He rolled up the paper into a small tube and put it carefully into his satchel, along with the bell. He could only hope Delphine and her family were finding their way on the dangerous mountain path, and that there would be a safe place for them on the other side.
Marcel was just about to hop on the bike and head for home when he saw a ginger cat sitting by the stone step in front of the house. Was this Delphine’s cat? Her coat was dirty, but he was pretty sure he recognized the darker orange stripes on her body, and her white front paws. “Here, kitty,” he said, and to his surprise, she came right over and delicately sniffed the hand he extended. Then she looked at him with her big amber-colored eyes, and when he was close enough, allowed him to stroke her head.
“You’re a good kitty, aren’t you?” he asked. He had promised Delphine his family would take her cat. But he hadn’t been able to keep his promise then, and he couldn’t do it now because he couldn’t ride home with a squirming cat in his arms. He set her down and got back on his bike.
His mother fried a small fish for dinner, and afterward, Marcel walked back to Delphine’s house with a bit of the skin wrapped in brown paper. He set it out on the ground and waited. Sure enough, the cat came over, and when she had finished eating, he scooped her up. She squirmed a bit, but he held on tight and would not let go until he’d carried her safely home.
Marcel showed the silver bell to his parents. “That was very thoughtful of her,” said his mother.
“She knew it would be useful to you and she wanted you to have it,” added his father.
Using one of Papa’s screwdrivers and a pair of screws from the toolbox, Marcel attached the bell to the beat-up old bike he was now using. He still missed the bike he’d traded away, but he wasn’t sorry he’d let it go. Not a bit. It was worth it.
And then a few weeks later, at Christmas, Papa and Maman surprised him with a new bicycle. Well, it wasn’t new—money was very tight and they could not have afforded a brand-new one. But its bottle-green frame was in pretty good shape, and the seat, which had only a few marks on it, was made of real leather.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Marcel cried as he wheeled it around the room.
“Careful you don’t knock anything over!” Maman said. She moved aside the three wooden shoes that they had set out Christmas Eve for Père Noël to fill.
“I want to ride it right now!” he said.
“Don’t worry, you’ll have a chance to ride it soon enough,” said Maman. And then she fixed them crêpes filled with the remains of a jar of preserves she’d been hoarding. They tasted so good. After they ate, they all went off to hear Mass at church. It was only later in the day that Marcel was able to ride, and the first thing he did was to pedal over to Arnaud’s house to show off his gift.
“That is some bike you’ve got there!” Arnaud said. “It sure beats that old wreck you’ve been riding.”
“It sure does,” Marcel agreed happily. “And it’s going to beat you, too, when we start racing again—you wait and see!”
“Don’t count on it,” said Arnaud. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m still pretty fast.”
“But neither of us are as fast as Delphine,” Marcel said, his high spirits suddenly evaporating.
“No, we’re not,” agreed Arnaud. There was a silence, but it was not uncomfortable. Then Arnaud asked, “Did you ever find out what happened to her? I mean, she just … disappeared. We never saw her again.”
“No, we didn’t,” said Marcel, and technically this was the truth. But even if it hadn’t been, he would have maintained the fiction. He couldn’t risk revealing the real story to his friend—even now.
Later, back at home, Marcel asked his father if he knew anything about what had happened to Delphine’s family.
“I didn’t hear that they were caught,” said his father.
“So that means they got to Spain? And that they’re all right?”
His father shook his head. “I wish I could tell you that was true, but in all honesty, I can’t. I only know I didn’t hear about anything bad happening to them. So that makes it easier to believe that nothing bad did.”
Marcel understood. He just wasn’t going to get a better answer than that—he’d simply have to live with not knowing. “At least we tried,” he said to his father. “At least we tried as hard as we could.”
“We certainly did,” said his father. “Especially you, Marcel.” Papa put his hand on his shoulder, just like he would have with one of his friends, or another man. Marcel felt good knowing that they had tried as hard as they did. And basking in the warm glow of his father’s pride felt good, too.
* * *
January and February were long, cold months, with a lot more snow and ice than usual. Marcel wasn’t able to ride the new green bike as much as he would have liked. Still, he continued to carry messages for his parents in loaves of bread. Even though Delphine and her family had gone, the work of the Resistance went on.
Then there was a day in early March that was surprisingly mild, with temperatures hovering around ten degrees Celsius. Sitting at his desk in school, Marcel couldn’t help looking at the window to where he could hear a flock of birds twittering in the branches of a nearby tree. What a nice sound. After school he would take his bicycle out for a spin. It was warm enough.
As soon as the bell rang, he picked up his satchel and headed out of the building. He passed Thierry, but the bigger boy just scowled and let him pass without a word. Ever since their exchange back in December, Thierry hadn’t bothered him. Maybe Guillaume was right: All it took to scare a bully was to give him a taste of his own medicine.
Walking down his street, he waved to his parents, who were both busy behind the counter of the bakery. He then hurried up the stairs, where he dropped his bag. He was hungry, but he was even more eager to get on the bike. He’d eat later, he decided, and went downstairs to hop on.
What a feeling! That first ride after a break felt so good, so thrilling. And Marcel knew that February and March were crucial early-season training periods for the Tour de France riders. These were the months when the cyclists rode long hours to accumulate as many kilometers in their legs as possible to gear up for the big racing season.
He sped along at a good pace, enjoying the feel of the almost-spring air that filled his lungs. The new bike handled very well, and soon he was out of town. The days were getting longer, just a few brief minutes a day, but the afternoons no longer seemed to end so abruptly with that heavy curtain of black that fell at four o’ clock. Marcel rode and rode, pumping his legs, pushing hard on the pedals. The sun on his face made his mood even better.
Maybe soon the war would end and the Occupation would be over. The Tour de France would return to France and fill the roads with agile cyclists and adoring fans. Maybe Delphine would even come back and they would watch it together, cheering at the sidelines for their favorite athletes. But he didn’t even know what had happened to her.
Marcel was not paying attention to how far he’d ridden and was surprised when he realized he’d reached the little village where he’d gotten a flat and traded his bike for that old wreck. Papa had ended up selling it for the parts—the bike itself was pretty useless.
As he passed through the town square he slowed down. There was a fountain, now dry, and a street of shops. Two German soldiers stood on the corner, and as Marcel rode by, they were joined by a third. He turned away, toward the bistro on the other side of the square. There was a lone French gendarme at one table, and a couple of old men at another, each immersed in a newspaper. One of them smoked a pipe and the smell of the smoke floated through the air. And then, to his utter surprise, Marcel saw the boy with whom he’d traded bikes. His hair was shorter now and he was a bit taller, but Marcel recognized him in an instant. The boy was even riding Marcel’s old bike—he recognized that, too. When the boy caught sight of him, he came right over.
“Salut,” he said. Hello.
“Salut,” replied Marcel.
“That’s a great-looking bike,” said the boy. “Is it new?”
“It was a Christmas present,” Marcel said. “From my parents.”
The boy looked it over appreciatively. “What happened to the one you got from me?”
“My father ended up selling it,” said Marcel, looking at his old bike. “How is that one? Do you still like it?”
“It’s terrific,” said the boy. “It handles really well. You were right: It was a great deal.”
For me, too, thought Marcel. But he did not say this aloud.
“By the way,” said the boy. “Did you make it to your aunt’s house that night? Was your cousin all right?”
“Yes,” said Marcel. “And she’s fine now.”
Marcel was uncomfortable at having to tell yet another lie to the boy. But it kept Delphine and her family safe. How he wished he knew if she still was safe!
He said good-bye to the boy and got back on his bike.
It was just getting dark and the air had cooled down considerably by the time he got home. It was only March, after all. Winter was not over. He mounted the stairs quickly in search of a snack—he was starved. There wasn’t much to tempt him, though: some stale bread and an apple that had gone soft, but he sat down at the table to eat anyway.
Then he saw it. The letter, propped up against the earthenware bowl. It was addressed to him. Mail? Now, that was something that didn’t happen too often. Almost never, in fact. Marcel picked it up to look more closely. There was no return address, but the postmark and the stamps indicated it was from Portugal. Portugal! That was near Spain, where Delphine and her family had been headed. Could it be … ?
Ignoring his bread and mushy apple, he tore open the envelope. Inside, there was no letter and no note, only a brightly colored sheet of paper, folded into thirds. When he opened it, he saw it was a page torn from a magazine or a catalog of some kind. It showed a smiling girl riding a shiny red bicycle. Strapped to the front of the bicycle was a wicker basket, and inside the basket was a tabby cat.
Marcel looked more closely at the girl. She had blonde curls and blue eyes. Delphine’s hair was black but her eyes were blue. And like the girl in the picture, she had a cat, the ginger kitty that now kept the bakery mouse-free. It was Delphine who had sent this to him. It all fit. The girl, the bike, and the cat. She was sending a message, a message to say she had escaped—and that she was all right. He was as sure of it as he was of his own name.
Relief washed over him like a wave. And mixed in with the relief was admiration: How clever she was to have found this way to communicate. No one else in the whole world would have understood the meaning of this picture. No one but Marcel.
He refolded the page and slipped it back into the envelope before heading downstairs. The bakery was busy, so this wasn’t the moment to show Maman and Papa the good news he’d gotten. He would tell them later, when the three of them were alone. He knew that they would be as filled with happiness as he was at this moment. He wondered whether he’d ever see Delphine again. He hoped so. But even if he didn’t, he knew he would never forget her.
World War II officially began in Europe on September 1, 1939, when German troops invaded Poland. Germany was led by Adolf Hitler, who was also the head of the Nazi party. Under Hitler’s leadership, the Nazis were intent on destroying groups they saw as inferior, mainly the Jewish people, as well as many other minorities. Great Britain and France responded to this attack on Poland by declaring war on Germany on September 3. Soon other countries joined in. The war was fought between the Axis Powers (the main powers being Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allied Powers (the main powers being Britain, the Soviet Union, and France). The United States resisted getting involved in the war, but when the Japanese bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, America joined the war effort along with the Allied Powers.
The fighting spread throughout the world. Most battles took place in Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Ocean. It was the deadliest war in all of human history—around 70 million people were killed and many were wounded.
The war in Europe ended with Germany’s surrender on May 7, 1945. The war in the Pacific ended when Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945.
1940
May 10
Germany invades France
June 14
German army marches into Paris
June 16
Premier of the French government resigns; Maréchal Pétain becomes premier of the Vichy government, which cooperated fully with the Germans (he is given full powers as chief of state on July 10)
June 22
France is divided into two zones: the Occupied Zone in the north and the Free Zone in the south
June 23
Hitler visits Paris
October 3
Jews are barred from public office and key professions, and are banned from theaters, cafés, restaurants, concerts, stores, swimming pools, parks, etc.
October 4
Foreign Jews are threatened with internment
1941
May 14
First roundup of Jews in Paris takes place
July 22
Jewish property begins to be confiscated
August 20
Drancy, a French internment camp, is officially opened
October 2–3
Seven synagogues are blown up in Paris
1942
January 20
German government works out the Final Solution in Berlin. This is a code name for the extermination of Europe’s Jewish population.
June 1
Jews are required to wear a yellow armband with the Star of David and the word Juif written on it
June 22
Jews imprisoned at Drancy are shipped to the concentration camp Auschwitz for extermination
July 16–17
Massive roundup of Jews in Paris. These Jews were slated for deportation to concentration camps.
1943
Jews rounded up in the cities of southern France
1944
July 31
Last trainload of Jews leaves Drancy for Auschwitz
August 25–26
Paris is liberated
Did you know that the Tour de France was originally started in 1903 as a newspaper stunt? Desperate to improve the circulation of his ailing daily sports paper, L’Auto, journalist Géo Lefèvre came up with the idea of sponsoring a grand-scale bicycle race. Helping him was Henri Desgrange, the director-editor of L’Auto and a former champion cyclist himself.
Together, the two men developed a 1,500-mile clockwise loop of the country that ran from Paris to Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Nantes, and finally back to Paris. There were six stages (today there are thirteen) and no Alpine climbs. But the distances covered were, on average, a punishing 250 miles each. (Today, no single stage is more than 150 miles). Riders took between one and three days to recover between each stage. The length of time each rider took to complete each stage was added together. The rider with the lowest number overall was the winner.
On July 1, 1903, sixty men mounted their bicycles outside the Café au Reveil Matin in Montgeron, a suburb of Paris. The riders were mostly French, with a few Belgians, Swiss, Germans, and Italians thrown into the mix. Bicycle manufacturers sponsored about twenty or so professionals. The others were men who just loved the sport. Each rider wanted to prove that he was the best cyclist. And they all wanted to win the 20,000 francs offered in prize money.
The first race began at 3:16 p.m. The first stage, a 300-mile stretch from Paris to Lyon, was especially hard. Cyclists in 1903 rode over unpaved roads without helmets. They could receive no help and they could not glide in the slipstream of fellow riders or any other vehicles. Cyclists had to make their own repairs. They even rode with spare tires and tubes wrapped around their torsos in case they got flats along the way.
Unlike today’s riders, the cyclists in the 1903 Tour de France also rode by night, with o
nly the moon and stars to guide them. Many riders could not tolerate this. All in all, twenty-three riders abandoned the first stage of the race.
The leader of the remaining pack was a thirty-two-year-old Frenchman named Maurice Garin. As a teenager, he had worked as a chimney sweep and later became one of France’s best cyclists. A little more than seventeen hours after the start of the race outside Paris, Garin, covered in mud, crossed the finish line of the first stage in Lyon. He had won by a single minute.
As the race went on, Garin continued to gain ground. By the fifth stage, he was ahead by two hours. When his nearest competitor was slowed down by two flat tires and because he fell asleep while resting on the side of the road, Garin pulled sharply ahead. The sixth and final stage, which was the longest, began in Nantes at 9:00 p.m. on July 18. Fans lined up to watch the riders arrive in Paris late the following afternoon. Garin strapped on a green armband to signify his position as race leader. (The yellow jersey worn by the race leader was not introduced until 1919.)
The Bicycle Spy Page 10