Hilda handed him letters typed in French on official-looking stationery and signed each. “These authorize you to retrieve the children on our behalf.”
* * *
It took almost three hours for the bus to reach Châtillon-sur-Indre, which was to be his home for the week. The bridge had not been repaired after the Nazis bombed it, Hilda had told him. A temporary bridge served only pedestrians and bike riders.
Châtillon-sur-Indre was a small, sad village with only a few stores, now closed for the midday rest. A tall, narrow tower missing its top stood on a dell. Pigeons flew in and out of cracks in its windowless walls. As Uzi traversed an alley, he peeked through lace-curtained windows: A young couple was arguing in their kitchen. An older man was fixing a lamp in his front room. Three girls were sitting cross-legged on a bed, playing a board game. An ancient woman was lying on a couch near her stove. Where were the Jewish children?
Uzi knocked on the door of a cottage built of half-hewn timber and featuring a sign that read chambres. A kerchiefed proprietor in her mid-thirties showed him a room with a canopied bed and a bathtub. Uzi gestured to indicate that he would prefer a smaller room, and she led him to the attic, where tucked under the slanted eaves were a cot and a night table with a ceramic bowl. The lavatory was on the ground floor. Uzi nodded and handed her the francs she asked for.
“Mon nom est Uzi Yarden,” he said.
“Madame Therrien.” She made an eating gesture, then guided him downstairs to her tiny parlor, where she pointed to a card printed with squares. Understanding, Uzi presented the ration card that Miriam had given him, and Madame Therrien clipped a couple of coupons.
A small table in the corner of the room was covered with a lacy cloth, a black-framed photograph of a young man, a bouquet of flowers in a vase, and a lit candle. The wall above it bore a cross. A violin case rested against the table.
Madame Therrien served him soup rich with onions and cheese crusted on top. He soaked up the last drops of the soup with bread. An old woman shuffled in, crossed herself when she passed the small altar, and collected his bowl.
It was still afternoon, and he had work to do. Uzi got up. “Merci,” he said, and walked to the door.
He would not ask for Madame Therrien’s help, not until he knew where her sympathies lay. He entered a store with a sign reading charcuterie that was filled with hanging salamis and smoked meat. He showed the proprietor the first address, which he’d copied onto a separate sheet.
Making a sad face, the man mimed airplanes dropping bombs and everything destroyed.
“And this?” Uzi showed him a second note.
The man pointed to an upward-sloping street. He mimed grazing sheep.
The chiseled steps Uzi took were bordered on both sides by stone fences. Small houses were built into the slope. Perhaps in medieval times they were subject to tax collection by the lord in his now-ruined tower.
Village life unfolded as Uzi walked on: A man hammered a long nail; a girl played with a toddler; a teenager led two goats. A chicken that had escaped a yard darted into Uzi’s path, and he caught it and gave it to its owner, a woman who only glowered at him in return.
He was a stranger. They noticed his clothes, his hatless head, his unruly hair, and possibly his ramrod-straight posture. They had probably never encountered a proud, unapologetic Jew, although it’s likely that they didn’t know that he was one.
Uzi stopped by an old man sitting on a stool outside a low wooden shack. His face was turned toward the sun like a sunflower, soaking in its warmth. Uzi showed him the note. The man pointed to a green valley of alfalfa.
“Enfants?” Uzi ventured and raised two fingers. The twin boys, nine years old when Hilda had placed them on the list four years ago, must have been old enough to remember their parents’ names despite their new fake identities. The man took Uzi’s note and wrote down an address.
Twice more, Uzi’s inquiries about the boys were met with recognition and directions. The boys were so near! Excitement made his feet light. He would rescue the twins whose parents had been deported to their death, whose only living relative at the time, an uncle, had been unable to care for them when he went into hiding. Bewildered and traumatized, cut off from family ties, the boys must be waiting to be brought back to their people.
Yet Uzi had to traverse woods of oak, maple, and birch, walk along a field of dried sunflowers, and cross a rickety rope bridge over a ravine. The scale of the area map Hilda had given him was woefully useless for the details of this countryside. Uzi stopped to draw a map of his wanderings so he could find his way back.
At last, he arrived at a building set on a dirt road with a sign above the door reading taverne.
In the dim room under a cloud of cigarette smoke, a few patrons were scattered around small tables. He stepped to the counter, took out his pocket dictionary, and pointed to the word for “juice.” The man behind the counter guffawed, revealing what remained of bad teeth. He pumped beer from a keg into a mug. Slamming it on the counter, he said, “Jus français.” French juice. A patron nearby chuckled. Everyone was watching Uzi. This stranger who had walked into their midst was probably the only novelty of the day. Uzi lit a cigarette. Whatever conversations had been interrupted when he entered didn’t resume. He smiled and raised his mug in salute. No one reciprocated. He disliked the smirk on the tavern keeper’s face.
He tasted the frosty ale—darker than beer—then took a second gulp while scanning the room. There was no boy, let alone two, and in the thickening hostility he wasn’t about to inquire about them. He ground out his cigarette in the ashtray with care and placed the unsmoked stub back in the packet. “Bonsoir,” he said, and turned to the door.
No one responded.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sharon
Cherbourg, France
November 1968
Sharon learns that at Félix Amiot’s dinner, the half dozen officers of the Israeli permanent mission will be wearing their dark blue winter uniforms with multiple gold bands at the cuffs. She imagines herself in Rina’s oversize black dress sitting in the formal dining room with the crisply dressed French and Israeli senior officers. The dress could be cinched with a belt, but that would only emphasize how unsophisticated and graceless Sharon is. Savta would be appalled.
There’s no time to travel to Paris this week. Cherbourg’s store windows, which displayed fashionable apparel in the Catherine Deneuve film, show matronly dresses that would look outdated even on Savta. As Sharon ends her rounds in the plaza, she spots Rachelle at a coffee shop wearing one of her stylish silk blouses.
Sharon plops down on a chair at her table. “I’ve been everywhere looking for a decent dress for dinner at Amiot’s house,” she says. “Where do you shop?”
“You’re going to Fort du Cap Lévi?” Rachelle’s voice is flat.
“You’re not a member of Amiot’s fan club?”
“I appreciate what he’s done for this town. But can one ever erase his past?”
“Wow,” Sharon says. “Everyone I’ve met so far admires him.”
“Now you’ve met one who hates him. If time forgives Nazi collaborators, it is up to people like me to remember what they are capable of.” Rachelle stands up and drops a coin for the waiter. In a softer tone she says, “Let’s shop in my closet.”
Sharon can’t imagine how clothes belonging to the shorter, full-figured Rachelle would fit her, but she follows her home anyway.
She is warmed by the eclectic décor of Rachelle’s living room. A purple shawl is thrown in calculated casualness on a red velvet couch, plants hang from the ceiling by macramé ropes, and glass balls are suspended on invisible wires in front of the windows to break up the sun’s rays. A tall blue glass hookah rests on the floor between two leather beanbag chairs.
In her bedroom, Rachelle withdraws from her armoire a sky-blue chiffon dress.
