The World That We Knew(51)

She had been thinking of him more often of late, now that the world seemed as heartless as he’d warned it might be. She could have sworn her grandfather was there on the iron bench, in his fine clothes, with his beautiful head of hair, his one true vanity. In her own time she had studied Hebrew, which she could read perfectly so that she could know the prayers her grandfather had known as a boy in Algeria. She closed her eyes and prayed for his soul and then she said the Kaddish, the Jewish mourning prayer, which he had taught her so that when he died there would be someone to mourn properly.

Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di v’ra chirutei.

May His great name be exalted and sanctified in the world which He created according to His will.



When the baker, Monsieur Favre, arrived at the convent, the mother superior was waiting for him in the garden. He had always believed she thought she was too good to deal with him, but now she went so far as to invite him into her office.

“Is there a problem, Sister?” he asked as they walked inside. His hands were sweating. Once before there had been weevils in the wheat and it had nearly ruined him. “The wheat is not what you expected?”

“No, no, it’s fine,” the mother superior said. She was still thinking of frogs. She thought she had spied one in the garden and the memory now brought a smile to her face.

The baker had heard that Sister Marie came from a noble family north of Paris. Perhaps they were Jews, one never knew. He had been told that the Jews controlled the banks and the newspapers, and for all he knew they had bought this position for Sister Marie. There was gossip about her in the village, for the students she took in were often dark with foreign accents. Now she looked worried, and she leaned forward as if to confide in her wheat supplier. He sat back in his chair, suspicious. He had never trusted nuns; the way they all lived together with no men around, how they seemed to put themselves above all others, taking such pride in their education and dedication to God. Who were they to claim that the heart of Jesus belonged to them? Now that German troops had come to Vichy, such people would pay for their vanity.

“I was wondering if we could pay you half this month and the second half next month,” the sister said.

Monsieur Favre stared at her, openmouthed. Now she was crying poor.

“It’s just the current situation,” she explained. “The finances.”

He noted that her office was very well appointed. There was a hand-knotted rug on the floor, dyed with vegetable dyes in the old-fashioned manner. There were several paintings of the saints on the wall. On her desk was a crystal vase filled with cut roses that were a strange pale metallic color, among the last of the season, although they often bloomed until the first snowfall. There was a silver pen and pencil set on her desk. A lone bee hit against the window glass, trying to get in, for the weather was changing. Favre felt something changing between them as well. Her eyes were lowered. His were not.

“If we could have a little more time,” she asked him.

“No,” he said. He gazed at the rug and the marquetry floor. She was probably used to getting everything she wanted and took all of these luxuries for granted. He wondered if her family was even French. “That will not be possible.”

“I see,” the sister said. She went to her desk and drew out her checkbook.

“Cash,” he said. When she looked at him blankly, he shrugged. “The bank has closed.”

“Has it?” Her mouth tightened. “Has it really?” Her grandfather had always told her to trust no one but herself. But the truth was, she had trusted the old man completely.

The baker was convinced that a woman like the sister had her head in the clouds and knew nothing, not even the price of wheat, so he charged her a bit more this time.

“What unusual roses,” he said as she looked through her drawer for francs. The flowers were silver, which made sense, why would she have plain pink blooms?

“Yes,” she said, barely listening. The financial situation was horrible. Perhaps she could go to the doctor who had helped her in the past.

“Would you mind if I cut some flowers to bring to my wife?” Favre asked. Why shouldn’t his wife have something so beautiful? “My wife cooks in the café and has no time for things that bring her pleasure.”

He was told there were shears in the garden and that he was free to cut flowers to take home to his wife, so he said goodbye, his money in his pocket. He went down the corridor paved with polished bluestone, then into the courtyard. The gate to the garden was wrought iron, and he pushed through into the sunlight. His shadow fell before him. Two girls sat on a bench near the silver roses, one blond and one dark and small with a foreigner’s features, both so intent in conversation they did not look up. Such strange flowers, these roses, looking as if they had dropped down from the moon, with their silver sheen and black, leathery leaves. Most of the other flowers were long past their bloom, and he thought these might be the sorts of roses that Jews grew; perhaps they were fed with the blood of children and that had caused their unusual color, for since medieval times Jews were thought to be magicians, suspected of sorcery. He had no idea that the flowers were a strain of roses created by a woman more than three hundred years earlier whose husband was so jealous of her beauty he wouldn’t allow her to leave their house. She could only go as far as her garden, and often she sneaked out while he was asleep so that she might work in the moonlight. She wanted a bloom the color of the moon, a hybrid between a white Bourbon and a black climbing rose. After years of cross-pollinating and covering the plants with white burlap bags so the bees would not play havoc with her plans, she at last completed her task. When her husband found her with her silver roses, he locked her in the house, commanding her maid to dig up the rosebushes. They were given the name la Lumière Volée, stolen light.