Village of Scoundrels

by Margi Preus

  “Now,” he said, resting his arms on the back of the chair, “tell me what you were doing out on that road when those soldiers nabbed you.”

  The younger one, Jules, obviously accustomed to doing the talking, chimed in and said, “Just messing around. I guess it was stupid. We’re sorry.”

  “Yes, of course it was stupid,” Perdant said. “But more than that, it’s a punishable offense.”

  Jules nodded and looked at his hands, as if surprised to see them sitting idly on his lap.

  “Who or what were you protecting?”

  Jules looked up and said, “Protecting?” in a way that sounded so innocent, Perdant knew it couldn’t be.

  The other boy’s expression did not change. Just as dull as always. Still, it was worth a shot, Perdant thought. He turned to Claude.

  “Was there someone important you were protecting by distracting the soldiers?” he asked Claude.

  Claude’s eyes flickered with confusion.

  “I don’t think he understands all those big words,” Jules whispered.

  “Who got away when you were painting on the road?” Perdant asked the older boy.

  Claude’s eyes widened. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly. “American lady,” he said.

  Perdant wrote that down.

  Claude went on talking in a kind of disjointed way, while Perdant scribbled down the words he could make out in the boy’s garbled speech. “Bicycle radio. Wooden leg. Old château. Spy lady.”

  “The American lady is the spy?” Perdant asked, somewhat incredulously.

  He noticed Jules shaking his head, so he turned to the younger boy.

  Jules rolled his eyes and said, “I think he’s talking about a movie he saw in Le Puy.”

  Come to think of it, Perdant thought he’d seen that same movie. “Fine. You can go,” he said to Claude. “But don’t let me ever catch you painting those signs on the road or anywhere else—do you understand?”

  Claude looked at Jules, who nodded, so he got up and went toward the door. Jules started to follow.

  “You,” Perdant said. “Not so fast.”

  Jules turned back, and Claude hesitated.

  “Clo-clo, you go home, okay?” Jules said.

  “Now?”

  “Yeah.”

  Claude went out, and Jules returned to his seat, his face a mask.

  “You know I could send you to jail,” Perdant said.

  The boy’s face didn’t change. They must give classes in this stuff here, Perdant thought. “But I’ll tell you what. If you’d like to help me out a little, I’ll let you off the hook. How about that?”

  “What kind of help?” asked the boy.

  “For now just keep an eye out. Maybe run a few errands for me.” When the little scoundrel didn’t immediately respond, he added, “Report to me what you see. Any little detail. Any little item of interest.”

  “I don’t know,” the boy said. “I’m very busy.”

  “It’s not an option!” Perdant said, growing frustrated. “I’m giving you an opportunity so you don’t have to go to jail.”

  “Oh,” said Jules.

  “Listen,” Perdant said more gently. “I’ll tell you what. If you help me out, I’ll do what I can to get your father released from prison. I might be able to pull a few strings.”

  The boy nodded slightly, so Perdant went on. “Report to me every Tuesday and Thursday from now on. Nine o’clock in the morning.”

  Jules started to protest until Perdant turned a glacial blue eye on him and shut him down.

  “Oui, Monsieur,” Jules said.

  Once the boy was out of the office, Perdant put away his reports and, reaching for the telephone, turned his attention to bigger things.

  THE RAID

  In the past when there’d been raids, there’d been a phone call the night before.

  “How’s the weather up there?” someone from the police station in the valley would ask. Or a quick, “Fais attention!— Watch out!” Then the line would go dead—hung up on the other end. Just enough to know that precautions should be taken.

  But there was no warning one early spring morning when a dozen police trucks and motorcycles wound up the mountain and burst upon the slumbering village and surrounding countryside.

  People woke to the rumble of cars and motorcycles and the low, throbbing idling of a bus, a bus that had been brought along to cart away all those they planned to arrest.

  »«

  At the Beehive, Henni and the others were awakened by pounding at the door. They heard Monsieur Boulet go to the door and, sitting in their beds, barely breathing, caught snatches of the conversation.

  “Can I help you?” That was M. Boulet.

  “We’ve come for any non-Aryans. They are to be transferred elsewhere.” That was the standard line, delivered by a standard policeman.

  Henni and the others could not see the policemen; they could only hear the shuffling of their boots, their rough voices, and feel the weight of their presence.

  “This house is under the protection of the Swiss government,” M. Boulet was telling them. “And these children are under my protection. You’ll have to produce a warrant if you want to search here.”

  “To get a warrant we’ll have to go all the way back to Le Puy,” whined a voice on the far side of the door.

  “So, go back to Le Puy,” said M. Boulet. “I won’t let you enter without the proper authorization.”

  There was more discussion, frustrated mumbling, and at last the clatter of boots down the walk, multiple car doors slamming, and the sound of the cars driving away.

  The young children sat in their beds, wide-eyed. The older ones who had crept to the stairs to listen now stared at one another in disbelief. Had the policemen really left to drive all the way back to Le Puy? All of them?

  “Breakfast!” M. Boulet called up the stairs, and everyone sprang to action.

  »«

  It is happening, Henni thought as she shoveled oatmeal into her mouth, then a spoonful into little Lulu’s. Her face felt numb. The oatmeal made a heavy lump in her stomach.

  “Blueberry-picking day!” M. Boulet called out, handing the children baskets.

  “Blueberries . . . ?” Henni asked him incredulously. It was only May.

  “I mean, mushroom hunting!” he exclaimed, then whispered to her, “Henni, you will keep an eye on the little ones, won’t you? If they find any mushrooms, don’t let them eat any until they can be checked by the pharmacist.”

  Henni nodded as he handed her Lulu, at only three years old, the youngest.

  “Someone will let you know when it’s safe to return” was the last thing he said as she led the children out the back door and toward the forest.

  THE SEARCH BEGINS; ARRESTS ARE MADE

  “Leave no stone unturned,” Perdant told the gendarmes before they set off in all directions. “Search attics, cellars. Open closets, cupboards, drawers. Knock on walls for secret panels. Check floors for trapdoors. Look everywhere.”

  He pictured the gendarmes and policemen fanning out across the town and countryside like a huge net, scooping up big silvery fish and little minnows: foreigners, suspects, black marketers, and Jews.

  It was a delicate matter, this business of Jew catching. There were French Jews and foreign Jews. There were registered or unregistered Jews. Documented and undocumented. There were some living in houses supposedly under the protection of the Swiss government. But what a lot of the people sheltering these enemies of the nation didn’t seem to understand was that the laws and regulations about who was legal and who was not had changed. And now, if they were sheltering Jews, they themselves could—and needed to know they would—be arrested.

  As for Perdant, he, too, had arrests to make. His first stop was the carpentry workshop.

  »«

  “Aha! Now I’ve got you!” Perdant said as he burst into the woodworking shop. It had seemed very dramatic when he’d practiced it in the mirror the day before, but w
hen he saw the puzzled looks on the two boys’ faces, he realized how ridiculous it sounded. Still, in addition to confusion, there was fear on those faces, and that was a more satisfying reaction.

  The two brothers were put on the bus to wait for all the non-Aryans and undesirables that Perdant was certain would soon be coming.

  In the meantime, local children and teens were arriving with little gifts for the boys; they’d begun to surround the bus and started singing. But Perdant had another arrest to make and needed to go. Leaving a few gendarmes to guard the brothers, he went off with the sound of young voices in his ears.

  IN THE WOODS

  How far is far enough? Henni wondered as she led her young charges into the woods. Her friend Madeleine walked alongside her. Madeleine was just as old as Henni, but somehow Henni seemed to be the one in charge.

  The littlest of the children, two boys and one girl, skipped and jumped, squealing and giggling.

  “Quietly!” Henni gently scolded. Instantly, the children stopped chattering, held hands, and walked nearly silently along the path.

  Henni smiled sadly at their spindly legs, bare below their shorts and skirt. It was one thing to be in your teens and live through all this. She, at least, could remember better times. These little tykes probably couldn’t remember a time when . . . Well, never mind, she told herself, shaking memories of her old life out of her head. Maybe it was better not to remember.

  It was, she told herself, a beautiful day to be in the forest, and she tried to think about how the light filtering through the branches made little squares of sunlight on the path ahead. The children had already forgotten about being quiet and had resumed leaping from one bright spot to the next, letting out little squeaks of delight. Henni didn’t have the heart to stop them.

  How far? she wondered again. How far was far enough? Would the police trouble themselves to go hunting in the woods? What if they had dogs?

  Henni peered into the forest, looking for large boulders or thickly growing trees. Where did you go to hide from dogs?

  Back home in Germany, she had seen the storm trooper’s big brown-and-black dogs straining against their leashes, their teeth bared, their black eyes glittering. All that had separated her from them were the thin leather leashes held by sneering soldiers. The song she’d heard the soldiers sing as they marched below her bedroom window haunted her. “When Jewish blood spurts from the knife, then things go twice as well . . .”

  Her blood seemed to freeze at the memory of it, as if it were refusing to run through her veins or anywhere at all.

  She felt a small hand tugging on her skirt. “Where are the mushrooms, Henni?” Lulu asked, looking up at her.

  “A little farther.” Henni strained to hear what might be happening in the town behind them while leading the children deeper into the forest.

  “I’m hungry!” Pepi piped up.

  “But we can’t eat any mushrooms,” Henni said. “You can pick but not eat.”

  “What will we eat?” Pepi cried.

  “Maybe we’ll find some blueberries,” Henni said, knowing they would not.

  She tried to listen with her whole being for the roar of motorcycles or trucks on the road or barking dogs or policemen crashing through the woods. But all that could be heard were the peaceful sounds of the forest: the wind pushing the tops of the pines, the flutter of birds among the bushes, the complaint of a crow somewhere distant.

  Lulu tripped over a root, fell and scraped her knee on a rock, and started howling, her shrieks echoing through the forest. The two boys, Simon and Pepi, had gotten into a tussle, and now Simon was crying as well. And Pepi was whining, “I’m hungreee!”

  “If you will all promise to be quiet, I will tell you a story,” Henni said.

  “Tell us a story!” Lulu said through her tears.

  “Can you stop crying?” Henni asked.

  Lulu nodded, sniffling.

  “Simon?”

  Simon wiped his nose on his sleeve and nodded, too.

  “Well, then,” Henni said, walking as she talked. “Once upon a time there was . . .” And then she realized only one story came to mind. She paused. Could she really not think of a single other story?

  “Once upon a time what?” Pepi said.

  Madeleine rolled her eyes. “Are you going to tell the story or what?” she said.

  “You think of a story,” Henni said to her friend.

  “I don’t know any stories,” Madeleine pronounced.

  Henni sighed and went on, thinking, Well, here goes. “Once upon a time,” she said, “a poor woodcutter lived in the forest with his two children, Hansel and Gretel. His new wife, the children’s stepmother, said to the father, ‘There is not enough food for us in this house. You must get rid of the children. Take them out into the woods—take them deep, deep into the forest so they will never find their way back.’”

  Henni noticed the children were completely silent now. Simon and Pepi walked with their heads down, staring at the ground. This was probably a very bad tale to have chosen, she realized. But at least they were quiet. She peered into the forest and wondered again how far they should go.

  A CUP OF COFFEE

  Was that a curtain being pulled aside? Perdant wondered as he looked up at the windows of the residence. He was about to step back to get a better view when the door opened and he was greeted by a stout woman in a white apron.

  “Can I help you?” she said, pointing the spoon in her hand at him—as if there might be some confusion as to which “you” she was addressing.

  “I wish to speak with . . .” He consulted his notebook unnecessarily. He knew the fellow’s name, but he liked to give the impression of having so many names in his book that he had to consult it each time. “Anton Smelyansky,” he said.

  She gestured for him to enter, and he followed her into the house and down a hall lined with unfortunately closed doors. He would have liked to take a look into those rooms.

  “Please sit down and have a cup of coffee,” the woman said when they came to the kitchen. “I’ll go find him.”

  “No thank you,” Perdant said. “I’ll just—”

  “Nonsense!” she said. “It will only take a minute.” The cook slid a plate with a thick slice of bread toward him. She plunked a jar of jam onto the table and nodded at it. “Would you open that? Arthritis,” she explained, holding up her hands as evidence.

  Perdant loosened the lid and lifted it off. Immediately, he got a noseful of summer. In spite of himself, he began to salivate.

  “Help yourself!” the cook said, gesturing to a pot of creamy butter and the glistening red jam, lumpy with raspberries. “Sit down! Sit down!” she insisted. “Coffee’s almost ready.” She pulled out a chair, gestured to it, and croaked, “Ha! If you can call roasted chickory or ground-up acorns coffee!”

  In spite of his plan not to, he began spreading butter on the bread. And after the butter, jam. He caught a glimpse of a little head peeking in through the kitchen door.

  “Now, who was it you wanted to see?” the cook asked.

  Perdant looked at his notebook as if he needed to remind himself. Of course he did not. He had practiced in his room before arriving. But it seemed he hadn’t rehearsed what would happen if he were offered a cup of coffee. “Anton Smelyansky,” he said with his mouth embarrassingly full. “If I might just . . .” He turned toward the door—the little head was gone.

  Were those footsteps he heard overhead? Possibly scurrying footsteps? It was hard to hear over the running water and the coffeepot boiling on the stove, and now the cook’s clomping sabots.

  A steaming mug of ersatz coffee was set in front of him—Perdant had a dizzying sense that hours had passed or no time at all. He’d noticed this before, the way the passage of time seemed skewed. It was one of the odd things about this village.

  There were other strange things. Sometimes he heard a weird metallic jingling like that of spurs. But when he looked, there was never anything there.


  Perdant tapped a knife against the oilcloth on the table, trying not to think about the time he was wasting. He listened to the sound of kids running in and out, footsteps on the stairs, going up, coming down. He stared out the kitchen window at the forest that swept down from the mountainsides and crept right into the backyards of these homes—vast, dark ribbons of pines laced with deer and rabbit trails, and filled with ferns big enough to conceal small children.

  THE STORY

  “The story, Henni!” Lulu urged. She held up her arms to be carried.

  Henni bent down so the little girl could climb onto her back, then carried her piggyback while she went on with the story.

  “Hansel,” she said, “had overheard the conversation between his father and his stepmother and had put a crust of bread in his pocket. He had a plan. The next day the father took them far into the forest. Gretel was frightened and cried, but Hansel was very brave, like all of you. He kept his wits. All along the way, he left a little trail of bread crumbs to follow so that he and his sister might find their way home.”

  Henni adjusted Lulu on her back as she thought about the next part of the story. Was it too sad for the little ones? But the children were quiet, waiting for the story to go on, so she continued. “‘I’m frightened!’ Gretel cried. ‘I’m cold and hungry and I want to go home!’

  “‘Don’t be afraid,’ Hansel said. ‘I’ve left a trail of bread crumbs we can follow.’”

  Henni stopped, noticing that they had come to a beautiful open area filled with blueberry bushes, covered, not with blueberries, but with tiny green buds.

  “Look!” Henni said. “Blueberry bushes!”

  “Are these all blueberry bushes?” Pepi asked.

  “Yes,” Henni answered. “See if you can find any berries.”

  The children crawled among the bushes, and Henni plunked herself down, too. Had they gone far enough? She didn’t know.

  She wished Max were there, then stopped wishing that and just hoped he was safe—wherever he was. Max, she thought wistfully, settling herself among the bushes, where are you now?