Perfectly Ordinary People(22)

The next morning, on Mother’s orders, I went in search of Leah and/or baby formula again, and this time I at least managed to find some baby milk. But there was no sign of Leah, nor of any of her family or friends.

I thought Ethel’s parents might have an idea who could take the baby so I walked all the way there, but their shoe-shop was shuttered and no one was home. In fact, every Jewish business was closed and the streets were eerily quiet.

I wondered where they all were and hoped that they’d simply been sent to south-west France, as Leah’s family supposedly had.

On the way back I called in to Pierre’s house, but there was no one home. I’d half expected Pierre to be out at work, but it was rare that his mother was absent. I wondered if perhaps the whole family had fled, but that made no sense because, of course, Pierre couldn’t have told them why he was in danger either. So I was left wondering if he was just at work or whether he’d vanished over the border and his mother was out looking for him or . . . I really didn’t know. All sorts of ideas went through my mind, but none of them made much sense.

The following day, the baby had the whole household up at dawn. He wouldn’t sleep and he wouldn’t take a bottle. He also had diarrhoea, which Mum said was perhaps because of the cow’s milk. He screamed until he was bright red.

‘He’s missing his mum,’ my mother told me. She said that there was nothing to be done. ‘Eventually, he’ll realise she’s gone and he’ll shut up,’ she said. She shocked me with that. I think that was the first time I realised how the war was changing us all – how hardened we were all becoming.

At six I went and knocked on Pierre’s door, but still no one was home. Then, just as I was about to leave, his mother appeared, shuffling up the garden path like an old person. She had a black eye and a ripped dress and looked absolutely shocking.

I asked her if she was OK and she shook her head. I asked her what had happened, and she shook it again. And then I asked her where Pierre was, and she said, ‘They’ve got him. But don’t go there. Don’t try to help.’ She said that no one could help him now.

I’ll never forget those words, because I was stunned that she’d already abandoned hope. And then she walked to her front door, let herself in and slammed the door in my face.

That is pretty shocking. For a mother to just give up like that, isn’t it?

I think she’d tried. I think she’d tried her hardest. And she’d suffered horribly for having done so.

Did she ever tell you what had happened to her?

No. But I can make a pretty good guess. Everyone knew the kinds of things that went on.

Sorry, but could you give us some idea, for the record?

I think she probably went to the police station and caused a stink to try to help her son. And got beaten and very possibly raped for her trouble.

Oh God. That’s what I was thinking, but . . . I guess I didn’t want to believe it. And Pierre?

Well, I went off in search of Matias. He was the only person I could think of who could help. There was a café I knew the policemen went to for their morning coffee. I thought he’d perhaps be able to tell me where Pierre was, or even better get him released. I hoped he’d have some news about Leah too, or be able to tell me what we should do with the baby.

I didn’t dare go inside so I hid opposite in the alleyway between two houses and waited for him to arrive, but he must have been inside already, because the next thing I saw was him coming out with a colleague. I followed them from a distance until they went their separate ways and then, just as Matias was getting on his bicycle, I ran over the street to talk to him. He was furious with me – that was his first reaction. He pushed me into someone’s garden, out of sight of the road, behind some bushes. He told me that what I’d done – coming to talk to him – was too dangerous. I asked him about Pierre and he looked like he might cry. He said I had no idea, and he said that they’d got them all and that he was petrified he’d be next.

I asked him if Pierre was OK, and I remember that made him laugh – a horrible, sick kind of laugh. ‘None of them are OK,’ he said. ‘None of us are going to be OK.’ And once again he told me that I didn’t know what they were like.

I asked about Johann and he said, ‘Schirmeck, probably.’

That was the first time I’d ever heard of Schirmeck, so I asked him if it was a prison, and he said that it was much worse than a prison and I remember trying to imagine what that could mean. I asked him about Michel then – because I really liked Michel – and he closed his eyes and shook his head and said, ‘Gone.’

I thought at first that he meant that Michel had been sent to Schirmeck too, but he shook his head and said ‘Gone’ again and moved his hand in a sort of chopping motion, and I understood, in shock, that he was implying that Michel was dead.

I was so upset I could hardly speak. I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer, and I remember that when he hugged me I could tell by his breathing that he was struggling not to cry too.

Eventually I managed to ask him what would happen to Pierre, and he shrugged and croaked that he’d probably be sent to Schirmeck as well if he got that far.

‘You don’t know what they’re like,’ he said again, and it must have been the fourth or fifth time he’d said that, so I asked him to explain. I said, ‘Tell me what they’re like. I think I need to know.’