The World That We Knew(82)

She dressed and went downstairs and told herself to look forward, as she told the children at the border. And sure enough, when she looked out the window she saw Victor coming down the road, on foot, which was unusual. He was never without a car. She felt a thrill go through her. She’d been crazy to worry. She ran outside to the porch, calling as she went to meet him. There were crows in the fields she had watered, drinking from the puddles. The closer Victor got the more puzzled Marianne was, even though he lifted both arms to wave. And then she saw it was not Victor at all, but Julien who was approaching, who began to run toward her now, even though he had been walking for three days, not bothering to eat or sleep.

“Victor will be so relieved,” Marianne said as they embraced. “He’s been worried sick ever since they took everyone from Maison d’Izieu. Where on earth have you been all this time?”

When she let go of Julien and took a step back, she saw that he had intentionally torn his clothes. She looked at him, puzzled. That surely had some meaning, but she didn’t fully understand what.

“Julien?” she said.

He shook his head. What words could there be now? So he said only one, his brother’s name, and that word was so sad, so tragic, so beloved, that he needn’t say more for her to know that Victor was gone. Not that she believed it.

“No, no,” she insisted. Already, she felt turned inside out. “He’s coming back at the end of the week. He’s going to stay here, with me. We decided that.”

She turned from him so he wouldn’t see her cry.

“He never loved anyone but you. He told me he didn’t care what my mother would have thought.”

She laughed at that, through her tears.

“I know exactly what she would have thought,” she managed to say.

Marianne’s laughter became a sob, and she sank to the ground. Julien knelt beside her, his arms around her. She cried for a very long time, and then she nodded and said he was surely starving, which he was. They went inside and he sat at the table below the beam where Monsieur Félix had been hanged, and he wolfed down an omelet and toast with jam. Marianne stood by the window and looked out. She could not believe Victor would never walk up the road again, that he would never shout with joy, or tell her she was beautiful, or come upstairs with her to bed.

After Julien slept for a while in the parlor, she asked him to tell her everything, and he told her all that he knew. Victor had been on the last train to Auschwitz, where everyone had been gassed to destroy the evidence that they had ever existed. But here were two people who knew Victor had existed. They lit a candle and Julien recited what he could remember of the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored, adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world.

After supper, during which they said very little, Julien went out to hike along the hillside, mostly to give Marianne some time alone. He went up to the place where he’d been when Monsieur Félix was murdered, a beautiful spot where he could see for miles. Though it was nearly nine, the sky was still light. There were clouds above the mountains, but here it was clear, and Julien threw himself on his back in the tall grass. He was so tall and strong that his body often seemed to belong to a stranger. He closed one eye and squinted at the fading sun. If Lea was beside him in the grass she would surely know what he felt, a longing for something he could never have again. A normal life, a family. He spied a cloud coming close and then closer. It was the heron. Julien stood up to greet the bird, and as he did he realized he was crying, and that he couldn’t stop, and that anything which gave him hope of any sort was overwhelming.

He slipped the message out of the tube, hands shaking, but before he could read the note or respond, the heron departed. The bird had an awkward gait at first, but when he leapt into the sky he was a marvel. Julien called for him to wait. He shook his arms at the sky. How would he ever write back to Lea? He turned to the message, but when he unfolded the paper, he saw it had not been written in Lea’s familiar script.

She’s waiting for you here.

There was a small intricate map, as if seen from a bird’s-eye view.

Ava, he thought.

He went back to the house and waited for Marianne to come down from her room, anxious, tapping his long fingers on the tabletop. He wished he had a cigarette, a habit he knew he would have to quit.

When Marianne finally came downstairs she said she had been sleeping, but her eyes were red and her face puffy. Her hair had come undone, and for the first time Julien saw that she was, indeed, beautiful, just as his brother had always vowed.

Marianne offered to help him cross the border, but he told her there was somewhere he must go. He placed the map on the table. “Here.”

“It’s the doctor’s house,” Marianne said after a quick glance. “A day’s walk. An hour or two if Monsieur Cazales next door will take you in his truck.”

She sent Julien with two golden jars of honey to bring to Cazales in return for the favor of a ride. He wouldn’t need the map. Everyone knew where the doctor lived.

“You’ll be all right here?” Julien asked. She certainly didn’t look all right, but she nodded, and he remembered what his brother had told him. Marianne was strong.



She went outside to see him off. She hugged him and told him she would say a prayer for him at her church. They would likely never see one another again, but they had both loved Victor and they always would. Julien had no belongings, but Marianne packed a bag of Victor’s clothes that had been left behind. It made sense for someone to get some use out of them.