The World That We Knew(64)
“No, you’re very good at this,” the teacher encouraged him. “You’re an artist.”
“I told him he was,” Teddy agreed. “I want him to make a painting for my mother.” Teddy was at work on a colorful picture of himself with Lex, who often slept in the classrooms, stretched out beneath the desks.
“I’m sure your parents would prefer your own work,” Madame told Teddy. She patted his head and moved on. She already knew they were dead. A note had been received a few weeks ago; both mother and father had been apprehended in Nice for their Resistance work, sent east by train to a camp where they were murdered.
It had been decided that life in the chateau was difficult enough and that children who had lost their parents would be spared the news until their circumstances were more settled. For some of the children the chateau felt much like summer camp, a city child’s dream of the countryside, and in the brilliance of the afternoons they played on the lawn with dozens of new pals. At first, many of the city children were frightened by the countryside, and others could not speak the language and missed their parents terribly. But soon they settled in. The overnights in the woods were the greatest fun, especially for those who didn’t realize such excursions constituted training in case they ever needed to flee into the mountains. Sabine Zlatin, a French Red Cross nurse who had begun the home, was traveling, already looking for a safer place to move the children, for no matter how remote the chateau was, the situation was growing more dangerous by the day, and old agreements were being overturned by the Nazi regime. These nights in the woods were lessons that were more important than any learned in a classroom. How to catch a fish in your hand, how to tell if water was fit to drink, how to hide beneath a pile of leaves so that it seemed no one was there.
One afternoon the children were brought to a nearby waterfall. It was good practice to hide behind the falls. Children under sixteen were still protected, but what were rules in the hands of the Germans? It was best to be prepared. The children played a game in which they must make themselves invisible when a whistle was blown. Then, when the whistle sounded again, they were to show themselves. Julien’s duty was to make sure none of the children fell into the water as they pretended to be explorers who held the key to invisibility.
He had quickly become a great favorite at the school, especially with the boys. He wasn’t quite old enough to be a strict teacher, and he seemed more like a brother. The sun was out on the day of their waterfall holiday; it was April already. His memories of his own childhood in Paris had begun to fade, although those few memories he retained often included his brother. Today Julien told the children a story about a time when he and Victor had jumped into the Seine, which their mother had strictly forbidden. It had been a broiling hot summer day, and they had dared each other, and then, before they’d thought it through, there they were, splashing water at one another. Their mother had been furious when she found their sopping wet clothes in the kitchen. But, as usual, Marianne had been their salvation. She’d vowed she’d done the washing and had forgotten the sodden pile of laundry on the floor.
Excited by Julien’s tale of disobedience, the boys dared him to jump from the rocky ledge into the pool of cold green water at the base of the waterfall.
“Don’t be a fool,” Max advised. “You don’t want to get pneumonia.”
All the same, Julien grinned and took off his boots and his shirt. He challenged Max to make the dive with him, but unlike Victor, who always rose to a dare, Max was more cautious. He shook his head, sure of himself. “You go, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The children came round to clap and chant Jump as Julien prepared to leap. A hush fell when the blade he always carried clattered onto a rock. Julien gave it to Max for safekeeping.
“Seriously?” Max said. “A knife?”
The boys gathering around were thrilled to discover that Julien carried a weapon. He was becoming a hero, he could see it in their eyes. They thought he was something he wished to be, and so there was no backing down. It was nearly impossible to hear anything but the roar of the water, so if Max continued his warnings, Julien no longer had to listen. It was so beautiful in this woodland spot he could forget nearly everything he had witnessed. It seemed he was a boy again. Let the children see that anything was possible, that daring was the only thing that mattered, that no one could keep a person earthbound when he decided to dive off a cliff. Let them not know that he wept at night, that he hated himself for his good fortune when he thought of the fate of his parents and friends. Let them see him leap as if he were fearless.
The cold was a shock that went right through him, sharp and quick, right down to the bone. But it didn’t matter. Not one bit. He felt alive. Everything stung, his heart, his lungs, his head. In the depths of the water there were bursts of light. It was so moving to see beauty all around him, the wash of blue, the yellow shadows, the dark green flicker of a fish. He felt as if he never wanted to rise, but his lungs told him otherwise. He splashed his way to the surface, gasping, having turned quite blue in the frigid pool.
Julien pulled himself out, drenched, and shivering, to see that his audience of boys was stupefied and impressed, eyes wide. He stood and bowed and there was a burst of wild applause.
Max shook his head and clapped Julien on the back. “You’re a crazy man.”
He might be, but he was also alive, something he hadn’t felt in a long time. He enjoyed the acclaim, even though he was a hero for something as silly as leaping into a waterfall. All through dinner people were talking about him and there was a sense of cheer in the dining room. But that night Julien began to cough. He felt a tightness in his chest, as if he were still underwater.