“Magnificat anima mea Dominum . . .”
My soul proclaims the glory of God.
“Magnificat anima mea Dominum . . .” Madame Marcelle’s thin voice stretched and soared. Her voice wasn’t strong enough for performing, but she could sing. The first part of the piece was a chorus, written for many voices at once.
“Magnificat anima mea . . .”
I knew where it came from, of course. The gospel of Luke, the words Mary’s cousin Elizabeth used to greet her when they were both pregnant, Elizabeth with John the Baptist, Mary with Jesus. I thought of Madame Montagne and her little dead baby, and my head swam.
“Magnificat—Suzanne!” Madame Marcelle rapped the music with her pencil. “Faites attention! Pay attention! Here is the alto solo. I want you to listen, and then we will get to your part, the soprano.” She put her pencil down on the stand and sang again. “Et exaltavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo.”
My spirit rejoices in God my savior.
“Suzanne!”
I grabbed the edge of the music stand to steady myself. I paid attention. We reached my part, and I followed Madame Marcelle’s lead. “Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae.” For he has looked upon his lowly one in her distress. “Ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes.” For behold, generations to come will call me blessed.
I sang. The music wrapped around me like a blanket, soft and comforting. I felt safer, singing. I could lose myself in the sound.
There had to be a God, I thought. A vibrant, joyous God in heaven, to make up for the awfulness of what people sometimes did on earth. There had to be a heaven, so that Madame Montagne had a place to go.
CHAPTER THREE
Yvette didn’t come to school on Friday either.
The sisters would not let me telephone her. After school Maman came to pick me up, something she had not done since my first week there. She cradled my face with her hands and looked at me anxiously. “I’m fine,” I said. “I’ll be fine. Can we go see Yvette?”
At Yvette’s house her mother, Madame Gireau, hugged me hard. “My dear, my dear,” she murmured, swaying back and forth, “that this should happen to either of you.” She pushed me away to arm’s length and looked at me. “But you are strong, Suzanne. Stronger than Yvette. Go see if you can get her to talk to you.”
Yvette was in the bedroom she shared with her younger sister. She sat in an armchair by the window with her back to the outdoors. She was fully dressed, even down to her shoes, and her hair was combed; she wore a loose gray sweater over her shoulders. She looked neat and clean, and the cut on her cheek was healing. “Bonjour,” I said softly.
She said nothing.
“I missed you at school,” I said. “I missed you so much. I was worried when you didn’t come back.” I sat on the edge of the bed, directly in front of her.
She said nothing.
“Are you hurt badly?” I asked. “My arms hurt all the time.” Nothing. No words from my best friend. “I pretend they don’t hurt,” I said. “Odette, Martine—all the girls want to know what happened, and I don’t feel like telling them, so I say nothing, and when they ask if my arms hurt, I say, ‘No, of course not, why should they?’ and they pretty much leave me alone. But I missed you. We can go back together on Monday. I’ll come pick you up.”
She said nothing. Her face didn’t change. She looked at me, and I think she saw me, but she seemed not to understand what I was saying. She seemed not to care.
“They found Simon,” I said after a pause. “He was hurt, he was in the square. His head is injured, but Dr. Leclerc says he will live.
“Yvette?” I went on. “Maman says the baby will go to heaven.”
Yvette did not move. “Because it had never truly been born,” I explained. “Maman says you don’t have to be baptized to go to heaven, if you die before you are truly born. Madame Montagne’s baptism counts for the baby too.”
Even at this Yvette’s face did not change. I talked more, about school and homework and the weather outside—about everything I could think of except the Germans—but I might as well have been talking to a deaf-mute, a polite deaf-mute who did not know me, for all the recognition Yvette showed. After a time I gave her a soft hug—she did not resist—and went away.
At the door Madame Gireau laid her hand on my arm. “Come again,” she said. “Come often.”
“I will,” I said. “I told her I’d come Monday morning and walk with her back to school.”
That evening my brothers came home for the weekend too. They were upset that I’d been hurt. “Why did you go near the beach?” Pierre asked. “Don’t you have any sense?”
“Quiet,” rumbled Papa. “It wasn’t her fault.”
“But everyone knew about the evacuations,” said Etienne.
“I didn’t,” I said. “What evacuations?”
“Dunkirk,” said Papa. “It’s over now.” He explained what had taken place. I had known that the Germans had crossed the border into France. I hadn’t known, until Papa told me, that the German army had advanced with unheard-of speed and slashed a line from one end of France to the other.
The British soldiers, and many of the French, some four hundred thousand men in all, were trapped against the ocean on a very small piece of land at a port city called Dunkirk, about forty kilometers from Cherbourg. Miraculously, nearly all of them were rescued, evacuated across the English Channel to Great Britain, by hundreds and hundreds of boats—fishing vessels, barges, yachts, anything that could float.
“That’s why the harbor looked so empty,” I said.
“Yes,” said Papa. “All our fishermen were helping. It’s a victory, after a fashion. At least it’s not an overwhelming defeat.”
“But what did that have to do with Cherbourg?” I asked. “Why did they bomb the square?”
“I don’t know,” Papa said. He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“She should have known better,” persisted Etienne. “She could have been—”
“Quiet,” Papa said. “She knows.”
Saturday Maman and I went to the market, which was near the Place Napoléon. I carried one big market basket, and Maman carried the other. I had always loved going to the market with my mother, especially on a bright spring day. The wind whipped little white-caps on the surface of the sea, and the sun glinted on the cobblestones.
The Place Napoléon was pockmarked with craters from the bombs. As we approached, my head turned as if by its own accord to the bench where Yvette and I had sat, to the spot where Madame Montagne had died. The bench was still there. An old man sat on it, enjoying a cigarette, his legs crossed and his arms flung back. The stones in front of it had been scrubbed clean; not a trace of that dark pool of blood remained.
I thought I would vomit. My hands began to shake.
“Oh, my love,” Maman said softly. “We shouldn’t have come this way.”
“No. It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
I walked across the square. I went to the market. I helped Maman pick out fish for dinner and a leg of lamb for Sunday, and I watched the butter dealer carve half a kilo of butter off his great yellow mound. He held it out to me wrapped in a leaf of lettuce, and I put it in my basket. Maman bought some of the first tender peas of the year. I felt numb. Grief sank into my belly like a stone.
The next day was Sunday. As usual, my widowed aunt Suzanne and her six children came to dinner after Mass. I loved my cousins, but they were all younger than me; there was not one of an age to be my friend. Whenever they came to our house Papa always said, “Here comes your aunt Suzanne and her battalion,” so that was how I thought of them.
Some days the battalion overwhelmed me. On this Sunday I thought they certainly would. But when my first small cousin cried, “Suzanne!” and launched herself into my lap, I was surprised at how tightly I hugged her in return. I carried her around part of the afternoon and put her down only to pick up another. My cousins hung on my legs and climbed over me, and I put my face
into their hair and breathed deeply, and began to feel better.
“Sing to us,” little Isabelle said. “Sing, sing.”
I began an Ave. Isabelle shook her head. “Sing something interesting.”
The children’s song that came to mind was the cabbage song Yvette had sung on the way to the beach. I thought of Yvette laughing. I couldn’t sing. Aunt Suzanne must have seen my face, because she came and took Isabelle away. “Come, come, the lamb is ready,” she said. “The lamb and the flageolets. Sit down.”
CHAPTER FOUR
On Monday we were beginning our end-of-the-year exams when we heard that the Germans had bombed Paris. After dinner the sisters took us to the chapel and led us in saying a rosary. Je vous salue, Marie, pleine de grâce . . . Hail Mary, full of grace . . . I thought of my two uncles who lived in Paris and added a special prayer for their safety. Then I thought of Yvette. I closed my eyes and dedicated a decade of my rosary to her.
Yvette wasn’t taking her exams. Yvette had not come back to school.
I had gone to her house especially early that morning in case she wasn’t quite ready. When I knocked, her mother took a long time to come to the door. “Oh, it’s you, Suzanne,” she said when she saw me. She sounded tired. Her hair was not yet combed. “Yvette had a difficult night,” she said. She smiled wistfully and stepped aside so I could enter. “Do you have nightmares too?”
I had nightmares, but I didn’t wish to trouble Madame Gireau with them. “May I speak to Yvette?”
“She’s sleeping, little one. I don’t want to wake her.”
“But school—”
“Suzanne, dear child.” Madame Gireau put her hand on my shoulder. “She cannot go to school right now.”
So now Paris had been bombed. After our rosary the sisters led us to a quiet supper and then to study time. Only when we were back in our rooms preparing for bed could we speak freely at last. “Think of the cathedral, beautiful Notre Dame,” said Odette. “It has stood for so many hundreds of years. I pray it wasn’t hit.”
“Of course it wasn’t hit,” Martine said. “Don’t be a ninny. They would have told us if Notre Dame was hit.” Four of us shared one room—Odette, Martine, Colette, and me.
“Oh, but think of all the beautiful old buildings,” Odette moaned. “The museums—the Louvre. It would be such a tragedy. Think of the history.”
I had often wished Yvette were one of my roommates. I wished it more now, listening to Odette yammer on. I wondered if Yvette had felt better after she had woken up that day.
“It should be against the law,” Odette declared. “They shouldn’t be allowed to bomb Paris.”
I said bitterly, “But to bomb Cherbourg, now, that’s all right.”
The others went silent. Odette plumped her pillow. Martine bit her lip. After a pause Colette spoke. “What was it like last week? You haven’t said anything. What happened?”
“Nothing,” I said. I climbed into my cot. “It was like nothing.” I turned my face to the wall.
At the end of that week school was over for the year. Ordinarily I loved summer. I loved the warm sun and the breezes, I loved shopping with Maman and spending days on Aunt Suzanne’s farm. But now we lived under a cloud of worry. The German army approached Paris. New grass was sprouting on Madame Montagne’s grave. Yvette still didn’t speak. I walked home slowly, my books held to my chest.
Maman and I were drinking tea in the kitchen when Papa came home. His face looked gray and tired. “Is there news?” Maman asked.
He shook his head. “I think waiting is the hardest part,” he said.
Maman said, “I hope so.”
It turned out that even Hitler was reluctant to destroy Paris’s beauty. The Germans bombed the city only once, and none of the famous buildings was harmed.
A week later, on the fourteenth of June, with the German army growing ever nearer, the French government declared Paris an open city. This meant that France would not defend it in exchange for the Germans’ not destroying it. We gave Paris to the Nazis. I believe it pleased Hitler to see the German flag fly over the Eiffel Tower. One of the last photos in the Cherbourg newspaper before the Germans took it over showed just that: Hitler, the Eiffel Tower, the German flag. Millions of people—more than three-quarters of the population—fled Paris. My two uncles stayed.
“A sad day for la belle France,” Papa said, slapping that newspaper down on the dinner table. Pierre and I sat silent on our side of the table. Etienne played with his fork on the tablecloth.
“I didn’t think it could happen to France,” Etienne said. “If I were a soldier . . .” His voice trailed off.
None of us responded. Etienne would never be a soldier, even though Papa had been in the cavalry in Paris, even though Papa’s commanding officer, the great General Charles de Gaulle, was Etienne’s own godfather. Four years ago Etienne had slipped running down Aunt Suzanne’s spiral staircase. He had fallen all the way to the bottom and broken his back. On good days he walked with crutches. Other times he used a wheelchair. Etienne was brave and intelligent and never complained, even though he still had a great deal of pain. If I was tough, I got it from him.
“I’ll be a soldier,” Pierre declared. “I’ll fight Hitler, that dirty pig!”
“You will be a schoolboy,” Papa replied. “You will do just as you should, and you will not be hurt.”
“I want to be a soldier,” Pierre said.
“A soldier listens to orders,” said Papa. He pointed at Pierre with his cigarette. “A soldier does as he is told.”
Every battleship in Cherbourg’s harbor had either sailed for England or been sunk on purpose to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. The Germans were very close.
On Sunday Marshal Pétain became premier of France. We heard it on the radio. Papa swore. “Don’t you like General Pétain?” I asked. He had been a hero in the Great War.
“He is an old man,” Papa said. “He had courage once but he does not have it now.” Papa leaned back in his chair. “Pétain is afraid of the Germans,” he continued. “For years General de Gaulle has said we should prepare for war. For years de Gaulle urged us to take the German threat seriously. Did we listen? No. Did we prepare? No. And now we are overrun.”
“Where is General de Gaulle now?” asked Etienne.
Papa looked grim. “I don’t know.”
The German army, led by General Rommel, approached Cherbourg. What was left of the French army fought hard to defend us. As the battle drew nearer, the sounds of bombs and shooting grew louder from the hills behind the city. To me they were echoes of the day at the Place Napoléon. I worried about Papa, who was at his job in the railroad station. I worried about Pierre, who had run off somewhere. I worried about myself, about all of us. A bomb could strike anywhere.
“Be still,” Maman said. “You wiggle too much.” She was pinning pieces of a dress around me to see how they would fit. Maman was a wonderful seamstress. She made most of my clothes.
“I must visit Yvette,” I said. I went to see her nearly every day. A day earlier I had thought she’d almost spoken.
Etienne was in the parlor, listening to the radio. From far away gunfire sounded like firecrackers. My hands shook, the tiniest bit.
“Today you stay here,” Maman replied.
“But Yvette—”
“You stay here,” Maman said. “Do you understand?” Maman almost never spoke so sharply.
“Yes, Maman.”
Etienne came into the room on his crutches. “Listen,” he said. He nodded at the window. “Open it, Suzanne.”
I opened it and we listened. It was a steady hum of engines, a rumble of machinery. “Tanks,” said Etienne. “I think we have surrendered.”
When Papa came home he said it was true. Cherbourg was in German hands. The city officials had surrendered. The railroad had been given to the Germans.
“Surely you don’t work for the Nazis, Papa?” Pierre asked.
“I do,” Papa said. “The G
ermans need a dispatcher. They may have control of the railroad, but they don’t know how to run it.”
Pierre scowled. I could read his thoughts on his face.
So could Papa, for he put his hands on the table and said, very slowly, “I had two choices, my son. The German commander explained them carefully to me. I could continue to work as I have always done, receive my pay, as I have always done, and provide for my family, as I have always done. Or I could be shot and killed.” Papa spread his hands. “Which would you have had me choose?”
I looked at Maman and saw that her lips were trembling. I felt strangely calm. I could feel a small square piece of shrapnel embedded in my arm. It reminded me, whenever I managed to forget, how bad war could be.
“You made the right choice, Papa,” Etienne said.
“Of course I did,” Papa roared. “Haven’t I told you? Obey the rules and no one gets hurt.”
“But Papa—” I began. Madame Montagne, Yvette, and I had not broken the rules.
“You are a smart girl,” Papa said. “Use your head. Obeying them gives us our best chance. Cherbourg belongs to the Germans now.”
They came for our house the next day.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was a Wednesday. Papa had come home for his noontime dinner, and we were all sitting down for the meal. The Germans did not knock. They tried to open the front door, and when the latch stuck, as it sometimes did, they slammed something hard down upon it and broke it. I heard a crash, and then another, and the slam of the door against the hallway wall, and the faint sounds of the clock chimes echoing in response. Pierre and I flew up from our chairs. Etienne grabbed for his crutches, but Maman and Papa did not move. They sat frozen, their faces carefully blank.