Odette's Secrets (6 page)

Our teacher hangs a photograph of Marshal Pétain on the wall.

“He's the good father of France,” she tells us.

“He makes sure every French schoolchild eats lunch.”

Lentil soup.

Boiled rutabagas.

Kidney beans with lard.

These are what our good father gives us most days.

But tomorrow, our teacher says, will be different.

Marshal Pétain will show special fatherly love to some.

Children like me, whose fathers are brave prisoners,

will get an orange!

All we have to do is show papers

proving our fathers are prisoners.

I haven't seen an orange in a long time.

I can't wait to tell Mama.

Mama isn't as excited as I am.

I can tell she doesn't like Marshal Pétain.

But the next day she takes me to get my orange anyway.

We have to climb up some stairs

and wait in line at an old building.

The crates of oranges are emptying fast.

At last, it's our turn.

Mama shows the papers that prove my father is a prisoner.

The lady puts a big round orange in my hand.

Mama kisses me good-bye

and rushes down the stairs to go to work.

I carry my bright orange carefully through the gray streets.

A crowd of neighbors has gathered at our
Métro
station.

Leah, the corner grocer's wife, is there.

She's smiling, holding hands with her little one-armed son, Noe.

A tall boy I know, Leon, is there too.

I wonder what the crowd is looking at.

I tug on Leon's shirt.

“Odette!” he says. “Want to see?”

I nod.

First, he takes off his cap and plops it on my head,

grinning at me.

Then he lifts me up onto his strong shoulders.

He holds my feet with his hands

so I won't fall.

I feel safe and happy with Leon.

A gypsy is showing off his trained goat.

The goat climbs a ladder, and stands

at the top, hooves shaking.

He can't finish his trick

until everyone puts something in the gypsy's hat.

I feel sorry for the goat, but all I have is my orange.

I'm
not
giving that up!

“Put me down,” I whisper into Leon's ear.

“Please.”

I give him back his cap and he winks at me.

It's time to head home.

I show my orange to Madame Marie.

“Oh, my!” she says. “How splendid.

Take it upstairs and share it with your mama after supper.”

I put the orange in the middle of our oak table,

the one with the animal feet.

Then I open our shutters and look out at the square.

The girls from the convent school aren't there today.

Maybe they are in church praying to God the Father,

the one they say created the world in seven days.

They tell me he takes care of us.

I'm not sure about this.

He never gives us oranges like Marshal Pétain.

An Empty Bag

Mama's at the door,

holding a bag made of tied string.

Inside it I see onions and potatoes … and crumpled paper.

Just then, Madame Marie comes in from the courtyard.

“What did you find at the market today, Berthe?” she asks.

Mama shrinks.

She looks like a schoolgirl caught cheating

when she slowly opens her bag.

It's stuffed mostly with the newspaper.

“
Mon amie
,” says Madame Marie, “I'm surprised at you!”

She takes the bag to her kitchen and brings it back.

Now it's filled with cheese, bread, and homemade jam.

“If you can't find food, you must ask me,”

Madame Marie tells my mother.

Mama nods.

We climb the stairs together.

As long as Madame Marie is around,

we are not allowed to go hungry.

Mama's Story

At supper, I ask Mama if what

the convent girls have told me is true,

that there's a God the Father who cares for us?

“No,” she says.

“Then who made the world?” I ask.

“Who was there at the very beginning?”

Mama says she will tell me the story if I finish my supper.

I pick up my fork and she begins.

“In the beginning was a beautiful meadow.

In the meadow was a cow, the Original Cow.

She had lots of milk.

Two babies, a boy and a girl, drank the cow's milk.

They grew up strong and healthy.

Then they married and had children.

Those children grew up and had more children.

Soon there were lots of people all over the world.”

My plate is empty now.

It's time at last to eat my orange.

I peel it carefully and eat just one section.

Its juice fills my mouth with sharp sweetness.

I give a piece to Mama and think about the story she told me.

I'm pretty sure she made it up, just for fun.

Cows are nice, but I know they don't give you oranges.

God never gives them to us, either.

Not like our good father, Marshal Pétain.

Two More Secrets

Mama, like Papa, joins the fight for France.

She tells me her work is secret.

She gets money for guns to fight the enemy soldiers.

She helps find hiding places for children in trouble.

Sometimes visitors come.

I hear them whisper secret passwords at the door

before Mama will let them in.

“You must never tell anyone about our visitors,”

says Mama.

“If the wrong people find out, it will be the end of me.”

I promise her I will never tell anyone.

Mama tells me another big secret.

She and her friends have made a plan

to keep their own children safe.

“You know the Nazis don't like Jews,” she says.

Of course I do!

Jews are not allowed to own or use telephones.

We can't have bicycles, either.

What's next?

Will we be forbidden to play ball?

To jump rope?

Mama goes on.

“If it gets too dangerous in Paris, Odette,

you must go to a safe place in the country.

Cécile and Paulette and Suzanne will go with you on the train.”

I like these girls.

They are friends of my family.

A train trip sounds like fun too.

But I could never go away and leave my mother!

“I want to stay here with you, Mama,” I say.

“I don't care if it's dangerous.”

“For now you will,” says Mama.

She strokes my hair.

“For now, we will be together.

But we have a secret hiding place planned for you.

Just in case.”

Mama tells me how I will get to the country …

a lady she trusts will take me.

I hope “just in case” never comes.

My father is already gone.

I can't live without my mother!

The Raid