Sarah's Key (15 page)

E

XHAUSTED, THE CHILDREN AT last stopped running, ducking behind a large bush. They were thirsty, out of breath. The girl had a sharp pain in her side. If only she could drink some water. Rest a bit. Get her strength back. But she knew she couldn’t stay here. She had to move on; she had to get back to Paris. Somehow.

“Take off the stars,” the man had said. They wriggled out of the extra clothes, torn and tattered by the barbs. The girl looked down at her chest. There it was, the star, on her shirt. She pulled at it. Rachel, following her glance, picked at her own star with her nails. Hers came off easily. But the girl’s was too tightly sewn on. She slipped out of the shirt, held the star up to her face. Tiny, perfect stitches. She remembered her mother, bent over the pile of handiwork, sewing on each star patiently, one after the other. The memory brought tears to her eyes. She cried into the blouse with a despair she had never known.

She felt Rachel’s arms come around her, her bloody hands stroking her, holding her close. Rachel said, “Is it true, about your little brother? Is he really in the cupboard?” The girl nodded. Rachel held her harder, stroked her head clumsily. Where was her mother now? the girl wondered. And her father. Where had they been taken? Were they together? Were they safe? If they could see her at this very moment . . . If they could see her crying behind the bush, dirty, lost, hungry . . .

She drew herself up, doing her best to smile at Rachel through her wet lashes. Yes, dirty, lost, hungry, perhaps, but not afraid. She wiped her tears away with grimy fingers. She had grown up too much to be afraid anymore. She was no longer a baby. Her parents would be proud of her. That’s what she wanted them to be. Proud because she had escaped from that camp. Proud because she was going to Paris, to save her brother. Proud, because she wasn’t afraid.

She fell upon the star with her teeth, gnawing at her mother’s minute stitches. Finally, the yellow piece of cloth fell away from the blouse. She looked at it. Big black letters. jew. She rolled it up in her hand.

“Doesn’t it look small, all of a sudden?” she said to Rachel.

“What are going to do with them?” said Rachel. “If we keep them in our pockets, and if we are searched, that’s the end of us.”

They decided to bury their stars beneath the bush with the clothes they had used for their escape. The earth was soft and dry. Rachel dug a hole, put the stars and clothes inside, then covered them up with the brown soil.

“There,” she said, exulting. “I’m burying the stars. They’re dead. In their grave. Forever and ever.”

The girl laughed with Rachel. Then she felt ashamed. Her mother had told her to be proud of her star. Proud of being a Jew.

She didn’t want to think about all that now. Things were different. Everything was different. They had to find water, food, and shelter, and she had to get home. How? She didn’t know. She didn’t even know where they were. But she had money. The man’s money. He had not been that bad after all, that policeman. Maybe that meant there were other good people who could help them, too. People who did not hate them. People who did not think they were “different.”

They weren’t far from the village. They could see a signpost from behind the bush.

“Beaune-la-Rolande,” read Rachel out loud.

Their instinct told them not to go into the village. They would not find help there. The villagers knew about the camp, yet nobody had come to help, except those women, once. And besides, the village was too close to the camp. They might meet a person who would send them right back there. They turned their backs on Beaune-la-Rolande and walked away, keeping close to the tall grass by the side of the road. If only they could drink something, thought the girl. She felt faint with thirst, with hunger.

They walked for a long time, pausing and hiding when they heard an occasional car, a farmer taking his cows home. Were they going in the right direction? To Paris? She didn’t know. But at least, she knew they were heading farther and farther away from the camp. She looked at her shoes. They were falling apart. Yet they had been her second best pair, the pair for special occasions, like birthdays and the cinema and visiting friends. She had bought them last year with her mother, near the Place de la République. It seemed so long ago. Like another life. The shoes were too small now, they pinched her toes.

In the late afternoon, they came to a forest, a long, cool stretch of green leafiness. It smelled sweet and humid. They left the road, hoping they might find wild strawberries or blueberries. After a while, they came upon an entire thicket of fruit. Rachel uttered a cry of delight. They sat down and gobbled. The girl remembered picking fruit with her father, when they had spent those lovely days by the river, such a long time ago.

Her stomach, unused to such lavishness, heaved. She retched, holding her abdomen. She brought up a mass of undigested fruit. Her mouth tasted foul. She told Rachel they had to find water. She forced herself up, and they headed deeper into the forest, a mysterious emerald world dappled with golden sunlight. She saw a roe deer canter through the bracken and held her breath with awe. She wasn’t used to nature, she was a true city child.

They came to a small, clear pond farther into the forest. It was cool and fresh to their touch. The girl drank for a long time, rinsed out her mouth, washed away the blueberry stains, then glided her legs into the still water. She had not gone swimming since that river escapade, and didn’t dare enter the pond completely. Rachel knew, and told her to come in, she’d hold her. The girl slipped in, grasping Rachel’s shoulders. Rachel held her under her stomach and her chin, the way her father used to. The water felt wonderful to her skin, a soothing, velvety caress. She wet her shaved head, where the hair had started to grow back, a golden fuzz, rough like the stubble on her father’s chin.

All of a sudden, the girl felt drained. She wanted to lie down on the soft green moss and sleep. Only for a little while. Only for a quick rest. Rachel agreed. They could have a short rest. It was safe here.

They cuddled close to each other, reveling in the smell of fresh moss, so different from the stinking straw of the barracks.

The girl fell asleep quickly. It was a deep and untroubled sleep, the kind she hadn’t had for a long time.

I

T WAS OUR USUAL table. The one in the corner, on the right, as you came in, past the old-fashioned bistro zinc bar and its tinted mirrors. The red velour banquette formed an L. I sat down and watched the waiters bustling about in their long, white aprons. One of them brought me a Kir royal. Busy night. Bertrand had taken me here on our first date, years ago. It had not changed since. The same low ceiling, ivory walls, pale globe lights, starched tablecloths. The same hearty food from Corrèze and Gascogne, Bertrand’s favorite. When I met him, he used to live on the nearby rue Malar, in a quaint rooftop apartment that was to me unbearable during summer. As an American raised on permanent air-conditioning, I had wondered how he put up with it. At that point, I still lived on rue Berthe with the boys, and my dark, cool little room seemed like heaven during the stuffy Parisian summers. Bertrand and his sisters had been raised in this area of Paris, the genteel and aristocratic seventh arrondissement, where his parents had lived for years on the long, curving rue de l’Université, and where the family antique shop flourished on the rue du Bac.

Our usual table. That’s where we had been sitting when Bertrand had asked me to marry him. That’s where I’d told him I was pregnant with Zoë. That’s where I told him I had found out about Amélie.

Amélie.

Not tonight. Not now. Amélie was over. Was she, though? Was she really? I had to admit I was not sure. But for now, I did not want to know. I did not want to see. There was going to be a new baby. Amélie could not fight against that. I smiled, a little bitterly. Closing my eyes. Wasn’t that the typical French attitude, “closing your eyes” on your husband’s wanderings? Was I capable of that? I wondered.

I had put up such a fight when I had first discovered he was being unfaithful ten years ago. We had been sitting right here, I mused. And I had decided to tell him then and there. He had not denied anything. He had remained calm, cool, had listened to me with his fingers crossed under his chin. Credit card slips. Hôtel de la Perle, rue des Canettes. Hôtel Lenox, rue Delambre. Le Relais Christine, rue Christine. One hotel receipt after the other.

He had not been particularly careful. Neither about the receipts, nor about her perfume, which would cling to him, his clothes, his hair, the passenger seat belt in his Audi station wagon and which was the first clue, the first sign, I recalled. L’Heure Bleue. The heaviest, most powerful, cloying scent by Guerlain. It wasn’t difficult finding out who she was. In fact I already knew her. He had introduced her to me right after our marriage.

Divorced. Three teenage children. Fortyish, with silvery brown hair. The image of Parisian perfection. Small, slender, perfectly dressed. The right handbag and the right shoes. An excellent job. A spacious apartment overlooking the Trocadéro. A magnificent, old French name that sounded like a famous wine. A signet ring on her left hand.

Amélie. Bertrand’s old girlfriend from the Lycée Victor Duruy, from all those years ago. The one he had never stopped seeing. The one he had never stopped fucking, despite marriages, children, and the years going by. “We are friends now,” he had promised. “Just friends. Good friends.”

After the meal, in the car, I had transformed myself into a lioness, fangs bared, claws drawn. He had been flattered, I suppose. He had promised, he had sworn. There was me, and only me. She was not important, she was just a
passade,
a passing thing. And for a long while, I had believed him.

And, recently, I had begun to wonder. Odd, flitting doubts. Nothing concrete, just doubts. Did I still believe him?

“You’re crazy to believe him,” said Hervé, said Christophe. “Maybe you should ask him outright,” said Isabelle. “You’re out of your mind to believe him,” said Charla, said my mother, said Holly, Susannah, Jan.

No Amélie tonight, I decided firmly. Just Bertrand and me, and the wonderful news. I nursed my drink. The waiters smiled at me. I felt good. I felt strong. To hell with Amélie. Bertrand was
my
husband. I was going to have
his
baby.

The restaurant was full. I looked around at the busy tables. An old couple eating side by side, one glass of wine each, studiously bent over their meal. A group of young women in their thirties, collapsing with helpless giggles as a stern woman dining alone nearby looked on and frowned. Businessmen in their gray suits, lighting up cigars. American tourists, trying to decipher the menu. A family and their teenage children. The noise level was high. The smoke level, too. But it didn’t bother me. I was used to it.

Bertrand would be late, as usual. It didn’t matter. I had had time to change, to have my hair done. I wore my chocolate brown slacks, the ones I knew he liked, and a simple clinging fauve top. Pearl earrings from Agatha and my Hermès wristwatch. I glanced in the mirror on my left. My eyes seemed wider and bluer than usual, my skin glowed. Pretty damn good for a middle-aged pregnant female, I thought. And the way the waiters beamed at me made me think they thought so as well.

I took my agenda from my bag. Tomorrow morning, first thing, I had to call my gynecologist. Appointments needed to be made, fast. I probably had to go through tests. An amniocentesis, no doubt. No longer was I a “young” mother. Zoë’s birth seemed so far away.

All of sudden, panic hit me. Was I going to be able to go through all this, eleven years later? The pregnancy, the birth, the sleepless nights, the bottles, the crying, the diapers? Well, of course I was, I scoffed. I had been longing for this for the past decade. Of course I was ready. And so was Bertrand.

But as I sat waiting for him, anxiety grew. I tried to ignore it. I opened my notebook and read the recent Vel’ d’Hiv’ notes I’d taken earlier on. Soon, I was lost in my work. I no longer heard the hubbub of the restaurant around me, people laughing, waiters moving swiftly through the tables, chair legs scraping the floor.

I looked up to see my husband sitting in front of me, observing me.

“Hey, how long have you been there?” I asked.

He smiled. He covered my hand with his.

“Long enough. You look beautiful.”

He was wearing his dark blue corduroy jacket and a crisp, white shirt.

“
You
look beautiful,” I said.

I nearly blurted it out, right then. But no, this was too soon. Too fast. I held back with difficulty. The waiter brought a Kir royal for Bertrand.

“Well?” he said. “Why are we here,
amour
? Something special? A surprise?”

“Yes,” I said, raising my glass. “A very special surprise. Drink up! Here’s to the surprise.”

Our glasses clicked.

“Am I supposed to guess what it is?” he asked.

I felt impish, like a little girl.

“You’ll never guess! Never.”