Sarah's Key (27 page)

SARAH HAD LEFT FRANCE in late 1952. She had gone to America.

“Why the States?” I asked.

“She told us she had to get away, to a place that had not been touched directly by the Holocaust, in the way France was. We were all upset. Especially my grandparents. They loved her like the daughter they never had. But she would not be swayed. She left. And she never came back. At least, not that I know of.”

“Then what happened to her?” I asked, sounding like Nathalie, using the same fervor, the same earnestness.

Gaspard Dufaure shrugged, sighed deeply. He had gotten up, followed by the blind, old dog. His wife had made me another cup of powerful, harsh coffee. Their granddaughter had remained silent, curled up in the armchair, her eyes going from him to me in a silent, endearing manner. She would remember this, I thought. She would remember it all.

Her grandfather came to sit down again with a grunt, handing me the coffee. He had looked around the small room, the faded photographs on the wall, the tired furniture. He had scratched his head and sighed. I waited, and Nathalie waited. Then he spoke at last.

They had never heard from Sarah after 1955.

“She wrote a couple of letters to my grandparents. And a year later, she sent a card to say she was getting married. I remember my father telling us Sarah was marrying a Yankee.” Gaspard smiled. “We were delighted for her. But then, there were no more calls, no more letters. Ever again. My grandparents tried to trace her. They did all they could to find her, called New York, wrote letters, sent telegrams. They tried to locate her husband. Nothing. Sarah had disappeared. It was dreadful for them. They waited, and waited, year after year, for a sign, a call, a card. Nothing came. Then my grandfather passed away in the early sixties, followed by my grandmother, a few years later. I think their hearts were broken.”

“You know your grandparents could be declared ‘Righteous among the Nations,’ ” I said.

“What does that mean?” he asked, puzzled.

“The Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem gives medals to those, non-Jewish, who saved Jews during the war. It can also be obtained posthumously.”

He cleared his throat, looking away from me.

“Just find her. Please find her, Mademoiselle Jarmond. Tell her I miss her. My brother Nicolas, too. Tell her we send all our love.”

Before I left, he handed me a letter.

“My grandmother wrote this to my father, after the war. Maybe you’d like to look at it. You can give it back to Nathalie, when you’ve read it.”

LATER ON, AT HOME, alone, I deciphered the old-fashioned handwriting. As I read, I cried. I managed to calm down, wiped away my tears, blew my nose.

Then I called Edouard and read it out loud to him on the phone. He sounded like he was crying, but he appeared to be doing everything he could to make me think he wasn’t. He thanked me with a strangled voice and hung up.

September 8, 1946
Alain, my dear son,
When Sarah came back last week from spending the summer with you and Henriette, she had pink cheeks … and a smile. Jules and I were amazed, and thrilled. She will be writing to you herself to thank you, but I wanted to tell you how grateful I am for your help and hospitality. These have been four grim years, as you know. Four years of captivity, of fear, of deprivation. For all of us, for our country. Four years that have taken their toll, on Jules and me, but especially on Sarah. I do not think she has ever gotten over what happened in the summer of 1942, when we took her back to her family’s apartment in the Marais. That day, something broke within her. Something collapsed.
None of this has been easy, and your support has been invaluable. Hiding Sarah from the enemy, keeping her safe from that long ago summer all the way to the Armistice, has been horrendous. But Sarah now has a family. We are her family. Your sons, Gaspard and Nicolas, are her brothers. She is a Dufaure. She bears our name.
I know she will never forget. Behind the rosy cheeks and the smile, there is a hardness about her. She will never be a normal fourteen-year-old child. She is like a woman, a bitter woman. Sometimes it seems she is older than me. She never talks about her family, about her brother. But I know she carries them with her, always. I know she goes to the cemetery every week, sometimes more often, to visit her brother’s grave. She wants to go alone. She refuses my company. Sometimes I follow her, just to make sure she’s all right. She sits in front of the little tombstone, and she remains very still. She can sit there for hours, holding that brass key she carries around with her, always. The key to the cupboard where her poor little brother died. When she comes back home, her face is shut and cold. It is difficult for her to talk, to make contact with me. I try to give her all the love I have, for she is the daughter I never gave birth to.
She never talks about Beaune-la-Rolande. If ever we drive near the village, she goes white. She turns her head away and closes her eyes. I wonder if one day the world will know. If it will all come out into the open, what happened there. Or if it will stay a secret forever, buried in a dark, disturbed past.
In the past year, since the end of the war, Jules has been to the Lutétia often, sometimes with Sarah, to keep abreast of the people coming home from the camps. Hoping, always hoping. We all hoped, with all our might. But now we know. Her parents will never come back. They were killed at Auschwitz, during that terrible summer of 1942.
I sometimes wonder how many children, like her, went through hell and survived, and now have to go on, without their loved ones. So much suffering, so much pain. Sarah has had to give up everything she was: her family, her name, her religion. We don’t ever talk about it, but I know how deep the void is, how cruel her loss is. Sarah talks of leaving the country, of starting anew, somewhere else, far away from everything she has known, everything she has gone through. She is too small now, too fragile to leave the farm, but the day will come. Jules and I will have to let her go.
Yes, the war is over, at last over, but for your father and me, nothing is the same. Nothing will ever be the same. Peace has a bitter taste. And the future is foreboding. The events that have taken place have changed the face of the world. And of France. France is still recovering from her darkest years. Will she ever recover, I wonder? This is no longer the France I knew when I was a little girl. This is another France that I don’t recognize. I am old now, and I know my days are numbered. But Sarah, Gaspard, and Nicolas are still young. They will have to live in this new France. I pity them, and I fear what lies ahead.
My dear boy, this was not meant to be a sad letter; alas, it has turned out that way, and I am indeed sorry. The garden needs tending to, the chickens must be fed, and I shall sign off. Let me thank you again for everything you have done for Sarah. God bless you both, for your generosity, your faithfulness, and God bless your boys,
Your loving mother,
Geneviève

ANOTHER PHONE CALL. My cellular. I should have turned it off. It was Joshua. I was surprised to hear him. He didn’t usually call this late.

“Just saw you on the news, sugar,” he drawled. “Looking pretty as a picture. A trifle pale, but very glamoroso.”

“The news?” I breathed. “What news?”

“Turned on my TV for the eight o’clock news on TF1 and there’s my Julia, just below the prime minister.”

“Oh,” I said, “the Vel’ d’Hiv’ ceremony.”

“Good speech, didn’t you think?”

“Very good.”

A pause. I heard the click of his lighter as he lit up a mild Marlboro, the silver-box ones, the kind you only get in the States. I wondered what he had to say to me. He was usually blunt. Too blunt.

“What is it, Joshua?” I asked warily.

“Nothing, really. Just called to say you did a good job. That Vel’ d’Hiv’ piece of yours is getting talked about. I just wanted to tell you. Bamber’s photos are great, too. You guys pulled it off just fine.”

“Oh,” I said. “Thank you.”

But I knew him better than that.

“Anything else?” I added carefully.

“There’s one thing that bothers me.”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“One thing missing, in my opinion. You got the survivors, the witnesses, the old guy at Beaune-la-Rolande etc., all that is fine. Fine, fine. But you forgot a couple of things. The cops. The French cops.”

“Well?” I asked, beginning to feel exasperation nibble at me. “What about the French cops?”

“It would have been perfect if you could have gotten those roundup cops to talk. If you could have found a couple of those guys, just to hear their side of the story. Even if they’re old men now. What did these guys tell their kids? Did their families ever know?”

He was right, of course. It had never entered my head. The exasperation waned. I said nothing, crushed.

“Hey, Julia, no problem,” Joshua chuckled. “You did a great job. Maybe those cops would never have talked, anyway. You probably didn’t read much about them in your research, did you?”

“No,” I said. “Come to think of it, there is nothing about how the French police felt in what I read. They were only doing their jobs.”

“Yeah, their jobs,” echoed Joshua. “But I sure would have liked to have known how they lived with that. And come to think of it, what about those fellas driving those endless trains from Drancy to Auschwitz. Did they know what they were carrying? Did they really think it was cattle? Did they know where they were taking these people, what was going to happen to them? And all the guys driving those buses? Did they know anything?”

He was right again, of course. I remained silent. A good journalist would have delved deep into those taboos. French police, French railway, French bus system.

But I had been obsessed with the Vel’ d’Hiv’ children. And one child, in particular.

“You OK, Julia?” came his voice.

“Peachy keen,” I lied.

“You need some time off,” he declared. “Time to climb into a plane and go home.”

“That’s exactly what I had in mind.”

THE LAST PHONE CALL of the evening had been from Nathalie Dufaure. She sounded ecstatic. I imagined her waiflike face lit up with excitement, her brown eyes glowing.

“Julia! I looked through all Papy’s papers, and I found it. I found Sarah’s card!”

“Sarah’s card?” I repeated, lost.

“The card she sent to say she was getting married, the last card. She gives the name of her husband.”

I grabbed a pen, fumbled around in vain for a piece of paper. No paper. I pointed the ball-point at the back of my hand.

“And the name is?”

“She wrote to say she was marrying Richard J. Rainsferd.” She spelled the name out. “The card is dated March 15, 1955. No address. Nothing else. Just that.”

“Richard J. Rainsferd,” I repeated, writing it in block letters on my skin.

I thanked Nathalie, promised to keep her informed of my progress, then dialed Charla’s number in Manhattan. I got her assistant, Tina, who put me on hold for a while. Then Charla’s voice came through.

“You again, honey pie?”

I went straight to the point.