News of Our Loved Ones

by Abigail DeWitt

  * * *

  Polly stood at the edge of the ocean, her toes in the water. Yellow foam swirled up around her ankles and the cold sand pulled out from beneath her feet. Before her, small waves broke against the shore, turning white and frothy for a moment before collapsing; except for the glide and call of the seagulls, the sky was empty. Her mother would have let her stay there forever if Polly wanted, listening to the birds and staring out over the glare of the ocean at what was so clearly land, home. It was night in America—Polly believed that, though the horizon was clear and light—and she thought of the windows open and the sound of the whip-poor-wills.

  Farther up the beach, beyond the seaweed and the driftwood, near the barnacle-covered rocks, where families lounged with umbrellas and towels and straw baskets, the other cousins were filling pails with sand, collecting shells, submitting willingly to an endless loop of scolding. There were six cousins altogether and, except for Polly, their names all went round and round: Jean, Jean-Marie, Marie-Jeanne, Jacques, and Jacqueline. All of them had dark, curly hair and deep suntans and they sang songs Polly didn’t know. Even the twins, Jacques and Jacqueline, who were four, knew the songs, and only cried if they fell down. Their mother was Tante Françoise, but the others—the Jean Maries—were second cousins. They spent all their holidays, even Christmas and Easter, away from their mother. The Jean Maries adored Tante Chouchotte, and the lemon and orange taffy she kept in her pocket, which she doled out grudgingly, as if the children would not stop pestering her for it, though they never had.

  Polly kept her gaze fixed on the horizon. If she looked at the others, and they looked back at her, she might burst into tears, and Tante Chouchotte or Tante Françoise would be mad. She would not be able to see America, how it shimmered in the distance.

  * * *

  Bonjour, Polly! Êtes-vous Americaine? her friends would howl, later, when, as a teenager, she told them how much she’d hated her summers on the coast of Brittany—the sagging woolen bathing suits and the squat toilets, the casual swatting of thighs and bottoms, the snake-bite precision of a face slap—how she had missed America, with its broad, white, gleaming sidewalks where a child could play whatever she wanted till the sun went down. She’d loved America when she was little, in the 1960s, with everything so new and shiny, all the pretty shopping centers and swimming pools and televisions.

  A lifetime later, her friends, stoned out of their minds in the weedy, abandoned parking lot of one of those early shopping centers, could not stop laughing: Parlez-vous Français? Mais oui! Où est la Tour Eiffel? they cried. Ici!

  She rolled her eyes, but if a handsome boy was in the group, or a popular girl, she’d explain that she was a French citizen. She was known for her skill in lying to adults, so that a handsome or popular newcomer might think she was making it up—she’d sat in the back all through French I and French II, never once raising her hand—but her other friends, the ones who knew her, vouched for her: She knows all that conjugation shit backward and forward.

  In fact, she was a dual citizen, which did not suggest quite the same level of chic—of fashion sense and sexual capability—that being purely French would have, but it wasn’t a lie, either: she was French, and it pleased her to be two things at once, to contain two worlds, which she could move between freely, secretly; it was a kind of currency, earned during all those long, sad summers with Tante Chouchotte.

  * * *

  Now she stood perfectly still and quiet, but it was not enough to stay still and quiet. She must play with the other children. Viens jouer avec les autres! Come! A pail was thrust into her hand and a wave of pure grief rose in her chest—she thought of the silky hair at the base of her mother’s neck, how her mother would let Polly twirl it around her finger—but she kept her eyes open, unblinking.

  The grown-ups sighed when she mentioned her mother, they made low, guttural sounds of disapproval, or raised their voices, but they did not slap her as quickly as they would have slapped one of the others. Nine months a year in the States, an American father, a careless mother: Polly had no table manners, she couldn’t pronounce her R’s, she said le maison and la chat.

  Qu’est-ce-que t’as enfin? What’s wrong with you?

  Polly was silent. There was no answer that could satisfy. She tried to think of one, but her throat was too full, the sky too bright and empty.

  Pourquoi t’es toujours si triste? Why, Polly? Why are you always sad?

  She thought of the war and imagined a chair beneath a bare bulb, the adults all leaning in over her: Pourquoi? Mais pourquoi?

  Is that possible? At five? To imagine herself being interrogated that way? They were better than Mother Goose, all those old, romantic stories. Adventures of bombs and rubble and danger. The prisoner tied to his chair. If you had known the war, you would hush! Oh, if you had known. If only you had known! She wanted to know.

  Why, Polly?

  She knelt down where she was, and began scooping the hard, foamy sand into her pail.

  Not here, Polly! Come join the others! What’s wrong with you?

  As if a person could ever answer that question. To answer incorrectly is as dangerous as not answering, unless you can come up with a diversion. Her mother had explained it all to her: how bravely people lied when the Nazis were at the door, when they themselves faced torture. Torture, Polly. The Germans put the gun to their face but they never tell what they know. If the Nazis ask where is somebody, they invent a story. They make a diversion. Polly’s mother spoke English, because Polly’s father didn’t like listening to French. But he didn’t mind when she took the children to France for the summer. He couldn’t practice with the kids making a racket all the time. His practice room was in a separate little house in the backyard, but still the children’s noises made him want to buy a firearm. Oh, Peter. Polly’s mother would laugh. Do not say so.

  Tante Chouchotte grabbed Polly’s wrist and Polly followed Tante Chouchotte’s heavy, varicose-veined legs up the beach. She liked varicose veins, blue as the sky—her mother had them, too. Polly’s mother was a butterfly, Polly’s father said, laughing. She couldn’t settle on anything, could she? The violin, tennis—what was it now? Papier-mâché birds? Polly’s father laughed. I can’t keep track of you, Jenny. Her mother blushed. Her blond hair was piled on top of her head and she wore a tiny gold cross on a gold chain. On her hand was a large diamond ring. But she did not like it when people cried, either. When the Germans come, no one cry, nobody make a fuss. You will have a nice time at the beach with Chouchotte.

  Tante Chouchotte’s fingers dug in Polly’s arm, but if she could make a diversion, Tante Chouchotte would let go. If she could make a story to distract Tante Chouchotte from the question of why she was sad when there was nothing to be sad about. That was how it was done: they tied you to a chair and asked you questions; they might ask where your mother was—Imagine, Polly, asking children to tale-tattle their parents!—but if you were very clever, you could get rid of them. You could send the Nazis on a wild chase goose. Polly’s mother loved American turns of phrase; whenever she used one, Polly’s father laughed and pulled her onto his lap; he smelled her neck and hummed.

  * * *

  Monsieur Schwarz liked her mother’s neck, too. He was her mother’s friend in Paris. When they visited him, he offered Polly a bowl of dragées. They were baptism candies and Polly’s mother thought it was funny that Monsieur Schwarz liked them. Ces bonbons de baptême! Ça te fait plutôt prêtre, Rémy. It makes you seem like a priest. A Catholic! When she laughed, she touched his cheek; then she turned to Polly: “Monsieur Schwarz and I, we have important business that is not for the children. The dragées, they are for you, but when you are big, there is always some important business. It is very boring, so you eat the candies and when I have finish we go to the Luxembourg.”

  In French, Monsieur Schwarz said her English was atrocious.

  Les affaires m’ennuient déjà, Polly’s mother murmured, but she was laughing, so Polly knew that she wa
sn’t actually bored.

  Polly did not like the dragées. She didn’t like the hard shells or the almonds inside, but they were very beautiful—pink and blue and cream-colored ovals—and she lined them along the arms and back of the leather sofa in Monsieur Schwarz’s living room, so that it looked as if it were studded with jewels. Then she explored Monsieur Schwarz’s apartment. There was a balcony off the living room where she could stand and watch the cars and people in the street below; she stuck her feet through the railing and leaned out into the breeze, lifting her arms, and then she went in the kitchen, where Monsieur Schwarz had a fridge. It wasn’t as big as the one at home, but it was a real refrigerator, with a freezer and boxes of frozen food, and Polly stood for a long time, gazing at the cold steam coming off all the neat, square packages. It was the only refrigerator she had ever seen in France, and it made her happy, as if Monsieur Schwarz owned a small piece of America. In the bathroom, even lovelier than the refrigerator, was a roll of soft, pink toilet paper and an actual toilet with a handle instead of a chain. She pressed her fingertips into the paper and sat up on the toilet, but she didn’t have to pee, so she went back to the living room and admired the dragées on the sofa. She did not go in the room where her mother and Monsieur Schwarz were; it sounded as if they kept trying to lift something very heavy, and then, after a long time, her mother sighed, as if at last they’d set it down.

  When her mother and Monsieur Schwarz opened the door and came back into the living room, they were both smiling; they said the candy arrangement was exquisite. Monsieur Schwarz claimed he would leave it the way it was forever, but Polly said that was impossible: as soon as he sat, he would ruin it. “I will never sit,” Monsieur Schwarz said, in English. “I do not want to change anything.” Then he touched the diamond on Polly’s mother’s hand, murmuring that the ring had grown loose—wasn’t she eating?—he must take it and have it fixed; but her mother said she would take care of it herself, and then, suddenly, she looked like she was going to cry. Polly held her breath, but her mother didn’t, she didn’t cry, she just kissed Monsieur Schwarz’s mouth. He stared right down at Polly without smiling, as if he were mad, but then he closed his eyes; he kissed Polly’s mother’s throat and put his hand on the back of her neck.

  Afterward, Polly and her mother did not go straight to the Luxembourg. There was a café at the end of Monsieur Schwarz’s street, and Polly’s mother held her on her lap and ordered a grenadine with ice, which she pressed to her face. “Do you know what we do, Monsieur Schwarz and I? When you are big, there are hairs on your leg and you must take them off. Monsieur Schwarz, he puts a wax on my leg to take the hairs away. It is painful, but very necessary. It is a soin de beauté. A beauty care. Can you say this? Un soin de beauté?”

  Even in France, Polly’s mother spoke to her in English, so that they would understand each other perfectly.

  * * *

  No one—neither Tante Chouchotte nor Tante Françoise, nor anyone else—ever asked Polly where her mother was, but if they did, she wouldn’t tell them about the soin de beauté, because you must invent something clever, so that the interrogators who have tied you to a chair, who want you to betray the ones you love, race off in the wrong direction. If someone is at the South Pole, you tell he is at Alaska. The story has to be the same in one way—very cold—but the contrary. Then you are believed. If Polly was clever enough, the interrogators would leave her alone for hours, days, maybe. She would be able to wiggle her way free—to loosen the ropes, slip out, run away; she would hide in the woods until the war was over.

  For years—long after Tante Chouchotte was dead, long after Polly was past the age of homesickness—that was her fantasy: how, if she’d been born earlier, she would have escaped the Nazis. She pictured her own brilliant survival on roots and berries and then the heartbreaking, stunning reunion when she wandered at last out of the forest. She slipped from tree to tree, making sure it was safe, and it was, she was—and, oh, then, the joyful, tearful reunion: Polly, you’re alive! The weeping and offering of treats (a slice of cake, a bowl of chocolate). How did you do it? How? Oh, Polly, our darling, our beloved, welcome back!

  That’s enough sulking. Ça suffit. You have a jolly pail, now make something nice like the other children. Jean, who was seven, looked at Polly briefly before flipping over his pail of sand: he had made a perfect tower. He was the oldest and Polly liked him the best of all the cousins. Jean-Marie, who was six, was chubby and quiet and Polly neither liked nor disliked him, but she despised Marie-Jeanne. Marie-Jeanne was a month younger than Polly and she would only speak to Jean, as if they were the two grown-ups and no one else counted. Sometimes she carried Jacqueline around for a while and talked baby talk; then she’d put Jacqueline back down and talk to Jean in her regular voice. She whispered to him, took his hand and pulled him away from the others, laughing.

  Polly knelt in the sand, scooping it into her bucket. It was hotter up here, away from the water, and her shoulders stung pleasantly. The Jean Maries were teaching a rhyming game to the twins, who squealed whenever they got it wrong. Sometimes, when they played a game, Marie-Jeanne said Polly should be on a team with the twins, as if she were a baby, too. Polly wished she could tell Marie-Jeanne that she was the baby; she wanted Marie-Jeanne to know that at home Polly could do anything she wanted, and her mother told her secrets, but she wasn’t sure how to say all of that in French. If she said something wrong, she would just sound stupid.

  Tante Chouchotte and Tante Françoise lay a little bit away from the children, on their beach chairs, gossiping. Tante Chouchotte was really her mother’s aunt—she was old and fat and she wore a black dress, even at the beach—but Tante Françoise was Polly’s mother’s baby sister, though she didn’t look it: she had dark hair and big, floppy breasts. She did not like children, she said. Babies were one thing, but children were impossible.

  Tante Françoise was in the garden when the house was bombed. Polly’s mother had been in Paris that day, but Tante Françoise saw everything: she stepped out of the toolshed onto the garden path, and the house exploded in front of her. Polly must never talk about that in front of Tante Françoise. Tante Françoise didn’t like stories about the war.

  * * *

  Polly did not mind filling her pail over and over again: she could do it quietly, glancing every now and then at the horizon. She was not upset when her towers crumbled because she could keep making them, and the time would pass, the towers adding up like minutes. Then the morning would be over. In twenty mornings, she would see her mother.

  But the grown-ups said the towers were silly, they ought to make a castle. What’s the point of all these towers lining the beach? You can do better than that. Make something beautiful.

  Une jolie pelle. Not a jolly pail, a pretty shovel.

  The day would never end.

  * * *

  You must come up with just the right answer for the interrogators, the one to throw them off the scent, because if you say the wrong thing they’ll know you are lying and then the punishment is too awful to imagine. If, instead of saying Alaska when your mother is at the South Pole, you say Mississippi, for example, they might know that’s wrong. If they already know she’s somewhere cold, then you are in more danger than before.

  Polly could spell Mississippi and she knew where all the states were on the map. She knew the states and the North Carolina tree and the North Carolina bird. She could count to one thousand. But in French the numbers confused her and she could not spell at all; she didn’t know if any bird was more important than another.

  So many tales of bombs and rubble and prisons and torture; in all of them, salvation depended on the right story.

  * * *

  The others set about making a castle, but Polly froze. Her mother did not believe in telling children how to play or what to make. Interrupting somebody’s belief-make—make belief?—it is a crime! She was a musician, not like Polly’s father, because she didn’t practice when she didn’t feel like i
t, but sometimes she played small chamber concerts—Polly always pictured a chamber pot—and when Polly and her mother wanted to be alone, her mother would tell everyone that she was preparing for an audition and not to be disturbed. She and Polly would curl up together on the big bed, preparing love auditions, her mother said, laughing.

  If anyone telephones, Nettie, say to them I prepare a big performance.

  What if it’s someone you do perform with, ma’am? Won’t they know?

  I am permitted to play with more than one orchestra, am I not? She laughed. Say to them I make birds then. Or perhaps I cut my fingernails—or I am dead! She laughed again. Say I am dead.

  But still they spoke of love auditions, and Polly lay in her mother’s arms while her mother dozed. Pete Junior and Evie and Louise teased Polly for napping with their mother, for always having to be the last one to kiss her good-bye, the last to say I love you. Polly’s mother said not to worry about what the big children said, and Polly never did: she could watch the sun fall across her mother’s body, lighting the hairs on her mother’s arms. A dogwood rasped against the sliding glass door at the foot of her mother’s bed, and it thrilled Polly that her family owned one of the state trees, and that sometimes a cardinal tapped on the glass.

  * * *

  Jean was calling out instructions about the castle, how to build it so it would last. Polly did exactly what he said, thinking they might be friends—you had to dig deep for the wet sand, and pack it hard—but he kept whispering with Marie-Jeanne, and suddenly, when Polly didn’t expect it at all, tears were streaming down her face, slick and oily on her salt-dried skin. She made no sound, but Tante Françoise caught her anyway: What is it? What are you crying about? And Tante Chouchotte said that’s enough now. Do you want me to slap you? Which was another impossible question to answer.

  Polly thought frantically of auditions. If there was an audition she could say she needed to go to—anything she had to do so that they would leave her alone—but there was nothing. Even when she went to the bathroom, Tante Françoise or Tante Chouchotte accompanied her. She was too little to go into the ocean by herself, so if it was just pee, one of them would carry her in and hold her legs open in the water. Otherwise, they would take her by the wrist and walk with her up the beach to a little cabin with a hole in the floor and a few squares of wax paper. Tante Chouchotte stood in the doorway, staring out to sea, but Tante Françoise gazed down at her to make sure she was wiping properly.