by Alex Amit
For my seventeenth birthday Mom brought me a chocolate bar, I have no idea how she managed to get it or how much she paid for it. She came to me and hugged me, even though we’d had a fight the night before. She told me that I was now seventeen and mature. I hugged her back even though I was still angry with her, and so happy about the chocolate. For days I would hold back and take small bites of it, making sure to keep it as long as possible, knowing I would have no more chocolate after I finished the tablet.
One small bite of the apple, just one.
I can repeat what I learned in school, so I won’t forget anything. The capital of the United States is Washington, the longest river in Europe is the Danube. The student Monique Moreno will stand in the corner and give me the note she was trying to pass to her friend. Just one more bite of the apple and I’ll stop. From today on, the student Monique Moreno must wear a yellow badge attached to her clothes, and she may not play with her friends during the school break. The student Monique Moreno will not join the class tour because Jews are not allowed to enter museums. A little more of the apple. The girl Monique Moreno will walk down the street with her head down, not looking at the posters pasted on the walls, showing the Jews as rats taking over the world.
German language, I can whisper and practice my German language. Where’s your ID? Where are your food stamps? Go and stand last in the line, no butter allowance remains today for the last in line. Get up against the wall as a German soldier passes by, head down you filthy Jew.
How long should I stay? I cannot be here anymore. The creaking of the wooden board sounds like a thunderbolt to me and I change my mind and quickly close it up again, but after few minutes my fingers open it once more.
The house is dark and quiet, and I crawl out of my hiding place, sitting on the kitchen floor. For a moment I try to stand and look out a window, but my leg muscles that had been cramped all day betray me, and I have to kneel back on the wooden floor, stretching my legs slowly and trying to listen to the sounds of the street while sitting on the floor. But my attention is on the front door. If they try to catch me now, I won’t be able to escape.
The darkness of the empty apartment threatens me, but I am afraid to turn on the light. What time is it? I use my hands and lean on the windowsill to carefully peek out. The street is empty and no one is passing by. Only a streetlight illuminates the deserted sidewalk in a dim light, painting it yellowish.
The diary! I rush to my room, feeling my way in the dark and almost tripping over a pile of thrown belongings in the hall. My bed moves and my hands grope in the dark through the space next to the wall, right on the floor, relaxing only when my fingers feel its hard cover, bringing it closer to my heart as if it could provide me some protection against this whole day.
I must not turn on a light, if they know I’m here they will come again, knock on the door with their fists and shout “Police!” What should I do? Where are Mom and Dad? When will they return?
“God,” I pray quietly as I lie on the floor of my room and press the diary to my chest. “I promise to be a good girl and not quarrel with them anymore when they say we should cut back. I promise, just return them to me, please, I will never shout that I am tired of being Jewish and that I am not willing to sew a yellow badge on my dress.”
I have to get dressed, to be ready. The candle I found in the kitchen drawer illuminates my messy room as I search for a dress. I find my shoes lying at the entrance to the kitchen, but apart from them, the cupboards are empty. Mom’s silverware is gone and so is the food from the pantry. There are only a few breadcrumbs left that I manage to scrape off the shelves with my fingers, putting them in my mouth and licking ravenously, but that does not quench my hunger. I have to keep some of the apple.
The sound of footsteps on the staircase of the building makes me jump, and I blow out the candle, standing still. Did they hear that there was someone in the house? Please, make them be Mom and Dad and Jacob. God, I promise to behave well and never quarrel with them again.
But the door remains closed and there is no key rattling in the lock, or loud knocks on the door. The steps continue to climb up the stairs as I slowly catch my breath.
I must not stay home, they will look for me, the policeman said they would pick me up. Why did Mom tell him I would go to Aunt Evelyn’s? I’ll go to her, she’ll probably know where the police took them.
I have to hurry before they come back and pick me up. The dark stairwell looks less threatening than the empty apartment, and I go out and slam the door behind me. My hands search for the banisters as I carefully go down the dark staircase that leads to the street, my gaze focused on the dim light emanating from the open door of Odette, the doorwoman, who lives at the entrance to the building.
Paris, at night
“Monique, stop,” Odette cries, but I do not listen to her. My feet run past the open door of her room, skipping over the strip of light that is cast into the darkness of the entrance hall, and I keep on running. The fear of her spurs me on as I forcefully pull the latch of the heavy front door, open it a crack and run out into the street with only my dress on and my diary pressed against my chest. I’m too afraid she will try to catch me, and I’m not looking back.
But as soon as I slow down in the street, careful not to stumble on the pavements slippery from the light summer rain, trying to catch my breath, I notice them and I want to scream.
I have no idea what time it is, but if it’s after the middle of the night, it is curfew time, and no one is allowed to be on the street, especially not a Jewish girl.
They both stand at the end of the street, wearing policeman hats and looking like dark shadows in the light of the lantern, which shines with a faint light.
Are they looking for me? Waiting to arrest me? That was what the policeman had said in the morning. My hands quickly go through my dress pockets, searching for the key to our home, realizing I forgot to take it. I have no way back. I also forgot my ID.
“A Jewish girl caught during curfew is as good as dead,” Mom would scold me when I’d come home late at night, trying to close the front door as quietly as I could, knowing she was lurking for my return and that I would not be able to get away from this.
“You must not forget who you are,” Dad used to tell me with a tired face as he emerged from their bedroom late at night, slowly adjusting his robe. “The situation is difficult,” he added when he got in the middle of the fight between us, and Mom called on him to impose discipline on me.
“I’m not Jewish, I’m an ordinary French girl,” I answered him with a stubborn face, but despite all the harsh words I said to him, refusing to look down, I was really frightened of the police. I used to get back at safe hours, sneaking through the front door of the building, passing Odette and her remarks, and sitting quietly in the staircase, waiting there for hours until it was late, and only then entering the apartment and quarrel with Mom. Dad once found me sitting in the dark on the staircase, shivering cold and waiting, and wasn’t angry at me at all, he just stroked my head and said we are in a difficult time, and that Mom has enough worries besides where her daughter walks at night, and no matter what happens I must not forget who I am. I want him to stroke my head so much now, and tell me the same things, as I’m in the middle of the street in front of two cops during the curfew.
Please do not look in my direction, please do not notice me. For a moment my feet freeze in place and I almost stumble on the pavement, but manage to recover and walk a few steps towards the shadow of the building which hides me from them. Quietly I lower myself behind the entrance stairs, while my hand keeps looking in my dress pocket for my ID, but it’s not there.
Where is it? Did the police take it with them in the morning? Did I forget it at home? I’m as good as dead without that beige cardboard. What would I do without my photo and my fingerprint and a blue stamp of taxes in the amount of 12 francs that Mom had paid to the clerk? I must have my ID, even though it has a large, humiliating red stamp on it: “Je
w.”
After the Germans arrived, we received warrants that ordered us to go to the police station. I was ashamed to go, shouting at Mom that we are proud French citizens and we have the right to refuse such humiliating instructions. What would I do now without my ID?
I have to get to Aunt Evelyn; she will find a solution. I walk against the walls of the buildings, slowly getting away from the two policemen, but there, around the corner, I hear more voices and I have no courage to keep going. All I can do is crawl between two trash cans, hide and wait for morning, exhausted, tired and hungry.
When the sun rises, I will reach Aunt Evelyn and she will help me.
“They’re not here, the police took them,” Mathilde, the doorwoman at the entrance to Aunt Evelyn’s building, tells me, as she holds the heavy wooden door a crack open, preventing me from entering the building.
“Please, I’m alone, they took my parents, where did they take them?” I beg her. She’s known me since I was a little girl, bouncing merrily on the street and knocking on the wooden door and shouting: “Mathilde, I’ve come to visit Aunt Evelyn.” Too small to reach the bell.
“The police came yesterday morning and took everyone. I have no idea where, I’m sorry, I cannot help you.” And she slams the big wooden door in my face.
I look to the sides, searching for a sign of French policemen or German soldiers. Maybe it’s my time to be captured, I’ve run out of strength to keep running. At least they will take me to where Mom and Dad are, I have no place to hide.
I’d hidden among the bins until first light, shivering from every noise, and as soon as people started walking in the street I came out of hiding, careful not to run and not to arouse suspicion, constantly checking if I was being followed and looking for round helmets in the streets. But Aunt Evelyn is not here, and Mathilde doesn’t let me in.
The passersby on the street ignore me, looking forward while walking, and I knock again on the brown wooden door. I have nothing to lose.
“Mathilde, please.”
“Well, come in.” She eventually opens the door and pulls me inside, immediately closing it with the big black latch.
“Help me, please, I have to find her, where did the police take them?”
“They were not home when the police officers came to pick them up,” she surprises me as I follow her into the courtyard. She lowers her voice as she walks, looking around to make sure no one is around, not even a neighbor going down the stairs.
“I told the police they left Paris.” And she walks over and moves a rickety wooden ladder that rests on a small door of a shed standing at the back corner of the yard, knocking three times on the wooden door.
“They’re inside, waiting to be evacuated. Join them, and make sure to be quiet.”
“We have no place for her.”
“But Albert, she’s my sister’s daughter. I cannot leave her on the street.”
“You heard the man from the resistance. He only has room for four people, not even one more. We have no choice, she must go.”
“We have to get her in. They’ll catch her.”
“Do you want us all caught? Do you want us all sent to eastern Poland?”
“We will succeed in convincing him to add another person, he will agree.”
“No, he will not agree, not without her having forged papers.”
“I cannot leave her alone. She is my family.”
“We are your family; do you want to endanger your whole family?”
“She will die here alone in the streets; she will be caught and she will die.” I hear Evelyn’s silent cry through the open door to a crack in the shed, but Albert does not answer her anymore, and closes the door in my face.
I stand still for a few moments, gazing at the closed door. What’s the point of knocking again? They will not open up for me. Slowly I sit down on the ground, lean against the wall of the building and start crying.
It’s not a loud cry, but small breaths of despair mixed with tears. If only I could be a little girl again, like I used to be. To take a walk down the streets of Paris without worries, knowing Mom is waiting for me in the warm house with the smell of cinnamon cake, lying down every night in my cozy bed. Smiling and filling up my new diary with words of imagination about what I will be when I grow up.
Sounds of footsteps are heard from the entrance of the building, but I do not raise my head, continuing to read my diary which rests on my crossed legs. I do not look, even when the sound of footsteps is already close to me, I don’t care who comes to look for me and catch me. I will die soon anyway.
“Come on, hurry, what are you doing out here?” Mathilde’s hand grabs my arm and she’s dragging me into the interior of the building. Almost by force she puts me in her little room by the front door, quickly closes the door behind us and seats me on the wooden chair in the corner.
“What are you doing out there?”
“They are not willing to take me with them,” I mumble and look down, my hands holding the diary tightly.
“Well, well.” She approaches and hugs me for a moment. My hands hold her gratefully, but she releases my hug and just puts her hands on my shoulders. She is not probably used to expressing feelings, or recognizing the class difference between us, which may now have been completely reversed, as I am a hunted Jew and she is safe in her little room.
“I cannot help you. I have nowhere to hide you, and if they catch me, they will kill us both,” she says as she turns her back on me and walks over to the small kitchenette. She takes out a loaf of bread wrapped in brown paper, and begins to slice it, and I eagerly look at her fingers holding the bread.
“I do not know where your family is, but you cannot trust anyone, you must rely only on yourself.” Her words barely reach me as she bends over and takes a jar of jam out of the cupboard, opens it, and spreads a thin layer of strawberry jam on the slices of bread.
“You must forget who you were.” She repeats her words several times as she sits next to me and I hold the plate in my lap, taking small bites of the bread, savoring the sweet taste of the jam.
“Are you listening to me? You must forget who you were.”
“Yes, I must forget who I am.” I must change.
“What are you doing?”
I raise my gaze and notice him. He is about Jacob’s age, but he looks more neglected as he stands and watches me curiously.
“I found this dress and I’m fixing it.”
“Mother says all the Jews are dirty and it is lucky the Germans are taking them.”
An hour earlier, Mathilde expelled me from her little room, forcing me to leave its safety, out into the streets and the city beyond the building’s heavy wooden door. “You have to go,” she told me, not before she gave me another hug and tucked an apple and two slices of jam-smeared bread, wrapped in brown paper, into my dress pocket.
“Keep the food for later, my dear child, may God be with you,” she whispered as she pushed me out and made the sign of the cross in a quick motion. And I had no other choice but to start walking with my head down, among all the people returning from work on a summer afternoon.
I go down the street with no real direction, lifting my head from time to time, waiting for the policemen to pick me up. But no policeman attacks me or calls me to stop, nor do I see any German soldiers. Even when I climb several stairs at the entrance to one of the buildings and look down the street, I don’t identify any blue hats of policemen blue hat or the grey-green uniform of soldiers.
The city remains the same, the people walk their same normal walk. The men in suits and hats, and the women in summer dresses. No one slows down, or breaks into a fast run, everyone gets on with their lives. Most of them don’t even look at the yellow badge attached to my dress, even though it makes me feel so exposed.
It’s like nothing has changed in the world since yesterday, and the police are not looking for me, and did not take Mom and Dad and Jacob to an unknown place.
I keep on moving from street
to street, with no direction, until I notice them in the distance, further down Rivoli Street, and stand still. At first they look like a dark block slowly moving in my direction, approaching me step by step. But when they come close, and all the people in the street go to the sides to make room for them and the policemen guarding them, I can see their faces.
I must hide, and I bend down behind some empty wooden food boxes that lie atop each other next to a grocery store, making sure to hide the yellow badge with my palm. Despite lowering my gaze to the pavement, trying not to stand out, I can’t help it, and from time to time I sneak looks at them. They walk quietly, dead-eyed, holding their coats in their hands. Some carry heavy suitcases or a bundle packed in a piece of cloth. And only one girl walks between her two parents, giving them both her hands and bouncing cheerfully, as if she were on an afternoon walk.
As they pass me, I look down again, so as not to arouse suspicion. I hear her ask her father where they are going on this trip, and I have to stop myself from running those few steps and joining them. Just to not being alone.
It’s a matter of time until they catch me. The thought runs through my head as they walk down the street, and I escape into a neglected alley beside the main street. I have to do something; I have to forget who I am.
Some stones in the street have been taken out by city employees, and I decide this is the right place to let my diary go. I dig into the hard ground by using a small wooden stick and my fingers, working quickly before anyone notices the Jewish girl sitting in the corner of the unfamiliar alley.
My injured fingers hold my diary one last time, and I press it to my chest and bring it closer to my mouth, kissing it with my lips, feeling the smell of the hard cover, and then placing it in the little hole I made in the ground.
