I took a deep breath.
“Bertrand,” I said, “do you know how your grandparents got the rue de Saintonge apartment?”
“No,” he said. “Why?”
“I’ve just been to see Mamé. She told me they moved in during July of ’42. She said the place had been emptied because of a Jewish family arrested during the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup.”
Silence.
“So?” asked Bertrand, finally.
I felt my face go hot. My voice echoed out through the empty apartment.
“But doesn’t it bother you that your family moved in, knowing the Jewish people had been arrested? Did they ever tell you about it?”
I could almost hear him shrug in that typical French fashion, the downturn of the mouth, the arched eyebrows.
“No, it doesn’t bother me. I didn’t know, they never told me, but it still doesn’t bother me. I’m sure a lot of Parisians moved into empty apartments in July of ’42, after the roundup. Surely that doesn’t make my family collaborationists, does it?”
His laugh hurt my ears.
“I never said that, Bertrand.”
“You’re getting too heated up about all this, Julia,” he said with a gentler tone. “This happened sixty years ago, you know. There was a world war going on, remember. Tough times for everybody.”
I sighed.
“I just want to know how it happened. I just don’t understand.”
“It’s simple, mon ange. My grandparents had a hard time during the war. The antique shop wasn’t doing well. They were probably relieved to move into a bigger, better place. After all, they had a child. They were young. They were glad to find a roof over their heads. They probably didn’t think twice about the Jewish family.”
“Oh, Bertrand,” I whispered. “How could they not think about that family? How could they not?”
He blew kisses down the phone.
“They didn’t know, I guess. I’ve got to go, amour. See you tonight.”
And he hung up.
I stayed in the apartment for a while, walking down the long corridor, standing in the empty living room, running my palm along the smooth marble mantelpiece, trying to understand, trying not to let my emotions overwhelm me.
WITH RACHEL, SHE HAD made up her mind. They were going to escape. They were going to leave this place. It was that, or die. She knew it. She knew that if she stayed here with the other children, it would be the end. Many of the children were ill. Half a dozen had already died. Once, she had seen a nurse, like the one in the stadium, a woman with a blue veil. One nurse, for so many sick, starving children.
Escaping was their secret. They had not told any of the other children. No one was to guess anything. They were going to escape in broad daylight. They had noticed that during the day, at most times, the policemen hardly paid attention to them. It could be easy and fast. Down behind the sheds, toward the water tower, where the village women had tried to push food through the barbed wire, they had found a small gap in the rolls of wire. Small, but maybe big enough for a child to crawl through.
Some children had already left the camp, surrounded by policemen. She had watched them leave, frail, thin creatures with their shorn heads and ragged clothes. Where were they being taken? Far away? To the mothers and fathers? She didn’t believe that. Rachel didn’t either. If they were all to be taken to the same place, why had the police separated the parents from the children in the first place? Why so much pain, so much suffering, thought the girl. “It’s because they hate us,” Rachel had told her with her deep, hoarse voice. “They hate Jews.” Such hate, thought the girl. Why such hate? She had never hated anyone in her life, except perhaps a teacher, once. A teacher who had severely punished her because she had not learned her lesson. Had she ever wished that woman dead? she pondered. Yes, she had. So maybe that’s how it worked. That’s how all this had happened. Hating people so much that you wanted to kill them. Hating them because they wore a yellow star. It made her shiver. She felt as if all the evil, all the hatred in the world was concentrated right here, stocked up all around her, in the policemen’s hard faces, in their indifference, their disdain. And outside the camp, did everybody hate Jews, too? Is this what her life was going to be about from now on?
She remembered, last June, overhearing neighbors in the stairway on her way home from school. Feminine voices, lowered to whispers. She had paused on the stairs, her ears cocked like a puppy’s. “And do you know, his jacket opened, and there it was, the star. I never would have thought he was a Jew.” She heard the other woman’s sharp intake of breath. “Him, a Jew! Such a proper gentleman, too. What a surprise.”
She had asked her mother why some of the neighbors didn’t like Jewish people. Her mother had shrugged, had sighed, bending her head over her ironing. But she had not answered the girl. So the girl had gone to see her father. What was wrong with being a Jew? Why did some people hate Jews? Her father had scratched his head, had looked down at her with a quizzical smile. He had said, hesitatingly, “Because they think we are different. So they are frightened of us.” But what was different? thought the girl. What was so different?
Her mother. Her father. Her brother. She missed them so much she felt physically ill. She felt as if she had fallen into a bottomless hole. Escaping was the only way for her to have some sort of grip on her life, on this new life she could not understand. Maybe her parents had managed to escape as well? Maybe they were all able to make their way back home? Maybe… Maybe…
She thought of the empty apartment, the unmade beds, the food slowly rotting in the kitchen. And her brother in that silence. In the dead silence of the place.
Rachel touched her arm, making her jump.
“Now,” she whispered. “Let’s try, now.”
The camp was silent, almost deserted. Since the adults had been taken away, there were fewer policemen, they had noticed. And the policemen hardly talked to the children. They left them alone.
The heat pounded down on the sheds, unbearable. Inside, feeble, sick children lay on damp straw. The girls could hear male voices and laughs from farther on. The men were probably in one of the barracks, keeping out of the sun.
The only policeman they could see was sitting in the shade, his rifle at his feet. His head was tilted back against the wall, and he seemed fast asleep, his mouth open. They crept toward the fences, like quick, small animals. They could glimpse green meadows and fields stretching before them.
Silence, still. Heat and silence. Had anybody seen them? They crouched in the grass, hearts pounding. They peered back over their shoulders. No movement. No noise. Was it that easy, thought the girl. No, it couldn’t be. Nothing was ever easy, not anymore.
Rachel was clutching a bundle of clothes in her arms. She urged the girl to put them on, the extra layers would protect their skin against the barbs, she said. The girl shuddered as she struggled into a dirty, ragged sweater, a tight, tattered pair of trousers. Who had these clothes belonged to, she wondered, some poor dead child whose mother had gone, and who had been left here to die alone?
Still crouching, they drew near the small gap in the rolls of wire. There was a policeman standing a little way off. They could not make out his face, just the sharp outline of his high round cap. Rachel pointed to the opening in the wire. They would have to hurry now. No time to waste. They got down on their stomachs, snaked their way to the hole. It seemed so small, thought the girl. How could they possibly wriggle through, not cut themselves on the barbed wire despite the extra clothes? How did they ever think they were going to make it? That nobody was going to see them? That they’d get away with it? They were crazy, she thought. Crazy.
The grass tickled her nose. It smelled delicious. She wanted to bury her face in it and breathe in the green, tangy scent. She saw that Rachel had already reached the gap and was gingerly pushing her head through it.