a piece of chocolate, wrapped the rest back up carefully in the silver and green paper, and tucked it back into her pocket. She hollowed out the chunk of bread, pulling out some of the soft inside and eating it. Then she poked the chocolate into the bread and broke off a piece with the chocolate in the middle. She held it out to Gustave.

  “Do you want some?” she asked.

  “Really?” said Gustave. How could she still want to be friends even after what Philippe had just done to him? Gustave took the bread and chocolate and looked at it in astonishment. “Thanks.” He took a bite, tasting the dry mildness of the bread and the vivid, creamy richness of the chocolate on his tongue.

  Just then, Philippe ran toward them out of the crowd in the schoolyard, and the sweet taste in Gustave’s mouth turned sour.

  “Making friends with the Jew-boy?” he sneered at Nicole. He planted himself in front of her, with one hand on his hip, and crooned:

  “Viens, poupoule, viens, poupoule, viens!

  Le meilleur chocolat, c’est le chocolat POULAIN!”

  Come, chickie-chick, come, chickie-chick, and try it!

  The best chocolate in the world is POULAIN chocolate!

  Gustave glared at Philippe. Nicole snorted at the familiar jingle for Poulain, a competing brand of chocolate. “I’m not your poupoule or anybody else’s!” she said. “GLOU-GLOU-GLOU-GLOU!” She jumped up and ran a few steps toward Philippe, her short, brown hair bobbing against her cheeks, doing a very creditable imitation of an angry rooster. Philippe swaggered away.

  Nicole came back over to Gustave and sat down. “As if he wouldn’t jump at the chance to eat Menier chocolate or any other kind if he had it,” she remarked to Gustave.

  Gustave managed a slight grin. “Where did you get the chocolate, anyway?” he asked after a moment, licking his fingers.

  “My father works for the Menier family at Chenonceau, and sometimes the Meniers used to give the people who work there a few chocolate bars. We still have one or two left. Do you know Chenonceau? That castle belongs to the Meniers. Bought with chocolate money.”

  “A castle?”

  “Yes, haven’t you seen it? It’s right nearby. It is the most beautiful castle in France.”

  Gustave grinned at Nicole’s sudden transformation from tough village girl to cultured tour guide. Nicole laughed.

  “Well, that’s what I’ve heard people say, anyway. I haven’t seen every castle in France. But Chenonceau is only a few kilometers from here. Do you want to go there with me some Sunday afternoon? Can you get a bicycle? We could bike over and see the outside from down the river.”

  Just then, the teacher came out on the steps and rang the bell, calling everyone in. A
s the students lined up, Gustave thought about going to see Chenonceau. Maybe his parents would let him use the bicycle if he promised to be careful with it. He could hardly believe that Nicole had shared her chocolate with him. He grinned to himself. Marcel, who liked to roar and grunt and squeak while making shadow animals on the wall with his fingers, would really appreciate a girl who could imitate a rooster like that. But as Gustave turned to walk through the classroom door, something banged into his shoulder, hard. Philippe pushed through the door ahead of him.

  “Veuillez m’excuser, Monsieur!” Philippe said, with mock politeness—Be so good as to excuse me, sir! The teacher glanced in their direction. Gustave flushed with rage and thought about the other, less pleasant thing he would have to tell Maman and Papa this evening. If someone in the village suspected that they were Jews, that probably meant that everyone else did too. And even if, by some miracle, no one else already knew that they were Jewish because they had registered with the police, now Philippe would make sure that everyone did.

  21

  But Gustave forgot all about school as soon as he got home. Papa, who had spent the afternoon at a café, arrived at the front gate at the same time that Gustave did, and Maman came bursting out of the house.

  “Look! From Geraldine!” she cried, waving the yellow postcard in the air.

  Maman couldn’t stop fingering the card and talking about it, even during dinner. “Finally, after a whole year, we get word from her!” she said, ladling out the soup. “But it doesn’t sound good. Not good at all.”

  Gustave took a bite of bread and examined the yellow postcard, the kind the Germans made people use for mail across the demarcation line. “Strictly for family correspondence” was printed at the top. “Write nothing outside the lines.” You could choose from a few preprinted messages, circling the ones that applied and crossing out the ones that did not. Aunt Geraldine had crossed out “ill” and “wounded.” “Geraldine, Jean-Paul, and Giselle” filled the blank line on the postcard before the words “are in good health.” Aunt Geraldine had written in “David” before “is a prisoner of war.” That was to be expected, because no one had heard of any of the captured French soldiers coming home yet.