Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
“Here?” Vianne said, glancing around.
“No, Maman,” the older boy said. “Papa told me to take care of you. I am not leaving you. If you let go of my hand, I’ll just follow you. Better we stay together.”
Behind them another whistle shrieked.
Hélène shoved the younger boy into Vianne, pushed him hard against Daniel. “He is Jean Georges, like his uncle. Four years old this June. My husband’s people are in Burgundy.”
“I have no papers for him … they’ll kill me if I take him.”
“You!” a Nazi shouted at Hélène. He came up behind her, grabbed her by the hair, almost yanking her off her feet. She slammed into her older son, who strove to keep her upright.
And then Hélène and her son were gone, lost in the crowd. The boy was beside her, wailing, “Maman!” and sobbing.
“We need to leave,” Vianne said to Sophie.
“Now.” She clutched Jean Georges’s hand so tightly he cried harder.
Every time he yelled, “Maman!” she flinched and prayed for him to be quiet.
They hurried up one street and down the other, dodging the barricades and bypassing the soldiers who were breaking down doors and herding Jewish people into the square.
Twice they were stopped and allowed to pass because they had no stars on their clothing.
On the muddy road, she had to slow down, but she didn’t stop, even when both boys started crying.
At Le Jardin, Vianne finally stopped.
Von Richter’s black Citroen was parked out front.
“Oh no,” Sophie said.
Vianne looked down at her terrified daughter and saw her own fear replicated in the beloved eyes, and all at once she knew what she needed to do.
“We have to try to save him or we are as bad as they are,” she said.
And there it was. She hated to bring her daughter into this, but what choice was there? “I have to save this boy.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet,” Vianne admitted.
“But Von Richter—”
As if drawn by his own name, the Nazi appeared at the front door, looking fussily precise in his uniform. “Ah, Madame Mauriac,” he said, his gaze narrowing as he approached her. “There you are.”
Vianne struggled for calm. “We have been to town for shopping.”
“Not a good day for that. Jews are being collected for deportation.” He walked toward her, his boots tamping down the wet grass. Beside him, the apple tree was barren of leaves; bits of fabric fluttered from the empty branches. Red. Pink. White. A new one for Beck—in black.
“And who is this fine-looking youngster?” Von Richter said, touching the child’s tear-streaked cheek with one black-gloved finger.
“A f-friend’s boy. His mother died of tuberculosis this week.”
Von Richter lurched backward, as if she’d said bubonic plague. “I don’t want that child in the house. Is that understood? You will take him to the orphanage this instant.”
The orphanage. Mother Marie-Therese.
She nodded. “Of course, Herr Sturmbannführer.”
He made a flicking gesture with his hand as if to say, Go, now. He started to walk away. Then he stopped and turned back to face Vianne. “I want you home this evening for supper.”
“I am always home, Herr Sturmbannführer.”
“We leave tomorrow, and I want you to feed me and my men a good meal before we go.”
“Leave?” she asked, feeling a spike of hope.
“We are occupying the rest of France tomorrow. No more Free Zone. It’s about damn time. Letting you French govern yourselves was a joke. Good day, Madame.”
Vianne remained where she was, standing still, holding the child’s hand. Above the sound of Jean Georges’s crying, she heard the gate squeak open and slam shut. Then a car engine started up.
When he was gone, Sophie said, “Will Mother Marie-Therese hide him?”
“I hope so. Take Daniel into the house and lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone but me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Sophie looked old for her age suddenly, wise beyond her years. “Good for you, Maman.”
“We shall see” was all the hope she had left.
When her children were safely in the house, with the door locked, she said to the boy beside her, “Come, Jean Georges, we are going for a walk.”
“To my maman?”
She couldn’t look at him. “Come.”
* * *
As Vianne and the boy walked back to town, an intermittent rain began. Jean Georges alternately cried and complained, but Vianne was so nervous she barely heard him.
How could she ask Mother Superior to take this risk?
How could she not?
They walked past the church to the convent hidden behind it.
The Order of the Sisters of St. Joseph had begun in 1650 with six like-minded women who simply wanted to serve the poor in their community.
They had grown to thousands of members throughout France until religious communities were forbidden by the state during the French revolution.
Some of the original six sisters had become martyrs for their beliefs—guillotined for their faith.
Vianne went to the abbey’s front door and lifted the heavy iron knocker, letting it fall against the oak door, clattering hard.
“Why are we here?” Jean Georges whined. “Is my maman here?”
“Shhh.”
A nun answered, her sweet, plump face bracketed by the white wimple and black hood of her habit. “Ah, Vianne,” she said, smiling.
“Sister Agatha, I would like to speak to Mother Superior, if that’s possible.”
The nun stepped back, her habit swishing on the stone floor. “I will see. You two take a seat in the garden?”
Vianne nodded. “Merci.” She and Jean Georges made their way through the cold cloisters.
At the end of one arched corridor, they turned left and went into the garden.
It was good sized, and square, with frosted brown grass and a marble lion’s head fountain and several stone benches placed here and there.
Vianne took a seat on one of the cold benches out of the rain, and pulled the boy up beside her.
She didn’t have long to wait.
“Vianne,” Mother said, coming forward, her habit dragging on the grass, her fingers closed around the large crucifix that hung from a chain around her neck. “How good it is to see you. It’s been too long. And who is this young man?”
The boy looked up. “Is my maman here?”
Vianne met Mother Superior’s even gaze with one of her own. “His name is Jean Georges Ruelle, Mother. I would speak to you alone if we could.”
Mother clapped her hands and a young nun appeared to take the boy away. When they were alone, Mother Superior sat down beside Vianne.
Vianne couldn’t corral her thoughts and so a silence fell between them.
“I am sorry about your friend, Rachel.”
“And so many others,” Vianne said.
Mother nodded. “We have heard terrible rumors coming from Radio London about what is happening in the camps.”
“Perhaps our Holy Father—”
“He is silent on this matter,” Mother said, her voice heavy with disappointment.
Vianne took a deep breath. “Hélène Ruelle and her elder son were deported today. Jean Georges is alone. His mother … left him with me.”
“Left him with you?” Mother paused. “It is dangerous to have a Jewish child in your home, Vianne.”
“I want to protect him,” she said quietly.
Mother looked at her. She was silent so long that Vianne’s fear began to put down roots, grow. “And how would you accomplish this?” she asked at last.
“Hide him.”
“Where?”
Vianne looked at Mother, saying nothing.
Mother’s face drained of color. “Here?”
“An orphanage. What better place?”
Mother Superior stood and then sat. Then she stood again, her hands moved to the cross, held it.
Slowly, she sat down again. Her shoulders sagged and then straightened when her decision was made.
“A child in our care needs papers. Baptismal certificates—I can … get those, of course, but identity papers…”
“I will get them,” Vianne said, although she had no idea if it was possible.
“You know that it is illegal to hide Jews now. The punishment is deportation if you’re lucky, and lately, I believe no one is lucky in France.”
Vianne nodded.
Then Mother Superior said, “I will take the boy. And I … could make room for more than one Jewish child.”
“More?”
“Of course there are more, Vianne. I will speak to a man I know in Girot. He works for the ?uvre de Secours aux Enfants—the Help the Children Fund. I expect he will know many families and children in hiding. I will tell him to expect you.”
“M-me?”
“You are the leader of this now, and if we are risking our lives for one child, we may as well try to save more.” Mother got abruptly to her feet.
She hooked her arm through Vianne’s, and the two women strolled the perimeter of the small garden.
“No one here can know the truth. The children will have to be coached and have paperwork that passes inspection. And you would need a position here—perhaps as a teacher, oui, as a part-time teacher. That would allow us to pay you a small stipend and would answer questions about why you are here with the children.”
“Oui,” Vianne said, feeling shaky.
“Don’t look so afraid, Vianne. You are doing the right thing.”
She had no doubt that this was true, and still she was terrified. “This is what they have done to us. We are afraid of our own shadows.” She looked at Mother. “How will I do it? Go to scared, hungry women and ask them to give me their children?”
“You will ask them if they’ve seen their friends being herded onto trains and taken away. You will ask them what they would risk to keep their child off of that train. Then you will let each mother decide.”
“It is an unimaginable choice. I’m not sure I could do it, just hand Sophie and Daniel over to a stranger.”
Mother leaned close. “I hear one of their awful storm troopers is billeted at your house. You realize this puts you—and Sophie—at terrible risk.”
“Of course. But how can I let her believe it’s all right to do nothing in times such as these?”
Mother stopped. Releasing Vianne, she laid a soft palm against her cheek and smiled tenderly. “Be careful, Vianne. I have already been to your mother’s funeral. I do not want to attend yours.”