Flame in the Night Page 16

  “Lord have mercy,” murmured Mama. She let go of Magali. Magali stood hunched on the ladder, her chest heaving, looking at Julien with bloodshot eyes. “Lord have mercy,” said Mama. “They’ve grown so clever as that.”

  Magali closed her eyes. Julien swallowed against the sour taste in his mouth.

  “Let’s go downstairs,” said Mama, standing back to let Magali past her, gently patting her arm. “I’ll make you some tea.”

  Chapter 16

  THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BARBED WIRE

  JULIEN LIED TO his mother two more times that day, with Magali and Benjamin backing him up. Still at suppertime Mama was upstairs stripping Benjamin’s room. Meanwhile her red-eyed daughter stood in the kitchen giving orders in a heavy, colorless voice—“Uh, make a fire please, and I guess … get potatoes, Benjamin”—punctuated by long moments of pressing her fists against her bowed forehead, standing completely still.

  Then Élise knocked.

  The sky outside was deep blue, the streetlamps lighting spheres of white and swirling snow. There was snow all over her boots and skirt to above the knee; her scarf was white with it. She shook it out and looked at them.

  “You came,” said Julien.

  She nodded.

  “Élise,” he said, “would you teach me to make latkes?”

  They weren’t magic. They didn’t make Mama well. Most of them were burned on one side. But to stand in the kitchen and listen to Élise, to chop onions under her level, considering gaze, salved something in his heart. To put food on a plate and set it down in front of Magali, of Mama. There was some hot shame in him that he couldn’t find the source of, but it eased around that table, no sound but the scrape of forks, the snap of a log in the fire, the constant swish of wind and snow. The faces and the light. Mama ate, calm and weary.

  After supper she went to bed.

  Magali dropped her face into her hands the moment the bedroom door closed. Élise sat warming her hands around her tin cup. It was deep dark outside, but she made no move to go.

  “Are you going to get in trouble?” Julien said softly. “At the dorm?”

  Élise shrugged.

  Magali walked over to the farthest chair in the living room, dropped into it, and closed her eyes. Then opened one again. “It’s freezing in here,” she mumbled, not moving. “The fire’s almost out.” The others came to her; Benjamin laid wood over the coals.

  Julien crouched and blew the fire gently into life. Then turned to Magali. “Do you think … we should ask for help? After all?”

  “Do whatever you like. I’m going to Élise’s dorm and staying there.”

  “Um—”

  Magali opened her eyes. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I had a bit of a hard day, Julien. You want to sleep in my room, Élise? It’s probably neck-deep out there by now.”

  Élise half smiled and pulled up a chair. “Thanks.”

  Magali turned red eyes on her brother. “If she was a Les Chênes kid she’d be on the urgent list for Switzerland. Like Marek. I dunno. Switzerland’s starting to sound pretty good. I didn’t mean you”—she scowled at Benjamin, who had made some random gesture.

  I did. Julien did not look up. The fire was a mouth, eating.

  “He should’ve listened to her. He should’ve listened to her while she still knew a Maquis tip-off from a hole in the ground. Now it’s too late.”

  “We pray for him,” said Élise suddenly. “All of us.”

  Julien’s eyes began to sting. Don’t try to give me hope. He didn’t want to say it to Élise. To say anything that might close those lips. He would take any gift she chose to give, even if his hands bled around it. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you for coming here—” He caught her dark eyes looking at him, and stopped breathing. Thank you for staying. Thank you for talking to me. Thank you for being. He tore his eyes off her.

  Nobody spoke.

  A pit of shame opened up beneath him. They had all seen. They were all thinking the same thing now. He was a fool. He’d made a fool of himself to her. We’re finally friends and now you’ve scared her off.

  Into the silence Benjamin spoke. Slowly, as if deep in thought. “There’s a thing I imagine sometimes. When I can’t sleep. I imagine getting to America—and it’s the same. They’re fighting Hitler but they hate us too. Or they get a new president or something, and he wants to get rid of us.”

  “That’s what you think about when you can’t sleep?” said Magali.

  “Not on purpose.” Benjamin’s smile twisted.

  “It won’t be like that. In America!”

  Benjamin and Élise were looking at each other.

  “I didn’t say it would. It’s just, I don’t know, a feeling.” Benjamin’s face was all planes and angles in the light and shadow of the fire. “That nowhere’s safe. Hitler didn’t start this, you know.”

  Élise was nodding. “It seemed like he did. It felt safe for us, you know—in Germany. It was Poland you heard the bad stories about. My mother’s grandfather was Polish. She said when Papa bought our house in Heidelberg, her mother said, ‘Don’t get too attached.’ When we left, my parents’ friends were saying it couldn’t last, the German people would vote him out soon. But they didn’t.” She looked at Benjamin. “They didn’t want to.”

  Benjamin nodded. “My parents … knew people like that too.”

  “How is your father?” Élise asked him.

  “We don’t know yet. They might be … We don’t know yet.”

  Blue flames crawled over the coals. Julien watched Élise’s face, still as earth in the firelight. None of us have suffered as much as you. She turned toward Benjamin and Julien, eyes down, one finger picking at a pockmark on her face, and said in a low voice, “I’m sorry I was rude. For so long. At school.”

  “What?” said Julien. “You weren’t—”

  “I didn’t know I was going to be going to a coed school,” said Élise. “I never went to one before, except yeshiva, in Heidelberg, and that was … different. All our families knew each other, it was different. The way I grew up, we weren’t just friends with boys—not on our own.” She stared into the fire again as the words on our own spread out into the silence, like ripples from a tossed stone. “It’s been a lot to get used to.”

  “No, really?” Magali muttered wryly.

  Tears sprang into Élise’s eyes. He saw the glint of them. She said nothing.

  “You haven’t done anything wrong,” said Julien, his voice falling too loud in the silence. The fire crackled. “It’s been so hard for you,” he said more quietly.

  Élise’s tears spilled down her cheeks in two shining tracks. Her eyes rose to meet his, brilliant with firelit tears, and he drew in a sharp, silent breath. “I didn’t want you to know what it’s like,” she said in a rush. “I didn’t. I prayed for your father last summer and I was so glad for you.” She looked down. “But there was something. I don’t know.” She touched her heart. Her voice hardened a little. “Envy, I guess.”

  “Fair enough,” said Julien in a low, rough voice.

  Élise shook her head. “Envy’s wrong. It’s the evil eye. Wishing harm on another. I don’t wish …” Fresh tears flowed down. “I could never wish what’s happened to you. But—I don’t know how to explain it, how it feels—envy. It’s almost like anger. It actually feels like you’re in the right.”

  Benjamin was nodding, his face turned away. He wiped it with the back of his hand.

  “Maybe that’s just how it is,” said Magali. “Maybe it happens to everyone that way.”

  “I don’t know. It can’t be right. But it’s like there’s a wall, and you can’t take it down. There’s just no way to tell someone.” Élise looked right at Julien. “You know? How different the barbed wire looks. When you’re on the other side.”

  “Yeah,” breathed Julien. “Yeah.”

  It was cold in Magali’s room when Elisa woke. She slipped quietly out of the shared warmth of the blankets and began to dress.


  Magali stirred and went up on one elbow, eyes unfocused, listening. “She’s not up yet.” Down in the street a shovel scraped and muted voices called.

  “D’you need my help this morning?”

  “Are you going to get in trouble? D’you need to sneak in?”

  “I was stranded. I’ll tell them so.”

  “You’ve helped us so much.”

  “I just cooked a couple of times.”

  Magali shook her head. “No. Julien—” She broke off.

  Elisa’s eyes met hers for a split second. They looked away from each other.

  “I’m only saying,” Magali whispered, “him learning to cook—cook anything …”

  Elisa tied her sash on, keeping her eyes on her fingers as they made a neat, tight double knot.

  “Well, anything that’s not on a campfire,” conceded Magali. “Listen, I’m sorry. I know. I mean, he knows. He’s not going to—you know—”

  “I really don’t want to talk about him, Magali,” Elisa whispered.

  “I’m sorry, Élise. I just—all I really wanted to say was thank you. A lot.”

  Elisa nodded. She pinned up her hair, looking at the door. Magali went and opened it. “You’re welcome,” said Elisa. “Always.” She gave her friend the bise, holding her tight around the shoulders, then slipped out the door and down the stairs. She walked home slowly between the high banks of snow, despite the cold, watching her breath steam upward, pale gold in the winter dawn.

  The next day they were discovered.

  Julien wasn’t home when it happened. Magali and Benjamin had agreed he should stand his sentry duty. Mama had woken calmer that day, less sure of her fears when challenged. They felt they could handle her. I’m sorry, Benjamin mouthed as Julien came back in the door that day. Nothing we could do.

  A casserole lay forgotten on the table as Madame Faure and Madame Raissac comforted his weeping mother.

  Madame Faure pulled him aside and told him gently that Mama was having a nervous breakdown. He bit his tongue like a good boy and asked if someone could be sent to check on his grandfather. Then he slipped up to his room.

  He should be grateful. He understood that.

  The house was full that evening, but no one looked at him; he didn’t know where to stand. Ladies talked in hushed voices of “suffering for the Lord” and “a purpose in it we can’t know.” When Élise knocked on the door, Madame Alexandre opened it; Élise stood blinking, and made a small backward motion before Julien went and firmly pulled the door the rest of the way open, said, “Please come in,” and put the kettle on.

  “What happened?” she murmured, following him when he went to feed the fire.

  “Someone came to visit. Should’ve seen it coming. Now they’re in charge.”

  The next evening Grandpa came. It wasn’t till he saw his face that Julien remembered the obvious. Papa’s his son.

  Grandpa held them each against his heart, a long time. Mama longest. He took her by the shoulders, and she looked at him, her eyes strangely young.

  “Can you bear to pray for him, Maria? Together?”

  She nodded.

  Grandpa led them into the living room and knelt on the thin carpet. They knelt with him. He didn’t read from the Bible; he barely spoke. “We ask for Your help, O Lord. You know our need.” Then nothing but the sound of five people breathing close together, and Julien’s mind going down into emptiness, groping through dark rooms and endless corridors, groping for God. Show Yourself. Please. He had said it so often. He said it again. Please. Please. Please. Till it no longer sounded like it meant anything. Till it was only a sound.

  Monsieur Faure came; he and Grandpa spoke long with Mama, and she looked up with a flicker of doubt in her eyes and asked Monsieur Faure if he was sure. It was strange, she said, her eyes soft and willing as Julien hadn’t seen them for days.

  Weeks.

  The next morning Julien came down to find her crying in the kitchen as Grandpa fetched wood.

  She gave him a wavering smile. “Julien, what’s been happening to me? Do you know … what this is?”

  He stood with his mouth open for five long heartbeats. “Is it over?” he whispered.

  Mama began to cry again. He laid a hand on her shoulder and stood tongue-tied till he heard Grandpa’s feet on the stairs, and let Grandpa answer.

  A spell, Grandpa called it. His aunt had taken one once, when he was young. For a week she’d believed the neighbors were trying to poison her family, then she’d come back to herself. It had never returned.

  “Never?” whispered Julien. “You’re sure?”

  “She was like anyone else for the rest of her life.” Grandpa smiled. “A lovely woman.”

  Julien closed his eyes.

  That night Élise did not come.

  A young boy knocked on the door instead, and said that his mother needed to borrow two turnips. Benjamin started up wide-eyed at the words. “Tell them I’m coming.” He came home very late.

  They went to school. Julien didn’t speak of his mother, and nobody seemed to dare ask. Friends told him the news: the Germans had revived their old plan of drafting French young men to work in their factories. They were taking every twenty-to twenty-three-year-old they could find. Some guys who were of age had already gone into hiding by slipping off to join the armed Maquis groups organizing in the countryside.

  Pierre was one of them.

  Mama spent two days at the kitchen table making tea for Madame Raissac and Grandpa, saying things like “They were going to take them all away from me” and “It seemed so real.” She told Julien how much he reminded her of her oldest brother, the one who’d been killed in the Great War, and started crying again. She cooked supper. She talked with Magali for hours in her bedroom; he heard their voices quietly rise and fall. Magali sat looking out the window a long time after she came out.

  “She told me stuff she never told me before,” she whispered. “I guess it makes more sense now.” Her mouth quirked. “If it ever happens again, though, I’m running away from home, so be ready.”

  Julien huffed out a painful laugh.

  Grandpa stayed, sleeping downstairs on the couch, deep silence all through the dark house. Safe in his own bed each night, Julien slept less and less. Sometimes at midnight he woke in fear, and it was hours before he slept again. Once he woke weeping.

  A letter came from Papa.

  They gathered so close around it they could feel each other breathe. Mama drew it out of its envelope, crackling like onion skin, black with Papa’s small handwriting. He sent his deepest love. He was well. The food was adequate, the barracks clean. Most of the other inmates were French Communists. A comradely group, he wrote, and even Mama smiled. Very interested in debating religion with us. We’ve asked permission to lead services. Julien could almost see Papa’s eyes. He thanked them for their prayers. We sense them. Please don’t be afraid for me, Maria. This place is bearable, and we feel God may even be giving us work to do here. There has been no talk of deportation.

  No talk of deportation.

  He signed himself Martin and added the word Papa in parentheses. Julien reached out a finger and touched it before Mama gently folded the thin paper. He stayed in the kitchen long after the others had gone, looking across the table at the empty chair.

  Two days after Grandpa left, a knock came at the door. Julien rose swiftly, pulled Élise’s kosher cup from the cupboard, and went to open it.

  Two men. One with a folder in his hand.

  “Forgive us for disturbing you, monsieur, madame, mademoiselle.”

  The accent was French. No uniforms. Yet cold brushed the back of Julien’s neck.

  “A matter regarding your lodger.”

  Julien opened his mouth. Mama’s voice came from behind him. “Do come in and sit down. Have some tea—there’s sugar in the pantry, Magali—or if you prefer there’s a lovely sirop de myrtilles my father-in-law makes. Fetch that too, Magali.” He heard the clink of the kosher cup going back i
n the cupboard.

  He heard Magali whistling the alert song. Piercingly.

  “And the sablé cookies, Magali,” Mama called.

  “I can’t find them.”

  “Oh dear, they’re downstairs. Would you?”

  “We really don’t need …” began the younger man, his eyes resting brightly on the dark bottle Magali was putting on the table.

  His colleague flopped the folder down and opened it. “Benjamin Keller. I believe that’s his name?”

  Magali went out the stairwell door. Mama filled the glasses, the dark blueberry swirling as she mixed in the water. The leader took a sip and raised his eyebrows. “This is excellent.” He took another long sip, then cleared his throat reluctantly and went on.

  A bureaucratic error. Most regrettable. It was their job to regularize such matters. They now had a document proving Monsieur Keller’s French citizenship—was he home?

  You came all this way—? “No,” said Julien.

  “We could certainly give them to him next time we see him,” Mama put in.

  The leader pulled his folder a little toward himself. “As you are not his family members …”

  Julien’s heart was pounding. “He left. He went to Le Puy to look for work. I could—”

  “And his address there?”

  “He didn’t leave one. It was kind of sudden. We had a—disagreement. About money.”

  The two men looked at each other. The younger one took his last sip of sirop. The other readjusted his half-full glass by a centimeter, and laid a hand on the table.

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, Monsieur Losier, we are surprised to learn this. We were not under the impression that your lodger was, shall we say, prone to taking such initiative. You won’t mind, of course, if we verify whether what you are telling us is the truth.” He glanced toward the stairwell door.

  Nausea crept up Julien’s throat. Mama leaned forward. “You came,” she said slowly, “to deliver a carte d’identité—and you want to search my house?”

  The older officer gave a small, cold smile and rose. He picked up his glass, tossed its contents back, and said, “The bedrooms are upstairs, I take it?”