How Huge the Night

by Heather Munn

“Gustav. It’s for you.”

  The woman came out of nowhere, before he could move, screaming. Her face distorted by rage. She grabbed Niko’s crutch, and Niko fell. The woman swung wildly, caught Niko a hard crack on the ribs that made her cry out—Gustav grabbed for the crutch, grappled with her, but his grip broke, and she swung again, and sharp pain hit the side of his head. He heard his own wild voice yelling curses in Yiddish as he plunged toward her, and then someone grabbed him from behind and pinned his arms, and a male voice was shouting in French, and a big, bearded man had the wild-haired woman by the shoulders and was shouting in her face. Gustav went limp, and the arms released him. He fell to his knees beside Niko. She was moaning in pain. Gustav felt her ribs, gingerly. She cried out.

  “Is he all right?” said a voice. Gustav looked up sharply. It was the bearded man.

  He had spoken in German.

  His name was Herr Buhle. A refugee from Alsace, near the German border. He carried Niko in his arms to the train station, where he and his wife lived until tomorrow. Tomorrow they were leaving for Valence, they’d bought the tickets with the last of their money, but his wife was a nurse, he said, and could at least examine the boy—he was sorry he could offer so little help—

  “It’s all right,” Gustav whispered.

  The woman had thought they were German, Herr Buhle said. She’d heard their Yiddish and taken it for German—hardly more than a month ago the Germans had been here in Lyon, the swastika flying over the city, and they’d left so much anger behind. “Please believe that this is not normal here. I don’t know how to tell you how sorry I am.”

  Gustav nodded. They were entering the station. Herr Buhle led the way to a dimly lit hallway by the bathrooms, where a tired-faced woman sat on a blanket.

  He left them with her, and she began to feel Niko’s ribs beneath her shirt. Niko’s eyes followed her, but she didn’t move. Only a sharp intake of breath told him Frau Buhle had discovered the truth; her eyes flicked over to Gustav, but she gave no other sign. “I’m afraid he may have a cracked rib,” she said quietly. She gave him a small bar of soap to wash Niko’s wounds where the skin was broken. He hadn’t seen soap in months. She said when the body was weakened, risk of infection was high.

  Herr Buhle came back with a small tin pail; when he opened it, Gustav’s stomach cramped with hunger. Cabbage soup. Still lukewarm. It tasted incredible.

  He drew Gustav a map to the soup kitchen he’d got it from and put a French note into his hand. He’d gotten him permission to bring a second serving of soup to his brother every day. He should show them the note. He hoped it would help.

  Gustav swallowed, and couldn’t speak.

  “I will pray for you,” Herr Buhle added. “Is it all right if I pray for you?”

  Gustav nodded.

  Chapter 31

  French Nazis

  Julien walked in the school gate; a troisième for the second year in a row. They were making them repeat their semester on the theory that half a semester spent watching their country get conquered hadn’t prepared them for lycée very well. Good point. Magali was at the new school now, but thanks to Julien, and Henri’s father at that stupid meeting—and Hitler, he supposed—the Ecole du Vivarais couldn’t take troisièmes till next year.

  So there they were, the old guard, still the kings of the school. Henri, under his tree again, and the royal court too—looking a little thin. Pierre wasn’t back. And there weren’t as many followers around the edges. Julien glanced around hopefully.

  There they were. His friends, sitting on the wall. Roland beckoned.

  Benjamin followed him, and they shook hands all round: Roland, Jean-Pierre, Louis, and his friends. Roland gave him his crooked smile. Julien grinned.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad year.

  Monsieur Astier with his bullhorn gathered them, and called the roll, and announced the new, ah, activity they would be doing this year at the suggestion of their good marshal. It had been, ah, instructed that they salute the flag. He didn’t mention the Nazi stiff-arm bit. “This ceremony,” he continued in a much surer voice, “is, as far as the school is concerned, voluntary. Those who participate may, if they choose, use an alternate style of salute with the hand over the heart.”

  Up at the front, Henri’s head snapped up, and he said something to Lucien in a furious whisper. Then he was speaking to Ricot—Ricot was breaking away from the class, walking up to Astier. Astier lowered his bullhorn. They conferred. Then he raised it again. “Monsieur Ricot has volunteered to lead the ceremony.”

  Ricot stared at him.

  “What’re they so worked up about?” whispered Roland.

  “It’s the kind of salute they want us—We don’t even do flag salutes in France, we never have—”

  “Follow me,” Ricot was blaring with his high-pitched voice in the bullhorn. The rows of classes broke up into confusion. Henri and his friends were right on Ricot’s heels, the petits sixièmes right behind them. Others were hesitating, looking at each other. What’s going on? Are we really supposed to do this or not?

  “Form a circle around the flagpole. Don’t you people know what a circle is? Form a circle!” People were flinching away from the voice. In spite of everything, Julien laughed.

  Slowly, the chaos shaped itself in a shifting circle. Guys breaking in, guys breaking out, sixièmes looking scared, Ricot getting redder and redder.

  Julien didn’t move an inch from where he stood. Neither did his friends.

  Ricot said a few shrill words about the glory of France. The janitor, looking annoyed at all the attention, raised the flag. As the blue, white, and red rose up above them, Monsieur Ricot threw his arm out stiffly to the sky.

  Julien watched Benjamin’s face turn white.

  Henri Quatre and his crew saluted proudly. Most of the others saluted too. Gilles’s friendly face creased into a troubled frown as he lifted his arm. Antoine and Léon put their hands on their hearts. They weren’t the only ones.

  “Have I seen that salute somewhere?” muttered Roland. He gave the white-faced Benjamin a look of concern.

  “You might’ve seen it in a newsreel,” said Julien in a flat voice. “A whole bunch of Germans at some kind of rally saluted Hitler like that.”

  “Yeah,” said Jean-Pierre slowly. “I think I saw that one too. The—”

  Benjamin cut in. “I’m going home.”

  “But it’s the—”

  “Tell your father, would you?” His voice was completely expressionless. He turned and walked away, across the schoolyard, his small form growing even smaller in the distance.

  “Does he … need help or anything?” asked Roland.

  “No,” said Julien. “I think he’d rather be alone.”

  At supper, Benjamin said nothing. He ate steadily, looking at the spot just beyond his plate as if he had never seen anything so fascinating. After supper, Julien followed him upstairs.

  “Only half of them even did it, Benjamin. You saw that, didn’t you?”

  Benjamin turned from his windowsill where he was leaning, looking out into the evening sky. His face was very calm. “Can you keep a secret, Julien?”

  Julien blinked. “Sure. Of course.”

  “Astier fumbled it on purpose. And your mother knows.”

  “She told you?”

  “She wouldn’t say it right out. But she wanted me to know. Don’t ask me who told her.”

  Julien felt a wry smile spread across his face, slowly. “Huh,” he said. “Huh.”

  Mama sang while she did the dishes; then stopped, for a minute, to tell Julien and Magali about their new ration cards.

  She’d stood in line at the mairie with all five of the family’s identity cards, wondering if she dared show them Benjamin’s. If they looked him up in the records, they might find he wasn’t a citizen anymore. Anything could happen. They could send him back to Germany—

  “They better not,” Magali growled.

  “Hush now. So I thought I’d ho
ld his card back. But I just can’t feed the five of us on four ration cards, even with what your grandfather gives me—”

  “We’ll manage, Mama. We’ll—” Eat less …

  “Let me tell my story, you two. So I got up to the front of the line, and I couldn’t do it. I dropped his card back in my purse, and I handed the woman our four. And she says, ‘Is your husband in the army?’”

  They stared at her.

  “I’d dropped the wrong card. Your father’s card. So I gave it to her. And you know what she did?”

  They looked at each other.

  “She gave us all ration cards. That’s what she did.” And Mama opened her mouth and picked up her song again, her voice rising lightly, effortlessly as a bird.

  “Haven’t you heard?” Philippe was saying to Jean-Michel. “That’s a boche salute!”

  Julien, behind them, threw Benjamin a wink. “Toldja they’d listen,” he said under his breath. A rare smile bloomed briefly on Benjamin’s face.

  “No, it’s not,” hissed Lucien from across the aisle. “Not when it’s our flag.”

  “Well doesn’t it look a little funny? And then getting all worked up about the Jews—the boches started that, y’know—”

  “The marshal’s only saying the truth!”

  Papa’s ruler rapped twice across his desk. “Lucien, would you care to share with us whatever it is you find so fascinating?”

  Lucien reddened. “Uh, non m’sieur. Sorry, m’sieur.”

  Too bad, thought Julien. Papa would have told him a thing or two.

  They’d been telling everyone a thing or two, he and his friends. Telling everyone the truth. Some of the farm kids had never seen a newsreel in their lives; how were they to know? Somebody had to tell them.

  Even Roland had never seen one. They’d stood by the wall at break that first day, as the whole school buzzed about what was wrong with Astier, and Julien and Jean-Pierre had described that newsreel of a Hitler rally, with massive, frenzied crowds all saluting and screaming “Heil!” over and over for what seemed like hours.

  He also told Roland, privately, how Benjamin could have lost his citizenship. “Don’t tell him, please,” he said. “He doesn’t know. And it’s already bad enough for him.”

  “Sure.” Roland’s eyes glinted. “Some other people are gonna hear it though. I can’t believe that.”

  Everyone they knew, anyone who would listen to a word they said, heard the message. Everyone in their class, everyone from last year’s soccer teams. Roland repeated the description of the rally to all his friends on neighboring farms. And to his parents, who told it in their Fellowship meeting. Roland’s brother, Louis the schemer, raised his hand in his history class to ask Papa why he didn’t salute the flag, and the next morning, a good third of the cinquième class descended on Julien’s group at the wall during the flag salute, hollering that Pétain was a traitor. Julien had to laugh. He wondered if he’d been like that, too, at thirteen.

  After class that day, as boys poured out the doors into the fall sunshine, Philippe turned to him. “Hey, Julien,” he said. “We gonna do any soccer this year?”

  “Open games,” said Julien. He and his group stood by the wall in the sunshine, ignoring the last flag salute of the week. “Eleven men on each team, but mix ’em up every time. Or every other time. Whaddya think?”

  “Yeah,” said Dominique happily.

  “Where’re we gonna get twenty-two guys?”

  “Half the quatrième class would jump at the chance, I mean last year—”

  “Half the quatrième class is ten people!”

  “What’s wrong with the guys we had last year?” said Philippe. “Are we doing this without Henri? It’s his ball.”

  “You know he won’t go for the open-game thing.”

  Julien felt light-headed. Floating. He heard his own voice speaking quietly.

  “I have a ball.”

  Silence fell. They were all looking at him.

  “Then,” said Roland softly, “we don’t need him.”

  Dominique was looking over Julien’s shoulder. Grinning. “Hey, Gilles,” he said.

  Julien’s head whipped round. Gilles sauntered up to them, dropped his cartable on the pile, and sat on the wall.

  “Hey, Gilles, ça va?” He glanced over at the flag salute. “You’re not going?”

  “I’m late.”

  “They’re not done yet.”

  Gilles shrugged, then looked Julien in the eye. “Okay, if you really wanna know, I don’t like that salute.”

  “What’s Henri gonna say?” asked Roland with his crooked smile.

  “Y’know,” said Gilles, “I don’t really care.”

  Philippe snorted. “Yeah. Mister King of France needs to get off his high horse these days. He wants us all to follow him around telling the sixièmes they’re unpatriotic if they don’t salute.”

  Gilles nodded. “I’m tired of it.”

  Julien and Roland looked at each other. “Well,” said Julien, “I don’t know if you want to join us, then.”

  “Yeah,” said Roland. “We’ve been going around telling the sixièmes they’re unpatriotic if they do salute.”

  They laughed. The French flag was snapping in the breeze, and the circle was breaking up. Julien glanced over. Sure enough.

  “Here he comes, guys,” said Philippe.

  “Watch out, it’s the king.”

  “Make way! Make way!”

  “Hey, where’s his white horse?”

  There was laughter; but Henri was close now, and his face was set.

  “Gilles,” said Henri crisply, ignoring the rest of them. “We missed you.”

  “I was late. And it’s voluntary.”

  “Voluntary!” spat Henri. “I don’t know what’s come over this school. I’ve never seen such a limp bunch of little girls in my life. Come on, Gilles. Tell me the truth.” His eyes were hard with challenge, cold as ice.

  Julien watched, not breathing. Gilles looked away. Then he stood a little straighter and looked at Henri again. “It’s a boche salute, Henri.”

  Henri’s lip curled. “You wanna see a real enemy of France?” He pointed at Julien. “You’re looking at one right there. Cowards that won’t stand up for France, that go around whispering rumors, undermining the marshal—why do you think we were defeated? The greatest nation in the world—conquered—because of cowards like him.”

  “We were defeated because the boches violated another country’s neutrality,” said Julien quietly.

  “We were defeated because the boches violated another country’s neutrality,” repeated Henri in a childish singsong. “I don’t wanna know what your daddy says. I want to know what you say, coward.”

  “I say you’re slipping if you think calling someone a coward’ll make him do what you want. You can call me a coward three times a day, and you won’t make me a fascist.”

  Henri’s jaw tightened. He didn’t answer.

  “Is that what you want me to be? And the petits sixièmes? Is that what you are?”

  “If you can’t be proud of your country anymore without being a fascist,” Henri bit out, “maybe that is what I am.”

  “You and Pétain both. That’s your National Revolution—if you can’t lick ’em, join ’em.”

  They stood facing each other, eyes locked. There seemed to be more faces around them than there used to be. Cold winter air came back to him, and blood on the snow.

  The bell rang.

  Chapter 32

  Go

  Gustav had never been so afraid.

  My sister is dying.

  She was cold when he touched her. Heavy and cold. She lay on Lorenzo’s blanket, not moving, looking up at the bare flickering bulb. When she wasn’t cold, she was far too hot, feverish, talking strange things like she had in Trento when he went to the Gypsies. There were no Gypsies here. Only the soup-kitchen people, who let him wash bowls for a cup of milk a day. He gave it to Niko, but she said she wasn’t hungry. It too
k him an hour every day to make her drink it, make her eat her share of soup. She said she wasn’t hungry. He could see her bones.

  “Niko. Eat.”

  “Gustav, I’m telling you the truth. I can’t eat. I’m not hungry at all. It’s like … like I’ve gone on past hunger. Left it behind me. It’s just gone.”

  “Niko. No.” No. He tried to force the spoon into her mouth. Soup spilled down her chin. Something broke in his chest—his hand jerked, and he flung the spoon hard against the wall. He wanted to strike her.

  She just lay there. Not looking at him. Slowly, she closed her eyes.

  She felt so still. So heavy and still. She didn’t feel hunger. She didn’t feel anything except the stillness. The letting go. She wished Gustav would eat the soup. Drink the milk. She understood her father now. His fierce desire for her and Gustav to get out, to live. It’s only Gustav now, Father. He’ll live for you. He’s a fighter, Father. I was a fighter. But I’m done.

  She didn’t really think there would be anything, after. She didn’t really think there was a God. Death the thief, she had thought once, but it didn’t seem that way anymore. There would be darkness; it wouldn’t hurt. If you didn’t exist, you couldn’t hurt.

  And if there is, her father had said. And if there is anything after—will I see you, Father? What will you say? For having sent your daughter to her death for a dream of safety? What will I say to you, for having lied to your son and led him into danger. Father. Father.

  “Gustav. I have to tell you something.”

  He was kneeling over her. “Niko? How do you feel?”

  “Gustav. I lied to you.”

  “You feel too hot, Niko …”

  “I lied to you. Before the border. When we couldn’t find the rabbi. I said Father’d told me what to do if the rabbi was gone. He didn’t tell me a thing, Gustav. I’m sorry.”

  Gustav’s face went still. “Nina. Why are you telling me this?”