Noah's Child (4 page)

The Villa Jaune was like a giant cat nestled on the top of the hill. The stone paws of the front steps lead up to its mouth, a hallway once painted pink, and weary-looking sofas could pass for a dubious tongue. On the first floor two large bay windows, shaped like oval eyes, dominated the front of the building and stared down at what was going on in the courtyard, between the gate and the plane trees. Up on the roof, two dormer balconies bristling with cast iron were reminiscent of ears, and the refectory building curled round like a tail to the left-hand side.

There was nothing to explain why the place was known as the Villa Jaune, the Yellow Villa. A century of filth, rain, wear and children bouncing balls against the render had mottled and striped the cat's fur so it was now more a dull tawny colour.

‘Welcome to the Villa Jaune, Joseph,' said Father Pons. ‘From now on it will be your school and your home. There are three sorts of pupil: day boys who go home for lunch, day-boarders who stay for lunch, and boarders who live here. You'll be a boarder: I'll show you your bed and cupboard in the dormitory.'

I mused on those unfamiliar distinctions: day boys, day-boarders and boarders. I liked the fact that there wasn't just an order but a hierarchy: from the summary pupil to the complete student, via half students. So I was going straight into the top class. Deprived of noble status in the last few days, I was happy to be granted this alternative distinction.

In the dormitory the whole business of seeing my cupboard went right to my head − I'd never had a cupboard of my own before. I gazed at its empty shelves and dreamed of all the treasures I would arrange on them, not really taking into account the fact that, for now, I had only two used tram tickets to put there.

‘Now I'm going to introduce you to your godfather. All boarders at the Villa Jaune are protected by one of the big boys. Rudy!'

Father Pons cried ‘Rudy' several times without success. Prefects relayed the name in an echo. Then the other pupils. Eventually, after what seemed to me an unbearably long time and with the whole school turned upside-down, the boy by the name of Rudy appeared.

When he promised me a ‘big' boy as a godfather Father Pons really meant it: Rudy went on for ever. He reached such a height he seemed to be hanging by a wire from the back of his shoulders: his arms and legs dangled in mid-air and his head wobbled, lolling forward heavily, weighed down by hair that looked too dark, too thick and too straight − apparently amazed to be there at all. He came over slowly, as if apologizing for his gigantic size, like a dinosaur casually saying, ‘Don't worry, I'm very friendly, I only eat grass.'

‘Yes, Father?' he said in a deep but muted voice.

‘Rudy, this is Joseph, your godson.'

‘Oh no, Father, that's not a good idea.'

‘It's not open to discussion.'

‘He looks a nice boy . . .' Rudy mumbled. ‘He doesn't deserve this.'

‘I'm asking you to show him round the school and teach him the rules.'

‘Me?'

‘With all the punishments you've had, I think you know them better than anyone else. When the second bell goes you can take your godson to the younger boys' classroom.'

Father Pons slipped away. Rudy looked at me like a pile of logs he had to carry on his back, and heaved a sigh.

‘What's your name?'

‘Joseph Bertin. I'm six. I was born in Anvers and my parents died of Spanish 'flu.'

He looked up at the ceiling in exasperation.

‘Don't recite the whole thing – wait till you're asked the questions if you want people to believe you.'

Annoyed by my blunder, I put the Comtesse de Sully's advice into practice and went straight on to the attack: ‘Why don't you want to be my godfather?'

‘Because I'm a liability. If there's a pebble in the lentils, it'll be on my plate. If a chair's going to break, it'll be the one I'm sitting on. If a plane falls out of the sky, it'll land on me. I'm bad luck for me and bad luck for anyone else. The day I was born my father
lost his job and my mother started crying. If you give me a plant to look after, it dies. If you lend me a bike, that'll die too. I'm the kiss of death. When the stars look at me they shiver. And the moon hides behind a cloud. I'm an all-round disaster, a mistake, a catastrophe, bad luck on two legs, a real
schlemazel
.'

The more misery he piled on − with his voice ricocheting from deep to squeaky because of all the emotion − the more hysterically I laughed. In the end I asked, ‘Are there any Jews here?'

He stiffened. ‘Jews? At the Villa Jaune! None! Ever! Why do you ask?'

He grabbed me by the shoulders and stared at me.

‘Are you a Jew, Joseph?'

He peered at me harshly. I knew he was testing my composure. Beneath his severe expression there was a plea: ‘Lie well, please, give me a wonderful lie.'

‘No, I'm not a Jew.'

He released his grip, reassured.

‘Anyway,' I went on, ‘I don't even know what a Jew is.'

‘Neither do I.'

‘What do Jews look like, Rudy?'

‘Hook nose, bulbous eyes, heavy jowls, sticky-out ears.'

‘Apparently, they even have hooves instead of feet, and a tail.'

‘Have to look into that,' said Rudy, apparently seriously. ‘Mind you, at the moment Jews are mainly hunted down and arrested. Just as well you're not one, Joseph.'

‘And it's just as well you're not one, Rudy. But you should still avoid speaking Yiddish and saying
schlemazel
instead of unlucky.'

He winced. I smiled. We had each discovered the other's secret; we were in it together from now on. To seal our agreement, he made me carry out a complicated routine with my fingers, palms and elbows, then spit on the ground.

‘Come and have a look round the Villa Jaune.'

Quite naturally he took my small hand in his big hot paw, as if we had always been brothers, and introduced me to the world in which I would spend the years to come.

‘But still,' he muttered between his teeth, ‘I do look like a victim, don't you think?'

‘If you learned to use a comb, it would change everything.'

‘But look at me! Have you seen what I look like? I've got feet like meat plates and great mitts for hands.'

‘That's because they've grown before the rest of you, Rudy.'

‘I'm expanding, getting bigger! Just my luck to turn into a target!'

‘If you're tall you make people feel safe,' I suggested.

‘Really?'

‘And you get the girls.'

‘Really . . . still, you have to be a hell of a
schlemazel
to call yourself a
schlemazel
!'

‘It's not good luck you need, Rudy, it's a brain!'

And that was how our friendship began: I took my godfather under my wing from the start.

On the first Sunday, Father Pons summoned me to his office at nine o'clock in the morning.

‘Joseph, I'm very sorry but I'd like you to go to Mass with the other boarders.'

‘All right. Why are you sorry?'

‘Doesn't it upset you? You'll be going to a church, not a synagogue.'

I explained that my parents didn't go to a synagogue, and that I suspected they didn't even believe in God.

‘It doesn't really matter,' Father Pons concluded. ‘You can believe in what you like, the Jewish God, the God of the Christians or nothing at all, but here you need to behave like everyone else. We're going down to the church in the village.'

‘Not the chapel at the end of the garden?'

‘It's no longer in use, deconsecrated. Anyway, I want the people in the village to know all of my flock.'

I ran back to the dormitory to get ready. Why was I so excited about going to Mass? I probably felt there was a great advantage in becoming a Roman Catholic: it would protect me. Better, it would make me normal. Being Jewish meant my own parents couldn't bring me up, my name was better off being replaced, and I constantly had to lie and control my emotions. So what was in it for me? I was very keen to become a little Catholic orphan.

We walked down to Chemlay in our blue cotton suits, in two files in descending order of height, stepping to the rhythm of a scout song. Outside each house we were greeted with kindly eyes, people smiled and gave us a friendly wave. We were part of what made Sunday special: Father Pons's orphans.

Only Mademoiselle Marcelle, standing on the
front step of her pharmacy, looked about ready to bite. When our priest, who was bringing up the rear, passed her she couldn't help herself grumbling, ‘Going off to have their heads filled with rubbish! Go on, feed them on smoke! Give them a dose of opium! You think it's good for them but drugs are poisonous − specially religion!'

‘Good morning, Mademoiselle Marcelle,' replied Father Pons with a smile. ‘You're at your loveliest when you're angry, as every Sunday.'

Surprised by the compliment, she retreated furiously to her shop, pulling the door closed so quickly she almost broke the bell.

Our group trundled through the church porch with its disturbing sculptures, and then I saw the inside of a church for the first time.

Rudy had warned me that I had to dip my fingers in the font, make the sign of a cross over my chest, then perform a swift genuflection as I set off down the aisle. Led by those in front of me and jostled by those behind, I watched in terror as my turn drew closer. I was frightened that when I touched the holy water a voice full of rage would ring out round the walls, crying: ‘That child isn't Christian! Get him out! He's a Jew!' Instead, the water quivered as I touched
it, clung to my hand and ran, fresh and pure, along my fingers. Feeling encouraged, I concentrated on marking out a perfectly symmetrical cross over my torso, then flexed one knee in the same place my friends had, before going over to join them in our pew.

‘We are gathered here in the house of God,' began a shrill voice. ‘Thank you, Lord, for allowing us into your house.'

I looked up: as houses go, it was quite a house! Not just anyone's house! One with no doors or internal walls, with coloured windows that didn't open, pillars that had no function at all, and arched ceilings. Why were the ceilings curved? And so high? And why weren't there any lights hanging from them? And why had someone lit candles all round the priest when it was broad daylight? With a quick glance round I checked there were enough seats for all of us. But where was God going to sit? And why did all these people huddled on the stone floor of this house take up so little room? What was the point of all that space around us? Which bit of his house did God live in?

The walls started to vibrate and this rumbling became music: the organ was playing. The high notes
tickled my ears and the low ones reverberated through my buttocks. The melody spread lushly, expansively through the building.

In a flash I understood perfectly: God was there. All around us and above us. He was the air quivering and singing with music, he was the air bouncing off the arches, the air pressing up into the dome. He was the air bathed in light from the coloured windows, the air that glowed and shimmered and smelt of myrrh, beeswax and lily nectar.

My heart was brimming and felt strong. I took great deep breaths of God, almost to the point of fainting.

The liturgy went on around me. I didn't understand any of it but watched the ceremony with lazy fascination. When I made an effort to identify the words, their meaning was beyond my intellectual grasp. God was one person, then two − the Father and the Son − and sometimes three − the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Who was the Holy Spirit? A cousin? Sudden panic: there were four of him now! The parish priest of Chemlay had just added a woman, the Virgin Mary. Confused by the rapid multiplication of Gods, I gave up on this game of Happy Families and threw myself into the songs because I liked a good sing.

When the priest talked about handing out little round biscuits, I was about to join the queue but my friends held me back.

‘You're not allowed to. You're too young. You haven't been confirmed.'

Although I was disappointed, I gave a sigh of relief: they hadn't stopped me because I was a Jew so it obviously didn't show.

When we got back to the Villa Jaune I ran to find Rudy and share my excitement with him. I had never been to the theatre or to a concert so I associated this Catholic celebration with the thrill of a performance. Rudy listened kindly then nodded his head.

‘But you haven't seen the best of it . . .'

‘What's that?'

He got up to take something from his cupboard and waved at me to follow him into the grounds. Sheltered from prying eyes under a chestnut tree, we sat cross-legged on the ground and he showed me what he was carrying.

It was a missal, bound in unbelievably soft leather, its pages edged in gold that seemed to refer back to the gold treasures on the altar, with silk bookmarks that reminded me of the priest's green robes. He opened it and took out some beautiful cards, all
bearing pictures of a woman: it was always the same woman although her features, her headdress and the colour of her eyes and hair varied. How could you tell it was the same person? From the glow of her forehead, her clear-eyed expression, her incredibly pale skin with a dusting of pink on the cheeks, the simplicity of her long, draped gown and her presence − dignified, dazzling, majestic.

‘Who is she?'

‘The Virgin Mary. The mother of Jesus. The wife of God.'

There was no doubt about it, she definitely had that divine essence. She was radiant. And it was contagious; even the card seemed less like cardboard than meringue, as brilliant white as whipped egg whites, and it was embossed with designs that gave a lacy quality to those delicate blues and ethereal pinks, pastel colours softer than clouds in the first tickle of dawn.

‘Do you think it's gold?'