Odette's Secrets (19 page)

I experiment with glamorous hairstyles too.

I study my face from different angles.

Everyone says I'm growing up,

becoming a woman.

What kind of woman will I be?

Will I be beautiful, like Bluma?

Will I be brave, like Mama?

Will I be strong, like Madame Marie?

Will I be kind, like Madame Raffin?

I want to be
all
these things.

New Friends

School in Paris smells the same …

waxed floors, glue, new books.

Some of the same children are there too.

Others have disappeared.

No one calls me names anymore, though,

and no one dares to beat me up.

Coming home one day,

I open the door and turn on the light.

Something leaps under the table … a yellow kitten!

No one knows where he came from.

Mama and I both miss Bijou,

so we fuss over the yellow kitten.

We offer him fresh milk,

bits of buttered bread,

a piece of ham.

The kitten purrs and falls asleep in my arms.

What shall we name him?

Mama likes Zola, after a famous French writer.

I like Minou, slang for “pussycat.”

But one day when I get home from school,

before we have a chance to decide,

he's gone.

I run down and ask Madame Marie if she's seen my kitten.

She asks if our window is open … uh-oh.

It is.

“Go look in the square,” she says.

“Maybe he climbed a tree and can't get down.”

She's right, my yellow kitten's in the square.

He's climbing the statue of
The Thinker.

I lift him down gently and take him home.

We decide to name him Tarzan, after the movie hero.

I adore him, but he's a troublemaker.

First of all, he's always disappearing.

He finds his way back home,

but then Mama complains that he's a fussy eater.

He only likes bread with butter or pâté.

Mama says we can barely feed ourselves.

Tarzan has to change his ways

or find another place to live.

Pretty soon, he does.

I comb the neighborhood but can't find him.

My heart is broken.

Mama says Tarzan's probably exploring a park

or playing games with other cats.

But what if he's lying hurt in the street somewhere?

All I want to do is hold and pet him again.

“Having Tarzan was fun for a while,” Mama says,

“but he's gone now, Odette.

You have to forget about him.”

I try.

I keep going to school,

and before long, I make a new friend.

Esther's been hiding in the country, just like I was.

We both love to window shop,

eat ice cream cones,

and explore the streets in our neighborhood.

I never knew there were so many things to see …

street entertainers, chalk artists, and pushcart vendors.

It's like a circus!

I've almost forgotten about Tarzan when,

months later,

I pass an elegant apartment building.

The street door is open for movers.

Curious, I walk in to see what it looks like.

Voilà Tarzan,

strutting across the courtyard.

He's bigger, fatter, furrier, but I know it's him.

My first thought is to kidnap him and take him home,

but if I did I know he'd run away again.

Then I wouldn't even know where he was.

No, I know he's better off here,

spoiled by some rich family.

I lean over and rub my fingers through Tarzan's thick fur.

He licks my knuckles.

Does he remember me?

His amber eyes don't say.

One last scratch behind the ears,

and I stand and walk out of the courtyard.

I can't stay home after school with a cat anymore.

Esther's waiting for me.

Au Revoir, Madame Marie

“Did you hear, Odette?

Madame Marie and Monsieur Henri are moving.”

I drop my book.

“Moving away?” I ask.

Mama nods and goes on chatting.

Her eyes are on her knitting,

so she doesn't see the shock in mine.

How can this be?

So many people in my life have come and gone …

my father, my aunts and uncles, my cousins.

But Madame Marie has always been there.

I've counted on her,

even when I was far away,

to take care of me.

How could my godmother leave my mother and me?

I run downstairs to see her.

“Is it true?” I ask.

My godmother beams at me.

Yes, she and Henri have found a larger apartment.

It comes with an easier job too, looking after a small factory.

“We're getting older now, Odette.

It's a good place for Henri and me.

It's not too far away,

and you will always be welcome with us.”

My godmother is so happy,

she makes me want to feel happy too.

But I can't, not quite.

I will miss her so much,

even though I know things have changed between us.

“You're such a big girl now,” she always says,

as if I grew up on purpose during my time away.

We never talk in the same way, either.

She always listens,

and I can tell she's impressed

when I tell her about all I've learned.

Did she know, I ask her one day,

that humans are related to chimpanzees?

But when I try to tell her other things,

I'm a little shy.

I don't know what to say,

how to begin to tell my godmother about my feelings now.

I'd like her to know that I'm not so sure I like getting bigger,

that I don't feel ready for it.

People are always talking about the Resistance.

Many people gave their lives for France during the war.

Some of them were only teenagers,

a few years older than I am now.

Would I have the courage to do that when I'm a teenager?

I'd like to ask my godmother,

but I can't find the words.

If only she would ask me what the heart is like again,

so I can show her I remember.

But she never asks.

I give Madame Marie a hug,

to show her I'm happy for her.

I don't trust my voice

to tell her how much I'll miss her.

So I simply close the door on her little apartment,

the place where I have always been so safe and so happy,

the place where she saved my life.

I look back through the sheer-curtained window.

My godmother sews as always,

and the clock ticks behind her.

I peer back at her, take in every detail …

her long gray hair coiled in a bun,

the concentration on her face,

her careful fingers poised at the machine.

Even though she's going away

I'll carry this image of her always.

Lost and Found

For Jews, all of France has become a gigantic Lost and Found.

They look for their children in orphanages, and convents.

They try to get their jobs, apartments, and businesses back.

Decent people return everything.

The greedy fight over what they want to keep.

Lives come together slowly,

like the pieces of a giant puzzle.

Three pieces of that puzzle

are Aunt Georgette, Uncle Hirsch, and my cousin Sophie.

When all of them come back—

Aunt Georgette and Sophie from their cousin's farm,

and Uncle Hirsch from the army—

they find their apartment stripped bare.

Still, they say they're happy to be alive.

My uncle sings as he makes suits at his sewing machine,

and my aunt sings along with him.

Steam from her ironing or from a stew she's stirring

clouds around her.

She listens to the news my uncle brings home …

a neighbor has found a good job,

the butcher shop has fresh meat again,

a friend's daughter will marry the local shoemaker.