The German army would soon break through at Sedan. This was the reason for the panic in Brussels. This was the reason why two million refugees had fled, in fear of the invading Nazi troops and its heavy artillery; why the roads were clogged with thousands and thousands of people running away, attempting to save themselves and their families. And to add to the chaos, British and French forces were coming from the east to fight the Germans.
That morning, after we left the cottage, Hava and I reached the stream. We ate the small bits of bread and cheese Monsieur Dormond had left us, and Hava washed her face again, repeating her conviction: ‘The Germans won’t find a filthy Jewish girl.’
I asked Hava, ‘How come you were you so comfortable with Joff, his distorted face, all that drool and spit?’
She shrugged. ‘He made me smile.’
The woods in May had a pungent aroma of soil and forgotten leaves oozing into the earth after the winter thaw. The bark on the trees was wet and dark. Mist rose from the ground. We started seeing other people, moving quickly among the trees, appearing and disappearing in the fog, carrying suitcases, babies. A man came upon us suddenly, a silver candelabra clutched in his right hand. He stepped close to me and said, ‘All that lives must die’, and then he disappeared into the trees, raising his candelabra above his head like a trophy.
Hava and I walked in those woods together, hand in hand, like children in a Russian fairy tale. Mushrooms seemed to guide our way. The oak trees were old, stiff, and thick. The roots of pine trees bulged up from the ground. The more we walked, the smaller I felt. The undergrowth was dense. The ferns were the size of elephant ears. There was little colour: just grey, black. Through the tops of the trees, I could see the blue morning sky, and I thought that somewhere in the world, people were sitting on beaches on hot sand under a blue tropical sky.
We continued to walk down the sloped terrain, passing patches of wild grass and then tangled trees again. Then, the woods opened and there were hundreds of daffodils scattered in the open spaces, clustered in groups like gossips at a party.
How ironic, I thought. The arrival of spring and the arrival of the Nazis.
Hava saw it first, the top of a red roof through the trees. ‘Like Tara,’ she said. ‘Like Tara . . . still standing. Roeselare!’
The small city unfurled like a quilted blanket as Hava and I trudged out of the woods and into the streets. People were in a rush, but there didn’t seem to be any panic, nor people leaving the city. Belgian flags were draped from the windows of apartment buildings. A boy on a blue bicycle hurried past us as he urged on a little girl who lagged behind on her red bicycle. ‘You’re too slow, Veronique! Let’s go!’
Hava looked at herself in the window of a bakery and adjusted her hair. The shelves in the bakery were empty. A woman with a bucket of freshly cut chicken heads stepped out of the next shop.
‘Are you a gypsy?’ the woman asked as she looked at me.
‘No, madame,’ I said. ‘I’m from Brussels. Our train stopped. There were bombs.’
The woman looked at my dirty dress. ‘We don’t want trouble here.’
‘Tell her who you are,’ Hava said as she stood beside me.
‘And you? Are you a gypsy?’
Hava stepped up and said, ‘No, madame. I am a Jew.’
‘What’s your name?’ the woman said turning back to me. She placed the bucket of chicken heads onto the ground and took out a small pad and pencil.
I looked at Hava, and then I said to the woman, ‘I’m Simone Lyon. I’m the daughter of Major General Joseph Lyon.’
The woman lowered her pencil and looked up. ‘General Lyon?’
‘Yes, madame.’
‘Can you prove you are his daughter?’
I reached into the pocket of my skirt and pulled out my father’s Croix de Guerre. His name was engraved on the reverse side: Joseph Lyon.
I handed the medal to the woman. She reached out with her wrinkled hand. I noticed the dirt under her fingernails as she ran her fingers over the cross and the crown. When she turned the medal over and saw my father’s name, she said, ‘He is a great man. He used a shovel to save Belgium.’ She looked at me, then at Hava and, as she handed back the medal, she said, ‘Wait here.’
The woman turned and walked back into the empty shop. Hava was surprised that I had the medal.
‘You always say that my father has army spies all over the world keeping an eye on me. I figured if that were true, and I needed to prove to someone who could help us that I was his daughter, that this might help.’ I stuffed the medal back into my pocket.
The woman returned and handed me a loaf of bread and a chocolate bar. ‘Take this.’ She glanced at Hava, and then said to me, ‘Be careful.’
I thanked the woman as she picked up her bucket of chicken heads and walked down the street in the dim morning light, hunched, grey, the bucket in her left hand, her right arm swinging slightly with the movement of her heavy body.
Hava and I walked for a few moments, looking for a place to rest and eat our bread and chocolate. We were tired and hungry. ‘There,’ Hava pointed, ‘on the steps of that building.’
Across the street sat a large building with columns, tall, wide windows, and steps made of marble. The steps were empty, so we took our seats at the top where the sun bathed them with warmth. I broke the bread in half.
‘I’m not a gypsy, Simone. I’m a Jew.’
‘But you still need to eat, Hava.’
‘That woman didn’t speak to me. I was invisible to her.’
‘We are all invisible to people who are blind, Hava.’
We ate our bread in silence, and as we finished, we leaned back against the wall, the sun and breadcrumbs on our dresses. Then Hava spoke.
‘When I was little my father taught me about Kiddush Levanah, the blessing of the moon. He said that blessing the moon is like saying hello to God, and that each new moon reminds us of creation, how everything was born from the darkness. The light was born, like the moon being born in the night.’
Hava’s dress clung to her body like a collapsed silken tent, conforming to the shape of her shoulders and hips; her arms white, like alabaster, or marble, or covered with a fine white powder.
‘My father says the universe is a masterpiece,’ Hava continued. ‘Often we walk to the park to greet the new moon. We stand together, my father and I, facing east with our prayer books in our hands, and then we recite Psalm 148. And here’s the fun part . . .’ Hava stood up. ‘We lift our heels three times and talk to the moon. We say: “Blessed is your Maker; blessed is He who formed you . . . Just as I leap toward you but cannot touch you, so may all my enemies be unable to touch me harmfully . . .”’
Hava lifted her heels three times. ‘See? Even as we cannot touch the moon, so our enemies cannot touch us. And my father always reminds me that when we say such prayers, we speak about our enemies, so we must also speak of peace.’
Hava closed her eyes. I unwrapped the chocolate bar and placed a piece on the flat of her palm. It was as if I had placed the entire world on her hand: she pulled it to her lips, licked it once, and then popped it into her mouth. The chocolate tasted sweet, warm.
‘What are you two doing here?’ Two men in military uniforms that I did not recognize stepped out of the building. One man had a moustache, the other a riding crop and a briefcase.
‘This is a military post, not a ladies’ lounge.’
I asked the soldier with the moustache if he knew how to get to Rue St Germaine, my cousin’s street. He glared down at us, then sighed.
‘Go straight down there, and take the third street on your right.’ I was going to thank him, but he turned abruptly and marched off with his companion down the long steps.
As we walked, I told Hava about Marie Armel. ‘She’s very smart. She seems to know things about the world.’
‘I hope she knows how to make pea soup. I would love pea soup. I’m so hungry, Simone.’
When we reached Rue St Germaine, I looked down the street. ‘There’s her house! It’s the one with the yellow door. That one!’