Genevieve's War Read online

  “One more thing.” Mémé spoke as if the words were being forced out of her. “Louis must go.”

  “Please, no.” He was under the table, his muzzle on my instep. “He’ll be quiet. He’s such a good dog, so gentle.”

  She peered up at the ceiling as if she could see the German officer on the second floor. “The dog needs to be safe.” She hesitated. “I would take him, but I don’t want you alone here with the German.”

  “Louis loves us.”

  She raised one hand to stop my words. “You’ll go through the field, over the wall, and find Jean, the woodcutter. He’s a kind man. He’ll keep Louis close so he can’t come back to us. Maybe someday . . .”

  I was crying again. Everyone I loved was disappearing, everyone was flying away.

  I went to the door, and Louis followed me outside, almost as if he understood what was happening.

  Tonight there was only a sliver of moon. I hesitated until my eyes became used to the shape of the field and the forest beyond. We walked slowly, Louis leading me now, until we crossed the low stone wall.

  I stopped, hearing voices. I reached for Louis’s collar, but my fingers slid along his back and he kept going.

  “It’s the Michels’ dog,” someone said.

  I knew the voice.

  The woodcutter answered, “Yes, his name is Louis.”

  I went forward to see Rémy crouched on the ground, petting the dog. The woodcutter turned as he heard me.

  “My grandmother asked if you would take Louis for us,” I said.

  “A good dog. But why?”

  “A German officer is going to stay at the house. He doesn’t like dogs, and we’re afraid . . .” I couldn’t finish.

  Rémy looked up at me, his eyes burning. “What kind of a man dislikes dogs?”

  The woodcutter put his broad hand on my shoulder. “Tell Elise . . . . Tell your grandmother . . .” He shook his head. “She’ll know.” He reached for Louis’s collar.

  “I’ll bring back food for him,” I said.

  He waved his hand. “No need, I’ll take care of him.” Then it was almost as if he and the dog melted into the trees, in front of me one moment, gone the next.

  “I’m sorry, Gen,” Rémy said. “Really sorry you’re not back in your New York.” He smiled. “But think how lucky you are to be at your grandmother’s beautiful farm.”

  I had to smile too. I lifted one hand, then went across the wall to Mémé, wondering what Rémy was doing there.

  A few days later I was on my way to meet Katrin for school when the German officer cornered me at the end of the path. “Where’s the dog, Fraülein?”

  I stared at the ground. Mémé and I should have decided what to say to him, but we’d never thought he’d be interested enough to ask.

  Digging my toe into the gravel, I tried to think. “He ran away.”

  “An old dog like that?”

  “He does that sometimes.”

  “Then he’ll be back.”

  “I don’t know.”

  But he’d lost interest in Louis and me. He straddled his motorcycle and sped away.

  Katrin waited for me at her gate, ready to talk, but I raised my hand, saying, “Wait,” while I thought about how I’d tell her what had happened.

  We kept going, but finally I held up my hand again. “Listen.” I was almost whispering.

  Katrin turned, her head close to mine. “What is it?”

  By the time we saw the school, I’d told her everything I could think of: the attic room, the painting, Louis.

  I wondered what Mémé would say if she knew. But she wouldn’t know. Katrin would keep our secret, I was sure of it.

  RESISTANCE

  thirteen

  It was hard to concentrate in school. My thoughts wandered to the German officer, who would be looking over our shoulders all the time now, to Louis, who used to pad up to my bedroom at night. I made myself think of happier things: my father’s carving, Rémy’s smile. I grinned to myself, picturing Tiger, the three-colored cat who reminded me a little of Mémé with her suspicious eyes, her unfriendly face.

  At last, it was time to go home. Katrin and I reached the square and saw soldiers in front of the bookshop. Monsieur Philippe came outside with a pile of books in his arms. He dropped them in the street and went back for more.

  “French books,” Katrin whispered.

  Soldiers drenched them with a can of something—turpentine, maybe—and threw a match onto the pile. Philippe stood there talking with them as flames shot up, devouring the books. He kicked one farther into the fire; the pages curled up, lighted and were gone. Didn’t he care?

  One of the soldiers elbowed him, laughing, and Philippe said, “Enough of the French, eh?”

  I couldn’t watch anymore. “Let’s go,” I told Katrin.

  At the end of the square, I glanced down the alley to see Rémy with a piece of chalk in his hand. He drew lines on the stone, then disappeared toward the back of the pharmacy. “What was he doing?”

  “Drawing the Cross of Lorraine.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  “It’s a symbol from the medieval days. Free France!” She frowned. “If you look, you’ll see it everywhere. The Germans can’t bear it. They’re making people wash it off, or paint over it. And if they ever catch anyone doing it, there’ll be trouble, arrests and maybe worse.”

  Why had Rémy taken such a chance?

  We walked the rest of the way, both of us quiet. I left her at her gate and crossed the wall. There was just enough ink in my pen to draw the cross on one of the stones.

  Free France.

  Mémé was in the kitchen, her left finger bandaged, covering her ring. She must have heard about the new rules. “I won’t take it off,” she said fiercely.

  I slid into the chair across from her.

  “The Germans came today. They’ve taken the cow.” She spread her hands wide. “The hens too.”

  I felt the tears that had been threatening all day.

  “They’ve left almost nothing,” she said.

  “The bicycles?”

  “Still there.”

  “They were too old, too rusty, I guess.”

  Mémé stood, leaning on the table for a moment, then went to the counter. “Vegetable soup. At least we’ll have that. And the potatoes and apples are still in the cellar rooms.”

  The German came in then, without knocking. “Soup? I’ll trouble you for some too.”

  How would we ever retrieve the food behind the armoire? The German, whose name we knew now was Fürst, appeared when we least expected him. We watched at the windows for him; still, he managed to surprise us. We had to be careful of everything we did, everything we said.

  That evening, Mémé and I went to our room early. We locked the door and pulled the radio out from its hiding place under a pile of quilts, turning it on just loud enough to catch the solemn voice of the newscaster. The news had been terrible all year: so many countries had fallen to the Germans.

  Before we had time to listen, a sudden boom rattled the windowpanes. In one motion, Mémé pulled back the quilt and I flew to the window, Mémé right behind me. Beyond the village was a glow of orange, almost as if the sun had risen.

  Fürst’s boots clumped down the stairs and stopped. Mémé threw the quilt over the radio, but he kept going through the hall and into the kitchen. The outside door slammed, and the motorcycle roared as he sped toward the village.

  “What is it?” I asked, but Mémé shook her head.

  We watched the glow soften and eventually disappear. We went back to bed, but not to sleep until the night was almost over.

  “What do you think happened?” I asked Katrin the next morning.

  “My brother, Karl, told me. They blew up the railway station and ruined as much of the tracks as they could.”

  I thought of the station, the pigeons flying overhead, the crêpes dotted with sugar. “Why would the Germans do that?”

  She raised h
er eyebrows. “Are you five years old? It was the French, trying to stop the Germans from deporting people, from drafting Alsatian men to fight for them. The Resistance!”

  It was the first time I’d heard that word.

  We stopped at the square. Even this far from the station, smoke hung in the air with a strong smell of burning, almost like licorice. Soldiers rushed back and forth.

  Outside the school, we waited for the principal to call us inside, hearing the word Resistance again and again, and another word, sabotage.

  In our history class, Herr Albert called the roll, staring at each one of us as he said our names. “If anyone knows about the fire, he must tell, otherwise he will be as guilty as the saboteurs.”

  My heart thumped. He made me feel as if I were in danger, even though I didn’t know anything about it. I was glad to escape from his room and go to the science laboratory, where the teacher filled bottles with different-colored water that seemed to be useless.

  That afternoon, Mémé sat in the rocker knitting socks. “Rémy’s father has been arrested,” she said. “He’s been taken to Shirmeck prison. Clara Moeller stopped by to tell me.”

  I could hardly breathe. “What about Rémy’s mother and his little sister, Cécile?”

  “They were lucky. A courier will take them to Switzerland.”

  I could hardly get the word out. “Rémy?”

  “Missing. If they find him . . .”

  I thought of the Cross of Lorraine, and Rémy at the woodcutter’s the other day. Was he there now?

  The door opened and Fürst came in. “It’s snowing,” he said in a pleasant voice.

  Mémé turned away from him, and I pretended I didn’t see him go toward the coal stove and bend over it. I knew it was cold and empty.

  “You’ll have to use more fuel, Frau Meyer,” he said, using our new German name. “Don’t hoard it. We’ll all be sick from the drafts.”

  Mémé’s back stiffened.

  He saw my eyes. He must have known I hated him. There wasn’t enough coal to last the winter. But what did he care? He wanted to be warm now. And later? Maybe he’d find somewhere else to stay. I could only hope that.

  He went up to the bedroom, and Mémé laid her knitting on the table. “I wouldn’t ask this . . .”

  “You don’t have to ask. I’m going to the woodcutter’s to look for Rémy.”

  “Go now. Go carefully, though. It’s cold and windy.”

  I wrapped my coat and one of her old scarves around me and left the house without a sound. Outside, the snow was beginning to cover the ground. I ran, slipping and sliding across the field. I didn’t see the low stone wall and went headlong across it. The fall took my breath, and my knees burned, beginning to bleed.

  I could almost hear Mémé’s voice. “I told you.”

  I scrambled up. The wind was biting my face, closing my eyes so the world was hidden and everything was disappearing. I peered ahead. How could I find my way to the woodcutter’s small house buried in the trees?

  fourteen

  The woodcutter came forward, his footsteps silent. Louis bounded toward me, his fur covered with snow, his tail waving. I leaned against him, running my hand over his head and his back. So much had happened since he’d slept at the foot of my bed.

  I took a chance. “Is Rémy with you?” I whispered. “Is he all right?” If only I could see him smiling at me, or touching my shoulder.

  The woodcutter bent his head close to mine. “He can’t stay here safely for long.” He took a breath. “His arm was burned enough to worry about infection. The Germans will be watching for that. He’ll have to disappear.” He shook his head. “The poor boy: his father gone, his mother and sister taking that dangerous trip to Switzerland. Even the pharmacy has been shuttered. All the medicines belong to the Germans now.”

  Oh, Rémy. But I knew what we had to do. Somehow we’d bring him to the house, help him across the roof and into that small attic room. “We’ll take him as soon as the German sleeps,” I said.

  No matter what, I’d see Rémy again!

  The woodcutter held Louis’s collar, and I turned to stumble back over the low stone wall and crossed the field.

  The German officer stood in the kitchen, leaning against the table, his coat over his shoulders. “Where have you been?”

  “I told you—” Mémé began, but he raised his hand.

  “Let the girl tell me herself.”

  What had she told him? What could I say?

  I barely said anything. “The snow, lovely—” I began, and broke off. “I’m going to be sick.” Hand to my mouth, I rushed past him, down the hall, and closed the bedroom door.

  It was the best I could do.

  Moments later, Mémé came into the room. “You never cease to surprise me, Genevieve.”

  I didn’t tell her that I’d fallen and scraped my knees against the wall. I thought of that stone with its Cross of Lorraine, and no way to erase it. She’d say, “You don’t think!”

  I sat on the bed and, lips hardly moving, told her what the woodcutter had said.

  She stared at the window, nodding.

  I went to the half-opened bedroom door and stood, listening, until we were sure Fürst slept. The wait was endless.

  “Something else to think about. We need a signal.” Mémé worried her forehead with her bandaged finger. “Your father’s carved cat!”

  I remembered! One leg shorter than the other, wire whiskers. Christmas was coming in just a few days. Another Christmas!

  “If it’s safe, I’ll hang the cat in the window,” she said.

  I nodded. I’d look for it.

  It was almost midnight when I went back across the field; the snow had stopped and a misty moon gleamed overhead. The woodcutter was there waiting to lead me to his house.

  Rémy lay on a cot, his eyes closed. He started up as he heard me whisper his name. “Gen!” He tried to smile, and I touched his hand, so glad to see him, but frightened about the terrible danger we were all in.

  “Play with fire,” he began the old saying, “you’re going to get burned.”

  I swallowed. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Really . . .”

  “My father was betrayed,” he said. “But who was it?”

  There was anger in the woodcutter’s voice. “We can’t be sure of anyone.”

  Almost Mémé’s exact words.

  We left quickly, the woodcutter holding Louis’s collar and talking gently to the crying dog.

  Crossing the field, I watched our window. The cat wasn’t there. I saw movement: Fürst, walking around the table.

  I put my arms around Rémy to steady him and we sank down in the wet snow to wait. It was almost dawn, both of us shivering, when Fürst banged out of the house. I saw him kick at Tiger, who snarled and raced around the side of the house. Then Fürst straddled his motorcycle and left.

  I despised him.

  Mémé was at the window, hanging the cat; its wire whiskers caught the light. Her hand was raised, beckoning.

  “Now,” I told Rémy. We stumbled to our feet and walked across the rest of the field. Inside, Mémé slid a jar of water into my pocket for him. “A small bathroom behind the eaves,” she whispered.

  We took the stairs, one slow step at a time to my bedroom.

  Flakes of snow swirled on the sill as I raised the window. “We have to go out there,” I said. “It won’t be easy.”

  “It’s all right,” he whispered.

  We climbed the slippery roof together. It was much harder than the first time I’d done it. But at last, we were in that dusty room.

  Rémy slid down on the straw mattress. “Thank you, Gen.” His eyes closed, and he was asleep. I watched him, his fine eyelashes, his eyes moving slightly below the lids. He mumbled something—was it planting?

  I remembered he wanted to be a farmer, to have his own field, like the one we’d seen that summer day.

  How tired I was! The night was over and I hadn’t slept. I couldn’t wait to g
o downstairs and throw myself into bed.

  But first, I worked off his boots and threw my coat over him, seeing that the burn on his arm was covered with torn rags.

  I bent to touch my father’s initials, thinking how strange it was that they comforted me. I ran my hand over the pillowcase that held the painting; it was streaked with dust. The painting shouldn’t have been here.

  So many things that shouldn’t have been.

  I climbed down to Mémé, my knees stiff, wishing I could put the painting back where it belonged.

  Wishing!

  My head was filled with wishes.

  fifteen

  Was Fürst back? I heard the sound of a motorcycle, but then it faded away.

  Mémé followed me inside the bedroom, carrying a cup of broth, hot and steaming. “Don’t sleep,” she whispered as if he were standing in the hall.

  I could hardly keep my eyes open. The wind outside was strong, the snow blowing across the field. “I have to sleep.” I sank down on the edge of the bed.

  “You will manage.” She barely moved her lips, almost as if Fürst could hear from upstairs. “You will go to school as if everything is normal.” She reached out, holding the broth to my lips.

  I sipped at it. I could feel myself waking.

  “Where is your coat, Genevieve?”

  I pointed up.

  “Never mind. You can wear mine.”

  “That would look normal?” In spite of myself, I grinned at her, and I thought I saw her smile. “And what about Rémy? It’s so cold, so terrible up there.”

  “We just have to do the best we can.” She went on, her head close to mine. “After school, find a way to delay.”

  I glanced at her determined face.

  “Look at me, Genevieve. You can’t let Katrin know about this.”

  I took a large swallow of broth, so hot it burned my tongue. “Katrin would help, I know she would.”

  “You don’t know.”

  “All right.”

  “So. You’ll go to Philippe. Tell him you have books but you want something new. He’ll know we’re sheltering someone, that we need help.”

  “I can’t tell Katrin.” I was filled with anger. “But you’re willing to let that man know? He burns books without any feelings; he talks to the Germans.”