The World That We Knew(65)

“You’ve gotten yourself sick,” Max told him gloomily. “This is what happens when you take stupid chances. I hate to say it, but I told you so.”

Julien did feel a fool then, a boy in a man’s body trying to astound a band of ten-year-olds. To ensure that he wouldn’t infect the children, he was relegated to a lone room in the attic overlooking the orchard. He was sleeping there, with Lex on the floor beside his bed, on the morning of April 6. He indeed had pneumonia, and he still felt as though he were drowning, for there was liquid in his lungs. In his sleep the sound of mayhem filtered into a dream of being in a yellow field with Lea. When Lex began to bark, Julien was brought fully awake in a matter of seconds. He rose from bed, in a fever, but conscious enough to quickly take in what was transpiring. It was a little after nine. There were German army trucks pulled up around the large stone fountain in the courtyard. The children had already been ushered from the house and were being thrown into the trucks as if they were bales of hay. Their shouts were muffled, but some of their cries rose into the air like doves. The teachers had been dragged out as well and stood helpless on the steps. There was wailing from within the trucks, and adults were arguing with the officers. Before he could be stopped, the dog ran from the room growling, even though Julien called for him to stay.

Julien let out a string of curses, then went to the window overlooking the garden, three floors down. He was torn. Should he try to stop the arrests? Run into the fray and do his best to grab the children? Or should he escape into the garden? If he confronted the soldiers, the best he could do was kill one or possibly two with his knife before he was killed himself. His rational mind prevailed. Perhaps it was panic, or self-preservation, or perhaps cowardice drove him. Later he would come to believe his reaction had been mere survival, not a decision made due to thought or logic but a gut response, pure instinct. All you have to do is stay alive, Lea had told him.

As he had risen from the pool below the waterfall, he now felt the need to run. He was shivering and wheezing as he pulled on his pants and shirt and shoved his feet into his boots. He could hear soldiers stalking through the first floor, going from room to room. He could hear his own breathing rattling against his ribs. He did not think at all. He was far beyond such things. He went to the window and leapt.

When he jumped his heart was beating so hard he thought it might break. He closed his eyes and imagined the waterfall, his head filled with noise, the pool below him. This time his fall was broken not by water but by thorny shrubbery. He was so stunned it took an instant before he could begin to disentangle himself from the branches. He might have broken his leg; he felt a shooting pain, which he was forced to ignore. He hadn’t time to make a run for the woods—he could hear the soldiers coming around to search the garden, then he heard barking. Lex had slowed down the soldiers and given Julien time to race to the lower garden and duck into the shed where he and Max had shared a drink. He locked the door, fitting himself between some old panes of glass and a pile of metal bed frames. Then he crouched there, breathing hard, sweating through his clothes. The soldiers in the yard were laughing, pissing on the garden where the children had spent hours planting beans and herbs and tomatoes. He thought of the boys who had gathered round him at the waterfall and he began to shake, rattling the bed frames, his movements uncontrolled. He reached for the hidden bottle of Cointreau and took several deep swallows. If he was to die, he might as well be drunk. He drank until he felt dizzy, then he lay quietly, melding into the wood, disappearing. It was possible to become invisible if you were desperate enough. He slowed his breathing, and his blood barely ran in his veins. He waited for the door of the shed to open, half expecting to be spied, but in fact he was well hidden, and after a while the garden grew quiet. He fell, facedown on the floor, his heavy lidded eyes closing. The trucks were already gone, down the winding road that overlooked the blue mountains. The great milan royal kites were soaring above the fields.

When Julien awoke, sober and aching, he pushed open the door of the shed and peered outside. Nothing but shadows. No soldiers anywhere. He was soon passing across the lawn, as if he was nothing more than a shadow himself. His teeth were chattering, for his fever had risen to 104. The dog’s body was beneath the hedges. Julien stopped to see if perhaps he were still alive. The grass was slick with blood as he crouched down to stroke Lex, whose body was rigid and cold. Julien could barely breathe in the damp night air. A sharp pain shot up his leg. There was the faint trilling of frogs in the garden, but otherwise not a sound could be heard. It was over. The school had opened on April 10, 1943, and now, a year later, everyone was gone. The French government had made a new proclamation declaring it was a kindness to send children to be with their parents in Auschwitz. This despicable edict must now be enforced by the French police in collaboration with the Germans. The forty-two children currently in residence were taken to Montluc Prison. The following day all were sent to Auschwitz. Not a single one survived. Six adults, educators and nurses, were arrested and murdered as well.

He went round to the front door, dazed and limping. He did not understand why he was here and not with the others. He could not make sense of anything, certainly not his own life. Strewn about the fountain were toys and clothes, as if a storm had come through. Inside, the rooms were deserted and dark, yet he could see the white sheen of windblown piles of letters, not yet handed out to the children, scattered across the floor. In the art room the air was heavy. All of the chairs were neatly in a row. Julien left, taking only some colored pencils and the drawing Teddy had made to send to his parents. A rocket ship with three people on board, a father and mother and son. They were in a blue horizon surrounded by clouds. I love you a million times had been written across a sky strewn with x’s, a million kisses given.