Odette's Secrets (14 page)

The peasants also think that Jews bring bad luck.

I try not to think about that.

What would happen to us if they found out

Mama and I are Jews?

Maybe if I do more good deeds

the saints will be on my side.

God will send me a sign that everything will be all right.

What happens next

does not seem like a good sign.

Kittens are born in our village.

Five are homeless. No one will adopt them.

By tradition, children take the unwanted ones to Père René,

the oldest man in our village.

He has the biggest ears I've ever seen.

Does this mean he can hear better than anyone?

Père René throws the kittens into a black pond,

one by one,

with his six-fingered hand.

The tiny kittens struggle.

“Just look at them!

Not even a day old and they think they can swim.”

The children who watch him laugh.

I feel a dull pain in my chest.

“Ah, so you're scared, little ones?”

Père René says to the kittens.

“Won't be long now.”

A big boy named Paul throws stones at them.

One by one,

the kittens go under.

Soon the black pond is still.

“Time for my nap,” says Père René,

and with a yawn and a stretch,

he leaves.

The children go off to play.

Everyone else accepts that these animals must die.

It's the way of the peasant world.

But me, I go back into my house

and hug Bijou

until she scratches her way out of my arms.

However, before long a good sign comes.

Mama wants to mail a package to Madame Marie.

She sends my godmother food when she can.

The post office is in Saint-Fulgent.

So my mother and I take the long walk there together.

I go to school that afternoon while

she goes to the post office

and buys things she needs.

That day, our teachers take us into a field to look at the clouds.

“What do you see?” the nuns ask.

“Oh, a bear!” a little girl says.

“No, it's a furry dog,” another one says.

But I see a sewing machine!

Seated at it is Madame Marie.

I know she's there to protect my mother and me.

This
is the sign I've been watching for!

When the school bell rings,

Mama's waiting for me.

She has two straw baskets.

One is full.

Inside is lamp oil, flypaper, new knitting needles,

and a loaf of fresh bread.

The other one is almost empty

except for a few cabbage leaves.

Mama gives the empty one to me to carry.

We walk along the quiet, dusty road back to our village.

An oxcart trundles by.

When it passes,

I follow Mama into a field of rutabagas.

She shows me how to pull them up.

I take one here, one from a few feet away.

Mama tells me to hide them in my basket under the leaves.

I know I'm stealing, but my mother told me to do it.

We need vegetables, and there are so many here.

Surely it won't matter if we take just a few?

Soon we are back on the road and all seems well.

Madame Marie will get a package of good country food:

meat, sausages, and pâté.

Mama has her new knitting needles

and fresh bread from town.

I carry the stolen rutabagas but also a wonderful secret …

the most powerful of all good omens.

Madame Marie has appeared in the sky.

We are safe.

Accused

When the fruit trees blossom pink,

it's time to build a village shrine to the Virgin Mary.

Père René, the old man who drowned the kittens,

divides his barn in two.

He puts his cows on one side.

On the other side, a statue of Mary moves in.

She wears her light blue robe and her golden crown.

All during the month of May,

people visit her and bring flowers.

One May morning,

I walk to school with other children.

A meadow shines with silver.

We've heard pilots sometimes drop tinsel over fields at night.

Are these shell casings?

No one seems to know for sure.

Could the shiny paper have chocolates inside?

We have to go see!

No, there's no chocolate, but the silver paper is so pretty.

We toss handfuls of it into the air

and watch them shimmer down.

One boy collects a huge pile of silver papers.

He sits down under a tree to count them.

The rest of us just grab as many as we can.

Someone says,

“Let's decorate the Holy Virgin's shrine!”

We run back to the village with our treasure.

Patient as ever,

Mary lets us decorate her with tinsel.

It shines on the white tablecloth in front of her,

and on the bouquets of rosebuds

in their milk cans and jars.

The cows are out for the day,

but their smell lingers with that of the roses.

A sheepdog comes in to see what's happening.

“Old Père René's dog!” someone whispers.

“Let's get out of here.”

But before we can escape,

the wrinkled old man blocks the barn door.

He shakes his six-fingered hand at us.

“Not in school?

Not in the fields?

The day's still young and there's plenty of work to do.

But do you help your parents?

No, you make a mess of the Virgin's shrine.”

“We're decorating it for her,” says the oldest, bravest girl.

“Look at the silver.

Ours will be the prettiest shrine in any village.”

Père René shakes his head.

“Anything to get out of all the work God planned for us

from the day Adam left the Garden of Eden. Bah!”

At the village center, I meet my friend Simone.

She's playing hopscotch.

But when she sees me coming,

she drops her marker and walks away.

Why, I wonder?

I follow her.

At first she won't speak to me, but then she says,

“I can't play with you anymore.

People say you and your mother are really Jewish.

Are you hiding from the Germans?”

Silence.

“You are, aren't you?”

My mouth drops open,

but no words come out.

Who thinks we're Jewish?

How did they figure it out?

But I don't have time to think about this.

Not now.

I swallow hard and reply.

“Jewish?

How could I be Jewish?

Lots of Christians have left Paris since the war began.

We had no eggs, no meat, no milk, no butter!

We had to hide in bomb shelters at night.

It was awful.

We came here because it's quiet and peaceful,

and there's lots of good food.”

“I
knew
those people were lying,” says Simone.

“You're too nice to be Jewish.”

She smiles at me.

“Come on,” she says as she pulls my hand.

“Want to go see my new baby brother?

He's the ugliest one yet!”

I feel faint with relief.

For a moment, I can barely see …

everything looks blurry, as if we're under water.

I grab Simone's hand and let her pull me along,

blinking until my sight clears.

Who are the people who suspect us? I wonder.

Should I run and tell Mama right now?

No, I'll act normal, I decide.

I'll wait until tonight to tell Mama everything.

Attacked

Like all the houses in our village,

Simone's house has two rooms.

One has a fireplace and a big table,

and the other a huge carved bed.

Simone's thin mother rests in the bed with her sleeping baby.

“Look how blessed I am with all these fine children, Odette!

Simone can keep house and milk cows as well as I can.

I don't know what I'd do without her!

In fact, I need her today.

Can you take the cows to the pasture this afternoon?”

“Of course,” I say, proud to be asked.

Simone packs ham and rye bread for me for lunch.

She puts it in a satchel with some cider.

“Now, Odette,” says her mother.

“You know where the cows are, behind the house.

Take them to the stream.

You can keep your cider cool in the deep water there.”

At the stream, the four cows are happy

with all the water, grass, and shade.

After I find a good place to put my cider,

I pick wildflowers for Mary's altar.

Then I take off my rubber sandals

and wade into the water to look for frogs.

But a sound behind me makes me jump—is it the cows?

No, it's the village children marching toward me.

One look tells me they're not here to play.

They look like farmers ready to chop down a big tree.

Paul, the big boy who threw stones at the kittens, is the leader.

He has no family.

The old lady he lives with works him too hard,

almost as hard as a grown man.

Simone walks beside him.

I thought she had to help her mother.

Something must have happened.

She looks at me as though she's angry,

as though she knows I've lied to her.

I stand still and wait for them.

When they come close, the children trap me in a half circle.

“You thought you could fool us!” shouts Paul.

“We're not stupid.

We know if a Jew comes into your house, someone will die.”

“And now that's happened!” yells a younger boy.

“As soon as your mother rented that house from my parents,

my brother Marcel got sicker and sicker.

Now he's dead … just like Jesus.”

So our neighbor Marcel has died.