A flash of light spread over the horizon. Explosions rocked the ground. We felt the tremor under our feet where we hid.
‘My mother cuts the blossoms and makes a bouquet for the table. When the flowers bloom, we know spring has arrived. I’ll take her some peach blossoms, Simone. She’ll be waiting for us when we go home.’
Hava reached up and broke off a small branch covered in delicate pink blossom like bits of candy floss.
A bomb smashed into the last carriage on the train, throwing shrapnel into the air which rained down on those still trying to escape. Hava looked out across the field as flames engulfed the train. ‘My mother says that we have to take care of the world.’
The blazing wreckage was reflected in Hava’s eyes, and we felt the heat against our bodies. The train carriages burned one by one. First the inside filled with smoke, and then the roof caught fire and smoke billowed upward: black smoke, a long plume of smoke, burning the arms of the seats, shattering and melting the windows. The outside skin of the train first turned a glossy black, then ignited. A sudden down-draught caused the smoke to move flat along the ground, closer and closer to us, until it embraced us, surrounded us. The fire burned bright and furious. Hava and I began to cough. Once again, I grabbed her hand and pulled her deeper into the woods.
‘You can tell me more later, Hava,’ I said as we ran.
The acrid smell of burning followed us. As I looked back, flames danced beyond and between the trees. The flickering light pushed forward, trying to reach us. The smoke followed like a wolf on padded feet, silent, deadly – Nazi smoke. We ran, pushing branches out of our way, stumbling over roots and stones. Hundreds of people ran alongside us through the woods, trying to escape the fire, the smoke . . . the German planes shooting at us. Coughing, choking, we ran.
As the people scattered, and we were suddenly alone, I heard the soft sound of running water. Just beyond a small ridge, we found a silver stream.
I remembered a story Hava had told me the first time she and I drank water together from the fountain pool in our town square: ‘There was a rabbi. Two hundred years ago he wrote, “If we walked in the woods and a spring appeared just when we became thirsty, we would call it a miracle. And if we became thirsty at just that same point again, and again the spring appeared, we would call it a coincidence. But if the spring were always there, we’d take it for granted and cease to notice it. Is that not miraculous still?”’
I believed in miracles. I still do. The train was burning. Hava and I were exhausted, thirsty, and afraid. Finding that stream of water seemed like a miracle to me. Hava leaned over, cupped her hands, and scooped the cool water into her mouth again and again. It dripped down her chin. Her face was wet. She was crying.
‘The rabbi said they were gone. Where could they have gone?’ She looked up at me. I knelt beside Hava, my friend, and held her against me as she wept.
‘We’ll go to Roeselare, Hava. My cousin, Marie Armel, lives in Roeselare. It’s not far from here.’
CHAPTER 35
Hitler authorized the killing of mentally and physically disabled children and adults to protect the ‘purity’ of the Aryan race and the Nazi dreams. By August 1941, as a result of the programme, over 70,000 disabled German and Austrian individuals had been given lethal injections or had been murdered in the gas chambers.
As we sat by the stream, Hava washed her face. ‘The Germans won’t find a filthy Jewish girl lost in the woods. I will look pretty, and dignified.’
As she scrubbed her cheeks, I thought back to another day not too long ago, when Hava had been determined to look pretty. She had showed up at my door that day with a box under her arm.
‘We’re going to make ourselves beautiful,’ she announced as she pulled from the box a boiled beetroot, a canister of tea, and a pencil. I laughed.
‘Beautiful?’
Hava ignored my scepticism as she grabbed a cup and a rag from the counter. She placed the boiled beetroot in the rag, and held it over the cup.
‘Now watch, Simone.’ She squeezed the beetroot, and as she did, its juice seeped through the fabric and into the cup. ‘I read an article about American girls and how there isn’t much red lipstick available. So, they use beetroot juice and rub it on their lips.’
‘Hava.’ I said rolling my eyes, ‘I am not rubbing beetroot juice on my lips.’ But as I spoke, Hava dipped her finger into the juice and rubbed it slowly onto her lips, which gradually acquired a deeper red, a blush.
She tilted her head a bit, modelling her new look, and asked, ‘So what do you think?’
I dipped my finger into the beetroot juice and slowly rubbed it onto my lips. ‘I think even Clark Gable would be impressed.’ Hava giggled.
Then we made tea, because Hava had read that if we rubbed tea onto our legs, they’d turn a shade darker and make it seem like we were wearing stockings. She also drew a line on the back of my legs with the pencil, which added to the stocking illusion.
We stood before the mirror in the hall. Our lips were red, our legs tanned. I wished that my hair looked like Greta Garbo’s.
‘Now we need to smoke and read Hemingway,’ Hava declared with conviction.
‘What!’ I laughed as she stretched out on the couch and pretended to smoke a cigarette. And, just like that, we were two American girls at a party of the Great Gatsby; sophisticated women with red lips and expensive stockings. And I did feel beautiful that day.
Now, by the stream, Hava wet her hands once again and gently washed my face.
‘You could use some bright red lipstick, Simone,’ she said as she stood up, reached down, and pulled me to my feet. ‘We’ll not be dirty when the Nazis capture us. We’ll be elegant Belgian women.’
Although I could still smell the burning train, and the metallic-tasting air scratched at the back of our throats, I tried to convince Hava that we were not going to be captured, that we were going to find my cousin. ‘She’ll help us, and feed us, and give us advice. She’s a banker.’
‘Okay, Simone. Let’s go and find your cousin.’
I was relieved at Hava’s new-found courage.
‘We must look for the steeple,’ I urged. ‘My father said that if we’re ever lost, we just have to look to the horizon for a steeple and we’ll find our way.’
‘Simone, all I can see is smoke and trees.’
‘This way. I’m sure Roeselare is in the east. Look at the sun. We’ll walk east, this way.’ I pointed. It was as good a direction as any, with the burning train to our backs and the woods to hide us from the planes.
And so we ran east.
I stumbled once and bruised my knee. Hava stopped and extended her hand to me saying, ‘Come on. We must hurry before the planes return.’
I stood up and brushed the dirt from my legs. It seemed as if Hava and I had been running from the Nazis for weeks, when it had only been a single day.
As we hiked deeper into the woods, we realized that the dense trees blocked the sinking sun and we were walking in near darkness. Thick bushes grabbed us, trees leaned over like angry gods, the rotten leaves of the previous autumn made the ground unstable.
We were lost.
I placed my hand on my chest to feel my heartbeat as Hava walked ahead of me, pushing low branches aside. Now and again she turned and said, simply, ‘Okay?’
And each time I answered, ‘Okay.’
It was obvious that we would not find Roeselare before nightfall. I stumbled once again, tripping on an exposed root. ‘Hava!’
She was immediately at my side, helping me to stand when I said, ‘Look, there, through the trees. A light.’
Hava turned to where I pointed and the two of us stood still, looking at the small flicker of light that winked between the trees.
‘Is it a lantern, Hava?’
‘Maybe it’s the moon.’
‘Maybe it’s a coven of witches,’ I teased.
‘It can’t be witches. They’ve probably all flown to London already.’ I wished right then
that we could hop on two magic broomsticks and fly to London, escaping the invasion that followed us like a hungry wolf.
‘It’s a house, Simone! There, in the clearing.’
As we approached the light, the trees thinned, a field opened, and a small house with a red roof appeared in the growing dusk. I wanted to run towards the house, but Hava held my hand and gently pulled me back.
‘We don’t know who lives there, Simone.’
‘All I know is it isn’t Hitler and we’re wet, tired, and hungry, Hava. So, you can follow me or fly on a broomstick to London.’ I shook her hand loose, began to run, and soon Hava was at my heels.
When we reached the house, I felt as if we were invaders, stepping into a fairy tale we were forbidden to enter, but I knocked on the door anyway.
Smoke curled from the chimney. Two small windows stared at us with tired, dim eyes. There was no sound from within.
Hava stepped in front of me and pounded on the door. ‘Hello? Hello?’
From deep inside the house rose a voice like the growl of a bear. ‘What do you want?’
I jumped away from the door as if it were about to burst into flames. Hava stood her ground. ‘We are Belgian girls. We’re running away from the war.’
Silence.
I bent down and picked up a stone. ‘Tell him our names.’
‘Our train was bombed. My name is Hava and I’m with my friend Simone.’
‘Go away,’ said the bear, his voice slow and deep.
I stepped in front of Hava with the stone ready in my hand. ‘Monsieur! We are hungry and lost. Please help us.’
Silence.
A distant explosion.
Silence.
‘My name is Simone Lyon! My father . . .’ But before I could continue, Hava and I heard the turn of a heavy lock and the door opened slowly.
‘My father is General Joseph Lyon,’ I stated determinedly.
‘Did your father teach you to throw stones at old men?’ the figure at the door asked, glancing at the stone in my hand. I looked down at my hand as Hava grabbed the rock and tossed into the bushes.
The bear turned out to be a short man with a wrinkled face, his body bent, his hair dishevelled. He studied us, and then sighed, ‘You look like strong Belgians. Come in. Close the door.’
The front room had a table covered in a green cloth with stars embroidered on the edges. There were four chairs, an outdated calendar on one wall, and a cuckoo clock on another.
‘I can offer you bread and stew. But you must stay here, at this table. Then you must go.’
‘We have nowhere to go tonight,’ I said. ‘We were on our way to Roeselare but we got lost.’
The old man nodded. ‘I’m Jacques Dormond, just a woodcutter.’ He gestured towards the table.
‘Do you think it’s safe?’ I whispered to Hava. She shrugged as she pulled up a chair, so I took a seat beside her.
Just then, the cuckoo clock struck seven. A small white and blue bird popped out from a door at the peak of the clock. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. At the fourth call of the bird, a husky, low laughter followed, and continued to follow the fifth cuckoo, the sixth cuckoo, the seventh cuckoo.
‘Ignore that. Here . . . your stew.’
But the laughter continued from the inner room: a guttural laughter, laughter filled with the sound of drool and grunts and spit.
Hava stood up from the table. ‘Monsieur Dormond!’ she entreated. ‘Someone is choking in the next room!’
‘It’s nothing. Please, sit.’
Once again there was laughter, then a loud outburst of coughing.
‘It’s nothing. It’s just my son. He likes the bird in the clock.’
But when the laughter in the other room turned into gasping, one gasp after another, Monsieur Dormond rushed to the other room. Hava and I saw him lean over a chair and, as we stepped quietly to the room’s entrance, we found Monsieur Dormond cradling a distorted figure in his arms. Was it a child? A man? We could not tell.
Monsieur Dormond looked up at us. ‘Here, this is Joff. He’s my son.’
Sitting in a wooden chair in the middle of the room was the bent figure of a young man. His hair tumbled over his face. He had no shoes. His feet were twisted. ‘Whenever the clock strikes the hour, he laughs. That’s the only time he ever laughs.’
I was repulsed. This man, this half-man, drooled again, gurgled, and spat on the floor, then gasped. ‘He just needs a spoonful of his medication,’ Monsieur Dormond sighed, reaching to the nightstand for a bottle and a spoon.
I stood to one side, watching Joff rock back and forth in the chair. He looked up at me and grinned, his teeth crooked, his face like a rabid dog.
Hava quietly approached Monsieur Dormond. ‘Can I do that?’ She asked easily, with freedom, with compassion.
Monsieur Dormond hesitated, then handed Hava the bottle and spoon. ‘A spoonful when Joff begins to gasp is all he needs. He’ll open his mouth for you; just touch the tip of the spoon to his lips.’ Hava uncorked the little bottle and slowly poured a dose of medicine into the spoon. ‘Yes, like that.’
‘Here, Joff. For you.’ Hava gently touched the spoon to Joff’s lips. I looked at Hava’s eyes as she held the spoon firmly in her hand. I noticed in them a tenderness, a light, and her face seemed to change to something angelic.
Joff opened his mouth. His face contorted. She brushed back his hair gently. Joff closed his lips around the spoon, swallowed the medication, and then reached up to touch Hava’s hair.
‘No, no Joff,’ his father scolded.
‘It’s okay. He can touch my hair.’
A crooked hand with twisted fingers rose from the crumpled man in the chair. Like a knot of rope, Joff rolled his hand over Hava’s head using his knuckles instead of his fingers to touch her hair. A thin smile appeared across his pale face.
‘Thank you, Belgian girl. Joff doesn’t smile often.’
I felt like a sinner watching how comfortable Hava was with Joff. Hava, my friend.
‘Joff must sleep now. Will you help me carry him to his bed? It’s why I was glad that you looked strong. I hurt my shoulder this afternoon splitting wood. I could use the help.’
‘How?’ Hava asked.
‘Go behind him, behind the chair, and place your hands under his arms. And you,’ Monsieur Dormond pointed at me, ‘place your hands under his thighs, and then you can both lift him to the bed.’
Joff felt like a light bag made of bones and hair. He gurgled and shook. As Hava and I carried him to his small bed in the corner, Monsieur Dormond called out instructions. ‘To the left a bit, now parallel to the bed. Closer to the side. Place him gently on the mattress, on his side. Joff likes to sleep on his side.’
As Joff rested his head on a pillow, he closed his eyes and slept. We watched Monsieur Dormond pull a thin blanket up to his son’s shoulders. ‘He was born like this. His mother died in childbirth. I thought Joff would die too, but look at him now, 26 years old. He laughs when he hears the cuckoo clock. Now, eat your bread and stew.’
Hava and I ate, and slept that night in a small loft above the house. The next morning, we found a note on the table:
Joff sleeps until noon. I had to make an early delivery of wood to the local school. I have little, but you are welcome to take what bread is left, and there’s cheese. Mademoiselle Lyon, when Joff was born, there was an article about your father’s wound and what he did for Belgium in the trenches. He gave me the courage to love Joff. Take the path beyond the house. It will lead you to a stream. Follow it and it will take you straight to Roeselare. Mademoiselle Daniels, thank you for your tenderness towards my son.
CHAPTER 36
The German army would soon break through at Sedan. This was the reason for the panic in Brussels. This was the reason why two million refugees had fled, in fear of the invading Nazi troops and its heavy artillery; why the roads were clogged with thousands and thousands of people running away, attempting to save themselves and their families. And to add
to the chaos, British and French forces were coming from the east to fight the Germans.
That morning, after we left the cottage, Hava and I reached the stream. We ate the small bits of bread and cheese Monsieur Dormond had left us, and Hava washed her face again, repeating her conviction: ‘The Germans won’t find a filthy Jewish girl.’
I asked Hava, ‘How come you were you so comfortable with Joff, his distorted face, all that drool and spit?’
She shrugged. ‘He made me smile.’
The woods in May had a pungent aroma of soil and forgotten leaves oozing into the earth after the winter thaw. The bark on the trees was wet and dark. Mist rose from the ground. We started seeing other people, moving quickly among the trees, appearing and disappearing in the fog, carrying suitcases, babies. A man came upon us suddenly, a silver candelabra clutched in his right hand. He stepped close to me and said, ‘All that lives must die’, and then he disappeared into the trees, raising his candelabra above his head like a trophy.
Hava and I walked in those woods together, hand in hand, like children in a Russian fairy tale. Mushrooms seemed to guide our way. The oak trees were old, stiff, and thick. The roots of pine trees bulged up from the ground. The more we walked, the smaller I felt. The undergrowth was dense. The ferns were the size of elephant ears. There was little colour: just grey, black. Through the tops of the trees, I could see the blue morning sky, and I thought that somewhere in the world, people were sitting on beaches on hot sand under a blue tropical sky.
We continued to walk down the sloped terrain, passing patches of wild grass and then tangled trees again. Then, the woods opened and there were hundreds of daffodils scattered in the open spaces, clustered in groups like gossips at a party.
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