How Huge the Night Read online

  “Oh,” said Julien. “Oh.” No other words came.

  “And we came to Paris, and they still hated Jews. They talked about us behind our backs. And Papa wouldn’t let me wear my yarmulke, and he stopped wearing his, and we stopped going to synagogue—we kept changing so they wouldn’t hate us, and now they hate us because we’re German.” He almost choked on the word.

  And at that precise moment a snowball flew past Julien’s left ear, and hit Benjamin directly across his weeping eyes.

  It was packed hard, and shattered against his face. He fell back against the wall, dropping his glasses, clawing blindly at his eyes; then he was blinking frantically, compulsively, his face crumpled in pain.

  Julien had seen the motion out of the corner of his eye; over there, on what had been his team. It was Pierre.

  The field blurred. He saw nothing; only Pierre. Laughing.

  He strode across the field and up to Pierre, drew his arm back, and punched him as hard as he could right in his stupid, laughing face.

  It felt glorious.

  Pierre stumbled back with a look of pure shock; then his eyes narrowed, and all Julien caught was a glimpse of his thick-jawed face before pain hit him in the left eye, and he fell. The snow was cold on the back of his head, and there were shards of red light around his eye, and oh it hurt. He rolled out of Pierre’s reach as Pierre came down with another blow.

  “Fight!” “Over here! Fight!”

  They were up again, eyes fixed on each other, circling warily. There was no one, only the two of them inside the tight, pulsing circle of their rage. Julien’s blood pounded in his ears in rhythm with the pain in his eye and the dimly heard chant: “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Then Pierre swung.

  Julien dodged, and Pierre overshot his aim. Julien grabbed him by the sleeve and tried to follow the motion, trip him at the ankles and send him down. It was like pulling on a boulder. For a moment they were locked, struggling; Julien let go. Pierre’s lip lifted. Julien faked with his left and then threw his right fist with all the force of his body behind it, right at that sneering mouth.

  He connected, felt the hard edge of Pierre’s teeth against his knuckles and the soft lip caught between; when he drew back his fist, he saw blood on Pierre’s face, blood down his chin. A fierce joy rose in him, and as Pierre blinked, Julien pulled back and slammed a fist into his face again.

  A hand grabbed the back of his collar, hard. Behind Pierre, suddenly, was the muscular form of Monsieur Astier. Astier had Pierre by the shoulders, struggling. Julien struggled too for a moment; then the teacher behind him spoke.

  “Julien, control yourself,” said his father’s stern voice. “Now.”

  Pierre was marched through the watching crowd and into the school by Monsieur Astier; Julien followed, walking in front of his father. That way he didn’t have to look him in the face. It wasn’t what it looked like, Papa.

  But Papa didn’t ask. He put his hands on Julien’s shoulders as they entered the building and let them rest there till they reached Astier’s office; then Julien felt them lift and let go. He heard, before his father turned away, his voice with an edge of weariness.

  “Georges,” he said. “Will you handle this one?”

  “A snowball?” Astier sounded incredulous.

  To hear Pierre tell it, Julien had just walked up and punched him, God knew why. Julien told what he could of the truth. How could he explain Benjamin’s face, or the broken bloody hands that had flashed so vividly into his mind? Astier’s eyebrows rose very slightly at the word boche connected with Benjamin, and he gave a tiny nod.

  Pierre swore wide-eyed on his mother’s grave that the snowball had been an accident.

  “That’s impossible, monsieur! We were by the wall, and he got him right between the eyes!”

  “You were on the other side! I was aiming at the other team, non mais m—” Pierre bit off the end of the swear word with a glance at Monsieur Astier.

  Julien turned on him. “You liar,” he said. “You’ve had it in for us since the day we got here, you and Henri. You think I don’t know who stole Benjamin’s book?”

  “Slow down,” Monsieur Astier’s deep voice cut in. “First,” he glared at them, “do not start this fight again in my office if you know what’s good for you. And second, if there has been a theft at my school, I’d like to know why I wasn’t informed.” He turned a sharp eye on Julien, who swallowed.

  “It was returned, monsieur. Someone left it on his desk.”

  Astier nodded heavily. “And are you certain that Monsieur Rostin here stole it?”

  Julien hesitated. “No,” he said finally, and hung his head. “I didn’t see.”

  Astier sighed. “Well.” He gave them a hard stare. “I’m going to have to find a detention room for each of you for the rest of the school day. During which time, I want each of you to do some thinking.”

  He turned first to Julien. “Monsieur Losier, you will think on this. You have attributed to Monsieur Rostin a cowardly and premeditated cruelty which I personally doubt his capacity for.” Pierre looked up. “Though today’s callous stupidity, I don’t find surprising at all,” Astier added drily. “You have also for some reason decided without direct evidence that he is a thief. Think about how you would feel were such assumptions made about you.

  “And Monsieur Rostin.” He turned to Pierre, who shrank back a little at the stony gaze. “Here is what I want you to consider.” His voice grew even heavier.

  “At our school, we do not tolerate insults that relate to a person’s race or nationality.” His eyes flashed. “Not even if that person’s nation is at war with us. I am going to notify the teachers to be on their guard, and if I ever hear of such a word applied to young Monsieur Keller or anyone else—” He broke off, taking a deep angry breath. “If I hear of any student being treated differently from others on the basis of race, nationality, or religion, in any way, believe me: the offender will be punished.”

  He puffed out the rest of his breath and looked at the thoroughly cowed Pierre. “I am sorry,” he said. “That is not exactly what I want you to meditate on. You were in church last Sunday. If you were listening, you may recall that God instructed the Israelites settling into the Promised Land to be kind to the foreigners among them, remembering that they, too, were once strangers in a strange land. You will think,” he said, “about the meaning of that command.”

  Julien sat at a dusty desk in the storage room Astier had stuck him in, a cluttered place with one pane of window golden from the high sun. There was blood on his knuckles, and he didn’t know whose; his eye hurt, his head hurt with the pressure of trying not to weep. What else could I have done? The tears grew in his eyes and escaped. He laid his head down.

  He cried a long time, silently; then lay, not moving, his cheek on his wet sweater sleeve. Feeling empty. Washed. The window was bright above him. It was still there when he closed his eyes, a shadow of light.

  He woke when the bell rang for break. The sun was lower and streaming in, turning the dusty air golden, full of drifting motes. He watched them, their slow unhurried play.

  “God,” Julien whispered.

  God, why did he keep screwing up?

  It wasn’t right; it wasn’t fair; it was so confusing. The way you could mess up everything with a word, without meaning to, one little word, and when you tried to fix it, that was wrong too. And the way you thought it was turned out not to be the way it was at all. His face … how was he supposed to know, he didn’t know, God. They broke his uncle’s hands. Did they really? In the twentieth century? “I didn’t know, God, I swear. I didn’t know boche would make him look like that. Oh, God. I’m … sorry …”

  “That’s the one thing Alex doesn’t understand, really,” Papa had said. “Stupidity.”

  Oh God. Do you understand stupidity?

  He really hadn’t known, but did that make it any better? Had Pierre known? Oh God, forgive me. Please.

  Forgive me.

  He sat with h
is head in his hands. The dust drifted in the light, dancing in slow patterns, unknown and unknowable, golden and silent as God. He watched it dance, sitting motionless; he watched, and thought nothing as the bar of sunlight narrowed and bent toward him, infinitely slow, in the gathering of the early winter night.

  When the bell rang, he did not move. He was so tired. His mind was so … still. He hardly lifted his head at the sound of the door opening.

  “Hey.” It was Pierre’s voice.

  Julien looked up.

  “You okay?”

  He started to nod, but it hurt. “Yeah.” The crack in Pierre’s swollen lip was reddish brown with dried blood.

  “You were pretty good,” Pierre said. “For a Parisian.”

  Julien let out a laugh. That hurt too. “So were you.” There was a pause. “How bad do I look?”

  Pierre grinned. “Awful. That’s the biggest shiner I’ve ever seen.”

  “Great.”

  “Hey, uh …” Pierre looked out the window. “Thanks for not saying I stole that book.”

  “Sure. I mean it was true. I didn’t see who did it.”

  Pierre huffed. “Not me. I was playing with the coat, remember?”

  “Yeah. I remember.”

  “Hm. Well.” Pierre looked away, then at him again. “Hey,” he said. “I really wasn’t aiming for him, okay?” He was looking straight at Julien, his light green eyes serious. Julien had never seen that look on him. After a moment, Julien nodded and held out his hand.

  They shook. Julien stood. “Something I should tell you, though.” How should he put it? Some way that would make Benjamin look good. “I think it would be good not to call Benjamin a German.” Pierre was giving him a puzzled frown. “It’s not about being called boche, it’s—he hates Germany. They did some really awful things to his family. Because they’re Jewish. I didn’t know that … before.”

  “Oh,” said Pierre.

  Benjamin was waiting for him on the bridge. “How’s your eye?”

  “I guess I’ll have to put something on it.” It hurt bad. Benjamin was giving him a rueful smile; last time he’d seen him, he suddenly remembered, he’d been blinking compulsively in pain. “How’re your eyes?”

  “They’re all right. They felt better after five minutes,” Benjamin said. “That was weird. I just couldn’t stop blinking. I knew you guys were fighting, but I couldn’t even see what was going on.” He paused for a moment. “Uh—who won?”

  Julien snorted. “I have no idea,” he said.

  As they climbed the steps they heard voices upstairs. Julien thought nothing of it. Not till he’d stepped full in the door did he realize.

  The entire sewing circle was in the living room. Including Madame Rostin.

  He made to close the door again, quickly, and slip on up the stairwell. Mama had seen him.

  “Boys, your goûter is in—mamma mia, Julien! What happened to your eye?”

  “I’m fine—” Julien started, but at the same moment Benjamin said, “Pierre—”

  Julien motioned wildly at him; too late. Madame Rostin was rising from her seat, all the ominous gray-clad bulk of her, looking like she was about to blacken his other eye.

  “Did my Pierre,” she said slowly and savagely, “do that to you?”

  “Um. Ye-e-es …”

  “That. Boy.” She snatched her coat from her chair back and slung it over her arm. “He will regret this.”

  “But … but …” Julien stammered as she pushed past him. “It wasn’t like that. It was a misunderstanding—he didn’t even start it! I hit him too! Hard!”

  “Good!” she snapped over her shoulder. And was gone.

  He heard her clatter down the stone stairs like a carthorse on cobblestones. He heard Magali greet her at the bottom, and her shoes coming up, and the babble of voices from the living room—he stepped out the door and closed it, pushed the heels of his hands against his temples. If only they would all go away …

  “Wow,” said Magali. “She’s—” She saw Julien, and her jaw dropped. “Pierre! Pierre! He did it! Right? And you messed him up too. C’mon, tell me you did.”

  Julien slumped against the wall and nodded.

  “All right!”

  “Shut up,” Julien growled. “Did you see her? Did you? She’s gonna go home and make me an enemy for life.”

  “Pierre? What do you care?” He bared his teeth at her, and she recoiled. “Okay, okay, sorry …”

  Mama put her head out the door. “Is Madame Rostin gone? She left her purse.”

  “I’ll take it, Mama,” Magali said quickly, and took the big black purse. “I can catch her.” Benjamin turned without a word and followed her down the stairs.

  “Julien. Come in here to the kitchen, and I’ll make you something. The sewing circle’s over. Come.” The scrapes of chairs and shoes on the floor were jabs of pain in his skull.

  “My head, Mama. It hurts.”

  “Come.”

  She felt his skull all over for what hurt most. She put a steaming bowl of tea in front of him, and he made a face at the bitter smell. “It’s willow. La mère Cagni in Bassano used to swear by it. It works.”

  The sound of footsteps at the top of the stairway; heavy steps; Papa. Oh no.

  Papa walked in and said nothing, just looked at him and sat down. “Do we all have to drink that vile-smelling brew?” he asked plaintively.

  Mama laughed. “Tea or coffee?” she asked.

  Papa sighed. “Coffee’s up to forty francs a kilo.” Mama nodded. There was silence while she poured him verveine tea.

  “Well,” said Papa. Julien looked down, studying the patterns of steam in his bowl. “So. You tried a little ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay …’”

  If Julien remembered rightly, the end of the quote was: “saith the Lord.”

  “I—”

  “You punched that young man in the teeth with quite visible pleasure,” Papa continued in a dry tone. “It was not the sort of look I expected to see on my son’s face.”

  Julien winced. Even that hurt. The pain was descending from his head into his neck; he imagined shards of glass working their way down. He shut his eyes.

  He heard Mama, her voice sounding far away: “Martin, don’t you think this can wait till he’s recovered a little?” He heard his father’s sigh. “As always, Maria, you are right.”

  He felt Mama’s hand on his shoulder. “I’m putting you to bed.”

  It was dark, and his head felt full of wet cotton. The towel Mama had packed with snow for his eye was on the floor, and his pillow was wet and cold. He sat up gingerly. His head did feel better.

  There was a knock. “Julien?” said Magali’s muffled voice. “Want supper?”

  “Um. Sure.”

  She came in with a tray. “It’s still warm. Kind of. How d’you feel?” She flicked the light on, and he shut his eyes against the stabbing glare.

  “How do I look?”

  “You oughta be in a beauty contest.” She grinned.

  It was leek and potato soup, and he was surprisingly hungry. He ate carefully, Magali watching him. “Boy, Julien, I wish you’d been there. It was priceless.”

  “Been where?”

  “We caught up with her right outside the train station, and boy did she look mad. So I gave her back the purse, and then Benjamin starts talking faster than me.” Her eyes were wide. “She couldn’t get a word in edgewise!”

  “What!”

  “All about how it was an accident and you and Pierre had worked it out and you’d both gotten punished already, and just as I’m opening my mouth to back him up, Pierre walks around the corner and almost barges into us. That’s when things got hot.”

  “Hot?”

  “He was seriously swaggering. Him and those older guys he goes around with, and this big fat smirk on his face you just wanted to wipe off. I think that’s why she hit him—”

  “She hit him?”

  “With the purse! On the ear!”

  �
��Oh no. Oh no.”

  “It was hilarious, Julien! I almost died laughing!”

  “I’m happy for you,” he growled.

  “I’m sorry, okay? But honestly, that guy, I don’t know why you care—he’s an oaf in training, that’s what Rosa says. He comes to the café with those older jerks, and they act like they own the place. Listen, you should’ve heard Benjamin at supper, he can’t stop talking about you. He thinks you’re the best thing since baguettes.”

  Papa stuck his head in the door. “How’s the wounded soldier?”

  “Um. Not too bad.”

  Magali threw him a wink from behind their father and slipped out. Papa sat down on the bed. There was silence for a long moment. Julien looked down at his soup.

  “I’m sorry, Papa. I really am.”

  “I know,” said Papa quietly. “Listen, Julien. Tomorrow, we’ll have a talk about what happens when you start solving problems with violence, okay? But for now … well … you know,” he said, looking at Julien seriously, “it was true what I said about the look on your face. It shocked me.”

  Julien look at his soup, at his bed, at his hand.

  “No. Listen, Julien. I didn’t know then why you were doing it. Now I do.” Julien looked up. “Son, I want you to understand: you made the wrong choice in fighting him. But you made another choice today that was very right. You could have stood aside when they called him boche and pretended nothing happened. Very easily. You didn’t do that. For that, Julien, I’m proud of you.”

  Julien looked up into his father’s eyes. He felt a warmth spread through his chest.

  “Hey Papa. Is it … okay if I stay home from church tomorrow?”

  Papa grinned. “Julien, you want to hide that thing, you’ll have to stay in from now till Christmas. Hold your head up! At least you’ve got something to show for all that!”