The World That We Knew

by Alice Hoffman

  The mother superior paused in the courtyard in the dim light of morning to listen to Ava sing to the heron in a voice that brought tears to the sister’s eyes. They danced in the courtyard, bowing and circling one another, singing as if their hearts would break. Spying this on her way to prayers, Sister Marie knew enough of the world to know what she was seeing.

  When Lea received the note from Julien she went behind the kitchen to be alone to read it. She sank down near the old stone water troughs, for the kitchen had once been a large stable. There was chervil and mint growing wild, and the scent would ever after remind her of him. His message was brief, but she read it again and again. All she needed was a word or two. A young sister came and shouted at her to come in to her studies, and although she did so, she took her time so that she could savor his message. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought or said or did.

  He was there.

  In class, they were studying Jeanne d’Arc, and during these lessons Lea often thought of Ava. The Maid of Orléans had been born to fight, chosen by God. Even though she was a woman, she looked upon war as another woman might rejoice on her wedding day. She was made for battle, and was so fierce that when the British captured her they had to burn her three times, for once was not enough. She had only been thirteen when she was visited by the archangel Michael in her father’s garden, and nineteen when she was burned at the stake. The cinders and ashes from her burning were said to have been thrown into the Seine, although a vial was later discovered in a jar in the attic of an apothecary in Paris. They remained illuminated, as if sparked by fire. In class, they spoke her sainted name in low tones, as if her name had a power of its own.

  After class, Lea and Renée sat on their beds in the attic and Lea helped her practice her French. “Not everyone can be Jeanne d’Arc. Sometimes you can’t fight,” Renée told Lea. “Sometimes they cut you open and do terrible things to you.” She let Lea hug her even though she never wanted to be touched. “Nur einmal,” she said. Just once.

  They both wished their mothers had not been on trains. They wished there were happy endings. This was why Lea kept the note from Julien under her pillow. So she could dream about another world and another life. At school they were called Renée and Lillie, but when they were alone they called each other by their true names, Rachel and Lea, as in the Bible. We’ll escape, they promised each other. We’ll start new lives, they said. But neither one could look at her reflection, for if they did the girls they had once been might stare back at them, and those girls, they both agreed, were gone.

  Ava spent late afternoons in the kitchen, before going out to see to the garden. Time was moving faster all the time. It was the season to clip back the roses. They must be carefully tended, for they wilted in hot weather. The plants had black, leathery leaves and dark thorny branches, and were especially difficult to cut back, not that that would be a problem. Ava was always a hard worker; the nuns commented to each other that she was tireless and could complete one task after another.

  But on this day her thoughts were elsewhere, beyond the garden. She was experiencing emotions she wasn’t made to have. She worried over Lea in a profound way that caught her by surprise, acting not out of duty but from someplace inside of her. Why this should be, she had no idea. She was so deep in thought she didn’t notice when she caught her finger on a thorn as she cleared away a twisted, black branch. A single bead of blood formed, crimson in the early morning light. She stared at it, confused. Was she meant to have blood rather than water and clay?

  Lea had been sprawled out on her bed, studying her lessons, but she had put down her book and she spied Ava from the window. She knew her caretaker was not like other women, but she marveled at how human she could seem, more so all the time. She had noticed Ava crying when the heron left to go fishing in distant lakes, an unwanted ability she had learned without trying. Lea wished Ava could turn herself into a heron, then she could leave and never return. She wished that she was an angel that couldn’t be seen by mortal eyes and could disappear into the clouds. But here she was, at work in the garden. They were bound together. Where you found one, you would find the other. Every day Lea tried not to think about the moment when her locket fell open, when she read the message she wasn’t yet meant to see. But it was too late then and it was too late now. She had read her mother’s instructions. She knew exactly what she must do.

  When the war is over, and you are safe, you must kill her.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE GATHERED

  PARIS, JULY 1942

  IN THE MIDDLE OF THE month, on the sixteenth day of July, when the plane trees were a brilliant green, an ordinary day, the French police came knocking on doors. This past spring, Jews were made to wear yellow stars and were only allowed to ride in the last car of the Métro and were forbidden in restaurants. It was known that at least one synagogue had been converted into a brothel for Nazi soldiers. But now there were mass arrests. There was a sweep of Jews; refugees and French citizens alike were taken to the cycling stadium, Vélodrome d’Hiver, in the 15th arrondissement. The Nazi-planned event had the code name Opération Vent printanier, Operation Spring Breeze, meant to exterminate an entire population. In all, more than thirteen thousand Jews were rounded up over two days, four thousand of them children. Anyone under the age of fifteen would be handed over to the Union Générale des Israélites de France and sent to foundations and children’s homes.

  They found the professors and their families on the third floor behind the brick wall, the children in the wardrobe, the wives beneath the beds. All were immediately arrested, but the police considered the real criminals to be the Lévis. What argument could they offer for breaking the law? There was none to be given. Still, when the Lévis were told they must come with the police immediately, Claire was shocked. “We’re French,” she argued. She had known nothing good would come of having foreigners in their house. She’d never wanted them in the first place.

  The professor quickly stepped in to calm his wife. Of course they would accompany the police and answer any questions. There was no harm in that. Tempers were high and it was best to do as they were told.

  The whole family. Bring your son.

  Madame Lévi looked at her husband through tears.

  “It will be fine,” he said, but the German professors and their families had already been led away. They had not been allowed to take their belongings or, in the case of the children, put on their shoes.

  Julien was in the greenhouse when they called for him. He thought about scrambling over the garden wall. How this could be accomplished flashed through his mind—the lift into the air, the steep drop to the alley below. Victor had leapt from the roof of their house once, why couldn’t Julien do the same now from the top of the wall? But when he spied his parents at the door with the police, he couldn’t leave them. They didn’t even look like his parents, they had become two older, confused people. His father had put on his hat, as if he were going to a meeting and must look his best. Julien went to the door and did as the police asked. The family took nothing with them. Already, a soldier had taken the purse his mother carried, stealing the gold coins and her favorite earrings, scattering the baby teeth she had saved on the ground.

  Julien saw the heron in the sky above them, but he threw his arms into the air and warned him away. The note Lea had written to him would never be received, and the one he had written was crumpled in the grass.

  There are almost none of us left in the city. If not for Hardship Soup we would have starved.

  I know I will see you.

  Please stay alive.

  “It will all be fine,” Julien heard his father tell his mother. Perhaps he was saying what they both most wished to believe. “We’ll be back soon enough.”

  If it wasn’t the end, what was it? They stood in the garden with no weapons and no defense against evil. The heron still circled, but it was too late. They were forced along the path near the new rosebush, which had taken to the soil
and bloomed as if it had always been there, with large crimson flowers that hosted a few lazy bees. The German captain had two Jewish men who had been doctors in Poland come in to tend to the roses and clear out the ruined plants. They, also, had been arrested, though they’d been down on their knees in the garden beds, their hands covered with soil. They were all too slow, they were all too trusting, there were rifles pointed at them in the place where the lime trees had been planted a hundred years ago. It was the last time Professor Lévi and his wife would see the garden, although in their final hours they dreamed of it, they held hands and whispered the names of the plants that had grown there, peony, coralbell, lavender, as if such things could remind them of the beauty of the world.

  At a corner, before they were herded onto buses, Julien again thought of running. There was panic, and people were frantic, especially those who had been separated from family members. It was the end of something, that much he knew, so why not run? He had been the fastest boy in his school and excelled at sports. Perhaps he could find Lea in her convent, but just then his father stumbled on a loose cobblestone. Julien put out an arm to steady him. He helped his parents onto the bus, and later this caused him to be unable to sleep, the fact that he hadn’t insisted they flee, not that they could have outpaced the police with him, but perhaps they might have hidden in a doorway, shuddering, terrified, but invisible until nightfall. He made mistake after mistake, thinking of what to do, yet not acting quickly enough. He was in a dream, he was frozen, he was all his parents had left in the world, but now it was clearer. It was the end.

  After a twenty-minute ride, the buses stopped, and those inside were herded into the street, then shepherded into the stadium, which was nearly full. Julien’s ears began to ring. He shook his head, but the warning was still there.

  “We shouldn’t go in,” he told his father.

  The police gestured for them to go forward. Several sounded whistles.

  “They’ll let us go,” the professor decided, always preferring order and logic, and assuring his family that the situation was temporary. But when he tried to explain they were French citizens, no one listened.

  There was no food or water available and the weather was hot. It was a time when people used to get ready for their August holidays, but now they were here. Children over the age of three had been separated from their parents, and many were crying, completely disoriented, lost in a sea of people. Luckily, there were women who took in these children right away, treating them as if they were their own.

  The horror of this place must be a temporary situation, the professor insisted. He spoke in a low, measured voice. Keep calm. Don’t panic. This was Paris after all, and it was the police along with hired local people who guarded them, not German soldiers. “We’ll stay a day, maybe overnight, then they’ll let us out,” the professor assured his wife and son.

  “Do you not understand what’s happening?” Julien had spied many people he knew from the neighborhood among the crowd. “We’re like lambs, doing as we’re told. Do you think they’ll give you back your beautiful house? You’ll never see it again. And all those treasures you buried? They’ll rot.”

  By now guards had begun to collect wallets, jewelry, keys. Those who tried to keep such things were beaten, there in front of everyone. An old man was stomped upon when he refused to give up his wedding ring.

  “Do you not see?” Julien pleaded.

  At last, in that instant, as the old man begged for his ring, the professor understood everything that was happening and everything that was to come. He slipped the watch he always wore into his pocket. It was the one thing he had left that might be useful to them.

  “Look,” Madame Lévi said, grabbing her husband’s arm. “Isn’t that Edgar?”

  It was indeed their gardener, only now he’d been hired as a guard at the stadium, steering people through the crowded entryway gate. The Lévis went to him, navigating through the crush of people. After all, Edgar had worked for them for more than ten years and had always been so punctual and polite before they could no longer afford him. The professor’s wife had already lost her scarf in the chaos and she was light-headed, for she hadn’t had a sip of water since early morning. There were older people doing their best to sit in the shade, yet some of them were seriously ill. People were evacuating right out in the open, for there were no toilets, and already there was a terrible stink. Madame Lévi lowered her gaze, feeling a chill. She had been right to panic this morning.

  When they reached the gardener, the professor tapped his shoulder, so surprising Edgar that he turned to his employer with his stick in hand as if to strike him.

  “Oh, Monsieur,” he said when he recognized the professor. “I didn’t know it was you.”

  The professor leaned toward the younger man. He sounded desperate, even to himself. “We’re here by mistake.” Soon enough there would be mass arrests of French Jews but for now the professor still had hope. “Can you let us out?”

  Edgar looked around. He took in the sheer number of the police, let alone men such as himself who had been brought here as forced labor on a daily basis to contain the crowds. He shook his head. “Three people? It would be too noticeable. They’d have my head. I have to do what I’m hired to do, you understand.”

  “Then my son,” the professor urged. “Just him.”

  Claire linked her arm through her husband’s. “Yes. Take Julien.”

  Edgar felt uncomfortable just talking to these people. They looked different to him, almost unrecognizable.

  “He’s no problem,” the professor went on. “No one will notice one boy. And he’s a fast runner. Look at the guards. They’re not paying attention.”

  The gardener glimpsed a group of men who had been picked up by the German army to work here in the stifling heat. They were lounging by the gate, chatting with each other as the crowds of those arrested poured through.

  Professor Lévi reached for his watch from his pocket, the gold one his father had given him. They would take it from him anyway. Better to get something in return.

  “Here. It’s yours,” he told Edgar. They exchanged a look and the deal was done. He signaled for Julien to approach.

  Julien came forward. He nodded to the gardener, already mistrusting him, before turning to his father. “What’s going on?”

  His father embraced him and his mother did likewise, then they hurriedly walked away.

  “What are you doing?” Julien called after them. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  But life now depended upon luck, not reason. The sun was so bright Julien lifted a hand to shade his eyes. His parents seemed to have disappeared, swallowed up, lost in the light and the masses of people. It made no sense. His mother would not turn from him in such a way. Julien made a move to go after his parents, but Edgar stopped him.

  “Walk backward, as if you were coming into the stadium rather than leaving. I will open the gate and you can lose yourself in the crush of people, only you will be walking away. Don’t come back. These people are all being shipped off.”

  Julien stood there stunned. By now he was unable to see his parents in the chaos of the stadium. Or was that his father’s jacket, the one he had worn to teach his classes?

  “Go!” Edgar told him. “You don’t have forever!”

  Julien’s head was ringing. He couldn’t hear a word anyone said, least of all Edgar. But then he saw his grandfather’s gold watch on the gardener’s wrist and understood. His father had bought his freedom, and he knew then, although it broke his heart to do so, he wasn’t going to throw it away.

  He walked backward through the crush of people that was being pushed past him. Once he was at the edge of the crowd, he turned and ran, spiraling through the maze of city streets, tearing the buttons from his shirt to leave behind on street corners so he would be able to find his way back if necessary. By then it was dusk, the end of the first day of the roundup. He had to fight the urge to go home and seek out his familiar life; instead
he went to a tunnel near the river, where he sat shivering, though it was a hot night.

  He returned to the stadium in the morning, following the path he had taken, still hopeful that he could find his parents and get them out as well. It was the seventeenth and the raid was in its second day; twice as many people were now trapped inside. There was a full-fledged hysteria as people realized they had walked into a trap. This was not temporary, Paris was no longer their city, and there was no way out. German soldiers now patrolled the gates. Julien watched through the fence and saw things he never imagined he would see. There was still no food or water and some people had already died. There was no choice but to step over them, or to pile them up in the shade. He thought he saw his father among the jostling crowd, no longer wearing his jacket or his hat. He called out his name. The professor may have looked up, but if he saw his son, he acted as if he heard nothing at all. He disappeared into the crowd to ensure that Julien wouldn’t call out for him again.

  As for Julien, he had nothing to trade; even the so-called treasures they had buried in the garden were not enough to buy a life. He walked away, hardly able to breathe. That night he hid in an alley where groceries were delivered for the German officers, not far from his home, staying put until dusk, the blue hour, when he would be less noticed. Each time he heard sirens his blood raced, as if he were guilty of something, a common criminal, as his onetime friend Bernard had claimed. He realized he would never see his father’s watch again, though it had been promised to him his entire life. Victor had never wanted it. I’ll only break it, he had said. Give it to Julien, he’s the careful one. He’s always on time.