Sarah's Key (28 page)

I know she will never forget. Behind the rosy cheeks and the smile, there is a hardness about her. She will never be a normal fourteen-year-old child. She is like a woman, a bitter woman. Sometimes it seems she is older than me. She never talks about her family, about her brother. But I know she carries them with her, always. I know she goes to the cemetery every week, sometimes more often, to visit her brother’s grave. She wants to go alone. She refuses my company. Sometimes I follow her, just to make sure she’s all right. She sits in front of the little tombstone, and she remains very still. She can sit there for hours, holding that brass key she carries around with her, always. The key to the cupboard where her poor little brother died. When she comes back home, her face is shut and cold. It is difficult for her to talk, to make contact with me. I try to give her all the love I have, for she is the daughter I never gave birth to.

She never talks about Beaune-la-Rolande. If ever we drive near the village, she goes white. She turns her head away and closes her eyes. I wonder if one day the world will know. If it will all come out into the open, what happened there. Or if it will stay a secret forever, buried in a dark, disturbed past.

In the past year, since the end of the war, Jules has been to the Lutétia often, sometimes with Sarah, to keep abreast of the people coming home from the camps. Hoping, always hoping. We all hoped, with all our might. But now we know. Her parents will never come back. They were killed at Auschwitz, during that terrible summer of 1942.

I sometimes wonder how many children, like her, went through hell and survived, and now have to go on, without their loved ones. So much suffering, so much pain. Sarah has had to give up everything she was: her family, her name, her religion. We don’t ever talk about it, but I know how deep the void is, how cruel her loss is. Sarah talks of leaving the country, of starting anew, somewhere else, far away from everything she has known, everything she has gone through. She is too small now, too fragile to leave the farm, but the day will come. Jules and I will have to let her go.

Yes, the war is over, at last over, but for your father and me, nothing is the same. Nothing will ever be the same. Peace has a bitter taste. And the future is foreboding. The events that have taken place have changed the face of the world. And of France. France is still recovering from her darkest years. Will she ever recover, I wonder? This is no longer the France I knew when I was a little girl. This is another France that I don’t recognize. I am old now, and I know my days are numbered. But Sarah, Gaspard, and Nicolas are still young. They will have to live in this new France. I pity them, and I fear what lies ahead.

My dear boy, this was not meant to be a sad letter; alas, it has turned out that way, and I am indeed sorry. The garden needs tending to, the chickens must be fed, and I shall sign off. Let me thank you again for everything you have done for Sarah. God bless you both, for your generosity, your faithfulness, and God bless your boys,

Your loving mother,

Geneviève

A

NOTHER PHONE CALL. My cellular. I should have turned it off. It was Joshua. I was surprised to hear him. He didn’t usually call this late.

“Just saw you on the news, sugar,” he drawled. “Looking pretty as a picture. A trifle pale, but very glamoroso.”

“The news?” I breathed. “What news?”

“Turned on my TV for the eight o’clock news on TF1 and there’s my Julia, just below the prime minister.”

“Oh,” I said, “the Vel’ d’Hiv’ ceremony.”

“Good speech, didn’t you think?”

“Very good.”

A pause. I heard the click of his lighter as he lit up a mild Marlboro, the silver-box ones, the kind you only get in the States. I wondered what he had to say to me. He was usually blunt. Too blunt.

“What is it, Joshua?” I asked warily.

“Nothing, really. Just called to say you did a good job. That Vel’ d’Hiv’ piece of yours is getting talked about. I just wanted to tell you. Bamber’s photos are great, too. You guys pulled it off just fine.”

“Oh,” I said. “Thank you.”

But I knew him better than that.

“Anything else?” I added carefully.

“There’s one thing that bothers me.”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“One thing missing, in my opinion. You got the survivors, the witnesses, the old guy at Beaune-la-Rolande etc., all that is fine. Fine, fine. But you forgot a couple of things. The cops. The French cops.”

“Well?” I asked, beginning to feel exasperation nibble at me. “What about the French cops?”

“It would have been perfect if you could have gotten those roundup cops to talk. If you could have found a couple of those guys, just to hear their side of the story. Even if they’re old men now. What did these guys tell their kids? Did their families ever know?”

He was right, of course. It had never entered my head. The exasperation waned. I said nothing, crushed.

“Hey, Julia, no problem,” Joshua chuckled. “You did a great job. Maybe those cops would never have talked, anyway. You probably didn’t read much about them in your research, did you?”

“No,” I said. “Come to think of it, there is nothing about how the French police felt in what I read. They were only doing their jobs.”

“Yeah, their jobs,” echoed Joshua. “But I sure would have liked to have known how they lived with that. And come to think of it, what about those fellas driving those endless trains from Drancy to Auschwitz. Did they know what they were carrying? Did they really think it was cattle? Did they know where they were taking these people, what was going to happen to them? And all the guys driving those buses? Did they know anything?”

He was right again, of course. I remained silent. A good journalist would have delved deep into those taboos. French police, French railway, French bus system.

But I had been obsessed with the Vel’ d’Hiv’ children. And one child, in particular.

“You OK, Julia?” came his voice.

“Peachy keen,” I lied.

“You need some time off,” he declared. “Time to climb into a plane and go home.”

“That’s exactly what I had in mind.”

T

HE LAST PHONE CALL of the evening had been from Nathalie Dufaure. She sounded ecstatic. I imagined her waiflike face lit up with excitement, her brown eyes glowing.

“Julia! I looked through all Papy’s papers, and I found it. I found Sarah’s card!”

“Sarah’s card?” I repeated, lost.

“The card she sent to say she was getting married, the last card. She gives the name of her husband.”

I grabbed a pen, fumbled around in vain for a piece of paper. No paper. I pointed the ball-point at the back of my hand.

“And the name is?”

“She wrote to say she was marrying Richard J. Rainsferd.” She spelled the name out. “The card is dated March 15, 1955. No address. Nothing else. Just that.”

“Richard J. Rainsferd,” I repeated, writing it in block letters on my skin.

I thanked Nathalie, promised to keep her informed of my progress, then dialed Charla’s number in Manhattan. I got her assistant, Tina, who put me on hold for a while. Then Charla’s voice came through.

“You again, honey pie?”

I went straight to the point.

“How do you find someone in the States, get hold of someone?”

“Phone book,” she said.

“Is it that easy?”

“There are other ways,” she replied cryptically.

“What about a person who disappeared in 1955?”

“You got a Social Security number, license plate, or even an address?”

“Nope. Nothing.”

She whistled through her teeth.

“It’ll be tough. Might not work. I’ll try, though, I have a couple of pals who could help. Give me the name.”

At that moment, I heard the front door slam, the jangle of keys being tossed onto the table.

My husband, back from Brussels.

“I’ll get back to you,” I whispered to my sister, and hung up.

B

ERTRAND WALKED INTO THE ROOM. He looked tense, pale, his face was drawn. He came to me, took me in his arms. I felt his chin nestle on top of my head.

I felt I had to speak fast.

“I didn’t do it,” I said.

He hardly moved.

“I know,” he answered. “The doctor phoned me.”

I pulled away from him.

“I couldn’t, Bertrand.”

He smiled, a strange, desperate smile. He went over to the tray by the window where we kept liquor and poured cognac into a glass. I noticed how fast he drank it, his head snapping back. It was an ugly gesture and it stirred me.

“So what now?” he said, putting the glass down squarely. “What do we do now?”

I tried to smile, but I could fell it was a fake, cheerless one. Bertrand sat on the sofa, loosened his tie, opening the first two buttons of his shirt.

Then he said, “I can’t face the idea of this child, Julia. I tried to tell you. You wouldn’t listen.”

Something in his voice made me look closer at him. He seemed vulnerable, rundown. For a split second I saw Edouard Tézac’s weary face, the expression he had in the car, when he told me about Sarah coming back.

“I can’t stop you having this baby. But I need you to know that I just can’t come to terms with it. Having this child is going to destroy me.”

I wanted to express pity—he seemed lost, defenseless—but instead an unexpected feeling of resentment took over me.

“Destroy you?” I repeated.

Bertrand got up, poured himself another drink. I glanced away as he swallowed it.

“Ever heard of midlife crisis,
amour
? You Americans are so fond of that expression. You’ve been wrapped up in your job, your friends, your daughter, you haven’t even noticed what I’ve been going through. To tell the truth, you don’t care. Do you?”

I stared at him, startled.

He lay back on the sofa, slowly, carefully, gazing up at the ceiling. Slow, precautious gestures I’d never seen him use. The skin of his face seemed crumpled. All of a sudden, I was looking at an aging husband. Gone was the young Bertrand. Bertrand had always been triumphantly young, vibrant, energetic. The kind of person who never sits still, always on the go, buoyant, fast, eager. The man I was staring at was like a ghost of his former self. When had this happened? How could I not have seen it? Bertrand and his tremendous laugh. His jokes. His audacity. Is that your husband? people would whisper, awed, galvanized. Bertrand at dinner parties, monopolizing conversations, but nobody cared, he was so riveting. Bertrand’s way of looking at you, the powerful flicker of his blue eyes and that crooked, devilish smile.

Tonight there was nothing tight, nothing taut about him. He seemed to have let go. He sat there, flaccid, limp. His eyes were mournful, his lids drooped.