Genevieve's War Read online

  I closed my eyes, but thoughts of my father were in my head. I had a father who was grieving when his picture was taken. Now, I knew who’d probably betrayed him, and the rest of the village would know it eventually.

  Her father would have been proud of her.

  Hours later, I felt the light coming from the window on my face, a slim lemon drop of sun coming up over the field, and the sound of Fürst’s motorcycle pulling away on the gravel path. I fell asleep again, dreaming that I heard voices in the kitchen.

  But at last, I awoke. It was time for school. Time to act as if nothing had happened for all those days, except that I had burned my feet.

  Mémé put a small chunk of bread in front of me. I knew it would taste like sawdust. Everyone was doing that now, sprinkling bits of sawdust into the batter so there’d be more to eat. “Put a slice of cheese on top and it will improve the flavor,” she said.

  I looked at her carefully. Was she crying? “What is it?”

  She swiped at her eyes. “Dust. Nothing.” She pulled out the chair across from me. “There’s something I want to tell you.” Her hands were stretched out.

  She unwrapped the bandage around her finger, looked down at her ring, then pulled it off. “You have been a gift, Genevieve.”

  “I disrupted your house, your life, and all I wanted to do was help.”

  She took my hand and put the worn ring in my palm.

  I looked down at it, a slim gold band, her wedding ring. “Why?” Shocked, I ran my fingers over it. “I can’t—”

  “There is no one but you.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not the way I want to say it. I want to give you something of mine. You’ve brought Gérard back to me with everything you’ve done. And someday, when I’m gone . . .”

  “Don’t say that,” I said fiercely.

  “I don’t mean now.” She smiled. “You’ll understand soon.”

  She went to the cabinet and took out a thin chain. “Wear it around your neck. It will remind you of me and Victor, your grandfather.” She ran her fingers over it. “We always knew each other, always loved each other. One half of this farm belonged to my parents, the other half to his. When we were married, it was ours. We’d run through the field, sit on the stone wall, so happy.”

  She sighed. “He’d always had trouble with his heart, and one day, just after Gérard was born, he died, coming downstairs for breakfast.”

  She shook her head and threaded the ring into the chain; then I reached for my coat.

  “Wear the blue sweater too,” she said. “It’s cold.”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, something else,” she said. “You must stop at Philippe’s on the way to school.”

  “I’m a little late, I think.”

  “Never mind.” Her voice was stern. “You must go there first.”

  I held up my hand. “All right.” I reached forward, pulled her to me and whispered, “It’s the best gift I’ve ever had, Miel. I do love you.”

  “I’ll remember that always.” She patted my shoulder. I left the house and ran along the path toward Katrin’s, but she had gone ahead.

  It really was late.

  I reached the village and saw Philippe in the doorway, beckoning to me.

  “School,” I said. “I have to—”

  “Not today.”

  I glanced toward the road, toward the pâtisserie.

  “Come inside, and I’ll tell you what we need.” He lumbered ahead of me as I followed him inside. “You’ll go to the tower and wait for the courier,” he said. “You’ll help him find the house.”

  “It’s on the road,” I said. “Straight past the tower. He won’t be able to miss it.”

  He looked up at the stopped clock. “Ah, American, you have to do this. You’ll take my bike and leave it behind the tower.”

  Philippe was right. I had to do it for Rémy. It was my last chance to say good-bye to him. I nodded. “Yes.”

  He didn’t smile, but there was something in his face; I couldn’t imagine what it was. “I want to tell you . . . ,” he began. “Such a long time ago. But because you are so like the two of them, your grandmother and your father, I wanted you to know that no one was braver, that no two were ever dearer to me.”

  Philippe. Tears in his eyes!

  “You saved my father, Mémé told me that.”

  “Ah yes, but she didn’t tell you that they saved me as well?”

  I shook my head. And I was crying too.

  “I had gone alone,” he said. “Spying on the garrison, looking for information, and someone saw me in the shadows. I ran through the alley, out into the fields, as they fired after me.”

  Listening, I couldn’t move. I could hardly breathe.

  “Shooting me. I lay there bleeding, just as your father had. The two of them came out of the trees, into the line of fire, and pulled me, unable to move, back to where I was hidden. If you could have seen Élise, her hair wild around her face, her face filthy, and your father. Such a wonderful boy.”

  A boy! I wiped at my eyes.

  He smiled, patted my shoulder. “Ah, Genevieve, the memories. But wait, there’s a package. Give it to the courier when you see him.”

  “How will I know who he is?”

  He waved his hand. “I’ve described you to him. He’ll be waiting for you.” He handed me a box the size of a book, tied with string, and walked to the back of the shop. “A last thing.”

  I looked up at him.

  “Upstairs in my apartment is a small pile of books, hidden deep in a closet. American books with your name.”

  “With my name?”

  “They wait for you there until . . .”

  “But how . . .”

  “Albert found them just as the war began and knew they might be dangerous for you. We couldn’t bring ourselves to destroy them even though they’d been rain-soaked.”

  He peered outside to be sure no one was there. “Go.” He pointed to his bicycle.

  I straddled it and dropped the box in the basket on the handlebars. Head down, I cycled along the alley, passing the boarded-up pharmacy, out onto the road, away from the village and on my way to the tower.

  thirty-one

  It was a sunny morning with the promise of spring, and Philippe’s bicycle was much better than mine.

  I raised one hand to finger Mémé’s ring on the chain around my neck, feeling its warmth. If only the Germans were gone. If only I weren’t hungry.

  But I was glad for Rémy. In hours he’d be on his way to Switzerland, where there was no war, where he wouldn’t have to hide, to look over his shoulder and worry. He’d be with his mother and sister.

  Halfway to the tower, a long convoy of trucks began to fill the road. I veered to one side, bumping along under the trees, and waited for the motors to pass. A motorcycle threaded its way around the trucks, and I saw the driver look up.

  I held my breath.

  He saw me and came toward me.

  I was trapped; the trees in back of me were thick and I’d never get the bike through them.

  No time to run.

  And the box was in the basket in front of me.

  What was in it? How could I explain?

  “Fraülein!” He stopped and gave me the Hitler salute. I looked down at the patches of melting snow, the dark soil.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Going to my aunt’s house. Bringing her . . .”

  He looked at the box.

  I couldn’t say food. He might take it. “Bringing her . . . ,” I began again. “A book. From my grandmother. An old book.”

  He stared at me for what seemed to be forever. “You’re lying,” he said. “You’re skipping school for the day. Food in the box?” He flicked his finger at it.

  I acted as if I were trying not to smile, as if I really might be skipping school, enjoying a day in the woods.

  “I used to do that,” he said. “Long ago.”

  Then he was gone, and the convoy as w
ell.

  And I was all right.

  I sped along the road, watching the sun rise higher. The courier was waiting. And Rémy.

  The tower was in front of me. I pedaled around the side, leaned the bicycle against the stone wall and stood there with the package under my arm.

  I saw the courier, carrying a small suitcase. His back was toward me; he was tall, his dark hair curly . . .

  “I’m here.” My voice was so choked I wondered if he could hear me. “André!”

  He turned and I held out the box. “I think I have your sweater.”

  And then I was crying, not small tears but huge sobs, as André came toward me and wrapped his arms around me. “You’re going home, Gen.”

  Aunt Marie. The whistle of the train coming into the Higbie Avenue station at night. Oh, home.

  I raised my hands in the air. “How?” And then I saw he was wearing a German uniform.

  I stepped back.

  “Stolen,” he said. “You and Rémy will be my prisoners as we take the train toward Switzerland. We’ll walk the rest of the way. There are friends who’ll help. Remember the restaurants where I worked. They haven’t forgotten me.”

  I kept shaking my head. “You’ll be caught.”

  He pulled me closer. “I never went home, Gen. I’ve been here all this time, bringing people out, because a man named Albert taught me the way.”

  Herr Albert.

  “And you left your sweater . . .”

  “Yes.”

  And then we were laughing, because it was probably the only time in his life he’d left something. He always knew what he was doing. I was the Flyaway Girl, not André.

  “I’ve heard about you and what you’ve done,” he said, his voice catching. Holding hands, we made our way along the small path through the woods to the bluegray house and to Rémy.

  “But Mémé. She’ll wonder . . .”

  “She knows,” he said. “Someone went to her early this morning and asked . . .”

  The ring! Oh, Mémé!

  We smiled at each other.

  Going home.

  thirty-two

  The three of us sat in the dingy kitchen of the blue-gray house, a torn map spread out on the table.

  André traced the route with one finger.

  “Strasbourg,” he said, “then Colmar. Going south all the time. I have papers for the three of us. It will take weeks, but sometimes we’ll be able to sleep in friendly houses, sometimes eat at friendly tables.”

  I couldn’t stop looking at him. He’d grown taller, thinner, and there was the shadow of a beard on his chin.

  My brother.

  He grinned at Rémy. “The suitcase. Clean clothes.”

  We waited while Rémy washed himself under a pump in the sink and went into another room to change. We talked, not about Alsace, not about the war. We remembered ice cream sodas at Krisch’s, Jones Beach in the summer and stickball on 185th Street outside our house.

  I said our father’s name, Gérard. We had a father who would have loved us. He did love us. And maybe André was old enough to remember him, to know that.

  But there was no time. Rémy was ready.

  And so were we.

  We walked through the woods, listening to water dripping from tree branches, watching birds fly overhead, going south too.

  We stopped dozens of times, to drink from a jug slung around André’s shoulder, the sounds of trucks and motorcycles on the road just feet away from us.

  I’d be going home to Springfield Gardens, where neighbors could be trusted, where Resistance fighters were far away, where no one had ever heard of a German soldier named Fürst.

  I looked at the Vosges Mountains rising up in the west, pictured the village square, the school, the farm, Katrin, Louis, the cat . . .

  And Mémé.

  Mémé, who knew I was going home, who’d given me her ring so I’d always have it.

  Then Philippe: You saved Albert’s life.

  I stopped, leaning against a tree, the bark thick and damp against my hands.

  André turned. “What is it?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  But it was something. It was everything.

  Mémé would have to plant in the field alone, to be in the farmhouse alone, to explain to Fürst that I was at a cousin’s or had run away like Louis.

  Gérard’s mother.

  My grandmother.

  I began to walk again, stumbled and caught myself.

  “Gen?” André asked.

  Philippe’s voice in my head. We could use more like you.

  I shook my head and reached between the buttons of my coat to feel the nubby warmth of the blue sweater.

  My Americans would come someday. They’d fight their way across France, and then Alsace, to push the Germans back across the Rhine.

  Would I be sitting on a stool at Krisch’s ice cream parlor, spooning up a hot fudge sundae?

  I glanced at Rémy, who was trudging along. “Wait,” I said. “Just for a minute. Let’s say good-bye here.”

  He looked surprised. “We still have a long way to go.”

  “A long way,” I echoed. I put my arms around him. “I’ll never forget . . .” I couldn’t finish.

  He put his hand on my cheek.

  I knew he couldn’t talk either.

  thirty-three

  I stepped back. “André?”

  We hadn’t seen each other in so long, but still he knew what I was thinking. “You don’t have to do this, Gen. We’ll get you to Switzerland, and then England, and . . .” He didn’t say the word home.He waited, his hand gripping my shoulder.

  “Mémé,” I said. “Philippe. And you, still here.”

  He leaned over to hold me for a moment. “The Americans will come,” he said.

  “I’ll be waiting for them.” I touched his cheek, ran my hand over Rémy’s arm and turned back.

  “Take Philippe’s bicycle,” André said.

  “What are you doing, Genevieve?” Rémy asked.

  “Going back,” I said, over my shoulder, trying to smile.

  “Flyaway Girl,” André called after me.

  And Rémy’s voice. “No one like her.”

  I darted through the trees, along the narrow path, my coat snagging on evergreen branches, going toward the tower. The bicycle lay where I’d left it, the metal bars cold and muddy. I wiped them off, and then I was on my way back to the farm.

  A freezing rain began, with stinging pellets of ice that quickly settled into a feathery snow.

  I’d been so close to going home to America!

  What would Mémé say when she saw me? I pictured her in the kitchen, thin as a rail, turning as I opened the door, my boots dripping snow.

  Would she be glad to see me? I had to smile. No, her bony hands would go to her mouth. “What have you done this time, Genevieve?”

  But I knew her now, loved her now.

  I’d go toward her . . .

  So I wasn’t thinking. I never saw the truck until the horn blasted. The tires screeched as it slid away from me, hitting the rear of the bike.

  I was thrown forward into the trees, hitting my head, but up in an instant, leaving the bike, its back wheel twisted, and running, my legs churning, dodging evergreens.

  The soldiers were out of the truck, shouting at me, but I didn’t stop. I glanced over my shoulder, but I couldn’t see more than a foot in back of me.

  And they couldn’t see me either.

  I sank down behind a bare chestnut tree, listening. After a while, I heard the motor start up and the truck pull away.

  Still, I waited a long time, taking in huge breaths of the cold air, shivering, before I stumbled over the ruined bike. What would Philippe say? I’d have to leave it.

  I’d have to walk.

  How far?

  It didn’t make any difference. Even if it took forever, I was going back to the farm, back to Mémé, back to do whatever I could do for the Resistance.

  I sang in
an off-key warbling voice under my breath. French songs. American songs. And then . . .

  A sound I hadn’t heard in a long time.

  The clopping of a horse’s feet, the rattling of an old cart! I peered through the snow. An old man, wearing a beret, held the reins.

  A beret. Amazing. Risking six months in prison.

  I caught my breath. It was one of the men from the village, Katrin’s grandfather.

  I didn’t think. I didn’t have to think! I ran toward him, slid toward him through the slush, calling.

  He pulled up on the reins, turned, and I climbed up on the wooden plank next to him. “Please,” I said, “a ride.”

  He looked across at me, his sparse beard covered with snow. “Katrin’s friend, is it? What are you doing out in this weather?”

  I opened my mouth, ready to tell him all that had happened. Then I did think. “I was looking for a friend. Martine,” I said, instantly making up the name. “I didn’t know how far. And then I was lost . . .” I went on, a long story about the woods, and that I’d have to try again in the spring.

  Did he believe me? It wasn’t a very good story. I asked him, “And you?”

  His story was rambling. Even more unbelievable than mine. I leaned back in the wagon, smiling to myself. Who knew what he’d really been doing?

  I closed my eyes, feeling the rocking of the cart. What a long day it had been. And André, here all this time, until the end of the war, just as I was. Not safe, but then none of us were.

  I must have slept. I awoke to feel the old man shaking my shoulder. “You’re home,” he said.

  I looked across at the farm, the white field, the stone house, dark with the blackout curtains. Mémé’s house. My father’s house.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” I said, noticing that the beret was hidden away now.

  We grinned at each other. We both knew we had secrets!

  I climbed off the cart, and then I was running up the gravel path, banging on the locked door, Louis barking. I couldn’t wait now. Banging, as I saw Mémé peer out the window!

  Oh no! I saw her mouth the words.

  She’d be furious. Why not? She was Mémé.

  But the door opened, and she pulled me toward her, one hand reaching up to smooth my wet hair. “Ah, Genevieve,” she said. “How is it that I knew you’d come?”