“We’re not normal,” I said. “How can we be normal?”
Marc turned a page. “I don’t see horns growing out of your head.”
“Marc. We are not living normal life. No normal life. Nothing normal anymore. No no no no. No normal life.”
“Go on, brush,” Marc said. He never lifted his eyes from the page.
The night we left home, we had stuffed sweaters and underwear into our knapsacks. At the last moment, I had taken paper for drawing and Marc had taken books.
“Marc, will you be a language teacher like Maman someday? If you take after Maman, then I should take after Papa. Which means I’ll be a journalist instead of an artist when I grow up.”
“Mmm,” he said. “If you grow up.”
“What? What did you say?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
If I grow up. I heard him. If. I tugged the brush through my hair. I brushed and counted. Every night before going to sleep, Grand-mère had brushed her hair one hundred strokes, and then we would talk.
“Marc, do you ever think about Grand-mère and Papa?”
“You know the answer.”
“What?” I said.
“Stop!” he ordered.
“I suppose you do think about them. I do, but I don’t like to. I feel too horrible.”
“I know,” Marc said. He checked his watch. It had been Papa’s. This, plus the postcard, was all we had now of Papa. I knew the postcard by heart.
My dear family … I write this to you from a room in this place. Drancy. I am here with many other people, all of us waiting. We have been waiting for hours. It is hell here. I will say no more about it. My only consolation is that you have been spared this. Soon we’ll be on a train going to Poland. They tell us that we will be put to work there. If so, many of us would welcome it. But there are children here—many little ones, many without their parents—and they are also going on the train. Will they work, too? I have a plan, so don’t worry about me. I love you all more than life itself. Remember me. Your devoted husband and father, Aleksander Levi
“Marc.”
“Yes, what now?”
“Do you think Aunt Hannah Greenwald would invite us to visit her in America?”
“She might.”
“Would you like to go there?”
“Of course.”
“But only with Maman,” I said.
Aunt Hannah was Papa’s mother’s sister, so she was really Great-aunt Hannah. We had never met her, as she had lived in America since she was fifteen.
“Marc, remember Alena?”
“Who, now?”
“Alena. She was the one who told us we had to leave home, because the Germans were planning another roundup. And they knew about us, because of Papa’s trying to escape from the train and being shot.” I stopped. It was hard to breathe. “Marc, you remember Alena, don’t you? Don’t you?” I said, as if it mattered. “She drove us here.”
“Oh, her. Yes.”
“She was so tall, and she smoked, one cigarette after another.” She had been a colleague of Papa’s at the newspaper. She was the one who brought us the postcard. She was the one who found Madame Zetain for us.
“Brush, Karin,” Maman said.
When had she come back? “Yes, Maman. I’m almost done. Did you sew already for Madame?”
“No, I’ll go down later. Marc, go wash.”
“At once,” Marc said. He didn’t move.
That morning, we each had an egg. Fantastic! “Madame’s visitor brought her a basket of fresh eggs,” Maman said.
We ate, sitting around the trunk. It was our table, our couch, our desk, and sometimes Marc’s bed, although usually he slept on a heap of Monsieur Zetain’s old clothes. Softer, but smelly. Monsieur Zetain had died six years before. I couldn’t decide which was worse, the old-clothes smell or the mouse-pee smell on the mattress that Maman and I shared.
When it was time for lessons, Maman gave an assignment to write a true story. “Make it a happy one, yes?” Marc had to write his story in French and English. I didn’t feel like writing in any language.
“I’ll draw my story,” I said.
“We’re writing today,” Maman whispered in her teacher voice. She bent close. I breathed in her smell and reached for her hand. “Maman, I love you.”
“And I love you,” she said. “Now write your story.”
“And it has to be happy?”
“Surely you have one happy story to tell. I know you do.”
A True Story
by Karin Levi
I always loved birthdays, especially mine. I loved waking up and being one year older, and I loved getting presents and having a cake and hearing everyone sing “Happy Birthday.” Two years ago, on the night before my eighth birthday, which was Thursday night, June 13, 1940, I was watching Grand-mère brush her hair and I was feeling scared because of the Germans bombing our city and, at the same time, I was thinking about a lot of things, not all of them so serious.
I was thinking about presents and birthday cake. And I was thinking that tomorrow, when I was eight, I would feel more grown-up and be a more serious person. But right then I was still the same. And I still loved presents, and I hadn’t seen any hidden around the house.
I knew I wasn’t going to have a birthday cake, because all the pastry shops were closed. None of the stores and shops was open, because of the bombing and all the people leaving the city. We heard the bombs, and it was so scary. But we were lucky, because none of them had dropped near us.
Our neighbors across the hall and above us and right below us were gone. They were the Beaulois, the Camus, and the Chabrons, and they had all left.
Maman, you wanted to go, too, but Papa said we would stay, he had a job to do for the newspaper. And when we heard on the radio that German planes had strafed people on the highway and hundreds and hundreds of people had died, we knew he had been right.
Papa told us that every road out of Paris was jammed with cars, bicycles, wagons, wheelbarrows, baby carriages, and even go-carts. And even though the bombs scared me, and even though the Germans were coming closer, I was glad we were in our own home.
I was thinking about all of that on the night before my birthday. But I didn’t actually like to think about it. And as I was still only seven then, I thought about cake instead. Two or three times I said to Grand-mère, “I love chocolate cake.”
“I know you do, darling,” she said each time, and she kept on brushing her hair very slowly, as if she was extra tired.
She made her nightgown like a tent and got undressed underneath it. She got into bed next to me, gave me my kiss, and we went to sleep. In the morning, when I woke up, I kissed her cheek, and said, “Good morning, Grand-mère.” Usually, she would wake right up with me. I got out of bed and went to look out the window. The street was empty and quiet. I kept waiting for Grand-mère to wake up. I said, “Grand-mère, time to get up.” I kissed her again. “Grand-mère.” I called her name louder, but she never moved.
When the doctor came, he said her heart had stopped while she was sleeping. “A painless death,” he said, and he tied her jaws together with a white cloth.
The next thing I remember is standing at the window, and Marc was by me, and we were watching German soldiers march down our street. “Good for Grand-mère,” Marc said. “She had the sense to die before she had to see the rotten Germans here.”
I thought he meant it was good that Grand-mère had died, and I hated him.
No one remembered my birthday. I didn’t care. I remember thinking that next year my birthday would have to be better. But by then, more bad things had happened, so it wasn’t.
I’m sorry, Maman, not to write a happy story. I’ll try again.
My Best Friend
by Karin Levi
My best friend in school was Sarah Olinski. We both loved to roller-skate, read, and draw, although Sarah loved to read more than I did, and I loved to draw more than she did. Also, I was noisy and talkativ
e and she was shy. Otherwise, we were very well matched.
I loved her curly red hair. She said she liked my dark straight hair better. We each had an older brother and a grandmother who lived with us. “So, except for our hair, we’re as alike as twins,” we would say.
Once I went with Sarah to her home near Père Lachaise cemetery. It was in the same arrondissement where Papa had a room when he had come to Paris as a student and was poor. I never thought about what poor meant until I saw where Sarah lived. The streets were crumbly and dirty, and so narrow that every time a car or horse and wagon came through, we had to press up against a building so they wouldn’t run us down.
Sarah’s family lived on the fourth floor, but they had no elevator. Their three rooms weren’t even as big as our living room. Her papa worked on his sewing machine in the kitchen, and they used a Turkish toilet down the hall, which is a hole in the floor where you squat and do your business.
We went up to the roof to get privacy and talk about our plans. Our main plan was to be best friends forever until we were old, old ladies. But first we would go on to lycée together. “We hope,” Sarah always said, because she would have to take the scholarship exam and everybody knew not many passed. “But you will,” I said. “And after lycée, we’ll go to university together.” The rest of our plan was for her to be a famous writer and me to be a famous artist. We also planned to each get married and have two children, boy and girl, who would all be friends.
After the Germans came, we didn’t talk much about plans. Every day, it seemed, the Germans made another rule for us. No bikes for Jews. No phones for Jews. No pets for Jews. We joked that Sarah was lucky her family couldn’t afford bikes and phones, so she didn’t have to miss them, like I did. And when they took our radios away, we joked that they were putting Jewish radios in jail.
Then they didn’t allow us to go to parks or on the trains. After that, no movies and no library. My family had to give up Minot, even though she had been with us since she was a tiny kitty. Some people said the Germans were killing Jews’ pets, but others said our pets were given away to nice families. Sarah and I pretended we knew Minot was happy with a new family.
Then we all had to wear the yellow star of David on our clothes. The first day Sarah and I appeared at school with the stars, some girls called us Yids and pushed us around in the school yard. Sylvie Menard, who had always been friendly before, came up smiling and said, “Karin! Did you see the sign on the police station? ‘No Jews, Negroes, or Dogs Allowed.’ That’s what they should put up on our school.”
One of the big girls, Monique, pushed Sarah and spit at her. I spit back, and Monique screamed as if I’d tried to kill her. “Go to Palestine, Jew-girl!” she yelled.
“Where’s that?” I said.
It was all horrible, and I think Sarah, who never said a word, suffered the most. Not too long after that, she and all her family were taken away in a roundup, and we never heard anything about them again.
Maman, I’m sorry I wandered off the happy part of the story.
5
RENT MONEY
“Madame, come in, please. What a pleasure,” Maman said, as if she were in our own home on rue Erlanger.
Madame Zetain stepped into the attic room.
At a glance from Maman, Marc jumped up from the trunk, banging his head on the rafter. “Please, madame, sit down.”
“Not necessary.”
We all stood in silence, stooped over because of the low ceiling.
“The lentil soup this morning was so good, madame,” I said. “It was delicious, the best I ever ate. I could have eaten much more.” I hoped that didn’t sound as if she hadn’t given us enough. She hadn’t, of course, but to say so would be rude.
Madame Zetain folded her hands over her belly. “You have to leave,” she said.
Maman stood there, the rent money in her outstretched hand.
“You don’t mean leave here, madame?” Marc said. He sat down.
My eyes flew around the room. The trunk, the shelves, the mattress, Marc’s books, the heap of old clothes that was his bed.
How could we leave? This was where we lived now.
“People are talking,” Madame Zetain said. “This is a small town, and they talk. I’m sorry. I never knew you would be here so long.”
“But, madame, where will we go?” Maman spoke at last.
“They’re saying things, saying that I’m hiding … hiding Jews.” She was stuttering. “They’ve heard things—noises.”
“No,” Maman said. “No. You know how quiet we are.”
Madame Zetain’s eye twitched. “You have to go, all of you. Tonight.”
6
BOILED POTATOES
In the farmyard, a rooster crowed. A dog barked without stopping. Maman sucked in her breath. Lately she had become afraid of dogs. “He’s tied up, Maman,” I said. I bent over and held out a hand. “Hello, boy. Hello, good boy.”
The dog barked and barked, his lips drawn back in a frothy snarl. I went around him to the door and knocked.
Maman sat on a rock, well away from the dog, and rubbed her swollen feet. She had been hobbling in her elegant Parisian shoes, until the heels broke off. She had always worn beautiful, soft leather shoes with slender heels. Now the heels were gone and the shoes were like slippers.
The farmhouse door opened slowly. “What?” a voice said.
“Good morning,” Maman said. Sudden energy in her voice. She stood up. “May I speak to you for a moment, madame?”
The door opened wider. A woman in a plain blue dress and a man’s gray cardigan stood there. “Hello,” I said. Behind her, I saw a table set with bowls and mugs. An iron pot on a stove. A cot in a corner. It had been weeks since I’d slept on a real bed, in a real room.
“Would you have a place for me and my children to rest for a few hours today?” Maman held herself straight in the muddy yard.
“I have nothing.” The door began to close.
A man appeared from around the side of the house. “What do they want, Edith?” He was dressed in overalls and muddy rubber boots.
“We need to rest, monsieur,” Maman said. “We’ve been walking—”
“Henri, tell them we have nothing for them,” the woman said. “Barely enough for ourselves. It’s these times—”
“Our house was bombed,” I said quickly. This was the story we’d agreed to. “We lost everything. We’re lucky we got out with our lives.”
“Ahhh,” the woman said.
I couldn’t tell whether she believed me or not. “We’re going to my aunt Madelein in Aix-les-Bains. She’ll let us stay with her, even though she’s very poor herself. I’ll sleep with my cousins Anne and Lara in their room.” As I said this, I saw it all as if it existed. My aunt in the little apartment, my girl cousins sleeping in the room off the kitchen.
Maman swayed. Marc caught her by the arm. “My mother’s very tired.” He spoke quietly, but I saw the blaze of anger race up his cheeks.
Ever since we’d left Madame Zetain’s house, we had walked at night and slept during the day wherever we could—in the woods, a deserted house, sometimes in a farmer’s barn with other people like ourselves. At night, the roads were empty and safer. If a car was coming, we’d be warned by the light fanning into the air, and we’d run into the fields or slide into a ditch until the car was gone.
We were walking south. The Italians were there in the south of France, and even though they were the Germans’ allies, they didn’t hate Jews. At least, that’s what people said. Besides, Maman had an old friend, Paulette Ophels, who lived in a town called Valence, right near the border. Maman and Paulette had attended the Sorbonne together years before. Maman said they’d been out of touch, but she was sure Paulette would help us.
“Can we stay, or not?” Marc said to the farmwoman.
“Excuse my son’s rudeness,” Maman said. “We’re all so tired.” Maman knew how to talk to people. Gentle, quiet.
“They can sleep i
n the barn,” the man said to the woman.
“Can you give us food?” Marc asked. “We have a little bit of money, and I can work.”
“We have nothing,” the woman said.
“Get them something to eat, Edith,” the man said. “For god’s sake, woman.” He stamped into the house. She followed and closed the door. Slammed it.
We stood in the yard. Rain spattered on my face. The dog barked. A crow flew over, calling in his hoarse voice. Lucky crow. Wings to take him home.
The man came out and handed Maman a chunk of bread, then led us behind the house to a barn. He kicked his muddy boots against the wall and pointed to the hayloft above the cow’s stall. “The hay’s clean,” he said, then went away.
We climbed into the loft and mounded up the hay for beds. Maman took off her shoes and rubbed her feet. Rain fell steadily against the roof.
The man came back and handed up a pail of milk. “You could leave the boy here,” he said. “Are you a good worker?” he asked Marc. “I can use another pair of hands. You’ll be safe with me.”
“Leave my son?” Maman said. “Oh, I don’t—”
“Let the boy speak for himself. How old are you, boy, thirteen?”
“No, monsieur. Twelve.” Marc’s neck had turned red.
“Old enough to work,” the man said.
Marc kicked the wall, as the man had. “Monsieur, my mother and my sister, I have to, you know, I have to take care of them!”
The man shrugged.
“Thank you for the milk, monsieur,” Maman said.
“What’s bread without milk,” he said flatly, and left.
“Monsieur,” I called after him. I had just tasted the milk. “This is the best milk I ever had!”
Later, when it was dark, we knocked on the door to thank the farmer and his wife. The woman handed Maman a little sack of boiled potatoes. “The Germans,” she said, “they’ve brought us all nothing but evil, isn’t that so?” She refused to take money.
7
WALKING SOUTH
And so we continued walking south, avoiding daylight and people and towns. We walked through dry, moonless black nights and nights when rain fell steadily. Some nights the wind gusted and blew us down the road, and one night a perfectly full white moon lit the road in front of us like a torch.
Good Night, Maman Page 2