How Huge the Night (11 page)

“That’s the one thing Alex doesn’t understand, really,” Papa had said. “Stupidity.”

Oh God. Do
you
understand stupidity?

He really hadn’t known, but did that make it any better? Had Pierre known?
Oh God, forgive me. Please.

Forgive me.

He sat with his head in his hands. The dust drifted in the light, dancing in slow patterns, unknown and unknowable, golden and silent as God. He watched it dance, sitting motionless; he watched, and thought nothing as the bar of sunlight narrowed and bent toward him, infinitely slow, in the gathering of the early winter night.

When the bell rang, he did not move. He was so tired. His mind was so … still. He hardly lifted his head at the sound of the door opening.

“Hey.” It was Pierre’s voice.

Julien looked up.

“You okay?”

He started to nod, but it hurt. “Yeah.” The crack in Pierre’s
swollen
lip was reddish brown with dried blood.

“You were pretty good,” Pierre said. “For a Parisian.”

Julien let out a laugh. That hurt too. “So were you.” There was a pause. “How bad do I look?”

Pierre grinned. “Awful. That’s the biggest shiner I’ve ever seen.”

“Great.”

“Hey, uh …” Pierre looked out the window. “Thanks for not saying I stole that book.”

“Sure. I mean it was true. I didn’t see who did it.”

Pierre huffed. “Not me. I was playing with the coat, remember?”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“Hm. Well.” Pierre looked away, then at him again. “Hey,” he said. “I really wasn’t aiming for him, okay?” He was looking straight at Julien, his light green eyes serious. Julien had never seen that look on him. After a moment, Julien nodded and held out his hand.

They shook. Julien stood. “Something I should tell you, though.” How should he put it? Some way that would make Benjamin look good. “I think it would be good not to call Benjamin a German.” Pierre was giving him a puzzled frown. “It’s not about being called
boche
, it’s—he hates Germany. They did some really awful things to his family. Because they’re Jewish. I didn’t know that … before.”

“Oh,” said Pierre.

Benjamin was waiting for him on the bridge. “How’s your eye?”

“I guess I’ll have to put something on it.” It hurt bad. Benjamin was giving him a rueful smile; last time he’d seen him, he suddenly remembered, he’d been blinking compulsively in pain. “How’re
your
eyes?”

“They’re all right. They felt better after five minutes,” Benjamin said. “That was weird. I just couldn’t stop blinking. I knew you guys were fighting, but I couldn’t even see what was going on.” He paused for a moment. “Uh—who won?”

Julien snorted. “I have no idea,” he said.

As they climbed the steps they heard voices upstairs. Julien thought nothing of it. Not till he’d stepped full in the door did he realize.

The entire sewing circle was in the living room. Including Madame Rostin.

He made to close the door again, quickly, and slip on up the stairwell. Mama had seen him.

“Boys, your
goûter
is in—
mamma mia,
Julien! What happened to your eye?”

“I’m fine—” Julien started, but at the same moment Benjamin said, “Pierre—”

Julien motioned wildly at him; too late. Madame Rostin was
rising
from her seat, all the ominous gray-clad bulk of her, looking like she was about to blacken his other eye.

“Did my Pierre,” she said slowly and savagely, “do that to you?”

“Um. Ye-e-es …”

“That.
Boy
.” She snatched her coat from her chair back and slung it over her arm. “He will regret this.”

“But … but …” Julien stammered as she pushed past him. “It wasn’t like that. It was a misunderstanding—he didn’t even start it! I hit him too! Hard!”

“Good!” she snapped over her shoulder. And was gone.

He heard her clatter down the stone stairs like a carthorse on cobblestones. He heard Magali greet her at the bottom, and
her
shoes coming up, and the babble of voices from the living room—he stepped out the door and closed it, pushed the heels of his hands against his temples. If only they would all go
away
…

“Wow,” said Magali. “
She’s—
” She saw Julien, and her jaw dropped. “Pierre! Pierre! He did it! Right? And you messed him up too. C’mon, tell me you did.”

Julien slumped against the wall and nodded.

“All
right!
”

“
Shut up
,” Julien growled. “Did you see her? Did you? She’s gonna go home and make me an enemy for
life
.”

“
Pierre
? What do
you
care?” He bared his teeth at her, and she recoiled. “Okay, okay, sorry …”

Mama put her head out the door. “Is Madame Rostin gone? She left her purse.”

“I’ll take it, Mama,” Magali said quickly, and took the big black purse. “I can catch her.” Benjamin turned without a word and
followed
her down the stairs.

“Julien. Come in here to the kitchen, and I’ll make you
something
. The sewing circle’s over. Come.” The scrapes of chairs and shoes on the floor were jabs of pain in his skull.

“My head, Mama. It hurts.”

“Come.”

She felt his skull all over for what hurt most. She put a steaming bowl of tea in front of him, and he made a face at the bitter smell. “It’s willow.
La mère Cagni
in Bassano used to swear by it. It works.”

The sound of footsteps at the top of the stairway; heavy steps; Papa. Oh no.

Papa walked in and said nothing, just looked at him and sat down. “Do we all have to drink that vile-smelling brew?” he asked plaintively.

Mama laughed. “Tea or coffee?” she asked.

Papa sighed. “Coffee’s up to forty francs a kilo.” Mama nodded. There was silence while she poured him
verveine
tea.

“Well,” said Papa. Julien looked down, studying the patterns of steam in his bowl. “So. You tried a little ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay …’”

If Julien remembered rightly, the end of the quote was: “saith the Lord.”

“I—”

“You punched that young man in the teeth with quite visible pleasure,” Papa continued in a dry tone. “It was not the sort of look I expected to see on my son’s face.”

Julien winced. Even that hurt. The pain was descending from his head into his neck; he imagined shards of glass working their way down. He shut his eyes.

He heard Mama, her voice sounding far away: “Martin, don’t you think this can wait till he’s recovered a little?” He heard his father’s sigh. “As always, Maria, you are right.”

He felt Mama’s hand on his shoulder. “I’m putting you to bed.”

It was dark, and his head felt full of wet cotton. The towel Mama had packed with snow for his eye was on the floor, and his pillow was wet and cold. He sat up gingerly. His head did feel better.

There was a knock. “Julien?” said Magali’s muffled voice. “Want supper?”

“Um. Sure.”

She came in with a tray. “It’s still warm. Kind of. How d’you feel?” She flicked the light on, and he shut his eyes against the
stabbing
glare.

“How do I look?”

“You oughta be in a beauty contest.” She grinned.

It was leek and potato soup, and he was surprisingly hungry. He ate carefully, Magali watching him. “Boy, Julien, I wish you’d been there. It was priceless.”

“Been where?”

“We caught up with her right outside the train station, and boy did she look mad. So I gave her back the purse, and then
Benjamin
starts talking faster than
me
.” Her eyes were wide. “She couldn’t get a word in edgewise!”

“
What!
”

“All about how it was an accident and you and Pierre had worked it out and you’d both gotten punished already, and just as I’m
opening
my mouth to back him up, Pierre walks around the corner and almost barges into us. That’s when things got hot.”

“Hot?”

“He was seriously swaggering. Him and those older guys he goes around with, and this big fat smirk on his face you just wanted to wipe off. I think that’s why she hit him—”

“She
hit him?
”

“With the purse! On the ear!”

“Oh no. Oh no.”

“It was
hilarious
, Julien! I almost died laughing!”

“I’m happy for you,” he growled.

“I’m sorry, okay? But honestly, that guy, I don’t know why you care—he’s an oaf in training, that’s what Rosa says. He comes to the café with those older jerks, and they act like they own the place. Listen, you should’ve heard Benjamin at supper, he can’t stop
talking
about you. He thinks you’re the best thing since baguettes.”

Papa stuck his head in the door. “How’s the wounded soldier?”

“Um. Not too bad.”

Magali threw him a wink from behind their father and slipped out. Papa sat down on the bed. There was silence for a long moment. Julien looked down at his soup.

“I’m sorry, Papa. I really am.”

“I know,” said Papa quietly. “Listen, Julien. Tomorrow, we’ll have a talk about what happens when you start solving problems with violence, okay? But for now … well … you know,” he said, looking at Julien seriously, “it was true what I said about the look on your face. It shocked me.”

Julien look at his soup, at his bed, at his hand.

“No. Listen, Julien. I didn’t know then why you were doing it. Now I do.” Julien looked up. “Son, I want you to understand: you made the wrong choice in fighting him. But you made another choice today that was very right. You could have stood aside when they called him
boche
and pretended nothing happened. Very
easily
. You didn’t do that. For that, Julien, I’m proud of you.”

Julien looked up into his father’s eyes. He felt a warmth spread through his chest.

“Hey Papa. Is it … okay if I stay home from church tomorrow?”

Papa grinned. “Julien, you want to hide that thing, you’ll have to stay in from now till Christmas. Hold your head up! At least you’ve got something to show for all that!”

Julien grinned too.

In Trento there was a house; and the house had a door.

It stood in a deserted place between railroad tracks and an old factory with broken windows and weeds growing up from the
foundation
. Most of the roof was caved in, but the kitchen was whole and had a chimney and a door. The kitchen was where they lived.

At first, Niko slept like the dead. Gustav came and went; Niko woke long enough to wedge the door securely shut behind him and slept again. Gustav brought matches from somewhere and made a fire with bits of broken boards; Niko hung their wet clothes on a string in front of the chimney and slept again. Gustav brought food in greasy brown paper: cold pizza he’d been given at a restaurant’s back door. Niko ate, and slept.

And they lived. Through the long day, Niko lay on her father’s eiderdown, looking into the fire, putting on more sticks and boards when it sank down; and at evening, Gustav came with food and stories. Showing her the routine he used at the back doors of
restaurants
, big puppy-dog eyes and a hand on his stomach, and “Food? Food for empty belly?” It made them laugh, he said. Italians liked a laugh, even when you were begging. He liked Italians, he said. A camp of Gypsies had settled out that way, he said, in the field across the drainage ditch. He said he liked them too.

Then they would bed down by the fire, but now Niko could not sleep. She lay awake long hours in the dark, by the dim light of the fire, wondering. Wondering what Father knew.

Everywhere there are evil men.
It was why she stayed in this house and did not go out with Gustav.
Everywhere.
Was Uncle Yakov right, then?
she asked Father. She asked God.
What is this world you made?
Father had told her stories of corpses piled up in ditches, just for being Jewish. He hadn’t said what happened to the women. But she could guess.
God. Why? Why do you let them?
She couldn’t do it, she couldn’t lie here all day and all night with only her and the
questions
in her head, and a God who did not answer—she couldn’t do it. But outside, she heard voices sometimes; men’s voices, laughing. Outside, for her, there was nothing but fear.

Then came the pain in her throat, and outside, the snow. Niko lay under the eiderdown, shivering, no matter how high the fire was, and sweating. Two, three, four days, and the fever did not go. Gustav felt her forehead, his eyes dark. “I don’t know what to do, Niko. I need to get help.”

“Gustav, no. You can’t tell anyone I’m here. Gustav, promise. Gustav, you have to promise!”

He promised.

She lay staring at the fire, wandering a dark wilderness in her mind. She was in the woods on the border with Uncle Yakov—he was saying run, run, the Cossacks are coming. Father was up ahead, maybe she could catch him and Mother—Mother who ran so fast that she’d never seen her. She called out to them—wait, wait, you forgot Gustav … Don’t worry, Father called. Gustav can look after himself. He knows their language. They like a laugh. And he was gone, ahead of her in the dark woods, over the border, and she couldn’t find the gap. Father, Father come back, Gustav wants you to come back! And then Gustav was there, and a fire, he had made a fire in the woods, but the Cossacks would see it, and he was
saying
something, he was shouting. “No, Nina, no. I won’t let you. I won’t let you die!”

And then he was gone.

It happened exactly like Julien had expected.