How Huge the Night (34 page)

Nina woke to fear, as she had every morning for the past year. As she always would.

Who was he hiding from? Hiding her from? What did they mean to do? He hadn’t seen fit to tell her. None of them had. They had left her in the dark.

In Lyon she had been ready. She remembered the hunger, and the way the hunger had faded, the still and heavy peace. Sinking toward sleep at the end of a journey, the end of a long and terrible day. And then Gustav pulling at her, shouting at her—“
Live, live!
” He would never know how hard it had been. But she had done it. She had fought her way back to life; she had found rest. She had found what she thought she would never taste again.

Joy.

She wished she had died.

In Lyon, she had been ready. But
now!
Now after one last taste of freedom, one day with the stone lifted from her heart—to feel the weight of fear again and know it would never go— There was no God.
And if there is
. And if there is he doesn’t know what he is doing. He is stark shrieking mad. He’s been too long in the dark.

Even this town in the hills, with its kind faces, was a place of
danger
. All her long-ago hope and her courage had been pretty lies, and Uncle Yakov was right. She knew this now. The world was full of thieves and soldiers who took whatever they could; even women and children had hatred in their eyes. Gustav with his desperate, fierce care had bought her one day of freedom, and this terrible truth. And now she had to do it all over again; to let go of peaches, and sunlight, and all the hopes she had hidden down inside herself for the things she would never have. A sweetheart. A husband. Children.

She lay dry-eyed, looking up at the blank ceiling.

There had been no word from the mayor, nor from Victor Bernard. It had been four days. Julien was beginning to breathe again.

He walked out to the farm Sunday afternoon behind the rented cart to haul wood for the winter. The wild thyme in the woods this year had grown taller than Grandpa had ever seen it. “Did I ever tell you what that means, Julien?” he asked as they stacked wood.

“No.”

“It means a hard winter. Maybe the hardest in a very long time.”

Julien glanced at the long woodpile, and Grandpa followed his gaze.

“We cut a lot of wood last year, Julien. As much as we could. Beyond that we’ll have to trust God.” He looked at Julien, his eyes bright. “Julien—” He broke off and smiled and rocked the cart to see if the load would shift. “In the city,” he said quietly, “I’ve seen tarps over woodpiles. As if the rain would rot them. When the rain’s what makes them strong. Leaches the sap out, seasons the wood— it’s not worth burning till it’s been out in the storms for a year.”

In the end of the gray log Julien was lifting were little lines. Little dents, the bites of a clumsy maul. He had split this log last year. When he was fifteen.

“You really think we’re ready?”

“It’s been quite a year for storms, Julien,” said Grandpa quietly.

“We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

News was in the wind, on the radio, news of change. More refugees. Tens of thousands expelled from Lorraine for “disloyalty,” which meant, Papa said, not speaking German. A bunch of them from some Protestant boarding school in Lorraine were enrolling in the new school. A few were Jewish. Benjamin was called into the
principal
’s office at lunchtime and came out with a bigger grin than Julien had seen on him in months.

“You’ll never guess,” he said as they walked home. “I bet you twenty francs.”

“If I had twenty francs,” said Julien, “I wouldn’t waste them on some dumb bet with
you
.”

“C’mon. Guess.”

Your parents are alive.
“Full scholarship to the Sorbonne?”

“They want me up to the new school on Friday. To give a
talk
. On being Jewish.”

“Really? They invited you?”

“Yep,” said Benjamin. “Me.”

“Hey!” Magali was calling to them across the
place du centre
,
waving
. “Hey,” she shouted again, running toward them. “You’ll never guess what Rosa and I just saw!”

Julien and Benjamin both rolled their eyes. “Bet us twenty francs?”

“I’m serious, Julien. It was amazing. It was
great
.”

“All right, what d’you see?”

“Well, we were watching the twelve-fifteen train come in, and this guy got off. Older guy, real dirty, messy beard. Wearing a coat without any buttons—he had to hold it closed—and the soles of his shoes were coming off, and Monsieur Bernard sees him, right?”

Julien swallowed.
Right.

“So he steps up to him like he’s a
gendarme
or something, like so”—she did a brisk military step, her face right in Julien’s—“‘What is your business in Tanieux?’” she said crisply. He could just hear the man.

“And the guy mumbles something in this accent, maybe Polish, and the Bernard guy’s about to give him his speech and a ticket back out, right? And then”—her eyes grew bright—“then old
père
Soulier steps up from beside this huge crate of cabbages he was shipping. He steps up and says, ‘Excuse me, Victor.’ Just like that—
Victor
—I didn’t know they knew each other that well! ‘Excuse me, Victor, he has business with me.’” Her laugh rang across the
place
. “And
Victor
does this complete double take—man, it was beautiful. Best thing I’ve seen all day.”

“Then what happened?” asked Benjamin, a fierce light in his eyes.

“
Père
Soulier says ‘He’s my guest’ and turns to the old Polish guy and says, ‘Monsieur, you will come. Come and eat with me today. Cabbage soup!’” She laughed again, happily. “Then he tells Bernard ‘Cross off my shipment,’ and Bernard says ‘How much were you going to get for it?’ And
père
Soulier says ‘Cross off my shipment,’ again. And the old guy’s standing there with tears in his eyes.”

“Then what happened?” whispered Julien.

“Bernard crossed off the shipment, that’s what. I guess he knows he’s up against more than just Pastor Alex now.” Her grin was fierce. “I saw Monsieur Faure and Monsieur Cholivet giving him dirty looks, and they helped
père
Soulier load up, and Monsieur Raissac took one of the sacks of potatoes he was shipping and just slung it on
père
Soulier’s cart without saying a word! Man.” She gave a huge sigh of satisfaction. “Let’s go have lunch.”

“Magali, was Henri there?”

“Yeah.” She frowned. “He was there, but I don’t know if he saw. I didn’t see him till they were all gone, and he was looking the other way. C’mon Julien. Let’s go.”

Looking the other way. Julien followed them down the street, slowly.

On Wednesday the wind rose; the
burle
come early this year, a promise of terrible cold. The French flag fluttered wildly in the icy wind, and the boys in their circle around it hunched and shivered; Henri’s jacket flapped and billowed against the hand he held hard over his heart. When the salute ended and the school doors opened, Julien paused a moment, watching. Henri Quatre had drifted away from his group and stood alone by the black stone wall, his hands in his pockets, looking out over the Tanne in the bitter cold.

“Julien,” said Papa, beckoning him into his office and shutting the door behind them. “There’s going to be an assembly at school today. I know they didn’t announce it. Now I want you to do what I say, Julien. Benjamin won’t be there today. And I want you not to tell him what you’ve heard.”

Julien blinked.

“If you have any questions about why, ask me at lunchtime.”

Julien nodded slowly. “Yes, sir.”

Gustav sat at the table staring at a piece of bread, his heart tight, trying to understand what had happened. Nina wouldn’t eat.

She wouldn’t
eat
.

She said she wasn’t hungry. She said he should eat it, he was going to live.

It was like Samuel hadn’t come to them, that terrible day in the train station, like none of it had happened. In her head, she was back in Lyon.

She knew they were hiding her. He told her it was only a
precaution
because of the stationmaster; she looked at him with flat, empty eyes and looked away.

Fräulein Pinatel had sent for Signora Losier. To talk to her. It was all she could think of. Gustav looked at her as she came in,
remembering
what she and Frau Alexandre had seemed to him: two
mothers
standing at the end of the road, with life in their hands for the taking. And saw that he’d been wrong. She was as lost as he was.

Nina did not turn her head when the door opened, but she saw her. The Italian woman. Here to make her eat. Make her live.

Make her die another day.

“Hello, Nina,” said Maria. “How are you?”

“Fine.” Nina did not move.

“You need to eat.”

“Go away.”

“I will not go away. You need to eat. You need to grow strong. I know you are afraid, but that is all the more reason why you need to eat.”

Nina turned her head and looked Maria full in the face. “You know I am afraid,” she said through her teeth. “
You know?
”

“Yes, Nina,” said Maria softly. “I know what it is to be afraid.”

Nina sat up and leaned toward her, her teeth bared. “You,” she spat. “You with your house, with your doors that lock”—she’d
broken
into Yiddish—“you tell me
you know?
Liar!” she shouted. “
Liar!
” She took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing herself to think of the words. This woman had to know what she had done. “You lie,” she said in Italian. “You say
sicura
. You say safe! I am not safe. Nowhere is safe, not for me. Nowhere.”
Everywhere there are evil men.

Maria closed her eyes. “I am sorry. You have a place here, Nina. Here in Tanieux.”

“You talk. Easy talk. You do not know.”

“I do know, Nina.”

“You know hunger? You know fear? Here in your house—with door, food, bed, light—you say you know? You know nothing,” she spat. “
You have never been alone.
”

Even the air in the room stopped moving. For a split and silent second their eyes were locked on each other, and the force of Maria’s anger hit Nina like a blow. “You do not know me,” said Maria between her teeth, and her voice cut the air like a whip. But Nina was already recoiling, as if she had been slapped.

There was silence. Nina looked into the woman’s eyes, felt a trembling in her belly.

“I have been alone,” said Maria quietly.

Nina dropped her eyes.

“No. Look at me.”

She raised them slowly.

“Nobody to help you. You sit on the floor. You don’t move. You don’t speak. You don’t look at anything. There is nobody to help you when the man comes with his gun.” Nina’s eyes were wide,
staring
at her. Behind them she felt the sting of tears. They were both shaking.

Their locked gaze broke. They dropped their eyes to the white bedspread. Nina held a fold of it clamped in her fist. Maria sat down on the bed.

“You?” Nina whispered.

“Yes.”

They looked at each other. Maria’s eyes were wide as if with fear.

“In the Great War. The first war. You know
war?
”

Nina nodded.

“I was in Italy. My village. Bassano del Grappa. A small farm. We were poor. It was like now—when the war came, there was no food.” Nina was very still. “My two brothers, they were soldiers. My father, my mother, they worked very hard without my brothers, so we could eat. I worked hard too. I was fourteen. You understand my Italian?”

Nina nodded.

“We worked hard, three years; we were hungry. My mother, she made me eat, she always gave me some of her food. We were thin. Then the war came to our village—the Austrian soldiers came.” Nina looked away and looked back; the two women’s eyes met, and understanding was in them. “We were afraid. But they did nothing bad to us. Except the worst thing: they took our food.”

Maria paused a moment, looking down; then she continued.

“That winter was terrible. Always my mother said, ‘I’m not
hungry
. You eat.’” Of course. Of course she had said that. “I don’t know how we lived.”

Maria took a deep trembling breath.

“In the spring,” she said, “the sun came back. It was warm. We planted an early garden, and we hoped. You know this word,
hope
?”

Nina nodded, her eyes never leaving Maria’s face.

“Spring. We start to hope—then we get the news. My brother Tomasso is killed. My mother cries and cries. Then more news. My brother Gino has been killed also—they think he has been killed, they do not know. They cannot find him—you understand? My mother stops crying.”
Yes. Yes. You stop crying. And then
…

“She doesn’t cry, she doesn’t talk, she doesn’t eat. Soon she is in bed with a fever. She was so thin. So weak—” Maria looked down, her throat laboring. “I was with her,” she whispered. “I watched her die.”

It came back so vividly—the wet sound in Father’s throat, his struggle to breathe. To whisper to her to run, fight, live. She had found him—in the morning—could she have borne it if she’d had to watch him, to hear every breath come harder than the last, feel him growing cold?
Oh, Father.

She had shut away the pain and obeyed him. She had shut away the pain, because deep inside she had known it would hurt this much.

“There was only me and my father. We worked as hard as we could to stay alive. I guided the plow, and he pulled it; all our
animals
were gone. He cried sometimes at night when he thought I was asleep. It was terrible to listen to. The soldiers came again, but there was no food for them to take. We should have left, but we didn’t know where to go. The soldiers came once more—running away, with the Italian Army after them. We hid in the cellar while the battle went over us. And then the war ended. We had hope again, but so tired. So tired.”