The World That We Knew(61)

As a boy he had often gone to see patients with his father. At first he had been made to sit outside, but as time went on he’d been allowed into sickrooms. By the age of fourteen he’d seen more than most medical students would see in their first year. He had observed his father as he cared for those who were dying with great kindness and compassion, and afterward they would go out walking the steep paths in the Ardèche, where the air was thin and clear.

We’re shepherds, the older man had told his son. All we can do is tend to them.

The doctor couldn’t believe he was losing his wife, and yet every day he had more of an understanding of what she meant to him. They’d been fortunate to have had many years when they hadn’t thought about time at all, and had just greedily and happily lived their lives, having breakfast, walking in the woods, working, quarreling over inconsequential things, making love in their old bed, which had belonged to his parents. And then time was blown up altogether. Her disease was incurable, so he put away the clocks and removed his wristwatch, which he left in the night table drawer. They had six months, and then three months, and then, suddenly, a single day. A single day to look at her so that he would never forget the smallest details. The mole on her neck, the way she bit her lip when she was in pain, for she never complained.

Now, the Germans forced every Jewish woman to use the name Sarah after her own name on every official document. Girard was unwilling to let another woman die if he could save her. Each person who had slept in his barn, each he had given refuge, each Resistance worker he had helped, was for Sarah. It was always her, she was with him still, as if she were waiting in the kitchen, ready to embrace him as soon as he walked in the door.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


HIDDEN




IZIEU, APRIL 1944

JULIEN ENTERED THE CHURCH TO see a familiar man in the pew nearest the altar. At last, his brother. He went to join Victor, and though it was a joyous occasion, they were cautious, unsure of who else might enter the building. They both looked straight ahead, as if they didn’t know one another, but it was a great relief for each to know the other was alive.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when they came for the old man,” Victor said.

“I’m glad you weren’t. How is Marianne?” Fortunately, she hadn’t seen the horror of her father’s death.

“She’s strong. All the same, it’s a terrible blow. He was a good man. It probably took ten of them to kill him. They didn’t see you, I assume?”

How could they? He was out on a mountain, daydreaming, waiting for the heron. In some ways, it was an embarrassment to still be alive. “By the time I got back, it was too late.”

“They shot him?” Victor asked.

“You really want to know?”

“No. Don’t tell me. If I know I’ll have to tell her.” He gave his brother a look. “And she should never know.”

Julien agreed. He wished he himself didn’t know, that he hadn’t had to cut the old man down and drag him out of the house and down the stairs. He didn’t like to think of it even now.

“It should have been me,” he told Victor.

“It wasn’t your time. Be thankful. But the thing about saving yourself is that once you do, you have to live with it.”

Victor had a car parked around the corner.

“Yours?” Julien asked.

“Sure. Once I stole it.”

Victor explained that he could not bring Julien back to the farm. Marianne was often gone now, taking as many children across the border as possible, and Victor had plans as well, ones he couldn’t speak about. He drove even faster than usual on the steep and winding roads, on his way to one of the last safe places for Jewish children. Maison d’Izieu, deep in the countryside, more than 50 miles from Lyon, had a beautiful view of the chain of mountains in the Rh?ne Valley, and it had recently been granted protection by the Vichy government. A huge stone chateau with an enormous fountain outside the front door, it was a safe haven where children could have a good night’s sleep, see to their studies, and breathe in the clean country air. In the hilly garden there were vegetables and a small orchard. Perhaps those in residence could forget some of what they had seen. Perhaps not. By now, hundreds of children had been in chateaus such as this, and Izieu was one of many OSE sanctuaries that would go on to rescue thousands of Jewish children. OSE schools were allowed by law to keep children of Jewish parents who had been deported. There was a standard of who could be arrested and murdered and who was allowed to stay in France. If you were under sixteen you were allowed to live.

When they arrived, Victor got out of the car to embrace Julien. “Eventually we’ll meet at the farm, but for now, just stay here,” he said. “You’ll be safe.”

“What if I don’t see you again?” Julien wanted to know.

“Then you’ll know you were my favorite brother.” Victor shrugged, a smile on his face. Despite everything that had happened, he still had hope for the future.

“Was I?”

Victor threw him a look. “Were you what?”

“Your favorite?”

“Idiot! Of course. And my only one.”

They clapped each other on the back. “Don’t worry so much,” Victor advised. “You’ll turn out to be older than me if you do.”