Tell No One Who You Are (13 page)

“Do they stay there all the time?” asked Régine. She tried not to sound too concerned.

“What do you mean?” said Sylvie.

“I mean, do they ever come to the farm?”

“Yes, sometimes,” Sylvie said. “They go to all the farms.”

Régine was terrified. “What for?”
To look for Jewish children?

“For food. They come whenever they want and take whatever they want.”

Régine pictured the soldiers at the Gare du Midi with their clubs and bayonets. She looked up and saw that Sylvie sensed her fear.

“Don’t worry. They won’t hurt us. All they’re interested in is food. And they need us to stay alive to provide it.”

But Régine did not feel better as they resumed their walk back to the farm. Sylvie went on talking, trying to reassure her.

“They’d be foolish to hurt us,” she was saying. “They need us for bread, eggs, butter, milk. Sometimes they take a whole pig or a cow. They have nothing against us. They give us forms to fill out so that they can keep track of everything — so complicated, these German forms! Most of the old farmers around here can’t even read them! They have to come and ask Pierre.”

As she walked beside Sylvie, Régine stared at the fort in the distance. It was true that the German soldiers had no reason to hurt her, as long as they did not discover she was Jewish.
Tell no one who you are
, Régine said to herself and pressed her fingers tightly into her palms.
Not even Pierre and Sylvie
.

T
HAT NIGHT
, after supper, Pierre lit a pipe and sat down next to the stove to read the newspaper while Régine and Sylvie washed the dishes and put them away. Bricks had been placed in the stove and would later be wrapped up in cloth to be used upstairs as bed warmers. After he finished with the paper, Pierre leaned over and turned on the radio.

Soon there was a knock at the door and Régine felt her heart stop with fear. She was relieved to see the knock announced some of the old farmers Sylvie had mentioned.
“Ils viennent pour la soirée”
— they’re coming for the evening, she told Régine. It was their nightly routine to gather and read the newspaper and listen to the radio. Two of them came in together, pulled up chairs and sat with Pierre in front of the stove, while Marquis continued his snoozing at their feet. Within minutes a third man — “Old Mr. Bertrand,” Sylvie whispered — arrived and joined the others.

Pierre introduced the three old men to Augusta Dubois: “The girl I told you about. She will be staying for three months.” This sparked a lot of interest from the visitors.

It frightened Régine to think that the Wathieus seemed to have informed everyone in Lagrange about her arrival. The less people knew about her the better. She hoped she wouldn’t be asked questions about her family. She nodded to the three men.

They were talking in Walloon among themselves. She was
beginning to pick it up after having spent a month and a half in Wallonie with the Carpentier family in Andoumont.

Monsieur Bertrand turned to her suddenly and, speaking French, suggested that she visit his farm to meet his granddaughter, Irene.

“The two of you could be friends,” he said. “We live in the last house in the village.”

“I will try to come,” Régine said quietly.

“Irene is seventeen,” said Monsieur Bertrand. “How old are you?”

“Eleven,” said Régine.

“Eleven!” the man said with surprise. “You look much older than eleven.”

Régine did not respond. She had never thought of herself as looking older than her age. She tried to remember Augusta Dubois’s birthdate. Was it on the ration book she had given the Wathieus? She must be more careful.

The old men soon lost interest in Régine and began to discuss recent reports of the war on the radio and in the newspaper,
La Libre Belgique
.

The war had turned in favor of the Allies. The Germans had been defeated in Russia and were now suffering heavy losses in the Allied campaign to liberate Italy. The old men were hopeful that the war would end soon, so that their sons and grandsons would return home. While the men talked Régine helped Sylvie peel potatoes for the next day while the cats hung around waiting for her to throw them a piece of raw potato. Now and then Sylvie would doze off, then wake with a start and continue peeling. As Régine listened to the men talking of the war’s end, she made up her mind: her father would definitely return with the others after the victory.

Finally, when the potatoes were peeled, Régine said good night and went upstairs to prepare for bed. She was beginning
to feel better. Her first day with Pierre and Sylvie had passed without any difficulties. It was a good start, much better than with the other three families.

In her bedroom, Régine washed with rainwater using the pitcher and bowl and then changed into her night clothes. It was cold in the room. She realized that she had forgotten to bring up one of the bricks that had been warming in the oven downstairs. She opened the door of her room and was on her way down the stairs just as Pierre and Sylvie were coming up. The visitors had left and the Wathieus were on their way to bed.

They met at the top of the stairs right next to the dish of water.

“Where are you going?” Pierre asked.

“Downstairs, to get a brick from the oven,” Régine said.

“Don’t bother,” said Pierre. “I have them right here.” He held out a brick wrapped in cloth.

“Thank you,” she said.

Then the two of them did something unexpected. As Régine looked on, Sylvie reached over, dipped her fingers into the dish of water, and touched her forehead and shoulders. Then Pierre did the same. Régine now knew why the dish of water was there. She had often seen Belgians cross themselves, but this was the first time she had seen it done in someone’s house with actual water.

She turned to go to her room, but Sylvie’s voice stopped her.

“Augusta, haven’t you forgotten something?”

Régine turned to face her. “Pardon?”

“The holy water,” Sylvie said, nodding at the dish.

“Oh,” Régine said.

She looked at Pierre and Sylvie and realized she was supposed to do as they had done. She tried to copy them as
best she could but must have done it badly because of the way they looked at her.

She was glad to escape back to her bedroom. She lay on the bed looking at the picture of the mother and child with the halo on the wall and then at the cross on the wall above her head. “I must be more careful and watch everything they do,” she told herself.

The next day Sylvie asked Régine if she had a rosary. Régine did not know what a rosary was. When she shook her head, Sylvie went to a drawer and gave her a string of beads. “Do you know how to use it?” Sylvie asked. She did not seem surprised when Régine said no.

Sylvie took out her own rosary and led Régine through prayers:
Notre pere qui êtes aux cieux
and
Sainte Marie, mère de Dieu
.

Later that day in the kitchen, Sylvie said: “We’re going to communion tomorrow. Would you like to come with us?” Régine looked uncertain. Sylvie stared at her suspiciously, then asked: “Augusta, have you been baptized?”

“Of course she’s been baptized!” Pierre said angrily.

“Shhh!” said Sylvie. “Let her answer. Don’t be afraid, Augusta. You can tell us.”

Régine stared at the floor.
Tell no one who you are
.

“Have you been baptized or not?”

“I don’t know.”

She raised her eyes and again saw that this was a mistake. Pierre and Sylvie were only more puzzled.

“How can you not know?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Didn’t your parents tell you?”

Régine didn’t answer.

“We’ll talk to Monsieur Le Vicaire,” Sylvie said. “He’ll know what to do.”

Régine swallowed. She knew classmates in Brussels who were Catholic. She knew that they had their first communion all dressed in pretty white dresses and that Jewish girls did not. She knew also that confirmation was not just for one day. It was forever.

“Maybe she is baptized,” Pierre said.

“What do you mean?” Sylvie asked.

“Augusta doesn’t know whether or not her parents baptized her,” he said. “What if they did?”

Sylvie shrugged. “Better twice than never.”

She turned to Régine.

“Don’t worry, Augusta. We’ll talk to Monsieur Le Vicaire tomorrow when we go to church.”

What should she do if Monsieur Le Vicaire wanted to baptize her? What would her father want her to do? When he returned, what would he say?

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Sunday, life changed on the Wathieu farm. No work would be done on the farm that day, except for the essential tasks of feeding and milking the cows, and tending to the chickens and pigs. As soon as the animals were looked after, Pierre and Sylvie changed into what they called their “Sunday clothes.” Sylvie put on a dark dress and a small black hat, and Pierre, a dark suit with a gold chain that ran across the vest.

Pierre and Sylvie were waiting by the front door when Régine came down wearing her best dress. They put on overcoats and set out on the forty-minute walk along the dirt road that led to the church beyond the village.

Along the way Pierre and Sylvie discussed how they would meet Monsieur Le Vicaire after the service to ask about a baptism for Régine. Régine kept her hands in the pockets of her coat and walked in silence.

The church was a small, stone building with a steeple. People were arriving from every direction. Most were old and dressed in dark-colored clothes. Some of the men wore caps, which they removed as they walked through the door.

Pierre let Régine and Sylvie go in ahead of him. From the back, Régine saw that almost all the pews were full. Monsieur Le Vicaire was standing at the altar in front. He had already begun the service, and his voice echoed, bouncing off the ceiling.

Régine was about to walk up the aisle when she felt a tap on the shoulder. She turned and saw Sylvie nodding at a dish of holy water on the wall. It was made of brass in the shape of a semicircle, just like the one at the farmhouse. Régine dipped her fingers in the holy water, made the sign of the cross and hoped no one was looking to see if she did it correctly.

They walked up the aisle and found a place near the front. Régine moved into the pew first. Only then did she notice that Sylvie and Pierre had gone down on one knee in the middle of the aisle and, facing the altar, made the sign of the cross. Then they took their seats next to Régine.
Be more careful
, she warned herself.

For the next hour, Régine learned how to behave by watching the people around her. She knelt when they knelt. When they sat, she sat. When they stood up, she got up. When they prayed, she mumbled something to herself. She felt the eyes of Pierre and Sylvie watching her from either side, and she tried not to let it show that she was copying.

But her motions were always one step behind those of everyone else. Pierre and Sylvie would have no more doubt. It would be clear to them that the parents of Augusta Dubois had not raised their daughter to be “a good Catholic.”

When they went to take communion, Pierre and Sylvie told her to wait in the pew while they went up with others to kneel before the altar. Régine watched as Monsieur Le Vicaire placed the wafer on their tongues. Were you supposed to bite on it or swallow it whole, Régine wondered. What did it taste like?

After the service, Régine waited outside the church while Pierre and Sylvie went to the rectory to speak with Monsieur Le Vicaire. The smiles on their faces when they came out told Régine everything before they even spoke. Yes, they said, it
was settled. The vicar would arrange for the baptism of Augusta Dubois.

That night Régine lay awake, thinking of how she might talk her way out of the baptism. In the end, she drew a blank. There seemed to be no way out. Pierre and Sylvie were now convinced that Augusta Dubois had not been baptized. At least they still believed that she was Augusta Dubois from Marche and that was more important than anything else. She had played her part so well, it had never entered their minds that she might be Jewish. In their world, everyone was Catholic.

Even in the darkness, she felt she could see the mother and child on the wall —
“La Vierge Marie et le petit enfant Jésus,”
as Sylvie called them. Pierre and Sylvie were the most religious people she had ever met. The only other person who came close was her mother, but that was different. Her mother was religious in a different way.

She kept a kosher kitchen, prepared meals according to proper ritual, and stored special dishes in a glass cabinet for Passover. And like all observant Jewish housewives, she kept two sets of dishes for everyday use: one for dairy and the other for meat.

Régine remembered the photograph of her grandfather, her father’s father, who was still living in Poland when the Germans invaded. The photograph showed a distinguished-looking man dressed in black and wearing a long, white beard in the Jewish religious tradition. He looked nothing like her father, who was clean-shaven, modern-looking and not at all religious.

Régine’s father did not go to the synagogue or observe Jewish holidays. He told Régine that he did not believe in God. When Régine looked at the photo of her grandfather in
Poland, she wondered how her father could have gotten along with him. Father and son seemed just so different. As she grew up, she came to believe her father had come to Belgium to escape the religious tradition of his family.

Sometimes Régine’s mother scolded her father for saying there was no God. “Is this what you’re teaching our children?” her mother would say. “That their religion has no importance?”

“It’s more important they care about people,” her father insisted.

On Saturdays, her mother put on her best clothes and walked alone to the synagogue, an old, dilapidated building in the rear of Régine’s school. Twice a year, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Régine and Léon accompanied her to synagogue. Her father never went. As Léon got older, he joined the men and Régine sat with her mother and the other women as the rabbi performed the service.