How Huge the Night

by Heather Munn

  A powerful hush settled over the schoolyard. The flag was flying high in the cold bright air, red as blood and blue as Henri’s eyes. Julien closed his eyes against it and wondered, for a moment, if there really was a God. When he opened them, someone stood at the front, holding the bullhorn.

  Henri Quatre.

  “Let me tell you a different story,” said Henri in a clear voice. No, thought Julien, no. When does this stop? It doesn’t stop. Nina is only the first. This is the future.

  “Old père Pallasson, who lived out at Le Chaux some years back,” said Henri, and Julien lifted his head. “Have you heard about him? He never set foot out his door all winter for fear of the cold. And then come spring, the snow melted, and père Pallasson looked out his window at the sunshine and thought it was summer—and he opened the door and walked out into the burle without a coat. May he rest in peace.”

  There were a few chuckles from the crowd.

  “I got up here to tell you,” Henri said, and he paused. Julien stared, his heart in his throat. A dark flush was coming over Henri’s face. “I got up here to tell you that père Pallasson is me.” His quiet voice rang into the silence. “When the armistice was signed, I thought we’d be okay. That it was spring, that it was back to normal. And it turns out,” he said slowly, “that the burle is blowing harder than ever.”

  No one whispered. No one moved. The entire school was staring at Henri Bernard. Julien was faint, he was light, he would dissolve at any moment into the cold, clear air.

  “Monsieur Astier is right,” said Henri, loud and clear. “The Vichy government isn’t resisting. They are cooperating with the Nazis.” His voice was harsh. “I hate to say it, and I hate to think my country is doing this, and I’d put my hand to the fire that if the marshal knew what was going on, he’d stop it. But I’ve made up my mind. I trusted them. But I can’t trust them anymore.” Julien was numb. Benjamin would never believe him.

  “And we know.” Henri’s voice began to ring. “We know about persecution here in Tanieux. We know what to do with a government that makes unjust laws, laws that go against the law of God. We haven’t forgotten the Huguenots—we still sing their songs; we haven’t forgotten how our people came here fleeing the king’s soldiers, hounded and driven out because someone thought they were the wrong kind of people. And so we know how it feels. And I’m here to say”—there was the tiniest tremble in his voice, and his fist clenched and he raised it up—“that I have made my choice. I’m here to say—”

  There was a pressure in Julien’s head, in Julien’s heart. He could feel them all around him, the heads thrown back, the faces turned up toward him, toward Henri Bernard. Who knew exactly what he was doing. Who was king of France again just like that, and always would be. His eyes burned.

  “I’m here to say,” said Henri fiercely, “that anyone who wants to put people back on the train and send them somewhere else is not going to get any help from me!” Julien looked at him, at the clear blue sky above his head. Someone’ll tell him. You know that, don’t you. In Roland’s eyes was awe.

  “We’re not going to keep refugees out of Tanieux!” Henri was shouting now. “It’s going to be what it was then: un abri dans la tempête—a refuge! We did it once, and we can do it again!” He stopped—Julien saw his throat working—and looked around. Monsieur Astier was stepping up to Henri, his hand held out; he was shaking Henri’s hand. Henri Quatre.

  It should have been me, but it was Henri Quatre. Oh God. You’ve bested me again.

  And Louis beside him began to clap.

  And Roland clapped. And Jean-Pierre clapped, and Philippe clapped, and Pierre and Dominique clapped, and then it swelled, and it swept through the crowd, and the boys were cheering and stamping their feet, and Julien threw back his head and laughed out loud.

  “Tanieux!” somebody yelled. “L’abri!” Someone else took it up, in rhythm, and then they were calling it out on the one-two beat: “Tanieux! L’abri! Tanieux! L’abri!” And Roland shouted and Louis shouted and Pierre shouted, and Julien shouted, at the top of their lungs.

  Nina was crying. Hard sobs that shook her, her head held tight against Maria’s chest. Maria, who had heard her, who knew it all now. Who had been with her on the border in the dark; who had wept with her in her cell. Maria, Marita, the arms of a mother, holding her tight. The grief and fear shaking her, and the anger, like waves of the sea: they crashed over her, sucked her down, and lifted her again. Maria’s arms gripped her and took the shaking, and the waves washed her clean.

  Slowly, the sobs wore themselves out, and she breathed.

  The light from the window fell on the white bedspread. It glowed. It fell on Maria’s face that bent over her, her cheek bright, her eyes dark.

  “Maria,” she whispered. “I was right. Wasn’t I. About the evil men.”

  “Yes,” said Maria quietly.

  “But I think maybe. Maybe.” She looked Maria in the eye, hard, searching. There was so much light. “Maria … is there a God?”

  Maria looked at her, her dark eyes deep and steady. Then she smiled. That glowed too. “I didn’t tell you the end of the story,” she said. “Gino came home. My brother. One week after the man with the gun, my brother came home alive. We went to France. I got married. I had children.”

  Tears filled her eyes. They filled her eyes with light.

  “Is it—true?” Nina whispered. The light said it might be. The light said this woman would not lie to her, ever, while the earth went round. “Am I … safe … here?”

  Maria bent over her. Her eyes were very dark. “Nina,” she said, “I am not God. I cannot say, ‘You are safe.’ But I can tell you two things: There is a God who loves you. And if they take you, they must take me too.”

  Outside the window was the sky. She could see up and up, so far, she could see forever into the blue, and the sight amazed her; as though the edge of some huge shadow had passed over her, and was now gone.

  It wasn’t until lunchtime, on the way out of school, that Henri caught Julien by the sleeve and pulled him aside.

  “I wanted to shake your hand, Julien.”

  Julien looked at him. Henri and his honest blue eyes looking straight back at him. “I’d like to shake yours,” he said. And there at the gate, as the boys walked past them on their way home for lunch, Henri Bernard and Julien Losier shook hands.

  “You’re a real tanieusard, Julien. I’m sorry I ever said any different.”

  “I’m sorry too. You know.”

  “Yeah. Listen. Tell your friends they don’t need to worry about my father.”

  Julien blinked and was silent a moment. “Are you sure?”

  “Would I say it if I wasn’t sure?”

  And Julien looked at Henri Bernard and saw it, the answer to all his praying. Henri would never lie. Not in any way, not to him, not to his worst enemy. The warmth of an unseen sunlight for a moment touched his face.

  “No,” he said. “I’ll tell them.”

  Epilogue

  The winter of 1940 was the worst Grandpa had ever seen.

  The cold was deadly. The ice in the streets turned a dull gray-white, reflecting nothing of the sky. Grandpa looked at the woodpiles with sober, calculating eyes and called the family together to talk.

  They went out together into the painful cold, to climb the hillsides and gather genêts to burn.

  But tonight, it was Christmas Eve, and the fire was piled high and blazing, lighting the circle of faces: Mama and Papa, Magali and Benjamin, Grandpa and his new houseguest, Jacques Bellat, whose real name was Jacob Blumenfeld.

  There was no Christmas tree, no presents. But the smells from the kitchen made Julien’s stomach ache with longing: a coq au vin from an old rooster of the Rostins’, an apple cake topped with real cream. Cups of mint and blackberry tea with real sugar, the mugs reflecting the fire’s light; the nativity scene on the mantelpiece; and in the window, three candles glowing warm against the blue evening. Benjamin had put them there for Hanukkah. />
  “What was Hanukkah like?” asked Grandpa.

  Benjamin looked shyly round the circle. “I—it’s the only thing I remember from before we left Germany. I was so little. I remember the lights, the whole house filled with them, and all my aunts and uncles and cousins and everyone talking and singing—and my uncle would play the fiddle, and everyone would dance …” He looked at the window again, at the candles, and stopped, blinking hard.

  “I’m sorry,” said Grandpa.

  “No,” said Benjamin quietly. “No. I’m glad I remember.”

  It was only five minutes later, they remembered afterward; only five minutes before they heard the sound of boots coming up the stairs. And Pastor Alex came in.

  His cheeks were bright pink with the cold when he came in the door, and he didn’t take off his boots, and in his gloved hand was a brown paper envelope held out before him like a sword.

  “Bonjour, bonjour,” he said hurriedly as they rose to greet him. “One of our guests gave us this. It’s addressed to me, but I think it’s for Benjamin. From his parents.”

  Benjamin stood up so fast he knocked his chair backward, and it clattered on the floor. He stood breathing quickly, his eyes huge in a white face. “My parents?” he whispered. Then he took the letter Pastor Alex held out to him and ran out the door.

  They sat looking after him for a moment. Then made Pastor Alex sit down and gave him tea. As he drank, he told them what he knew.

  The Kellers had left Paris before the first wave of refugees; they had found a train that took them to Bordeaux. From there, they’d walked south across country all the way to the Spanish border. But there they found crowds, masses of people trying to cross into Spain, scenes of panic. There had been a rush on the guard post, people trampled, many more arrested. Monsieur Keller had pulled a wad of money out of his pocket, and the policeman had let them go.

  They didn’t dare try the crossing again. They didn’t dare risk anything. Not even mailing a letter to their son. They went into hiding in southern France. Eventually, they made it to Marseille. And there they met a man who knew a man who knew Pastor Alex, and they gave the letter to him.

  The door was flung open, and Benjamin was back, his face like a beacon filling the room. He ran at Julien, grabbed him by the shoulders, shouting “They’re all right, Julien, they’re alive, they’re alive!” And then he was being whirled around the room, and Magali was whirling with them, laughing, and Papa was beaming, and Mama’s face shone with tears. Benjamin was hugging everyone and laughing and saying things they couldn’t even understand in every language he knew, and Julien caught only those strange words he had once heard in the dark of Manu’s chapel, when Benjamin stopped and spoke them almost too softly to hear, his eyes on the glow of the fire. “Ribbono Shel Olom,” he whispered. “Ribbono Shel Olom.”

  And he understood when Benjamin turned to him, and put a hand on his shoulder. And called him brother.

  Nina looked out the window at the town, at the blue twilight that surrounded them. Snow was falling—brilliant white in the pools of light under the streetlamps—swirling, drifting, floating through the light, almost as lightly as her heart.

  She was going back to school.

  In January she could start, they said. At the Ecole du Vivarais—for free, they would stick an extra desk in the back. School! And Gustav too. They would both be in sixième, a grade below Samuel—a girl of sixteen in a class of twelve-year-olds. She didn’t care. She could feel no fear of anything, of anybody’s eyes. Not today.

  The fire in Miss Fitzgerald’s fireplace blazed high, and it was Christmas Eve, and they were drinking Miss Fitzgerald’s Irish tea with real milk and sugar. The blond girl across from her grinned shyly. Fräulein Pinatel on the sofa argued with Gustav.

  “You’re going to need all the time you can get for homework. You’re fourteen years old. You don’t need to earn your keep; what you need is an education.”

  “To help you earn your keep later,” put in Miss Fitzgerald in her oddly accented German.

  “But I already know what I want to do! I like farming, I like livestock, I’m learning that. You want me to stop learning what I’m going to use and learn—geometry?”

  “You’d be surprised at the uses of geometry in farming,” said Fräulein drily.

  “Gustav,” said Nina, “give it a try. For me. Not much is going to grow out there for a while anyway.”

  He gave her a rueful grin. “I’ll try it. Sure I’ll try it. But you’re the one who’s gonna go to college in this family.”

  “College?”

  He laughed. They all laughed, throwing their heads back in joy. Her long dark hair fell back over her shoulders, and the sheer feel of it was joy; there was joy in the soft clean cloth of her new dress, in the face of the laughing blond girl, in the memory of her own face, that morning, in the mirror. The color in her cheeks, the way she filled out the green dress now, her first in a long year, the way her eyes looked … alive. Like a girl, a normal girl who went to school—read books—made friends. She drank joy down like water, even in this rock-hard winter knowing again the taste of sunlight. The taste of having woken, that morning, without fear.

  Julien went to the window for a moment, away from the circle of faces, his heart too full, and looked out into the blue and bitter night. The snow was still falling, covering the cracked gray ice, softening the harshness, whitening the cold. He knew it had only begun, this winter; and they would burn genêts and shiver; and eat potatoes, not enough. Winter had come to his country, the most terrible of winters, and he knew it could last the rest of his life. He looked up into the deepening sky, and he could barely see them still; the flakes swirling, dancing in the darkening air, falling light as grace onto Tanieux. He watched for one long and quiet moment. Then he turned back to the faces, and the light.

  Historical Note

  by Heather Munn

  It’s not true that the Germans killed thirty thousand people in the bombing of Rotterdam.

  The Luftwaffe carpet-bombed downtown Rotterdam and killed almost a thousand civilians; but the city had been under attack for four days already, and most people had evacuated. (Good thing they had: a whole square mile of the city was completely leveled.) The Allies inflated the number of victims for propaganda purposes: their news sources reported thirty thousand civilians dead. So Julien would have believed it was true, if he’d existed.

  All the other historical information in the book is true: the news that Julien hears on the radio and reads in the paper, the summaries of the invasion of France and its surrender. The title of the editorial Julien reads, “Let us be French!” was the title of a real editorial written after the French defeat, and the ideas it expresses were common at the time. Marshal Pétain’s speeches in the novel are direct translations of speeches he really gave. The story the principal tells his students in the last chapter is also true.

  The news Julien gets about anti-Jewish laws from Vichy is true, and represents the Vichy government’s gradual buildup to the point of full cooperation with the Nazis in rounding up Jews. Most of this news wasn’t common knowledge, however; the Nazis ran a cover-up campaign aptly called “Night and Fog,” and Vichy’s tactics were similar. Julien gets this information because he is surrounded by people who are paying attention—and because he has a Jewish friend. It was very easy in those days not to know what was really going on. Next to no one in France at that time had heard even a rumor about the death camps.

  The camps Vichy set up in the unoccupied zone of France, like the one Nina and Gustav might have been sent to, were internment camps, not death camps; their purpose was to isolate Jews, Communists, and other “undesirables” from the rest of the population. But people did die in them. Living conditions were terrible and even healthy people sickened. They were also deadly in another way: just a little later in the war, Vichy began to let the Nazis deport all interned Jews to Germany and the death camps. This is what would have happened to Nina and Gustav, even if N
ina had lived. You’ll hear more about the French internment camps in our next book.

  One of the reasons this period of history fascinates me is choices. In France under the Nazis, people made all kinds of choices. Some got rich off the black market; some through collaboration. Some used the Nazis for revenge, feeding them true or false information against their enemies. Some followed Pétain unquestioningly; some just survived, as attentistes, “wait-ists,” who chose not to get involved. Some vowed to fight the Germans to the bitter end and started the Resistance, which in those early days seemed completely doomed. And a few, like the people of a village in central France called Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, chose to focus on those in the deepest need and danger, and protect them from harm.

  The true story of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon is told in Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed by Philip Hallie and in the documentary Weapons of the Spirit made by Pierre Sauvage. I recommend them both if you want to know more. Basically, Le Chambon, a village of 3,000 people in the plateau country of central France, far from everything that mattered, over the course of the war, saved the lives of more than 3,000 Jews.

  Tanieux is loosely based on Le Chambon: the landscape is similar, though it’s mixed a little with the landscape of my childhood, about an hour’s drive away. The people are (I hope) similar too. The real Reformed pastor of Le Chambon, André Trocmé, considered to be the guiding force behind the town’s rescue movement, is the inspiration for Pastor Alexandre: like Alex, he was a Christian pacifist who preached resistance through “the weapons of the Spirit.” (The sermon in which Alex uses that phrase is a loose translation of a sermon preached by Trocmé. The other sermons are fictional.) The story of Manu is fictional, but Le Chambon really did have the history of the Huguenots and le désert, and it was a history they cared about; it probably did have something to do with their choices during the war.