Time now meant nothing. He had betrayed his parents and left them behind. In a few days they would be sent to Auschwitz. He was a boy of fifteen who had lost everything. He looked at the stars, constellations whose names his father had taught him as they stood in the dark of their garden, not knowing they would never be there again.
He heard someone call out to him. Surely he imagined it, for he was alone. He leaned up against the wall, eyes closed.
“You,” he heard now. A clear soft voice. “Julien.”
There was a young, unkempt man, no more than eighteen, signaling. The fellow was Claude Gotlib, who had gone to school with Victor. “Your brother sent me. He was injured or he’d be here himself. I tried to get to your family before they were picked up.”
“You’re too late,” Julien said.
“Not for you.”
Julien hesitated. He didn’t know Claude, and he didn’t know why Victor himself hadn’t come for him, all he knew was that his parents were still in the stadium.
“Come on.” Claude was impatient. “Wait any longer and you’ll land us both in trouble. Believe me, your brother will have my head if I don’t get you out of here.”
Julien heard train whistles and sirens. He was still shivering. Above them, the stars were burning bright. He could not think of his parents, his father without his good jacket, his mother, who was so elegant, searching for a place in the shade. All he knew was that he was alive. That was his promise to keep.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE TWO BROTHERS
HAUTE-LOIRE, AUGUST 1942
JULIEN AND CLAUDE DIDN’T TALK much as they traveled. They slept in the woods or in safe houses, where their hosts often didn’t speak to them at all, for it was best not to know too much about those you had hidden. Some people graciously left dinner for them to share, and once they were given a bottle of wine, which they gulped down before falling deeply asleep. There were some stops along the way that seemed curious to Julien. He was told to wait outside, while Claude saw to his own private business. Afterward, Claude guarded the rucksack he carried and told Julien to keep his hands off it. “Don’t even breathe near it,” he was told.
One night, while Claude was asleep, Julien crept over to take a look. Once he had, he quickly backed away. Now he understood what Claude and Victor were up to. Claude was transporting gunpowder and sticks of dynamite.
The last night Julien and Claude were on the road together, they went to the stone church in Vienne, sleeping under the pews, grateful to be given warm milk and rolls in the morning by the old woman who did the cleaning.
“If you’re ever in real trouble, come here,” Claude told Julien. “They won’t ask questions, and the priest will help as best he can.”
The villages became smaller as they went on into the mountains, the lanes were cobbled, and rose trees grew up between the stones outside front doors that were painted pale blue, or green, or gray. Julien closed his eyes at night and replayed their journey, so he might remember his way back. To learn a maze it was best to leave something behind, to chart the path, as Hansel and Gretel had done in the tale of their escape from evil. Since he had no bread crumbs, and no more buttons on his shirt after leaving a trail to the stadium, he left a mark on a tree whenever they stopped. An L, for Lea. A letter he would be sure to notice.
They stayed out of sight during the day and traveled at night. But on the last day they went on until noon. They were near the Ardèche Mountains by then, only a few days’ hike from Switzerland, and the Germans rarely came this far. At last they stopped in a field. The sun was strong. Julien’s skin tanned rather than burned, but Claude, who was pale, was suffering with sunburn and was glad autumn would soon be upon them. Already there had been frosts in the hills, and snow could be seen in the mountains.
“Why are we here?” Julien wanted to know. There were hawks above them and the clouds were moving fast. Everything was changing.
“You ask a lot of questions. Why don’t you ask him?” Claude gestured to the road.
A speeding car had stopped and pulled over. Normally they would duck into the woods if anyone was nearby, making certain not to be seen, but Claude was relaxed, even when the driver got out and approached. Julien thought perhaps the man was a farmer from the look of his clothes and his long, shaggy hair. But the stranger grinned and waved. “It’s me,” the man called. “What idiot doesn’t recognize his own brother?”
Victor was nearly unrecognizable; he had a beard and was angular and rough looking. His skin was puckered on the left side of his face from the burn he’d received, which was as healed as it would ever be, although the scar had only served to make him more handsome. The brothers embraced with grins on their faces.
“I would have come for you, but I had an accident,” Victor explained. “It’s taken a while to recover and I knew you’d be in good hands.”
“He’s the fireman,” Claude said with pride in his friend. “Mr. Explosives.”
Julien was surprised. “How did you learn to do that?”
“Science class.”
They all laughed. Victor, the notoriously bad student, had apparently learned something in school. Claude gave Victor the rucksack and the two embraced before going their separate ways. “He’s a good man,” Victor said of his old school friend before hauling Julien into the car. The rucksack was on the floor in the back, wrapped up in an old wool blanket. Victor and Claude had been working with the Jewish Resistance, and now as they drove, Julien tried to convince his brother to let him join up as well. He would soon be sixteen, but Victor wouldn’t hear of it.
“You know what our mother would think if I ever did that. Plus, you’re still a kid.”
They didn’t speak for a while and Julien stared morosely out the window. They had never truly been close, and now Julien felt an old wave of resentment as they drove the bumpy back roads even further into the mountains. Twice they had to wait for goats to cross, the bells around the goats’ necks ringing in the still, blue air. The light was brilliant here, so clear that as they drove along they could see the blue edges of the mountains of Switzerland. They stopped in a yellow field of flowering genêts to have lunch, some apples and cheese and meat, a feast in Julien’s opinion. The clouds above them moved quickly, buoyed by the wind.
“I didn’t even know you could drive,” Julien said.
“Drive! I can drive through anything and get anywhere.”
Victor was a puzzlement to Julien, a new person almost entirely. But some things were the same: the lopsided grin, the self-confidence, the daring.
“I’m going to Eretz Israel when it’s all over,” Victor told him. “We’d be fools if we hadn’t learned our lesson. No country will let us in. No one will protect us. We need our own country.” He took out a cigarette and lit it. “Bad habit.” He grinned. “Only one of the many I’ve acquired.” He squinted against the sunlight. “Maybe you’ll come along.”
Victor’s wild life agreed with him and he looked happy. He’d never liked being caged up in polite society, made to do as their parents demanded. He was hardly the same person he had been in Paris, gloomy and often at odds with their father, who had wished him to be more studious. It was good to be together after so long, and to know that fate had led them here. And there was more, there was Marianne.
Victor stood and brushed the grass from his trousers, ready to get on the move.
“So now we go to Marianne’s.”
“You know where she is?”
“She talked about her farm and her village constantly, if you’d ever bothered to listen. I’ve been staying with her since I was hurt. I can never thank her enough for all she’s done.”
Julien noticed an odd expression on Victor’s face as he spoke of the housemaid. “You and Marianne? Seriously?”
Victor shrugged, then signaled for his brother to get in the car. “Why not?”
“Our mother would have had a fit.” True enough, even though Marianne was only five years older, she was ol
der all the same, uneducated and not Jewish. Both brothers had mentioned their mother, which brought up fears Julien usually repressed. “Do you know what happened after they were taken?” he dared to ask.
Victor shook his head. Julien really was something of a fool if he still held out hope for their parents. “You must have figured it out. They went on the trains.”
There was no more talk, and after a while they pulled down the long rutted road that led to the farm. Marianne was waiting on the porch. She ran to the car and hugged Julien and told him she would never have recognized him. He, too, had changed. He was tall and lanky, nearly a man.
“So this is where you came from,” Julien said.
“It is.” She looked around and threw her arms out and he could tell that she was glad to be back. He saw the way she looked at Victor, and the way Victor looked back at her.
Marianne’s father was out at his beehives, dressed in his white beekeeper’s suit, including a hat with white netting.
“He looks like a ghost, doesn’t he?” Julien said.
“He’s anything but,” Victor said. He whistled and waved to the old man, and Monsieur Félix waved back. “You’ll see when Marianne and I go off. He’s a tough old bird.”
“This is your brother?” Monsieur Félix said when he came in for dinner. The brothers had settled in, taking over the front parlor. Julien noticed that Victor stored his rucksack in an old wooden bureau.
“He’s the one,” Victor told Marianne’s father.
Julien stood and shook his hand.
“I’ll teach you about bees if I think you’re smart enough to learn,” Monsieur Félix said. “We’ll keep you busy here.”
The brothers slept on quilts in the parlor, but halfway through the night, Julien realized he was alone. Victor had made his way to Marianne’s room and Julien could hear the sound of their voices and moans. It was a good thing the old man was half-deaf. Julien felt a sort of anger rise inside him as he lay on his back in a thin strip of moonlight that streamed through the window. He was fed up with being treated like a boy, while Victor did as he pleased.
The following day, Victor and Marianne both set off, Marianne to once again shepherd children to the border, and Victor to complete some business for the Armée Juive, a secret Jewish militia that he clearly didn’t wish to discuss.
“Why can’t you say where you’re going?” Julien complained, feeling left out, as if he were still a child when he was almost as tall and as strong as his brother.
Victor grabbed him in a rough embrace. “You don’t need to know.”
Privately, he believed he did know, and once Victor had gone, Julien searched the bureau. Sure enough, the rucksack was gone. He worried about his brother, driving like a madman with a bag full of explosives, but he envied him as well.
“Time for you to get to work,” Monsieur Félix told him as he was moping around.
Julien was taught to do chores on the farm and took a liking to the little goat, Bluebell, who followed him around. He wasn’t yet allowed to collect the honeycombs from the beehives.
“For that you need an experienced beekeeper,” Félix told him. “You’re not ready.”
But Julien had the sort of fearlessness a person needed to tend bees, and soon he’d convinced Monsieur Félix to let him try his hand. As they worked, Félix explained what happened here at the farm. Identity documents would arrive with a man who traveled from town to town, the papers hidden in the frame of his bicycle. He was a postman, therefore no one thought to stop him as he made his rounds through the mountains. Monsieur Félix was to give the documents to Marianne to use in transporting children across the border.
The postman came, a quiet, skinny fellow who had no problem bicycling throughout this rough terrain. Julien saw him give Monsieur Félix an envelope before he rode on. Félix disappeared into the dusk. When Julien went outside to look for him, he was coming back from the barn. He asked about the papers, but the old man shrugged.
“Hidden away so no one would ever find them. I’m smarter than I look. The Germans could send a thousand soldiers, and search for a thousand days, they still wouldn’t find them.”
“Maybe you should tell me, in case you’re not here and Marianne needs them.”
“I’ll always be here.” The old man continued to limp after his encounter with the Germans, still he was fast, and Julien had to struggle to keep up with him when they went to collect the chickens, who were let free during the day. “Anyway,” he went on as they walked, “I couldn’t tell you. They could torture it out of you, but with me it’s different. I’ll never talk. I’ve done this transaction thirty-three times, which means thirty-three souls are alive.” He slapped Julien on the back. “Now that you’re my helper, the next soul who is saved can be yours.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE MESSAGE
ARDÈCHE, SEPTEMBER 1942
VICTOR ARRIVED AT THE SAFE house one blue evening, cutting his headlights before turning off the road. There were fields of white wildflowers that glowed in the dark. He had been gone for several months, working with the Armée Juive. When he and Marianne were together, he felt like a carefree boy, helping her father with chores, sneaking up to her room when the old man was safely asleep, not thinking of anything more than his bare skin against hers. But as soon as he left the farm he was someone else entirely, and a darkness lingered inside him. He had been party to acts he did not wish to discuss or even think about. Now he had returned to the house in the woods because he was in need of a partner.
He had brought a satchel of food and supplies from the Félix farm, and after he greeted his old cohorts, he set to helping with dinner. Watching Marianne, he had learned how to cook, and he prepared a vegetable stew that was surprisingly tasty. In the past weeks it had become clear that Arno was still reeling from the bombing that had taken his friend’s life. It was decided it was best for him to stay and help guard Bettina and the forgery operation. It was Ettie who would be Victor’s partner, and after dinner they walked out toward the little silver river to talk privately.
“I hear you can catch a fish in your hands,” Victor said, amused. She was so slight and fierce he thought of her as a wild little sister.
“I’m even better with a gun,” Ettie informed him.
“I’m not surprised. So tonight we move on from here.”
Ettie had been waiting for this, the chance to fight, but she felt a tug inside her. She had grown close to Bettina, and it was difficult to say goodbye, and she worried about Arno, who suffered from nightmares and often gave them a scare when he disappeared into the woods and couldn’t be found. Her feelings must have shown in her face, and Victor offered to get her belongings and say her goodbyes while she waited in the car.
“It’s fine,” Ettie said. “I have nothing and there’s no need to say goodbye.”
Victor shrugged; there she was, the fierce girl, her decision clearly made. Without a word to the others, they got into the car. Ettie was always a surprise, so much tougher than she looked. Being with her in the car, as she silently looked out the window, made him long for Marianne, who was so kindhearted and gentle that even when she was angry with him for some foolish thing he’d said or done, he felt her deep affection and love.
They drove for quite a while, over the mountains, on steep narrow roads framed by thornbushes that hit against the car. After more than an hour they arrived at a small stone château painted a pale pink, with windows that were framed by dark green shutters. It was past twilight now and darkness was settling down into the woods. The trees were crisscrossed by vines, and something smelled sweet, a wildflower Ettie didn’t recognize as she followed Victor along the path. There was a side entrance, a black iron door decorated with filigree. The house belonged to a doctor, and this path was the route his patients took to his office during the day. In the evening, it was shadowy, and a chestnut tree blocked the entryway from view. Safe, Ettie thought. This is a safe house.
Henri Girard had be
en the doctor in town for nearly twenty-five years. Before that, his father, also called Henri Girard, had been the local physician. Girard was a good-looking, tall man, very dignified. His grandfather had been a nobleman, and even though he was a country doctor, Girard’s manners were very refined. He had been to school in Paris, and had taught at the medical school there for a while. But he had decided he preferred the relationships he had with his patients in this small village. People came from across the mountains to see him, sometimes traveling hours, and he had brought more than fifty souls into the world, most of whom he still saw as patients, though many were now grown men and women with families of their own. He had come to be known as someone who would help Jewish resisters, and his barn was often a stopping point for those on their way to the border.
The doctor shook Ettie’s hand and welcomed her in the parlor where patients waited should the doctor be busy when they arrived. The furniture had belonged to the doctor’s father and was still in perfect condition, with several chairs and a sofa covered in green mohair.
The doctor poured three drinks from a bottle of eau-de-vie to welcome them and offered Ettie a glass.
“Thank you, I don’t drink,” she said.
“But you must start,” the doctor recommended, placing the glass in her hand. “It’s good to be able to drink and remain sober. That is,” he added, “if you really want to be part of this.”
“This?” Ettie said. “Perhaps you’d like to explain.”
“He’s helping us out,” Victor said. He had come to the doctor’s when he’d been burned and they’d had a frank discussion of how to best be rid of those who were responsible for the local arrests.
Ettie shrugged and downed the liqueur all in one gulp, then gasped at the fiery nature of the drink. The doctor laughed. He realized how young she was, which was both a good and a bad thing.
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