The World That We Knew(36)

“You may have noticed,” he said, “everything has changed.”

Of course it had. Everything did, even she herself. Still, she wanted to hear what he had to say that was so important he was huffing and puffing as they walked on at a quick pace, for Marianne was not one to dawdle, especially when she had what her father called the “bee money” in her pocket.

“We have many children at the school at the top of the hill,” Pastor Durand told her. “They’re not from here. They’re refugees.” The road from the village careened steeply, ending in fields of greenery where there were half a dozen buildings, including classrooms and dormitories. From the corner of his eye he gauged Marianne’s reaction. The boarding school sheltered Jewish children, and the ministers André Trocme and Edouard Theis had arranged for thousands of Jewish children to be hidden with families in town and in the countryside, and Daniel Trocme, the principal of the school, accepted as many Jewish children as possible.

“I should give you some honey for the schoolchildren,” Marianne said. “They’d enjoy it.”

It took two hours to hike from the village to the farm, but the pastor didn’t seem to mind even though it meant he would be journeying back in the dark. Marianne had a newfound respect for him. He came into the house and shook hands with Monsieur Félix, then he slipped off his black coat, under which he had been carrying a rifle. He placed it on the table and winked at Marianne’s father. Monsieur Félix brightened then. The Germans had taken his rifle and he liked the look of this one.

The pastor knew the old man’s gun had been stolen. As it turned out, Monsieur Cazales had told the pastor about the blood on Marianne’s dress. From the hilltop that abutted their properties the neighbor could see for himself that the cows were gone. When he added these facts together, there was only one reason why this should be.

Marianne’s father now had a long scar down one side of his scalp, and he limped. When asked about it, the old man avoided complaining.

“Something may have happened.” Monsieur Félix shrugged.

“We refuse to bow to anyone,” the pastor said. “We never have and never will.”

Marianne’s father nodded in agreement. Fifty years earlier there had been a movement called le Réveil, the Awakening, a period in which Huguenots were asked to remember their mistreatment by the Catholic majority to remind them they must never let persecution happen again. They were pacifists who believed in the greater good, a philosophy they began to act upon in 1939, when they accepted Spanish war refugees into their community, taking them into their houses and barns. Later it was the sick children of workers, for the mountain air was thought to cure their ailments. Now it was the Jews. Monsieur Félix had never met a Jew, but that didn’t matter to him.

“We will hide anyone in need as we were forced to hide,” he told the pastor.

The men shook hands on it. The entire village had agreed to stand up to the Germans and would, by the time they were through, rescue between three thousand and five thousand Jews. There would be a messenger coming by, the pastor said, with identity papers that must be hidden so that children could cross the border into Switzerland. Other members of the Resistance would later come to claim the papers. Would this be a problem? Monsieur Félix laughed. He so rarely did so that both the pastor and Marianne were surprised. Then they found themselves laughing with him. No, it was not a problem; it was a blessing to rebel against tyranny, as their grandfathers had done.

Marianne served tea with their own honey. Everyone said it was the best on earth, and the pastor agreed. He asked if Marianne still knew the mountains as well as she had when she was a girl, and she said that indeed she did, even after her time away. She still had the talent of finding her way in the dark.

Would she be willing to take children across the border? She would be a passeur, a local resident who knew the topography, as well as the times of the patrols, and could manage to get those who were fleeing through the barbed-wire barriers. She would be assisted by the OSE, who provided for as many escapes as could be arranged into neutral Switzerland. The ?uvre de Secours aux Enfants was a Jewish organization begun in Russia and Berlin, whose goal was to rescue the next generation. The organization placed refugee children in chateaus the government allowed to be designated as schools.

Marianne thought over this request as she went to collect some speckled eggs from the hens to send home with the pastor. Her heart jolted against her chest and she noticed how sweet the air was. When she returned she said that yes, she would indeed be a guide.

“I can’t promise her safety,” Pastor Durand said to Monsieur Félix.

Marianne looked at her father, who nodded, but she made certain to answer for herself. “No one has to promise me anything.”

Marianne’s father was a man who was always willing to try to do what was right. If he was not a warrior or an angel, if he rarely spoke and never asked her what she thought or what she felt when she was young, he had always tried to do God’s will and act with faith. Now it seemed his daughter was the same, and he was filled with a raw pride. Guiding people across the border was dangerous. Several people had been detained at a crossing place known as the plaine du loup, the Wolf’s Plain. If Marianne were apprehended, she would be on her own. Monsieur Félix gazed at her and thought about Jeanne d’Arc, the girl warrior. Perhaps his daughter was stronger than he’d thought.