At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf Page 3

  And one of them offered her mother a seat in the Metro once, like a gentleman, and his French was perfect, too, but her mother refused, haughty, and turned her back. Danielle whispered why was she being so rude? But her mother just jerked her arm, You ignore them, you walk away! Don’t you ever forget who they are, who you are! in a terrible tone of voice, a tone she’d never heard before.

  But one time there was the soldier with the chocolate. Her mother had left her in line for tea while she tried to get sugar, she’d heard a rumor there was real sugar to be had, Dessert we’ll have tonight, cherie, I promise! The German, strolling along, nodding in a friendly way at the long snaky line, although everyone looked away from him, pointedly, their chins stiff, and he’d smiled at Danielle, very polite, white oval teeth and pretty blue eyes, just like the pale bright sky before the sapphire. When he held out the candy, well, she didn’t want to be rude, like Maman had been, like all the other people in line. She knew who she was—she was a girl with nice manners! She didn’t believe the rumor of real sugar, anyway, and when did she last get to have chocolate? So she took it, thought of saving half for Claire, but it smelled so rich and real, nothing like the metal of saccharine, nothing ersatz. She smiled at the German soldier, said Merci, added a sort of curtsy-bob, hoping the others would see her polite example, although they looked away from her, then, too. And she tucked the whole entire piece of chocolate in her cheek so it would melt slowly and stay there fat and sweet a long time. And she kept her face turned away from her mother the whole walk home so Maman, her hands empty of sugar (no dessert, of course not) wouldn’t smell it and speak with that terrible edged voice.

  Papa even went back to his classes. Jews weren’t allowed to teach anymore, but Claire’s father, Monsieur Beaumont, the Dean, was standing up to the Germans, refusing to let Paul go.

  You see, Rachel? Papa said, we have friends, good friends. We’ll be fine. This will pass.

  Then in September, the call for a Census. Her father told her the Germans had cut France in two; they took the top half and left the bottom for Marshal Petain to be head of down in Vichy, that tacky spa town, yes, our Head of State, her father said, waving the forms, our puppet king! The Census meant the Germans wanted Marshal Petain to count the Jews in the Occupied Zone, he explained. It’s nothing important, Danielle, just paperwork. But a few weeks later her father came home and told them he’d lost his job at the University. Jews were forbidden to teach, by the new Jewish Statute, and forbidden to write for the newspapers, serve in the military, work in the arts, hold any public office or perform any public function or serve in any professions that influence people, and there was nothing anybody could do, not even Claire’s papa. Danielle had been sent home from school, too, which made no sense to her—she was the best student in the class! They should send the stupid students away, she told her father, but he just shook his head, absently, as if at something beyond her.

  It’s just the end of school for a while, Danielle, not the end of the world.

  So here was an end of something, yes. But she didn’t know if it was the beginning of other ends to other things, perhaps bigger than just the end of chocolate and movies and going to school. But Claire came over after class and sometimes brought sweet treats while they watched strolling German soldiers through the lace curtains of Danielle’s window, and tried to choose which of them they’d marry if they had to. And she liked Papa being home to teach her. So yes, everything was fine, just as her father said, and he would never break a promise, would never ever lie to her.

  He gave her a lesson one day, in fractions and percents. A chilly October day, too early for such icy air and wind, a day to stay inside with sweaters on and bake cookies with Sophie, but Sophie was gone and there was nothing to bake cookies with. And her father talking about tarts, of all things, “Take a large tart,” he explained, drawing a circle in pencil to show her. “Now, it’s all there, just out of the oven. The whole tart. One hundred percent of it. Or you can cut it in two pieces,” he said, scoring a line across the circle, “and if you eat one half, you have one half left. Fifty percent is gone, and fifty percent is saved.” Too easy, for Danielle, she had already studied fractions in school, she was growing bored. And hungry.

  “I understand, Papa, it’s like France. We’re cut in halves now. Fifty percent is Free and fifty percent is Occupied.”

  Her mother came from the kitchen to watch, leaning, frowning, arms folded inside a too-big sweater of her father’s, her braid down and over her shoulder.

  “Very good. Or a different example, say,” he said, carefully scoring more lines across the tart, “your mother’s parents were both Jewish. Your Grandmother Sarah and Grandfather Jacob. And all four of her grandparents. So your mother is … ?”

  “Four-fourths Jewish. One hundred percent.” When did they last even see a tart?

  Blueberry, apricot, raspberry …

  Her father smiled. “Correct. But me,” clearing his throat, drawing another, separate circle, another scored line, “my mother was Christian. Only my father was Jewish.”

  “So you’re just half,” Danielle said. Half a tart, even that would be plenty. Blueberry, definitely. With cream. “You’re only fifty percent Jewish.”

  “Not if you ask the Jews,” her mother said. “And not if you ask Petain,” she added, a bitter tone, when did she start sounding that way all the time? “Isn’t that ironic?”

  Her father didn’t answer. “And so you, Danielle, that means you are … ?”

  “I’m three-fourths Jewish.”

  He tugged her braid in approval. “That’s right. You are definitely head of your class.”

  “But there’s no ‘only’ anymore,” her mother said. “That’s what she needs to learn, Paul. In your little bakery.”

  Her father looked down, then, studied his pencil-circle-tarts. He drew a squiggly line at one edge for a crust, was silent.

  “But …” Danielle wasn’t sure if the lesson was over, why this silence felt so loud, suddenly wasn’t the same thing as quiet. “We’re hardly Jewish at all, are we? We hardly ever go to synagogue.”

  Her father pondered a moment, the way he always did when she asked questions, his face reassuring her she was right to ask, then explained the Germans say you are Jewish if you practice the Jewish religion, go to synagogue and keep kosher and say your Hebrew prayers and so on. Or if you have more than two grandparents who did those religious things. But Vichy has now said if you have at least two grandparents who are Jewish, you are fully Jewish, no matter what you do or don’t do. It is in your blood. It is your race. It is who and what you are. He showed her his identity card, Marton, Paul, stamped Juif. And her mother’s, Marton, Rachel, Juive. Danielle had seen those cards a hundred times, they didn’t have those stamps before.

  “So, Papa, the Germans and the Jews would say you’re not completely Jewish, but Marshal Petain says you are? That makes no sense.”

  “No,” he said. “It doesn’t. But it’s true.”

  “But why did you lose your job, then, if the Germans are in charge here in our Zone?” Her father glanced at her mother, gave a small shake of his head.

  “Because your father married me, Danielle,” her mother said. “And it’s our French government who made that law.”

  “So, it isn’t about your blood?” She was even more confused, now. And Jewish, what did that even mean, really? Sips of silver cup wine on Friday nights, your grandparents’ boring singsong prayers? But the unquiet silence was there again, too loud to ask another question in.

  Her father abruptly pushed the paper and pencil and identity cards away. He opened a book before him, hard, a slam-open on the table that made the empty sugar bowl jump, and a look on his face, a twitch in his jaw, that made her stay very still. Baudelaire. He loved Baudelaire, sometimes read a poem or two to Danielle, although her mother said she was too young for that kind of thing. Her mother shook her head, now, at everything, returned to the kitchen. But she stroked her hand along
the back of Danielle’s father’s neck as she passed, and he reached, touched her hand, held it there a moment.

  Mein oitser, she whispered, soft. My treasure.

  Her mother made carrot soups, pureed orange soups that got thinner and yellower every week, with less and less cream and more and more water. And Danielle’s glass of milk got bluer each day with the water her mother added, she tried not to complain, really, but couldn’t help sometimes groaning and wrinkling her nose. And her father trading the very last of his pipe tobacco for flour to bake bread, her parents whispering late at night about the black market and so little money left, the coming winter, the already icy mornings and not enough fuel. She heard her mother whisper about fleeing to the Free Zone, Spain, a cousin who lives in England …

  This is our home, Rachel. Is that what you want? To run away?

  They had friends, this will all pass, he whispered. There was still his collection of rare books, they’re valuable. And Rachel’s jewelry to trade or sell, a small fortune there, we’ll be fine.

  Then in December, a happy rumor, eggs for sale! Her father rushing out to stand in line, We’ll have an omelet tonight, her mother said, I promise! They waited, and waited more, past the curfew hour when he should have been home, reminding each other about long twisty lines and Papa’s absent-mindedness with ration cards, how he was always leaving his somewhere and patting the pockets of his coat, about the time her mother stood in line for five hours to get butter and then it was just rancid margarine, and wasn’t that dreadful, certainly not worth all the wait and fear, and how funny this is now, her mother’s face stretched in a smile, Papa out in that icy wind, how cold it is tonight! All for a few eggs, when they used to use them so carelessly, Sophie used eight of them for a single soufflé, remember, a dozen for a loaf of challah, her mother forcing laughs, and then a knock at the door, loud and fast. It was Claire’s papa, Monsieur Beaumont.

  Danielle’s father came to the University, he told them, out of breath. To demand his job back. There were Germans there. They wouldn’t let him pass, although I tried to convince them. They told him to go home. They were respectful, Monsieur Beaumont said, but he wouldn’t go! And he got angry with the soldiers, her papa, yelling about scraps left for dogs and sawdust for bread and children living on water, and they called him a sale Juif, a dirty Jew. And then Paul reached out and hit one of the soldiers, I tried to stop him, Monsieur Beaumont babbled, was he crazy? They grabbed him, they dragged him into the street and Monsieur Beaumont ran after, he saw the other soldier shoot Danielle’s father—Monsieur Beaumont’s voice cracked—right in his belly, one loud shot, and he went down, lying there in the street, bleeding, and Monsieur Beaumont tried to help him—I did, I did, their guns pointed right at me!—he tried to telephone Rachel but the lines were dead, tried to find a doctor, get him to a hospital, but no Jews allowed. But Papa’s only fifty percent, Danielle thought, confused, as her mother started to shriek, wailing ugly shrieks that filled the air, made her face finally break open and go ugly, too, hurt Danielle’s ears and went burning sharp into the back of her throat, made her run to her room, into her bed, hold onto Adele and tell her Papa would be there in the morning when they woke up, that’s all, no reason to cry. He’d give her a kiss, take her for school shoes, for a cup of chocolate and wafer cookies. He wasn’t lying on the street, in the gutter, bleeding, dead, it wasn’t that kind of an end, no. That kind of end was too endless, too big, it wouldn’t fit anywhere in her room, in their apartment, already full with her mother’s shrieking and crying anyway, no space left for her to cry, for her own tears, everything suddenly too huge to fit anywhere in the world.

  She pictured instead one small thing, the moment he left the apartment that afternoon, waving goodbye, hurrying to get in line, get her an egg … but what jacket was he wearing? What tie? She couldn’t remember and it isn’t fair, that she couldn’t know it was the last time when it was the last time and so pay more attention to those things. Which jacket, which tie? Just his face, a glimpse of it, hurried, a flicker of it over his shoulder, saying he’d be back soon.

  “He was a hero, Danielle,” her mother kept repeating for days, choking, her voice and face still wrong somehow, a different face shape, another mother’s voice. “Your papa was a hero. You have to remember that, always. He died for the Jews, and freedom and for France, to save those things. For us, for you.”

  “Yes, Maman, of course,” kissing her mother’s swollen damp cheek. But which face of his was it? Was he smiling, happy to think about those eggs for her dinner? Or was he scrunched taut, worried the eggs would be all gone? Or his smooth listening face, nodding to music, pondering her questions? She looked and looked, but even his faces were blurring, she realized, all of them blurring and disappearing away, so

  Please God, please let me see his face again, just one more time, please, she begged, but no. Maybe God was displeased she was asking, even for that one small thing.

  And then a few weeks later, her mother shaking her awake in the middle of the night, Get dressed, No, I’ll explain later, getting on the train, riding for rattling rumbling hours in the dark as she jerked in and out of chilly sleep, then hurrying from a depot, Where are we going, Maman, please?, into the back of a truck, Be quiet, Danielle, her fingers and toes going dull hot with cold, finally crying with all the frightening freezing pain, And don’t cry, you have to be a brave girl now, you’re twelve years old, hush, her mother handing an envelope to the driver, a speechless old man with grimy wrinkles, two missing fingers and a cap pulled low over his eyes, and driving at sharp angles, upward, bouncing against the walls of the truck, then walking for more hours up shadow black hills, staggering as her mother pulled her along by the hand, I know you’re tired, just keep walking, through a mountain’s crack into a small valley, across snowy fields and frozen dirt roads to this village she’s never even heard of or seen on a map, to here, Maman, don’t leave me, clutching at her, I’ll be so good, I promise!, to this place, this Berthe and Claude’s doorstep, You’ll be safe here, Danielle, her mother crying, too, I‘ll be thinking about you every moment of every day, but then turning away, pulling her skirt from Danielle’s grip, cherie, no, please, let go, disappearing into what dark ink was left of the night, running away as the lemon light began to creep over one mountain’s rim.

  I’ll come back for you, I promise!

  Yes, forget all that, from before, that’s what’s best. She’s glad there’s nothing in this place to remind her, no more roses, no pipe smell, not even a photograph. And no praying to God anymore, too late for that now, too. She just won’t think about them, Underground and dead, about faces and voices or any of it anymore, is all. Certainly not every moment of every day.

  * * *

  The village is twenty minutes’ walk away, along a road edged by a ragged rock wall, past scraggled fields with old corn stalks hanging like bleached rags, past small farms with hay-stuffed barns and squat stone houses with dirty white shutters, mountains thrust up in a hard ring around it all. La Perrine, the middle of nowhere. Other people leaving those houses, too, bundled in their peasant best, everyone hurrying, huffing, their breath puffing out in brief little clouds. She trudges after Berthe, Claude and Luc, wearing her thready collarless coat, its hem now tugged at by Berthe to look correctly well-worn. A deliberate shadow of mud on her shoes. Suddenly they’re there, walking past village houses and shops, plain stone and wood and uncurled, unflowered iron trim. Everything looks gray and cracked with cold. The bells hurt her ears. A charcuterie, a bakery, a dry goods shop. The bus stop, for the bus to and from Limoges. Barely a village. No cinema, no museum, no bookstore. A café, no, she sees two, a small café/tabac, and a larger one next to the mairie, where the tricolore flag is still flying, that’s nice to see, at least. But everything is shuttered, closed. Sunday. Time for church. There, up ahead, stones, arches, ugly wire grate to protect the stained glass, but so tiny, such a tiny church to hold up a huge, high cross like that. There were churches in Par
is, of course, everywhere, but they were surrounded by other tall buildings, with lacy curtains, flowery iron work and flourish’d shop signs, and all those crosses just blended in, they didn’t rise up and follow and stare at her that way.

  They walk across the square’s broken paving stones, past the monument to the Great War, the names of La Perrine’s sacrificed young men carved in stone. She sees other children, walking with their families. A chubby blond girl, with a mother wearing loud costume jewelry. Another girl about her age, with sharp, curious glances, holding her little sister’s hand. A pretty girl walking alone, long dark hair pulled back like Claire’s, turns to give her a shy smile. Nicely dressed, that girl, a pink dress, pink satin bow, good colors for her, good shoes, no twice-turned peasant clothing there. Tomorrow is her first day at school here; they will be her schoolmates. What kind of games do they play, here? Do they stand up to recite, or stay seated? She’s never been the new girl in school. Certainly never a phony girl, a lie of a girl. At home the new kids had to stand in front of everyone and introduce themselves, tell about their parents and their favorite things to do. Do they do that here? What will she say? Her mind suddenly stumbles, she blinks. Is going to the Odeon her favorite thing, or is milking the cow? Is she a girl who wears blues and greens, or yellow? What’s the matter with her, how did who she was become impossible to sort from who she’s supposed to be, in just a week?