The Sweetness of Forgetting (20 page)

“This is amazing, Monsieur Berr,” I say.

He nods, smiles slightly. “It is not so amazing. Amazing would be to live in a world where there was no need to make lists of the dead.” Before I can reply, he puts a finger on the page of his open book and says calmly, “I have found them.”

I look at him, confused.

“Your family,” he clarifies.

My eyes widen. “Wait, you found the names? Already?”

He chuckles. “I have lived inside these lists for many years, madame. I know my way.” He closes his eyes for a moment and then focuses on the page before him. “The Picard family,” he says.
“Dix, rue du Général Camou, septième arrondissement.”

“What does that mean?”

“It was your grandmother’s address,” he says. “Number ten on the street of Général Camou. I tried to include addresses wherever I could.” He smiles slightly and adds, “Your grandmother, she must have lived in a nice place, in the shadow of the Tour Eiffel.”

I swallow hard. “What else does it say?”

He reads ahead for a moment before speaking. “The parents were Albert and Cecile. Albert, he was a doctor. The children were Helene, Rose, Claude, Alain, David, Danielle.”

“Rose is my grandmother,” I whisper.

He looks up from the book with a smile. “Then I will have to change my list.”

“Why?”

“She is listed as presumed dead, the fifteenth of July, 1942, in Paris.” He squints at something on the page. “She went out that night and never returned, according to my notations. The next day, her family was all taken.”

I can’t seem to muster words. I just stare at him.

“The sixteenth of July, 1942,” he continues. His voice has softened now. “The first day of the Vel’ d’Hiv roundup.”

My throat is dry. It’s the massive arrest of thirteen thousand Parisians that I’d read about online.

“I was there too,” he adds softly. “My family was taken that day.”

I stare. “I’m so sorry.”

He shakes his head. “It was the end of the life I once knew,” he says softly. “The beginning of the life I now live.”

Silence descends. “What happened?” I ask finally.

He looks into the distance. “They came for us before dawn. I did not know to expect them. I did not know it could happen. As I look back, I realize I should have. We all should have. But sometimes in life, it is easier to believe things will be all right. We were blind to the truth.”

“But how could you have known?” I ask.

He nods. “It is easy to look back and question, but you are correct; it would have been impossible to know what was coming. For us, for my wife and my son, just three years old, we were taken with many others to the Vélodrome d’Hiver in the
quinzième,
just near the Eiffel Tower and very near the Seine. There were maybe seven thousand, maybe eight thousand people there. It was hard to count them all. It was a sea of people. There was no food. Hardly any water. We were packed together like fish in a can. Some people killed themselves. I saw a mother smother her baby, and I thought she was crazy, but by the end of the third day, I understood that she was merciful. Later, as she wailed, I watched a guard shoot her. I remember thinking quite clearly,
She is lucky.
”

His voice is flat, but his eyes are watery as he goes on. “We stayed there for five days before they moved us. On the fourth day, my son, my Nicolas, he died in my arms. And before we were taken away to Drancy, and then to Auschwitz, my wife and
I were separated, but I could see in her eyes that she was already gone. Losing Nicolas had taken her will to live. I was told later that she did not pass the initial selection at Auschwitz when she arrived, and that she did not cry, not once, as they led her away.”

“I’m so sorry,” I murmur, but he waves dismissively.

“It was long ago,” he says. I watch as he turns back to his book, studying the page that he said contained the records I was looking for.

“Alors,”
he says. He blinks a few times. “Your family. The Picards of rue du Général Camou. The youngest two, David and Danielle, they died at Auschwitz. Upon arrival. David was eight years of age. Danielle was five.”

“God,” I breathe. “They were just babies.”

Monsieur Berr nods. “Most of the young ones never returned. They were taken to the gas chamber immediately because the Germans considered them useless.” He swallows and continues reading. “Helene, age eighteen, and Claude, age sixteen, died at Auschwitz, in 1942. So too did the mother, Cecile. The father, Albert, died in Auschwitz at the end of 1943.” He pauses and adds softly, “It says here that he worked in the crematorium, until he became ill in the winter. That must have been terrible. He knew his own fate.”

I feel tears in my eyes, and this time, it’s too late to blink them back. Monsieur Berr is silent as the rivers run down my cheeks. It takes a few moments for his words to fully settle into my soul. “All of them died there?” I whisper. “At Auschwitz?” He meets my eye and nods slowly, a look of pity on his face. “What about Alain? How did he die?”

For the first time today, Monsieur Berr looks surprised. “Die? But he is the one who gave me this information.”

I stare at him. “I don’t understand.”

He squints at the page again. “Yes, this interview is dated the sixth of June, 2005. I remember him. A very nice man. Kind eyes. You can always know a person by his eyes. He was playing chess
with another survivor, a man I knew. That is how I came upon him.”

“Wait,” I say. My heart is thudding as I struggle to understand what he’s saying. “You’re telling me that Alain Picard, my grandmother’s brother, is still alive? And that you talked to him?”

Monsieur Berr looks concerned. “
Bien sur,
he
was
alive in 2005. I do not know what became of him after that. He was never deported, but he suffered during the war. Everyone did. He told me that he went into hiding, and for nearly three years, he had very little food. A man, his old piano teacher, gave him a place to sleep on the coldest winter nights, but the man was afraid of putting his own family in danger. So Alain, he slept on the streets, and sometimes, the nuns at the church would give him meals. He would be eighty now, if he is still alive. Then again, I am ninety-three, my dear. And I am not giving up anytime soon.”

He smiles at this. I’m too stunned to reply.

“My grandmother’s brother,” I murmur. “Do you know where he is?”

Monsieur Berr reaches for a pad of paper. “Do you have a pen?” he asks. I nod and fumble in my purse. He jots something down on a piece of paper, rips it off, and hands it to me. “This is the address he gave me in 2005. It is in the Marais, the Jewish quarter, near the Place des Vosges. That is where I found him playing chess.”

“That’s near my hotel,” I tell him. I look at the address he’s handed me: 27, rue du Foin, no. 2B. I feel a chill run down my spine.

“Well then,” Monsieur Berr says. “You should go now. The past waits on no one.”

Chapter
Twelve

I
’m in stunned disbelief as I bid Monsieur Berr adieu and hurry downstairs. My feet carry me back toward the Seine, where I hail a cab on the main street and hand the driver the slip of paper Monsieur Berr has just given me. The driver grunts in reply and pulls away from the curb. He veers across lanes of traffic, takes a bridge over the Seine, and cuts back to the east, where he parallels the river as I watch the twin towers of Notre-Dame grow closer and closer out the right window. Finally, he turns left and, after a series of twists and turns, screeches to a halt in front of a gray stone building with a pair of massive, dark wooden doors. I pay the driver, and as he pulls away, I approach the call box.

There, in black and white, is the name
Picard, A.
I take a deep breath and push the buzzer next to the now familiar last name. Only then do I realize my hands are shaking.

My heart pounds wildly as I wait. There’s no reply. I push the buzzer again, but there’s still no response. My heart sinks. What if it’s too late; what if he’s dead? I remind myself that it’s equally possible he’s merely out; it’s midafternoon on a lovely fall day. Perhaps he’s gone for a walk, or to the store. I linger outside the building for a few minutes, in hopes that someone will come in
or out and I’ll be able to ask about him, but the street is quiet, and there’s no one coming or going.

I check my watch. Perhaps he’s in the Place des Vosges, playing chess, like Monsieur Berr said. I pull out my map, flip to the correct page, and realize the park is less than a block away. I turn and walk in that direction.

On the way, I stop at a pay phone, and after spending a few minutes trying to get an English-speaking operator, I use my Visa to make a call to Annie’s cell. I realize she’s probably asleep and won’t answer, but I’m suddenly dying to tell her what I’ve found. The call goes to voice mail, and although I’d expected that, my heart still sinks. I consider telling her about Alain, but instead, I say, “I was just thinking about you, honey, and I wanted to say hi. It’s beautiful here in Paris. I think I might have found something, but I’m trying not to get my hopes up. I’ll call you later. I love you.”

Five minutes later, I enter the Place des Vosges through the middle of three stone arches beneath a building. The whole square is surrounded by uniform brick and stone buildings, with graying roofs, french doors, and narrow balconies. Nearly twenty soaring trees with kelly-green leaves surround a statue on horseback in the middle of the rectangular park, while four two-level fountains hold up the four grassy corners, inside the frame of the sandy footpaths.

I look around for anyone who matches Alain’s general description, but so far the oldest man I’ve seen—a man walking a little black dog—couldn’t be much older than sixty. I quickly walk the length of the park, staring into the faces of those who pass by, but there is no one here who might be Alain. My heart heavy in my chest, I sigh and walk out the way I came. It is beginning to dawn on me that I might not encounter him, here or anywhere. I fight off a feeling of crushing disappointment—I can’t admit defeat yet.

I wander east to kill a little time before I return to the address
Monsieur Berr gave me. I turn a few corners, passing apartment buildings and storefronts, until I find myself on a narrow street filled with people ducking in and out of designer stores. Rue des Rosiers, I read from a street sign. I wander down the street, staring up at a disconcerting mix of ancient-looking butcher shops, bookstores, and synagogues, blended with modern clothing stores.

I come to a stop outside a small storefront marked with the Star of David and the word
synagogue,
which is apparently the same in French as it is in English. My heart is thudding, and I reach out a shaking hand to touch the outer wall. I wonder how long it’s been here, and whether my grandmother might have worshipped here at some point.

As I stand there, lost in thought about the past, a familiar scent tugs me back to the present. The air smells ever so faintly like the buttery, cinnamon-scented, fig-and-prune-filled Star Pies I bake every day in my own bakery.

I turn, slowly, and find myself facing a deep red storefront with big picture windows overflowing with breads and pastries. A bakery. I blink a few times and, as if drawn forward by an invisible magnet, float across the street and through the doors.

Inside, the store is packed with people. To the right is a long deli case with meats and prepared salads; to the left is a seemingly endless display of bagels, cheesecakes, pies, tarts, and pastries, all with little signs announcing their names in French and their prices in euros.

I’m frozen in place as my eyes roam over the familiar selection. I see the lemon-grape cheesecake that’s one of the North Star’s specialties. There’s a delicate-looking strudel that looks just like the one that always sells out at my bakery; I take a step closer and realize it’s practically identical: it has apples, almonds, raisins, candied orange peel, and cinnamon, just like I use. There’s even a sourdough rye bread like the one I earned top honors with two years ago in the
Cape Cod Times
’s “Best Breads of the Cape” poll.

And there, in the window, are slices of something they call Ronde des Pavés. I’m accustomed to seeing them baked into little individual pies with star-shaped lattice crusts, but as I bend to look at the slices, the filling is unmistakable. Poppy seeds, almonds, grapes, figs, prunes, and cinnamon sugar. Just like Mamie’s beloved Star Pies.

“Que puis-je pour vous?”
There’s a high-pitched French voice behind me, and I turn slowly, as if in a fog.

“Um, I don’t speak French,” I stammer. “I’m sorry.” My heart is still pounding a mile a minute.

The woman, who looks about my age, smiles. “No problem,” she says, switching seamlessly to accented English.
“We have a lot of tourists here. What would you like?”

I point shakily to one of the pieces of Ronde des Pavés. She begins to bag it for me, but I reach out to stop her. I realize my hand is trembling when it makes contact with her arm. She looks up in surprise.

“Where do these recipes come from?” I ask her.