Black Radishes (15 page)

29

U
p ahead, in the line of waiting people, Madame Robert’s bony old horse tossed his head and whinnied. Gustave could see Madame Robert, with Giselle bundled up in her arms, sitting high on the seat of her open farm cart. In the darkening sky, a fast wind drove pale clouds, covering and uncovering the rising moon. It was cold even in the protected cab of the truck. Gustave was glad that sick little Giselle had on all those extra layers of clothing.

He was more worried about Jean-Paul and Aunt Geraldine, who were wedged in the cramped hiding space in the rear of the truck. They were sure to be warm, squashed in together, but did they have enough air to breathe? Even without the Landaus, it had been a tight fit. Gustave’s head throbbed. Where were Marcel and his mother? Why couldn’t anyone find them? But he wasn’t supposed to think about them right now.

Before they had all driven toward the line, with Madame Robert a little ahead so that they wouldn’t seem to be together, Gustave had helped Papa push the heavy barrels and boxes in front of the false back of the truck. It had taken a long time to do it. A German soldier would have to be really suspicious to bother taking all that stuff out on such a cold night, Gustave thought.

Jean-Paul and Aunt Geraldine must be sitting very quietly. Once, while they were driving, Gustave heard a muffled cough coming from the back, but now that the truck was stopped in the line, the back of the truck was absolutely silent.

What if Karl’s shift ended early? Gustave worried suddenly. Or what if the schedule had changed? Gustave could hear his own heart thudding in his chest, and he couldn’t seem to slow his breathing. He put his hand on the basket of vegetables next to him on the front seat. It held a few rutabagas, mixed in with the plumpest, largest black radishes Papa had been able to find. Looking at them there in the basket, Gustave could almost taste them, fresh and spicy, tingling on his tongue.

The line moved forward slowly and then stopped again. Now Madame Robert’s cart was at the front of the line. Behind it were two men on bicycles, followed by a farmer’s truck, piled high with hay. Then came Papa’s truck. The wind gusted again, tossing the branches of the trees.

A short German soldier appeared beside Madame Robert’s cart. Gustave saw the reddish curls under the soldier’s military cap and sighed with relief, feeling some of the tension melt out of his body. It
was
still Karl’s shift, then.

But what was he doing? He had walked down the line and was speaking now to the men on bicycles. Gustave peered forward. Madame Robert was climbing carefully down from the cart, holding Giselle. The men left their bicycles in the line of vehicles and followed Madame Robert to the side of the road. Karl walked up to the farmer in the truck ahead of them, and Papa rolled down his window so that he could hear.

“Out of the vehicle,” Karl’s voice said loudly. “Vehicles here, people over there.” He walked forward and saw Papa through the window of the truck. “Ah, good evening,” he said to Papa. “New procedure. Out of the vehicle. Vehicles here, people over there.” He moved on down the line.

New procedure? Gustave thought. Why? He and Papa got out of the truck, and a blast of cold wind hit them. They joined the silent group of people huddled beside the road. The fierce wind made Gustave’s eyes water. He looked at Madame Robert. She had turned her body so that she was shielding Giselle from the cold blast, but Giselle wailed thinly, the wind whisking her voice away. The pointed red hood of Marguerite’s little jacket was over her head, and she dangled Monkey limply from one hand. Papa bumped Gustave with his elbow, and Gustave realized what he was doing. He turned his gaze away casually, as if the woman and child ahead of him were strangers.

Karl walked briskly back to the front of the line of vehicles and then disappeared. Gustave hunched his shoulders against the wind and buried his cold hands deep into his pockets. He looked up when he felt his father stiffen beside him. Three German soldiers wearing long coats strode toward the huddled group by the side of the road. One was Karl, and one Gustave had never seen before, but at the sight of the bulky blond one, Gustave’s heart gave a great leap in his chest. It was Georg. The soldier Papa had never wanted to see again.

“Your papers,” barked Georg to Madame Robert. She shifted Giselle to the other side and handed her documents to him. He examined them thoroughly, glancing at Giselle and then at the papers. “And this is your cart?” He led Madame Robert toward it and began to examine the wagon, even though it was clearly empty. He opened the wooden seat and rapped his black-gloved fist along the wood in the back.

Karl and the other soldier moved closer to stand beside Madame Robert. “Ah!” said the third soldier in French with a thick German accent. “I know this little girl in the red jacket with the monkey!”

“Yes,” said Karl, smiling. “We know this little girl!”

Georg walked back toward Madame Robert. The third soldier reached out a big hand and patted the hood on Giselle’s head. She wailed. “Excuse me,” said Madame Robert, turning Giselle’s face in toward her coat. “She’s sick and fussy today.”

“If she is sick, you must take her to see a doctor, Madame,” said Georg smoothly, leaning in to peer more closely at Giselle. Then he said something in German to Karl, who seemed to object. Georg frowned at him and said it more loudly.

“Excuse me, Madame,” Karl said to Madame Robert. “But I must examine the toy.” He plucked Monkey out of Giselle’s hand, and she let out a rasping wail. Gustave saw something long and sharp gleaming in Karl’s other hand. He suddenly drew it back and jabbed it into Monkey’s soft, round belly. Gustave gasped loudly, then snapped his mouth shut. But Georg had heard the gasp. He turned and looked toward the group of waiting people, frowning, searching their faces in the darkness. Gustave flushed, furious with himself. He was so stupid. Why did he always have to let what he was feeling show? It was just like that time he had reacted to Philippe calling him a Jew and had given himself away. He couldn’t do that again. Tonight, no matter what happened, he couldn’t show what he felt.

“Again,” barked Georg to Karl, keeping his eyes on Gustave. Gustave felt as if Georg’s eyes were boring into him. He clamped his teeth on the tip of his tongue and kept his face blank as Karl jabbed Monkey again and again, piercing his soft little body with the gleaming instrument. After a few more stabs, Karl handed the monkey back to Giselle. “There’s nothing hidden inside
that
toy,” he said to Georg. “No jewels, no money, nothing.”

“All in order,” barked Georg, sounding disappointed. “Go on.”

Gustave watched as Madame Robert climbed back into the cart with Giselle on her hip. She flicked the reins. The elderly horse lifted its head and clopped slowly over the bridge, and they disappeared into the darkness on the other side. Safe! Gustave thought. Two of them, safe!

Now Karl was speaking to the two men on bicycles, examining their papers and making them open their coats. Georg and the other soldier looked at the farmer’s truck, loaded high with hay.

“Is this your truck?” Georg asked the burly farmer, who was wearing a dirty, ragged overcoat. “Where are you transporting hay at this hour?”

The farmer muttered something about his brother-in-law and held out his papers. Georg examined them and said something to the other soldier, who walked back toward the truck piled high with hay. The soldier took his rifle off his shoulder and jabbed it into the hay in one spot after another. Gustave’s fingers trembled, and he clenched his hands into fists in his pockets. They must be looking for people hidden under the hay. What would happen when they came to Papa’s truck? Gustave felt his stomach tighten, and acid rose in his throat. He swallowed, forcing it down.

Some hay fell out of the wagon, and the farmer started forward to pick it up. “Halt!” shouted Georg. Then he barked another order in German. The soldier held his rifle up to his shoulder, gesturing to the farmer to keep back. Gustave’s stomach contracted. What if someone was in there? The soldier fired between the wooden slats on the back. Then again. And again. But no one cried out, and no blood stained the hay. The farmer only muttered as more hay fell out with each rifle shot.

“In order!” Georg scowled at the farmer. “Go on! Next.”

He turned to Papa. Papa’s face looked gaunt in the moonlight.

“This is your truck?” he asked. “Papers.”

Papa handed him the papers. Gustave noticed his father’s fingers quivering slightly. But Papa answered the soldier cheerfully in German.

“From Switzerland, eh? And this is your son?” Georg barked. His eyes bored into Gustave again. Gustave’s heart throbbed painfully in his chest.

“Open the back of the truck,” Georg ordered Papa.

Papa walked, limping up and down, toward the rear of the truck, and the door screeched open. The soldier gestured toward the back of the truck, speaking to the other two. “Search it.”

Karl and the other soldier peered in at the dark interior of the truck and the heavy boxes and bundles inside. The other soldier said something to Georg in German. It sounded like a complaint.

Georg turned to Gustave and Papa. “Too difficult to search through all that at this hour, my men say. You, boy. What do you think?” His eyes locked with Gustave’s. “We have to be sure no one’s hiding in there. Should we search your truck and keep you here for a few hours, or should we just shoot into the back?”

Gustave’s heart hammered so hard that he was sure the soldier could hear it. But he couldn’t react. If they searched, they would surely find Jean-Paul and Aunt Geraldine. And if they shot into the truck, one or both of them might be killed. But would they really want to shoot into it? Surely not. It wasn’t like shooting into hay. The bullet might ricochet off the metal sides of the truck and kill the soldier. Georg was testing Gustave to see if he would act worried, and he couldn’t react. He had to behave as if he were just a bored kid going home with his father.

Gustave stared steadily into Georg’s eyes and shrugged. “It’s too cold to stand here for hours. Just shoot, I guess. But don’t hit the tires. They’re impossible to replace.”

Georg gave a short, sharp laugh and walked toward the open back of the truck. To Gustave, the officer seemed to be stepping in slow motion, like a person in a dream, or someone walking under water, slowly pushing his legs forward, one after the other. In an unhurried way, he lifted his rifle to his shoulder. He was really going to do it, then. It wasn’t just a test. When the rifle clicked, Gustave’s heart jolted.

Suddenly, Karl was at the cab of the truck, looking in the side window. He called something to Georg in rapid German. Georg lowered his rifle and strode forward to join Karl.

“Come here!” Georg barked. Papa and Gustave walked forward. Karl opened the passenger door on Gustave’s side. There was the wicker basket with the rutabagas and the radishes. Georg looked in at it and then at Papa and Gustave.

They stood looking at each other in silence for a long moment, the two of them and the German officer.

“Ah!” said Georg, smoothly. “Black radishes. Very nice.” He reached in and plucked the four black radishes out of the basket. He called something in German to the other soldier, who was still standing by the open back of the truck. There was a pause, and the door slammed shut.

“All in order!” barked Georg. “Go on!”

Papa and Gustave got into the front of the truck, the basket on the seat between them empty except for a few rutabagas, and Papa drove on, up over the bridge, and safely into the unoccupied zone.

30

Lisbon, January 1942

A
few weeks later, Gustave stood on the deck of a ship anchored out in the harbor of Lisbon, Portugal. Leaning on the railing, with Jean-Paul beside him, Gustave watched the January sun glisten on the blue ripples of the harbor and, across the water, on the white buildings and red roofs of Lisbon. The last weeks had passed in a blur of embraces, tears, packing, goodbyes, train rides, and border crossings, first into Spain and then into Portugal, where they were to set sail for America.

The Landaus were still missing. After Jean-Paul and Aunt Geraldine had crawled, stiff and cramped, out of the hiding place in Papa’s truck, after Aunt Geraldine had taken Giselle tearfully into her arms, and after Giselle had been rocked to sleep, Gustave had heard what had happened to Marcel and his mother.

“Do you remember when we last spoke by telephone?” Aunt Geraldine asked Maman. “It must have been in April or May of last year, just before the Nazis invaded. Right after we spoke, Madame Landau got a letter from her brother, who lives near Strasbourg, and she decided that she and Marcel would join him there. I didn’t want her to go to Alsace—why go to the part of France nearest Germany? I asked her. But she felt safer being with her brother.”

All three of the listening grown-ups gasped.

“Alsace?” Maman moaned. “Why didn’t she come to us?”

Gustave couldn’t understand what was wrong for a moment. Then he remembered. The Boches had taken back Alsace and Lorraine from France and made them part of Germany. “It’s terrible for the Jews living there,” Papa had said at the café last year, when they had looked at the map of France in the newspaper.

Something heavy seemed to be pressing down on Gustave’s chest. “But what happened to the Jews in Alsace?” he whispered.

Aunt Geraldine shook her head. “I don’t know for sure. But after a while, we started to hear rumors. People said that when the Germans took over Alsace, they forced the Jews out—gave them fifteen minutes to pack one bag, shoved them into buses, and then dumped them in unoccupied France, in the middle of nowhere, with no food or water. Elderly people too, and babies.”

“But in the unoccupied zone?” cried Gustave. “So maybe Marcel and his mother and uncle are somewhere safe now.”

“Maybe,” said Aunt Geraldine slowly. “But if so, they would have written to us, or to you. And Monsieur Morin’s contacts from the Resistance tried to find them, and they had no luck. After a while, we started hearing worse rumors. Some people said that other Jews from Alsace were put on trains and taken to internment camps. Camps somewhere in the south of France.”

Gustave felt as if he had swallowed an enormous stone that was getting heavier and heavier every minute. The room was silent.

“Terrible things are happening now,” Aunt Geraldine said after a while. “One day last summer in Paris, there was a raid in the eleventh
arrondissement
, the neighborhood right next to ours. Early one morning, the French police barricaded the streets and the Métro stations so that no one could leave. They dragged people out of bed and grabbed them on the street. They rounded up all the Jewish men and took them away. They are going after the foreign-born Jews especially, people like the Landaus. I think it is only a matter of time before they start going after us all.”

Gustave looked at Jean-Paul. He was staring straight ahead of him, his eyes blank, gray. Gustave thought about Marcel making beetle spitballs and dropping the nuts down from the balcony of the synagogue. Marcel fooling around in the park, kicking a soccer ball, inventing the looking-up game. Mischievous, laughing Marcel, who had been Gustave’s friend ever since they had been very young boys. Where was he now? Were Marcel and his mother in one of those terrible prison camps somewhere, living in filth, hungry and cold, maybe sick? Places where people were dying? The Germans forced Jews onto the trains, but how could the French government keep them in prison camps just because they were Jewish?

Lying in his bed at night during those weeks after hearing Aunt Geraldine’s stories, Gustave sometimes started shaking, thinking about Marcel, and couldn’t stop. If the Resistance couldn’t find Marcel and his mother, there was nothing anyone could do to help. How could Gustave’s family go to America and leave the Landaus behind? But how could they stay in France and wait for the same thing to happen to them?

The morning after Jean-Paul’s family arrived, Gustave and Papa had dug up the metal box buried by the chicken coop. Its contents were now securely stowed away. The uncut jewels were sewn under the lining of two different suitcases so that no one could steal them. And Maman had taken apart her corset to make a hiding place for the American bills, pulling out all the whale bones. Working by lamplight, Gustave, Jean-Paul, and Papa had rolled the slippery American money tightly around the delicate bones, and then Maman sewed them securely back into the corset cover. When she had finished, she also sewed Monkey back together, repairing the holes that the Germans had torn in his belly. While they were all working together, Papa had made a promise. “After the war,” he had said, “I will come back to France and find the Landaus.”

No one had known how to thank Madame Robert for the risk she had taken, bringing Giselle across the demarcation line.

“I know you would have done the same for me,” she had said awkwardly to Maman and Aunt Geraldine. “Mothers have to help each other. Poor little girl.”

As Madame Robert was getting ready to leave, first heading for her mother’s house, where she would spend the night, and then planning to cross back at a different checkpoint, Gustave slipped the repaired Monkey into her hand.

“For Marguerite,” he said. “Since she doesn’t have any other toys.”

Madame Robert bent and kissed him. “Thank you, Gustave,” she had said quietly. “I know what he means to you. Thank you.”

Later, after Gustave went to bed, with Jean-Paul asleep on the floor next to him, sadness washed over him as he remembered the games that he and Jean-Paul and Marcel used to play with Monkey back when they lived in Paris. But it wasn’t Monkey that he needed; it was his friends. Marguerite loved Monkey, and toys should belong to small children, who would really appreciate them. In a way, Gustave felt as if he had left Monkey behind a long time ago, in the winter last year when the line had closed, with Monkey—and Jean-Paul and Marcel—on the other side.

Saying goodbye to Nicole had been hard too. Maman had said Gustave could give her their bicycle, since it was impossible to take it to America.

“No more bumpy front tire!” said Gustave, wheeling the bicycle into the Morins’ shed and propping it against the wall.

“Oh, it wasn’t really that bad,” said Nicole. “But I bet your mother’s bicycle will go really fast. I’ll see in a few weeks, when the doctor says I can use my arm again.”

“You’re not going to make another ramp, are you?” said Gustave.

“Maybe!” Nicole grinned, walking out with him into the road.

No one was around. Gustave reached out to shake hands. For a moment, with their hands clasped, they both hesitated. Then Nicole leaned forward, and Gustave felt her lips, warm and soft, against his face. They kissed each other quickly, once on each cheek, the way grown-ups did to say hello and goodbye. When Gustave lifted his eyes a moment later, Nicole’s face was pink and her eyes were bright.

“Why do you and your father do it, anyway, since you aren’t Jewish?” he asked her suddenly. “Help people escape, I mean? Work for the Resistance? It’s so dangerous.”

All at once Nicole’s sparkling eyes were intense and serious. “For freedom,” she said fiercely. “For France. Because it is the right thing to do.” Then a grin broke across her face again.

“Say hello to the Statue of Liberty for me when you get to America!” she said.

Gustave saw Nicole watching from the top of the hill as he walked away. Would she and her father be all right? When would he see her again?

Giselle had recovered from her fever within a week. She turned out to be an energetic toddler who was always getting into trouble of one kind or another—chasing after the chickens next door, rubbing food into her hair, taking everything out of Maman’s purse and trying to sit inside it. She made Gustave laugh, and even Jean-Paul too, sometimes.

Jean-Paul didn’t laugh as much as he used to or talk as much either. But he ate ravenously whenever he had a chance. In the last two days, especially, while they had been waiting on the ship in the Lisbon harbor for the final passengers to board, Gustave had noticed Jean-Paul tearing into his meals. The abundance of food in Lisbon was astonishing after all the things they had not had in France. On the days they had spent in Lisbon before boarding the ship, Gustave and Jean-Paul had taken long walks through the street markets, gazing at the mountains of white bread in loaves of many shapes, sampling the rich, soft cheeses, eyeing the fresh fish and the brightly colored fruit. On the ship too, while they had been waiting to set sail, the meals had been good and plentiful. But Jean-Paul usually slipped part of his piece of bread into his pocket, Gustave noticed, as if he never knew when he would taste food again.

That morning, as the two families got up from breakfast, Jean-Paul had looked up as he was sliding the bread into his pocket and noticed Gustave watching him.

“You don’t know what it was like in Paris,” he said, blushing slightly. “Some days we had almost nothing to eat. Jews couldn’t shop until late in the day, when nearly all the food had been sold. At night, Giselle would cry for hours because she was so hungry.”

Gustave nodded. Of course Jean-Paul was afraid of going hungry. Thanks to Papa’s skill in bargaining with the shoes and the cloth, Gustave and Maman and Papa had usually had enough of something to eat, even if it was often only potatoes or rutabaga soup. And there was more food in the country than in Paris. Jean-Paul was so thin that it almost looked as if his elbows would poke through his skin.

Now Gustave and Jean-Paul stood silently together, looking out at the light sparkling on the blue water. A few people on the deck below them were scanning the harbor. One man had binoculars. Gustave knew that he was looking for air tubes that indicated the presence of German U-boats, submarines that launched deadly attacks on ships. But the surface of the water was smooth and uninterrupted.

“Do you think my father will ever come find us in America?” Jean-Paul asked suddenly.

“Of course he’ll find us,” said Gustave. “After the war, when he comes home. Nicole’s father promised to get him the address of Papa’s cousin in America. And anyway, Papa swore that somehow he’ll get back to France when the war is over. To find Marcel and Madame Landau.” His voice quavered when he came to those last words. It was difficult to say their names.

But when would the end of the war come? Gustave looked out again at the serene, deep blue-green of the water, at the glimmering white buildings of Lisbon, at the cold, paler blue of the sky overhead. Looking out over all that beauty, it was hard to believe that danger could ever erupt from under the ocean or come roaring down from what had once been a peaceful sky. But it could. He knew that it could.

Gustave felt the deck begin to rumble under his feet. “We’re moving!” he called out, excited in spite of everything. “The ship is leaving!”

People were beginning to gather at the railing of the deck one level down to catch a final sight of land. The upper deck, where Jean-Paul and Gustave were standing, was narrower than the lower one. The two boys looked down onto the tops of people’s heads, onto men’s dark hats and women’s bright scarves, fluttering in the ocean breeze. Gustave caught sight of Maman’s flowered skirt, and then he saw them all, his family—Maman, Papa, Aunt Geraldine, and little Giselle—squashed into a corner by the railing, looking back toward Portugal. Giselle held up a small, red-mittened hand and waved at the shore.

All of a sudden, Jean-Paul tapped Gustave on the shoulder and grinned. It wasn’t quite the same grin that Gustave remembered, but it was good to see him more like his old self again.

“I know what Marcel would do if he were here!” Jean-Paul announced. He pulled the chunk of bread that he had saved from breakfast out of his pocket, looked at it for a moment, then tore it in half. He held one piece out to Gustave. Gustave took it and watched Jean-Paul crumble the bread between his hands, reach out over the railing, and scatter the pieces onto the people on the deck below. So Jean-Paul remembered that day with the hazelnuts in the synagogue too.

The crumbs fluttered down, landing on one man’s hat, on another man’s shoulder, drifting slowly through the air. A young woman with brown hair coiled elegantly at the nape of her neck looked up, confused.

“Snow?” they heard her say in French to her companion. “Even though it’s January, it doesn’t seem cold enough.”

Jean-Paul laughed and looked at Gustave. Gustave smiled, tears prickling in his eyes. Jean-Paul nudged Gustave. “You do it too.”

Gustave crumbled the bread in his fist and tossed it into the air. “For Marcel,” he said hoarsely. The crumbs floated and drifted down, white specks against all that blue. The boys watched as the bits of bread settled softly on the unsuspecting passengers below. A gull swooped down from above, squawking, and caught a large crumb out of the air, the sunlight dazzling white on its wings.