Page 34 of The World That We Knew

She did so and was surprised. She had mysteriously turned into the other person, the girl Nicole who she pretended to be.

“I know you want vengeance,” the doctor said. “But remember, this is also about the future of others.”

The doctor fixed them a meal that was simple, but good. An omelet with mushrooms, some brown bread and butter, white wine, which they insisted she drink. People might ply her with alcohol and what then? Would she remain sober or give herself away? She nodded and drank, and came to appreciate the taste by the end of her second glass.

There was a room in the barn where Ettie would stay. It had been built for a groom, but there were no horses now. Victor said good night, ready to return to the farm. He’d be back when he knew more of his mission.

“Which we won’t discuss with anyone. It’s between us.”

“For which I had to cut my hair.”

“I’ll cut mine, too, if that makes you happier.”

“It will.” Ettie grinned.

“Then it will be done.” He went out the door, calling over his shoulder, “I was planning on cutting it anyway.”

Ettie was tipsy as she walked out in the chilly dark toward an old chair outside the barn. She sat to breathe in the mountain air. She was finally here, in the place where she had found a future. Still, night after night, the past was with her. When she closed her eyes, her sister was beside her, as she would always be.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE SILVER ROSE

RHôNE VALLEY, NOVEMBER 1942

WHEN THE MOTHER SUPERIOR WAS a girl of eight, and her name was still Madeleine de Masson, her mother and father were killed in an auto accident and no one told her. Suddenly, her parents weren’t there. Her mother did not come to kiss her good night, and there was such great sorrow attached to that loss, the mother superior still could not put her emotions into words. She understood why the girls at her school wept for their mothers at night.

The scent of Madeleine’s mother’s perfume vanished, and soon it seemed as if she had only been a dream, not a real flesh-and-blood person. Madeleine was rushed about by the governess and not allowed to see her grandfather, a very old man who lived in the attic. His name was Raoul Salomon, and he had sometimes joined the family for dinner; otherwise he was upstairs, in bed, with his books. He was nearly ninety, and anyone could tell he had been a dashing, handsome man. He was six foot three, so very tall, even though he stooped, and Madeleine had been frightened of him; he still had a mane of beautiful hair, black when he was young, snow white as he aged. He was guarded and rarely looked anyone in the eye. People had disappointed him. His expression was tragic, but as a child Madeleine had merely thought he had stomachaches, something with which she occasionally suffered, so she was well aware of the pain they could cause. Her grandfather was so very old, and all by himself, speaking to almost no one other than the maid who brought him his meals on a tarnished silver tray.

When she tried to climb the stairs to see him after her parents’ funeral, the governess had locked her in her room. A few weeks later her aunt, her father’s sister, along with her entire family, moved in. Madeleine then knew something was terribly wrong. The dogs were all given away. She was told it was best for her not to see her grandfather. She would only be annoying him and, anyway, he didn’t like children.

But she’d had a dream about him, and in her dream her grandfather was sitting beside an angel and he could speak the angel’s language, something no other mortal could do. She went to see her grandfather despite the governess’s smacks, sneaking up to the third floor when everyone else was at dinner, which was formal, so that thankfully little girls weren’t invited. She had some sugar cookies in her pocket she intended to give him as a gift, but once she’d opened the door she found she was unable to say anything. They had never spoken directly. The old man was in a chair and he stared at her as she approached. He recognized her but he didn’t quite remember her name. She introduced herself. “Ah, Masson,” the old man said thoughtfully. Madeleine’s father’s family had come from Algeria just as the old man had, but they’d arrived two hundred years earlier, and had changed their name from Hasson, a Jewish name they did not wish to have associated with them.

He took the cookies and ate them all without offering any to her. “I came from Algeria,” he told her.

She had no idea where that was, but she nodded.

“I’ll go for a walk with you tomorrow,” he told her. “Bring my coat.”

The next afternoon they went to the garden. He used a cane but still had to lean on her when there was a stair. He hadn’t been outside in over a year, but he wished to speak to her privately. He told her that he had made his money in diamonds, smuggled to France in his stomach.

“That’s impossible,” Madeleine remembered saying. She knew a thing or two about stomachaches. Swallowing things that were hard, like rocks, was not humanly possible. Even too many cakes eaten too quickly could make you sick. “They’d have to cut you open to get them and you’d be dead.”

“You know very little,” her grandfather told her. “Things go into your body and things go out.”

That sounded distressing, but Madeleine thought it over.

There was a frog in a garden bed near a clutch of blue bellflowers. Monsieur Salomon reached down and caught it. Before Madeleine could blink he swallowed it whole.

Madeleine nearly fell down.

“You can train yourself to eat almost anything if you must,” her grandfather said to the shocked little girl. She had never been as surprised in all her life, but there was more to come. Her grandfather proceeded to burp up the frog, whole and alive and equally stunned. He laughed, then plopped the creature back into the dirt.

He did his best to explain her parents’ deaths. He told her that love was everlasting and that her mother was now with the angels. Her father, who was so stern and loved his horses more than anything, was there with her. This should have brought Madeleine some peace of mind, but it didn’t.

Madeleine’s grandfather told her a list of reasons not to be a Jew. Though he didn’t care for her father’s family, he understood why they had converted. Whatever happened, he told her, people would blame their kind, they would say Jews had secret societies, ran the world, were thieves, wanted to take their houses from them, were the reason they led miserable lives. That was why he had at last converted as well, for the sake of his children. Both Madeleine and her mother had been born Catholic, to ensure that they would not be persecuted. Now her grandfather wanted to see how good a Catholic she was. He wondered if she would recite the Lord’s Prayer, and she was proud to do as he asked.

Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.