Now Maman and Isaac left early in the morning for the markets. When we came home from school, we found Berthe waiting for us with our favorite snack of bread and butter and chocolate, and hot tea. Berthe only went out of the house to do the shopping. The rest of the time she stayed indoors, and cooked and cleaned, and curled her hair and polished her fingernails. She was always polishing her fingernails, and she did ours too. Sometimes she did our toenails. She had many little bottles of fingernail polish, and let us choose the color we wanted. Once Jacqueline asked her to use a different color on each fingernail, and she did.
She was so fat that her fingers looked like little pink sausages. But her skin was beautiful, and when she put rouge on her cheeks, they were like soft, juicy peaches. In the afternoon, if we stayed in, Berthe sang songs for us—all about love and fickle girls and unfaithful men. Most of the songs were in Yiddish or Polish.
She told us how Isaac lived in the same town as she but never noticed her, although she had always noticed him. One day, when she was all dressed up, very beautifully, in a dark purple dress, and wearing the same shade of fingernail polish that Jacqueline was presently wearing, she sat near him at a cafe, and they began talking. One thing led to another, and here they were, happily married.
Berthe believed in dressing up for a man. On most days she tried to put on a clean dress, comb her hair out, and have her fingernails all done by the time he came home. But sometimes she forgot to take out the curlers, or other times if she took out the curlers, she might forget to put on a clean dress. But Isaac never seemed to notice. You could hear his quick footsteps hurrying up the stairs. He would burst into the room, and not stop until he found her.
It was very romantic but it was a pity that she was fat, and that he had such large, yellow teeth.
Sometimes Berthe sat outside on the veranda with us. Now that it was July, we kept the windows open most of the time. I could lean out and watch for Papa.
Jacqueline and Berthe were sitting around the table looking through some magazines, and talking about clothes.
“You see this white voile dress with the sweetheart neckline, and the lace on the hem? Well, I had a dress exactly like that, with a little fuller sleeve, and a strawberry pattern instead of the rose—but otherwise just the same—and that was when Isaac took me to the movies for the first time. I wore it with a pink flower in my hair, and a pair of shoes—I still have them—white, with very high heels. I’ll show them to you. But oi!, they were so tight, I could hardly walk. But the dress, I had to leave in Poland. We left so fast, I had to leave most of my nice things.”
“Here, look at this one, Berthe. Isn’t it pretty?”
“I don’t know. It’s not my color, and it’s very matronly.”
“What’s my color, Berthe?”
“Your color? With a face like yours, every color is your color. Of course, some people say that pink is not a good color for redheads.”
“But I love pink.”
“Now I don’t say it, but some people say it.”
“Maman said she’ll make me a pink dress for the summer, and a matching one for Danielle.”
“Your Maman, she certainly is a wonder! But I had a friend who had red hair. She wasn’t a beauty like you, but still she managed to get a husband, and she used to wear green all the time.”
“I hate green.”
The breeze was warm, and it was good feeling my hair blowing against my cheek. For days now, I had been watching for my father, and today, I was going to try a charm that my classmate, Marie, told me about. You had to close your eyes, cross them, and say the name of the person you wanted to work the spell on backwards. Then you uncrossed your eyes, opened them, and holding your breath you said what you wanted to happen. I knew how to say my father’s name backwards—NAMEIN DIVAD.
I looked up the street and saw Jacques Romaines and Jean Flandin on their bikes, Mme. Henri and her daughter carrying packages and hurrying along the street.
I closed my eyes, but it did not seem to me that I was able to cross them when they were closed. So I opened them again, crossed them, closed them, but I felt they became uncrossed once I closed them. I wondered if the spell would work if I kept my eyes open. I opened my eyes, and there, coming up the street, was my father.
“Papa,” I screamed, “Papa, Papa, Papa!”
He had been moving slowly up the street, but when I began calling he started to run. I yelled to Jacqueline and Berthe, “It’s Papa. Really—it’s Papa!” Then I rushed through the apartment, down the stairs, and up into his arms, just as he was about to open the downstairs door.
“Papa!”
He had been sick. First his toe had been broken by a car, driven by officers in his division who were fleeing from the battle at Sedan. Still he had managed to keep in front of the Germans, but later there had been fever and cramps, perhaps from some water he drank. For weeks he lay in a makeshift hospital. The doctor had promised to notify us. He thought we knew where he was.
Maman made him get into bed after she came home. All of us sat around him in the bedroom, and he told us how there had been no fighting, just running, how they had been betrayed by their leaders.
“But you’re home, David,” my mother said, “and you’re safe.”
My father shook his head. “They’ve taken France, and soon it will be England. Nobody is safe.”
“Don’t worry about it now,” Maman said softly. She plumped up the pillows, and smoothed the blankets. “Rest now. Sleep! It will all work out, you’ll see.” She took Jacqueline by the hand, and the rest of us stood up.
“But Papa,” Jacqueline said, “where is my present?”
“Present?”
“You promised, Papa.” Jacqueline was close to tears. “You said when you came home you would bring me a present.”
Maman shook her head, and said, “What a time to ask for presents. Thank God, Papa is home safe. What is the matter with you?”
Big tears rolled down Jacqueline’s cheeks. She bit her lip but didn’t say anything.
“Of course,” Papa said. “How could I forget? Go, chérie, look in my knapsack. Down toward the bottom. There is something for you, and something for Nicole. All those months we sat around waiting and waiting. I didn’t forget. And look for something wrapped in a scarf, too. That’s for Maman.”
There were two lockets that he had made out of wood. They were heart-shaped, and one had a fancy J on it, and the other had an N. The locket was hinged, and opened up for pictures.
Papa had made a box for Maman. It was inlaid with many different pieces of wood, and was very beautiful.
“But David,” Maman said, “I can’t believe it. You never did anything like this before. You hardly knew how to hammer in a nail.”
“There was nothing else to do,” Papa said. “Thousands and thousands of soldiers, sitting and waiting with nothing to do.”
“Maman.” Jacqueline had hung her locket on a pink ribbon, and kept looking down at it on her chest. “Please, Maman, may I look through the pictures? I want you on one side and Papa on the other. Please, Maman, may I look at the pictures now—right now!”
Papa slid down under the covers, and closed his eyes. “But it’s good to be home,” he said.
October 1941
For three nights nobody had slept over at our house. Sunday morning, Jacqueline went bouncing around singing at the top of her lungs.
“Malbrouck s’en va-t-en guerre
Mironton, Mironton, Mirontaine
Malbrouck s’en va-t-en guerre
Ne sait quand reviendra
Ne sait quand reviendra
Ne sait quand reviendra.”
["Malbrouck goes to war
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine
Malbrouch goes to war
Don't know when he'll come back
Don't know when he'll come back
Don't know when he'll come back."]
She climbed on the sofa and the chairs in the living room, and crept und
er the dining room table.
“Jacqueline,” I said, “stop it. You’ll wake Maman and Papa.”
But she didn’t stop, and I was enjoying myself too. It was good not having anybody sleeping on the sofa. It was better not having to creep silently around the house, and have Maman say, Shh, you’ll wake this one or that one. I knew Maman and Papa were awake anyway. They were so used to getting up around five every day that even on Sundays they seldom slept past six or six-thirty.
They were awake, in bed, talking to each other, and they smiled when Jacqueline came bounding in, and leaped into the bed, snuggling right between them.
“No more people,” she announced. “I don’t want any more people coming here ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever...”
“That’s enough, Jacqueline,” Maman said.
“... ever, ever, ever, ever ...”
“That’s ENOUGH!”
“Ever!”
I jumped into bed with them too, and my mother put an arm around me. She was wearing a peach-colored rayon nightgown, and I laid my head on her shoulder and felt the coldness of her nightgown on part of my face, and the warmth of her skin on the other part.
“Why do they always have to come here?” I said. “Why do we always have to be the ones who get stuck? The Rostens never have people staying over, and they have much more room than we do.”
Maman stroked my hair. She didn’t say anything. Neither did Papa. Jacqueline began chanting again, but different this time, “No more people, never, never, never ...”
Papa grabbed her, and tickled her, and she laughed and kicked around until Maman and I yelled for them to stop.
Then Papa got up to make some coffee for Maman and himself. Every Sunday, Papa got up first and made coffee. Maman moved over so that she could be between Jacqueline and me, and each of us could get an equal share of her.
“It’s so much better when we don’t have anybody else around,” I said. “There’s never any room to play, and I hate always having to be the last one to use the toilet.”
Maman laughed. “You know we have no choice, Nicole. All those poor people, uprooted from their homes because of the Germans. We’re so lucky to be living here. It’s the least we can do to help other people in real trouble.”
“But why do they have to come here?” I asked. “Why can’t they go some other place?”
“Where?” Maman asked.
“Anywhere—but not here.”
“There is no anywhere left,” Maman said, Germany has conquered just about every country in Europe, except for Switzerland.”
“Maman,” Jacqueline asked, “will the Germans come here?”
“I hope not, ma petite”
“Say, they won’t, Maman, don’t just say you hope not.”
“I can’t say they won’t, Jacqueline. I can only hope they won’t. But you and Nicole must understand that just because we are safe, and have a home to live in, we must help others who are not so lucky. One day the war will end and—”
“And then nobody will sleep here ever, ever, ever, ever--.”
“Jacqueline!”
Later Papa went out for his morning walk. He generally met some friends at the café, and stayed there, talking and drinking coffee until dinnertime.
We had sweet and sour veal stew and peas for dinner. Often now, Maman and Papa traded their sweaters for food instead of money. But their supply was dwindling. They had bought large quantities of sweaters before the war started, but once Paris had been occupied, most of the manufacturers had fled. Some of them now worked in Lyon, but it was becoming harder and harder to get wool or dyes. Most of the sweaters were now made out of synthetic fabrics that were neither warm nor long-lasting. The colors were muddy, and the prices were ridiculous, Papa said. And even these were becoming unavailable.
My parents worked the outdoor markets still, but not every day. There was not enough stock for them to go every day. Maman continued to sew at home whenever she could. I did more and more of the housework and cooking, particularly on the days that my parents were gone.
Maman still complained that I had a big mouth but very often now she was pleased with me.
“Really, Nicole, for a girl your age, you are certainly very capable. Look how you washed all our stockings. And the soup is made, and the table set. There is really nothing you can’t do once you make up your mind.”
“And me, Maman?” from Jacqueline. “Is there nothing I can’t do too? Just like Nicole?”
“Of course not!” from me. “You’re only seven, and I’m eleven. Of course you can’t do what I can do. You’re too little.”
“I’m not little, am I, Maman? And I can do anything Nicole can do, can’t I ?”
“All right, dinde. Tomorrow you can do all the shopping, and make the soup for supper.”
“I can do it,” Jacqueline said, her cheeks a bright red, but not as bright as her long red curls which were trembling across her shoulders.
“We’ll see just what you can do,” I said. “You don’t even know how to wash the dishes, and when Maman asks you to put away your clothes, you always cry and whine like the big baby you are.”
“MAMAN! MAMAN!”
“Nicole,” Maman sighs, “there is only one thing, perhaps, you can’t do.”
“What is it?” I say, hands on my hips, chin out.
“Shut your mouth,” Maman says.
After dinner, my parents, Jacqueline, and I walked along the Avenue du Lac. The summer months are the months when the tourists come to Aix-les-Bains, but often September and October are the most beautiful months of the year. This day, the sky was as blue as Jacqueline’s eyes, with great, rippling, white puffs of clouds. The air smelled clean and fresh, and there was just enough of a cool breeze on your back to make you feel like walking.
We kept meeting people we knew, many of them, refugees who had stayed with us until they could find places for themselves. Some of them could not find jobs, and Maman said they were living off their savings. I could not understand how they were able to laugh and joke so much. Some of them were separated from members of their family and others had lost almost everything of value. When they came to us, most of them were frightened, upset, sometimes hysterical. But once a few days had passed, they would be laughing and joking as if nothing terrible or unusual had happened.
Here now was M. Henri Bonnet, whose wife had died of an appendicitis attack the day the Germans occupied Paris. So many of the doctors and nurses had left the town, and there was so much confusion that M. Bonnet could find nobody to operate on his wife. And he had left his children with a neighbor who was not there when he returned. Nobody knew where the neighbor had gone or what had happened to the children but everybody told him to get out of Paris since he was Jewish. He thought somebody might have taken the children to his sister in Dijon, so he went there. But the children were not in Dijon, and he could not return to Paris. He wrote letters to everybody he could think of but nobody had seen the children.
“Good day, M. Bonnet.”
“Good day, Nicole. Oh, David, I was just on my way over to invite you and Henriette to come to the movie with me tonight. They are showing La Femme du Boulanger and it is such an enchanting film. Have you seen it? No? Oh, then you really must. It is absolutely delightful, and Raimu is so funny.”
I thought M. Bonnet was disgusting. If Papa and Maman were ever separated from Jacqueline and me, I had no doubt they would be too busy looking for us to go to the movies.
M. Bonnet was laughing so hard, he had to wipe the tears from his eyes. “So then, he finds out what she really thinks of him ...”
“M. Bonnet,” I said, “have you heard any news about your children ?”
That made him stop laughing. He blinked a few times, and there was still a tear in one corner of his eye. “No,” he said, “nothing.”
Papa took him by the arm, and they walked on in front of us. Maman took me by the arm too. “What is the matter with you?” she asked. “Have you lost your
senses? Why did you torment that poor man like that?” She shook my arm.
“Because he was laughing,” I said. “How can he laugh, and go to the movies when his wife died, and his children are lost? If we were lost you and Papa wouldn’t laugh, and you wouldn’t go to the movies. You’d look for us.”
Maman pulled me closer to her, and held me against her for a moment. “Listen, Nicole, M. Bonnet is looking for his children, and he is grieving. Did you see his face when you asked about them? He is grieving but he has hope that he will find them again. He has lost a great deal, but if human beings can hold on to hope, they can live through the worst of times.”
“But you and Papa would look for us. You wouldn’t laugh.”
“Papa and I would look for you as long as we had any strength left in our bodies, and we would hope for as long as we were alive that we would find you.”
“And you wouldn’t laugh.”
“I think we would. People who don’t laugh are dead.”
I pulled my arm away, and cried, “If I were separated from you, I would look for you, and that’s all I would do. I’d look for you, and I’d find you, and I’d never laugh until I did.”
Jacqueline was sobbing. Big tears rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t want to be separated from Maman and Papa. You stop that, Nicole. You stop it!”
Maman picked Jacqueline up, and said, “We are not being separated, silly. Nicole and I were just saying if.”
“Say we’ll never be separated, Maman. Say it! Say never!”
“Of course, ma poupée, you know we won’t be.”
“But say it, Maman, say never, never, never.”
“Never!” said Maman.
“And I wouldn’t laugh,” I said, “never, never, never.”
Maman began laughing then, and soon Jacqueline buried her head in Maman’s shoulder, so we shouldn’t see she was laughing, and I laughed too.
We met the Rostens in front of the beach, and they came back to our house for tea. Mme. Rosten said that her cook had left because she felt it was degrading for her to work for Jews.
A Pocket Full of Seeds Page 5