I’ll give you some warm milk fresh from the cows.
That will get you on your way.”
I find Mama sitting on her suitcase outside our cottage.
“We have nowhere to live,” she says.
“Our landlord has taken away our cottage.
He accused me of being a Jew
because his son died.
I was so worried about you.
I didn’t want you to come home
and find the house empty.”
I tell Mama what has happened to me,
how the children accused me of being a Jew too,
and beat me up.
“Even Simone,” I tell Mama, “even my best friend.”
Mama makes room for me on the suitcase beside her.
I sit down and put my arms around her.
She puts her coat around my shoulders.
Together, we look up at the moon.
The moon gazes sadly back at us.
All we have is each other.
But Mama is a woman of action.
Even though it’s late, she decides she must go,
right this minute,
to see the mayor in Saint-Fulgent.
She knows that he, like her, is a secret freedom fighter.
Mama tells me to hide in the cottage.
Soon she is back with the mayor.
“These people are not Jews,”
the mayor tells our neighbors.
“I know their family in Paris.”
Because he is the mayor,
the villagers pretend to believe him.
And Mama and I pretend to forget
what the villagers have done to us,
throwing us out of our home, beating me up.
We move back into our cottage.
Mama gives a party to show the villagers
that we are still ready to be friends.
She bakes a cake and invites all the children,
even Paul and Simone.
Everyone comes.
I pretend to have a good time.
I keep all my sadness and anger buried inside,
like all my other secrets.
It’s safer that way.
I can’t stop being scared, though.
So scared that one day I stop going to school.
So scared that I even stop talking.
Mute
Some new city people have moved to our village.
They brought their son’s books.
He’s a student who’s now in the army.
The family lets Mama borrow
as many books as she likes.
Every morning I take one.
I put some bread and apples in my backpack.
Then I go to the forest.
I climb a tree to get away from everything.
There, alone with the bats and owls,
I read all day long.
I am free from people who can’t be trusted.
Only my mother is sad about this.
Sometimes I want to say something to comfort her,
but no words will come out.
Weeks of silence go by.
My mother tries to talk to me.
She asks me questions.
Sometimes I even think I have answered her.
She says I haven’t.
It seems I can’t say a word.
One day my mother tells me another secret.
She’s reading some poetry, she says.
She thinks it’s beautiful, but she’s not sure.
She can’t tell.
The poetry is written in French.
French does not “sing” to her like her own language, Yiddish.
Maybe if I read it out loud she’ll be able to tell.
She sits on our doorstep in the sunshine.
I sit next to her.
I begin to read in silence.
Then the beauty of the words overtakes me.
And life, pounding our breasts like a drum,
I read aloud,
threatened to gush and overflow our souls….
I read on and on.
The words roll off my tongue.
“Papa will love this,” I say at last.
Mama’s face shines.
I see Papa’s face too, still wearing his army hat but smiling at me.
Distance has disappeared.
My mother, my father, and I are together again.
Poetry is stronger than the Nazis,
stronger than the war.
These words are so beautiful
they make me want to speak again.
The next day, I don’t go to the forest.
I spend it reading poetry at home.
Sometimes I read aloud.
Day by day, I dare to say more.
After a while, Mama even talks me into going back to school.
I leave early and come home late
so that I won’t have to walk with the village children.
But when I chant the litany with the other girls in class,
I feel like I’m reciting poetry.
That soaring inside me,
that’s what it’s like to be happy again.
My Guardian Angel
One morning when I push back the potato sack
that hangs over our front door in summer,
I find Simone waiting for me.
“Come and play with us, Odette,” she says.
So I do.
But when we throw pickup sticks,
jump rope, or play ball,
I’m careful about what I do.
I’m still afraid of the village children.
What if a fight breaks out?
Will they make things my fault?
Père René is my new guardian angel.
He’s always there.
He sharpens his scythe outside his cottage,
smokes his pipe with his dog at his feet,
and watches us,
ready at once to settle a fight.
I think I know why.
My six-fingered friend knows what it’s like to be different.
Heart and Soul
Soon it will be harvest time, my favorite time of the year.
Men, women, and children sing together
while they load baskets with sweet grapes.
My favorite job is to follow the wheat harvester
and gather the shimmering stalks left in the grass.
In school, we learn about the five senses.
Our teacher asks us to write about our pays,
the place where we live.
We must write a poem about our pays in five parts,
one for each of the senses.
We can name all the sounds we like.
We can tell what smells, tastes, looks, or feels good to us.
I think about this on my way home from school.
I look at everything I pass on the road.
When I get to our village, I look at all the houses,
the winepress, even the black pond.
I take a walk through the forest to my favorite reading tree.
I stare.
I listen.
I touch.
I taste.
I smell.
Then I begin.
“I love my pays.
I love the sounds of the barnyard, the church bells,
and accordion music.
I love the smells of the flowers and the incense in church,
and the newly cut hay.
I love the taste of warm cow’s milk and cool cider,
of blackberries and roasted chestnuts
and stew on winter nights.
I love the sight of lightning tearing up the sky,
of the golden flypaper shining in the sunlight.
I love the feel of the brook’s fresh water between my toes,
and the weight of a ladybug on the back of my hand.”
As I walk home,
I remember I have heard about a s
ixth sense.
When I ask Mama about it, she says that perhaps it is fear.
Fear is still with me.
I might be beaten again.
I might be drowned or my cat might be drowned.
Worst of all, Mama and I could be chased out of our village.
We could be sent on a long train journey, far away from France.
Reading helps me forget about fear.
I read everything from the Farmer’s Almanac to fairy tales.
Poetry is still what I love best.
It doesn’t matter if I don’t understand it.
I can just listen to its music, or even read it to a cat or a cow.
I find a book by the Spanish saint Teresa of Avila.
It’s almost like poetry.
On the first page, Saint Teresa says,
“We can think of our soul as a castle
made entirely of diamond or very clear crystal,
in which there are many rooms,
just as in heaven there are many dwelling places.”
This is much grander than,
“The heart is like an apartment.”
But Madame Marie lives in a tiny apartment.
Saint Teresa lived in a large convent.
So to her, the soul was like a castle.
Is the soul greater than the heart,
or is it just the same?
I’m not sure …
but I suspect it’s the same.
People sometimes say they love with all their heart and soul.
So the heart and soul must be like twins,
helping people love all that’s good and true,
no matter where they find it.
Mother’s Day
Mama’s sad and lonely.
No letters have come from Papa in a long time,
and she never hears from her family anymore.
One day, I see a pin in the shop window in Saint-Fulgent.
It glitters in sunset colors, pink and gold.
Mama would love it,
I just know she would.
And I know where Mama keeps our money.
I’ll take some, just a little,
and I’ll buy her a Mother’s Day present.
It’ll be a surprise!
After all, I earned some of it myself during harvest, didn’t I?
Mama is outside at work in the garden.
I pry back the loose floorboard under the kitchen table.
I lift out the money jar.
I take out two silver coins, only two.
Then I put the jar and the board back.
I go to the shop to buy the pin.
The shopkeeper wraps it for me in pretty paper.
I make a Mother’s Day card to go with it.
I spend a long time drawing violets on it, one by one.
Then I hide my card and present.
Will the violets remind Mama of the cologne she used in Paris?
I hope so … I can’t wait for Sunday.
But on Saturday morning Mama counts our money.
“Odette,” she says, “some money is missing.”
I tell her I don’t know anything about it.
“I think you do,” says Mama.
“You are the only one who knows where I keep our money.”
So I tell her it’s true.
But I won’t tell her what I did with it.
It’s a secret.
Mama’s eyes flash.
“I didn’t raise you to be a liar,” she says, “or a thief!”
A liar? A thief?
But all I’m doing is keeping a secret …
and Mama is the one who taught me to keep secrets.
Mama slaps my face, hard.
Bijou is shocked, and so am I.
The shape of Mama’s hand stings my cheek.
It feels like fire.
But I don’t say anything.
I just climb into my bed with Bijou.
I cuddle her,
and she licks and comforts me.
We both calm down.
The next morning, I bring Mama my Mother’s Day present.
“Now I know where the money went,” Mama says.
She tries to smile, but tears well up in her eyes.
Mama, who is so strong, who never cries, is sobbing.
I put my arms around her.
I don’t tell her not to cry.
I know now crying can help you feel better.
Beautiful Bluma
Mama gets a letter that makes her hum with happiness.
Her old friend Bluma is coming for a visit.
She and Mama grew up in Poland together.
Bluma’s husband is a French Christian,
and she speaks French with no accent.
Even so, her family is afraid …
someone might find out she is a Polish Jew.
Maybe, if she likes it in the country,
she will come and live with us.
Then Mama won’t be so lonely.
Beautiful Bluma arrives,
in a silky blouse
and soft shoes.
Her eyelashes are the longest I’ve ever seen.
She has no children of her own
and makes me feel like her favorite niece.
Bluma has an expensive camera in a leather case.
She takes photographs of Mama and me,
of curving country lanes,
and of windmills and waterfalls.
At night, in the firelight,
we eat all the delicious dishes Mama has made for us.
Bluma has brought us chocolate too.
It’s been so long since I tasted it,
I almost forgot its sweet bitterness,
and how it melts on my tongue.
Mama begs her friend to stay.
Bluma’s face is pale in the dim light.
She is afraid, she tells us,
but she just can’t leave the home she loves
and the husband she loves even more.
No, she will go back to Paris.
After only a few days,
we walk Bluma back to Saint-Fulgent.
The bus comes,
and she climbs on board.
She waves her handkerchief at us from the window
until we can’t see her anymore.
A week later Mama gets a letter from Bluma’s husband.
Bluma has been taken away,
like so many other Jews.
He asks if we can send her some food
at the camp where he thinks she is.
“Why didn’t Bluma stay with us?” I ask.
“She would have been safe here!”
Mama sighs.
For a while she doesn’t speak.
Then she says,
“Bluma was used to an easy life.
She couldn’t give it up, not even for her own safety.”
Then Mama puts down her letter and gazes out the window
at pigs, rooting in the dirt.
“Life in the country was just too hard for her,” she says.
The War Creeps Closer
Only one person in our village has a radio,
our landlord’s son.
Mama and I go to his house
and crouch with him in front of his beat-up old radio.
We listen to scratchy sounds,
news of nearby battles.
The war is creeping closer and closer.
American and British soldiers land in Normandy,
and take part of France back from the Nazis.
Now they are blasting a strong submarine base,
only fifty miles away.
Bombs fall on Saint-Nazaire day and night.
Echoes of these bombs
reach as far as La Basse Clavalière.
I watch the lamp tremble over our table.
Sometimes it even swings back and forth.
I count how many times …
eight, nine, ten.
I tell myself if I get to twelve,
the war will be over.
But I never get quite that far.
Before long,
enemy soldiers fill Saint-Fulgent.
One day,
we hear Nazi soldiers march past our school.
They are singing a rowdy song.
My teacher closes the shutters
so we won’t have to listen.
Then she closes the windows,
even though it’s warm.
But we can still hear the song.
At first, my teacher looks sad.
But after a while,
her sadness shifts into anger.
She pounds one fist on her desk.
Then she pounds both fists.
We listen, and at last we understand.
She is pounding out the beat of “La Marseillaise,”
the French national anthem.
We begin to pound our desks too.
We’re going to pound out the enemy soldiers,
pound out the sound of their song.
“Arise, children of the Fatherland,
the day of glory has arrived….”
Our chests swell.
Like strong soldiers,
we battle bravely.
We’ll win back freedom for our beloved country,
La Belle France,
or die trying.
The Soldiers Go Away
The Nazis leave our village at last!
The war is going badly for them.
The troops gather in the main square.
Their officer makes a speech.
He thanks the mayor for our village’s hospitality.
Then he reaches forward to shake the mayor’s hand.
“Never,” says the mayor,
“would I shake hands with my country’s enemy.”
The officer’s eyes darken with anger.
He marches off with his men.
Cars and trucks follow.
In the last one,
I see a goat.
She stands on the backseat,
her head stuck out the window.
Children chase after the car, laughing and cheering.
The goat watches them calmly.
She bats her eyelashes.
Within minutes, our houses and windows shake.
A deep rumble, a crash!
Are the soldiers bombing our village?
No, just our mayor’s chateau.
The enemy officer had to repay our mayor’s insult.
For refusing to shake hands,
Odette's Secrets Page 8
