How Huge the Night (16 page)

“Well?” prompted Jérémie. “Then what did you do?”

“I kept walking. I had to. And then it started to hurt so much I passed out and fell. And then I started crawling.”
I had to
, he almost said again, but he could see it in some of their eyes as they nodded soberly, that they knew what had looked him in the face. In their eyes was something like respect. He glowed.

They pressed Benjamin for his story, and he told it, looking a little surprised at being asked to speak. It sounded kind of
harrowing
, being out in the dark, searching for someone lost. “And then Pierre skied up to us and told us he was all right. He
didn’t
tell us he’d mangled his ankle and was going to half die of fever,” he added with a wry smile at Pierre, who grinned back.

“You wouldn’t believe how I felt when he tripped over me out there,” said Julien. “I swear, I thought he was Jesus.”

“So you can imagine what he said when he saw it was me,” Pierre tossed back with a straight face. Julien laughed. They all laughed. Except Henri Quatre.

The days grew warmer. The long rains of spring came, and the courtyard was pure mud, and the boys stood under the
préau
in little groups, looking out at the rain. The royal court broke up and shifted, without its tree; Julien stood in a corner with Gilles and Dominique, talking spring and soccer, or sat with Roland and Benjamin against the wall, reading one of Benjamin’s books.
Jean-Pierre
talked math with Benjamin. Julien helped Pierre with his history.

Henri watched with stony eyes, and said nothing. Julien prayed for him. Or tried. Mostly,
You know what to do, I guess
.

Vincent wrote. He couldn’t believe Julien had almost died. He wished something that exciting would happen to
him
. He was
failing
math, and he wished this Benjamin guy would come live with him, and honestly, if Benjamin had let Pierre copy a few things off his physics homework at the get-go, maybe there wouldn’t have been so much trouble. Julien smiled crookedly and wrote back to Vincent that
that
would be the day and that it was weird having almost died; everyone was nicer to you. Almost everyone.

He sat with Benjamin at the dining-room table, doing homework; and Benjamin—Benjamin who had walked in here with his head so far down you had to talk to the tops of his glasses—looked across his homework at him just like a normal person. Like a friend. And they walked down to school together, and Julien’s chest did not grow tighter with every step down the hill, and at the bottom of the hill, he waved and called to Roland and Louis.

The river rose under its stone bridge with the snowmelt and the rain, and the grass along its banks grew green and thick. The
genêt
bushes on the hills, once the only green against the pale dead grass, grew dark as the new growth outshone them, and the young leaves opened, and there were violets against the black stone schoolyard wall. They laid new lines out on the soccer field and gathered the teams. Julien convinced Benjamin to come watch the first game.

Henri’s team won. By one goal.

The trumpeting music that began the nine o’clock news played in Julien’s head during the day. Fighting in Norway, Denmark in defeat. The announcer’s fruity voice made it sound far away, a story; but it wasn’t. Mama stared at the radio; Papa ran his hands through his hair. They were waiting. Spring was the time for war, Papa said. At school, Pierre bragged on his brother André and his tank, his eyes a little too bright; they traded stories they’d heard about the Great War, the trenches. They wondered out loud how long it would last.

Julien sat at the table and listened to Papa’s devotions: Joseph forgiving his brothers, saying at the end of his life that what they’d meant for evil, God had meant for good. “That’s how I know I didn’t invent God. A God I invented wouldn’t let evil men have their way. The real God does. And works it for good. Lets it look like he’s doing nothing—and comes through in the end. I believe this: he always has, and he always will come through, with good, in the end.”
In the end. When’s the end?
The clock began to chime nine o’clock, and Papa turned sharply toward it. In a moment, he was on his feet, switching the radio on.

The fanfare played, the look-at-me music; Julien settled back in his seat, rubbed his finger on the smooth wood of the table as the announcer said the usual words in the usual tone. The tape cut like a fracture to the same voice, its fruitiness gone, speaking quickly with an undertone of fear. “Dramatic developments. Since
yesterday
, German troops have been pushing deep into both Holland and Belgium, in complete violation of these countries’ neutrality.” Julien looked up, his eyes wide. Holland. Belgium. His father’s hands were gripping the edge of the table, hard.

“German tanks and infantry have met heroic resistance from the Dutch army. The Dutch and the Belgian governments have dropped their efforts to stay neutral in this war and have called for help from British and French troops to push back the Nazi tyrant.” They were straining toward the radio. The
boches
were bombing Holland and dropping paratroopers everywhere; an “impregnable” fort in Belgium had been taken in less than a day.
Holland
,
whispered
Julien’s mind.
Belgium. They’re coming here.

“There are unconfirmed reports tonight,” said the announcer more slowly, “of a strong push by several divisions of German tanks onto French soil. They are reported to have crossed the Ardennes hills,” he said, “bypassing the end of the Maginot Line.”

Time stopped as they sat staring at each other. The room became vivid, suddenly, the shadows sharp-edged: the dents and scars in the smooth golden pine of the table were etched into Julien’s eyes as he stared. It had come. The lamplight bloomed like a rare,
precious
flower, and the faces around the table, the faces of the people he loved, in that wide-eyed moment filled with fearful beauty. The sound in his head echoed above the stumbling voice of the radio, a high, buzzing echo speaking the words again and again.
The end of the Maginot Line. The end of the Maginot Line.

His mother’s face was white and frozen, her hands knit together, the knuckles pale. Julien looked at Papa. He would go and comfort her now. He always did.

But he didn’t. His face was buried in his hands.

The wagons were stopping, but it was before mid morning. The children were excited, jumping up and down and looking out the windows, calling out “Sondrio! Sondrio!” They saw a stream and a little wood, and a town in the distance. It was lovely.

Marita stepped out of the wagon and looked around with an air of great pleasure and set to work. Before five minutes were gone, she’d laid a fire, strung a clothesline between two trees, and was sorting through an enormous pile of laundry. Niko had enough Italian now to understand her when she called to them: “Gustav! Niko! Go into town for me, would you, and tell me what you see?”

“Yes, Marita,” called Niko. “What … uh … do we see?”

“If the people are friendly. The children like this campsite. I hope that we can stay. Here, take some bread. Be back by noon. Go!”

They took the path to town slowly. The sun was shining, and the air was light, almost warm; the wheat fields were furred with pale green shoots against the dark earth. They were walking a road together with the sun on their shoulders, neither cold nor hungry nor afraid. They walked, saying nothing. Happy. They sat on the edge of the road and ate, and then went on.

They came to a country lane between farmhouses. Children squatted on the dusty ground playing with apricot stones. A
bright-eyed
boy, a kid with an apricot stone in his hand, looked up at the strangers, pointed, and yelled.

And then threw the stone.

It hit Niko on the arm and stung like a bee, and she stared at the boy. Bright black eyes full of anger and scorn—the children were all shouting, another stone hit her. “Let’s get out of here,” muttered Gustav, and Niko turned, swung her crutches out and ran. An
apricot
pit bit the back of her neck.
You got her
, she thought bitterly.
Happy, Friedrich? You’ve got apprentices.

Children. Boys. Even Friedrich. Evil boys become evil men.
Why do you let them?

“Even here,” she said bitterly.

“They got no idea we’re Jewish, Niko. Don’t you know that word?
Zingaros
?”

She looked up sharply. She hadn’t caught it. “Gypsies?” she said. “Gustav—Marita—go back and warn them,
run!
”

“I’m not leaving you, Ni— Niko—”

“Then
keep up!
” She swung her crutches and began to run, fast. And she could run—Friedrich hadn’t taken that from her—she could run in the dark, crashing through the woods, evil behind her, always, always there … As she turned the last corner, out of breath, a sharp stitch in her side, she saw that she was too late.

The clothesline was broken, a pair of pants still hanging from it; underneath, a white shirt trampled in the dirt. Cook fires
smoldering
, a black pot lying on its side. Where the wagons had been, deep wheel-ruts in the mud. She could see it—the women ripping laundry off the lines, snatching up their children, the men whipping the wild-eyed horses into a gallop, pulling out just in time ahead of— What? Who? Had they come with guns? Oh Marita.

Marita standing at the wagon’s window, grief in her eyes, looking back at the town. Where she had lost two children. And they had lost her.

And everything. This time. They had nothing but the clothes on their backs; not even food.

It was so quiet here.

Marita’s voice singing in Romany, shouting orders to her children— never again. She mustn’t let Gustav see her cry.

“Nina. It’ll be okay. Look, there’s some soup in this pot that didn’t all spill—there’s pants, and a shirt, and I bet there’s a blanket or two if we look around, and it’s almost spring, Nina—”

“Niko,” she said harshly, and covered her mouth with her hand. She sank down on the ground, shaking her head, her throat tight with tears.

“Niko,” whispered Gustav. “We can make it, Niko.” He knelt by her, looking into her face. “We can do it again, like in the
mountains
. I’ll work at farms, and if I can’t find work, we’ll steal milk and eggs, and God will forgive us because we’re hungry. And then we’ll find a town—I’ll find another house like in Trento. We’ll make it. We’ll make a life for ourselves, Niko.”

She looked at him, and saw that he believed it.

“What happened to our army, Papa?” Julien asked. “We had the strongest army in Europe, didn’t we?”

“One of the strongest, Julien.” Papa leaned his head on his hands. “We still do. They’re just—it’s—war’s all about position, Julien.” He shook his head. “They did something we didn’t expect, that’s all.”

Something we didn’t expect?
That was what it came down to?

Julien said nothing. Papa didn’t look up.

The
boches
were in France, the radio said. They had made it through the Ardennes, five divisions or more: tanks. Papa went pale at the number. Half the army was stuck in Belgium behind the
boche
lines, up where they’d thought the fighting would be. They hadn’t put troops to defend the Ardennes, Papa said, because they were supposed to be impassable.

Apparently the
boches
didn’t know that.

They kept the radio on all the time now. It was all news, spoken breathlessly, no more pompous voice. The
boches
were dropping bombs and paratroopers all over the Low Countries; it was called
blitzkrieg
. The
boches
had bombed Rotterdam and killed thirty
thousand
civilians. Holland had surrendered. The
boches
had crossed the Meuse and were plowing west, and the radio kept saying some division or other had fought heroically against incredible odds and gotten rolled right over.

Where
was
everybody? Where was the army? Julien knew where the army was: in Belgium and on the stupid Maginot Line where the stupid,
stupid
generals had put them all; how did something like this
happen
? He lay awake in bed, his blood beating in his temples, not believing it. They had this entire army, and none of them were in the right place, none of them were in the
way
.

At school it was like a dream, a dream of another place and time where there was war and it was going badly, and people gathered and talked about it in tense voices. It was like being underwater, the tightness in his chest, his heart beating fast for the moment he’d break out through the surface and breathe.

Henri got down on his hands and knees under the schoolyard tree and traced a map of France in the dirt. “Here, see? There’s Sedan. There’s Dinant. They’re here now. Here’s Paris but they’re not going for it, see, they’re going due west, heading for the coast. Here’s Cambrai and Saint-Quentin. There’s a river in front of ’em; you always try to stop ’em at a river because it gives you a defensive position.” He drew a snaky line in the dirt.

“That’s the Oise,” said Julien. “It goes into the Seine west of Paris; I’ve been there.”

Henri glanced at him. “See this?” He slashed a line in the dirt in front of Saint-Quentin. “Paper says we’ve got a division of tanks right there. They’ll hold them up. And see how we’ve got people
here
and
here
?” He stabbed his stick at the Maginot Line, and then at northern Belgium. “See, if we can move fast enough, it’s called a pincer movement—” two strong slashes toward the German line, cutting it in half. “And we cut ’em off. See?” He lifted his head, his blue eyes glinting. “You can bet that’s what the High Command is working on right now. Of course they wouldn’t say so on the radio.”