Skating with the Statue of Liberty (28 page)

Gustave laughed. Philippe was awful. He was the one who had put that note saying “Hitler was right” on Gustave's desk last year.

I think we'll be called in for history class soon. Simone is standing next to me. She wants to talk about her mother's new baby all the time. Alice is listening to her, but I'm so bored
hearing her going on and on about how cute the baby is! I'm watching the little kids playing tag instead. Some of the others are using sticks to play swords. I go into so much detail because I know you miss us and want to know everything that is going on here. Our friend, you know who I mean, he is playing hide-and-seek. He is very good at hiding. Robert is drawing something on the pavement. Eloise and Monique are whacking at a tree with sticks. I have no idea why
.

So are you ever going to meet any movie stars? Write and tell me more about life in the US when you can
.

Je t'embrasse
,

Nicole

Gustave's mouth felt dry with disappointment. There was nothing about Marcel. Nothing at all. Not even a sentence saying there was no news. It was as if she had forgotten what Gustave was most worried about. And she had put in all that meaningless stuff about the other kids at school. Who cares what they're all doing on the playground so far away? Gustave thought angrily. What a waste. Why had she even bothered spending the money to send it?

Still, it was news from France. He read it over again carefully. And then he sucked in his breath.

“Our friend, you know who I mean,
il joue à cache-cache.” He is playing hide-and-seek
.

All at once, as if those words had turned red, Gustave knew that they were a secret message, hidden from the
Nazi censors, from the prying eyes that would look over the letter before it left Occupied France. “He is very good at hiding.” She was telling him that Marcel was in hiding! Marcel was alive!

The air in the apartment shimmered, and Gustave let out a deep, shuddering breath. Wherever Marcel was—the letter didn't say, maybe because Nicole didn't know—he was alive. Hiding and alive.

Some time later Gustave realized that he could hear an insistent banging at the door, and that it had been going on for a while. Still in a daze, and still holding the letter, Gustave opened the apartment door. It was Jean-Paul, looking impatient, with a bag full of cans. “What's wrong?” he asked immediately. “What took you so long? What's going on?”

“Marcel is alive,” Gustave said.

“She wrote it in code? You're sure that's what it means?” Jean-Paul was asking in disbelief, sitting at the table next to Gustave and bending over the letter. “You're absolutely sure?”

“Positive. We always write some stuff in code so the censors don't understand it. She couldn't mean anyone else by ‘our friend, you know who I mean.' And right before that she says, ‘I know you want to know everything that is going on here.' She knows I want to know what happened to Marcel more than anything! And why would I care what everyone else is doing on the playground? She
just put that stuff in so she could disguise that she was talking about Marcel when she said he was playing hide-and-seek!”

“You might be right. But are you really sure? What does this mean, at the end?” Jean-Paul pointed at something written in tiny handwriting along the side of the letter. “PS. On the other side, you will see that our friend sends you a little gift. He says you've wanted it for a long time.”

Gustave flipped the letter over, but there was nothing on the back. Nothing but a slightly greasy mark. “What's that? Where's the gift?” Jean-Paul demanded. “It looks like something was stuck there.”

Gustave stared at the greasy mark, baffled, and then at almost the same moment, he and Jean-Paul both reached for the envelope. Gustave grabbed it first. He opened it, turned it upside down, and shook it. A small yellow feather fell out and fluttered down onto the table.

38

“
I
l joue à cache-cache! Il joue à cache-cache!” He's playing hide-and-seek!
Jean-Paul couldn't stop saying it as they rode the subway down to Battery Park. “How did you know? All that time, how did you
know
that he was alive, Gustave?”

“I didn't know. I just hoped.”

“How do you think your friend Nicole got that feather? She couldn't have seen him, could she?”

“I don't think so. Maybe her father's Resistance connections got it to her somehow. It must be through them that she found out that Marcel is in hiding.”

Gustave still felt as if he were in a dream as they left the subway, found Battery Park, and got into a long line of kids carrying crates and bags full of flattened cans.

Guy and André, in Boy Scout uniform, were up ahead in the line. Jean-Paul shouted to them. Guy heard and nudged André, and they both turned around and waved. There were a lot more Negro kids around than there were
at Joan of Arc Junior High. Ahead in the line, Gustave saw younger boys who looked Chinese, and immediately behind him and Jean-Paul was a group of kids speaking rapidly in Spanish. A warm breeze blew, making a cluster of daffodils by a park bench bob up and down. It was finally April, and after the long, cold New York winter, spring was really here.

“Gustave!” September Rose appeared to Gustave's left. “He's my friend,” she said to the girl behind Gustave. “Can I cut in line?” The girl nodded and stepped back, letting her in.

“Who's that?” Jean-Paul whispered, nudging him.

“That's September Rose,” Gustave whispered. Then, speaking in English, but slowly, so Jean-Paul would understand, he said to Seppie, “This is my cousin, Jean-Paul.”

“Hi,” she said.

“September Rose?”
Jean-Paul said the name with emphasis as the line moved forward, nudging Gustave and smirking. “Pleased to meet you!”

“You've got a lot of cans,” Seppie said as they got near the front, glancing in Jean-Paul's bag and Gustave's. “But look at mine!” She held up not one shopping bag but two, both of them heavy with flattened metal.

“Where did you get all of those?” Gustave asked. “I thought you weren't going to be able to get any besides what we collected.”

“That's what I thought too. Some of these are the ones we got that day. But look what my Granma did.” She held up an irregularly shaped, flattened piece of blue metal.

It took Gustave a minute to figure it out. “Is that one of your grandmother's birds?”

September Rose looked at him with a peculiar expression, partly proud and partly mournful. “She took them all down, smashed them, and gave them to me to donate. Every single one. She said that it was the best way to bring Dad home. But the apartment is so empty now, and quiet.”

He could see it, how it must look to her and Alan and her grandmother, the blankness of the rooms without the delicate, brilliant birds, the silence of the fire escape without the chimes. The April wind would blow through the apartment as the days grew warm, and there would be no sound.

They had moved forward, and they were almost at the head of the line. “Pour them in here,” a cheerful man was saying, pointing to a bin. “Support our boys overseas!”

They tipped their shopping bags into the bin, first Jean-Paul, then Gustave, and then September Rose. The colors of the flattened birds flashed and then slid down among hundreds of other pieces of metal, disappearing into the silvery-gray heap as if they had never been.

September Rose hurried off to find the chorus, and Gustave and Jean-Paul looked for the flagpole where they were meeting up with the Boy Scouts. Battery Park was at the very southern end of Manhattan, overlooking New York Harbor. Beyond the grounds and walkways of the park, the sun moved out from behind the clouds, glittering on the blue-green water. The park was getting crowded with groups of students talking and laughing.

“There's the flagpole!” Jean-Paul shouted. “I see them!” They ran to the base of the pole to join their group of scouts.

“Ah, good. There you are!” Father René said. “Our whole group is here now, François!” he called to Rabbi Blum. “Let's go, everyone. The ceremony will begin soon.” There wasn't time to tell Rabbi Blum the good news about Marcel now, Gustave thought. He didn't want to talk about it in front of a lot of people. But he'd tell the rabbi at his next bar mitzvah lesson. Just the thought of having the good news to tell made him feel buoyant with joy again.

The troop found their places on the temporary stage.

“Post the Colors. Scouts salute!” It was an Eagle Scout, an older boy from troop 2332. With his fingers at his forehead, Gustave watched the colors of the American flag ripple in the wind. The Pledge of Allegiance began, and he was saying it too, with the others, in English. The final words were the best ones, even if they weren't always true: “With Liberty and Justice for all.”

After the flag salute, the Boy Scouts left the stage. Men in suits made speeches about supporting the soldiers and pulling together for the country. And then came the singing. Choruses from school after school filed onto the stage, sang, and filed off. Finally the familiar faces from Joan of Arc Junior High were in front of them. September Rose was in the back and not very visible, but Gustave heard her voice, confident and powerful, mingling with the others yet distinct, soaring out into the open air.

By the time the concert was over, the sun was setting,
and it was getting chilly. Two policemen were tending a bonfire, and a lot of the crowd moved in that direction. The bonfire had a high barrier on one side, and Gustave was relieved that the barrier did seem high enough to keep the light from shining out to sea, keeping the ships along the coast safe from Nazi U-boats.

“Bonfire or roller-skating?” asked Bernard.

“Roller-skating,” said Maurice. “I'm meeting Jacqueline there.”

“Ooh, Jacqueline! Let's all go see
Jacqueline
!” said Xavier.

“Don't you dare embarrass her,” said Maurice, scowling at him.

They all went together. The line to rent roller skates was long. The rink, which was a large expanse of plywood a foot or so off the ground with rough wooden railings and entrances at each end, was already full of skaters circling. A small group of musicians stood to the side, playing patriotic music, and vendors were selling food and drink. The smell of hot chocolate and frankfurters wafted through the air.

Gustave waited in line with the others. When he got to the front, he pulled a dime out of his pocket, and the man behind the counter handed him a pair of scuffed roller skates. The laces were in a snarl. By the time he had untangled them, the other Boy Scouts were up on their feet and skating. Gustave buttoned his coat and tied his roller skates with cold fingers. He saw that Xavier had fallen, and André was laughing at him and pulling him up. Maurice was skating next to a tall, willowy girl with
a shy smile. Martha and Leo glided by, holding hands. Toward the center Gustave caught a glimpse of September Rose's blue hat with the pom-pom. He jumped up from the bench and hurried to the rink, impatiently waiting in line to step up onto the platform. He wobbled once, then got his balance. Gracelessly but quickly, he pushed his way across the skating surface to the spot where she was. Seppie seemed especially tall today in her roller skates—a good three inches or so taller than he was.

“Hi!” he gasped, catching up with her. “You sang in front of your first big audience! Congratulations!”

Her eyes were bright in the evening air as she looked over at him. “Thanks!”

“I have news,” he said. “My friend Marcel. He's alive.”

She stared at him, gliding forward, and nearly fell when her skate hit a bump in the rough plywood. “You got a letter?”

“Yes. From my friend Nicole. Her father knows people. Marcel is alive, but hiding.”

September Rose shrieked and jumped, and then she did fall. Gustave swirled to a messy stop just beyond her and then circled back and helped her to her feet. “I'm so, so glad,” she said.

“Clear the rink!”
boomed a voice over the sound system after they had circled a few times.

“But we just started!” Gustave protested.

“They're doing specials,” said September Rose as they
skated to the exit, filed down, and stepped off onto the damp grass. “Wait and see—it'll be fun.”

“
Salut
, Gustave!” Jean-Paul, Guy, and Xavier materialized, holding cups of hot chocolate.

“This is Guy and Xavier from my Boy Scout troop,” he said to Seppie. “You know my cousin Jean-Paul. Fellows, this is my friend September Rose.”

“Hello,
September Rose
!” Xavier emphasized her name, grinning, but the others just said hello and smiled in a knowing way.

“Now in the rink,” the announcer called, “let's have
girls only
!”

“So long, boys!” September Rose said tauntingly, and she went back up the stairs and skated off. The rink filled quickly.

“Look at all those girls!” Bernard marveled as bright coats and hats and hair flashed by.

The musicians struck up a familiar tune. “ ‘Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else but Me!' ” several of the girls shrieked at once.

“Let's do the movements we do to this song in physical education,” Martha called.

Girls' voices started singing the song, September Rose among them. Many girls were doing hand movements in unison while they were skating. September Rose whizzed by. “No, no, no!” she sang, one hand on her hip, the other arm straight out, shaking a finger toward the other laughing girls who were doing the same thing.

“Clear the rink!” the announcer called again as the
song came to an end. The girls moaned good-naturedly and rolled toward the stairs. The boys lined up, ready to go on, sure it was their turn. Leo, who was at the front of the line, had already started skating when the announcer laughed at him and said, “Now let's have
couples only
!”