by Mary Finn
“They’ve gone, Jonas. They’ve managed to shore up the leak too. It’s all right, it’s just a bit damp down there. We’ll take care of it after we get something to eat.”
When I came out my legs were too wobbly to work properly. Jean-Paul and I used to make our legs go all shaky when we were playing soldiers and falling down on the ground and dying. But it isn’t funny when it’s real and you can’t control it.
The Prof told me to take my time so I sat down on the bedroom floor and stretched out my legs and gave them a good bashing with my fists, the way I’d seen Signor Corrado and La Giaconda do every Sunday afternoon before the circus opened. Then my legs were all right again and I was able to walk downstairs without falling.
AND THE DATE WAS …
The Prof didn’t say anything cross to me. He made us both some strong coffee. He put honey into it to make it sweet. He said if he’d had any brandy he’d have used that too, even for me.
“I wasn’t able to get cheese, after all,” he said. “But look – chicken livers!”
He fried the liver with some flat rissoles he’d made with leftover turnips. He says there are women in the queues who tell him how to cook things, just because he’s a man. But they’ve got no idea what a good cook he is. I wonder if Mama knew that about him.
He’d bought a newspaper too, which he didn’t usually do because he said they were rubbish. Papa said the same thing but sometimes he picked one up so we’d have something to light the fire with afterwards. Anyway, the Prof read his paper and let me eat.
The encyclopedia was where I’d left it, open at the eels. It was lucky it hadn’t fallen off onto the floor because the whole room was really wet under our feet, just as bad as a street gets after it rains really hard. There were even some deep puddles. Bad tiling, the Prof said.
When he’d read his newspaper he threw sheets of it down to soak up the worst puddles. That’s when I saw the date. It was 15 October. I’d forgotten to count. Again.
My birthday. I am ten.
I didn’t say anything to the Prof because he’d get all embarrassed and start thinking he should get a cake for me, or something else that was impossible. I’d been wondering if the Corrados would get a card in the post for me, from Mama and Papa. But if they had, surely Signor Corrado would have delivered it.
I wanted a card more than anything. Because today it’s exactly three months since I saw my family. And if what happened on that day hadn’t happened, I’d be with them now, wherever they are. We’d all be together and they’d know it was my birthday and it wouldn’t matter that there wasn’t any cake or presents or stuff.
The Prof said he was going to knock at the good neighbour’s door and see if there was a mop or some cloths he could borrow. Then we’d mop up the kitchen, just the two of us, and when that was done he was going to get a locksmith to come and fix the door. I’d have to go back to the attic.
So that’s what we did on 15 October 1942. We cleaned up the big mess in the kitchen and then I went upstairs to my room.
Outside on the street the firemen had left some pipes lying around. I saw a delivery van from the Bon Marché store coming along, pulled by two big grey horses. When the horses saw the pipes they wouldn’t go any further, even though the driver used his big whip on them. He had to climb down and pull out a hamper from the van and walk. I couldn’t see which number he knocked at but it was a few houses down. The Prof must have some really rich neighbours if they get deliveries like that.
Before it got completely dark I tore out a page from this notebook and made a birthday card for myself. It didn’t say anything very much because I don’t know what my family is doing right now. This is all it says:
“To our beloved Jonas on the occasion of his tenth birthday from his mama and papa, and also from his dear sister Nadia.”
The first part is what our parents always put on our birthday cards. I just added Nadia this time because I didn’t want her to feel left out.
On the inside I drew a cartoon of my fleas. Only instead of pulling carriages they were marching in a band. Athos had a trumpet, Porthos a big drum sitting on his fat tummy, and Aramis a triangle that had two crotchets jumping out of it. Drawing the cartoon cheered me up, though I bet Mama wouldn’t have liked it as much as I did.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED ON 15 JULY 1942
We never had any visitors in rue des Lions. Except for Giselle Bauer, of course, and she doesn’t count. Papa went out on his own if he wanted to meet someone and Mama never went out at all, except with us and Papa, or to the shops to queue for food. On Sundays Signor Corrado or Alfredo called for me and brought me home again but they never came inside.
But on the morning of 15 July, Mama came into the room where Nadia and I slept. She shook me awake.
“Hurry up, Jonas, and go downstairs. Signor Corrado is knocking at the door for you and calling out like a madman.”
Signor Corrado! But I’d been helping him just the day before. It was a Tuesday, not a Sunday, but that’s because Tuesday was the 14 July holiday. There were two shows, not just one. We’d never had such a busy day. Everybody said the summer had come at last.
“People just want to come out of their sad little rooms and have some fun,” said La Giaconda. “Let’s pull out all the stops!”
So we did. For both shows. I made quite a bit of money with my flea circus that day.
There were only two things that weren’t good. The first was that Tommaso had been tired. He said he was too tired to help me and too tired to play football. Which was really odd, for him.
The other was that I’d seen the pimply man again, the one who wanted to clear Mama and Papa out. He was marching up and down the pathway alongside the circus, sticking out his arm and shouting German words to anyone who looked at him. There was no policeman to get rid of him this time. But Signor Corrado said not to worry, he was just a nuisance, like a wasp. In the end he went off somewhere with his gang.
I pulled my shorts on and ran downstairs. Someone had let Signor Corrado into the hall and he was just starting up the stairs. He grabbed my hands and held them.
“Jonas, please, please will you come and help us?” he said. “Tommaso asked for you to come. He has to go back to hospital but he won’t go unless you come too. He’s sore in his head and he’s very weak. Please go and ask your parents. But hurry.”
He looked really pale, and Signor Corrado never looked pale. He followed me back upstairs. Mama had a pot of water on the stove for the awful coffee but he shook his head. He told Mama and Papa about Tommaso.
“It’s his mastoid again,” he said. “He was in terrible pain last night. Now the pain is gone and he’s just weak but he wants Jonas. He says he won’t go to the hospital without him.”
“But surely the hospital won’t let Jonas in, Signor,” Mama said. I knew from the way she spoke that she didn’t want me going to the Corrados’ again so soon.
It was Papa who said I should go. “He doesn’t have to go to the hospital at all, my dear,” he said to Mama. “He only has to coax Tommaso to go. If anyone can coax a body to do something our Jonas can.”
Papa said that about me. I could hardly believe it.
“Take my bike,” he said to Signor Corrado. “Keep it. I can’t use it since we’ve had to wear these things.” He meant the yellow stars.
Mama told me to put a clean shirt on and to wash my face and hands. They both came downstairs with us. Mama wasn’t a bit pleased but she hugged me like a bear, really tight. They shook hands with Signor Corrado and then we were up on the bike, me on the crossbar.
I could see the stupid Kamynski girls at the window, laughing and pointing, but I ignored them. What did they know about anything? They never even went out. I looked up but Nadia wasn’t at our window. She was still in bed. She hadn’t heard Mama come in. She was probably dreaming about Puss in Boots or d’Artagnan.
Signor Corrado pushed the pedals down and we began to wobble off. Then Mama suddenly gave a little cry. “
Wait! Please! Just one minute!”
She ran back into the house. Poor Signor Corrado looked desperate but Mama took no time at all. She had a little flat card in her hand. “Take this,” she said to me. “I meant to give you this before now. If anything goes wrong this dear man will help you.”
I put the card in my pocket. I didn’t even look at it. Then we started out again. And Signor Corrado rode like he had a yellow jersey on, not at all like poor Papa who had to stop all the time just to get his breath back.
TOMMASO
Tommaso was in his bunk-bed inside the van. He had a wet bandage wound round his head and for some reason a black patch over one eye. He looked exactly like Filochard from my Pieds nickelés comics but of course I didn’t say that.
La Giaconda was holding his hands but she got up to kiss me. Then she made me stand where Tommaso could see me with his one eye, without having to move his head. She said that hurt him.
“Bambino, here’s our dear Jonas come to see you,” she said. “Now, you listen to him and do what he says. He’s a clever boy.”
Do what I said! That would never happen in our family. We just did what we were told. But I did my best. I told Tommaso that the hospital would fix him up just like they’d done with Nadia.
“They’ll have nice food, maybe even ice cream. They want everyone to get better quickly.”
I could see by the look he gave me he thought this was just a big lie. It’s funny that even one eye can let you know that much. So I tried harder. I promised him all my comics, but he didn’t even blink. I tried to think of everything Tommaso liked. Then I remembered the best thing. I went right over to the bed so he couldn’t miss what I said.
“I’ll write a letter to Peppino at his football club and tell him you’re in hospital. When he writes back then you’ll have his autograph and it’ll be worth a fortune. But he won’t write back unless you’re in hospital because he’ll have to feel sorry for you and he won’t if you’re just at home like any other boy. So you have to go to the hospital to have a proper hospital address.”
La Giaconda squeezed my hand hard. “Look, Jonas,” she said. “He’s smiling!”
Maybe he was, but it wasn’t much of a smile. Then the one eye closed.
Signor Corrado had stayed at the door. “What do you think, my love?” he asked. “Will I go for them?”
“Yes!” she said. “Go!”
And then she said to me, “You’ll have to hide for a bit, Jonas. He’s gone for our friend, the policeman. He promised us they’ll take Tommaso to the hospital in their van. That’s the best way. And it’s so far away. But you’d better not be found here by the police, not without your papers.”
She lifted up the big curtain with the printed stars that I’d seen the first day, the day I met the Corrados.
“In there, pet. There’s room under Alfredo’s bunk.”
I looked back at Tommaso but he seemed to be asleep. I thought of the comics I’d promised to give him. He might not be able to read them because they were in French, not Italian, but it was too late. And now I had to find out where Peppino’s club was so we could get a letter to him.
“Right,” I said.
That was the first time I got under Alfredo’s bunk.
NO WAY HOME
I heard the policemen coming into the van, two of them. Their boots sounded loud and mean from where I was but at least they didn’t shout and bang on the door. That’s what you heard them do up and down our street, whenever they saw any bit of light escaping from a window at night, or when they came looking for people’s identity papers.
Tommaso didn’t make any noise at all when they carried him out. He must have been properly asleep by then.
Both La Giaconda and Signor Corrado went away with him and the policemen. I fell asleep for a while and the next thing I knew, Alfredo was coming in. It was the smell of his cigarette that woke me up. I could see his long spidery legs and his pointy shoes with the heels made of cork, like Mama’s. He nearly jumped out of his skin when I whispered to him from under the bed. Then he got cross.
“Get right out here so I can see you,” he said. “I’m not going to talk to someone with no face.”
When I said I was just doing what La Giaconda had told me to, he got even crosser.
“Of course it’s all right to come out now!” he said. “Do you think you’re some great Resistance hero and the cabbage-heads are all waiting outside the van to pounce on you? Get up!”
He heated some beans for the two of us. Then Madame Fifi came in with her dogs. Every day she walks them down to the huge market at Les Halles, just before it closes, and somehow she gets enough scraps for all the dogs to eat. Tommaso told me she puts on a special show for the butchers there, the ones that wear the funny hats. She doesn’t bring her buckets, though. They were in a heap in the corner of the van.
She wasn’t surprised to see me and neither were the dogs. Oscar jumped up on my lap and licked me. He had horrible bad breath so the butchers must have given him something smelly to eat.
When Alfredo cleared the table Madame Fifi sat down and started to play solitaire. I said I’d better go home.
“You can’t go now,” Madame Fifi said. “It’s nearly curfew time. And there’s something up tonight, anyway. There are police on every corner between here and the markets. Far more than the usual band of blackguards.”
She banged down a card. “And with the kind of papers you have, Jonas, or don’t have, I can never remember which it is, if they stopped you they’d just throw you over to the Boche. Maybe to the Gestapo, and they’re the worst of the lot.”
“Don’t say that to him,” Alfredo said. “He’s cocky enough.”
“I don’t have my papers here,” I said. “But I have to get home. My parents will go wild if I stay out.”
“Sorry, hero,” said Alfredo. “You can’t go. Anyway, they’ll know it’s to do with Tommaso. Your parents, I mean. They’ll know you’re with us.”
I went to the door. It wasn’t completely dark outside yet because it was summer but it was very quiet. At least it was quiet until the German patrols went tramping by.
What should I do? I was a bit afraid now. Madame Fifi seemed very sure about all that police stuff. Mama wouldn’t want me to do anything stupid, especially with the curfew. Suppose old Pimply “Sieg Heil” Arms was still prowling around somewhere? I didn’t even know if he knew I was Jewish and shouldn’t be at the circus at all.
Alfredo was probably right. My parents would guess that something was up, something that meant I had to stay. But I really really didn’t like not being with them. Me and Nadia – we’d never spent even one night away from our parents in all our lives. She always liked to sign me some daft story before we went to sleep. She’d never speak it. It was to test my signing.
These days the stories were always about d’Artagnan. Guess what, he was lonely after the other musketeers had been turned into fleas so he was sending messages to them through me. It was just like the wireless from London, only for fleas. That’s how daft Nadia is.
But I waited. It got all dark in the end and then Signor Corrado and La Giaconda came. They’d had to walk back but they had a special note from the doctors in case they met a patrol.
“Did you notice all the policemen around the place, sprung up like mushrooms in the dark?” Madame Fifi asked. They hadn’t. But then they were bothered about Tommaso.
“They said he was very weak,” La Giaconda said. “But they have good medicine and he’s in a ward with lots of other children so he’ll have company.”
“He’ll do just fine,” Signor Corrado said.
He hugged me and told me he’d take me back home on Papa’s bike in the morning.
“We’re ever so grateful to you for helping with our Tommaso,” he said. “Heart’s truth, my friend.”
We all went to bed then, except Alfredo, who put on more hair oil and went off to visit somebody in one of the other vans.
That was the end o
f Wednesday, 15 July.
WHAT HAPPENED ON 16 JULY 1942
We were woken up very early the next morning. At least Signor Corrado and I were. Nobody else seemed to hear the noise.
It was the policeman who sometimes helps out the Corrados. The one who sent off Pimply Arms and got the van to take Tommaso to the hospital. He banged on the door, really loudly, and shouted for Signor Corrado to come out. He said he needed to speak to him urgently. Signor Corrado went out but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Then the policeman must have gone away, because everything went quiet again.
Signor Corrado stayed outside for a long time. I could see him sitting on the step with his legs drawn up, because he hadn’t closed the door completely. I suppose he was having a cigarette, because that was the first thing he did every morning. He came in at last.
“Are you awake, Jonas?” he whispered.
Of course I was! It was bright outside and I was just about ready to get up and leave so I could be back home before Mama and Papa got up for breakfast. I could go on my own. Anyway, Alfredo was fast asleep, with his mouth open to catch flies. The dogs were snoring. They were such clowns they’d forgotten dogs were supposed to bark at strangers making noise.
I got out from under the bed and piled my cushions up into a tower, but it fell over.
“Never mind that,” Signor Corrado said. “Come over here to the table and sit down with me for a minute.”
He looked pretty much the same as he’d looked the day before – all worried, with his beard showing through, like tar under his skin. Maybe he hadn’t slept, for thinking about Tommaso.
But what he said was, “I’m afraid you can’t go home, Jonas. There’s been a police round-up, all over Paris. Of…”
He stopped there. I was staring at him because I thought he’d gone plain crazy. Of course I was going home. What else would I do?
