Odette's Secrets (4 page)

their husbands are far away,

and food is getting harder and harder to find.

We dream of eggs, milk, and butter,

but most of all real bread …

the kind we eat now tastes like sawdust.

Some people say it
is
made of sawdust!

“French bread,” says Mama, with a groan.

“Only the
name
is the same as it was before!”

“Mama?” I say.

I know I shouldn't interrupt,

but I'm hungry.

“What now, Odette?” she asks.

“Can't you be quiet for even one minute?”

Then she looks at my face and she's sorry.

She gives my cousin and me each a cookie.

After that, she and Aunt Georgette talk

in their old language, Yiddish.

Sophie and I can't understand the words,

but we understand fear.

It's still there, in their voices.

Later, Sophie and I walk to the park.

A sign at the gate says, NO DOGS OR JEWS ALLOWED.

Plenty of children are playing inside.

I want to go in too.

“How will they know we are Jews?” I ask Sophie.

She doesn't know, she says.

But she doesn't want to go to the park anymore, anyway.

So Jews can't go to the park now.

They can't go to the swimming pool, either.

A girl at school told me

Jews aren't even allowed to have pets anymore.

If I had a pet,

I would
never
give it up!

I still dream of having my own cat,

a silky calico with a pink tongue.

Not even Nazis can stop you

from having pets in your dreams.

Missing Papa

Before long, Papa sends Mama and me a photograph,

taken in his fine soldier's uniform.

The photograph is black and white.

Mama puts it on the table beside her bed.

I stare at it and stare at it.

I wish I could see the brown in Papa's eyes.

I wish I could see the shine in them too.

At last, a letter comes from Papa.

He says he's a prisoner of the German soldiers.

My papa, in prison!

How can this be?

Papa says we can visit him

in a faraway French town.

We must bring a cake and a box of cigars, he says.

I wonder why … will we be going to a party?

I didn't think they had parties in prison.

Mama barely has enough money for food.

My boots are falling apart.

But we make the cake and get the cigars,

just as Papa has told us to do.

Then we buy train tickets to go see him.

We meet Papa in a dark hotel room,

but Mama and I blossom

in the light of his smile.

He brings us pure castile soap from Marseilles.

We take turns smelling it in his hands,

the hands we have missed so much.

My family is back together again!

Nothing else matters …

not the awful sawdust bread without butter,

not my ugly, worn-out boots.

Mama and Papa talk and laugh and hug and kiss.

Things are almost the way they have always been.

But in the morning Papa is gone.

He has taken the cake and cigars

to the guard who let him visit us,

for one night only.

Mama rushes me to the train station before dawn.

Rows and rows of French prisoners march past.

Boxcars wait to take them to Germany.

Those soldiers, the ones we saw in the film,

guard them with guns.

I see my father march past.

“Papa!” I cry out.

He turns toward my voice.

Then a rifle butt slams into his back.

My hair prickles.

Mama's hand tightens on mine.

In a moment, Papa is gone.

I look up at Mama.

She stands motionless, not saying a word.

Her eyes follow the train as it rattles down the track.

When it is only a faraway speck, she sighs and looks at me.

I shiver and bite my lip so I won't cry.

“Come now, Odette,” she says.

“We must be strong.”

She buys hot tea for us to share

while we wait for our train home.

But even if she bought me my own hot chocolate,

it wouldn't stop me from shivering.

Running Away

The enemy is on our doorstep, everyone says!

That means the soldiers have marched almost as far as Paris.

Most people are afraid our city will be destroyed,

so they decide to run away.

Madame Marie and Monsieur Henri stay calm.

No, they say,

they will stay in their home.

Mama and Aunt Georgette can't make up their minds.

But at the last possible minute,

they throw underwear and toothbrushes into a suitcase …

we're leaving!

We run to the big train station.

On the way, I see the strangest sights …

a young woman pushes an old one down the street

in a baby carriage,

a man carries his dog in a shopping basket,

and a shopkeeper pulls his cash register along

like a child in a wagon.

So many people are headed for the train station.

When we arrive, it's crammed.

People try to get on any train,

no matter where it's going.

A sea of taller people hems me in, pushing, shoving, shouting.

Bryzzt!

A voice crackles over the loudspeaker:

“No more trains! The last train leaving Paris is full!”

People cry and faint and curse.

Lost children shriek for their mothers.

Somehow, Mama and Aunt Georgette and Sophie and I

drag ourselves out of the crowd.

We head to the subway, the
Métro
.

The scratchy seats, the squeal of the wheels, comfort me.

We're going home.

Bombers

Bombers fly over Paris at night.

Wailing sirens announce their arrival.

We rush into the basement shelter.

We huddle in the dark,

holding our breath,

waiting for crashes.

One lady wearing a lace nightgown

thinks she can hear them nearby!

But then the all-clear siren comes,

and we creep back up the stairs.

Our building is still standing.

We go back to our beds.

At first it's just once in a while,

but then the bombers come more often.

Each time, it's down to the shelter we go again …

until Mama hears about a building that collapsed.

People were trapped in the shelter underneath.

After that, we stay upstairs.

Finally, Aunt Georgette and Sophie can't take it anymore.

They have Christian relatives in the country.

They write a letter

asking to stay with them.

Before long, the relatives write back.

Aunt Georgette and Sophie are welcome.

So they pack their things and hug and kiss us good-bye.

They go to hide with their relatives.

Mama and I are alone again.

Sophie leaves me some colored pencils

as a going-away present.

I draw pictures of bombs falling on Paris,

of parks with signs that say, NO DOGS OR JEWS ALLOWED,

and of trains traveling far, far away.

What Dangerous Looks Like