Two Crosses (24 page)

You are my firstborn and my delight. How proud your father and I are of you! And now it’s time for you to go off on your own.

I’m giving you this Huguenot cross. It comes from France where we lived years ago when you were only a child. Now you’re returning to Castelnau, the same city that was dear to me so long ago.

I give you this cross, which has always been for me a symbol of forgiveness and love. It was a gift when I was suffering. Wear it and know of my love and constant prayers for you.

We love you,

Mother

Gabriella folded the sheet of paper and wiped her eyes. She felt for the cross and remembered breaking its chain at Mother Griolet’s.

I’m sorry, Mother. It will take time. To forgive, as you say. I’m so sorry that I said nothing. I was so afraid, Mother. I didn’t know what to do. I was so afraid.

17

The middle of the afternoon found the streets of Algiers deserted. Fear hung on every street corner, blood stained each sidewalk. No amount of washing could erase the horror of the war.

The FLN’s terrorist activities were rivaled in every way by the violent action of the OAS. Every day this military organization, determined to keep Algeria French, resorted to new methods of barbarism.

Some pied-noirs joined the camps of the OAS. Others hesitated. It was certain that de Gaulle had betrayed them. The French president was clearly pushing for an independent Algeria. Ever since the botched
putsch
of last April, the discontent French leaders had plotted and planned from their hideouts. Now it was time to act. So the daily papers announced murder after murder. Hatred bred and fermented and spread throughout the neighborhoods of Algiers.

Anne-Marie was almost too tired to care. She stared numbly out the window of the small bedroom in the slums of Bab el-Oued. This was the neighborhood of the
petits blancs
, the poorest of the Europeans in Algeria. It was also the headquarters of the OAS. Fifty thousand Europeans were crammed into the space between the Casbah and the Mediterranean. These petits blancs stood to lose everything if Algeria gained independence. They had nothing in France, and what work could they find here if the country was granted its freedom? So they joined the OAS to register their desperate cry for an
Algérie française
.

However, Anne-Marie had grown weary of political games. She knew she should feel thankful to be out of the Casbah and relatively safe. The memory of her frantic race with Moustafa through the tiny streets in the dead of night was still fresh enough to make her heart pound. Only the night had hidden the terror in their eyes from one another. Terror that the sun would rise and they would still be trapped within the arches of the Casbah, easy prey for a throat-slitting member of the FLN.

But miraculously Moustafa found his way through the labyrinth, and they had stepped from the low arches of their prison before the first streaks of light appeared in the sky. Later that morning they had slipped inside the small apartment of Marcus Cirou in Bab el-Oued.

The middle-aged pied-noir was short and lean, and his gray hair glistened with grease. He welcomed Anne-Marie; his respect for her father during the last war was immense. It was only natural, he told her, that he would shelter Captain Duchemin’s daughter. He had eyed Moustafa suspiciously at first, but Anne-Marie convinced him that her companion was indeed on the pied-noirs’ side. A reluctant part of the FLN when tortured, a loyal harki’s son once free.

Marcus shared his humble provisions with his two unexpected guests. He even found a bottle of precious medicine for Anne-Marie’s cough. But after a month there, she was still weak, her eyes dull, even when the sound of bombs reverberated through the night.

What she heard in her mind echoed louder than the bombs that exploded routinely around the neighborhood, louder than the angry shouts of the pied-noirs on the square in front of the prefecture. She heard it in the early morning and throughout the day. At night it woke her troubled sleep.

We have found your daughter.
Rachid’s voice repeated the simple statement incessantly in her head.

She had not wanted to kill him. She had not wanted to run. The punishment for his death and their escape had fallen on Ophélie, she was sure. She shuddered, afraid to imagine what Ali’s anger could do to her daughter. Nothing mattered at all if hope for Ophélie was lost.

“Anne-Marie, please, you must eat this.” Moustafa entered the bedroom with a plate of rice and beans. He sat beside her, gently stroking her back and neck. “My
habibti
,” he whispered, using the Arabic term for a sweetheart. “Don’t worry so. We aren’t even sure that they have Ophélie. I’ve been back to the Casbah three times and watched these men. They haven’t spoken of her. Please, you must eat.”

It was the same argument he had used for the past month, but Anne-Marie wasn’t convinced. She doubted that Moustafa could even convince himself.

“It’s a miracle that we’re alive,” he continued. “Surely this is not in vain. I’ve reached three of the families in Algiers, and soon we’ll set up another voyage for the
Capitaine
. You’ll see—the children will escape. All of the children. Ophélie too!”

He shook Anne-Marie’s shoulders, but she stared at him blankly.

“I’m sorry, Moustafa. I’m trying to believe. What can I think of in this room? What do I see day after day, week after week? I see the face of my daughter. I live for that face. And I fear.”

He held her in a tight embrace, her head buried against his chest. Gently he took her chin in his hand and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Live for Ophélie, my
habibti
. Live for her, of course.” He looked into the depths of her sad eyes. “But live for me, too. I need you. I need you so much.”

His lips brushed hers, softly, then with passion. Immediately he pulled himself away. “I have to go.” He rose to his feet, touched her lips with his fingers.

Anne-Marie smiled, a weak, tired smile. “Thank you,” she whispered as he left the room. She covered her mouth with her hand and cried.

Bus 11 left the cobblestone streets of Castelnau and turned into the large roundabout that connected the village to the east side of Montpellier. It veered onto avenue de la Pompignane, stopping beside a nursery that advertised a sale on chrysanthemums, two pots for forty francs. The front of the nursery was lined with hundreds of pots of the orange, yellow, and burgundy flowers, offered at a special price ever since the first of November, All Saints’ Day, when the mums were bought by the dozens to adorn the tombstones of Montpellier.

Ophélie bounced happily on the bus seat, singing the old French melody they had learned in class that morning. Gabriella caught the little girl’s attention. “Look there at the fountains spraying water. See all the mums they’ve planted?”

The bus swerved around another roundabout that encircled a small green hill topped with a replica of an ancient Roman house. Rows of chrysanthemums outlined the green grass. A fountain of water ran down from inside the Roman ruin.

“The flowers are
belle
!
Belle, belle comme toi, Gabriella!
You’re so pretty.” Ophélie bounced higher in her seat, laughing and hugging Gabriella as she sang. “And look, Gabriella! One of my teeth is loose.” She wiggled her top front tooth back and forth. “Do you think
la petite souris
will come to the orphanage when I lose my tooth?”

“Well, of course she will. The little mouse can get in anywhere that a child has hidden her tooth under a pillow.”

Gabriella looked at the child beside her, and somehow she was suddenly back in Senegal, holding Ericka on her lap, giggling with her little sister as she twisted her hair into imaginary braids. Gabriella tried to shut out the racing images.
A little girl sobbing, hiding her face in Mother Griolet’s black skirts. A black-haired child lying desperately still and yellow in an African hut. A bright-eyed six-year-old raising her hand in class and beaming back at the red-haired teacher.

She took a deep breath. “What do you like best about being six years old, Ophélie?”

The child wrinkled her nose and thought. “Hmm. I like learning how to read.
Oui!
That is best.” Again she bounced up and down, up and down, pigtails swishing back and forth behind her. “
Non!
” she cried joyfully. “That is not the best thing about being six! Not even reading. The best thing about being six years old is meeting you!” Impetuously she grabbed Gabriella around the neck and kissed her cheeks.

The bus stopped abruptly, and Gabriella and Ophélie held each other tightly, bracing themselves against the sudden motion. They both burst out in laughter.

“You’re glad then, Ophélie, that you’re six?”

“Oh yes. Very glad.”

The bus pulled to a stop across the street from the Montpellier train station, beside a park where another fountain spewed and children climbed on jungle gyms and slides.

“Time to get off,
ma chérie
.”

“May I play in the park, Bribri?” Ophélie pleaded, using the name she had adopted for her friend.

“Yes, go ahead for a moment.”

Gabriella followed Ophélie, who dashed through the park toward a swing set. Higher and higher she pushed herself, pumping her legs vigorously against the wind.

“Look at me! Look how high I can go, Bribri. Look!”

Gabriella waved from the bench where she sat. “Live, Ophélie,” she whispered to herself. “And laugh and love. That is what you should be doing at six years old.”

Gabriella and Ophélie walked up the street from the bus stop to where it opened onto place de la Comédie. Hundreds of people mingled around the outdoor cafés, huddling together in the brisk chill of the afternoon. Ophélie skipped along, swinging Gabriella’s hand with hers.

“Look! Another fountain.” She giggled. “With three naked ladies standing in the middle.” She squinted in the sun as she turned toward her maîtresse. “Isn’t that funny? Naked ladies in the fountain.”

“That’s a statue of the Three Graces. They represent beauty. You’ll study about them one day. Come along now. We must find the jeweler somewhere behind la Comédie.”

They twisted through the narrow streets of the
centre ville
, Ophélie straining like a dog on a leash to peek inside a toy store, a boulangerie, and a store lined with rows of children’s shoes. They came upon a man drawing a picture of the Virgin and Child with bright-pastel chalks on the sidewalk. Ophélie planted her feet and refused to budge.

“
Ooh là, regarde ça!
” she chirped, tugging on Gabriella’s hand. “Have you ever seen such a pretty picture? And on the sidewalk. That is too bad. It will wash away when it rains.”

“The artist wants you to give him some money.” Gabriella handed Ophélie a franc. “It’s people like you who make him happy. See? Go put this in his hat over there.”

Cautiously Ophélie tiptoed over to where the man’s hat lay overturned with a few francs and centimes sparkling like real treasure inside. He looked up and smiled at Ophélie. “
Merci,
jeune fille
,” he murmured before returning to his work.

A vendor was selling
châtaignes
at his stall a few feet away. The smell of the roasting chestnuts enticed Ophélie. “Oh, Bribri! May we please buy a
cornet
of those? Oh, please?” She jumped up and down with excitement.

“Ophélie, come on with you. I won’t have any money to pay the jeweler if we stop and buy everything we see. Just observe. And on our way home you may pick one treat. Only one.
D’accord?
”

“Oh yes. Thank you.” She planted a kiss on Gabriella’s cheek.