by Heather Munn
“Mama,” said Magali. She tossed her curly black hair. “Hey, Mama.”
Mama didn’t answer.
“Mama, tell them about the mouse.”
Julien watched his mother swallow and turn toward Magali with difficulty, like someone bringing herself out of a trance.
“In the sink?” Magali prompted.
“You tell it, Lili,” said Mama softly.
“Well, there was this mouse,” Magali started. “Um, in the sink. Except we didn’t see it until I’d run the dishwater. And it was alive—I don’t know how it got in there, but it was alive, and it was swimming round and round … looking … y’know … kinda scared … and then I fished it out and put it outside. It was funny,” she finished gamely. She looked at Mama again. Mama didn’t seem to see her. She turned on Julien. “Hey, I heard you split a log. In only half an hour.”
“Yeah? You wanna try?” growled Julien.
“I bet I could do it.”
“Don’t bet your life savings.” The chime of the grandfather clock by the stairwell door cut through Julien’s words, and, a second later, the deep tolling of the church bell in town. Papa and Mama were both on their feet.
Mama stood still, both hands on the table. Papa crossed the room and switched on the radio.
Loud static leapt into the room, a buzzing like an army of bees. Mama went to the radio. Julien and Magali followed. Phrases came through as they leaned in: a general mobilization. Reinforcements being
sent to the Maginot Line. British forces are landing in France to … since our nation’s declaration of war …
War.
Efforts to persuade Belgium and Holland have failed … mmzzzzsh … remain neutral. Gallant Poland is no match for the German war machine … crack-crack-crack-fzz … pushing deep into the countryside … ffff … no stopping … crack-crack-crack-crack!
Papa switched off the radio.
Julien and Magali looked at each other. Magali’s eyes were wide.
“Maria,” said Papa in a gentle voice. “You get some rest. I’ll do the dishes.”
Mama nodded, not looking at anything. She walked slowly toward the bedroom door, stumbling on the edge of the rug as if she were blind.
Julien couldn’t sleep. His room on the third floor under the eaves was like an oven. His arms ached. His country was at war. He twisted and turned in the sweaty sheets, trying to find a position where his arms didn’t hurt.
He got up and opened the window to ragged clouds lit by the half moon. And the faint gleam of the river down at the far edge of town by the school. He turned away.
He slipped out his door, quietly, and down the hall to the stairwell; down the stone stairs, cool on his bare feet, to the second floor where his family lived. The living and dining room was full of moonlight and shadows. He crept to the bathroom door and opened it very quietly. Mama and Papa were asleep in the next room. He’d turn the water on just a trickle, wash the sweat off—
His hand froze on the tap.
“It won’t be like that, Maria.” His father’s voice carried through the thin wall. “We’re not in Paris anymore. There’s nothing they want in Tanieux.”
“There was nothing they wanted in Bassano.”
He had never heard her voice like that. Bitter.
Papa answered in a low voice Julien could not catch. He put his ear to the wall. He shouldn’t listen. He shouldn’t.
“… reasons we’re here. And Benjamin—his parents want safety for him more than anything, and this is where they chose. Maria, I firmly believe that the Germans cannot get this far south.”
“Unless they win.” A chill went down Julien’s spine, the way she said it. She said it as if they would.
He opened the door very slowly, very quietly, listening to his father’s murmur in which he caught only the name Giovanni, and then soldier, and then Julien’s too young. Then louder: “You will never be alone like that again.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Her voice was flat and terrible.
Julien ran light and silent on his bare feet, through the stairwell door and up the cold stone stairs in the dark, and threw himself into bed, trembling.
He closed his eyes, pictured his street back in Paris, the Rue Bernier: the green grass of the park and Vincent’s brown leather soccer ball; the shouts of the guys, Renaud and Gaëtan and Mathieu; Mama leaning out their second-story window, calling him in for supper. Home, Paris, with none of this happening.
This was happening.
He turned over and smashed his face into the pillow. They cannot get this far south. Unless they win.
They wouldn’t win—they couldn’t win. But if they made it into France at all, where would they aim for? Paris—where Vincent and Uncle Giovanni were, and Aunt Nadine and the little girls—that was where. He saw, suddenly, himself and Vincent in brown leather jackets, in two tanks at the mouth of the Rue Bernier, shuddering with the recoil of the guns. They shall not pass.
In his history textbook, there’d been a map of the Great War: little red lines, jagged red splashes. Verdun had been a red splash, and no one had told him Verdun was a city where boys played in the park and mothers leaned out second-floor windows to call them in for supper. Bullets broke those windows. He saw the kitchen at home in Paris, the scarred pine table he’d known forever, broken glass and shrapnel among the dishes in the sink. Stupid. So stupid. How could he not have known?
He was shaking.
He got out of bed and went to the window. Dark clouds were blowing in over the moon. A breeze touched his face.
A faint sound began to rise from below, a pure and lovely thread of song through the darkness. Mama’s voice. From her open bedroom window, just below his, rose the sound of Mama quietly singing the song she had sung in church every year at Easter ever since he could remember. To you the glory, O risen one.
The resurrection song.
Julien knelt at the window and listened, lips parted, taking in that pure sound till it ached in his limbs. He leaned his face into his hands and saw her in his mind, standing alone and singing, and it came to him that if he ever became a soldier, it would break her heart. The war would have to last three or four years first, and she could not survive that. And then his going away. Her voice rose easy as a bird to its final line: No, I fear nothing. Then stopped.
Julien looked up. The moon was gone, and so were the stars, and he was on his knees. “God,” he whispered. His voice was dry. “God. Please don’t let them get to Paris. Please keep … everybody … safe.” He sounded like a child—and God bless Mommy. When had God ever stopped a war because a teenager asked him to? The image came back, the tanks firing, the recoil, Vincent’s face grinning. He could never be a soldier. Never drive a tank.
It was unbearable.
I want to do something. God. Let me do something. Please. The word serve rose in his mind, the word protect, but he couldn’t even think them; it sounded stupid. What did he know how to do? Do the dishes, play soccer. Split wood.
The breeze brought the scent of rain in the dark. A drop fell on the windowsill. He got back into bed, pulled the sheet up over himself, and slept.
Chapter 2
Burn
Nina read the words on the pale green card for the last time. Name: Nina Krenkel. Birth date: 07-08-1924. Birthplace: Vienna. Hair: brown. Eyes: green. Race: Jew.
Then she opened the furnace door and put it in.
The flames flared and ate the words in long licks. It was a ghost card of curled ash, the words still visible for a moment, slowly fluttering apart in the wind of the fire’s burning. Nina watched, transfixed, as her name fell away into flakes on the glowing coals.
“Nina! You did it?”
She whirled to face her younger brother. “I promised. And you promised too.”
“But we never got the fake ones!”
“He said we had to do it anyway. We have to, Gustav. We have to do everything he says.” Her eyes burned. She stood, pulling herself up by
her crutches. “You want to go up there and tell him we’re not doing it? And let him die knowing that?”
“But Nina, Uncle Yakov—”
“Uncle Yakov is wrong!” she shouted. “Did you hear what he said? He said crazy. Is Father crazy, Gustav? Tell me.” She looked him in the eye. “Do you honestly think he is crazy?”
Gustav looked at her, his black eyes wide. “I—” He shut his mouth and looked down at his shoes. Shoes that Father had made him. “No,” he whispered. “He’s not crazy.”
“I know it’s scary, Gustav. I’m scared too. But he knows.” Just look in his eyes. Did you ever wonder if dying people can see the future? It scares me, Gustav, it scares me so bad, the things he looks like he knows. “He says we’re safer if we go. He knows. So we’re going.” She stood leaning on her crutches, looking at him; then she held out her hand. He looked back at her for a long time, put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out a pale green card.
She took it and bent again to the furnace door.
Everything was ready. She had packed food, clothes, blankets. She had the key to the drawer with Father’s letters in it, his will and the money and the tickets—the drawer where the false identity papers were supposed to have been when they came. They wouldn’t come now, Father had told her in his thin, labored voice—he could hardly breathe now. “He cheated me,” he’d whispered. “He cheated my children. May he be forgotten.” Then he’d swallowed and said, even softer, “Or maybe they caught him. Who knows?”
Father was in his attic bedroom, where he had been for weeks, the room where the doctor had told them he would die. Soon. The sun slanted in through the window; the white-stitched stars on the brown eiderdown shone, and so did Father’s eyes, out of the dimness. “Nina. Nina, my daughter.” She was still catching her breath from climbing the stairs on her crutches, but he had less breath than she.
“Father, I’ve done it. I burned mine, and Gustav’s too.”
His skin was paper thin around his eyes. His breathing rasped. “Good,” he whispered. “Nina. I love you so much.”
She looked at him. She must not cry. “What should I do next, Father?”
“Your hair.” His thin hand came up a little in a helpless movement toward her, as if he would have taken her long, wavy hair in his fingers to feel it. “It’s so lovely. So … Jewish. It won’t be safe. And the world was never safe for a woman alone, Nina. Tell Gustav to cut it now. You think you can do it? Be a boy?”
“I picked myself a name, Father. Niko.”
“That’s my girl. That’s a very smart name.” Suddenly a fit of something like coughing took him. Something in between coughing and choking, again and again the head bobbing forward and the wet sound in the throat. She bent over him, mouth open, hands going to him helplessly. Nothing she could do. He swallowed and breathed again. “Soon, Nina,” he whispered.
She bit her trembling lip hard.
“You will live, my daughter. You will give me grandchildren. You will find a place where you are safe.” Did you ever wonder if dying people can see the future? There was a strange light in his eyes.
He was gazing at her, the shimmer of tears growing in his eyes. His voice came out hoarse: “Nina, Nina, I want so much for you to live. Promise you’ll do everything I told you, Nina. Niko.”
“I promise,” she whispered, and bent her head.
Chapter 3
Foreigner
“Julien, this is Benjamin Keller. Benjamin, Julien Losier.”
Julien stuck out his hand to shake. Then he stuck it so close to Benjamin’s stomach that the guy couldn’t miss it even if he was looking straight at his highly polished shoes. After a moment, Benjamin gave him limp fingers. He shook them.
“It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” Julien heard his mother saying behind him. Then Madame Keller, a little breathy, said: “I know you’ll take such good care of Benjamin. I can see it in your face.” She had a slight German accent. Julien clenched his teeth a little tighter.
“Would anyone like some coffee?” asked his father.
Benjamin stood there, skinny, looking about twelve. All you could see of his face was his nose and the tops of his glasses. A book dangled from his left hand, wrapped around one finger. Julien pictured himself walking through the school gate with him.
“Cream? Sugar?”
I am going to die.
They poured Julien verveine tea because, for some reason, fifteen still wasn’t old enough for coffee. Benjamin opened his book under the table and began to read. They talked about the new school, and they talked about the history of Tanieux, and they talked about how Monsieur Bernard, the stationmaster, didn’t think the pastor should be opening an international school in wartime and how wrong he was. Benjamin’s father sipped coffee and said he had heard wonderful things about Tanieux, and the pastor and his wife—a man with piercing blue eyes and a tall, rawboned woman—sat across the table from him and beamed. That pastor. This was all his fault.
Julien knew three things about the pastor: Papa was crazy about him, he was a pacifist, and his real name was César Alexandre. Rumor had it his middle name was Napoleon. Poor guy. That might explain the pacifist thing.
Papa called him Pastor Alex. His new best friend.
“Certainly there is some anti-Jewish sentiment,” Monsieur Keller was saying. He had an accent too. “It might not be something a non-Jew would notice, but we feel it is on the rise. And ironically enough, we have started to feel the effects of anti-German sentiment as well.”
Anti-German sentiment! In Paris? Really?
“I have hopes that Benjamin will find much less prejudice here,” said the pastor.
Julien slumped in his chair. We are both going to die.
They walked the Kellers to the early train. The station was full of people waiting, jostling, talking; farmers in their cloth caps standing by their stacks of crates, live chickens clucking from some of them; kids poking their fingers in and running away, screaming with laughter. And the summer people, the estivants. Women in white silk dresses with wide, immaculate straw hats; men in suits, hanging back from the dusty farmers and the grubby kids; their own children scrubbed and ready to go home to Lyon or Dijon or Paris. Where they belonged.
Where he belonged.
A high, far-off whistle, and the children began to yell: “She’s coming! La Galoche! She’s coming!” Madame Keller was shaking Mama’s hand again and again; Julien saw with horror that she was beginning to cry. He looked away and saw something he’d never seen before: Benjamin’s face. Benjamin, standing straight like a real person, looking at his father, his eyes big and brown and dark. And then the train was steaming round the bend, and some kid was jumping and waving at it, and the stationmaster in his dark blue cap with cold fury on his face was shouting, “Get behind the line, brat!” The kid flinched and fell back, and then the train was steaming into the station, and there was chaos and noise and luggage and boarding, and the Kellers looking through the window at them, their faces up against the glass, and Benjamin looking back at them, and the wheels starting to churn, and the train pulling out with a high, eerie whistle onto its long track between the hills.
And Benjamin, standing by Julien, staring at his feet.
A thick, smothering silence seeped out from Benjamin’s room and filled the house. He sat at every meal, looking at the food he was pushing around on his plate, dampening every attempt at conversation. Breakfast would end, and Papa would tell the top of Benjamin’s head that they were going out to the farm. Did he want to come? A tiny shake of his head.
Thank you, God.
Out at the farm, there was work to be done: there was harvesting and wood to be split and freedom to be drunk to the last drop. Julien could feel his swing growing truer, his muscles harder, his lungs deeper in the open air. A pleasant ache now ran through his limbs at night, instead of burning.
At home they had the radio, but no news. The boches—the Germans—were busy tearing up Poland. In France, nothing moved
except reinforcements to the Maginot Line, the massive line of fortifications that would keep the Germans out of France. “C’est une drôle de guerre,” the announcer said. Funny kind of war. Julien kicked his ball around the little walled backyard in the evening, alone, thinking of Vincent. He’d asked Benjamin if he could teach him a little about soccer. Benjamin had said it wasn’t his life’s ambition to kick a ball.
Julien kicked his ball, and the wall sent it back to him perfectly, without fail. You couldn’t score against a wall. You couldn’t tell a wall about how Verdun wasn’t just a red splash on a map, or the broken glass in the sink, or how bad you wanted to drive a tank. To do something.
Papa got out the big family Bible for Friday night devotions, and Benjamin said his second full sentence. He said, “So this is one of the things I have to do to live here?”
Papa stared at him. He ran his hand through his hair and said, “No. You don’t”—Benjamin’s chair scraped on the floor—“but you will stay seated until I have finished speaking, young man.”
Benjamin sat motionless, his chair facing half away from the table.
“We are starting a new book of the Bible today,” said Papa. “Genesis.”
Benjamin did not move.
Papa outdid himself. He had Julien flip the lights off as he talked about the darkness before the dawn of creation. He talked about the word, and the act, and how the authors of the Bible knew that descriptions of God were nothing compared to showing what he did. In the dark, Julien heard the scrape of a chair on the floor. God’s first act, said Papa—the giving of light. And he switched the light back on, and Julien blinked in the sudden blaze. Benjamin was back at the table, looking at Papa with his wide brown eyes.
Monday was Julien’s last day on the farm. School started tomorrow. Tomorrow he would try his chances with Benjamin and those guys who’d stared at them in the street. He’d find out where there was some soccer going on. Then they’d see what Julien Losier was made of.