We never had any visitors in rue des Lions. Except for Giselle Bauer, of course, and she doesn’t count. Papa went out on his own if he wanted to meet someone and Mama never went out at all, except with us and Papa, or to the shops to queue for food. On Sundays Signor Corrado or Alfredo called for me and brought me home again but they never came inside.
But on the morning of 15 July, Mama came into the room where Nadia and I slept. She shook me awake.
“Hurry up, Jonas, and go downstairs. Signor Corrado is knocking at the door for you and calling out like a madman.”
Signor Corrado! But I’d been helping him just the day before. It was a Tuesday, not a Sunday, but that’s because Tuesday was the 14 July holiday. There were two shows, not just one. We’d never had such a busy day. Everybody said the summer had come at last.
“People just want to come out of their sad little rooms and have some fun,” said La Giaconda. “Let’s pull out all the stops!”
So we did. For both shows. I made quite a bit of money with my flea circus that day.
There were only two things that weren’t good. The first was that Tommaso had been tired. He said he was too tired to help me and too tired to play football. Which was really odd, for him.
The other was that I’d seen the pimply man again, the one who wanted to clear Mama and Papa out. He was marching up and down the pathway alongside the circus, sticking out his arm and shouting German words to anyone who looked at him. There was no policeman to get rid of him this time. But Signor Corrado said not to worry, he was just a nuisance, like a wasp. In the end he went off somewhere with his gang.
I pulled my shorts on and ran downstairs. Someone had let Signor Corrado into the hall and he was just starting up the stairs. He grabbed my hands and held them.
“Jonas, please, please will you come and help us?” he said. “Tommaso asked for you to come. He has to go back to hospital but he won’t go unless you come too. He’s sore in his head and he’s very weak. Please go and ask your parents. But hurry.”
He looked really pale, and Signor Corrado never looked pale. He followed me back upstairs. Mama had a pot of water on the stove for the awful coffee but he shook his head. He told Mama and Papa about Tommaso.
“It’s his mastoid again,” he said. “He was in terrible pain last night. Now the pain is gone and he’s just weak but he wants Jonas. He says he won’t go to the hospital without him.”
“But surely the hospital won’t let Jonas in, Signor,” Mama said. I knew from the way she spoke that she didn’t want me going to the Corrados’ again so soon.
It was Papa who said I should go. “He doesn’t have to go to the hospital at all, my dear,” he said to Mama. “He only has to coax Tommaso to go. If anyone can coax a body to do something our Jonas can.”
Papa said that about me. I could hardly believe it.
“Take my bike,” he said to Signor Corrado. “Keep it. I can’t use it since we’ve had to wear these things.” He meant the yellow stars.
Mama told me to put a clean shirt on and to wash my face and hands. They both came downstairs with us. Mama wasn’t a bit pleased but she hugged me like a bear, really tight. They shook hands with Signor Corrado and then we were up on the bike, me on the crossbar.
I could see the stupid Kamynski girls at the window, laughing and pointing, but I ignored them. What did they know about anything? They never even went out. I looked up but Nadia wasn’t at our window. She was still in bed. She hadn’t heard Mama come in. She was probably dreaming about Puss in Boots or d’Artagnan.
Signor Corrado pushed the pedals down and we began to wobble off. Then Mama suddenly gave a little cry. “Wait! Please! Just one minute!”
She ran back into the house. Poor Signor Corrado looked desperate but Mama took no time at all. She had a little flat card in her hand. “Take this,” she said to me. “I meant to give you this before now. If anything goes wrong this dear man will help you.”
I put the card in my pocket. I didn’t even look at it. Then we started out again. And Signor Corrado rode like he had a yellow jersey on, not at all like poor Papa who had to stop all the time just to get his breath back.