No Stars at the Circus (18 page)

I can only think what they would say if they
did
read this testament, especially today’s bit. Then I can almost see their faces turning around to look at me, just for a minute.

Papa would be really pleased at what I did to Pimply Arms today. Mama would be furious I went out at all, especially when Madame Picard came to see us anyway, to tell us about Nadia. I wouldn’t tell Mama that I was afraid all the time. I’d just have to say it was really good practice for turning into somebody else.

They’d be sorry to see Jonas Alber disappear, but they’d be glad he has new papers, just like Nadia.

So, Mama and Papa, I promise you Grégoire Volet will do his best. That’s all anyone can do.

ADVICE NOTE:

These three notebooks were surrendered in one lot to Deyrolle, 46 rue du Bac, Paris, for safekeeping on 17 January 1945 by Corporal Robert Clavel of the United States 44th Infantry Division
.

Please file under Property to Be Claimed
.

Jonas and Nadia Alber are fictional characters. But many children like them survived what remained of the Occupation of France, which lasted until summer 1944. Many unaccompanied Jewish children were welcomed by other French families. Others survived in schools and orphanages, in both zones of the country, even after German troops invaded the unoccupied zone in November 1942. Some were betrayed.

Sadly, it is most unlikely that the Alber parents would have survived. Of approximately 76,000 Jews who were deported from France to concentration camps, including 13,152 rounded up and held at the Vél d’Hiv in Paris on 16 July 1942, fewer than 2,500 returned.

After the war in France was over, there was a long period of confusion for families who had been split up. Many organizations worked to put returned adults and children back in touch with their families. But for some this took a long time. Jonas and Nadia would have been luckier.

MARY FINN
is a Dubliner. She has worked as a journalist and a parliamentary reporter, trades that may – or may not – have helped her along the way to write three historical novels and one guidebook. Her previous novels are
Anila’s Journey
and
The Horse Girl
. (The guidebook is out of print but several predictions in it came true.)

For Mary, the inspiration for
No Stars at the Circus
came during a visit to Paris when she noticed the plaques erected on many school walls throughout the city. Each plaque marks the disappearance of that school’s Jewish pupils during the Nazi occupation of Paris during World War II. Mary began to imagine what life might have been like for a boy who disappeared from his school but survived in hiding. Many of the details of life in wartime Paris – including the circus at the heart of the story – were suggested by the photographs of Robert Doisneau.

Winner of the Eilís Dillon Award

An advert appears in the
Calcutta Gazette
: a scholar is looking for an apprentice draughtsman to accompany him on an expedition to record avian life in Bengal. How can Anila Tandy, left to fend for herself in a city of rogues, dare to apply for a position that is clearly not meant for her? But the talented “Bird Girl of Calcutta” has never shrunk from a challenge. And perhaps this voyage up the Ganges might be just the thing to equip Anila in her search for her father, missing for years and presumed dead.

“I loved this beautiful story set in eighteenth-century India, with all its sights, sounds and smells.”
Jamila Gavin

18th-century Lincolnshire: Thomas, who is dyslexic, has never met anyone remotely like Ling – wild, carefree, determined – and he falls in love. Ling’s horse, Belladonna, has been stolen and Ling fears she is in the hands of the painter Mr George Stubbs, known for flaying horses to learn about their anatomy. When Thomas and Ling pay Stubbs a visit, they learn the true whereabouts of Belladonna, and Thomas is offered a job with Stubbs, who also teaches him to read and write. Thomas and Ling devise a plan to steal back Belladonna, knowing, if caught, Ling could pay with her life.

“Absorbing.”
The Irish Times