Page 39 of The World That We Knew

They stared at each other, and Monsieur Félix backed down. “You should have said so.”

Julien managed to smile then. “I did.” He handed the old man his gun.

“Then we understand each other,” Monsieur Félix said.

Every day after, Julien went back to the hill to scan the sky for the heron. But Monsieur Félix was right, it was the season of migration. One drowsy afternoon, Julien fell asleep in the grass and stayed away longer than he’d planned. He awoke disoriented and chilled to the bone. He started back, and as he approached the farm he knew something was wrong. He shielded his eyes from the sun and immediately spied the imprints of truck treads in the muddy drive. Monsieur Félix did not own a truck, only a cart without a donkey or horse to pull it. The cart was over by the barn, the wood rotting. Victor was nowhere in sight, and, anyway, he preferred cars to trucks, the faster the better. Julien felt a warning bell ring inside of him.

He crouched behind the hedges. Blackbirds were in the yellow stalks of tall grass, but when they sensed his presence they arose all at once in a swirl of life. He looked up, holding his hands over his ears. The ringing was so bad, like church bells inside his head. In the farthest field there were the stalks of sunflowers, all the flowers cut down for the seeds that were drying in the barn in wire baskets. He hoped Victor had returned with a truck, or perhaps Marianne had come back from the border. But he realized it was too quiet. Beneath the ringing in his head, there was no sound of Monsieur Félix at work, not at the well or in the garden or in the small barn. Only the blackbirds taking flight.

Julien waited until the dark began to sift down, then he came out from behind the hedge. There was already snow in the high mountains, and a chill in the air even here. He went up to the house and stood at the door listening. Nothing, so he pushed the door open, slowly, with the caution he’d learned over the last few years. The front room looked unexceptional, except when he raised his eyes he saw Monsieur Félix hanging dead from a rope thrown over the old wooden beam that crossed the ceiling. Julien covered his mouth and nose with his hand because of the smell. He was paralyzed, and for a moment the ringing in his ears overcame him. He thought he might faint. More than anything he wished Victor were with him. His brother would have known what to do. Now he had no choice but to pull himself together and go on through the house.

You are in a dream. And there are rules even then. In a dream you walk softly, you keep your eyes open, you’re ready to run, or do what you must. You stay alive.

The kitchen had been ransacked and was in wild disarray, the floor littered with powdery flour and dried beans. The Germans had been alerted to this place; perhaps the postman had been caught and interrogated, for they had clearly been searching for something. Julien did his best to find the papers, as he thought Monsieur Félix would wish him to. He tried to think as the old man might have, opening drawers, searching the pantry, daring to look through the front room, where the body was, avoiding glancing at it as best he could. He felt the weight of death, the deepness of it, the realness of it, how human people were, even in the throes of death, for the old man had soiled himself.

When Julien reached the top of the stairs, his chest was so tight he could hardly breathe. He went onward, opening the door to Monsieur Félix’s bedchamber, even though he was rattled down to his core, with the desire to run taking hold. Still, he went forward. He expected to see a murdered woman, or face a soldier who had been left behind, and he burst into wild laughter when at last he spied what was in the room. There was Bluebell, the farmer’s little goat, tied to the bedpost, kept out of the way to ensure she wouldn’t come to harm. She must have been silent, perhaps sleeping, when the soldiers had come. Now she was restless, confused as to why she’d been kept in the house for so long.

“Well, you’re definitely alive,” Julien said. He untied her, and the little goat leaned her head against him. She had green eyes and was very quiet. Perhaps she knew what had befallen her owner.

He led the goat downstairs by the rope coiled around her neck and took her out to the barn, where there was hay for her to eat. He thought of Monsieur Félix, who had helped to save so many lives of fleeing Jews and was now hanging from a rafter. There were flies in the barn, too many of them. Julien took an old jacket that was hung on a peg. Monsieur Félix was dead, and therefore taking the jacket wasn’t technically stealing. One owed a man like Monsieur Félix a debt of gratitude; because of this, once the sun had risen Julien grabbed a shovel and went out behind the barn and dug a grave. It took a while and the sun was surprisingly hot for the season.

Julien went back into the house, to search the kitchen for a sharp knife, then cut down Monsieur Félix. The body was heavy as it collapsed against him. It smelled like the moss on the trees in the woods, like bitter weeds. Julien folded the corpse onto a blanket, then pulled the blanket along, out the door and down the porch steps, dragging the dead man behind the barn. He kept the knife tucked in his waistband.

“I’m so sorry I don’t know your prayers,” Julien said after he had placed the farmer in the grave. His face was wet with tears. Still, he did the best he could, reciting the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead.

Blessed is He, beyond any blessing and song, praise and consolation that are uttered in the world.

Amen.

Afterward he covered the body with hard, cold earth, sweating more than before, for he was wearing the old man’s jacket. The last of the bees were buzzing around him; it was the end of their season and they were wild. Julien had to bat them away. The sun was bright, with silvery light spilling over the fields. When he was done Julien went into the barn, where he drank water from the goat’s bucket. She nudged him, and he realized there was something in the pocket of the jacket that had belonged to the farmer, a beekeeper’s mask of cheesecloth, with the eyes cut out. A bee sat on his arm, so he stayed steady until it lifted and flew away.

He began to consider what a thousand soldiers could look at a thousand times and never think anything might be hidden there. He knew there was a rational manner in which to approach this problem. Mathematics had been his first language, after all. He cut the farm into sections in his mind, as if it were a pie. The house was in one section, the barn in another, the vegetable garden in another, the field in still another, and then there were the woods beyond. He thought about each of those sections, and where the papers might be, but all of the possibilities seemed too obvious. What would a thousand soldiers ignore?

He walked into the field. It was the least likely place. There wasn’t much there. Cabbages, leeks, the large sunflower stalks leaning over like dead men in the chill air, an overturned wheelbarrow. The bees were clustered in the hive, keeping each other warm, but a few that had been guarding the entrance flitted out and surrounded him, so many their buzzing rang in his ears. He had no fear at all, only curiosity. The hives were at the edge of the far woods. It was possible to see the mountains from here, with their crags of gray volcanic rock. The sky was so blue, but inside that blue there were a hundred shades. There were bees buzzing around him. The old man had once told him he had no fear of God’s creatures, and in turn the creatures knew this and respected him.

Julien stopped in his tracks. The least likely place was right in front of him.

He slipped on the mask he had found in the jacket pocket. As he approached a hive, he was covered with bees. He slid his hand inside the wooden box and reached up. The buzzing was more like a throbbing now, but he was used to noise inside his head and this was better than the dreadful ringing he alone could hear.

More bees rushed out into the air. At the top of the hive, his fingers hit against what felt like a piece of metal. He pulled at whatever it was, then used the knife he’d taken from the kitchen to work it free, and it soon dislodged. When he took it out he saw that it was a flat tin covered in honey. He was stung several times, and the feeling burned through him so that he didn’t notice the other stings that followed. His arms and neck were dotted with red welts, but it didn’t matter. He loped back to the barn, the bees following him until a gust of wind came up. They scattered and he laughed because they forgot about him and went back to their work in the hive and he felt lucky, which seemed such a far-fetched thing to feel, and yet it was there, making him grin with the joy of his discovery.

He sat down in the cool barn, beside the goat, who nudged him, curious.

“This is not for you,” he told Bluebell.

He scraped the honey from the tin and devoured it. It was so delicious he didn’t think of the stingers in his hands and neck. Then, when he had eaten his fill, he began to feel the sharp pain of the stings. He pulled the stingers out as best he could, then dunked his head in a bucket of water, shivering with the cold. He had figured out the puzzle and found what a thousand soldiers would have never come across, not if they searched for a thousand days. He went inside, and in a kitchen drawer he left the identity papers and a note telling Marianne where her father’s remains had been laid to rest. He scrawled a brief message for his brother as well.

I’m not sure it’s safe to stay. I’ll go to the church. I’m sorry.

He thought it best to leave Monsieur Félix’s farm quickly, in case the soldiers should return. He left Bluebell tied up in the barn with plenty of feed and water. He cleaned off the knife on the grass, and kept it with him. Just in case. He hated to think of Marianne finding the house in such terrible disorder. She would read the note he had left, then go out and stand beside the turned earth where her father lay. He hoped Victor would be there with her. As for himself, Julien was grateful for the air and the sun and for the strength of his own legs. He had kept his one and only promise to Lea. He was alive.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

BELIEVER

VIENNE, AUTUMN 1943

JULIEN FOUND HIS WAY BACK to Vienne through the maze of forests and towns by following the L’s he had carved into trees. He lodged at the church for three days and nights, the limit of anyone’s stay. A stranger’s presence became too noticeable after that, and one never knew when the authorities might come by.