Defy the Night Page 2

  She told me Nina and her brother almost got taken to one too. When they first got here, the stationmaster—if you can imagine—thought they looked like trouble, and almost got the mayor to call someone up and have their papers checked. They didn’t have papers, because they’d burned them so no one would know they were Jewish. They had to lie low for a while after that.

  “Nina needs our protection,” Mama told me. “It’s not foolish for her to be afraid. It’s smart. I don’t believe Monsieur le maire would do anything against her now, or Monsieur Bernard either. I think they’ve accepted the presence of refugees in Tanieux, like it or not. But I want you to be careful just who you speak to about Nina, Magali. Don’t mention to anyone that she’s Jewish, or that’s she not French. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, Mama,” I said. But I was thinking, that’s all you want? To keep my mouth shut? They’re putting people behind barbed wire just for who their parents are, and all you want is for me to be quiet? Do nothing?

  I’d heard Madame Alexandre talking with Madame Raissac the day before in church. I’d heard just the one thing Madame Alexandre said, in a low clear voice: God will judge them. I remembered that, looking at my mother’s serious eyes, and I thought, why? Why does it have to be God will judge them? Shouldn’t it be God is judging them, one of these days now, soon? And I thought, why do we have to shut up? Why? When it seems like God is doing the exact same thing about this stuff that everyone else is doing.

  Nothing.

  Monsieur Weiss started to wipe the chemical formulas off the board. I came back to myself with a jerk, and looked down at my paper. I hadn’t copied anything I was supposed to.

  I’d spent the hour drawing tangled strands of barbed wire all over the margins of my paper. Even over Madame Minkowski’s face.

  When Monsieur Weiss rang the bell for lunch break it was snowing, thick flakes blown almost horizontal by the burle. It had already drifted boot-deep against the doors. But I wasn’t going to let that stop me. “Hey Lucy, want to meet the train?”

  “In this? You joking? It won’t come in today. Besides, I have to make lunch.” She gave me a bise. “See you!” She jogged off into the snow.

  Fine. I jogged off myself, ignoring the twinge in my hip, and took a left up the Rue du Verger to the public girls’ school. Rosa’d go with me.

  “In this?”

  “Please, Rosa?”

  She looked at me, and her soft, pretty face went still. “Lucy wouldn’t go with you, would she?” she said quietly.

  “That’s not why!” I try not to lie. I really do.

  Rosa looked away.

  Just come to the station with me, Rosa. You know you want to. If you’re mad I didn’t ask you first, well I asked you now, didn’t I? “Please?”

  Rosa and I used to love meeting the train, back when we were the two new girls together—before Lucy came. Everyone in Tanieux loves our train. It’s probably the one thing Monsieur Bernard, the Vichy-loving stationmaster, and I have in common. “I bet you la Galoche does make it. She’s a tanieusarde, a little snow doesn’t scare her.”

  Rosa lifted one shoulder and almost looked at me. I grabbed her hand. “C’mon!”

  When we got there you couldn’t see very far down the tracks in the swirling snow. Monsieur Bernard stood there with his kepi and his clipboard, ramrod-straight against the gusting wind. But I was right. A long, high whistle came from up the track, and soon there came her smokestack out of the blinding whiteness, cutting through the mist and snow, the flakes melting in her hot-white steam.

  “I told you! She’s not scared of this!”

  Rosa laughed. “She’s not a person, Magali!”

  “Sure she is.”

  We watched her pull in with a long hiss of brakes; watched the men begin to unload crates from the cargo cars. The passenger car doors opened. I clutched Rosa’s arm.

  A little girl came first, in an old gray coat two sizes too big for her, a blue wool hat jammed over the dirtiest, most matted hair I’d ever seen. Then a little boy with a runny nose and red, infected eyes that made streaks down his filthy face. I stared. A toddler with a scarf wrapped round most of its head climbed down. And then a young woman.

  She was clean, in a brown wool coat and hat that fit her; she didn’t have the look of a refugee. Except for the gray weariness of her face. And the huge, battered suitcase, and the baby she clutched to her chest with her other arm. The conductor stepped down behind her with two more suitcases and set them down. She didn’t even see him. She had dropped her suitcase in the snow and closed her eyes.

  Monsieur Bernard stepped up to her. I had seen him do this routine before. “Bonjour, Madame.”

  Her eyes flew open.

  “What is your business in Tanieux?” His voice was challenging.

  It was magic. She took one look at him and her spine snapped up straight, and I found myself looking into wide-awake, steely gray eyes in a face that gave no quarter. “Would you direct me to the residence of Monsieur César-Napoléon Alexandre?” she rapped out firmly in perfect French, looking him in the eye like it was him who was out of line.

  I stared at her.

  Monsieur Bernard stepped back a little. “Certainly, Madame.”

  I was in love.

  Rosa pulled at me, but I shook her loose and stepped up. “He’s our pastor, Madame. We could walk with you there.”

  Her eyes flew wide open again. “Oh,” she said. “Would you?”

  I KEPT an eye on the little girl with the tangled hair and carried the suitcases. Rosa took the boy by the hand and carried the toddler inside her coat. The woman came behind us with the baby and the last suitcase, stumbling with weariness in the ankle-deep snow. I could see we ought to leave her at Pastor Alex’s door, whoever she was, and not get in the way. I could see it was no time for a bunch of questions or any other kind of talk. It was time for her and those kids to be given a warm bed. And a bath, hopefully. For the kids.

  Still I couldn’t help asking, as I showed her in the Alexandres’ gate and put the suitcases down. Because I just couldn’t work it out. “Madame? Where are these children from?”

  “Paquerette. It’s Paquerette.” I blinked at her. “My name.” She shook her head a little, as if gathering her thoughts. “These children are from the internment camp at Gurs.”

  My heart beat fast. “Madame—”

  “Paquerette.”

  “Will you be here tomorrow?”

  She looked around at the driving snow. “Probably,” she said.

  Chapter 2

  Joan of Arc

  “AND THEY just let her take them?” Julien sounded like he didn’t believe a word of it.

  “Well, they’re here, aren’t they?”

  “Are you sure you heard her right about where they were from? They don’t just let people out of those places.”

  I ground my teeth. That’s boys for you. They think you don’t have ears, let alone a brain.

  “Oh, oops. I guess I heard her wrong.” I spoke fast, anger pushing inside me like steam. “I thought she said ‘the internment camp at Gurs’ but I guess she must have said ‘Saint-Etienne.’”

  “Julien, Magali. Be polite to each other at the breakfast table.” Papa’s voice was commanding.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Actually, Magali is right,” said Papa. Unbelievable, eh? “There are several aid organizations that have succeeded in obtaining releases for children from the internment camps. Pastor Alex and I are in touch with the Protestant one—the CIMADE—and I think this woman you met, Magali, was their representative.” He brightened. “Ah—and I haven’t yet told you the news from yesterday. The Quakers wish to donate to the Ecole du Vivarais—substantially—with the, ah, unofficial understanding that children in need will be housed in the dorms.”

  I looked at my father’s lit-up face. Unofficial, huh? You mean ‘in need of hiding,’ don’t you, Papa. I have to say, my father picked the right school to become
principal of, even if it is a tiny brand-new boarding school that has to use old barns for classrooms. Hiding people. People Vichy was out to get, and wouldn’t. You can’t have them, pigs. How d’you like that?

  “And they’re really releasing kids from camps?” Benjamin leaned forward, his eyes intense. “How do they convince them?”

  “Generally by proving that they’re sick enough to be seriously at risk. A great deal seems to depend on the camp doctors. And of course they need a parental release as well.”

  He kind of froze then. Silence fell. He turned to Mama.

  My mother used to be short and plump. Before the war. Now she’s just short. She has black eyes and curly black hair, just like me—the only thing we have in common. When she’s afraid, her eyes get very dark and her face gets pale. She looked like that now; like she was looking at something terrible no one else saw. Almost like Madame Minkowski. Except her daughter was right across the table from her.

  I looked away.

  “It’s never done against the parents’ will, Maria,” Papa said earnestly. “Some parents refuse.”

  “Refuse?” Benjamin’s voice cut like a knife. “Why?”

  My father looked at him uneasily, and then at Mama. Mama looked at Benjamin, steadily, her face still white. As if there was something she was thinking of saying, but wouldn’t. As if he should know better than to ask. Papa swallowed. “I don’t know,” he said.

  My mother said nothing. But I swear she looked like she knew. WE WERE snowed in that morning; the street white and quiet, a half-meter of snow blown against the doors. A blessing and a curse. It meant no school even though it was Saturday—Thursday and Sunday are our days off. It also meant I couldn’t go anywhere till a lot of people did a lot of shoveling. Which I couldn’t help with, naturally, being a girl. I spent the morning cranking the wringer while Mama washed the whole family’s clothes.

  Then finally, after lunch, I was free.

  I walked between banks of knee-deep, thigh-deep snow, feeling my heart beat fast. I was going to meet her for real now. “It’s Paquerette,” she had said. “My name.” She’d been so tired she was stumbling, and she’d looked Monsieur Bernard in the eye and had frozen him out, to perfection. I had never met anyone like her before. And I didn’t even know her. I just knew she wasn’t sitting there looking tragic; she was saving kids, as many as she could. Everyone I knew had been in mourning for a year—the funeral of France, of freedom, oh, so sad.

  And I’d finally met someone who was still fighting.

  I could feel my heart beating in my throat as I knocked on the Alexandres’ door.

  SHE WAS beautiful, too. I hadn’t seen that yesterday. High cheekbones, light gray eyes, a face out of a painting. Perfect hands, wrapped gracefully around her cup of horrible fake coffee. She had the kind of class I’ll never have. She still looked exhausted and her hair wasn’t combed and she had definitely slept in her dress at some point, but none of it made a difference. If someone took the Mona Lisa and dragged her through the mud, who’d notice the mud?

  “Bonjour … Mademoiselle Paquerette …”

  Her half-closed eyes snapped open. “You,” she said. I stood there with my mouth open, looking for something to say with it. As awkward as my brother when he’s trying to talk to Nathalie Dufour. I realized I was staring, and shut my mouth.

  “Just Paquerette. You can call me tu, please.”

  I just stood there, my chest tightening. There was no way.

  Tu is the familiar way of talking. Vous is what you call someone when you’re being respectful. And kids, including fifteen-year-olds, are respectful. Adults call you tu; you call them vous. It’s the way it works, it’s the way it is, it’s the most basic politeness. A kid who calls any adult outside her own family tu gets smacked, but good.

  “But … but Mademoiselle—”

  “Paquerette, Magali. I mean it, I’m not Mademoiselle to you or anyone here. I have a job to do. I get children out of camps and bring them safely to where they’re going. There’s no time in that for vous. There’s no time for Mademoiselle or who my father is or any of it. Understand?”

  I swallowed. Tried to shape the word Paquerette with my lips. “I … I can’t.”

  “You’d be surprised at the things you can do.” She said it flatly. Like a fact. “If you have to.”

  “I’m sorry, Mademoiselle.” I couldn’t help it. I’m French. My mother raised me right. Besides—she was a hero. You just don’t say “hey, you” to Joan of Arc.

  She sighed. “Well. Do your best.”

  “Mademoiselle?”

  She looked at me. “Yes?”

  “How come they let you take those kids?”

  “We asked.”

  “But … why do you think … they said yes?”

  She took a sip of her fake coffee. Madame Alexandre came in with my cup of real mint tea and sat down with us. I thanked her. For a moment there was no sound but the crackling of the fire. I glanced at the living room where the kids were. The boy was sitting on the floor, staring straight ahead of him out of his red, sore-looking eyes. I saw what I hadn’t seen yesterday: his belly was swollen. It looked very strange with his skinny arms and legs. The girl was sitting beside him, watching us out of the corner of her eye and chewing on her hair. It was clean now, I saw, but still tangled.

  “Well,” said Mademoiselle Paquerette finally. “My boss’s theory is they want to appear humane. Next best thing, you know. To being humane.” Her gray eyes were like Tanieux ice. “We’ve had a worker placed in the camp since fall, but it’s only recently she’s had success at getting children released. We’re hoping it lasts, but we’ve got our fingers crossed. So I’m bringing them as fast as I can.”

  “Do you always have that many kids? With a baby too?” And three big suitcases. I know a bit about kids, I used to keep my little cousins back in Paris. Three kids under six and a baby, on a train—maybe several trains. All alone. Aunt Nadine wouldn’t have done it for a thousand francs.

  Mademoiselle Paquerette’s head was in her hands, and she was shaking it violently. She came up for air. “No.” She took a deep breath. “Never again. Do you hear me? Oh what a trip that was.”

  “Never again?” said Madame Alexandre.

  Mademoiselle Paquerette’s face twisted up in a very ironic smile. “Oh, that means ‘anytime,’ didn’t you know?” She turned to me. “I’ve been trying, so far, to take them all as soon as they’re released. Leave no one behind. It just … it doesn’t seem right.”

  Madame Alexandre nodded. “Considering the state they’re in …”

  Paquerette cut her eyes over to Madame Alexandre and nodded. “Yes, well.” She turned toward the kids. “Elsi? Would you like some tea?”

  The little girl eyed us suspiciously. “What’s tea?”

  “Here. Come and taste it.”

  She came over, her eyes fixed warily on us. She didn’t take them off us as she took the cup Paquerette handed her and put it to her lips. She drank slowly, watching. She put the cup down.

  “Is my mama coming?”

  Paquerette swallowed and went pale. She turned her whole body to face the girl. “Elsi, your mama can’t come. She wanted to. We all wanted her to. But they won’t let her leave the camp. They only let children out. I’m sorry.”

  The girl just looked at her. Those eyes.

  “Your mama wanted you to come here because she loves you. She wanted you to be in a place where there’s enough to eat, even if she couldn’t come too. Mademoiselle Jeanne will keep asking the camp people to let people like your mama out. I—”

  “Will they let them?”

  Paquerette looked at her with such a darkness in her eyes I thought she was going to weep. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know.”

  I GOT to show her the way to the place du centre, to a little guesthouse called l’Espoir, where she was taking the baby. She told me on the way what Madame Alexandre had meant by “the state they’re in” and why she hadn
’t wanted to talk about it in front of them.

  “They all have lice—every one of them. And fleas. I only hope I haven’t spread them to the Alexandre family, bringing them in unwashed like I did. You saw them yesterday, how filthy they were. They’re not given enough water to wash, not to mention—in this weather—the barracks are barely even heated, and as for hot water …” She shook her head, and held the baby closer. “You didn’t see them before we put the donated clothes on them, either. They were in rags, Magali. They didn’t have underwear. The boy had nothing to put on his feet but broken sandals. In the snow.”

  I opened my mouth and closed it again.

  “You know what they said to us, Magali? When we were trying to place a worker in the other camp, Rivesaltes? They said, ‘Oh, if you had your way, these people would live better than most of the French!’ Yes, protecting your children from frostbite, what sinful luxury,” she said bitterly. She looked at me quickly. “I’m sorry. I need to calm down. I only just met you—”

  “It’s … it’s all right. I just wish … I could help.”

  She looked me over, for a moment, and didn’t say anything. We were at the guesthouse door.

  MADAME SABATIER, who ran the guesthouse, welcomed us in and sent her daughter Madeleine to make us tea. When someone comes to your house you have to give them something, it’s the rules. We sat down on the big sofa across from the fireplace; a wide oak coffee-table was in front of us, gleaming in both firelight and slanting winter sun from the south window. Madame Sabatier took the baby from Paquerette and put him down on it, and unwrapped him.

  It’s not like I knew much about babies. But even I knew they weren’t supposed to look like that.

  His diaper was clean, but he had a rash. Over half his body. It was an angry shade of red, especially on his bottom, where it broke into oozing sores. His little arms and legs were way too skinny for a baby’s, and his stomach was swollen too. Madame Sabatier turned him over and over gently in her hands, staring. His little eyes screwed up, and he let out a weak wail.