Noah's Child

For my friend Pierre Perelmuter,
whose story, partly,
inspired this book

In memory of Abbé André,
curate of the parish of Saint-Jean-Baptiste
in Namur,
and of all the Righteous among the Nations

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

One

W
hen I was ten years old I was among a group of children put up for auction every Sunday.

We weren't sold: we were asked to file across a stage in the hopes of finding a taker. Our own parents, finally back from war, could have been in the audience, or perhaps a couple who wanted to adopt us.

Every Sunday I stepped on to the boards, hoping I would be recognized or, failing that, chosen.

Every Sunday, in that covered courtyard at the Villa Jaune, I had ten paces in which to show myself, ten paces in which to secure a family, ten paces to stop being an orphan. The first few steps were no trouble, I was propelled on to that stage by my impatience, but I flagged halfway across, and my calves laboured painfully to cover the last metre. The far end was like the edge of a diving board, with only emptiness beyond. An abyss of silence. Somewhere
in those rows of heads, those hats and partings and chignons, a voice was meant to cry ‘My son!' or ‘He's the one! He's the one I want! I'll adopt him!' Clenching my toes and straining my whole body in anticipation of this cry which would save me from abandonment, I double-checked that I looked my best.

I had been up since dawn, leaping from the dormitory to the cold basins where I scoured my skin with a bar of rock-hard green soap that was slow to soften and miserly with its lather. I had already straightened my hair a dozen times to ensure it did as it was told. My Sunday-best blue suit was now too narrow at the shoulders and too short in the arm and the leg so I huddled inside the rough fabric to disguise the fact that I had grown.

We found it hard to tell whether the waiting beforehand was a pleasure or torture; preparing ourselves to make a leap without knowing what sort of landing lay ahead. Maybe we would die a death? Maybe we would be cheered?

Of course, my shoes didn't help. Two bits of mushy cardboard, with more holes than substance. Great gaps tied over with raffia. A well-ventilated design, open to the cold and the wind and even to my own toes, these boots only resisted the rain now that
they were encrusted with several layers of filth; I couldn't take the risk of cleaning them for fear they would fall apart. The only indication that my shoes actually were shoes was the fact I wore them on my feet. If I had held them in my hand I can guarantee people would have kindly shown me to the bin. Perhaps I should have stuck to the clogs I wore during the week? Mind you, the visitors to the Villa Jaune wouldn't be able to see them from down below the stage. And even if they could, surely I wasn't going to be turned down for a pair of shoes! Hadn't Léonard the carrot-top found his parents even though he filed past barefoot?

‘You can go back to the refectory, my little Joseph.'

Every Sunday my hopes died with those words. Father Pons gently implied that, yet again, today wasn't the day, and I had to leave the stage.

About turn. Ten paces and you disappear. Ten paces and you're back to the pain. Ten paces and you're an orphan again. The next child was already hovering at the other end of the stage. My ribs crushed in on my heart.

‘Do you think I can do it, Father?'

‘Do what, my boy?'

‘Find some parents.'

‘
Some
parents! I hope
your
parents have escaped danger and will turn up soon.'

I exhibited myself without success so often I ended up feeling it was my fault. Actually, they were the ones taking too long to come. To come back. But could they really help it? Were they still alive?

The war had now been over for some weeks, and the time for any hopes and illusions had come to an end along with it. Those of us left, the hidden children, had to face reality and find out − with a brutality that felt like a blow to the head − whether we were still part of a family or were alone in the world.

I was ten years old. Three years earlier my parents had entrusted me to strangers.

Two

I
t all started in a tram.

Maman and I were travelling across Brussels, sitting at the back of a yellow carriage that spat sparks as the tram trundled on with its metallic roar. I thought it was the sparks from the roof that made us go faster. I was on my mother's lap, wrapped in her sweet smell, snuggled against her fox-fur collar, speeding through that grey city. I was only seven years old but I was king of the world. Step aside! Make way! Cars parted, horses panicked, pedestrians fled as the driver transported my mother and me like royalty.

Don't ask me what my mother looked like: how do you describe the sun? Maman radiated warmth, strength and joy. I remember the effect she had rather than her features. When I was with her I could laugh, and nothing terrible could ever happen to me.

So when some German soldiers got on I wasn't worried. I just pretended to have lost my tongue because I had an agreement with my parents: they were afraid Yiddish would give me away so, as soon as a grey-green uniform or a leather coat came near, I didn't speak a word. By then, in 1942, we were supposed to wear yellow stars but my father, skilled tailor that he was, had found a way of making our coats so we could tuck away the star and produce it when necessary. My mother called them our ‘shooting stars': there one moment, gone the next.

While the men chatted, paying no attention to us, I could feel my mother tensing and shaking. Was it instinctive? Did she hear some telltale sentence?

She stood up, put her hand to my mouth and, at the next stop, bundled me down the steps.

Out on the pavement, I asked, ‘But we're not home yet! Why've we stopped here?'

‘We're going for a bit of a stroll, Joseph. All right?'

Well, I wanted whatever my mother wanted, even though I struggled to keep up with her on my seven-year-old legs, because she was suddenly walking so much more quickly and sharply than usual.

On the way she suggested, ‘We're going to go and see a really big lady, would you like that?'

‘Yes. Who?'

‘The Comtesse de Sully.'

‘Is she as fat as the butcher's wife?'

‘What ever made you say that, Joseph?' she scolded.

‘Well, you said she was really big . . .'

‘Oh,' she smiled, ‘I meant she was a noblewoman.'

‘A what?'

While she explained that somebody noble was of high birth, descended from a very old family and commanded a great deal of respect simply because of their nobility, she led me to a magnificent private residence and took me into the hall where we were greeted by servants.

I was disappointed, however, because the woman who came over to us wasn't at all what I had imagined; although she came from an ‘old' family, the Comtesse de Sully looked very young, and despite being a ‘big' lady of ‘high' birth, she was hardly taller than I was.

They spoke quickly and quietly, then my mother kissed me and asked me to wait there until she came back.

The small, young, disappointing Comtesse took me to her drawing room where she offered me tea and cakes, and played the piano for me. Given the
height of the ceilings, the generosity of the tea and the sheer beauty of the music, I was prepared to reconsider my assessment and, sinking comfortably into a luxurious armchair, I conceded that she was after all a ‘big lady'.

She stopped playing, looked at the clock with a sigh and came over to me, her forehead furrowed by some concern.

‘Joseph, I don't know whether you'll understand what I'm going to tell you but, by family tradition, I cannot hide the truth from a child.'

This might be a custom for the nobility, but why was she making me a part of it? Did she think that I was noble? Was I, actually? Me, noble? Maybe . . . Why not? If, like her, it meant not being big or old, then I was in with a chance.

‘Joseph, you and your parents are in serious danger. Your mother heard some people saying there were going to be arrests in your neighbourhood. She's gone to warn your father and as many friends as she can. She's left you here with me, so that you're safe. I hope she'll come back. Yes, I really hope she comes back.'

Well, I would rather not be noble every day: the truth hurt.

‘Maman always comes back. Why wouldn't she?'

‘She might be arrested by the police.'

‘What's she done?'

‘She hasn't done anything. She's . . .' The Comtesse heaved a long plaintive sigh that made her pearls clink softly. Her eyes filled with tears.

‘She's what?' I asked.

‘She's a Jew.'

‘'Course she is. We're all Jews in my family. Me too, you know.'

And because I was right she kissed me on both cheeks.

‘What about you, are you a Jew?' I asked.

‘No. I'm Belgian.'

‘Like me.'

‘Yes, like you. And I'm a Christian,' she added.

‘Is Christian the opposite of Jew?'

‘The opposite of Jew is Nazi.'

‘Don't they arrest Christians?'

‘No.'

‘So is it better to be Christian?'

‘It depends. Come on, Joseph, I'll show you round the house while we wait for your mother to come back.'

‘There! You see, she
will
come back!'

The Comtesse de Sully took my hand and led me up the staircases that soared up through the floors, and I gazed at vases and paintings and suits of armour. In her bedroom I found an entire wall filled with dresses on hangers. We were surrounded by clothes and thread and fabric at home in Schaerbeek too.

‘Are you a tailor like Papa?'

She laughed.

‘No. I buy the clothes that people like your daddy make. They have to work for someone, don't they?'

I nodded but didn't tell the Comtesse that she can't have chosen her clothes from us because I had never seen such beautiful things in Papa's workshop, the embroidered velvets and lustrous silks, the lace cuffs and buttons that glittered like jewels.

The Comte came home and, when the Comtesse had explained the situation to him, he took a good look at me.

Now, he was much more how I pictured a nobleman: tall, thin, old − at least, his moustache made him look venerable. He eyed me from such a great height that I realized the ceilings must have been raised for his sake.

‘Come and have supper with us, my child.'

He had a nobleman's voice, I was sure of that! A thick, solid, deep voice, the same colour as the candlelit bronze statues around us.

During the meal I politely carried on with the obligatory conversation even though I was still consumed by the whole question of class. Was I noble, or not? If the de Sullys were prepared to help me and take me into their home, was it because I was in some way related to them? And therefore noble?