The World That We Knew

by Alice Hoffman

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE REALM OF THE SHADOW

  PARIS, SUMMER 1941

  LEA HELPED AVA WITH CHORES in the mornings, but her afternoons were spent in the library with Julien. They were in a world of their own. Easy enough, as Victor ignored them. He had been in a foul mood ever since Marianne left, and had never had an interest in reading, even though the selection of books was quite incredible. The first Monsieur Lévi had been a collector of Greek and Hebrew texts, and the second Monsieur Lévi had followed suit, although he favored mythology, folktales, and novels. Lea and Julien read for hours, stretched out on the floor, each extremely aware of the other’s presence, though they both pretended not to be. What they held in common was their aloneness, and in time, thrown together, with no world other than their own, they grew close. Often they could finish each other’s sentences, and then they would laugh, embarrassed, lying on the floor, side by side, feeling the heat of one another’s body.

  Lea read novels, one after the other, and then science books, texts about the natural world, psychology, and the miracle of the human body. In the mornings, Julien took lessons with his father. He was already ahead of most students his age, at the university level due to his father’s tutoring and his own innate ability to problem-solve. But he had very little interest in mathematics, a fact he had yet to reveal to his father. He preferred a blank notebook so that he could sketch. He could mimic most things found in nature with ease: a rose, a bird, a single leaf. It might be their own garden that inspired him one day, then the plane trees in the Jardin des Tuileries, or the imaginary landscapes he conjured, islands that were made of rock, rivers that were green as glass. Lea was the first person to whom he showed his work, and her reaction was all he could have wished for. She sat for him so that he could sketch her portrait, and in those hours a door opened for both of them, insight into one another, a close bond.

  When Lea looked at the finished product of Julien’s sketch, however, she laughed.

  “I don’t look like that!” The girl in the drawing was beautiful, and she hadn’t been that girl since she’d chopped off her hair in Berlin. He had even made her chipped tooth look attractive, when she was well aware of how horrible it was.

  As far as Julien was concerned, he’d captured her completely. “Of course you do,” he said.

  He knew she was homesick. He’d stood outside her door at night and heard her crying. One night Ava came up behind him, surprising him. Julien felt a shiver go through him. She was so quiet, even wearing those heavy boots of hers. There was something vaguely off about her. She had stood there glowering at him, as if he were a criminal.

  “I’m not doing anything wrong,” Julien told her. Then why did he feel caught?

  “Why would you be?” Ava said, her silver eyes narrowed.

  “I wouldn’t be.”

  “If you ever do, you will regret it.” That she had no expression on her face made her threat all the more chilling.

  “What do you consider wrong?” Julien asked.

  Ava shrugged. “You’ll know when I consider it to be so. So be careful.”

  “Your cousin is very protective,” he told Lea after his encounter with Ava. “She reminds me of a guard dog.”

  Lea had often thought of the name one of the sisters had used for Ava on the train. A golem. One morning, she sneaked into the library before anyone was awake. There was a book she had spied days earlier, one she had been waiting to get her hands on. It was an ancient book of Jewish magic the second Monsieur Lévi had bought from a famed French kabbalist. She found the passage referring to a creature noted as a golem in Psalm 139, verses fifteen and sixteen, praising God. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

  She read on, shocked to discover that a golem came to life after an elaborate and secret ritual, wherein the maker must have a deep understanding of the spiritual and physical manifestations of the Hebrew alphabet. The creature was activated by magical incantations. It might look human, but it was a sort of changeling, stronger and more fearless and imbued with supernatural abilities, to speak with birds and angels, to see dreams and predict the future. More than anything, it was a warrior. Its goal was to protect the Jewish people, yet it was said not to have a soul, or even a heart.

  Lea stored the book back in its proper place. She will follow you to the ends of the earth, her mother had told her. What you ask her to do, she will do without question, as I would if I could be there with you today and the next day and the day after that.

  As it turned out, it wasn’t only Ava who disapproved of Lea and Julien’s friendship.

  “Stay away from the girl,” Madame Claire told her son. The strangers had been with them for more than three months. Far too long, in Madame’s opinion, particularly when it came to the girl. She had seen her with Julien in the garden, speaking with their heads close together. Something Julien said had sent Lea into gales of laughter. That was when Claire knew. She’d seen it before. She herself had been a girl of twelve when she’d first become infatuated with a neighbor, and it had not turned out well. Young love could be harmful, and the best thing to do was nip it in the bud. “I don’t want you in the same room when no one else is there.”

  “Why would you say that?” Julien asked his mother.

  “I have your best interest at heart,” Madame Lévi told him. It was not a time to form attachments or venture into amour de jeunesse, foolish puppy love. “It doesn’t matter if you understand. Just do as I say.”

  From then on, they were carefully watched. Still, they managed to leave notes for each other in the first Monsieur Lévi’s desk drawer in the library.

  Hidden candies on the third shelf of the library. Not very good. Caramel.

  Have you read Kafka? You should. You must. The Castle is on the fourth shelf. Don’t let my mother see you reading it. Of course, she disapproves of him.

  Are you a hunter or a wolf?

  Trick question?

  Tricky question.

  Wolf.

  Agreed. Always.

  I want to show you Paris.

  I want to be shown.

  We’ll be in trouble.

  Good. Let’s.

  Meet me at noon.

  This past May, Jewish men, most of whom were foreign, between the ages of eighteen and forty had been called up to present themselves to the Paris police. All had received a green postcard, and so the wave of arrests of five thousand men that followed was called billet vert. Almost all had been Polish refugees. Even if French Jews had been included, Julien and Victor had been too young, and Professor Lévi, at forty-six, was too old. Still, Madame Lévi worried more than ever. She instructed both of her sons that they were not to leave the property. Both boys nodded and didn’t argue, but the boys knew they would disobey her. They could not sit still and let the world pass them by. Victor often went out his window at night, leaping down to the garden, to meet with his friends. Julien planned to show Lea Paris, no matter what he had promised his mother.

  On the day Julien took her to see the city, his hair was slicked back and he wore a pressed white shirt. Lea hadn’t seen any more of the city than she had during her initial walk from the train station. The neighborhood was a maze of tiny streets and alleyways, a maze Julien knew so well, he could be blindfolded and still find his way. He backtracked through the small cobbled streets that took them to a bridge that crossed to the Île Saint-Louis. They waited until the bridge was empty, then dashed across and quickly took the flight of steps to the river so they could walk along the Seine in the wilting, green heat. There was such a hush it was as though they’d entered a dream. They went on in a trance, as Julien described the places where they walked as they’d been before the war, the crowds on summer days, the ice cream shops, the boats on the river, the fishermen underneath the bridges who caught salmon, carp, and eel.

  Lea didn’t know where to begin when he questioned h
er about herself. What could she say, that she’d witnessed a murder, that there was still blood on her shoes even though Ava had cleaned them so well, that her mother had sent her away and her grandmother was trapped in their apartment with no means of escape, that she kept a secret close to her heart that she could never divulge?

  The best she could do was shrug off his interest. It was probably a bad idea to become attached to someone when she had no idea how long she would stay. “I like to keep my thoughts to myself,” she told him.

  She gave him a keen glance that made him uncomfortable. Suddenly, he felt awkward, and somewhat in her power. Without his shield of charm, he was vulnerable and easily wounded.

  “Maybe you’ll share them with me,” he said.

  Lea laughed and made a face. “Please don’t count on it.”

  Julien grinned, his self-assurance regained. At least he had made her laugh.

  He watched what he said for the rest of the morning, for fear he might ruin everything by trying to rush her into taking him into her confidence. They were both half-dazed as they went along the river, from the heat and from the intensity of their time together; every moment was one they stole, free from the gaze of adults with their never-ending rules. Both were unaware they were not alone. Ava had tagged after them, so quiet not even the birds in the hedges took note as she passed by. She knew it was unsafe in Paris, and she was not the only one who had spied them. Two German soldiers rounded the corner, one elbowing the other when he caught sight of Julien and Lea, now on their way back home, hoping they could sneak over the garden wall before Madame Claire awoke from her nap.

  “Halt,” one of the soldiers called. “Komm jetzt her.” Come here now.

  They stopped, both thinking the same thing. Could they dare to run?

  “Ich gebe euch eine Minute Zeit.”

  They had one minute to turn and walk forward. They had been speaking of foolish, childish things. How they would sneak out their windows one evening so Madame wouldn’t know, how Julien might convince his mother to allow him to have a dog, which she had always denied him before. Now their hearts were beating in rhythm, in terror. He could push Lea aside so perhaps she could escape. She could go forward and be arrested for being a foreign Jew so he might flee. They could stand together or run together.

  “Schicke nur das Mädchen,” one of the soldiers called, and both men laughed. Just send the girl.

  Julien muttered a string of curses under his breath. He felt the way he had when he’d beaten Bernard, a rising fury he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to control.

  “Don’t say anything,” Lea said in a whisper. She had spoken only French since her arrival, and the German of the soldiers sounded strange to her now.

  “Bist du taub?” Julien was now asked. Are you deaf?

  One of the soldiers had a grasp on his rifle as he muttered to his friend and began to approach. That was when Ava appeared from a doorway, her black hair falling down her back, her face serene. Lea hadn’t realized how beautiful she was; in the kitchen she looked so plain with her hair tied back, wearing those horrible boots. But now, she was illuminated. Supernatural, Lea thought, her breathing ragged and uneven. A magical creature formed from a different substance. She thought of her mother. I’m still here every time she looks at you. She sees you as I would.

  The soldiers held their hands over their eyes to shield themselves from the brightness that filled the street; they tried to make out what caused the brilliance, but they would never know that Ava was accompanied by the light of the three angels sent to watch over Lea. Melahel, and Ornael, and Haiel, the angels of safe travel, patience, and courage.

  “Was machst du hier?” one of the soldiers called to her. What are you doing here?

  She was here to see to her duty, her burden, her obligation, her child. In this street that is what she felt and what she knew. Hanni had placed her own tears in Ava’s eyes before they had opened to the world. Perhaps that was why at this moment she felt what she should have not felt, a rising panic. She heard the wind and it told her what to do. Do what you must, do the most not the least, make certain, save her at any cost.

  “Come close,” she said in the first human language she had learned. Komm näher.

  She was stronger than a hundred horsemen. She would follow her burden to the end of the earth. She glanced at Lea and, with no words, let her know she should run. Lea grabbed Julien’s hand the moment the soldiers’ attention was diverted. They dashed around the corner, over the cobblestones, their hearts pounding, flying along alleyways, throwing open the garden gate, then sinking down behind the greenhouse, their backs against the wall, as they did their best to breathe.

  “We left her there,” Julien said, furious with himself. Just as he suspected, he was a coward. His brother had been right. He was not a man.

  “She can take care of herself,” Lea told him. “More than we ever could.”

  “It’s not right. I’m getting my grandfather’s rifle and going back.”

  Lea took Julien’s arm. She leaned close to whisper. “She’s not like other women. You don’t have to rescue her.”

  He recognized the truth in this. He had seen Ava at work in the garden; in her hands a spindly tomato plant was suddenly laden with fruit, a wilting rose could be plucked and bloom again. Once, he had spied her in a tree with a dove in her hand, speaking to it before it flew away.

  “What is she, then?” When Lea was silent, Julien grew concerned. “If you trust me you’ll tell me.”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I did. But she can take care of herself. I can’t tell you more.”

  “Ever?”

  “When the war is over.”

  Julien laughed and said, “I’ll hold you to that.”

  Lea nodded, but the truth was, Maybe not even then.

  Ava left the soldiers in a doorway, so no one would see. She should feel nothing, but there was something strange inside her, some raw emotion she couldn’t name. Was it the shock in their eyes, the way their spirits lifted from them, the presence of the angel in the black coat there beside her even before she had made a decision, as if he had known what she was destined to do?

  She felt called to the water and clay from which she’d come. She wanted the cold current and she wanted to wash off the deaths. There was the river, only steps away. For the first time Ava wanted something for herself, that river, that water, that clay. Without thinking, she stripped off her dress, folded it on the bank, then took off her boots. She went barefoot, quickening her pace, the mud between her toes. When she plunged in, the water was delicious and familiar, as if she had come home.

  A lone heron stood at the edge of the river. Ava could tell this one was in mourning, for herons were always in pairs. His heron wife had been shot by a farmer who believed the flesh of a heron brought good fortune and courage. It was an old story, fashioned out of a lie, but people believe lies if they’re told often enough. In ancient Rome, this was the bird of divination. Its hollow bones tossed onto the floor would form an augury used to predict the future, and its bold call warned men of wars and famine. In Greece, herons were messengers, for both mortals and gods.

  Herons were usually no more than three feet tall, but this one stood nearly as tall as a man. His plumes were ash gray, and his head was blue-black; his wings were ink and ash combined. A bird’s heart is larger than a man’s. It sees colors no human has ever seen, it can gather more light, hunt in the darkness, hear the wind on the other side of the city. This one saw Ava for who she was. A creature like no other. The heron walked to her and she to him. This is how it began, out of water, out of clay, out of air, when it was not expected, when it should have never happened, when no one else understood who she was.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE DISAPPEARANCE

  PARIS, AUTUMN 1941

  BY NOW EVERYTHING THEY HAD could be taken away. You couldn’t influence a magistrate when you had nothing to offer in exchange for his favor. You couldn’t put yourself above
others when the soldiers who came to question you helped themselves to coats and jackets from the wardrobe in the hall. Madame Lévi sold the rare books for next to nothing to an underground dealer, then used the money for food. The locust trees had been cut down for firewood, and the rosebushes came next, their branches tossed into the fireplace for a flame that barely flickered with pale green smoke. Two professors of mathematics from Berlin, coauthors of academic papers with André Lévi, had moved into the third floor, along with their wives and children, all of whom had been taught to conceal themselves in the cupboards should the police arrive. André Lévi had answered when they came to the door. Two brilliant colleagues who were now wearing rags, carrying their children on their backs, thinking of starvation rather than algebra. They called what was happening in Berlin The Destruction. All Jews would be relocated, and then exterminated. The professor let his colleagues in without a second thought and asked Ava to make a pot of her soup. Claire was no longer speaking to her husband. She worried about her sons, fearing what lay in wait for them outside the garden gates. She had begun to keep certain treasures in a bag she carried around her waist, beneath her skirt. A few gold coins, her favorite earrings, her children’s baby teeth in a small glass jar.

  Victor seemed especially lost. He’d never been a good student, for he’d always been a person of action. He’d wanted to join the French army, but he’d been too young. Soon he would be eighteen, and would likely be arrested. He kept a packed rucksack hidden beneath his bed, ready for the time when he would have the opportunity to leave and do his duty for his country and his people.

  It happened one cold night when the sky was filled with clouds and ice coated the streets. There was a commotion on the other side of the river and he slipped out of the house without his parents’ knowledge and quickly made his way to the Marais. There was a curfew, but on this night groups of young men and boys had collected in protest. Among them was a fellow Victor had been chummy with in his younger days, Claude Gotlib. They’d been in the Jewish Scouts together and had spent weekends and holidays in the forest, learning the practical skills needed to survive in such circumstances. Claude motioned to him so they might speak privately as they surveyed the boys and young men who were rallying and demanding their rights. Many had mothers or girlfriends who had followed them and were now weeping, begging for them to come home. Before too long, the Germans would send soldiers to contain the crowd and many who were alive and protesting would be shot down.