JEAN-LUC
“Mr. Bow-Champ, we have reason to believe that Samuel isn’t your real son.”
Jean-Luc can’t move, can’t breathe. “She’s alive?” he whispers, more to himself than anyone else. It can’t be true. No one survived.
They stare at him. Bradley nods, but no one speaks.
“How did she… How is it possible? Are you sure it’s her?”
“You admit it, then: Samuel isn’t really your son?”
“What? Yes. No.”
“You’re under arrest for kidnapping. Anything you…”
He must have misheard. His head is spinning. “Kidnapping?”
“Yes.” The tall officer looks at him with cold eyes. “You have the right to remain silent, but anything you say can be used in court.”
“Kidnapping?” He grips the sides of his chair.
No one replies. They continue to stare at him.
“But I didn’t kidnap him! You’ve got it all wrong. He would have died if I hadn’t taken him.” Kidnapping? The word spins in his head. He has to make them understand it wasn’t like that.
“I want a lawyer,” he blurts out.
“Do you?” The officer smirks. “What else have you got to hide from us, Mr. Bow-Champ?”
“Nothing.” He realizes that for the first time, it’s true. He has nothing left to hide. For a moment, it feels refreshing. “I have nothing to hide.” He sits up straighter in the chair. “I was only trying to protect Sam.”
“Really?” The officer has that ironic look in his eye again. Spirals of cigarette smoke wind their way upward. “Trying to protect the boy from his own mother? All she had to go on was that scar on your face and your deformed hand. But she never gave up. She’s been searching for him for the last nine years.”
How is it possible? When he saw the horrific pictures that came back from the camps, he immediately dismissed any thoughts of her having survived. Of the tens of thousands who were sent there, only two and a half thousand made it back. No, it’s impossible. Auschwitz was an extermination camp, and no one survived more than a few months. If they weren’t murdered on arrival, they were worked and starved till they collapsed. That frail-looking woman who thrust her baby into his arms, how could she have survived?
“Did you search for Samuel’s mother after the war?” Bradley breathes out a cloud of smoke.
Almost imperceptibly, Jean-Luc shakes his head. He stares at the gray walls, the fluorescent light buzzing in his ears.
“Thought not. And why was that?”
“I never imagined she was still alive.” His voice is flat. The air has been knocked out of him.
“Still, you could have looked. After all she’d gone through, you should have.”
Jean-Luc looks away, still unable to understand how she could have survived.
As if he can read his mind, Bradley continues, “They were on one of the last trains to Auschwitz, in May, just a week before the D-Day landings.”
For a moment, silence hangs between them. Jean-Luc knows that anything he says will sound horribly superficial now.
“They survived, both his parents, seven whole months of hell at Auschwitz. Then they had to walk through eighteen days of ice and snow till they were halfway safe. Eighteen days with nothing to eat except snow. Of course, many died, but not Mr. and Mrs. Laffitte. You know what kept them alive?”
Jean-Luc looks at him with wide eyes. He knows.
“Yes, the thought of being reunited with their son.” Bradley stubs his cigarette out, grinding it down into the aluminum ashtray.
“You’ve spoken with them?”
“Yes. I’ve spoken with them.”
He wants to ask in what language. How can he be sure it’s really them?
As if reading his thoughts, Bradley continues. “I spoke with Mrs. Laffitte on the phone, in French.”
A line crosses Jean-Luc’s forehead.
“You’re not the only one who can speak French, Mr. Bow-Champ. I’m French Jewish, through my mother. We left in ’39, started again.”
The officers standing behind Bradley glance at each other.
“How are they?” Jean-Luc asks. It sounds trivial, but it’s not. He wants to know.
“Samuel’s parents? Much better now.” Bradley taps his pen against the table. Then, taking another cigarette from his breast pocket, he lights up, inhaling deeply. To Jean-Luc’s surprise, he holds the open pack out toward him.
Jean-Luc shakes his head, wondering why he’s offering him a cigarette now. It unnerves him.
“Yes,” Bradley continues. “Mrs. Laffitte wept with joy when I told her the good news. She said she had always known her child was alive, said she’d felt it in her blood.”
Jean-Luc wishes he’d taken the cigarette. He doesn’t smoke, but it would give him something to do with his hands. His breathing is coming fast, and he can feel sweat collecting under his hairline. He knows what’s coming next. He can feel it.
“She said she knew that one day she would be reunited with her child. I guess she just didn’t realize how long it would take.” Bradley blows out smoke, watching it circle upward. “But now that day has come.”
Please, no! The pit of fear in Jean-Luc’s belly grows.
“They want their son back.”
He swallows the mounting bile in his throat. He has to stay in control. He can’t let them do this.
“But… Sam lives here now. This is his home.”
“You entered America illegally with a baby you had taken from his parents in France.”
“But it wasn’t like that. I didn’t snatch him from her. She gave him to me.”
“Gave?” Bradley raises an eyebrow. “Or entrusted you with his safekeeping until the war was over?”
“What’s going to happen to Sam?” This is all that matters.
“The French want us to send you back there. They will decide what to do with you and with the boy. Against our advice, Mrs. Laffitte has asked that Samuel remain with your wife until the outcome has been decided upon. She doesn’t want him to be more traumatized than necessary. She’s consulting with some psychologist or psychiatrist. She really does have his best interests at heart.”