The World That We Knew(23)

After her sister’s death, Ettie had torn her clothes, but she hadn’t upheld the traditional mourning period of shiva, which lasts for seven days. She hadn’t wanted prayers or consolation. In the time after a loved one’s passing, mourners must not bathe or brush their hair or wear leather shoes, they must cover mirrors so as not to look at their appearance, for their own needs do not matter, and their grief is all-consuming. But Ettie’s grief had turned white-hot, burning inside of her. She wished to do more than mourn. She remembered the story of Esther, who had been called the Morning Star by her people, the Jewish queen who had lived in exile in Persia and used her beauty to beguile a king, disguising her brilliant mind, causing the king to save her people and her nation. Clearly, a woman could engage in battle. That was when her plan came into focus.

Ettie had heard rumors of underground groups that rescued foreign Jews, young people, and children and fought against the Germans, creating as much chaos as possible, destroying roads and train tracks with homemade bombs made of cheap ingredients, match heads, gunpowder, old nails and tacks, as they did their best to remove the most evil players among the Nazis stationed in their cities and towns. To prove that she, too, was ready to take radical action, Ettie challenged herself. There were days when she didn’t eat or drink, merely to toughen herself, and when she had time she often did push-ups of the sort her little brothers used to do, to keep her body in shape. One evening she took a sharp knife from the kitchen. In the shed where she slept, she cut an M into her arm in memory of her sister so that she would always remember what she was fighting for. In her faith she was never to cut herself, not in service of an idol or in the throes of grief, but Ettie’s faith was gone, and that command no longer mattered. She remembered Queen Esther’s cry to God. Why did you leave me? I call out to You in the day and You don’t answer.

Ettie was no longer the Orthodox girl who did as she was told. She was someone else entirely. To prove this to herself, she broke every rule she could. She worked on Friday nights, she ate pork, she let her hair loose and didn’t cover her head, she spoke with men she didn’t know while she served them their dinner, she didn’t burn candles or respect the Sabbath. God had forsaken her, and in turn she had forsaken His ways and His word. People barely glanced at her; she was thin and unkempt, with a haunted look in her eyes, no one worth looking at. This was the way she wanted it. Let her be invisible, a shadow who was overlooked. It was easier to pick up information if she went unnoticed, and plain girls always went unnoticed. She knew that thousands of young men and women, both French and Jewish, had escaped forced labor to disappear into the forests or safe houses in villages and towns in order to fight back against the Germans.

This was what Ettie wished for. A way to fight back.



In the café, she had overheard people speak about a local priest in soft, respectful tones. He was a supporter of France at all costs, and had already been interviewed by the police. Father Varnier was so beloved in the village that he had not been detained, as most prisoners would have been, only briefly questioned about his parishioners. Did he know where there were hidden Jews? Had he heard of convents taking in foreign children? Where were the members of the Resistance and their girlfriends and families, anyone who might be imprisoned and tortured for information? He knew nothing and spat out that they should be ashamed of themselves to mistrust a man of God. They let him go and wished him luck, but behind his back they laughed at him. What good would God do him if they decided to arrest him again?

Ettie made her way to the church, an ancient stone building in the middle of town, passing by the even more ancient relic of the obelisk. This part of France had been a Roman stronghold, and there were memorials to that time everywhere, with the past and the present threaded together. It was a land of martyrs, of those who had been betrayed and those who had betrayed them. Perhaps the one matter of faith that was most important, at least to Ettie, was that she must still find it in her heart to trust someone. That person was Father Varnier. It was dark in the church when she entered, and she felt a fluttering of nerves. She had never been inside a Christian house of worship. All she knew was her father’s study, which had served as a shul, a room that became crowded with his followers, who prayed with such enthusiasm the floor often shook. Here in the chapel, dozens of lit candles flickered and the stained-glass windows let through blue and rose light that left patterns on the stone walls. As she took a seat in one of the carved wooden pews where the faithful had prayed since the 1300s, Ettie was someone new, someone she had never expected to be. She saw the world in the light of the Morning Star, Queen Esther, for she, too, had been in exile when she had managed to save her people.

Ettie sat alone in the church for so long that the woman who swept up noticed her and went to Father Varnier, who soon enough came to see if Ettie was all right. He asked if she would like to pray with him, and she said no, she wished to do more than pray. She was so slight, hardly more than a girl, not especially pretty, except to those who had loved her, but she looked fierce, with a brittle sort of determination. She was pale beneath her freckled skin, and her eyes were luminous and damp. The priest didn’t need further evidence to know what she meant. He had ties to both the French who were loyal to Charles de Gaulle and to the Jewish Resistance. Still, he was cautious even when speaking with a girl of seventeen. This is what had happened to their people, a division that would take decades to heal. When Ettie greeted him, he took note of her faint German accent, and was aware that she was a refugee, a most dangerous thing to be. He told her she was taking a foolish chance speaking to a stranger. She responded that the same was true of him, but after all, weren’t fools the ones who were willing to do what others would not? Wasn’t this the true meaning of faith?