How Huge the Night

chapter 34





The Sons of Saints





Monsieur and Madame Rostin sat at a table strewn with spiky chestnut husks, splitting them open with knives and dropping the smooth dark chestnuts into a bowl. Julien sat across from them.

It was only the boy they were being asked to take, he explained. His sister needed to stay in town for the doctor. The boy wanted to work, but he was too weak yet, undernourished. He had no ration card. They were both sans-papiers, people without papers, without status, illegal aliens. That was why there had been a … disagreement with the mayor.

His heart was beating; he lowered his eyes to his hands and kept them there. When he raised them, they were both looking at him. Madame wore a fierce frown.

“I see,” said Monsieur Rostin.

“If I understand,” said Madame Rostin, “they’re asking us to take this boy and hide him from Monsieur le maire?”

Julien swallowed. “Yes.”

The Rostins looked at each other. Julien shifted on his bench. He’d ask Grandpa. Grandpa would—

“We’ll take him,” said Monsieur Rostin. Madame, unsmiling, was nodding vigorously.

“You will?”

“He’s in trouble,” said Madame Rostin. “He needs help.” Julien blinked and looked at her: the broad shapeless bulk of her shoulders, the forehead with the deep creases of a changeless frown, the brown eyes clear, simple, looking at him as if it were obvious. He swallowed again, and whispered, “Thank you.”





Night was falling outside, and the Alexandres’ house was crowded with people; dense with low voices, planning, tension. Nina slept upstairs, as she had slept for hours, not even waking when the doctor examined her. Gustav sat on the couch, twisting his fingers together, watching. Listening. Catching only a few words: walk, food, work. The Italian woman was there with a black-eyed girl who seemed to be her daughter; the pastor’s wife; the pastor himself, blue-eyed and intense; and the boy who had met them at the station, glancing over at him as he ran a hand nervously through his brown hair. Finally, Frau Alexandre beckoned Gustav over, and he jumped up and came to the table. She motioned him to sit.

“Gustav, we’ve found you a place. But we need to talk to you about it.”

Gustav nodded.

“You’ll be staying on a farm outside of town, with a family from our church. Nina will stay in town, just a few doors down from here—”

Gustav was on his feet again, shaking his head. “No. No. Frau Alexandre, you don’t understand. We can’t be separated. She’ll die. Do you know what happened last time we were separated? She stopped eating. They fed her but she wouldn’t eat. You can’t—”

“She stopped eating?” asked Frau Alexandre.

“Yes. They thought—she doesn’t speak a word of French—”

Pastor Alexandre nodded. “Gustav, the woman who has agreed to lodge Nina speaks High German.”

“Oh,” said Gustav. He sat down, slowly.

“Gustav, we don’t think we can hide you both together. We must keep Nina close to the doctor, in a place where she can get nursing care—Fräulein Pinatel runs the bookstore, two doors down from the doctor, and she lives above it. And,” said Frau Alexandre quietly, “she has very few visitors.”

Gustav’s hand was over his mouth. Nina in a bed all day, all night, surrounded by the kindness of strangers. The kindest of strangers. He just didn’t know. He remembered the Gypsies, remembered watching her delirious, Marita pouring tea and soup down her throat. Like Signora Losier had done today. He was very tired.

“We have planned it this way so that you can both be hidden. We do not know any other way.”

Gustav nodded.





It was full dark, the moon hanging low in the eastern sky, when they set out on the road to the farm. They carried no light.

The brown-haired boy walked in front of him. His name was Julien, and Gustav was to follow him carefully because he was going to lead him by a way that would not pass the stationmaster’s house. Nina was safe, and sleeping in Fräulein Pinatel’s spare-room bed above the bookstore. They hadn’t let him carry her. She had stirred once and spoken to Father as they tucked her in. And she had gone back to sleep, watched by the tall, solemn Fräulein Pinatel, by the short, gentle-eyed Signora Losier. Watched by the kindest of strangers.

On the road by the thin light of the moon, he followed the son of Signora Losier.

They were at a fork in the road; the crest of the hill lay in front of them. Julien pointed over it and laid a finger on his lips. “Le chef de gare, il habite par là,” he whispered. “Tu comprends?” He pointed down the road and shook his head violently. No.

Gustav nodded. The something of the station lives … that way. The road to the stationmaster’s house.

“On prend la route du nord,” said Julien, and took the left. Gustav followed.

They walked down the road toward shadow. Before them on their right, a high ridge rose, blocking the moon; on the other side, the ground fell away steeply, and far below was the sound of water. The train tracks joined them, two thin threads of silver under the moon, and were cut off sharply as they passed into the shadow.

Gustav watched the boy in front of him, a shadow among shadows, walking with a firm step, a boy on a dark road in his native land. A boy who went to school. Who came home to a family. He wondered if he could ever be in such a world again, if such a boy could be his friend.

He didn’t know why he was thinking this. All he had wanted yesterday was a chance to live. For Nina to live.

The bright double thread of the railroad was ahead of them again; down in the valley the singing river wavered and gleamed. Julien was turning to him again, beckoning him to follow, into the woods on their right, where a narrow path led off into dark dappled with dim silver. He followed him into the rustling silence of the woods. They walked. They walked till the woods broke open again on pasture. A field of oats, a barn; two apple trees, and a moonlit garden patch. A house with lighted windows, and an opening door.





“Why didn’t you come, Benjamin?” asked Julien.

“I said. I had too much homework.”

“No you didn’t. You do it twice as fast as me.”

“Look, I told you twice now, okay?”

Julien turned away. It was no use talking to Benjamin when he didn’t want to talk.

At school, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Monsieur Matthias, in the background, went on about Racine, and Julien thought of yesterday. Of the girl Nina, the stick-thin hands grasping her crutches as she climbed down out of the train; of her still form in the bed, seeming not even to breathe. And the brother, the way he’d held himself, even in the Alexandres’ living room—tense, ready, his eyes flicking from person to person. They said he was fourteen.

And the strange moonlit walk; how he’d wished for Benjamin. He’d started out feeling like a commando—hiding a fugitive from the enemy—but the night was so huge and the two of them so small, in the dark of the woods, Gustav’s quiet eyes on him whenever he turned around. Are you okay? he wanted to ask, but couldn’t. Are you scared? Can I help? Don’t ever go down that road. There’s a farm down there with an apple orchard, where your enemies live.

He couldn’t stop thinking about it. About Monsieur Bernard’s voice cracking like a whip: “Je regrette, but I’m telling you the truth.” Liar. Liar. You filthy liar.

During break Julien wandered away from the group, hands in his pockets, kicking at stones.

“Ça va?” said Roland’s voice behind him. He grunted. “Fine.”

“Heard you did good yesterday. Why didn’t you tell us why you missed the game?”

“Um. I dunno.” He didn’t know. He’d wanted to savor it a little while first—oh, good thing he hadn’t blabbed it everywhere—“Who told you?”

“My father. We’re sending food up to Mademoiselle Pinatel for the girl. Your mother asked us.”

“Food?” His stomach churned, as if it was for him.

“Yeah. Want to come? I’m going up there after school.”

“Sure,” said Julien. His heart was lifting; there was one person, one friend, he didn’t have to keep the secret from. “You know we’re supposed to be careful, right?”

“She told us.”

“I took the brother to Pierre’s place last night. Had to take the north road and cut through the woods so we wouldn’t go past Henri’s farm.”

Roland shook his head. “It’s weird. It’s so weird.”

“It’s stupid,” said Julien, kicking at a stone.

“Yeah,” said Roland. “It is.”





It was stupid being at school too. There was no point. Julien stared out the window at the hills and the flat blue sky, hearing Ricot buzz on about velocity, or Papa about the Revolution, and wondered: Didn’t they know? That now was more urgent than the Revolution, that the sons of saints and murderers were sitting in their classrooms taking notes?

“One day,” said Papa, “there will be boys like you, sitting in a classroom learning about the defeat of France and what came after it. And they’ll be fidgeting too.” The class groaned.

He walked with Roland to Mademoiselle Pinatel’s shop, browsed the bookshelves until the other customers were gone and he and Roland could slip upstairs with their delivery. Nina wasn’t well enough to see anyone, Mademoiselle Pinatel said. But thank you. Tell your parents thank you very much.

At home, he sat down with Mama over a goûter of unsweetened mint tea, and she asked him if he would be a guide again, for Gustav to visit Nina sometimes. He sat up straighter.

On Wednesday after lunch, they had their third soccer game; it was catching on quick, really quick; they had Léon and Jean-Michel and Antoine now, and the score was tied one-to-one. Julien was hammering away at it, driving down the field for a clear shot at Dominique’s goal, when he heard a clear, scornful voice from beyond the touchline. “Call that a soccer ball?”

Someone else had showed up too.

Julien didn’t look; but he could see Henri’s face anyway. The next moment Philippe had stolen the ball. And Julien played and played and ignored Henri there on the touchline with his arms folded, and missed three more shots. But as they walked off the field, Philippe slapped Henri Quatre on the shoulder and suggested that he join the new soccer games.

Julien saw his back stiffen. “What’s so new about them?” asked Henri. “Using an old volleyball to play soccer with?”

“We’re switching the teams around now,” said Dominique. “Every other game. It’s great.”

“Well, it’s good there’s still some kind of soccer game,” said Henri. “For those who’re still interested in that, with everything that’s happening.”

Julien picked up his pace, but Roland pulled at the back of his shirt. “Don’t listen to him.”

“Yeah,” said Gilles. “He’s just a sore loser. Always was.”

Henri talking about everything that’s happening. Henri talking like he’d outgrown soccer when the truth was the guys had outgrown him. Broken free of him. He thought of saying these things to his face; words that had no answer, fighting words. But he wasn’t going to fight Henri. He could see his father’s face.

Yet for some reason he thought of it again that night, as he walked down the lonely north road with Gustav; Gustav, who could only go to see his sister after dark.





It would have been such a good life for Gustav if only Nina were better. If she could have lived with him in that lovely green valley and woken to see what he saw. He looked through his window at the dew on the long grass in the rising sun, and joy sprang up in him like a flame.

The Rostins fed him all he could eat and wouldn’t let him lift a finger. He tried to tell them, in his broken French and Italian and German, that he wanted to work, that if he couldn’t go see Nina today, he had to muck out the goat barn or go crazy. They let him peel chestnuts, do dishes, but if he tried to go outside, Madame Rostin stood at the door, shaking her head determinedly, as if wolves were out there waiting for him.

The third night, Julien took him to see Nina.

She was in a white, clean bed in a tiny room with a book-strewn desk, her crutches propped in a corner. She smiled at the sound of his voice but did not raise her head. He sat and held her hand and told her about Madame Rostin and her frown, and the way she heaped his plate high and said, “Good? Good?” And how Monsieur Rostin had clapped him on the shoulder, his craggy face beaming, and shouted “Tu vas voir Nina” as if he were deaf. Nina smiled weakly at him, but did not speak.

“It’s normal,” Fräulein Pinatel told him. “She’s come somewhere safe, and her body has let down its defenses. She will seem even sicker to you now, but she needs this time to heal.”

He wasn’t sure.

Three nights later, Julien brought him up again. She was worse. The doctor had come. She had diarrhea, and they were afraid she was losing too much of what she ate. There was medicine—Gustav swallowed hard at the thought of the price—and Fräulein told him fiercely that he certainly wasn’t going to pay for it. Nina was delirious, sweating and breathing quickly. She didn’t seem to recognize him.

“I wish you could have seen her yesterday,” said Fräulein Pinatel. “She was lucid. She kept asking for you. I wish you could come more often.”

He suffered through an endless four days before Julien came again. He made them let him work; he hit the table and shouted, “Je veux travail!”

Monsieur Rostin gave him a shrug and a wry half smile, and said, “Bon, si tu veux alors.”

He filled his days as full as he could, picking apples, mucking out the goats, digging parsnips. If he tired himself out, he couldn’t lie awake at night, wondering.

She was better. She knew him, and sat up in bed and asked why he didn’t come more often. He didn’t know what to say. He told her to eat, and take her medicine, and that when she got better she could come live on the farm with him. She promised. “I won’t be much use on a farm though, Gustav,” she said.

“Yes, you will. You can weed. And cook.”

“You know I can’t cook!” She laughed. She actually laughed!

Fräulein Pinatel said she was glad he’d seen her on a good day.

The next three days he worked with a will—even scrubbed Madame Rostin’s kitchen while she was away at market. Soon, his mind sang, soon; soon she would get up and walk, and he’d work so well Monsieur Rostin would be able to plant more next year, and he’d earn their keep for both of them. They’d live here in the valley, and learn French, and …

Saturday night, he was walking light when he started down the starlit road with Julien. Tonight he would bring Julien up to see her too.





“Viens, viens, Julien,” said Gustav. “Bitte.”

Julien hesitated. He always stayed down in the bookstore doing homework. He’d figured she wanted to see her brother, not him. But there was no mistaking viens, or Gustav’s eager beckoning. He followed him up the narrow stairs.

Mademoiselle Pinatel, her face strained, said low words to Gustav, and Gustav answered. To Julien she said, “I just want you to know that she’s not like this every day.”

He was led into a little narrow room with a bed, and there lay Nina, the girl he had brought to safety and help; motionless, her eyes closed, one stick-thin arm on the cover. Short dark hair hung shiny with sweat around her sunken face. Gustav went to his knees.

“Nina,” he said. “Nina.”

For a moment, there was no response. Then the eyes opened, slowly, and looked into nothing. Julien had never seen such tired eyes, not even the first time he’d seen her: flat, lightless, shallow pools that no wind stirred. Gustav was speaking urgent Yiddish. Julien heard his name. Nina’s eyes settled for a moment on her brother’s face, then fell back again into their weariness.

Gustav half turned for a moment, then jerked back; but Julien had seen the tears that trembled in his eyes.

He backed out of the room and shut the door.





In the morning, Julien prayed for Nina, as desperately, as urgently as he had prayed only once. The night before Paris fell. He could not think what it would be like to watch your sister die.

He got up. He had to get away. Somewhere where no one could see him. It was dawn. He’d be back by church time. He slipped downstairs.

He took the road up the hill out of town, but as he got near the hill’s crest he stopped, shaking his head. The sight he knew he would see—the green lovely sweep of the hills, and in the foreground an apple orchard laden with fruit and an old stone farmhouse, in which lived a man who had tried to send a young girl to her death. He turned left abruptly, off the road.

The river was calling to him, the clearness of its flowing water, as if it could wash clean the matted tangle of his mind. He ran down the closest alley and out from between the houses; he stumbled and slid down the steep slope and was suddenly alone, shielded from eyes. He could breathe.

The Tanne flowed past him. The hills were green in the sun. Down on his left around the broad bend of the river, he could see his school, its low black wall, the flash of its flag in the wind. He had stood by that wall only a year ago and raged against life because he couldn’t get in on the soccer games. And his country had been at war then, but he’d never believed it. Play war, toy soldiers sitting on a border somewhere, nobody he knew. Not his aunt and uncle and best-friend cousin in a fallen city, watched in the streets by German soldiers, forbidden to write to him. Not defeat. Not hunger, and waiting.

So many things he had not believed. She’s not safe yet, his mother had told him. If she is sent to a camp, she will die. He hadn’t wanted to believe it. He’d stayed downstairs in the bookstore and pictured Nina up there in her bedroom, sitting up, a little better every day. Someone he had helped. Who’d be okay now. He’d wanted to protect her, yes, he’d done everything he could—he had been careful, walking Gustav into town—but he hadn’t believed it. Not until he’d seen.

His mind clawed at the terrible tangle of what he had learned these past two months. Defeat was nothing to this, potatoes for breakfast were nothing; you could get used to them. But to see your own people doing such things—Henri with his arm upraised in a proud and hateful salute, the stationmaster standing tall in his uniform and smart képi. Benjamin’s face white with fear, Nina’s bone-thin arm and her eyes with the light gone from them.

There were some things no one could get used to.

He thrust his hands into his pockets and watched the water, clear and simple, running forever past.

He hated them.

It was wrong. It was wrong to hate. He could hear Pastor Alex’s ringing voice in the church: without fear, without pride, and without hate.

But God, he tried to send Nina away! And you want me not to hate him?

He clawed up a stone from beside his feet and threw it, with all the strength in his body, down at the river. It fell short in the grass, and bounced, and was caught in the weeds on the bank.

He pressed his hands hard against his face to hide his tears from the sky.





On Tuesday afternoon, Papa came home with the newspaper and spread out on the table the news Julien should have known was coming.

A new law from Vichy. Front page, big headline, no apology: “Jews Barred from Positions of Trust.” They could not hold government jobs. They couldn’t be army officers. No Jewish teachers, no Jewish CEOs, no Jewish journalists; it was the law. Papa looked up from the paper, ran his fingers through his hair, and told Julien what the Germans had decreed for the occupied zone.

The Jews had to have JEW stamped on their cartes d’identité, just like in Germany. They had to have yellow signs in the windows of their shops that said “Jewish shop” in French and German. And … and there were rumors that young men wearing blue shirts and calling themselves fascists were going around Paris, smashing those windows. French young men.

Their own people.

“Why?” said Julien, the anger rising in his throat. “Why are they doing this to us?”

“Who’s doing it to us?” said his father bitterly. “Looks like we don’t need any more help. Looks like we’re doing it to ourselves.”

The next morning, kneeling on the wood floor beside his bed, Julien prayed again for Nina; and for Benjamin, who had seen the headline and said nothing, had gone pale and left the room. He prayed for Gustav, for Vincent and his family, for Benjamin’s parents, and for Pierre still up in the hills somewhere. He remembered how he’d prayed for Pierre when they were enemies. There he stopped. He saw blue-shirted men throwing bricks through windows, men with Henri’s scornful eyes. And the heavy knot of anger in his stomach uncoiled itself, and rose up, and blossomed into rage.

Before he left for school, he slipped the newspaper into his cartable.





The paper passed from hand to hand in the little group by the wall. The flag circle stood around their flagpole, Ricot and seven boys, their arms pointed stiff and brittle toward the sky.

“Someone’s got some explaining to do,” said Louis through his teeth.

“Yeah,” said Dominique.

“Yeah,” said Philippe.

“Yeah,” said Julien. He set his face toward the flagpole. “Let’s go.”

There were ten of them to Henri’s seven. They met the flag salute just as it was breaking up. Henri stepped out to meet them, and Julien looked him in the eye.

“We have some questions,” he said. “We thought maybe you could answer them.”

Henri stood with his feet planted. “Sure.”

Julien brandished the paper. “We’d like to know what you call this.”

“The news.”

“We want to know what you call it when your government starts persecuting an entire race. We want to know if you call that the honor of France.”

“It’s your government,” said Henri, his eyes scornful. “You seem to be forgetting where you’re from. And since when is it persecution to refuse somebody a government job?”

“Would you call it persecution,” said Julien, leaning forward and looking Henri straight in the eye, “if they started refusing government jobs to all the Protestants?”

It was like delivering a hard blow to the jaw and watching your opponent stagger. Henri Quatre, king of France, with everyone looking on, took a step back, opened his mouth, and closed it again. Said nothing.

“This isn’t the honor of France,” said Julien. “This is shame. I am ashamed that my people are doing this. Kissing up to murderers. Imitating them.”

Henri’s eyes narrowed. He stepped forward again. Julien’s blood beat in his temples, I can take him, I can …

“You say that again about the marshal,” Henri snarled. “You say that again, and I’ll—” Henri’s hand was balled in a fist. Shaking.

Julien teetered on the edge of freedom, the edge of danger. That’s right, Henri, hit me. The flag snapped above them in the wind. He felt light. Invincible. “Say what?” he said quietly. “That the marshal is kissing up to the Nazis?”

Suddenly Gaston was between him and Henri, and Roland had Julien by the arm. Gaston was blustering. “You idiot, Julien Losier! Don’t listen to him, Henri. He’s doesn’t know a thing about the marshal, don’t you know that?” Henri shot Gaston an unfriendly look.

“Julien,” said Roland quietly, “you might wanna watch out.” He gestured with his chin toward the préau, where Ricot stood watching them.





“Why didn’t you fight him?” said Benjamin vehemently.

Julien turned on him. “Why didn’t you fight him?” he snarled. “You should talk. You don’t even have the guts to visit Nina!” Benjamin’s face turned white. He bit out three words in Yiddish, stepped into his room, and slammed the door in Julien’s face.

Julien brought Gustav into town that night, answering his broken French in monosyllables. He stayed downstairs with his math.





Thursday morning, Julien woke up late, to rain streaming down his window and a knock on his door.

“C’min,” he mumbled sleepily. Benjamin came in. Julien sat up, suddenly awake.

“Hey. You missed breakfast. I wanted to say … y’know. Sorry.”

“Uh. Yeah. I’m sorry too.”

“Your father told me about the citizenship thing.”

“He did?”

“Yeah. And there’s another thing. Not in the papers, Pastor Alexandre told us this morning. The préfet—” he broke off and swallowed. “The préfet of each region now has power to arrest any foreign Jews he thinks are a problem and send them to an internment camp.”

“Oh,” Julien breathed.

“I’m okay. For now. But Gustav and Nina, see … I thought you should know. And I’m sorry I didn’t go down with you to see them. I … I think I was … scared of them. Because … I’m like them.”

Julien blinked. “But your parents aren’t—”

Benjamin said in a hard, flat voice, “My parents are dead.” Julien stared at him.

“No—”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know they bombed the roads. My parents wouldn’t have stayed in Paris for the world, they were on those roads. And they never got here. They’re dead.” He was looking straight ahead, out the window.

“Benjamin—”

“Anyway, just wanted to tell you I’ll come with you Saturday night,” said Benjamin abruptly. He got up off the bed and walked out the door.





The flag ceremony was rained out. Everyone huddled under the préau together, voices echoing against the concrete, looking out at the driving rain.

“Julien.” A hand on his shoulder. It was Henri Quatre, frowning deeply, beckoning. Julien followed, away from the voices and the scrape of shoes on the concrete floor, into the near-silence of an empty hallway. “Yeah?”

“Julien, I have a question for you.”

“Sure,” said Julien, squaring his shoulders.

“Who was that you were with on Wednesday night?”

The hallway was tilting. The hollow voices echoed in his head. He tried to catch his breath.

“Wednesday night?” he managed.

“You were with this kid. Black hair, skinny, spoke bad French with a German accent. Weren’t you?” Henri looked him in the eye. Julien’s stomach cramped as he opened his mouth.

“Yes.”

“I’m glad you’re not a liar. I saw you. From the window of my aunt’s house. You were being kinda careful about staying in the shadows.”

Lord God, he prayed. Oh Lord God …

“He looked a lot like my father’s description of that guy the mayor requested to leave town. You know who I mean? The two sans-papiers?”

Julien closed his mouth.

“Where are they staying?”

He didn’t know. Thank God. “Henri,” said Julien, without meaning to, desperately, “have you told your father?”

“No,” said Henri. “Not yet.”

“Henri,” said Julien, his mouth dry, “please don’t tell your father.”

“Where are they staying?”

“Please.”

“This kind of thing is supposed to be taken care of the right way. There are camps—”

“Camps?” Julien was breathless, he could barely speak; in a bitter rush he imagined how Henri’s throat would feel between his hands. “They can’t go to a camp. The sister is sick—”

“What sister?” Henri frowned.

“One of them’s a girl.”

“A girl? Are you saying they lied to my father?”

“She was dressed as a boy, that’s all—”

“Don’t you realize you have no idea who they are?”

“Neither do you,” said Julien. “I—” Léon Barre stepped into the hall, and Julien snapped his mouth shut. Léon jogged past them toward the toilets, and Henri shot Julien a look of contempt.

“Look,” said Henri. “I’m not asking your advice; I’m asking you where they’re staying. If you’re not going to do the right thing—” He shrugged and looked away.

Julien’s knees were weak. He had to warn them— “Henri. Listen to me. The girl is very sick. If she gets sent to a camp, she’s going to die.”

“Let me make this as simple for you as I can, Julien,” said Henri. “I don’t believe it.” And he walked away. Julien watched him go, feeling sick to his stomach.

Henri disappeared out the door to the préau. Julien turned and ran.