Odette's Secrets

by Maryann Macdonald

  Angels and Demons

  One Thursday, my boy cousins aren’t home.

  Sarah whispers that they have gone swimming,

  even though it’s forbidden!

  “Can you girls take Henriette for a walk?”

  Aunt Miriam asks Sarah and me.

  But where can we go?

  Parks, cafés, and museums are forbidden to Jews too.

  So we just wander along the main street.

  We look in all the shop windows.

  “Let’s play a game,” says Sarah.

  “We can each choose one thing from every window …

  but only one!”

  We’ve played this game before.

  It’s like shopping but without money.

  Our favorite place is the chandelier shop.

  So many shiny lights,

  glittering with diamonds!

  Henriette wants them all.

  “Don’t be silly, Henriette,” says Sarah.

  “How could we fit all those lamps over one table?”

  When we reach the doll hospital,

  Henriette studies ladies, babies, clowns, and sailor dolls.

  Then she frowns.

  “What if you don’t come back right away for your doll?

  Will the doll doctor give it to someone else?”

  “Never,” says Sarah.

  “The doctor knows everyone must have her own doll.”

  Henriette nods.

  But soon she grows thirsty and begins to whine.

  We go to a café and ask for water.

  The barman stares at our stars and says nothing.

  Sarah puts money on the bar.

  “I don’t sell water,” says the barman.

  “Go away. I can’t serve you.”

  Henriette starts to cry.

  We don’t know what to do.

  We know Jews must never make a fuss.

  When we pass a small basement library,

  Sarah thinks of a way to stop her sister’s crying.

  “Look,” she says to me, “you and I are wearing the star.

  But Henriette isn’t.

  If she were alone, they couldn’t tell she’s Jewish.

  They’d let her in.”

  “You can’t leave her alone!” I say.

  “Of course not,” says Sarah.

  “Just watch, you’ll see.”

  Henriette peers through the library window.

  “You go down first, Henriette,” says Sarah.

  “The librarian will see you are alone and ask you questions.

  Don’t answer right away.

  She’ll try to make you feel good,

  show you picture books.

  Maybe she’ll offer you a drink.

  When she’s busy with you, Odette and I will come down.”

  Clutching the handrail,

  chubby little Henriette walks down to the library,

  all by herself.

  Sarah and I wait a few minutes,

  then go down the steps into the library too.

  The librarian spots our yellow stars.

  She drops the book she’s showing to Henriette.

  Sarah picks it up and hands it to her.

  “Are you her mother?” the librarian asks Sarah.

  My cousin’s big for thirteen.

  “No,” says Sarah, “I’m her sister.

  I thought I lost her …

  but I know how much she loves books.

  I thought she might be here.

  And she is!”

  Henriette gazes up at her big sister like an innocent angel.

  “Sarah, will you read to me?” she asks.

  “Please?”

  The librarian’s eyes dart around quickly.

  No one has seen us, or our yellow stars.

  “All right,” she says.

  She flutters her hands

  toward the picture-book corner.

  “Take the children over there and stay there.

  I’ll be at my desk.”

  “You’re so kind,” says Sarah.

  Open books cover our stars like shields.

  Henriette forgets she is thirsty.

  The librarian, our gatekeeper,

  pretends we are children like any others.

  All afternoon, we read fairy tales.

  In our cave of bookshelves,

  we feel safe from the evil giants

  marching down the street.

  Lies

  Someone’s crying.

  The sound of it pulls me from my dreams.

  I open my eyes.

  It’s still dark.

  I go to the window and push open one shutter,

  just a crack.

  I look down and see little one-armed Noe.

  His mother, Leah, helps him put on his jacket.

  Rumpled people are being herded down the street.

  They all carry bags and bundles.

  A bearded man stumbles and a policeman pushes him along.

  All the people are “yellow star” people.

  All of them are Jews like me.

  Madame Marie bursts in.

  She wakes Mama by pulling the blankets off her bed.

  “Hurry!” she says.

  “The police are coming … they’re filling trucks with Jews!”

  Mama and I pull on our dresses as fast as we can.

  Mama grabs a coat and shoes

  and we fly down the spiral staircase.

  Madame Marie pushes us into the broom closet

  inside her small workroom.

  She shuts the door just in time.

  The doorbell rings.

  Loud men trudge into the hallway.

  “We’re rounding up foreign Jews,” they say.

  “We’re going to rid France of them forever.”

  “Wonderful!” says Madame Marie.

  “Those Jews have taken our jobs and money for too long.”

  Then she offers them a drink …

  to toast their courage, she says.

  Frozen inside the dark closet,

  Mama and I cannot see, but we can hear.

  Madame Marie and the men are just outside the door.

  If the door were open,

  I could touch them.

  Mama’s fingers find my yellow star.

  Silently, stitch by stitch, she begins to rip it off.

  I listen hard.

  I hear the sound of drinks being poured.

  Glasses clink in a toast.

  Chairs scrape around Madame Marie’s table,

  only a reach away from our hiding place.

  The men boast and laugh.

  Suddenly someone says to Madame Marie,

  “Where are your Jews?”

  His companions fall silent.

  Our bodies stiffen.

  Our breathing all but stops.

  “Long gone!” says Madame Marie.

  “They ran away to their country house.

  Good riddance to them, I say.”

  More drinks are poured.

  But then, stern words.

  “You know, Madame, if you lie to us, you’ll be sorry,”

  one man warns her.

  “We’ll pack you into a truck along with them

  and send you far away!”

  My godmother sounds insulted.

  “Me? Do I look like a friend of Jews?”

  I’m confused …

  how can she say such terrible things?

  She is our friend … one of our best friends!

  But suddenly, I know she’s lying.

  She’s saying bad things about Jews to keep us safe.

  The same voice, still stern,

  “Just to be sure, we’ll go up to their apartment.”

  Mama grabs my hand, squeezes it too tight.

  But Madame Marie keeps the men away

  from our just-slept-in sheets and blankets.

  “Oh, you don’t want to do that!” she says.

  “You kno
w how those foreign Jews are, filthy as pigs.

  When they were living there,

  I’d knock on their door only when I had to.

  I’d say what I had to say quickly

  and hold my breath as long as I could.

  Then I’d run back down the stairs

  as fast as my old legs would carry me.

  Don’t go up there if you don’t have to.

  Their apartment still stinks to high heaven.

  Anyway, our bottle’s nearly empty.

  Why not help me finish it?”

  We wait, cold bare toes pressed tight to the floor.

  The smell of sour mops is all around.

  My body shakes, hard.

  But I don’t make a single sound.

  Finally, the loud men push their chairs

  back in to the table.

  “Merci, Madame,” they say.

  “Au revoir.”

  Heavy footsteps echo through the hallway.

  The door slams.

  Silence.

  Madame Marie frees us from the closet.

  “How can I thank you?” Mama asks Madame Marie.

  She takes my godmother’s hands in her own.

  Madame Marie shrugs.

  She needs her hands back to clear away the glasses.

  “No time for that.

  We must get Odette to the railway station

  as we planned.”

  I look up at my mother.

  “You’ll come with me, won’t you, Mama?” I ask.

  Torn in Two

  Mama’s sad eyes turn to me.

  “No, Odette,” she says, “I must leave you now.

  It’s time for you to go to the country,

  with our friends.”

  Mama’s brown curls quiver just a little

  as she tries to smile.

  She takes me in her arms and rocks me back and forth.

  Then she kisses my cheeks three times.

  She wipes off my tears with her fingers in between.

  With one last quick hug, she leans over

  and begins to tie her shoes.

  “Mama!” I scream.

  I clutch her, hard.

  “Don’t go!”

  Mama puts her finger to my lips.

  “Shhh, Odette,” she says.

  She drops her coat, then kneels next to me.

  We look at each other, face-to-face.

  Mama’s fingertips trace my cheeks, my ears.

  “I must go now, right away, chérie,” Mama says.

  “Maybe I can warn your aunt and cousins about the trucks.”

  “Let me come with you!” I beg.

  “I’ll be good … I promise. Please!”

  I feel like I’m being torn in two.

  Mama’s face twists away.

  “No, Odette,” she says. “That would be too dangerous.

  You must go with our friends to a safe place, remember?

  Cécile and Paulette and Suzanne

  will be waiting for you at the train station.

  You girls will all go together.”

  Mama stands up.

  “Don’t be sad, Odette,” she says.

  “It’s only for a little while …

  until we can be together again.”

  She blows me a kiss,

  and she slips through the glass-topped door.

  I watch her in the hallway.

  She belts her coat tightly around her.

  Then she opens the huge wooden door

  and disappears into the street.

  Courage

  I look up at my godmother, trembling.

  My heart pounds down in my stomach.

  I know I have to go with Paulette and Cécile and Suzanne.

  We have known each other all our lives.

  Our mothers are friends.

  But we are not together, not yet!

  How can I go to the railway station all alone?

  Madame Marie plucks away the last few threads

  left on my dress from my star.

  She smoothes the fabric with her fingertips.

  Suddenly, I grab her and bury my face in her dress.

  I cling to her and sob.

  How can I leave my home,

  my mother, my godmother too?

  I won’t do this!

  I’ll never be able to do this!

  “Courage, ma petite,” Madame Marie says,

  and pats my back.

  “Don’t worry.

  I’ll fetch Henri from work.

  He’ll take you on the Métro to the railway station.”

  I take a deep breath.

  My heart rises back into my chest.

  Monsieur Henri,

  with his walrus mustache and his kind, droopy eyes,

  is as big and strong as the mountains he comes from.

  I know he’ll protect me.

  “Come now,” says my godmother

  as she wipes my face.

  “I’ll help you pack.”

  She tiptoes into the hallway and listens.

  No one is coming downstairs.

  Together we creep up to my apartment.

  Madame Marie closes the door,

  then the bedroom shutters.

  The school year has just ended.

  My godmother takes

  my notebooks and pencils out of my schoolbag.

  She puts in clean underwear,

  the blue sweater my mother knitted,

  a print dress she made for me.

  I bring her my doll.

  “Ah, no, my little rabbit.

  Charlotte cannot go in this bag.”

  “I have to bring Charlotte!” I say.

  Panic rises into my chest …

  I can’t go without my doll!

  “No,” says Madame Marie, her mind made up.

  “You can take only a small bag.

  A big one might attract attention,

  and Charlotte cannot fit in here.”

  She puts a finger to her lips

  to tell me to be quiet.

  “You and Charlotte say good-bye for now.

  Then come downstairs.

  I’ll have your breakfast waiting.”

  My godmother slips out the door.

  I take Charlotte and go to my mother’s bed.

  I collapse onto her rumpled sheets,

  soak in her smell.

  Then I see the photograph of my father.

  I can’t take Charlotte, but Papa can go in my schoolbag.

  I take out my blue sweater

  and wrap it around his photograph.

  “There!” I whisper to Charlotte.

  I shove the sweater inside my schoolbag and buckle it.

  “Now I’m ready to go.”

  I sit Charlotte down on my pillow and smooth her hair.

  “You must be brave, chérie.

  It’s only for a little while.”

  I kiss her cheek.

  I open the door and listen.

  Silence.

  Sunbeams stretch down from the skylight,

  warming the hallway.

  Even so, my spine prickles

  as I tiptoe down the creaking stairs.

  My Escape

  Monsieur Henri takes my small hand in his large one.

  He pushes open the heavy wooden door

  leading into the rue d’Angoulême.

  Two tall soldiers loom like giants

  right outside our apartment building.

  They’re carrying guns.

  Monsieur Henri’s grip on my hand tightens.

  Trucks still rumble along the street.

  “Look at your feet,” Monsieur Henri says softly,

  when the soldiers are far enough away.

  “If anyone calls your name, don’t answer.”

  I can’t breathe.

  I can’t think beyond my feet.

  One step at a time, I push the pavement away.

  It sticks to my feet.

 
In slow motion,

  Monsieur Henri and I pass the convent,

  the pharmacy, and the chain factory.

  People leaf through their newspapers as always

  at the Café de la Baleine.

  Rolls of cheery oilcloth greet customers,

  as they do every day,

  at the hardware store.

  The smell of fresh bread fills the morning air,

  as it does every morning,

  at the bakery.

  But this is not every morning.

  It’s the most terrible morning of my life.

  I clutch the big hand of Monsieur Henri.

  I force my feet onward,

  up the hill to the arched Métro station.

  At the sight of it, the spell on my feet breaks.

  I run for the stairs, away from the street,

  into the safer darkness.

  Monsieur Henri snatches me back.

  “Don’t rush,” he whispers. “Act natural.”

  When the Métro train pulls into the station,

  I head for the last car, the one for Jews.

  But Monsieur Henri leads me to another.

  We sit down side by side.

  “What a fine, well-behaved granddaughter you have,”

  says a gray-haired woman.

  Her black-feathered hat frightens me.

  Monsieur Henri, my new grandfather, nods at her silently.

  I am frozen.

  I sit like a statue.

  I stare straight ahead.

  When the Métro train pulls into the big railway station,

  the Gare du Nord,

  Monsieur Henri takes my hand in his.

  He steers me out the sliding doors.

  The big station is full of people, all in a rush.

  Will Paulette, Cécile, and Suzanne be there?

  Yes, three little Jewish girls in starless summer dresses

  wait under the big clock, just as we planned.

  A lady holds the hand of the littlest one.

  “Au revoir, ma petite,” Monsieur Henri says to me.

  “Au revoir, Monsieur Henri,” I reply.

  I swallow hard.

  He’s leaving me now.

  Don’t cry, Odette.

  Stay calm, his eyes tell me.

  But his voice says,

  “Mind this lady.

  And obey the mama and papa in your country family.”

  Then Monsieur Henri pats me on the head

  and disappears into the crowd.

  Holding hands, the other little girls and I