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  For Susan Schnur, whose words led the way

  — Y. Z. M.

  Happy Birthday

  What is that brushing gently against her cheek? Fur? Feathers? Wisps of a cloud that slipped in through the bedroom window? No, it’s just Maman’s soft hair, falling over her face as she leans down to kiss Claudine’s cheek. “Time to wake up, darling.” She smiles. “Happy birthday!”

  Claudine opens her eyes and stretches. The morning sunlight pours in through the dotted Swiss curtains that Maman is now pulling open; it illuminates the pink-and-green flowered wallpaper, woven rug, and small bentwood rocker that sits in a corner of the room.

  Claudine pushes the covers aside and feels around on the floor near her bed for her slippers.

  “Hurry. You don’t want to be late,” Maman urges, and then she goes downstairs. Claudine dresses quickly and follows her. The table is set with the good damask tablecloth and the china they use when company comes for dinner. There is a small crystal vase near Claudine’s plate that holds flowers Papa must have picked from the small garden out back.

  Claudine sits down. Her bowl is already filled with steamed milk, and her sliced baguette—the long, wand-shaped loaf of bread—is spread with butter. This is itself a special treat because, ever since the war began, food has been in short supply. Claudine is very hungry, but before she can begin eating she is stopped by a large cardboard box that dominates the table. Claudine is eight today. And there is a present after all. Maman and Papa had said they weren’t sure they would be able to buy her a present this year. It was because of the war—again. But somehow, despite their predictions, they have managed to get her one.

  Eagerly she reaches for it and unties the red grosgrain ribbon. Pulling away at the sheets of white tissue, Claudine can’t wait to see what is tucked inside. When the last piece of crumpled tissue paper has dropped to the floor, she holds her new treasure in her hands. It is a doll. A beautiful doll.

  “Oh, Maman! Papa!” cries Claudine. “Thank you so much!” Her parents beam. Breakfast is temporarily forgotten as Claudine runs her fingers over the doll’s wavy auburn hair, smooth pink cheeks, and dimpled chin. She looks into the doll’s eyes, which are made of amber glass and fall shut when her body is tilted back.

  Then there are her clothes. A red wool felt cape worn over a plaid pinafore. Her linen blouse has a round collar and three pearlized buttons down its front. Her stockings are crocheted silk, and her black shoes are made of real leather. “I’ve never seen such a doll,” says Claudine, and indeed, she had not.

  Of course, Claudine had other dolls. There was Nanette, a baby doll in booties and a bonnet, who held a glass bottle in her hand. And there were Olga and Elsa, two very grown-up lady dolls, who wore long dresses, high-buttoned shoes, and big, fashionable hats. But this doll is neither a grown-up nor a baby. She is a girl just about Claudine’s age. Someone to play with, share with, confide in—a friend as much as a toy. Claudine tucks her in the crook of her elbow. The fit is perfect.

  “Hello, Violette,” she murmurs. Her parents look at each other, slightly confused.

  “What’s that, my sweet?” Papa asks.

  “Violette,” Claudine repeats. “That’s her name.”

  * * *

  Claudine immediately sets herself the task of making Violette feel at home. The large cardboard box in which she arrived looks like it could be useful. Flipped over, the box makes a perfect bed. Its lid becomes a canopy, held up by four wooden dowels taken from Papa’s toolbox. Maman’s contribution—a pile of worn but pretty lace-edged handkerchiefs—is also pressed into service. Claudine uses some of them to cover the canopy and make a dust ruffle. Others become sheets. An old pincushion is turned into a soft pillow, and two damask dinner napkins stitched together and stuffed with some old bits of batting are a warm and cozy doll quilt. Maman offers Claudine an empty round box with a gold-and-white design, which, when paired with a matching rectangular soapbox, functions as a smart set of luggage.

  That gives Claudine another idea: doll clothes to put in the luggage. Claudine asks Maman to look through her fabric scraps. Maman patiently shows her how to measure and trace a pattern, to cut, baste, and finally sew a garment.

  “Your stitches are so tiny,” Claudine complains. By comparison, Claudine’s look large and crude.

  “Practice will make them perfect,” Maman says. “Here, why don’t you try again?”

  Claudine picks up the needle and begins to sew. After about half an hour, her hand feels cramped and her eyes are tired. She looks critically at the work she has just finished. A little better, she decides, surveying a seam.

  “What do you think?” She brings it into the kitchen for her mother to see. Claudine’s mother looks at the seam and then at her daughter.

  “I think Violette is lucky to have you taking care of her.”

  * * *

  In the weeks that follow, Violette joins Claudine on her trips around the neighborhood and the city. With one of Maman’s checkered kitchen towels to cushion her, she rides in the wicker basket that Maman sometimes uses at the grocer. That way she can go to school, where she waits patiently on a shelf in the cloakroom until recess, when she is taken down and admired greatly by the other girls in the class. She also accompanies Claudine to the houses of her friends Simone and Odile, and to the parks and public gardens where they play. Simone and Odile bring their dolls along, too, and the three girls invent elaborate dramas for them to act out. Bushes and trees become castles and dungeons; ordinary dolls are cast as princesses, witches, and fairies. A fallen leaf turns into a magic carpet; a gray stone, into a crystal ball.

  “Your stories are always the best,” says Simone. Odile agrees. Claudine is proud. Although she does not tell her friends, it is something about Violette that brings the stories out of her.

  * * *

  On Sundays, Claudine’s family often takes the train to the country to visit her grandmother. Using a footstool covered with a large doily, Claudine’s grandmother hosts a doll tea party, serving tiny jam-filled pastries made from leftover scraps of dough on the hand-painted china doll dishes that had been hers as a girl. Claudine carefully pours the tea into the cup and holds it to Violette’s lips. Violette says nothing but seems to smile in a very contented way. “We’ll always have fun,” Claudine murmurs as she balances the doll on her lap. “Because we’ll always be together.”

  Trouble Comes Home

  Something is wrong. Claudine tells Violette about it, although she is sure that the doll has noticed it, too. It has to do with the hushed conversations between Papa and Maman that stop suddenly when Claudine enters the room, and with the anxious glances they keep exchanging when they think she isn’t looking. The newspapers that are quickly put away whenever she comes near. And the urgent whispers
into the black telephone that stands on a table in the hallway, whispers that end abruptly when Papa or Maman catches sight of her.

  Finally all the secrecy ends when they sit Claudine down on the sofa in the parlor and tell her about the yellow star. Claudine already knows about Adolf Hitler, the terrible tyrant who holds Germany in his thrall and who declared war on France. She had seen the headlines in the morning papers and heard the news on the radio. His evil armies had made their way relentlessly west, and they marched right into France. Now France is an occupied country, and the citizens have to obey Hitler’s laws. One of these laws says that all Jews must wear a yellow Star of David on their coats when they leave home. And because Claudine’s family is Jewish, they, too, will have to wear the stars.

  Claudine is stunned. She has never thought too much about what it means to be Jewish. She knows that on certain holidays—Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur—she puts on her good velvet dress and goes with her parents to synagogue. Some Fridays they go for dinner to her other grandmother’s, the one who lives in Paris. The table holds candlesticks and silver cups filled with wine; her grandmother says a Hebrew blessing over the candles and serves a meal that always includes a braided golden challah bread. But none of that seems so odd.

  The neighborhood where Claudine and her family make their home is one where Jews and Christians live together. At Hanukkah, Maman brings out a brass menorah and lights the candles, one each night for eight nights. There are crisp potato pancakes with applesauce for supper, and afterward, Grandmère’s special, crunchy, twice-baked cookies for dessert. The cookies are filled with walnuts and raisins and dusted with cinnamon sugar. At Christmas, Claudine is invited to Simone’s house, where she exchanges presents with her friend and gets to taste the bûche de Noël that Simone’s mother prepares. There has been no reason to feel ashamed or frightened that she is a Jew, until now.

  Claudine watches quietly as Maman carefully traces and cuts the stars from the yellow cloth. First she sews a star onto the breast pocket of Papa’s tweed jacket. She sews another onto her own camel coat, and finally, she sews a slightly smaller one onto Claudine’s navy-blue wool duffel coat.

  “I hate that star. I won’t wear it,” Claudine declares, breaking the silence. Maman doesn’t answer. She puts the sewing things away and goes into the kitchen to start dinner. They are having stew, and soon the warm, enticing aroma wafts its way into the room where Claudine sits, not moving. She sees her coat hanging on the hook near the door. The star glows hot and ugly; she longs to rip it off. Instead, she turns the coat inside out, so she won’t have to see it.

  * * *

  The next day, Claudine wears the star in public for the first time. Although no one appears to react or even notice, Claudine is unable to forget she has it on for a single second. Her face burns pink with shame. She clutches Violette to her tightly, because she doesn’t want to cry. Violette does not have a star. When Claudine returns home, she throws her coat on the floor instead of hanging it up as she usually does. Then she asks Maman for the sewing box.

  “What for, Claudine?” Maman wants to know. “Are you going to make your doll a new dress?”

  “Violette needs a star,” Claudine answers defiantly, as if expecting to be challenged. “She wants to wear one, too.”

  “Yes, that’s a good idea,” murmurs Maman. She helps Claudine make a tiny yellow star, which they position on the front of the doll’s red cape. “No, not there,” says Claudine. They move the star higher and lower, left and right, and all over the red cloth. They even try it on the back, but still Claudine is not satisfied. Finally, she remembers turning her own coat inside out last night, when she saw it defaced by the star for the first time. Claudine takes the star and places it just inside the cape’s opening. Maman’s careful training has paid off, and Claudine is able to sew it neatly onto the red felt by herself.

  “There,” says Claudine with grim satisfaction. “That way, she can be the one to choose to let it show.”

  * * *

  Maman and Papa do not share Claudine’s indignation over the star. They are more concerned with other things, like the food shortage all over the city. Maman has to wait in line for hours at the green-grocer, the butcher, the cheese shop, and the baker to buy food. And what poor food it is! The carrots soft and wizened, the potatoes and apples half rotted. Bread that tastes like it has been baked with sand instead of flour. Some days no cheese or meat at all, only rinds, which Maman scrapes down as best she can, and bones, from which she makes a thin, watery soup.

  Papa has been forced to leave his job at the university, where he has taught French literature for so many years. The children who came to see Maman in the afternoons for piano lessons have found reasons why they cannot come anymore. Suddenly, Claudine is not welcome at Simone’s house, nor at Odile’s. They can only see each other at school, but soon Maman and Papa tell her that she may no longer attend school. No more lessons from the strict Mademoiselle Rousseau; no more running in the yard during recess or giggling with the others. And all because she is a Jew. When she learns this, Claudine takes Violette into her arms and presses her face against the doll’s soft hair. How can these terrible things be happening to them? And why?

  * * *

  The worst comes one quiet morning when Claudine goes downstairs for breakfast. She sees the grave faces of her parents and knows that there is yet more bad news. Things are growing increasingly dangerous for the Jews, not only of France but all over Europe. That’s why Maman and Papa want to send her away, to her aunt and uncle in America. America! Aside from the occasional night with a friend or one of her grandmothers, Claudine has never been apart from her parents before. Surely Maman and Papa will come, too?

  “Not now,” says Maman sadly. “I wish we could.”

  “Maybe later, if we can,” adds Papa.

  “I want to be with you,” says Claudine tearfully.

  “Leaving France now is almost impossible,” Maman says. “It’s a miracle that we were able to arrange safe passage for you.”

  “But why can’t you come with me?”

  “We only had enough luck for one miracle,” says Papa quietly. “Not three.”

  Claudine looks from one worried face to the other. Then she rushes from the room, climbs the stairs, and gets back into her bed. She doesn’t want to eat breakfast, put on her clothes, face the day. She wants to go under the covers and pretend this is all a bad dream. She’ll close her eyes, wait here for a while. Then she’ll get up, go downstairs again, and this time there won’t be any talk of wars or of trips to America. Maman and Papa will smile when they see her. Things will be the way they were before.

  Claudine remains in bed for what seems like a long time. With her eyes closed, she can hear her parents moving around downstairs. She tracks their movements by the sounds they make. Maman is in the kitchen, doing the dishes; she recognizes the rush of the running water. Papa is in the study; she heard the door open and then close. Neither one of them mounts the stairs to find her. Claudine opens her eyes. Her stomach growls. She looks at Violette, who is lying in the box that is now a bed. It was only a few months ago that she received the doll, made the bed in which she would sleep. And yet it feels like years.

  Claudine gets out of bed and reaches for her. Against her pink cheek, Violette’s lashes curve thick and dark. “I think we ought to go downstairs now,” she says, holding the doll tightly in her arms. “Don’t you?”

  Quietly, she descends the stairs and waits in the doorway of the kitchen until Maman turns to face her.

  “Are you ready for breakfast?” Maman asks.

  “Yes,” says Claudine. “I’m ready now.”

  Saying Good-bye

  Preparations for Claudine’s departure begin almost at once. There is packing, though not very much of that, for she won’t be able to bring many bags with her. “Aunt Adele and Uncle Gus will buy you what you need,” Maman promises. So Claudine can take only two dresses, two skirts, and two blouses. A sweater, a coat,
some underthings and socks. A nightgown. No books, no toys, no dolls. Not even Violette? “I won’t go without her,” protests Claudine. Her parents exchange worried looks and finally relent. Violette may go, but only Violette—not her bed, trunks, or any of the other things Claudine has made or improvised for her. “We’ll take care of everything while you’re away,” says Maman.

  “It’s not for long,” says Papa. “As soon as it’s safe again, you can come home.”

  But didn’t they tell her they would come to America if they could? Both of these things can’t be true at the same time.

  * * *

  Two days before she is scheduled to leave Paris, Claudine tells her parents that she wants to say good-bye to Simone and Odile. Even though she has not seen them for a while, Claudine doesn’t believe they don’t like her anymore.

  “No, you can’t do that,” Papa says. His voice sounds angry. Also frightened.

  “Why not?”

  “Your going has to be kept a secret. The fewer people who know about it, the better.”

  “Why?” Claudine knows she is being difficult, but she doesn’t care.

  “Because there’s a war going on.”

  Claudine repeats this last sentence along with him in her mind. It’s easy; she’s heard it so often lately.

  Although she doesn’t actually disobey Papa, she gets her coat and heads for the door. She tells herself that she’s just taking a short walk around the neighborhood before she must leave it. It doesn’t mean anything if she happens to stroll past Odile’s house. Still, her heart is beating hard when she turns the corner of the street where Odile lives. She knows she’s doing something wrong, but she’s here already. Although it’s daytime, the shutters are latched tightly, as if no one is home. She stares at the house for a few minutes. There are geraniums still in the window boxes, and the brass doorknob is polished to a gleaming brightness. Yet for all that, the house feels abandoned, and it unsettles her.