Her little body gave a shudder. “Aren’t the Nazis in France?”
“Yes,” I said slowly. “It might be hard to find someone to take us—I’m not sure many boats are heading that way—but I’m sure we have spies and such going over there, stowing away in a boat or pretending to be smugglers.”
“What is a smuggler?”
“Nasty criminals who steal things from other countries,” I paused, wondering if I was taking this too far. “We would stay hidden all the way, as they’d probably kill us if they found us.”
“How do we get from France to Czechoslovakia?” she whispered.
“Once we’re in France we’d have to hide away, probably in bushes and forests, because if we’re found we’d be taken to some kind of work camp—”
“Then I’ll be with my mother?”
“No, they would take us to a different one.”
“But once they knew who I was, wouldn’t they put me with my parents?”
“No, they like to keep everyone separated. So we’d have to stay hidden, which means we might end up being very hungry, as we wouldn’t be able to buy food. Now, do you speak French?”
“No,” she murmured despondently, and I could tell it was beginning to work.
“I suppose we could take some food with us, although I’m not sure it would last more than a month.”
“A month? Would it take that long to get there?”
“We couldn’t take trains or buses. We’d have to walk.”
She put her head back into my shoulder and began to cry again. “We will never make it! We will both die. We’ll starve or the Nazis will kill us.”
I held her to me as she wept with the futility of it all. “Silvie, I’m so sorry about your family.”
She sniveled a little longer, and then drew a finger to her lips and let out a quiet, shaking “Shhh.” Her eyes were boring into me with fear. “I know what has happened to my brother.” Her voice was tense and choked with tears, and she looked around trembling that someone should hear.
“What?” I whispered.
“My mama gave him away.” She put her face in her hands and began to cry, her narrow shoulders hunched and shuddering under the turmoil. “She gave him to her friend who is not Jewish.”
I held her closer as tears began coming from my own eyes. So that was her secret.
“It was terrible, she loved him—us—so much. He was too young to get the train with me. She knew it was his only chance. The day she came home without him, she pretended it was fine. But it was not fine. She cried all night. It was the end of her world.” Her voice trailed out to a frail whimper, and all I could think was how desperate these people were that they had to give away their children to save them.
I pulled back and looked at her. “You’ll always know that your mother loves you and your brother. You’ll always remember that. And just think, when this dreadful war is over, we can go back to your mother’s friend and find him. Do you know where she lives?”
Silvie nodded.
“Let’s do that, then. This war can’t go on forever. We can’t let it take everything away from us.”
She nestled into me, and we sat like that, huddled together, looking out, as the clouds began to form above us, darkening the world like a grim shadow, and slowly, quietly, the gentle pitter-patter of raindrops began to sound around and above us.
A kestrel circled and swooped around in the rain, his wings like a great spread of hands, black and disheveled against the dark sky. And then, without any warning, he was gone.
Softly, Silvie began to chant, slowly in a whisper at first, but then more rhythmically, more lulling, her throat catching with tears as she repeated the Kaddish, as if mourning her own loss. I joined in with her where I could remember the words, and our voices echoed strangely around the deserted huts as if we might have been living today or a thousand years before, feeling the same horror of uncertainty.
It might have been twenty minutes later, maybe an hour, when the shouts and whistles of the hop pickers came from the hill. Soon a few boys raced in front of us down the scrub of land, Tom in the lead, slamming up to the last hut with a deft halt. He threw his hands in the air to declare victory, which was somewhat ridiculous as the other boys were at least a year or two younger. It was almost cheating.
“What are you two doing here?” He trotted over to us.
“We were out for a walk and took cover when it started to rain. Hope you don’t mind.”
“No, course not,” he said, looking at Silvie’s red eyes, my arm around her shoulder. He perched down beside her, putting his big, thin hand on her arm. “You all right, girl?”
“They took her parents to a camp,” I said, unsure if I should be telling Tom, but as Silvie lifted her gaze to him, her lips pursed together with unhappiness, I remembered how much she liked him. How much we both liked him.
“We need to get home,” I said, starting to get up.