It had made the rounds pretty quickly that Benjamin was a boche. Probably the only one who didn"t know was Benjamin himself. n.o.body talked to him.
Except Roland and Louis. And they"d never tell him.
Julien prayed to G.o.d to erase it, to make it never have happened; he prayed much more foolish prayers than Grandpa"s question, but he didn"t care. G.o.d could do anything. Just make it go away. And maybe G.o.d was listening. It was good to be with the guys, sitting on the wall after lunch together, laughing out loud. It was something he"d never expected.
Julien was sitting at the table with his homework when Papa came home from a meeting about the new school, wiped his shoes on the mat with a jerk, and banged his briefcase on the floor.
"Martin?" said Mama. "Is everything all right?"
Papa took a deep, trembling breath. "No. No, it"s not all right." He sank down onto the couch and ran his hands through his hair. "I cannot believe that man."
"What happened?"
"I"ll tell you what happened. We were having a bit of debate on wartime and Alex"s vision for this as a sort of international school, and then Victor Bernard-" He drew in his breath. "Victor Bernard informed the a.s.sembly that a family in town is boarding a young man from Germany. And asked us all whether, times being what they are, it might not be safer to look to our own."
Julien swallowed. "Victor Bernard? Henri Bernard"s father?"
"Yes," said Papa absently.
"He thinks Benjamin is a threat?"
"I don"t understand it, Maria. I don"t."
"Maybe he was under the impression it was a young man-in his twenties or so?"
"That"s what I thought. But he never batted an eye when Alex explained the truth. Oh, Alex gave a magnificent defense, Maria. And then just when he was really getting into it, someone in the back raises his hand and says that if the school"s going to take German students, maybe people should just be told who they are. It sort of knocked the wind out of his sails." Papa snorted. Mama wore a look of distaste.
"I think," she said slowly, "that we"ve been insulted."
"Well, yes, Maria. We have."
There was a moment of silence. Papa"s mouth quirked. "The funny thing is, that other guy didn"t mean any harm. You could tell. He thought he was proposing a compromise. Alex was just floored." Papa shook his head. "That"s the one thing he doesn"t understand, really. Stupidity."
"Speaking of stupidity, I wonder how Bernard got the impression Benjamin is actually German?"
"Well, technically-"
"Technically he spent the first five years of his life there. He doesn"t even speak German. They didn"t-take the man"s suggestion, did they?"
Papa sighed, and looked into the fire. "No. They didn"t. Someone changed the subject, and everyone was happy to move on. n.o.body"s interested in Bernard"s obsessions. But when we got around to talking to old pere Gautier about renting that old children"s home he owns by the Tanne, he said not if we were going to put Germans in it. You should"ve seen Alex. But it"s his building, Maria. n.o.body can force him. I saw Monsieur Raissac talking to him after the meeting, and Gautier was just shaking his head no, no, no." He sighed again. "That was going to be our largest dorm, Maria. We can"t do what we"ve got planned anymore-we"ll have to cut the numbers and start with only sixieme and cinquieme, and even then ..."
"There won"t be enough work for you-"
"We"ll figure it out, Maria. Astier might keep me on."
Mama shook her head, her brow creased with worry.
"That man ... to go and ferret out that information on Benjamin ... I will never understand."
No, thought Julien, staring down at his book, his heart beating fast. No, you never will.
Julien lay in his bed, the dark pressing hard against his open eyes, running the words through his mind for the hundredth time. There won"t be enough work for you. We"ll figure it out, Maria.
What have I done?
His father"s job. He"d messed up his father"s job.
And Pastor Alex"s plans; and the next school year for himself and Benjamin, they were supposed to be switching schools next September; and ... and his father"s dreams, the light in his eyes when he talked about it ... he saw him sitting by the fire, the lines of worry in his forehead. He saw the shining tracks of the tears down Benjamin"s face. But all I did was say something true! They were sneering at me!
"G.o.d, I"m sorry, I"m so sorry," prayed Julien, hands pressed against his face. But underneath were deeper, quieter words pounding in time to his heart: No one. Must ever. Know.
Chapter 10.
Broken Herr still had her pack. He"d been carrying it when they ran.
All their money and half their food. One of their blankets; but they had the eiderdown. All her clothes but what she had been wearing.
The first three days were terrible, walking and hiding and walking again under pine trees tall and black as fear, looking behind at every sound, not daring to stay on the road. They slept on the ground in the woods; or Gustav slept. Niko lay looking into the dark, trying not to think. Not to remember what Uncle Yakov had said. Nina, he"s delirious with fever. It"s madness to send two children out into the world alone. Nina, listen to me: there is no safe place for Jews on this earth, nor for women. Everywhere there are evil men.
Everywhere there are evil men.
I know about evil men, she"d thought. Here in Vienna. The n.a.z.is marching in the streets, the men roaring the latest drinking song from the bars, the one with the chorus of "We are hunting Jews." The boys from Gustav"s school who"d crippled her.
Friedrich had been with them; tall, blond Friedrich, the boy she"d dreamed over for a year when she was fourteen-till he"d turned up in a Hitler Youth uniform, and the dreams had gone. Five or six of them chasing her up the alley-she never knew who threw the rock-but in her mind it was Friedrich laughing his loud, manly laugh as she fell, heavily and wrong, something breaking painfully in her left knee. "You got her!" someone had called, and then feet pounding around her and the pain in her knee exploding into white fire as one of them kicked it hard ... and the scream she had heard, not even knowing it was herself, and the voices. "No one"ll care, she"s just a Jew." "I think it"s broken." "Maybe we should go ..."
She remembered the market basket she"d been carrying, tipped on its side, the eggs spilled and broken, their gold yolks bright against the paving stones. Broken. She remembered the walk home.
So she"d known about evil men. But not everything, whispered the shadows. Not even close.
She stared into the dark, seeing the rabbi in prison or dead; seeing Father still and cold in his bed; seeing Herr roaming the woods in the dark. Did you know this, Father? About the world you sent me out into? Did you know about the evil men?
Now she knew. She knew, and she would not forget, though she lay awake at night trying. Back to back with Gustav, wrapped tight in Father"s eiderdown, staring into the dark, listening for footsteps. Hearing only Gustav"s breathing and the tiny noises of the forest all around her; the small sounds of the hunted, filling the night.
They walked on the road. It was cold up here in the mountains. Herr had her gloves; Gustav gave her his and put his hands in his pockets. They ran out of food and went to bed hungry, and still Niko did not sleep. The next day, she could hardly walk for weakness, but she did; they came to a farmhouse, and Niko hid shivering in the woods while Gustav went in to ask for work and food. He was gone a long time and came back sweaty and grinning, with a bag of bread and cheese and a story about learning to split wood. She ate, and the shivering left her.
They slept in a barn the first night that it rained; they walked on, the food ran out, Gustav stopped and worked again. He told people he was looking for his father, who had left his mother when he was young, and lived in Italy. In what town, people asked. Oh, he didn"t know the name, some city not far from the border, on this road. You must mean Trento. Just keep going, down out of the mountains, you"ll find it. They say there"s work there too.
They made for Trento.
It was cold, and getting colder. Gustav wore socks on his hands. He wouldn"t take his gloves back from her. Her arms ached from walking all day on the crutches; ached and then hardened. But it was so cold. At night they huddled, back to back, wrapped in the eiderdown, shivering. When they found a barn to sleep in, it was warmer, but Niko started full awake at every sound. She got up each morning and kept walking, but her head felt hollow and full of wind, and her heart shivered in her chest, and fear and hunger fought in her belly every time Gustav stopped to ask for work. And everywhere there were evil men.
They were filthy, their clothes were filthy, the white stars on the eiderdown were black as dirt. The streams they found were icy; if they washed, they would never get warm again. They had no fire; they didn"t dare. They had no matches. Father hadn"t said to pack matches. She didn"t know what he"d had planned for them with the rabbi; but it wasn"t this.
It rained. Icy, pouring rain, and no houses or barns, and nothing to do but walk, their wet clothes clinging to their skin. Gustav"s pack was soaked; the eiderdown wet and heavy, the bread sodden and falling apart. It was so cold; and nowhere to stop and get warm and dry again, no help, no one they could trust. She had never imagined anything like this. She wanted to sink down beside the road, to give up, but she kept going. The rain stopped before nightfall, and they lay in the wet woods under the soaking eiderdown, and Niko knew in her heart that they could not go on much longer. They ate their soggy bread and said nothing. She would not let him see her cry.
Chapter 11.
Stupidity Winter came in quickly, without preliminaries, like an uninvited guest who means to stay; like an invader.
The school went on winter rules, every cla.s.s spending break in their homeroom. Ricot let them put the desks in a half circle near the woodstove, and the guys arranged themselves on them, sitting on the tops of desks, the backs of chairs, in a perfect echo of Henri"s court under the oak tree. Roland had his place by Jean-Pierre at the edge of it. Benjamin and Julien stayed at their desk.
At home in the mornings, Julien still prayed. He prayed that the school would get the old Gautier place, after all, that it would be like nothing had ever happened, that G.o.d would please, please help. He didn"t know if anyone was listening.
It snowed, and Tanieux finally looked the way he remembered it: a winter town of soft white curves and blue shadows, the tiny warm glow of windows down along the white streets. Magali and her friend Rosa ambushed Julien and Benjamin on the way to school with s...o...b..a.l.l.s, and they gave back as good as they got. The schoolyard rang with shouts when they got there, s...o...b..a.l.l.s flying; Julien fell on the deep snow by the wall and started packing s...o...b..a.l.l.s. He got Leon Barre in the ear, and Leon"s friend Antoine got him back, and then he got Pierre in the neck; that was sweet. He filed into cla.s.s with the others and listened to Henri and Philippe and Pierre behind him planning a battle, a real one; a whole-cla.s.s s...o...b..ll fight fought by the rules of ballon prisonnier. It was brilliant. He had to give them credit. It was going to be perfect.
And he was going to be there.
The sun was bright and the sky deep blue, and the wind had blown the snow into knee-deep drifts and long sparkling curves in the sun. The trees were a black-and-white tracery, the river clear and edged with ice, and in the schoolyard Henri Quatre and Pierre were picking teams.
The lines were laid out: two team zones facing each other across a narrow no-man"s-land, and behind each team"s zone, its prison, bounded by a hand-high wall of snow. If you got hit, you were taken. If you managed to catch a s...o...b..ll someone had dodged, you could remake it and throw it at the enemy, and if you hit one of them you went free. The military implications were beautiful. Julien took one look at those prison walls and instantly craved the same thing as every boy in that schoolyard: to be the brave French soldier, captured but not cowed, resisting, breaking through the lines of the cowardly boches.
Gilles for Henri"s team, Philippe for Pierre ...
"Hey we"re the French, okay, and you"re the boches!"
"You"re the boches!"
"Julien," said Pierre.
He was in Pierre"s camp in a flash, bending down to pack a s...o...b..ll; it crunched delightfully, perfect snow. He was shaping another when he heard Benjamin"s voice.
"Um ... can I join?"
Julien straightened but did not turn; he stood motionless as Pierre shouted, "Hey, we"re the French Army, we can"t take boches. Go ask them over there!" And laughed.
"You"re the boches!" hollered someone from the other team.
Julien turned then and saw Benjamin"s face.
Benjamin turned away and walked silently across the field. Something stuck and burned in Julien"s throat. He looked across at the no-man"s-land, at the prison camp, all the lines and colors of high adventure drawing themselves in those packed snow walls. He wanted it. He wanted that daring escape, that courage under fire. The battle was gearing up, his team a.s.suring each other confidently that they were the French Army, that the line would hold. He was a part of this. No one had thrown him out. But as he bent for a s...o...b..ll to hurl at the enemy, before his eyes was Benjamin"s face collapsing like a bombed house. The windows shattered, the walls falling inward: a direct hit.
Julien looked at the wall. Benjamin stood in deep snow, his head down, a small gray figure against the white. s...o...b..a.l.l.s flew; around him boys were calling, their voices thin and distant as the cries of rooks. He dropped his s...o...b..ll and walked off the field.
The snow m.u.f.fled his steps as he approached the wall. "Hey."
Benjamin"s head came up fast, and Julien caught the gleam of tears in his eyes before he looked away, blinking hard. "Yeah?" he said roughly. "Why aren"t you out there?"
"Because that was wrong."
Benjamin looked at him. The tears in his eyes wavered and spilled. "There"s no place for us," he said. "In Germany they hated us because we were Jews. They broke all the windows of our shop. That"s one of my first memories. I was four. That"s when we left. Last year they beat my uncle David and broke his hands so bad he can"t work anymore." He swallowed. He took off his gla.s.ses and wiped a sleeve across his eyes.
"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 s...o...b..ll 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 gla.s.ses, 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 s...o...b..ll?" Astier sounded incredulous.
To hear Pierre tell it, Julien had just walked up and punched him, G.o.d knew why. Julien told what he could of the truth. How could he explain Benjamin"s face, or the broken b.l.o.o.d.y 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 s...o...b..ll 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.