by Ruth Druart
Sam takes a step forward, reaching for it. “Thanks.”
“Merci.” The man winks at him.
Sam ignores him, and Sarah feels the heat of embarrassment rising to her cheeks.
Licking their ice creams, they wander over to the play area. It’s full of toddlers rolling in the sand, sliding down the slides. Mothers sit on benches nearby, chatting away to each other. Sarah can’t stop the pang of regret at the years she missed with Sam. Beside her, he’s so still, she can feel his sadness seeping through his skin. She’s acutely aware of how his heart aches for his home. It’s too much for one small boy to hold in. She feels cruel, cruel to want her own son back.
That evening, David comes home from work with a large rectangular package covered in brown paper. Instantly, Sarah knows what it is. She stares at him, defiance in her eyes. She told him she would never play again, and there he is standing with a violin under his arm.
“No, David.” She wants to cry, to scream, to run from him. How could he? He knows how she feels.
“Sarah, please.” He stares back at her, his eyes unwavering. “Don’t you think they’ve taken enough from us?” He walks past her into the living room.
She waits outside, hovering by the door, listening to him removing the paper, opening the case. Then he plucks a string, and her heart stops. She can’t breathe. It’s all coming back: tuning up before a concert, the thrill of playing before an audience, the pure beauty of the music. She thought it all belonged to the other world—the one she left behind. She takes a step into the living room, and sees David hunched over the violin, gently plucking at the strings. Then she sees silent tears slipping down his cheeks onto the shiny polished wood.
She sits next to him, taking the instrument from his hands. She plucks the strings herself now, closing her eyes as she adjusts the pegs to get the right note. The heat of his stare burns through her skin. He wants her back. She can feel it. His yearning for the woman he used to know is tangible.
When she’s finished tuning, she stands up, placing the violin under her chin. With her other hand she takes the bow, drawing it far back as though she’s about to shoot an arrow. This is how it feels—like she’s going to battle. It’s time to fight again for the life they once had. Summoning all her courage, she plays the first notes of Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, David’s favorite piece.
She watches him as she plays. This is for you, she’s telling him without words. For you.
They are so lost in each other, they don’t notice the little boy standing in the doorway, watching, listening, an expression of wonder on his face. When Sarah finally senses his presence and glances over at him, he doesn’t turn away like he usually does, but looks her straight in the eye. She’s taken back to the baby who gazed up at her while she fed him. At long last she’s seen a glimpse of the child she left behind. Holding eye contact with him, she continues to play without missing a note, her heart soaring with the music.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Paris, September 14, 1953
SAM
They’re sending me to school. However much I hate it, I won’t cry. I remember Daddy’s letter. I’m braver than I know. Pretend Mom and I walk almost next to each other, but she’s half on the pavement and half off, ’cause the pavements are so narrow. My heart is beating hard, like I’ve just run a hundred yards, but I haven’t. I’m only walking.
When we get to the school, I see lots of children going through the gates. I stop and look at the sign: L’École des Hospitalières-Saint-Gervais. It sounds more like a hospital than a school. Maybe it’s a school for sick children. I think I might be a sick child now.
All the other children go in on their own, but she comes in with me and we walk down a corridor with gray carpet that makes everything feel hushed and especially quiet. I can tell we’re on the way to the principal’s office. I guess he wants to meet me first ’cause I’m new and I’m probably a special case. People say that when they’re talking about children who are bad.
We stop outside a door with a name on it: Monsieur Leplane. Pretend Mom looks at me, and I can tell she’s almost as scared as me. I just stare back at her as if I couldn’t care less, but really my tummy hurts and my legs itch like mad.
She knocks, and a small man with fuzzy black hair opens the door. “Entrez, entrez,” he says, as if he’s in a hurry. When we’re in his room, he stands behind his desk, books poking out on either side, like they’re about to slide onto the floor. He lowers his glasses and looks over them at me. “Bonjour, Samuel.”
I know he’s waiting for me to say something, to see if I speak French, but French words still won’t come. Even when I want them to. Like now.
“Hello,” I mumble.
He frowns, then looks at Pretend Mom and says something in French.
She bends down so her eyes are just in front of mine, and whispers softly, “Au revoir, Sam.”
I ignore her. But then she’s walking out the door, and suddenly I don’t want to be standing there all on my own.
Monsieur Leplane walks around to his side of the busy desk and sits down. “Samuel, assieds-toi.” He points to a chair.
I do as I’m told, sitting on my hands. If my hands are free, I know I’ll start scratching. Photos of row upon row of serious-looking schoolchildren stare down at me from the wall behind his desk.
“Your father told me your story.”
He speaks English!
He takes his glasses off to look at me better. “Samuel, we know this is hard for you, but this is where you belong. This is your real home.” He puts his glasses back on. “And we’re going to do everything we can to help you adapt to your new life here. It won’t be easy, not in the beginning, but when you start mixing with other children, things will start to… to fall into place.”
I can’t help it; I scratch my leg through my trousers. He looks kind, and his English is real good, but I can see he’s on their side. Not mine. No one is on my side. This thought makes my throat go hard. I blink the water out of my eyes. I will not cry. I will not.
“Let me tell you something about the history of this school,” he says quietly. “It’s connected to your story, but your story ends better.”
It’s a stupid story, I want to scream. But I don’t. I just keep scratching my legs.
“On the morning of the sixteenth of July 1942, just two years before you were born, nearly all the children from this school were arrested. Only four were left in September. Can you imagine that? Arresting children? Do you know what their crime was?”
I think I know the answer, but I don’t say anything.
He looks at me, waiting.
“Were they born in the wrong place?” I mumble.
“Yes, you could say that. They were Jewish when it was a crime to be Jewish.”
I’m still not sure what Jewish means exactly—something to do with religion. I know Hitler hated the Jewish people. He wanted to kill them all, even the babies.
“The Nazis made it a crime to be Jewish.”
“My dad was not a Nazi! You don’t even know him!”
“I know he wasn’t, Samuel. That’s not what I said.” He comes around to my side of the desk and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Your father, Jean-Luc, did a very brave thing. He saved you from the Nazis. I wasn’t talking about him. It was the French gendarmes who arrested the children and handed them over to the Nazis. I think many people did things they wish they hadn’t. War does that to people.”
“I love my dad, he’s the best dad in the whole world.” I gulp back the big lump in my throat.
“You’re right to love him, Samuel. No one’s asking you to stop loving him. But you know, your mother here did a very brave thing too, something that most mothers wouldn’t be strong enough to do. Even though you were only a month old, she gave you up because she knew it was your only chance of survival. She missed out on all those years with you, and now she wants you back. Can you understand that?”
I shrug my shoulders. I d
on’t want to think about her.
He stares at me, waiting for me to say something.
“She doesn’t own me,” I whisper.
“Of course not. No one owns anyone, but children belong with their parents.”
“My parents are in America.”
“You believed they were. But now we know they’re here in France.”
“No! My real mom and dad are in America.”
“And one day you’ll be old enough to go and visit them all on your own, but for now, you have to give this new life a chance. It’s an opportunity for you; you can learn French, discover your history, learn about another culture—”
“I don’t want to. I hate it here.”
He scratches his head, looking at me like he’s trying to work something out. Maybe he’s thinking over my problem. I have a feeling that he might understand more than the marshals and the psychology person I spoke to. None of them really understood that I’m American, not French.
“Enough history for today.” He looks at his watch. “Let’s think of the future now. For a better future we need to educate the young, don’t we? So let’s get on with that.”
He’s just like all the others. He won’t help me. I wipe my face, telling myself that I will get back home, to America. One day I will, I swear.
“Let’s go and meet your class,” he says.
I want to go to the bathroom so bad, but I’m scared to ask.
When we get to class, the children are sitting at separate wooden desks. They all stand up. “Bonjour, Monsieur Leplane,” they say together, then they sit down again.
The class teacher is a lady with long dark curly hair and tanned skin. She smiles at me with warm brown eyes, reminding me of Mom. She puts her hand on my shoulder, leading me to the front of the class. I’m not sure exactly what she says as she introduces me, but I hear “Les États-Unis,” which means America. The children look at me, sizing me up. They don’t smile and neither do I.
I’m placed next to a boy called Zack. To my relief, he grins at me as I sit down. He looks like fun, with his wide smile, a gap showing between his front teeth. “I’m half American,” he whispers. “Stick by me.”
At last, someone to talk to.
The teacher finds the stylo plume in my pencil case and puts it in my hand. Zack lets me copy from him, but there’s a lot to write and my hand begins to ache. I feel a blister growing on the inside of my middle finger.
When the bell rings for recess, I follow Zack out to the playground. “My father is American,” he says as we walk outside. “He met my mother when the American soldiers came to free Paris. He jumped off the truck when he saw her in the crowd and kissed her. All the American soldiers were kissing the French girls.” He laughs. “Maman said they were so happy to be free from the Nazis, they kissed them back.”
I don’t know what to say, so I just smile at him.
“That was 1944, and I was born in 1945,” he says proudly.
This makes him a whole year younger than me. I guess they put me down a year because of my bad French.
I’m desperate for a pee and my legs are itching again. “I need the bathroom.”
He looks at me for a moment before answering. “They’re over there.” He points to a small concrete building.
I run off. When I get there, there’s a group of boys hanging around. They’re going to test me, I know it. I hold my head up, avoiding their cold eyes as I pass by. The doors are open, and I can see that the toilets are those holes in the ground. It’s okay, I tell myself. I need to go so bad; I’ve been holding it in all morning. I want to scratch my legs too. I step inside one, but there are no locks on the doors, and it stinks of poo. My tummy shrivels up and suddenly I don’t need to go anymore. I just wanna get out, but I have to go past the group of boys again. I make the mistake of looking at them.
They start making whistling noises under their breath. I don’t know what to do.
One of them pushes me into a stall, hard. My feet slither and slide. I put my hands out, reaching for the wall. It feels slimy. Vomit rises up into my throat.
Laughter rings out behind me.
Then the bell rings and I hear them run off. Quickly I pull my trousers down just as the pee starts to run down my legs.
When I find the class again, everyone is writing in silence. The teacher smiles at me, pointing to my seat.
“Did you get lost?” Zack whispers as I sit down.
I nod. I will not cry. I will not.
There are more words to copy, and I lose myself in the boredom of it. After a while, the bell rings again.
“See you after lunch,” Zack says as we leave the room.
“What?”
“After lunch,” he repeats.
We go home for lunch?
Pretend Mom is there with the real mothers at the gate. I see her looking around for me, the veins sticking out on her long neck. I lower my head, losing myself in the group. I could duck down and run away! I save this important piece of information for later, letting myself be dragged along with the other kids.
We stop at the boulangerie on the way home to get a baguette. I grab it from the lady, and as we walk home, I tear bits off, stuffing them into my mouth.
I wait for Pretend Mom to get angry, but she just touches me on the shoulder. “Tu as faim après l’école, n’est-ce pas?”
She thinks I’m hungry, but I’m not. I just want to annoy her. When we get to the apartment, I run straight to the bathroom in the corridor, crouching down over the hole in the ground. I wash my hands after, turning the rectangle of soap around and around till all I can see is lather. I feel the soap getting smaller and smaller.
“Sam,” Pretend Mom calls out. “Ça va?”
I push my hands together so the soap squirts out onto the floor, then I put my shoe on it, squashing it down, rubbing it around, making the whole floor slippery. I walk out with soap on the bottom of my shoe, squishing it into the floor as I go into the kitchen. I do these bad things ’cause they make me feel a bit better. I never used to do things like that; I never even thought about it.
I see her look down at the floor, and I know she’s seen the mess I’ve made. I hope she’s going to shout at me. I don’t know why, but I want to make her angry.
“Enlève tes chaussures, Sam.” She crouches down, undoing my laces. I stare at the back of her head and wonder how old she thinks I am. Four, maybe?
I let her pull my shoes off my feet. She’s pretending she hasn’t even seen the sticky soap. Then she looks up at me, and I see that her green eyes are shiny with tears. She blinks and tries to smile, but I know she wants to cry really. It makes me feel bad inside. Real bad. Without a word, I follow her into the kitchen. I watch as she cuts up what’s left of the bread and puts it in a basket. Then she gets out a bowl of grated carrots and puts that on the table too.
“Assis-toi.”
I do as I’m told and sit down. She sits next to me and we eat the bread and carrots. I wipe my plate clean with the bread, like she does. I don’t feel like being naughty anymore. Then she puts some meat and potatoes on the empty plates. There’s apple pie for dessert, the apple slices so fine and regular.
“Viens,” she says after lunch.
I follow her to the living room, the worst room in the apartment, with its gold-colored couch for two sitting in the middle of the room and large wooden chairs on either side. There’s no TV, just books in a glass cupboard.
She takes one out and sits on the couch, patting the place next to her.
I sit next to her, but only ’cause I feel sorry for her. Not too sorry, though—she could let me go back to America if she really wanted to. She holds the book out and starts reading aloud. I don’t understand a word, and I start imagining giving a letter to Zack to mail, for Mom.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Paris, September 14, 1953
SARAH
How is it possible for a child of nine to fall asleep at one o’clock in the afternoon? Sarah watch
es Sam’s eyes grow heavy as she reads to him. She has to shake him awake to take him back to school.
It’s because he’s not been sleeping properly at night. She hears him cry, and sometimes he shouts out in his sleep; sharp, angry American words she doesn’t understand. In the daytime he’s often lethargic; she finds him curled up on his bed, asleep in the middle of the day. Other times he’s quietly aggressive, devising plans to annoy them. Then there are his legs. All the words he cannot say are coming out in his raw, weeping skin.
How long can she let it go on like this? David tells her to be strong, to hold on, but it feels like they’re being cruel, not strong.
When they walk back to school after lunch, Sam dragging his feet a couple of paces behind her, she can’t help cursing Charlotte Beauchamp. Why on earth couldn’t she have spoken French to the poor child? Why would she deprive him of his mother tongue? It doesn’t make any sense to Sarah; she can only imagine Charlotte must be a woman of few principles, only too happy to escape France and forget her history, even her own family.
“Hi, Sam!” A boy with a mass of curly hair comes running up to them, grinning from ear to ear.
“Hey, Zack.”
Sarah turns to look at her son, surprised at the intonation in his voice. He sounds happy, normal, just like any other kid.
Zack stops and kisses Sarah on each cheek in greeting. She smiles at him. What a nice, polite boy.
“J’aide Sam en français,” he announces proudly. “Mon père est Américain.”
So much for the immersion method! Quite frankly, she doesn’t give a damn about it; she’s just glad to see that Sam’s made a friend.
Together the two boys trot off to class without so much as a backward glance. For the first time, Sarah feels like something normal is happening for her son. She can’t help the feeling of hope that rises through her. She walks home with a lighter step, thinking about how important friends are at this age, and how with Zack’s help, Sam will soon feel much more at home.
