Julius (9 page)

Men were walking along the line, and somebody began to curse in a shrill voice.

‘I tell you we have the necessary authority,’ shouted the voice. ‘This train goes through to Dijon by way of Orléans.They would not let us go by the shorter route, it is not our fault.’ The answer was short, authoritative, spoken in a guttural voice. ‘Nix, Nix - pass passer.’

Père stretched his hand and touched Julius on the shoulder. ‘The Prussian lines,’ he whispered, ‘we must be at Châtillon.’

‘What was he saying?’

‘He is not going to let us pass.’

Julius’s heart began to throb, and a lump rose in his throat. Would they be sent back to Paris again, would it all have to be started once more? Paris, the Gare d’Orléans, the bare church of Saint-Sulpice, and Père being taken away to prison? The voices came very near now, they passed by close to the truck, the driver arguing and pleading, the Prussian speaking German which nobody could understand.

More footsteps came tramping along the line, more guttural voices, arguing. An hour passed. The Prussians had moved away. Everything was silent, except for the pattering of the rain on the roof of the station.

‘Père, I’m hungry,’ whimpered Julius.

Paul Lévy gave him a cigarette. ‘Be quiet, my little one, try and sleep,’ he said.

Julius could not sleep. He felt tired and hungry and evil-smelling and cold, but he could not sleep. At any moment the Prussians might come along and discover them. He closed his eyes, ugly shapes and distorted images danced before him, like the beginning of a nightmare. Slowly his head sunk and his mind began to lose itself, in five minutes now he would be asleep from very weariness.

Then he was brought to himself again with a start.The driver was coming back again along the line, grumbling and cursing still, muttering to some companion.

‘At last,’ he said: ‘what a delay and commotion - the lousy idiots. They are like thick brutes, these Prussians, they cannot understand a word one says. At last ...’

Once more the whistle was blown, the steam shrieked from the funnel and the trucks moved again over the rails. Julius could hear Père whispering, he listened to hear what he was saying but he could only catch a word now and again. Père was speaking Hebrew. He was praying. Julius prayed too. He prayed to the young Rabbin who bowed before the golden candlestick, he murmured the few words of Hebrew that he knew and understood.

The train increased its pace. Now they were clear of the Prussian lines there would be no further delay, and every effort would be made to make up for the lost time. Julius was shaken against the stones, his small body was hurled from side to side. The jolting trucks would not let him lie, backwards and forwards he was thrown against the rough-edged stones, the whole of his body bruised and tortured, his hands and his knees and his face were swollen and raw.

‘Tell them to stop, tell them to stop,’ he screamed. The train went faster still. It was roaring now through a tunnel, the air was thick with soot and smoke, the night was black as a pit. There was no breath left in Julius’s lungs, he was beaten and broken.

‘Père,’ he whispered. ‘Père - don’t let me die.’

Paul Lévy felt for him in the darkness, he stretched out his arms and found him. He drew off the wet clothes and put Julius close to him upon his own naked body, underneath his clothes, next to his skin, so that his own warmth should go to him and their flesh would be together; he held him tight in his arms that Julius should feel only his body and not the jolting stones, while he himself lay on his back, shaken and bleeding, his head against a great jagged-edged stone. And Julius slept.

 

For five weeks the Lévys tramped the country between Dijon and Marseilles. They begged, borrowed and stole; they rested at nights upon the charity of peasants, or in churches, and even sometimes under the stars in the shelter of a hedge. The month of February was mild, and further south the sun shone all day from a blue sky bare of clouds. They fed when they could, Julius taking upon himself the business of procuring food, and it was a delight to him to trespass upon the hospitality of the peasants, clutching the while in his pocket the purse of sous he did not need to spend. He kept secret from Père the existence of the purse, for Père was scornful and Père was proud, he suffered much from this constant reliance on the charity of strangers, he was unable to appreciate the joy and the thrill that it was in life to obtain something for nothing.

In the towns it was not so easy. In Lyons Julius persuaded his father to play his flute and Paul Lévy let himself be pushed into position on the edge of the pavement, weak, unwilling, the poor Jew of the old days in Puteaux, ruled by the dominant Louise Blançard, while Julius stood at his elbow, his cap in his hand, digging his father in the ribs - ‘Go on - go on.’

The boy grew during these weeks of outdoor life. He became tanned and ruddy from exposure, his chest broadened and his legs filled. Not so with his father. Paul Lévy was as thin and as pale as ever, the hard times of the siege had left their mark upon him, nor had he ever recovered from the agony of those ten hours in the jolting truck of stones. Julius had not realised what his father had suffered for his sake, and now the sight of his pallor and his visible fatigue awoke irritation in the boy’s heart as it had done in his mother’s. Physically strong himself, he could not understand the weakness of others. He put it down to laziness, to incapability. Grandpère and Mère had always said that Père was lazy.

‘Only eight more kilometres to Avignon, Père,’ he would protest; ‘surely we can step out a little faster.You rested an hour in the sun this afternoon. If we arrive late in the town there may be a difficulty in finding food. As for me, my stomach is gaping. You are never hungry, you do not care.’

Père would look at him with gaunt eyes. ‘I am coming, little one, don’t be so impatient. You shall fill your poor stomach, I promise you.’ And he would follow his son, his long legs dragging wearily on the rough road, the veins showing blue on his thin white face.

‘Come on, come on,’ shouted Julius.

In the towns Julius would insist upon bargaining with the shopkeepers, and argued when Père would have paid what they demanded.

‘No - no, it is ridiculous, you cannot give four sous for those oranges, they are not worth more than two. Listen, madame, my father is a fool, he is not strong in his head, we will give you ten centimes for the pound. It is a matter of take it or leave it. - Ten centimes? Good. Here is the money.’

‘You are a rascal, you are not honest,’ said Père, too tired to argue.

‘Who cares? I have made a profit. Leave me alone.’

Paul Lévy and Julius came to Marseilles on the tenth of March. They had been exactly five weeks on the road.They found their way to the port, where ships were anchored near the cobbled quays, and sailors strolled, burnt and tattooed, sailors from every corner of the world. The sun shone all day in Marseilles, the streets were white with dust and there was a good smell like the old market smell, food and wine, tobacco and ripe fruit. Women leant over balconies yawning, flashing a smile, stretching lazy arms above their heads.

Père lounged about the quays, his eyes for ever amongst the ships, and he made enquiries, too, whither they were bound.

‘You do not want to sail in a dirty ship,’ protested Julius. ‘We should be better off at Marseilles.’

‘We should be warmer,’ said Père, and he shivered in the soft wind that blew from the sea. He was always cold now.

‘Where do you want to go then?’ asked Julius.

Père hesitated, then he looked down at Julius and smiled.

‘At the end of his life a man returns to the land where he was born,’ he said. Julius did not understand.

‘You talk as though you were old with a beard; what do you mean?’ he said.

‘I was not born at Puteaux,’ said Père. ‘I am not a Blançard and a little French town-bred thing like you. My people came from Algeria, my mother carried me on her back. I remember nothing of all this. But now the time has come for me to go back.’

‘Where is Algeria?’

‘In the north of Africa, right away there, across the sea. I must find out when there is a ship to take us.’

A cargo boat was due to sail at the beginning of the following week. A certain number of passengers would be taken, but there was no definite accommodation for them, they must berth for’ard on the deck in the open air, making shift for themselves. A small space was ruled off for them, and the passengers must crowd into this, herded like animals in a pen. Paul Lévy and Julius were amongst the group of passengers. They were a poor wretched crowd, the dregs of Marseilles who could not earn a living, and low-caste Arabs from the towns in North Africa. There were no sanitary arrangements on the deck of the cargo boat, and no privacy, for the miserable sum they paid these people could not expect comfort. The stench and the dirt were appalling, there were women too on the same deck; no attempt was made to separate them or rig some shelter.

The sea was very rough. The crossing took five days, which was considered good time with such weather. Julius suffered much from sickness, he was ill most of the time.

The Arabs made no effort at cleanliness, and Paul Lévy would clear up their filth himself, and scrub their corner of the deck, slipping and staggering on the sloping deck himself, suppressing his own sickness, peeling oranges for Julius who stretched out his arms and cried.

It was not until the day after he had landed in Alger, when the horror of the flight from Paris, the long weary weeks on the road to Marseilles and the vast misery of the crossing to Africa had been left behind him for ever, that the reaction seized hold of Paul Lévy and he gave way. He and Julius had spent the night in a humble lodging-house on the quays, and had awakened to the lovely, brilliance of a southern morning, the sun as hot as when it shone on Paris in May, but stronger, with a deep intensity. He opened the window and threw aside the shutters, gazing at the blue sea beyond the port, and the vivid glare of white houses and dusty streets in the full rays of the sun. The sun warmed his thin body, it brought a smile to his pallid, sunken face, and he leant against the rail of the window, his head resting on his arms.

‘This is the end,’ he said. ‘I cannot go any farther.’

Julius stood beside him and laid his hand on Père’s arm.

‘We must look around and see the best way to live,’ he said. ‘Alger seems a big place. I should say there is good trade to be done here.’ He was excited and intrigued by this strange city. There were a hundred streets to explore, and hills to climb; there was a long boulevard leading uphill to a higher quarter where white houses gleamed amongst tall trees. Somewhere there were gardens and flowers growing, the rich scent of tropical plants buried in deep moss, perfume of honey and heavy sweet purple blossoms, and another smell too, a market smell of spices and leather, and scarlet fruits and people with dark skins who slept in the sun. Julius opened his nostrils and closed his eyes. The knowledge of all this floated up to him from the hot street.

Paul Lévy allowed himself to be dragged out under the full strength of the sun, he made no protest, he too would have intimacy with the atmosphere of Alger. He did not know how ill he was. They were climbing the hill towards Mustapha when he reeled suddenly as he walked, and clutching at Julius’s shoulder was shaken in a paroxysm of coughing. His face was green, his eyes were glazed. Then he fainted, crumpling to his feet like a dead thing. Julius bent over him, a child, lost and scared. A passer-by crossed to the other side of the road. Nobody wished to show charity. Julius was helpless, a small boy in a strange country. Then a sudden thought flashed into his head, he left Père propped against the wall, he ran and touched the passer-by. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘my father is very ill. Can you tell me if there is an Israelite Temple in Alger?’

The man looked down on him, his handkerchief against his lips, for fear he should contract a disease. ‘There is a synagogue somewhere for the Jews, I could not tell you where. You had better take your father to a hospital.’ And he went his way.

It was not until he had enquired of three people that Julius was given the address of the Temple. He helped Père to his feet, he saw in the distance a
fiacre
at a standstill. ‘I shall have to open Mère’s purse at last,’ he thought, and he wondered how much the driver would ask. Père was too ill to realise where he was. The
fiacre
took them downhill again, they turned east through a maze of narrow streets, streets where tiers of steps led to the roads above, where houses touched one another, so close they were. These streets smelt of spices and leather, a queer, dusty, warm, mysterious smell.Veiled women peered from the windows of houses, and dark, hook-nosed men stood in the doorways of their little shops. The driver stopped before a humble white building, almost hidden, squeezed between two projecting houses.

‘This is a synagogue,’ he said, and he spat disdainfully, holding out his hand already for his money. Julius paid him with rage in his heart. There was no time to argue. He knocked at the door of the Temple. The man who opened was old, a flowing black beard reached to his waist, streaked with silver. His dark eyes smiled at Julius, and the boy knew that here was the help he needed, that no more need he fear nor tremble, all care would be lifted from him and he and Père were safe. He was amongst his own people. This man was a Rabbin.

‘I have brought my father,’ he said, and the tears welled up in his eyes and ran down his cheeks. He could not speak. The Rabbin understood. He put his arms round Père. There was no queer southern smell here, no mystery, no heavy purple flowers. The atmosphere was peaceful, silent, a place of security. They went inside and the door closed behind them.

 

The Rabbin Moïse Metzger fed and nursed Paul Lévy with his own hands.

Julius was given clothes and shoes, food and drink in plenty. Did these things appear from behind the closed iron gates of the Temple?