The World That We Knew(69)

When he stumbled upon a stream, he stripped off his clothes and dove in, grateful to wash away the mud that coated him and gulp mouthfuls of water. He hadn’t had anything to drink all day and his thirst had taken a toll. Now he was truly shaking, and the panic that had disappeared when he was so focused returned. He thought of the man in line who had been crying. If anyone took a count and discovered he was missing, all the men would be treated even more harshly. Either way, their journey would end at Montluc Prison, while he was here, gulping down cold mountain water, shivering so badly his bones hurt. He had escaped the arrests in Paris, and at Izieu, and now he was free again. Why was it that he hated himself for being so? He was pricked by guilt. He floated in the stream though the water was freezing cold, made of melting snow. He must be a monster. Why else would he still be alive? Or was it his promise?

Stay alive, Lea had told him. He heard that, too. Her voice was with him, inside his head. Now here he was, alive as could be, his leg throbbing, pulling his filthy clothes back over his wet body, his posture bent as he shivered so violently he could hardly stand up straight.

In the pitch dark he made out the form of a small stone farmhouse. There were clothes hanging on the line, and he grabbed a shirt and trousers. Both too big. He had lost weight, but what was left of him was all muscle and energy. His heart was pounding. He wondered if it would ever beat in a natural rhythm again. In the barn there were some boots, and he took those as well. He offered a silent apology to those he had stolen from as he took four eggs from the chicken coop; he broke them into his mouth and ate them raw. Eating those eggs, he knew he was alive.

He slept in the woods, in a ditch near a river. He curled up and rested for a few hours, and when he woke the sky seemed too big. He watched the pink turn to a deep blue violet and was grateful that he had lived to see it. The fields were filled with the yellow field flowers called genêts. All at once, he remembered things he thought he had forgotten. His brother teaching him to play soccer. His mother at the table on Friday night, lighting the candles. The garden as it was, before they tore out the flowers to plant vegetables. Marianne laughing as they helped her hang laundry on a windy day. Lea sitting on a bench in the hallway, her gaze meeting his. But more than anything, he remembered his father, who had studied how the universe was expanding, intent on statistical analysis to measure the speed of distant galaxies receding from Earth. The professor had believed in the miracle of an ever-expanding universe, but in the end, he felt his studies were no longer useful, for the rational order he found in mathematics and in the natural world was nowhere to be seen in the world all around them. If Julien could see him now, if his father could walk through these woods in his good suit to lie down beside his son in the grass, if he could step out of the grave in Auschwitz that he shared with thousands of others, if he came to Julien now, Julien would have told him that mathematics had saved him. When he’d heard the professor in his study, approaching the mysteries of the universe, he would pause outside his door. He had always feared disappointing him, but he thought his father might be proud of him. He had loved his father and had been in awe of him, but he had never felt as close to him as he did right now. You are the man I admired most of all, Julien would say to him if he could, if they were lying side by side watching the universe expand all around them.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX


THE RED SHOES




HAUTE-LOIRE, SUMMER 1944

THEY DROVE ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS, leaving the car hidden under branches a few miles from their target, using the doctor’s compass to aid them when they hiked to a wooded hillside where they were protected from sight, yet could still see the house and the gardens. Everything was in bloom, and the yellow fields of genêts were dazzling, but in front of them everything was dark, a black cloud of chaos. The end of the war would soon be upon them, and it was their duty to dispose of the evil that continued to send men and women and children to their deaths, more and more all the time, as if the Nazi regime was trying to beat the clock that was running down by murdering as many as possible.

Victor and Ettie had come here several times before to observe the habits of their target, a captain in the Milice who resided in a beautiful chateau he had appropriated. He was a thief and a monster and a beast, but he looked like a small, ordinary man with pale blue eyes. It was said that no one was allowed to utter the name of the rightful owner of the house in the captain’s presence; he was simply called The Jew, or sometimes The Rich Jew. The previous resident’s family had lived in the area for hundreds of years, and Dr. Girard had known them well, and had seen them through several illnesses; he had brought their children into the world.

There was no one to care for the garden, and by now most of the flowering trees were dead. Many plants had been crushed by soldiers who didn’t bother to use the gravel paths, but walked through the flower beds instead. Nothing mattered here. There was blood in the soil, and teeth in the ground. Resistance members were brought here and tortured beside the fountain, in which there was no longer water, only black mud. The captain now in residence was a fierce anti-Semite, a ruthless local citizen who had profited greatly from his association with the Germans. Ettie and Victor had kept his identity secret from the doctor, but had Girard known, he would have been pleased by the choice.

The Jewish family who had lived in the house had been taken in for questioning two years earlier, had been sent immediately to Drancy, then to an extermination camp in the East. Between that time and 1944, more than 75,000 Jews had been deported from France to killing camps. The captain himself had been the one to have this family arrested, for he had grown up in the village and had greatly admired their house. As far as he was concerned, the Jews had always thought they were above the law, better than everyone else, for the husband was a lawyer and the wife came from a wealthy family. Her hair had shone black as she walked through the village in a pale cream-colored coat, and he had always watched her, wanting to have her and wanting to destroy her. Now he had done both.