How Huge the Night (26 page)

“Here he comes, guys,” said Philippe.

“Watch out, it’s the king.”

“Make way! Make way!”

“Hey, where’s his white horse?”

There was laughter; but Henri was close now, and his face was set.

“Gilles,” said Henri crisply, ignoring the rest of them. “We missed you.”

“I was late. And it’s voluntary.”

“
Voluntary!
” spat Henri. “I don’t know what’s come over this school. I’ve never seen such a limp bunch of little girls in my
life
. Come on, Gilles. Tell me the truth.” His eyes were hard with
challenge
, cold as ice.

Julien watched, not breathing. Gilles looked away. Then he stood a little straighter and looked at Henri again. “It’s a
boche
salute, Henri.”

Henri’s lip curled. “You wanna see a real enemy of France?” He pointed at Julien. “You’re looking at one right there. Cowards that won’t stand up for France, that go around whispering rumors, undermining the marshal—why do you think we were defeated? The greatest nation in the world—
conquered
—because of cowards like him.”

“We were defeated because the
boches
violated another country’s neutrality,” said Julien quietly.

“We were defeated because the
boches
violated another country’s neutrality,” repeated Henri in a childish singsong. “I don’t wanna know what your daddy says. I want to know what
you
say, coward.”

“I say you’re slipping if you think calling someone a coward’ll make him do what you want. You can call me a coward three times a day, and you won’t make me a fascist.”

Henri’s jaw tightened. He didn’t answer.

“Is that what you want me to be? And the
petits sixièmes?
Is that what you are?”

“If you can’t be proud of your country anymore without being a fascist,” Henri bit out, “maybe that is what I am.”

“You and Pétain both. That’s your National Revolution—if you can’t lick ’em, join ’em.”

They stood facing each other, eyes locked. There seemed to be more faces around them than there used to be. Cold winter air came back to him, and blood on the snow.

The bell rang.

Gustav had never been so afraid.

My sister is dying.

She was cold when he touched her. Heavy and cold. She lay on Lorenzo’s blanket, not moving, looking up at the bare flickering bulb. When she wasn’t cold, she was far too hot, feverish, talking strange things like she had in Trento when he went to the Gypsies. There were no Gypsies here. Only the soup-kitchen people, who let him wash bowls for a cup of milk a day. He gave it to Niko, but she said she wasn’t hungry. It took him an hour every day to make her drink it, make her eat her share of soup. She said she wasn’t hungry. He could see her bones.

“Niko. Eat.”

“Gustav, I’m telling you the truth. I can’t eat. I’m not hungry at all. It’s like … like I’ve gone on past hunger. Left it behind me. It’s just gone.”

“Niko. No.”
No
. He tried to force the spoon into her mouth. Soup spilled down her chin. Something broke in his chest—his hand jerked, and he flung the spoon hard against the wall. He wanted to strike her.

She just lay there. Not looking at him. Slowly, she closed her eyes.

She felt so still. So heavy and still. She didn’t feel hunger. She didn’t feel anything except the stillness. The letting go. She wished Gustav would eat the soup. Drink the milk. She understood her father now. His fierce desire for her and Gustav to get out, to live.
It’s only Gustav now, Father. He’ll live for you. He’s a fighter, Father. I was a fighter. But I’m done.

She didn’t really think there would be anything, after. She didn’t really think there was a God.
Death the thief
, she had thought once, but it didn’t seem that way anymore. There would be darkness; it wouldn’t hurt. If you didn’t exist, you couldn’t hurt.

And if there is
, her father had said. And if there is anything after—will I see you, Father? What will you say? For having sent your daughter to her death for a dream of safety? What will I say to you, for having lied to your son and led him into danger. Father. Father.

“Gustav. I have to tell you something.”

He was kneeling over her. “Niko? How do you feel?”

“Gustav. I lied to you.”

“You feel too hot, Niko …”

“I lied to you. Before the border. When we couldn’t find the rabbi. I said Father’d told me what to do if the rabbi was gone. He didn’t tell me a thing, Gustav. I’m sorry.”

Gustav’s face went still. “Nina. Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’m going to die.”

His eyes were wide. “Nina.
No
.”

“I’m not getting better. I’m getting worse. Gustav, I’m so sorry—I don’t know how you’ll find a way to bury me, here.” She stopped. A boy with a suitcase was standing by the entrance to the toilets, looking at her.

“Niko!” Gustav’s eyes were fierce. “Don’t you dare think like that, don’t you—”

“Sh, Gustav. There’s someone listening. He might think we’re German too.”

The boy was gone. Gustav’s head was in his hands. Above her, the light of the bare bulb flickered and dimmed, and she watched it; the last light she would ever see. She heard with a detached ear the shallowness of her breathing. Not long now. Days.

Voices woke her. Gustav, a strange voice speaking Yiddish. The boy with the suitcase, sitting on the floor beside Gustav. Talking.

“My train leaves in the morning—at eight. I could spend the night here with you. Will your brother be able to make it onto the train?” What was he talking about?

“Niko,” said Gustav. “This is Samuel Rozengard from Grenoble. We have a plan.”

He had heard them talk about her dying. He had thought about it for an hour, and come back.

He was on his way to boarding school in a little town in the hills. He would sleep here with them tonight instead of in a hotel and use the money to buy them tickets. To this town, where there was food. Tickets out of here.

He reached into his shoulder bag, and brought out something round, blotched in gold and red. It took her a moment to recognize it. A peach.

“We have a tree in our backyard. This one is for you.”

She stared at it. Its unbelievable color. In this dim place, it glowed like summer, like the sun. He put it in her hand. It was round, and heavy as life.

She couldn’t. He wanted her to live, stand up, get on a
train
. She couldn’t even face crawling to the toilets. He didn’t understand how tired she was.
The time comes, Gustav. It comes. When you can’t load
all that hope and fear onto your back again, and keep walking. When you have to put it down.
She would never love a boy, she would never read a book again, or sit at a table and eat. She had accepted it. She sat leaning against the wall where Gustav had propped her, looking at the peach cradled in her hand, and did not move.

“Niko. Eat.” Samuel was gone. Gustav was looking at her.

“I can’t do it. I can’t do any of it. Gustav, it’s too late for me, I’ll die on the way—Gustav, you should keep the tickets, wait a few days, you can go on your own …” She pulled feebly away from the anger that swept out from his eyes like a blow. He spoke in a low and furious voice.

“You are getting on that train if I have to drag you.”

“We should never have left home. Father was— Gustav … Gustav, Uncle Yakov was right …”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Gustav hissed. “We left. We’re here. We’re alive. We are—both—still—alive. Now you eat that peach or I will hit you.”

“Gustav.”

“So help me I will.”

He wouldn’t. She knew he wouldn’t. He was beginning to cry. His eyes red, his mouth open, twisted, a wail without sound. She was doing this to him. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t. To turn around like that in an instant—and live …

“Gustav, just give me time. I need … a little time. I need to sleep …”

His red eyes held her, hard. He was afraid she would die in the night. She slid down against the wall to the ground and lay on the blanket, exhausted. The room was getting dark. The last thing she saw was the peach. He had put it by her head.

The smell of it woke her in the night.

She opened her eyes, and it was there, filling her vision: one perfect peach, its deep red blush glowing like a jewel against the grimy floor beyond. It smelled like life. Her stomach cramped with a hunger she had forgotten.

Beyond the peach lay Gustav’s sleeping face, his mouth open, slack with weariness. He was tired too. And here she was asking him to go on alone.

She’d just take a little bite.

Sweet. So sweet. She had forgotten, she had never known, that such sweetness existed; sweet as sunlight on grass, as a morning when you wake into the light knowing all is well. Sweet as
everything
she had lost.

She licked her fingers. Took another bite. Another. Her teeth met in the tender flesh, the richness of life in her mouth. She
swallowed
, and tears sprang to her eyes.

Words rose in her mind, words she had heard Uncle Yakov say at Shabbat dinners with the family:
Blessed art thou, O God, who brings forth bread from the earth
. And peaches, O God. Blessed art thou, O God, who brings forth peaches from the earth, who lets us lick the juice of life from our fingers in the hour before we die.

Julien stood between the post office and station house, listening to the long whistle of
la Galoche
drawing closer, to the hiss and ring of her wheels on the track. Reading the postcard Mama had sent him to get. Preprinted: a space for a name and then “in good health/tired/slightly, seriously ill/wounded/killed.” And other options farther down. People were supposed to cross out the ones that weren’t true.

It was the only mail allowed across the line.

Mama had sent one to Uncle Giovanni and Aunt Nadine a month ago. They hadn’t written back yet.

Today he would lead his first soccer game. He had fourteen guys—seven-man teams, and now Luc was in too. At this rate, he’d have full teams by next week. Henri Quatre didn’t even know. Too busy with his fascism. Julien felt the bulge of his soccer ball in his
cartable
and watched
la Galoche
pull in, bright steam rising from her in the sunny air. He watched the back of the train where the mailbags rode, imagined a postcard lying face down in the bottom of a bag, with
in
good health
circled after
all
in Uncle Gino’s messy scrawl. Or with other things circled. He put his hands in his pockets, watched Monsieur Bernard walk with his clipboard to the back of the train.

From the passenger car, a boy came down, neat dark hair and a suitcase, maybe fourteen. Julien glanced at him as he turned back to help a friend down out of the train.

Then he stared.

The boy’s hair was a greasy mat on his head, his clothes stiff and shiny with old sweat. The crutches he rested on were encrusted with grime; the hands and wrists gripping them were sticks. You could see the shape of his skull through the face.

I thought I knew about hunger.

Julien watched, motionless, as a third boy descended, thin and tough and unbelievably dirty, quick black eyes darting around the moment he hit the pavement, like a wary animal’s.

He looked at them and knew: nobody was meeting them. Even the one with the suitcase; there was fear in his eyes too.

They were helping the crippled one sit down on a crate, his crutches leaning against it; he sat and did not move. The other two began to walk toward the station house.

Monsieur Bernard stepped up to them. Julien froze.

He listened, not breathing, as the well-dressed boy spoke first.

“Sorry to bother you, monsieur. Could you direct us to the
Ecole du Vivarais
?”

Bernard’s back was to Julien, but his voice sounded courteous. “The new school? Oh, it’s just about everywhere. Up the hill, down the hill … are you enrolling?”

“Yes.”

“And,” said Bernard in a bland tone, “your friends?”

The boy hesitated.

“Or maybe they’re your brothers?”

“Friends,” the boy said firmly.

“How long have you known them?”

He hesitated again, looking away from Bernard. The black-eyed boy said something to him in a language that sounded strangely familiar. The other looked at Bernard again. “Can you tell us the way to the school?”

“I can tell
you
the way to the school,” said Bernard quietly. “But I have a question for your friend.” He turned to the black-eyed boy and said loudly, “Are you enrolling in the
Ecole du Vivarais
?” The boy stared at him.

“He doesn’t speak French, monsieur.”

“So it seems rather unlikely the answer is yes, doesn’t it? I’d like you to translate something for him.” Julien looked at him, at the straight back in the blue uniform, and his hand went up to his mouth as Bernard continued. “Tell him that if he heard this village takes in anybody who shows up on the doorstep, he heard wrong.
Je regrette
, but I’m telling you the truth. We are not rich. He’ll find people are not willing to give to beggars here like they are in the city. He’s made a mistake. But tell him this.” Julien bit down on his forefinger. “Tell him I’m willing to help him correct it. They can both have a free ticket back to where they came from, on me.”

As the French boy translated, Julien watched the listener, saw his black eyes begin to burn. He snapped out something guttural to his friend, and the friend turned to Bernard and said in a firm, polite voice that didn’t give an inch—to
Bernard
, from someone
Magali’s
age—“Could you please tell me the way to the school?”