Part 16 (1/2)
Gustav sat with Lorenzo and played cards-pinochle and a la copa, and poker with candy for counters. They played for hours. Lorenzo told him about pranks or deals he'd pulled, ways he'd fooled the officers. Gustav told the story of their journey. Lorenzo's eyes grew wide, listening. He clapped Gustav on the shoulder. ”You've seen a bit of life, kid. You're a man.” Gustav looked down, feeling warm inside.
Lorenzo taught him things. How to slip a bag over a hen's head so you could steal her quietly. How to get into places you weren't allowed to be just by acting like you belonged there. How to make sure there were enough guys who owed you one, and you'd be safe anywhere. ”I want you two to be safe, kid. I want you to be okay. My month's gonna be up, and I won't have anyplace to hide you. I gotta figure some way to get you out without my CO knowing-I'd get the court martial if they knew. But I'll figure it. When you get out there, you remember what I've taught you, okay?”
”Okay.”
”Yeah. You can do it, kid, if anybody can.”
”See, it's like this, Gustav. We're movin' out, the whole brigade. West.”
”To France?”
”Y'see why I couldn't let ya go? Yeah, to France. Too sharp for your own good.”
”Can we come, Lorenzo?”
”Kid, this is an invasion. You can't just-”
”But Lorenzo, France is where we are going. Our father said we should-”
”Even if it's under attack? No, listen, kid. It might work out okay for you-it's like this. You can't come with us-they might not even fight, with all the trouble they got up north, but they might and it's not safe for you-but you just follow us. We drop you at the border, and you come along after us. With your Italian, you could do okay for yourself. Messenger boy at least, maybe even run a little business with the troops just like I do here. They'll love ya. Heck, maybe we'll meet up again.” Lorenzo's grin was a little shaky. He swallowed. ”That'd be great. Wouldn't it?”
”Yeah,” said Gustav, looking up at him. ”Yeah. It would.”
Chapter 25.
Kingdoms Fall Julien and Benjamin stood on the hillcrest under the morning sun, looking north. The mountains were hazy in the distance. The ridge cast a deep, black shadow over the north road, the road to Saint-Etienne; it pa.s.sed out of the shadow and far away, winding between hills in the haze.
”That's the road they'll come down,” said Julien.
Benjamin nodded.
That day, there was no news. When they switched on the radio, it played music; the same music over and over.
Mama worked. She washed the baseboards, she scrubbed behind the stove, she weeded the garden; now and then she stopped, looking at nothing with wide eyes. Papa walked around like a man in a dream, pale, spending hours in his study. Julien and Benjamin walked all day down paths they hardly saw, through woods that were a blur of green, saying nothing.
Sat.u.r.day. Potatoes for breakfast, eaten silently-the only sound the squeaking of Magali's chair on the floor. Benjamin went upstairs and shut his door. Julien went down into town.
The headlines were posted on a board outside the Tabac-Presse. It should change its name to just Presse: news, that was all there was to be had now. News no one wanted and everyone got. German Army Enters Paris, said the headline. Yesterday. A swastika flag flying from the Arc de Triomphe. People stood around the board, looking at it. n.o.body spoke.
Back at home, Julien walked in circles in the living room-where are they, where are they now-until Mama took pity and made him weed. He knelt on the damp earth, pulling savagely at dandelions, leaving broken roots in the ground. Papa came out the back door and said quickly, ”BBC says they're moving south. Almost to Orleans by now.” The door slammed behind him. Mama stood, her face white, a spot of mud on her cheek. She went in the house without saying a word.
Sunday, he sat in church not hearing Pastor Alex, thinking: from Paris they got almost to Orleans in what, a day? So maybe eighty kilometers. From Orleans to here, maybe three or four hundred kilometers.
Four or five days.
They turned the radio on that night. Triumphant music poured out, and then a voice. A new voice, calm and self-a.s.sured; no trace of a German accent, just a touch of smugness, as it told them serenely that the Germans were moving south with unstoppable force. They had reached Dijon today, the voice said.
”They wouldn't lie about that,” said Papa. ”People would know.” He ran a hand through his hair.
Dijon. Julien revised his calculation.
Three days.
Julien stood at the hillcrest and looked up at the north road and shut his eyes. It would be dust on the horizon first, a small cloud; then larger; then perhaps, tiny in the distance, the low-slung crawling silhouettes of tanks. In two days. The Germans. The conquerors. You don't know what they're like.
That night, the walls crowded in as they cleared their plates from the table. The triumph music cut the silence like a knife. A special announcement, said the voice. Marshal Petain, revered by all Frenchmen for his heroism in the Great War, would speak to the nation. Marshal Petain, who in 1916 had won the Battle of Verdun.
The Germans were in Verdun. They'd been there for two days.
A new voice spoke in measured tones, full of force and dignity: the marshal. ”Today I have taken over as head of government,” he said. ”I am offering to France the gift of my person. It is with a heavy heart that I am telling you today that we must stop fighting. I have spoken to our enemy tonight to ask if he will seek with us, as one soldier to another, after a valiant fight and with all honor, the means to ceasing this conflict.”
They looked at each other. ”Papa,” said Magali, ”are we surrendering?”
Papa swallowed, ran his hand through his hair, and swallowed again, nodding slowly. ”Yes, Lili,” he whispered. He switched off the radio. The crackle of the static died into silence. They sat looking at each other. It was over.
It had been over long ago.
”Julien.” Papa's voice was very quiet. ”Will you read tonight?”
He nodded. Mama handed him the Bible.
”'G.o.d is our refuge and strength,'” he read. ”'A very present help in trouble. Therefore we shall not fear ...'” He felt dizzy. The words were falling into the silence like the notes of a bell, like tiny stones thrown into a very deep well. He dared not sound, at this moment on the edge of time, as if he doubted them. ”'Though the earth may change, and the mountains slip into the heart of the sea. Though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.'” He didn't need to doubt anything. This was no promise that all he had known wouldn't drown in the tide.
”'There is a river whose streams make glad the city of G.o.d, the holy dwelling of the Most High. G.o.d is in the midst of her, she will not fall. G.o.d will help her when morning dawns.'” She will not fall. The city of G.o.d-won't fall. ”'Nations are in an uproar. Kingdoms fall.'” Faraway, long-ago Sunday school kingdoms, names ending in ite, he'd thought. ”'The Lord of hosts is with us ... He breaks the bow, and shatters the spear ... Be still, and know that I am G.o.d ... The G.o.d of Jacob is with us.'”
He closed the Bible. No one spoke.
”Papa,” said Julien, not quite looking at his father. ”What's it like? Being ... occupied?”
His father looked at his hands. ”I don't know, Julien,” he said quietly. ”I suppose you could ask your mother.”
Wednesday morning, Julien went out alone, early. It was the third day. At the hill's crest, he took the north road; he climbed the ridge, slipping on brown pine needles, scrambling over rocks, wet green needles las.h.i.+ng his face with dew. He sat on a rock at the north end; from there he could see far off to where the road vanished on the broken horizon, to where the soldiers would come.
He sat and kept watch as morning faded slowly into day. He ate the potato and cheese he had brought, his eyes fixed on that distance. He sat till the sun was low over the western hills, the pine shadows lengthening eastward. Then he stood.
They hadn't come.
He almost wished they'd hurry.
”You're not going to the Santoros's today,” Mama told Magali.
”But Mama!”
”I want you in the house with me till they get here. Till we know what we're dealing with.”
”Mama, I'm not scared!”