by Mary Finn
“But … where is Nadia?”
She reached out a hand to brush the damp hair off my face. “Oh, Jonas, even I don’t know that. All Madame Odile will tell me is that she’s living near the sea. With a nice family. Safe as any child can be these days. But when all this is over…”
She stopped. “If you write a letter to your sister, I’ll give it to Madame Odile. That would be the best thing. Just don’t write down any names or places. Just tell her you’re safe and well and that you have excellent friends.”
The Prof nodded. “He can write it tonight and I’ll bring it to you. But, Madame Picard, you must go now before it gets dark. Or before the snow freezes over.”
She got up, picked up her coat and pulled it around herself. Then she held her hand out to me.
“Write your sister something that only you and she know about, Jonas. Then she’ll believe it’s really from you, and isn’t made up by one of us. That’s important. You must stand together now as a family, just the two of you.”
She messed my hair up again. Then she was gone.
CORRESPONDENCE
Dear Sister,
I hope you still have d’Artagnan. I began to make an albatross for your theatre but it didn’t work out. If you get a chance to make one, they are seabirds with huge wings that used to fly over Paris millions of years ago. You will also need to make a cat like Grimaldi. Then you can put on this play.
THE NEW MUSKETEERS
D’ARTAGNAN: I tried to discover where the princess was hiding. But the Cardinal’s men were too many for me.
ALBATROSS: I soared above the city on my great wings. I looked right and left and right again even though there are no traffic lights in the sky. But not even a fairground to lay an egg on did I see.
GRIMALDI: The streets will be very quiet when all the children leave the city. But they will come back, with many fishes for me, the Cat Who Fishes. All the way from the seaside and the big river.
D’ARTAGNAN: The princess and I will triumph in the end and the Cardinal will lose much more than his foot this time.
ALBATROSS: The princess will also get a hat of ostrich feathers, which I will pluck from those crazy birds and bring to her all the way from Africa.
GRIMALDI: And I will eat the rest of the ostrich all by myself. Hey Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Harp!
It’s not much of a play but I didn’t have time to do better. You can add anything you like to it, or change it.
I hope you are well. I’m learning lots of music and I’m sure you’re learning new things too. We’ll have lots to talk about when we see each other again.
I’m sending you this 50 francs for your ninth birthday even though that isn’t until March. Read what’s written on it and you’ll know it must be true.
Love from
Your brother
Dear Professor,
I’m sorry I was so much trouble to you. And for spoiling your good scarf. I didn’t tell you last night because I was afraid to, but I also lost your wife’s music case. I didn’t know it was hers when I took it. I am very sorry.
I am leaving you the last of my Deyrolle notebooks as a gift for Christmas. I’ve used up all the others. Will you mind them for me, but please not read them? Everything is in the trunk and so is my will. I wrote that when I came here first, when I was very afraid. I never had the books and the comics and the roller skates here with me anyway, so maybe it’s best to forget about the will. I have the money in case I need it and I’ve brought the flea circus carriages with me, because Papa made them for me. I know Signor Corrado wouldn’t mind.
If you ever meet him, or La Giaconda, or Alfredo again, please give them my love. I hope they are enjoying much success. I hope Tommaso got into Nadia’s school.
I know Mama and Papa would want to thank you from the bottom of their hearts so I will just have to do it for them. Mama was right – you are a great teacher of music.
I never had a grandfather but I’m sure you would be the best kind to have.
I hope you will be able to travel to the United States and meet your son in the end.
Wishing you well, and a happy Christmas too.
Love,
Jonas
SOMEWHERE
I know it isn’t safe to bring these notebooks on the train so I won’t. The Prof told me the Nazis are always making checks, at all the stations and even on the trains. But I hate leaving them behind because they are a testament to all the Alber family, not just to me.
There won’t be a Jonas Alber living in France any more after tomorrow. There hasn’t been a Nadia Alber living there either, not since July. I wasn’t able to tell Nadia my new name and I don’t know hers. But we will both know we are Somewhere.
I didn’t find out anything about Mama and Papa. Nobody knows where Léopold Alber and Anne Berlioz Alber are now. Probably the Germans do, because they make lists of everyone, like Papa said. But not even the policeman was able to find anything out. So I don’t know if they are somewhere or not. And I know what that means.
If I think about that I just feel the cold going right into my bones, even though I’m inside and the snow is outside. Then it’s like Mama and Papa are outside too, always, because I don’t know where they are. The window is black, just like the windows in the métro, and the snow is always falling on them.
I can only think what they would say if they did read this testament, especially today’s bit. Then I can almost see their faces turning around to look at me, just for a minute.
Papa would be really pleased at what I did to Pimply Arms today. Mama would be furious I went out at all, especially when Madame Picard came to see us anyway, to tell us about Nadia. I wouldn’t tell Mama that I was afraid all the time. I’d just have to say it was really good practice for turning into somebody else.
They’d be sorry to see Jonas Alber disappear, but they’d be glad he has new papers, just like Nadia.
So, Mama and Papa, I promise you Grégoire Volet will do his best. That’s all anyone can do.
ADVICE NOTE:
These three notebooks were surrendered in one lot to Deyrolle, 46 rue du Bac, Paris, for safekeeping on 17 January 1945 by Corporal Robert Clavel of the United States 44th Infantry Division.
Please file under Property to Be Claimed.
AFTERWORD
Jonas and Nadia Alber are fictional characters. But many children like them survived what remained of the Occupation of France, which lasted until summer 1944. Many unaccompanied Jewish children were welcomed by other French families. Others survived in schools and orphanages, in both zones of the country, even after German troops invaded the unoccupied zone in November 1942. Some were betrayed.
Sadly, it is most unlikely that the Alber parents would have survived. Of approximately 76,000 Jews who were deported from France to concentration camps, including 13,152 rounded up and held at the Vél d’Hiv in Paris on 16 July 1942, fewer than 2,500 returned.
After the war in France was over, there was a long period of confusion for families who had been split up. Many organizations worked to put returned adults and children back in touch with their families. But for some this took a long time. Jonas and Nadia would have been luckier.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
MARY FINN is a Dubliner. She has worked as a journalist and a parliamentary reporter, trades that may – or may not – have helped her along the way to write three historical novels and one guidebook. Her previous novels are Anila’s Journey and The Horse Girl. (The guidebook is out of print but several predictions in it came true.)
For Mary, the inspiration for No Stars at the Circus came during a visit to Paris when she noticed the plaques erected on many school walls throughout the city. Each plaque marks the disappearance of that school’s Jewish pupils during the Nazi occupation of Paris during World War II. Mary began to imagine what life might have been like for a boy who disappeared from his school but survived in hiding. Many of the details of life in wartime Paris – including the circus at the he
art of the story – were suggested by the photographs of Robert Doisneau.
ANILA’S JOURNEY
Winner of the Eilís Dillon Award
An advert appears in the Calcutta Gazette: a scholar is looking for an apprentice draughtsman to accompany him on an expedition to record avian life in Bengal. How can Anila Tandy, left to fend for herself in a city of rogues, dare to apply for a position that is clearly not meant for her? But the talented “Bird Girl of Calcutta” has never shrunk from a challenge. And perhaps this voyage up the Ganges might be just the thing to equip Anila in her search for her father, missing for years and presumed dead.
“I loved this beautiful story set in eighteenth-century India, with all its sights, sounds and smells.” Jamila Gavin
THE HORSE GIRL
18th-century Lincolnshire: Thomas, who is dyslexic, has never met anyone remotely like Ling – wild, carefree, determined – and he falls in love. Ling’s horse, Belladonna, has been stolen and Ling fears she is in the hands of the painter Mr George Stubbs, known for flaying horses to learn about their anatomy. When Thomas and Ling pay Stubbs a visit, they learn the true whereabouts of Belladonna, and Thomas is offered a job with Stubbs, who also teaches him to read and write. Thomas and Ling devise a plan to steal back Belladonna, knowing, if caught, Ling could pay with her life.
“Absorbing.” The Irish Times
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated, as they may result in injury.
First published in Great Britain 2014 by Walker Books Ltd 87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ
Text © 2014 by Mary Finn
Cover photographs 2014 © Laura Yurs / Gettyimages and Berliner Verlag / Archiv / dpa / Corbis
The right of Mary Finn to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-4063-5502-4 (ePub)
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