Paris
July 18, 1942
The city seemed to have transformed during the two days the boys had been sequestered in the velodrome. The degree of indifference among Parisians was even more visible after the raid. The sad fate of misfortune retreated, leaving the rest unscathed and somehow immunized against pain and suffering. The passersby hardly glanced at the three little vagabonds. Since the occupation, unkempt children roaming the streets was not an uncommon sight. Little by little, poverty and hunger had spread throughout both the occupied and free zones of the country, but most French focused upon how things would get better soon. The Great War had been much harder than this, and they had come out stronger.
The boys made their way down the clean and empty streets. They went by foot, not daring to take a train or bus. The police could detain them easily on public transportation, and the boys had no identification with them.
After an exhausting three-hour walk, they finally saw the street where Jacob and Moses had spent the greater part of their existence—their own little world where the frontiers of their imagination had seemed safe and stable. They walked beyond their school building toward the synagogue. The wooden doors—scorched black and still smelling of smoke—were open, showing the disarray within. Jacob thought of Rabbi Ezekiel, the young man with the curly beard and kind face. He knew the rabbi was German like the Steins, and there would be little hope of finding him there. If the man had not been taken, he would be somewhere safer, in hiding.
They walked by the bakery, which was closed, and the butcher’s and several other stores before reaching their apartment building. The large gate leading to the inner courtyard was wide open. They snuck through the narrow pass by the doorwoman’s lookout as quickly as they could. They could not risk her betraying them to the police again.
They crept up the stairs, unsure of which tenants they could trust. All the Jewish residents had fled or been taken. And we surely can’t trust the non-Jews, Jacob thought as he climbed the worn wooden steps. A tempting thought flickered through his brain: What if it had all been a bad dream? Maybe his parents and Aunt Judith would be waiting for them at the apartment, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
When they got to the door, Jacob felt in his pockets. He still had the key. He opened the door and slipped into the front hallway. It was dark inside. In the summer, only afternoon sunlight made its way into the apartment, and even then only in the living room and his aunt’s bedroom. The long wooden floorboards creaked as they walked, alerting any and every neighbor that someone was home. They decided to take off their shoes. No trace of their aunt remained in the living room, the kitchen, or the bathroom. They went into her bedroom, the one place off-limits to them in the house. The bed was made, and her clothing was still neatly arranged. Judith’s old brown suitcase lay atop the wardrobe.
“She hasn’t left,” Moses said, pointing to the suitcase.
“No, she might be at work. Maybe it would be better for us to stay here and rest until nighttime,” Jacob suggested.
“But I thought we were going to my house and then you’d help me find the other camp where they took prisoners.” Joseph’s chin trembled.
The two brothers looked at their friend. They had finally gotten somewhere they knew, where they felt moderately safe, but he was still not home and had no real certainty about the whereabouts of his family. Being that alone in the world was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. No one cared about him. If he disappeared right then and there, his life would have vanished like noonday fog.
“We will. I promised you. But first we’ve got to know what’s happened with my aunt,” Jacob assured him.
While the two younger boys went to look for food in the kitchen, Jacob searched the drawers of his aunt’s bureau and then brought the suitcase down. He opened it carefully and looked inside. To his surprise, it was full of old photographs—yellowed letters in white envelopes with red-and-blue trim, all bundled together with red yarn; some newer envelopes; several maps of France; some money; and the personal documents and identification for each of the three of them. Jacob slipped a picture of his mother into his pocket, then flipped through the yellowed letters. The handwriting on the envelopes was a lovely, slanted script in dark ink. It looked like a woman’s writing, in German. Perhaps they were letters from his grandmother. The newer, loose envelopes had no names on them, but they did bear a return address: Place de la Liberté, Valence, France. The address was completely foreign to Jacob. He unfolded one of the maps he had left on the bed and studied it a good while before he found a little city with that name south of Lyon. It was clear on the other side of the country from Paris, far to the southeast. He opened one of the letters and began to read:
Valence, May 5, 1942
Dear Judith,
Spring has come quickly, but not even its eternal vitality can coax a smile out of us. A mother should never be separated from her children, her very soul. But I thank heaven at least they’ve got you.
I imagine Jacob is taking good care of Moses. He’s always been so responsible, though he’s on the cusp of when his body and mind will begin their unceasing war to control the awkward adolescent self. Sometimes it’s hard for me to watch him grow. He’s no longer the little boy who would crawl into bed with us on Saturday mornings and jump up and down on Eleazar, laughing his little head off.
Since we left Paris, your brother has not been the same. His shoulders are stooped, his face a constant picture of defeat. The war has amputated his heart. He cannot keep suffering so much for all of us.
We’ve found work, at least for the first part of spring. It’ll be enough for the train tickets. Things are calmer here than in Paris, but the air itself seems to be on edge, like when a storm is coming and you can almost feel the electricity in the atmosphere.
We get news about new raids in occupied France. It seems we wretched foreigners will never find peace anywhere. It is proving to be extremely difficult for us to get visas for any country at all. Eleazar has twice been to Marseille. The consulates are overwhelmed, and the number of visas for exiled Jews are severely reduced. Even so, we hope to obtain papers for all four of us.
We desperately hope you change your mind and decide to join us. I know how deeply you love France. Your mind and heart belong in Paris, but no one in the city is safe with the Germans ready to pounce. And your employers won’t stay much longer if things continue in the direction they’re headed.
I trust Moses is as sweet and handsome as ever. His lips have the grace of his grandmother, always smiling, his heart spilling over with goodness.
Kiss the boys for me. Tell them how much we love them, that we think of them constantly every day, and that we will be together again soon.
Your loving sister-in-law,
Jana
Jacob’s eyes and face turned dark with the grime from his shirt-sleeve as he wiped away his tears. He sighed. Loneliness was starker when the heart wandered down memory’s paths. He looked at the half-dozen letters and thought twice before reading another. Finally, he settled on taking the last letter, as if the words in between were of no import.
He read the beginning quickly, torn between wanting to make the letter last and hoping to know how his parents were. His chest contracted as he reached the last few paragraphs.
A cry escaped before he clapped his hands over his mouth. He did not want to upset Moses, but it would be almost impossible to hide his grief. Did his eyes deceive him, or had he just read that his parents were planning to go to South America without them? Surely not . . . This could not be. He also knew that in the past year so many things had happened that the only truly impossible thing was for more unexpected things not to happen. The brothers had to find them as soon as possible, but they would have to cross France to do it.
He remembered when the world consisted of their house, his days at school, walks with his father, and nights snuggled up to his mother—when everything was a game, and holding his father’s strong hand gave him a calmness he had found nowhere else. Jacob felt like an eagle perched at the edge of its nest just before diving into the infinite abyss below. Would his wings let them take flight? Would they be able to float through the unknown before them?
He put the letter in his pocket, dried his face, and went to the kitchen. Moses and Joseph were playing a game on the wooden table. Jacob glanced at the pantry and saw that Moses had managed to remove Aunt Judith’s lock. The younger boys had eaten nearly all that was left of Judith’s meager stores. Hunger and sadness were at war within Jacob, but upon seeing the bits of cheese and the half loaf of bread on the table, his stomach won. Then he drank as much water as his belly could hold. Approaching something like fullness, he said, “I actually think it would be better for us to go to your house, Joseph. It’s not that far away. Then we can come back here to see if my aunt is home.”
Joseph nodded, feeling the panic of the raid wash over him again.
“Moses, you’ve got to shower first. I’ll find you some clothes,” Jacob said.
“Shower? No way. I can do that when we get back.”
“The Germans will smell you a mile away. The idea is for no one to notice us, so we’re all three going to shower before we leave here.”
Moses grumbled but moved toward the bathroom. Jacob went to their room and found clean outfits, walking shoes, warm clothes, hats, and the packs they used when they would go for walks in the countryside.
“What’s all that for?” Joseph asked.
“We might have a long journey ahead of us. I found some letters in Aunt Judith’s things, and it looks like our parents finally got visas and were hoping to leave at the end of the—”
“Without you?” Joseph interrupted.
“They couldn’t get visas for us. They wanted to go to South America and then send for us, but they have no idea what’s happened the last few days here in Paris.”
Joseph nodded. “So you want to go find them?”
“If my aunt comes back, we could go with her. But if she’s not here anymore, we’ll have to try it anyway.”
Joseph buried his hands in his hair, closed his eyes, and shook his head. It was too much to take in. “And you thought I was crazy for trying to find my parents at the other camp? There’s no way you can travel around the country on your own.”
Jacob knew his friend was right. Traveling through France right now would be suicidal. But he could not give up. He would walk until his strength ran out, searching for his parents.
“It’s worth a shot,” he answered, with all the conviction that innocent confidence could muster—at the age when dreams and reality were still jumbled together and recklessness was still a kind of bravery.