Noah's Child (2 page)

When we moved through to the drawing room to drink orange-blossom tea, I could have voiced my questions out loud but, for fear of a negative answer, I felt happier living with the flattering possibility a little longer . . .

I must have fallen asleep before the doorbell rang. Stiff from lying in an armchair, I looked up to see my parents appearing on the landing from the hall, and that was when I first understood that they were different. Their shoulders were bowed beneath their drab clothes, they were carrying cardboard suitcases, and spoke hesitantly, anxiously, as if they feared the dazzling hosts now facing them as much as the darkness they had just left behind. I wondered whether my parents were poor.

‘It's a round-up! They're arresting everyone. Even
women and children. The Rosenbergs. The Meyers. The Laegers. The Perelmuters. Everyone . . .'

My father was in tears. Given that he never cried, I was embarrassed to see him break down in front of people like the de Sullys. What could this over-familiarity mean? That we were noble? I didn't move from my chair because they thought I was asleep, but I watched and listened to everything.

‘Leave? But where would we go? To reach Spain we'd have to cut across France and that's no safer than here. And, without false papers, we'll . . .'

‘You see, Mischke,' my mother said, ‘we should have gone to Brazil with Aunt Rita.'

‘When my father was already ill? Never!'

‘He's dead now, God rest his soul.'

‘Yes, it's too late.'

Comte Sully brought a note of calm into the conversation.

‘I'll take care of you,' he said.

‘No, Monsieur le Comte, it doesn't matter what happens to
us
. It's Joseph who needs saving. Him first. And him alone, that's the way it has to be.'

‘Yes,' agreed my mother, ‘Joseph's the one who needs to go somewhere safe.'

If you asked me, being singled out like this
confirmed my hunch: I was definitely noble. At least in my family's eyes.

The Comte reassured them again.

‘Of course I'll take care of Joseph. And I'll take care of you too. However, you'll have to agree to being temporarily separated from him.'

‘My Josephshi . . .'

My mother collapsed into the arms of the little Comtesse who patted her shoulders soothingly. My father's tears may have embarrassed me, but my mother's devastated me.

If I was noble I couldn't go on pretending to sleep! I leaped chivalrously from my chair to comfort her. Only, I don't know what came over me once I reached her because the exact opposite happened: I clung to her legs and started sobbing even more loudly than she. In just one evening the de Sullys had seen the whole family cry! After a display like that, it would be tough getting anyone to believe we were nobility.

My father then provided a diversion by opening his suitcases. ‘Here, Monsieur le Comte. I'll never be able to pay you so I'll give you everything I have. These are my last suits.' And he picked up a succession of hangers with the jackets, trousers and waistcoats he had made. He smoothed each piece with the back
of his hand, a gesture he often made in his shop, a swift stroking action that showed off the merchandise by emphasizing the supple drape of the fabric.

I was relieved my father hadn't been into the Comtesse's bedroom with me and had been spared the sight of her beautiful clothes, otherwise he would have dropped dead on the spot, racked with shame for daring to present such everyday things to such refined people.

‘I don't want any kind of payment, my friend,' said the Comte.

‘I insist . . .'

‘Don't humiliate me. I'm not doing this for personal gain. Please, keep your precious treasures, you might need them.'

The Comte had called my father's suits ‘treasures'! I was missing something. Could I have been wrong?

We were taken up to the top floor of the house and given a room under the eaves.

I was fascinated by the field of stars revealed by the window cut out of the roof. Until then I had never had the chance to watch the sky because all I could see through the small window of our basement apartment were shoes, dogs and shopping bags. To me, the vaulted universe, that deep dark velvet dotted
with stars, seemed the logical conclusion to a nobleman's home where beauty leaped out on every floor. It made sense that the de Sullys didn't have six households and all their offspring overhead, but the sky and the stars which weigh nothing. I liked being noble.

‘Joseph, you see that star there?' my mother said. ‘That's our star. Yours and mine.'

‘What's it called?'

‘People call it the evening star; but we'll call it “Joseph and Maman's star”.'

My mother had a way of renaming stars.

She put her hands over my eyes, twirled me round then pointed at the sky.

‘Where is it? Can you point it out to me?'

I learned to recognize ‘Joseph and Maman's star' without fail in all that vastness.

My mother hugged me to her and sung a Yiddish lullaby. As soon as she finished the song she asked me to point to our star. Then she sang again. I fought off the urge to slide into sleep, eager to live this shared moment in all its intensity.

My father was at the far end of the room, bent over his suitcases, folding and re-folding his suits and grumbling to himself. In between two murmured
couplets from my mother I managed to ask him, ‘Daddy, will you teach me to sew?'

Slightly thrown, he didn't answer straight away.

‘Please,' I insisted. ‘I'd like to make treasures, like you.'

He came over to me, and this man who was frequently so stiff and withdrawn held me to him and kissed me.

‘I'll teach you everything I know, Joseph. And even what I don't know.'

His coarse, prickly black beard must usually have hurt him because he often rubbed his cheeks, and wouldn't let anyone touch it. That evening it can't have been troubling him and he allowed me to finger it inquisitively.

‘It's soft, isn't it?' whispered my mother, blushing, as if confiding in me.

‘Come on, don't talk nonsense,' he scolded.

Even though there were two beds, one double and one single, Maman insisted I slept with them in the double bed. My father didn't object for long. He had really changed now that we were noble.

And there, gazing at the stars that sang in Yiddish, I fell asleep in my mother's arms for the last time.

Three

W
e never said goodbye to each other. Perhaps it was because everything happened in such a muddle. Or maybe it was deliberate on their part. They probably couldn't face such a scene, much less subject me to it . . . the thread was broken without my even realizing it: they went out the following afternoon and never came back.

Every time I asked the Comte and the tiny Comtesse where my parents were, the answer invariably came back: ‘Somewhere safe.'

I made do with that because all my energy was taken up discovering my new life: my life as a nobleman.

When I wasn't on my own exploring every nook and cranny of the house, or watching the maids in their constant dance of polishing silver, beating carpets and plumping up cushions, I spent hours in
the drawing room with the Comtesse who worked on improving my French, and wouldn't allow me to utter a single expression in Yiddish. I was all the more compliant with her because she spoiled me with cakes and piano waltzes. Apart from anything else, I was convinced that I would achieve true noble status only by mastering this language Sadly, it struck me as lacklustre, difficult to pronounce and nothing like as amusing and colourful as my own, but it was gentle, measured and distinguished.

In front of visitors I had to call the Comte and Comtesse ‘Uncle' and ‘Aunt' because they were passing me off as one of their Dutch nephews.

I had reached the point where I believed it myself, when the police surrounded the house one morning.

‘Police! Open up! Police!'

Men thudded violently on the front door; the bell wasn't enough for them.

‘Police! Open up! Police!'

The Comtesse, wearing only a silk negligee, burst into my room, grabbed me in her arms and took me to her bed.

‘Don't be afraid of anything, Joseph, answer in French, just like me.'

As the police climbed the stairs, she started reading
a story, the two of us propped up against the pillows as if this was all quite normal.

When they came in they glowered at us furiously.

‘You're hiding a Jewish family!'

‘Search wherever you like,' she said haughtily, ‘put a stethoscope to the walls, break open trunks, turn over all the beds: you won't find anything. On the other hand, I can guarantee you will be hearing from me first thing tomorrow morning.'

‘Someone has come forward with information, Madame.'

Still keeping her composure, the Comtesse showed her indignation that they would believe anyone at the drop of a hat. She warned that this would not stop here, it would go all the way to the palace because she was a close friend of the Queen's, then she announced that this blunder would cost these little civil servants their jobs – oh yes, they could take her word on that!

‘Now, do your searches! And get on with it!'

Confronted with so much confidence and indignation, the officer in charge almost took a step back.

‘May I ask you who this child is, Madame?'

‘My nephew. His father is General von Grebels. Do I need to show you a family tree? You're trying to
commit career suicide, my man!'

After a fruitless search, the officers left feeling awkward and ashamed, and mumbling their apologies.

The Comtesse leaped out of bed. Her nerves at breaking point, she started laughing and crying at the same time.

‘There, you've found out one of my secrets, Joseph, one of my womanly tricks.'

‘What's that?'

‘Making accusations instead of giving explanations. Attacking when under suspicion. Lashing out rather than going on the defensive.'

‘Is it just for women?'

‘No, you can use it too.'

The following day the de Sullys told me I could not stay with them any longer because their lie would not stand up to investigation.

‘Father Pons is going to come and he'll take care of you. You couldn't be in better hands. You should call him “Father”.'

‘Yes, Uncle.'

‘You won't call him Father so that people think he's your father, like calling me Uncle. His name is Pierre Pons but everyone calls him Father.'

‘Even you?'

‘Even us. He's a priest. We call him Father when we speak to him. So do the German soldiers. Everyone does. Even people who don't believe.'

‘People who don't believe he's their father?'

‘Even people who don't believe in God.'

I was very impressed at the thought of meeting someone who was ‘Father' to the whole world, or was taken to be. He must be very important, anyway, because I'd heard that name Pons before: the Comtesse had introduced me to something she called
pierre ponce
*
, which sounded just the same. It was a soft light piece of grey stone that she gave me when I was in the bath, and told me to rub my feet with it to remove toughened dead skin. This mouse-shaped thing fascinated me because it could float (not something you would expect of a stone) and changed colour as soon as it was wet (going from greyish white to coal black).

‘So is there some connection between Father Pons and
pierre ponce
?' I asked.

The de Sullys burst out laughing.

‘I don't see what's so funny,' I said, put out. ‘He could have discovered it . . . or invented it. I mean, someone had to!'

No longer laughing at me, the de Sullys nodded their heads.

‘You're right, Joseph: it could have been him. But there's actually no connection between them.'

Still, when Father Pons rang the doorbell and came into the de Sullys' house I knew straight away it was him.

This tall, narrow man looked as if he was made up of two separate parts that were completely unrelated: his head and the rest of him. His body seemed weightless, a length of fabric with no contours, a black robe so flat it could have been on a hanger, and peeping from beneath it were shiny boots that didn't seem to be attached to ankles. But his head sprang out at you: chubby, pink, lively, fresh and innocent, like a baby after a bath. You felt like kissing it and taking it in your hands.

‘Good afternoon, Father,' said the Comte. ‘This is Joseph.'

I scrutinized him, trying to understand why his face didn't really surprise me but also was a sort of confirmation. A confirmation of what? His dark, dark eyes looked at me kindly from behind the light-framed,
round lenses of his glasses.

Then it suddenly dawned on me.

‘You haven't got any hair!' I exclaimed.

He smiled and in that moment I started to like him.

‘I've lost a lot and I shave what little I have left.'

‘Why?'

‘To save time on brushing it.'

I laughed out loud. So he himself wasn't sure why he was bald? It was too silly . . . The de Sullys were looking at me quizzically. Didn't they know either? Did I have to tell them? But it was so obvious: Father Pierre Pons's head was as smooth as a pebble because he had to match his own name −
pierre ponce
!

They were still looking baffled so I sensed that I should be quiet. Even if it did make me look stupid . . .

‘Can you ride a bike, Joseph?'

‘No.'

I didn't dare admit the reason for this failing: since the beginning of the war my cautious parents had stopped me playing in the street. I was therefore a long way behind children my age in all sorts of games.

‘Well, I'll teach you,' said the priest. ‘You try to stay on behind me. Hold on tight.'