Sarah's Key (14 page)

The grass tickled her nose. It smelled delicious. She wanted to bury her face in it and breathe in the green, tangy scent. She saw that Rachel had already reached the gap and was gingerly pushing her head through it.

Suddenly the girl heard heavy thuds on the grass. Her heart stopped. She looked up to a huge shape looming over her. A policeman. He dragged her up by the frayed collar of her blouse, shook her. She felt herself go limp with terror.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

His voice hissing in her ear.

Rachel was halfway through the rolls. The man, still holding the girl by the scruff of her neck, reached down and seized Rachel’s ankle. She fought and kicked, but he was too strong, pulling her back through the barbed wire, her face and hands bleeding.

They stood in front of him, Rachel sobbing, the girl straight-backed, her chin up. Inside she was trembling, but she had decided she would not show her fear. At least she was going to try.

And then she looked at him and gasped.

It was the red-haired policeman. He recognized her instantly. She saw his Adam’s apple bob, felt the thick hand on her collar quiver.

“You can’t escape,” he said gruffly. “You must stay here, you understand?”

He was young, just over twenty, massive, and pink-skinned. The girl noticed he was sweating under the thick dark uniform. His forehead was glistening with moisture, his upper lip, too. His eyes blinked, he shifted from foot to foot.

She realized she was not afraid of him. She felt a sort of strange pity for him, which puzzled her. She put her hand on his arm. He looked down at it with surprise and embarrassment.

She said, “You remember me, don’t you.”

It was not a question. It was a fact.

He nodded, dabbing at the moist patch under his nose. She took the key from her pocket and showed it to him. Her hand did not waver.

“You remember my little brother,” she said. “The little blond boy with the curly hair?”

He nodded again.

“You must let me go, Monsieur. My little brother, Monsieur. He is in Paris. Alone. I locked him in the cupboard because I thought–” Her voice broke. “I thought he’d be safe there! I must go back! Let me go through this hole. You can pretend you never saw me, Monsieur.”

The man glanced back over his shoulder, toward the sheds, as if he was afraid someone might come, someone might see them or hear them.

He put a finger to his lips. He looked back at the girl. He screwed up his face, shook his head.

“I can’t do that,” he said, his voice low. “I have orders.”

She pressed her hand down on his chest.

“Please, Monsieur,” she said, quietly.

Next to her, Rachel sniffed, her face clotted with blood and tears. The man glanced over his shoulder once more. He seemed deeply perturbed. She again noticed that strange expression on his face, the one she had glimpsed the day of the roundup. A mixture of pity, shame, and anger.

The girl felt the minutes go by, leaden, heavy. Endless. She felt the sobs, the tears growing within her again, the panic. What was she going to do if he sent her and Rachel back to the barracks? How was she going to go on? How? She would try to escape again, she thought fiercely, yes, she would do it over and over again. Over and over again.

Suddenly, he said her name. He took her hand. His palm felt hot and clammy.

“Go,” he said between clenched teeth, the sweat trickling down the sides of his pasty face. “Go, now! Fast.”

Bewildered, she looked up to the golden eyes. He pushed her toward the hole, forcing her down with his hand. He held up the wire, shoved her through violently. The barbed wire stung her forehead. Then it was over. She scrambled to her feet. She was free, standing on the other side.

Rachel stared, motionless.

“I want to go, too,” Rachel said.

The policeman clamped a hand on the back of her neck.

“No, you are staying,” he said.

Rachel wailed.

“That’s not fair! Why her, and not me? Why?”

He silenced her, raising his other hand. Behind the fence, the girl stood frozen to the spot. Why couldn’t Rachel come with her? Why did Rachel have to stay?

“Please let her come,” said the girl. “Please, Monsieur.”

She spoke with a calm, quiet voice. The voice of a young woman.

The man seemed ill at ease, restless. But he didn’t hesitate long.

“Go then,” he said, pushing Rachel away. “Quickly.”

He held the wire as Rachel crawled through. She stood next to the girl, breathless.

The man fumbled in his pockets, pulled something out, and handed it to the girl, through the fence.

“Take this,” he ordered.

The girl looked at the thick wad of money in her hand. She put it in her pocket, next to the key.

The man looked back toward the barracks, his brow furrowed.

“For God’s sake, run! Run now, quick, both of you. If they see you. . . . Take off your stars. Try to find help. Be careful! Good luck!”

She wanted to thank him, for his help, for the money, she wanted to hold her hand out to him, but Rachel grabbed her by the arm and took off, they ran as fast as they could though the high golden wheat, straight ahead, lungs bursting, legs and arms helter-skelter, far away from the camp, as far away as possible.

A

S I GOT HOME, I realized I had been feeling nauseous for the past couple of days. I hadn’t bothered about it, caught up in researching the Vel’ d’Hiv’ article. Then, last week, there had been the revelation concerning Mamé’s apartment. But it was the soreness, the tenderness of my breasts that made me pay attention to my queasiness for the first time. I checked my cycle. Yes, I was late. But that had happened, too, in the past years. I finally went down to the
pharmacie
on the boulevard to buy a pregnancy test. Just to be sure.

And there it was. A little blue line. I was pregnant. Pregnant. I couldn’t believe it.

I sat down in the kitchen and hardly dared breathe.

The last pregnancy, five years ago, after two miscarriages, had been a nightmare. Early pain and bleeding, then the discovery that the egg was developing outside the womb, in one of my tubes. There had been a difficult operation. And a messy aftermath, both mentally and physically. It had taken me a long time to get over it. One of my ovaries had been removed. The surgeon had said he was dubious about another pregnancy. And, by then, I was already forty. The disappointment, the sadness in Bertrand’s face. He never spoke about it, but I felt it. I knew it. The fact that he did not want to talk about his feelings, ever, made it worse. He kept it bottled up, away from me. The words that were never spoken grew like a tangible being between us. I had only talked about it to my psychiatrist. And with my very close friends.

I remembered a recent weekend in Burgundy, when we had invited Isabelle and her husband and children to stay. Their daughter Mathilde was Zoë’s age, and then there was little Matthieu. And the way Bertrand had looked at that little boy, a delightful little fellow of four or five. Bertrand’s eyes following him, Bertrand playing with him, carrying him around on his shoulders, smiling, but something sad and wistful in his eyes. It had been unbearable to me. Isabelle had found me crying alone in the kitchen while everybody was finishing their quiche Lorraine outside. She had hugged me hard, then poured out a hefty glass of wine and turned on the CD player, and deafened me with old Diana Ross hits. “It’s not your fault,
ma cocotte,
it’s not your fault. Remember that.”

I had felt incompetent for a long time. The Tézac family had been kind and discreet about the whole thing, but I still felt like I had not been able to provide Bertrand with what he wanted most badly, a second child. And, most importantly, a son. Bertrand had two sisters and no brothers. The name would die out if there was no heir to carry it on. I had not realized how important that factor was for this particular family.

When I had made it clear that despite being Bertrand’s wife, I was still to be called Julia Jarmond, I was greeted with surprised silence. My mother-in-law, Colette, had explained to me with a wooden smile that in France that sort of attitude was modern. Too modern. A feminist stance that did not go down well here at all. A French woman was to be known by her husband’s name. I was to be, for the rest of my life, Madame Bertrand Tézac. I remember smiling my toothy white smile back at her, and telling her glibly I was going to stick to Jarmond. She had said nothing, and from then on, she and Edouard, my father-in-law, always introduced me as “Bertrand’s wife.”

I looked down at the blue line. A baby. A baby! A feeling of joy, of utter happiness, took over. I was going to have a baby. I glanced around the all-too-familiar kitchen. I went to stand by the window and looked down at the dark, grimy courtyard the kitchen gave onto. Boy or girl, it didn’t matter. I knew Bertrand would hope it was a son. But he would love a girl, too, I knew that. A second child. The child we’d been waiting for, for so long. The one we had stopped hoping for. The sister or brother Zoë had given up mentioning. That Mamé had stopped being so curious about.

How was I going to tell Bertrand? I couldn’t just call him and blurt it out on the phone. We had to be together, just the two of us. Privacy, intimacy, was needed. And we had to be careful after that, not letting anyone know until I was at least three months pregnant. I longed to call Hervé and Christophe, Isabelle, my sister, my parents, but I refrained. My husband was to be the first to know. Then my daughter. An idea came to me.

I grabbed the phone and dialed Elsa, the babysitter. I asked her if she was free tonight to watch Zoë. She was. Then I made reservations at our favorite restaurant, a brasserie on the rue Saint-Dominique we had been to regularly since the beginning of our marriage. Finally, I called Bertrand, got his voice mail, and told him to meet me at Thoumieux at twenty-one hours sharp.

I heard the click of Zoë’s key in the front door. The door slammed, then she walked into the kitchen, her heavy backpack in her hand.

“Hi, Mom,” she said. “Good day?”

I smiled. As ever, like every time I laid eyes on Zoë, I was struck by her beauty, her slender height, her lucid hazel eyes.

“Come here, you,” I said, engulfing her in a wolfish embrace.

She pulled back and gazed at me.

“This has been a good day, hasn’t it?” she asked. “I can feel it in your hug.”

“You’re right,” I said, longing to tell her. “It has been a very good day.”

She looked at me.

“I’m glad. You’ve been weird lately. I thought it was because of those kids.”

“Those kids?” I said, brushing her sleek brown hair from her face.

“You know, the children,” she said. “The Vel’ d’Hiv’ children. The ones who never came home.”

“You’re right,” I said. “It made me sad. It still does.”

Zoë took my hand in hers, twisting my wedding band round and round, a trick she had since she was small.

“And then I heard you talking on the phone last week,” she said, not looking at me.

“Well?”

“You thought I was asleep.”

“Oh,” I said.

“I wasn’t. It was late. You were talking to Hervé, I think. You were talking about what Mamé had told you.”

“About the apartment?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, looking at me at last. “About the family who lived there. And what had happened to that family. And how Mamé lived there all those years and didn’t seem to care much about it.”

“You heard all that,” I said.

She nodded.

“Do you know anything about that family, Mom? Do you know who they were? What happened?”

I shook my head.

“No, honey, I don’t.”

“Is it true that Mamé didn’t care?”

I had to be careful.

“Sweetie, I’m sure she did care. I don’t think she really knew what happened.”

Zoë twisted the band around again, faster this time.

“Mom, are you going to find out about them?”

I clasped the nervous fingers pulling at my ring.

“Yes, Zoë. That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” I said.

“Papa won’t like it,” she said. “I heard Papa telling you to stop thinking about it. To stop bothering about it. He sounded mad.”

I pulled her close, laying my chin on her shoulder. I thought of the wonderful secret I carried within me. I thought of tonight at Thoumieux. Bertrand’s incredulous face, his gasp of joy.

“Honey,” I said, “Papa won’t mind. I promise.”