Odette's Secrets (11 page)

Children in the Vendée go to bed at twilight.

Twilight is not day or night.

It is the time between.

Cécile and I share one small room and a bed.

Every night Madame Raffin kisses us good night.

As soon as she closes the door,

Cécile and I go to the open window.

Cécile always sits on the left. I always sit on the right.

“Look,” Cécile says, gazing outside.

The sky is turning a deeper and deeper blue.

“Everything is so beautiful. And we're alive.”

We thank God for our day.

“Tonight,” Cécile always says,

“a bomb could fall and we could die.

Let's say good-bye to our parents.”

So far I have not heard of any bombs falling in the Vendée,

but Cécile cannot forget the ones in Paris.

To make her feel better,

I go along with what Cécile tells me to do.

I imagine my mother's face.

It floats in the air just outside my window.

I tell her everything I have done that day, even the bad things.

I ask her to forgive me.

She does.

Then it's my father's turn.

My father's face is always the one in the photograph

Madame Raffin put on our mantelpiece.

Papa never smiles.

I can't feel his rough cheek or hear his voice.

I can't see the brown or shine of his eyes.

He is barely real to me anymore.

Still, he
is
my father, so I talk to him.

When I am done, Cécile takes her turn.

While she talks to her parents,

I study the stone wall across from us.

In the fading light it looks safe and strong,

like the wall of a fort.

When Cécile's parents have vanished

from outside our window,

Cécile closes the shutter.

Night enters our room.

We hug each other and say,

“If we die tonight, may we meet in heaven tomorrow.”

At last we climb into bed.

Cécile goes first, against the wall.

Then me, on the outside.

Time to sleep.

Sometimes when I open my eyes in the morning,

I'm not sure where I am.

In heaven already, maybe?

I make up a way to check.

If the chest of drawers is still across the room,

then I know I am in Chavagnes-en-Paillers, my new village.

No one knows what it's like in heaven,

but I'm pretty sure there are no chests of drawers there.

Heaven

Every day in Chavagnes-en-Paillers brings new wonders.

I love to listen to Bible stories

and
The Lives of the Saints
at my school.

Our teachers tell us these stories are about real people,

good people who lived in other places and times,

not fairy-tale people.

Now all these real people are in heaven with God.

I hope I will meet them one day in heaven,

especially Saint Bernadette and Saint Terèse,

who are French like me.

But one day I learn that because I'm not baptized,

I can't go to heaven.

How can that be?

I want to go to heaven too!

I run to the church to pray.

The quiet and peace there,

the smell of beeswax,

the flickering candles,

the light that shines through the colored windows …

all these things calm me.

Sometimes, alone with God in church,

I can talk to Him.

I tell God everything.

I thank Him for bringing me to the Vendée.

I tell Him I miss my mother, Madame Marie, and my cousins.

But I make sure He knows I don't want to go back to Paris.

I'm just too afraid.

Then I ask God if I can go to heaven someday too.

One day when I'm at church an answer comes.

A peasant woman comes in.

She kneels in front of the altar of the Virgin Mary,

the mother of Jesus.

She talks to Mary out loud,

the way I talk to God in my heart.

She calls her “Madame Marie.”

Ah, so Mary has the same name as my godmother!

It's my godmother's job to protect me—she already has.

She knows so many things.

I'm sure she'll know how to fix things with Mary,

and Mary will fix things with God.

That way I'll be able to go to heaven too.

Far Away

Life seems so safe in the country.

But I know it isn't, not really.

Many people in the Vendée are afraid of Jews.

They think Jews bring trouble.

If they knew who we
really
were,

they might tell the enemy soldiers about us.

That's why we have to pretend to be Christians.

Mama, my half-remembered Papa,

Madame Marie, and Monsieur Henri, …

they are all so far away.

I try to remember our square.

I can barely see the face of
The Thinker

or hear the splash of the fountain.

I know Sophie's hiding in the country,

but I don't know what happened to Sarah and Henriette,

to Charles, Serge, and Maurice.

Maybe they've gone away too.

Paris seems only a faraway word,

light as a goose feather.

Still, Madame Raffin makes us write letters there every week.

I always write the same thing to my mother:

I am in good health. I hope you are too.

Everyone here is nice. I do my homework.

If you come to visit, please bring Charlotte.

One day Madame Raffin tells me

my mother will come at Christmas …

I can't wait to see her and my doll!

But what if she wants to take me back to Paris?

I don't want to go!

The children here all play with me.

I have new brothers and sisters.

We always have as much good food to eat as we want,

and I can walk to school with my friends.

We can go anywhere we want.

We can explore the village

and the woods and streams

all by ourselves
!

I know the reason I feel safe in the country.

It's because
here
,

I am not a Jew.

In Paris, I am a Jew.

I do want to see Mama,

but I don't want to go back to Paris.

I don't want to hide from bombs and scary soldiers.

I don't want to wear a yellow star

and be attacked at school.

I don't want to be afraid

all the time,

nearly every single minute.

I don't want to live like that
ever
again!

Mama Comes

I count the days in December, and Mama comes at last.

Jews aren't allowed to travel, so she took off her yellow star.

The train was crowded with Christmas travelers.

No one stopped her to find out if she was Jewish.

My mother's coat,

the smell of her hair and her cologne,

her arms around me …

these things make everything else around me disappear.

I want to show Mama my new village.

“Not yet,” she says.

“First I must talk to the Raffin family.

Go outside and play for a while.”

“But Mama, did you bring Charlotte?” I ask.

She opens her small suitcase and out comes my doll.

She still wears the very dress knitted by Mama's hands,

and the apron I made with my godmother.

I hug Charlotte.

How I have missed her!

I take her outside on the swing.

Together we fly high into the sky.

At last, Mama comes out of the house.

She's looping her silk scarf around her neck,

her chin high, her face shining.

Now I remember, that's how she looks when she is happy!

At last it's time to take Mama to see what I love most …

the Christmas crèche in the church.

“Look, here's the Baby Jesus and his mother and father

and the ox and donkey.

The animals breathe on the baby to keep him warm.”

The statues are almost as big as real people.