“Oh God.” She can barely get out the words: “Thank you so much!”
Amiot’s uniformed chauffeur enters her apartment at eight thirty just as she buckles the second of her two suitcases. Before packing her flute in its case, Sharon held it with a sinking feeling, thinking of the people she is letting down.
In deference to Amiot and his private plane, she’s dressed in her wool suit rather than her comfortable corduroy pants and sweater. Those are rolled in her backpack; she’ll change into them at the airport before she sleeps on a bench tonight. She’s managed to shower, press-iron her hair after it dried, and apply a touch of blush on her cheeks so she doesn’t look as frazzled as she feels. Savta, she thinks, hang on. I’m coming. I’ll make you all better.
Only when she is in the chauffeur-driven car does she exhale, releasing the air that’s been trapped in her lungs. She scribbled a note for her roommates, and on her way down the stairs, she knocked on Naomi’s door to tell her the news. Rachelle will be disappointed too. They were about to start their Hebrew lessons. Failing to reach the Frenchwoman at her office, Sharon left a note with Danny to pass along through Dominique.
“Are you angry that I’m leaving the mission in the lurch?” Sharon asked him when he retrieved her passport.
“Lousy timing, kiddo. Take the calculus book with you in case you’re delayed.” He hugged her. Breathing the starch of his collared shirt, Sharon wished that the feel of his arms around her would linger. Then a pang in her heart reminded her that she had sleuthed behind his back. If only she hadn’t been pressed for time, she would have confessed and ended this saga.
In her head, she repeats her mantra: Savta, hang on. I’m coming. I’ll make you all better.
Chapter Forty-Five
Uzi Yarden
Loire Valley, France
October 1946
A couple of days after his talk with Rivka, Uzi was on the bus back to Châteauroux with seven children. If anyone had asked him at the start of his mission how many kids he expected to rescue, he would have said dozens. Now he glanced at the handful of children staring out the window, their silent, shocked numbness a response to yet another seismic shift in their lives. He reminded himself of a Talmud saying: Whoever saves a single soul is considered to have saved an entire world.
The bus crossed a bridge over the Creuse River. Underneath, a low dam allowed water to gush over its rim in a copious, raucous cascade. Uzi glanced at Rivka, the oldest in the group. Now properly outfitted for the weather in a wool dress and a thick cardigan, her hair combed and braided, she showed no outward signs of the depredation of an abandoned child thrown into the path of a pimp. She’d told Uzi that her father’s sister had left for Palestine, and she knew her married name, so Uzi had promised to help search for her. As he would for Sarah’s brother.
For the past year in Palestine, each day at noon, Uzi turned on the radio in the packing shed and blasted it so he could hear it while working among the trees. Kol Israel radio announced for a full hour the names of Holocaust survivors from Germany, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Ukraine who were now living in Israel and searching for surviving relatives or neighbors from their European hometowns. Behind each name, there were tragedies beyond the grasp of the human mind. In every village that was no more, like the razed Jewish quarter of Marseille, there had been dynamic Jewish life.
Across the aisle from Uzi, Manuel sat with his new friend, a pale girl with translucent skin and straw-colored hair whom Uzi had found in a monastery. He hoped that the little girl, Guylaine, renamed Gilla, was emotionally strong enough for the arduous trip ahead and that Martha, who sat behind these two eight-year-olds, would keep them calm when the time came.
Now that Uzi was attached to these children and the ones waiting for him with Pastor Gaspard, worry gnawed at him. How could he lead them through the dangerous journey? Up to this point, his focus had been on rescuing them from a life of rootlessness and lost identity. The next phase of his mission was about to launch. He would accompany his children and those found by other agents on the train to Marseille. There, the children would wait at the displaced-persons camp while he joined the team preparing the boat, Hatikvah—“The hope.”
Uzi shifted his gaze to the window and stared at the magnificent red, yellow, and orange of the tree crests. The adults knew, although it was beyond the grasp of most of the children, how risky the clandestine operation would be. That was why it was unsuitable for young children; they might slow the group’s fast pace or cry out and break the silence, exposing them all. Had he done the right thing, removing young Gilla from the safety of the nuns who had sheltered her? The alternative, though—leaving her behind in the convent—was unthinkable.
As was leaving Daniel.
* * *
It was Uzi’s last day in the Châteauroux area and the Loire Valley before he departed with the children to Marseille. He had planned to use his free day to finally explore the baroque splendor of mansions, their façades carved from soft chalk stone into elaborate columns, arches, intricate garlands, and crowns. Instead, he rooted through the trunk of used children’s clothes in Pastor Gaspard’s church and selected a pair of shoes, two unmatched socks, and a small coat. Uzi would not discuss Daniel’s case with Hilda, knowing her response. He wouldn’t even ask for Pastor Gaspard’s help in composing the letter he needed.
It had been over a week since Uzi left Châtillon-sur-Indre. Guilt at having walked out on Daniel gnawed at him. How could he have left that adorable boy in those deplorable conditions? He now knew without a doubt what had to be done. He wished he could alert Zehava; he would have sent her a telegram if there were a functioning post office nearby.
He copied a string of words from his dictionary. You. Write. Last name. Father. Permission. Take. Boy. Birth date. Birth parents. Registration. Signature. Money. Witness. Date.
In the busy town of Châteauroux he had found a wood-carver selling bowls, boxes, and stools. On his shelf sat a train with three cars behind the engine. At Daniel’s age, Uzi had loved his and had been scolded for refusing to share it. “No one owns personal property in the kibbutz,” he was told. Eventually, as he grew up, Uzi grasped the wisdom of communal life, but the earlier thrill remained in his memory. He wanted to give Daniel the same.
He had left his bike as a gift for Father Patrick’s staff in Argenton, so he hitchhiked to Châtillon-sur-Indre. When the farmer let him off, the place where Uzi had spent a week felt as welcoming as home. The air was crisp, and Uzi would have liked, for once, to relax at a café with a cup of coffee or climb up the ancient, abandoned tower in the center of town and get a view of the surrounding land.
Madame Therrien opened the door and appeared surprised to see him.
Hoping that she had been keeping Daniel, Uzi scanned the parlor. Seeing no signs of the boy, he stepped into the kitchen and pointed to the house behind hers.
She shook her head sadly. “No Daniel.” She made a hand gesture like a bird taking flight.
Gone? “Où?” he asked. Where to?
She raised both hands in a show of ignorance. “Orphelinat?”
The word was close enough to the English word orphanage. Uzi’s heart sank. Where had Daniel been taken to? What was the process for retrieving him from an institution? How could he officially adopt him? Zehava would surely fall in love with him. She and Uzi had agreed on three or four children, their contribution to Jewish revival in their homeland. They would just start earlier than planned, with a child who was already four years old.
But where was he? Uzi had no idea what kind of documents Daniel’s adoptive father had signed or whether permission had been required to remove a neglected child from his home. Whatever the scenario, Uzi needed a signed letter from this man authorizing him to take over.
Uzi pointed to his list of words, led Madame Therrien to the dining table, and put a pen and a clean sheet of paper in front of her. He was unsure of her level of literacy, and indeed, she erased, corrected, erased again, then finally copied it all onto another clean sheet.
Moments later, Uzi waved three thousand-franc notes in front of Daniel’s adoptive father. The man filled out some blanks and signed the paper. The lines for Daniel’s birth parents’ names were left empty.
Satisfied with the signature, Uzi folded the letter. “Plus documents?” Uzi asked, using the English word with the French pronunciation.
“No.” The man reached for the money.
Uzi hadn’t imagined that he would ever be heading back to the town hall, but it was the only official place he could think of to notarize his new document. Rounding the corner, he saw the crown of blond curls as the young clerk bent to water the front bushes. She sent him a big smile, put down the watering can, then stretched like a cat. The fabric of her cotton dress pressed against her breasts, and she looked straight at him as if gauging her effect on him.
Discomfort rushed through him at the sexual overture.
Just then, fast footsteps behind him made him turn. Arthur.
