Page 24 of The World That We Knew

His mother was in the doorway now, watching. Even from a distance Lea could tell she was crying.

“I’ll write to you,” Lea told Julien.

Julien smiled, a weary look on his face. She could tell he didn’t believe her, but he was wrong. She would find a way. Julien was so tall Lea was forced to stand on tiptoe as she leaned closer. There was only one thing he had to do and they would surely see each other again.

“Stay alive,” she told him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE FARAWAY PLACE

HAUTE-LOIRE, SPRING 1942

THE SOLDIERS ARRIVED WHEN MARIANNE was in the woods, looking for the chickens that had run off into the underbrush. She’d been distracted when she noticed a milan royal, the red kite that was so fierce and beautiful only members of the royal family in France had been allowed to fly it in the practice of falconry. She’d climbed along a ravine to watch, then stretched out on the hill, sprawled in the grass. She was thinking about Victor, though she probably shouldn’t. The shadows grew long and she realized it was late. She began the trek home, embarrassed that she’d failed to find the chickens. When she saw the trucks, she ducked into the underbrush. By then the soldiers were taking the cows, which lowed as they were forced into trucks and pulled against the thick ropes looped around their necks. A cow had been shot in the pasture, an act of thoughtless savagery. Flies buzzed over the blackened blood. Marianne’s father came out with a shotgun, and one of the soldiers grabbed the gun and hit him over his skull. When he was on the ground several of the soldiers kicked him with their heavy boots until he stopped moving.

“Don’t be a fool, old man,” one told him. “Next time we’ll shoot you instead of the cow.”

Marianne sank down behind the hedges with one hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t cry out. She was shattered by what she saw, but knew it would do no good to run into the fray and be beaten herself, perhaps raped and murdered in a failed attempt to help her father. Still, her inaction stung. She pinched herself, hard, until her nails drew blood.

When the trucks pulled away they’d left very little behind, only Bluebell, who’d wandered into the woods, and the beehives teeming with bees, and of course, her father, lying prone, bloodied and broken. She ran to help him up, then brought him to the house, and escorted him up to bed, nearly carrying his full weight. She saw to his wounds with a damp cloth, then nursed him with herbal remedies, nettle tea and a poultice composed of mint and leaves of rosemary. Marianne should have cleaned the blood from her dress with salt, but she was too agitated about her father’s condition to do so.

For three days she thought her father would die, but she dared not go to the village for help, fearing the Germans would be there. When finally her father could speak he said, “Are you my daughter?” She said she was and he then said, “You have saved me,” and he wept. They never discussed this exchange afterward. He was a tough old gentleman who didn’t wish to take help from anyone.

Marianne realized she must find a doctor to see to his broken leg or he wouldn’t walk again. There was a physician on the other side of the mountain who her father said was a decent fellow, often seeing patients for free. She went to the neighboring farm and used the telephone, thanking her neighbor, Monsieur Cazales, a taciturn farmer who was too polite to ask why she had blood on her dress.

The doctor came to set Marianne’s father’s broken leg. He had a dusty Renault that managed to take the rutted road quite nicely. He was tall, and well dressed, and he asked only medical questions. Marianne’s father allowed himself to be examined, although he suggested that the doctor be quick about it. The leg was promptly and simply set against a splint. Marianne’s father cursed while the procedure was taking place, then thanked the doctor for his efforts.

The doctor left some pain pills, which the farmer would not take as a matter of principle, and he recommended that the old man stay off his feet for three weeks, then use crutches, continuing to keep the weight off his leg for another three.

As Marianne walked the doctor out, they blinked in the bright sunlight.

“They could come back,” the doctor said.

“We’ll have faith that they won’t,” Marianne responded.

They agreed on that and shook hands.

Marianne saw to her chores when the doctor had gone, cleaning out the barn, milking the goat, gathering the geese, and finally chasing after the chickens that had scattered into the woods. She supposed they had saved her, for surely if she had not gone to chase after them she would have been the one the soldiers had turned on, and perhaps her enraged father would have been shot point-blank. She made a vow not to eat chicken again, only their eggs, and not to be as impatient with them as she usually was.

As for the slaughtered cow, she butchered it and burned the bones on a bonfire. Someone had once told her that when you return to a location from your past, it is never the same, and perhaps this was true. She had left an ordinary place, and had come back to something quite different, somewhere where anything could happen.

When Monsieur Félix was well enough to come downstairs on his crutches, they went out to the barn, where Marianne helped him put on the white cheesecloth veil so he could see to the honey. In the distance there were spikes of purple and pink lupines, a riot of color. The honeycombs were rich and golden, and later that week Marianne would bring the honey to the market to sell. People took note of Marianne now that she was back, but she rarely ventured into town, and no one was rude enough to mention her long absence, although the pastor came to speak to her as she was leaving for home. She remembered going to see him when she was an unhappy, sulky girl. He hadn’t understood what she’d wanted, but of course she hadn’t known herself. A different life, a chance at love, a larger world, buried desires that seemed silly now that she was back. Pastor Durand had aged and was wearing a black coat. He walked Marianne home down the same road she had taken when she left. At first they politely spoke about the weather. But clearly there was more to discuss. The pastor glanced at her.

“You may have noticed,” he said, “everything has changed.”

Of course it had. Everything did, even she herself. Still, she wanted to hear what he had to say that was so important he was huffing and puffing as they walked on at a quick pace, for Marianne was not one to dawdle, especially when she had what her father called the “bee money” in her pocket.

“We have many children at the school at the top of the hill,” Pastor Durand told her. “They’re not from here. They’re refugees.” The road from the village careened steeply, ending in fields of greenery where there were half a dozen buildings, including classrooms and dormitories. From the corner of his eye he gauged Marianne’s reaction. The boarding school sheltered Jewish children, and the ministers André Trocme and Edouard Theis had arranged for thousands of Jewish children to be hidden with families in town and in the countryside, and Daniel Trocme, the principal of the school, accepted as many Jewish children as possible.

“I should give you some honey for the schoolchildren,” Marianne said. “They’d enjoy it.”

It took two hours to hike from the village to the farm, but the pastor didn’t seem to mind even though it meant he would be journeying back in the dark. Marianne had a newfound respect for him. He came into the house and shook hands with Monsieur Félix, then he slipped off his black coat, under which he had been carrying a rifle. He placed it on the table and winked at Marianne’s father. Monsieur Félix brightened then. The Germans had taken his rifle and he liked the look of this one.

The pastor knew the old man’s gun had been stolen. As it turned out, Monsieur Cazales had told the pastor about the blood on Marianne’s dress. From the hilltop that abutted their properties the neighbor could see for himself that the cows were gone. When he added these facts together, there was only one reason why this should be.

Marianne’s father now had a long scar down one side of his scalp, and he limped. When asked about it, the old man avoided complaining.

“Something may have happened.” Monsieur Félix shrugged.