“But why would they ruin something that was beautiful?” Maman sounded more puzzled than anything else. I put my arm around her.
In the kitchen everything was gone but a plain table. The telephone had been ripped from the wall. In the bath the toilet was gone, and also the mirror. In the laundry we found the source of the horrible smell. The soldiers had apparently used our laundry sink as a toilet. It was clogged with human refuse. Inside the room the stench was overwhelming.
“Mon Dieu,” Maman whispered again.
“I’ll clean it,” said Etienne through clenched teeth.
Upstairs they had left all the beds but stolen all the mattresses. They had taken or removed everything else.
Everything. I was stunned. I walked into my room, which I had thought about so often, and it was as though the room in my mind had never existed. In the middle of the bare floor my empty bedstead stood under a bare lightbulb. My dresser, rugs, curtains—gone. My clothes, books, toys—gone. My baby pictures. My dolls. I could see the places on the walls where they had torn down my poster of Tino Rossi, my movie star trading cards. Why had they taken things that meant nothing to them?
Why had they taken things that meant everything to me?
Everything gone. I walked around and around my empty room, trying to make sense of it. In the corner of the closet I saw something wedged against the wall. I pulled it out. It was a photograph of me at age seven. My dark hair was cut in a bob, and I looked very serious, but I remembered when the photograph had been taken—it had been a happy day. I took it out to show my mother.
My parents’ room and the boys’ room both looked like mine—the beds still there, but no mattresses, nothing else. I gave the photo to my mother. She smiled. “Look how beautiful you were,” she said.
Papa said gruffly, “We are all here together. That is what counts.”
“I’m glad they stole the mattresses,” Pierre said. “I would not sleep where they did.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Cleaning the house didn’t take that long, but refurnishing it did. Papa put a list of everything that was missing into an ad in the newspaper, and some things, including a dresser, our dining room table, and our clock, were returned to us. People had bought them from the Germans not knowing where they had come from, and when they realized what they had done, they gave our things back to us. No one asked us to pay them. Other things, including our bicycles and Maman’s piano, we never heard about again.
The small things—the really important things, the photographs, the books, the mementos—were gone forever. I wished I had taken my baby album from the house and left my winter coat behind.
All the houses on the street, except Dr. Leclerc’s on the corner, had been occupied by Germans too, so no one had witnessed what they had done. Dr. Leclerc said he was very sorry but he had not heard or seen anything. The Germans had left him alone, but like everyone else, he had been forbidden to walk down the street and had had to approach his own house from a side alley. He had not known our furniture was gone.
We couldn’t find new mattresses anywhere. Apparently no one made them during a war. Eventually Maman and Papa found an old lumpy mattress for themselves, but even by Christmas the boys and I were still sleeping on pallets on the floors of our rooms.
We had left the cemetery apartment as quickly as we could carry out all our things. We cleaned our old house, painted over the ruined mural, and fixed everything as best we could. We found some rugs and an old sofa. Madame Marcelle gave me new movie star cards to pin to my wall. Naked lightbulbs still swung from the ceilings. It was nothing like the house we had had before. Sometimes I felt like a stranger in my own home.
Christmas was not a roast goose or some beef or even a nice leg of lamb. Christmas was more fish, more mussels, some sad-looking flageolets, more rutabagas, some cabbages, and no candy at all. Not even for the battalion, not even for the little ones. My mother had saved her ration coupons in an attempt to make a feast, but there wasn’t any butter or sugar to buy even for those with coupons. Aunt Suzanne arrived with wine and cigarettes, and Etienne brought out a bag of apples and gave one to each of our little cousins.
“Hey,” said Pierre, “where did you get those?” We had not seen apples since summertime.
“I traded for them,” Etienne said, “from a man at work.”
“You might have gotten some for the rest of us,” Pierre sniffed.
I would have loved to eat an apple, but I wished even more that I had thought to find something to give the others. Isabelle, my smallest cousin, brought her apple to me. “Take a bite,” she said, holding it up. “It’s sweet.”
I took a bite. It was sweet, but the sweetness made me sad. I longed for Christmases the way they used to be, knee-deep in candy and toys. Yet the Christ child was born in a stable—nothing was very comfortable for Him, either. Dear God, I prayed as always, make me strong.
A few weeks later, on a Friday night, Papa came home with a small paper package in his arms. “See here,” he called out. “Maman, you children, come see.” He opened the package on the kitchen counter with great flourish.
“Beef!” Maman cried. It was good, fresh beef, one big steak, perhaps a kilo in weight. My mouth watered at the sight.
“A man I know butchered a cow,” Papa said.
“Well, all right,” said Maman. “Something I can cook! We’ll have a pretty good dinner tonight.” She looked the beef over and nodded. “Slice some rutabagas, Suzanne. Set the table, hein?”
Pierre went out to the shed to get a hammer. He and Papa were trying to fix one of the lights. He left the door ajar. Maman was in the pantry. I turned from the table just in time to see a large black cat dash into the kitchen. It leapt onto the counter and grabbed the entire beefsteak in its mouth. I shouted. The cat sprang off the counter and dashed out the door, dragging the steak along.
“Wretched cat!” I yelled, throwing open the door. “Stupid beast!”
Pierre was coming from the shed. He startled the cat, which dropped the meat and ran. Pierre picked the steak up and brought it into the house. It was covered with mud and cat hair. The cat had bitten off a large chunk.
“So, we wash it, yes?” Maman said. “It will still taste fine.”
We were all angry at the cat, Pierre, Etienne, and me, and we did not get less angry after we ate what was left of the steak. It was not so appetizing to eat what a cat had chewed. Halfway through dinner Pierre elaborately removed a cat hair from his mouth. I felt slightly sick. Also the piece of steak didn’t seem so very large after it was divided among the five of us. I resented the bit that the cat had eaten.
The cat came back to the door as I was washing dishes. Pierre was wiping them, and Etienne was sitting at the table. Papa and Maman were in the other room. “There’s that horrid cat,” I said. On the other side of the door, the cat meowed.
“Wants more beefsteak,” said Etienne.
“He had plenty,” I said. “He got his share.”
“We should teach him to stay away from here,” said Pierre. “Otherwise he’ll keep coming back.”
“Ha,” I said. “I wonder what he’ll eat next time.”
“We ought to put him in the well,” said Etienne.
We had an old stone well at the edge of our garden. It was shallow and had been dry for years. It had a heavy lid. “That cat deserves it,” I said. “Plenty of food for cats to eat. He can catch mice.”
Pierre and I looked at each other.
Etienne got up slowly. He reached for his crutches. “Just for the night,” he said. “Just so he learns not to come back here, that’s all.”
I opened the back door and picked up the cat. He was heavy, fat, well fed. He purred. I carried him across the garden and Pierre slid the lid off the well. I dropped the cat in. Pierre replaced the lid. We could hear the cat scrambling inside and then yowling as he realized he was trapped. “Sleep well, cat,” said Pierre. “See you in the morning.” We walked back to the house.
Papa was at the door. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing, Papa,” said Pierre.
“I saw you with that cat.”
“Only to teach him to stay away—”
“You scoundrels! You wretched children!” Papa waved his arms and shouted. “Have you no sympathy? Who brought you up, that you should be so mean to a hungry animal? Where is that poor cat?”
Papa marched to the well and yanked the lid aside. The cat jumped into his arms. “Ah, yes, my poor little one,” Papa said, stroking it. “Come inside. It’s a hard world for cats as well as people. Pierre! Find a saucer. Fetch some milk. Our new cat needs a treat.”
Pierre brought it, grumbling. I caught Etienne’s eye and the two of us burst out laughing. “We didn’t know you liked cats, Papa,” said Etienne.
“I don’t,” said Papa. The cat rubbed its face against Papa’s chin. “Except this one. His name is Miki, and you are never to put him in the well again.”
Miki slept on Papa’s bed, right against him, like a dog. Maman fed him fish heads. Papa fed him the finest bites from his own plate. After dinner he poured milk into a saucer and let Miki lap it up right on the table. Miki adored Papa. Soon he watched in the window for Papa to come home at night. Papa would wad a scrap of paper into a ball and throw it, and Miki would bring it back to him, just like a little dog.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Spring came. The war continued. I graduated from the convent school. I was fifteen; my education was finished. The universities were shut, but I would not have wanted to go anyway. All I wanted to do was sing. My practices and lessons with Madame Marcelle intensified.
One bright summer day Madame Marcelle said I was ready to perform.
“Really perform?” I asked. I had sung in the church choir for years.
“The Cherbourg opera company is producing L’Auberge du Cheval Blanc, The Inn of the White Horse,” said Madame Marcelle. “It’s a lightweight opera, very lyrical, not too much drama,” she continued. “It will be good for your first one. Auditions are next week. You must not be afraid.”
“Auditions, madame? Can I do it? May I go? Are you certain?” I could hardly believe it. At last!
“Make sure you have a suitable dress to wear,” she continued. “Perhaps I should discuss it with your mother. I’m sure she can help you find something.”
“I don’t know this opera. Is it a good one? Are there any good parts? Will I sing in the chorus?”
“Bah,” said Madame Marcelle. “You will sing Josépha, the lead.”
On the day of the audition I could not eat. Madame Marcelle walked me to the opera house. Maman had found a piece of wine-colored velveteen and hastily made me a new dress; the fabric was nothing like as nice as what we could have gotten before the war, but I knew I looked as fine as anyone else who would be there. I wore my hair curled and piled very high above my forehead, and I borrowed my mother’s high-heeled shoes.
“What if they find out I’m only fifteen?” I asked.
Madame Marcelle turned to me in amazement. “What difference would that make? Goodness, Suzanne, they are going to judge you on your voice and your grace, not on your age. Besides, they know how old you are. I have been telling the director these last three years that I would send you when you were ready. He will be glad to see you.”
If anything, this made me feel more nervous. Now I had to live up to the director’s expectations. The opera house was large, and when I took my turn on the stage, the empty seats in front of me seemed to reach to heaven. My knees and hands trembled. My stomach flopped.
Then the music began. The instant I opened my mouth I knew I belonged onstage. For my audition Madame Marcelle had taught me one of Josépha’s arias, and as I sang I began to move across the stage. I had not planned this; I always stood still when I sang with my teacher. Now as the melody poured from my throat, I walked forward toward the edge of the stage, gesturing with my hands, beckoning, beseeching, imploring. Singing, singing. I had never felt more alive. I was sorry when the music stopped; I wanted to sing forever.
The director applauded. He cast me as Josépha.
The weeks of rehearsal spun by with dizzying speed. I was the youngest singer in the cast, but we were all singers. I felt comfortable with them right away, and I thought they were comfortable with me.
It would have been grander before the war. Instead of getting new costumes, my mother made mine over from ones the company had used the previous season. Instead of an eight o’clock curtain, we performed in the late afternoon so that the audience could get home before the blackout began. The props and sets were not fancy. Still, it was opera. We gave four performances to full houses. I got a standing ovation at each one.
My brothers brought me flowers for the opening.
“Roses!” I said. “Where did you get roses?” But they wouldn’t tell me.
“Not a bad performance for such a little girl,” said Etienne.
“Your voice is bigger than you are,” said Pierre.
Papa hugged me hard and blew his nose. “Pretty good,” he said. “Pretty good.” Maman said nothing, but her eyes shone, and I knew she was proud of me too.
“I guess we can’t laugh at you anymore,” Pierre said, shaking his head with mock regret. “I guess you really are an artist now.”
I sang, I sang, I sang. Madame Marcelle took me different places, to Bayeux and Saint-Lô. We went to concerts, we went in search of music and costumes; sometimes she took me to other instructors. The buses almost never ran on time. If we got home late at night, I slept on her sofa instead of waking my parents. They never worried when I was with Madame Marcelle.
In July the Nazis began to round up all the Jews in France. I did not know any Jews in Cherbourg; I did not see anyone disappear. But one of my uncles in Paris wrote that his neighbors had been taken. He had seen them herded into the street, marched along like sheep under the threat of German guns. My uncle had tried to intervene. “But what could I do?” he wrote. “A German soldier grabbed my arm and pushed me aside, and I knew it was a fight I could not win.”
My uncle had only one arm. He had lost the other in the Great War. I knew the soldier could have shot my uncle as easily as he had pushed him aside. But I hated to think of my uncle backing down, being afraid. “My neighbors were good people,” he wrote. “They were taken away on a train, in cattle cars, no one knows where.”
In the fall I sang the role of Mimi in La Bohème. Again I danced and sang and flitted about the stage. My dress was red and rich-looking; from the audience you could not see the seams where Maman had carefully cut and shaped and sewn it together again so that the moth holes would not show.
It sometimes felt odd not to be in school. Even when I was rehearsing, I had more free time than when I had been going to school. Madame Marcelle made me sing several hours a day, but she also told me not to sing too much. “You could strain your voice if you push too hard,” she said. “We want you strong. Sing well within your capabilities, and with time you will be able to do more and more.”
So again I prayed, Make me strong.
Etienne still worked part time. Pierre got a job running messages for one of the big hotels downtown. Most of his customers were German officers. “It’s not so bad,” he said. “You say, ‘Yes, sir, yes, sir,’ and they leave you alone.”
Yet one day he came home with an ugly red mark on his cheek. “What happened?” Maman said.
Pierre looked ashamed. “I had to go from the hotel to the Quai Alexandre. I went the way I would always go, Maman, I mean before the war. I just didn’t think. I forgot about the restricted area.” The street next to ours was still off-limits, as were some of the streets downtown.
The color drained out of Maman’s face. “What did they do?”
“Only slapped me, Maman, and told me to be more careful. Said to remember to stay where I belonged.”
“Then remember it,” Maman said sharply. “Obey their rules and you will not be hurt.”
&
nbsp; Unless you are a Jew, I thought. Unless their rules say that you will be hurt no matter what you do.
I was walking home from my aunt Suzanne’s house a week or so later when the Allies bombed Cherbourg. The road was dusty and the grass in the fields was high. I could see the planes far off and hear the noise of their engines. I saw the bombs falling. I began to run even before the sounds of the explosions reached my ears.
They were after the arsenal, I was sure—the great building near the harbor where submarines could dock, and where the Germans stored their ammunition. The arsenal was a treasure trove, and the Allies wanted it destroyed.
The arsenal was next to the train station, where Papa worked. I ran harder.
I could see smoke billowing up and hear sirens, but I could not tell what had been hit. Papa, I thought. Papa.
My shoes were not made for running. One of the straps around my ankles broke and flapped against the ground. I stumbled, nearly falling, but pushed on. If something horrible had happened, I needed to be there right away. If Papa needed help—
I didn’t realize that a bus was behind me until it drew alongside and the driver opened the door. “Stop!” he yelled. “Where are you going?”
I recognized the driver, though I didn’t know his name. “Cherbourg,” I gasped, panting for breath. “They’re bombing—”
“Yes, yes,” the man said.
“Papa—at the depot—”
“Monsieur David?” the driver asked. I nodded. “Don’t panic,” he said. “He’ll be all right. Get in.”
I climbed onto the bus and dropped into the closest seat. I put my head in my hands. The driver turned and spoke to the other passengers. “We’re just going to take a little detour,” he said. “This young lady’s father works near the arsenal.”
You would think the other passengers would have minded being taken out of their way like that, but in war people understood. The bus driver took us straight into town. Part of the arsenal had been hit and was on fire, but the bus driver approached the train station from the other side, and I could see that it was intact, unharmed. My knees quivered with relief. I jumped off the bus and ran into Papa’s office. He was standing near the window. When I threw my arms around him, he patted my head. “Suzanne, Suzanne,” he said, “don’t worry so. You must have courage. We will all be fine.”