Odette's Secrets (17 page)

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,

his elegant mansion has been turned into a pile of rubble.

Two scared, stranded soldiers straggle into our village,

pushing carts packed with food.

They are lost.

“Can anyone show us which way the others went?” they ask.

“Oh, yes,” says Mama.

She points in the direction of the woods,

where Resistance fighters hide.

In minutes, the enemy soldiers are back in the town square,

prisoners of our local young heroes.

Everyone gathers around the carts to see what's in them.

“Candy?” all the children ask.

“Is there any chocolate?”

When we find it,

we eat every last piece.

No one tries to stop us.

Vive la France!

“Hurry!” say the villagers.

“Don't miss the celebration in Saint-Fulgent.

News has come that Paris is free.”

Mama drags me to Saint-Fulgent.

People dance in the streets.

“The war is almost over!” they shout.

France and its allies are winning.

What does this mean for us? I wonder.

Are Jews safe now?

What about Papa?

On the way home, Mama can't stop talking.

“No more cooking in a black iron pot.

No more straw mattresses or cottages filled with mice.

No more kneeling in church,

lugging water from the well,

pretending that your father does not exist.”

She can't wait to get back to Paris,

to electric lights, running water, and indoor toilets.

My father and our neighbors and friends will all be there.

We'll join Jewish clubs; she'll read Yiddish books.

“And you, Odette, you'll have rubber boots, not
sabots.

Instead of church on Sunday, we'll go to the public baths.

We'll
buy
soap, vinegar, wine, butter …

and skeins and skeins of wool.

We'll eat crepes in the winter, ice cream in the summer.

We'll go to museums, movies, and parks.

Paris has everything!

La Basse Clavelière has been just a nightmare.”

It's true, we've had bad times here in the country,

that time I was beaten,

and we almost lost our home.

And I did lose my voice.

But we had
more
bad times in Paris, didn't we?

Besides, I don't mind the things Mama seems to hate.

I like getting water from the well and living in a cottage.

I love my
sabots
and going to church.

The country is my home now.

How can I leave it and go back to the city?

How can I leave the sweet cows and my pet cat, Bijou?

My forest, my fields and pastures, all my wildflowers?

How can I live without freedom,

in a place where I don't belong?

Adieu