Fernand broke in. “Madame, we’ll cut the cheese for you. Anything else?”
After the woman left, he turned to Claudette. “What is this nonsense?”
She lowered her eyes. “Sorry.” She shouldn’t alienate him. Tomorrow he would be traveling to market day in Vendoeuvres and the day after to Mézières. On Saturday, the big market was in Loches. These trips were her only way to scout for Benjamin. Sooner or later, whoever had adopted him would be out shopping in the same market as she was. It might take months or years. She would never stop hoping and searching.
The next day, one of their customers was accompanied by a boy who could have been Benjamin, but this time Claudette waited until the boy and his grandmother had departed. She stepped away from the cheese stall, followed the woman, and caught up to her as she was buying cauliflower. The boy was free to move, but he circled around her, never running away to get lost in the crowd. Claudette liked that. An obedient child, a careful one.
When the grandmother finished paying, Claudette said, “Excuse me, madame. Does your boy have a tattoo on the bottom of his foot?”
“I don’t understand your question.”
“Never mind. Please forgive the intrusion. He’s a very cute boy.”
At the end of the week, Fernand insisted that Claudette explain why she was hounding people. Bursting into tears, she confessed the truth, certain that he would let her go. She would lose her chance to travel with him—and the little income she was earning.
To her surprise, he said that she could continue to work for him as long as she didn’t bother customers at his stall. “Mothers will have sympathy for you. So many babies died of malnutrition and lack of medical care,” he said. “My wife and I lost a little girl.”
“I’m sorry.” Perhaps adoption hadn’t been the worst of all possible outcomes, not if Benjamin was in good health and being fed.
“What kind of tattoo is it?” Fernand asked. “A bird, a cross, a word?”
Claudette was aware that she was gaining a reputation as a crippled mother gone soft in the head. “When I find Benjamin, you’ll see.”
* * *
Winter was behind them. Raphaël had not appeared. Father Hugo kept in touch with other churches and reported that no Jews had returned to the area. The many French transit camps in which Jews had been held before being transported to Auschwitz had long been emptied. After all these tragic confirmations of the Jews’ fate, Claudette’s trust in Raphaël’s resilience dissolved. If he were alive, he would have returned by now. Her heart hollowed at the double loss. She had to accept that Raphaël was gone forever, but not Benjamin. Her son was alive somewhere not far from here. Hope was the only light in the dark pit into which she had sunk.
In Madame Couture’s kitchen, Claudette picked up a yellow chick from the box in which she was raising a dozen of them. Holding the fluffy yellow baby creature in her palm gave her a minute of comfort. She brought her lips to its head. Benjamin would have loved to stroke the fuzz. When her chicks matured and produced eggs, she would never kill any of them for food.
At the sound of Fernand’s cart’s wheels, she put down the chick and walked out. Today was a bright spring day in the market of Châteauroux, a large town that attracted many shoppers.
Fernand was busy restocking his table with wheels of cheese when a great commotion rose up in the street. An excited mob approached, cheering, taunting. Claudette heard the cruelty in their collective tone before she understood the dirty words they flung against a woman: “Putain.” “Boche lover.” “Whore.” “Traitor.”
The disorganized procession neared Fernand’s stall, and a shriek pierced the air. The scream was a woman’s, but it sounded inhuman in its tortured pain.
Claudette’s skin contracted in horror. She stepped from behind the counter to catch a glimpse. She’d heard about retaliation against women who had fraternized with German soldiers; she had been disgusted by the thought of these women’s treachery. But this?
The woman the mob dragged forward was completely naked. Her screams continued as her limbs were pulled in different directions. Then her arms were pinned back. Three men yelled into her face, pinching her breasts, grabbing her crotch. A fourth one yanked the mane of her hair and wrenched her neck so far back that Claudette feared it might break. Only the many hands holding the woman kept the body from crumpling to the ground. A man directed a hard kick with his work boot into the woman’s groin. Her body jerked. She screeched in pain.
No one came to her aid. Some onlookers were wide-eyed with horror, their hands on their mouths. Others nodded sadly; still others raised their fists in approval.
Fernand joined Claudette. “So many collaborators are being purged,” he whispered. “My cousin saw a public hanging here, one of a woman like this one. Why not leave justice to God?”
The woman struggled against her captors. The blades of a pair of large scissors, the kind Madame Couture used to cut fabric, glimmered in the sunlight. Chunks of hair were chopped off so close to the woman’s scalp that they left streaks of blood.
No one helped the woman as she continued to scream, her voice now hoarse.
Only when her head was bald did the men let her drop to the ground. She convulsed. More people approached and kicked her. She stopped jerking.
The mob finally dispersed.
In the silence, Claudette took a blanket out of Fernand’s cart and, using her new cane for support, limped toward the crumpled body on the ground. Whether she was alive or dead, Claudette would give her some dignity. That was the Christian—and Jewish—thing to do.
She was about to return to Fernand’s stall when she heard a familiar voice, clear as a bell. “Claudette, is that you?”
She swiveled to see a cart heaped with woven baskets. Standing next to it was Solange.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Sharon
Cherbourg, France
December 1968
Arthur Durand. Sharon’s heart sings with excitement as she rides her bike to Rachelle’s office at La Presse de la Manche. The cold, wet ocean wind slaps her knit hat and raises the flaps of her coat. Her gloved hands grip the bike handles tighter and she bends low. Her lips and nose freeze as she rides along the open canal and over the bridge.
At the front of the newspaper building, she stashes her bike and pulls out a handkerchief to wipe her cold, damp face. Her exhilaration mounts.
She enters the office and takes off her gloves; Rachelle rubs her bloodless fingers between her palms. “Herbal tea?” She plugs in the percolator.
Sharon peels off her coat and one of her two sweaters to let warm air reach her skin. “Didn’t you tell me that Jewish organizations kept track of children? I need your help in finding out where an orphaned Jewish boy by the name of Arthur Durand lived. It might be somewhere in the Loire Valley, Provence, or the Dordogne.”
“OSE had institutions in the southern part of the free zone. The Loire Valley was a major escape route, but it was too close to the demarcation line for most Jews to stay.” Rachelle places a strainer with tea leaves over a mug and pours hot water over them. The herby aroma of chamomile wafts up as she hands the tea to Sharon.
Sharon wraps her fingers around the warm mug. “Who do I write to?”
“Write to?” Rachelle steps to a filing cabinet and opens a drawer. She roots through folders and pulls out a large envelope. “Remember my missing grandfather? When I searched ships’ manifests from the 1940s for his name, I also ordered any lists available from Jewish organizations to find other relatives.” She settles in front of a side table supporting a large machine with a tall, opaque screen. Her back is to Sharon as she pulls smaller envelopes from the big one and leafs through them. She selects a filmstrip.
