“Madame, could you help me get back to Paris?”
The old lady, startled, turned to look at her.
“You want to go back to Paris, petite?”
The girl began to shake from head to foot. The old woman stared at her, concerned. She left the washing in the sink and toweled her hands dry.
“What is it, Sirka?”
The girl’s lips began to tremble.
“My little brother, Michel. He is still in the apartment. In Paris. He is locked in a cupboard, in our special hiding place. He has been there since the day the police came to get us. I thought he’d be safe there. I promised to come back and save him.”
Geneviève looked down at her with concern, tried to steady her by putting her hands on the bony little shoulders.
“Sirka, how long has your little brother been in the cupboard?”
“I don’t know,” the girl whispered dully. “I can’t remember. I can’t remember!”
All of a sudden, every ounce of hope she still harbored within her ran out. In the old lady’s eyes she read what she most dreaded. Michel was dead. Dead in the cupboard. She knew. It was too late. She had waited too long. He had not survived. He had not made it. He had died there, all alone, in the dark, with no food and no water, just the bear and the storybook, and he had trusted her, he had waited, he had probably called out to her, screamed her name again and again, “Sirka, Sirka, where are you! Where are you?” He was dead, Michel was dead. He was four years old, and he was dead, because of her. If she had not locked him up that day, he could have been here, right now, she could be bathing him now, this instant. She should have watched over him, she should have brought him here to safety. It was her fault. It was all her fault.
The girl crumpled to the floor, a broken being. Wave after wave of despair washed over her. Never in her short life had she known such acute pain. She felt Geneviève gather her close, stroke her shorn head, murmur words of comfort. She let herself go, surrendered herself completely to the kind old arms that encircled her. Then she felt the sweet sensation of a soft mattress and clean sheets enveloping her. She fell into a strange, troubled slumber.
She awoke early, feeling lost, confused. She could not remember where she was. It had been strange, sleeping in a real bed after all those nights in the barracks. She went to the window. The shutters were slightly ajar, revealing a large, sweet-smelling garden. Hens roamed across the lawn, chased by the playful dog. On a wrought-iron bench, a plump ginger cat slowly licked its paws clean. The girl heard birds singing, a rooster crowing. A nearby cow mooing. It was a sunny, fresh morning. The girl thought she had never seen a lovelier, more peaceful place. The war, the hatred, the horror seemed far away. The garden and the flowers, and the trees, and all the animals, none of these things could ever be tainted by the evil she had witnessed in the past weeks.
She examined the clothes she was wearing. A white night dress, a little too long for her. She wondered who it belonged to. Maybe the elderly couple had children, or grandchildren. She looked around at the spacious room. It was simple but comfortable. There was a bookshelf near the door. She went to look at it. Her favorites were there, Jules Verne, the Comtesse de Ségur. On the flyleaves, a juvenile, scholarly handwriting: Nicolas Dufaure. She wondered who he was.
She went down the creaking, wooden stairs, following the murmur of voices she heard from the kitchen. The house was quiet and welcoming, in a shabby, unceremonious way. Her feet glided over square wine-red tiles. She glanced into a sunny living room that smelled of beeswax and lavender. A tall grandfather clock ticked solemnly away.
She tiptoed toward the kitchen, peeked around the door. There she saw the old couple sitting at the long table drinking from round blue bowls. They seemed concerned.
“I’m worried about Rachel,” Geneviève was saying. “She’s running a high fever and not keeping anything down. And her rash. It’s nasty. Very nasty indeed.” She sighed, deeply. “The state of these children, Jules. One of them even had lice in her eyelashes.”
The girl walked into the room, hesitantly.
“I just wondered…,” she began.
The old couple looked up at her and smiled.
“Well,” beamed the old man. “You are quite a different person this morning, Mademoiselle. There’s a little pink in those cheeks.”
“There was something in my pockets,” said the girl.
Geneviève rose. She pointed to a shelf.
“A key and some money. Right over here.”
The girl went to take the objects, cradling them.
“This is the key to the cupboard,” she said in a low voice. “The cupboard Michel is in. Our special hiding place.”
Jules and Geneviève exchanged glances.
“I know you think he’s dead,” said the girl, haltingly. “But I am going back there. I have to know. Maybe someone was able to help him, like you helped me! Maybe he is waiting for me. I must know, I must find out! I can use the money the policeman gave me.”
“But how are you going to get to Paris, petite?” asked Jules.
“I will take the train. Surely Paris is not far from here?”
Another exchange of glances.
“Sirka, we live southeast of Orléans. You walked a very long way with Rachel. But you walked farther away from Paris.”
The girl drew herself up. She would go back to Paris, go back to Michel, to see what had happened, no matter what was awaiting her.
“I need to leave,” she said firmly. “There are trains from Orléans to Paris, surely. I will leave, today.”
Geneviève came to her, grasped her hands.
“Sirka, here you are safe. You can stay for a while, with us. Because this is a farm, we have milk, meat, and eggs, we don’t need rationing tickets. You can rest, and eat, and get better.”
“Thank you,” said the girl, “but I am already better. I need to go back to Paris. You don’t have to come with me. I can manage on my own. Just tell me how to get to the station.”
Before the old lady could answer, there was a long wail from upstairs. Rachel. They rushed up to her room. Rachel was twisting and turning in pain. Her sheets were drenched with something dark and putrid.
“It’s what I feared,” whispered Geneviève. “Dysentery. She needs a doctor. Fast.”
Jules hobbled back down the stairs.
“I’ll go to the village, see if Docteur Thévenin is around,” he called over his shoulder.
He was back an hour later, puffing on his bicycle. The girl watched him from the kitchen window.
“Old boy’s gone,” he told his wife. “The house is empty. No one could tell me anything. So I went farther along, toward Orléans. I found a youngish fellow, got him to come, but he was a trifle arrogant, said he had more urgent things to look to first.”
Geneviève bit her lip.
“I hope he comes. Soon.”
The doctor did not turn up till later that afternoon. The girl hadn’t dared mention Paris again. She sensed Rachel was very ill. Jules and Geneviève were too worried about Rachel to concentrate on her.
When they heard the doctor arrive, heralded by the dog’s bark, Geneviève turned to the girl, told her to hide, fast, in the cellar. They didn’t know this doctor, she explained quickly, he wasn’t their usual one. They had to play it safe.
The girl slipped down through the trapdoor. She sat in the dark, listening to every word from above. She couldn’t see the doctor’s face, but she didn’t like his voice; it was strident, nasal. He kept asking where Rachel was from. Where had they found her? He was insistent, stubborn. Jules’s voice remained steady. The girl was the daughter of a neighbor who had gone to Paris for a couple of days.
But the girl could tell by the doctor’s tone that he didn’t believe a word of what Jules was saying. He had a nasty laugh. He kept talking about law and order. About the Maréchal Pétain and a new vision of France. About what the Kommandantur would think of this dark, thin little girl.