Page 35 of The World That We Knew

After he praised her, her grandfather surprised her by reciting a prayer in a strange language.

Modeh ani l’fanecha, melech chai v’kayam schehechezarta bi nishmati b’chemla raba emunatecha.

I offer thanks to You, living and eternal King, for You have mercifully restored my soul within me: Your faithfulness is great.

Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheynu melech HaOlam, asher kidishanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu.

Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments.

“They have the same meaning,” she said to the old man.

“Yes, they are the same, and a world apart. Say one, and you are applauded. Say the other and you’re condemned.”

Madeleine was confused, especially when she asked the governess what a Jew was. She was curious after her conversation with her grandfather, for she had never heard the term Jew before. The usually docile governess struck her face so hard her cheek had stung for days afterward. “You have no need to know about what is wrong with the world and all the evil it contains,” her governess scolded. “Don’t mention that word again.”

Madeleine heard her aunt speak of her grandfather as the old Jew in the attic. She wished to be rid of him, but it was his house, and they could not throw him out. At least not yet. A lawyer came to tell them so. They would have to wait for him to die.

No one could stop them from walking in the garden, so Madeleine and her grandfather began to meet on a daily basis. Madeleine always asked him if he would eat a frog again, but he always shook his head and refused. One day, while he drowsed in the sun on the bench, she went to the pond, which was stocked with fish and rife with yellow and magenta water lilies. It was a beautiful sunny day. She had a bucket and she managed to catch five frogs, and had gotten her petticoat good and muddy in the process, which she knew she would pay for later when the governess spanked her with a hairbrush. She ran over to her beloved grandfather and presented him with her catch. He woke from dozing and looked at her, resigned, but with a glow of pride in his eyes.

“You’re a very smart girl. This is exactly the weight of the diamonds I carried to this country from Algeria.” He reached for the pail, which he set on his knee, and then, to Madeleine’s great shock, he proceeded to swallow all five frogs, one after the other. Madeleine scarcely breathed as she watched. He wasn’t a monster, but now she was convinced he knew magic. “If you cannot protect yourself, you are at their mercy,” her grandfather said. He burped up all five frogs, each alive and perfect, then he returned the bucket to Madeleine so that she could replace the creatures into the mud at the edge of the pond. As they went back to the house, they held hands. Each felt fortunate to be in the company of the other. The rest of the world and its cruelties didn’t matter as much when they were together.

Everything was covered with ice that winter and the last time Madeleine saw her grandfather he couldn’t get out of bed. He hadn’t eaten for weeks, though Madeleine had brought him sugar cookies every day. She sat beside him, pale and unassuming, her face pinched with worry.

“I think I made a mistake,” he told her one day when they were together. The old man found Madeleine quietly endearing. He patted her head, for he had come to care deeply for her, and he knew that she cared for him in return; he had also come to see his past quite differently and had regrets that he hadn’t expected to have. He wondered why it was only when you were at the end of your life that it was possible to view it with honesty and truth. “You cannot hide who you are without doing great damage. Just remember that you’re my granddaughter. Think about others before you think of yourself.”

They said the wrong prayers when he was buried, but he would likely not have minded. The meaning was the same.

God our Father, Your power brings us to birth, Your providence guides our lives, and by Your command we return to dust.

He left Madeleine everything, but because she was a minor, her aunt took charge and sent her to a convent school. She was sad at first, for she was in mourning, but she soon came to love the rigor of her classes. She studied Latin and Greek and was a natural student, a favorite of the sisters. She was told early on that she should consider joining the order, and it had always given her great pleasure to succeed as a teacher who was known for her kind heart and her extraordinary patience, learned, perhaps, from the time she had spent with her grandfather.

She had been thinking of him more often of late, now that the world seemed as heartless as he’d warned it might be. She could have sworn her grandfather was there on the iron bench, in his fine clothes, with his beautiful head of hair, his one true vanity. In her own time she had studied Hebrew, which she could read perfectly so that she could know the prayers her grandfather had known as a boy in Algeria. She closed her eyes and prayed for his soul and then she said the Kaddish, the Jewish mourning prayer, which he had taught her so that when he died there would be someone to mourn properly.

Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di v’ra chirutei.

May His great name be exalted and sanctified in the world which He created according to His will.

When the baker, Monsieur Favre, arrived at the convent, the mother superior was waiting for him in the garden. He had always believed she thought she was too good to deal with him, but now she went so far as to invite him into her office.

“Is there a problem, Sister?” he asked as they walked inside. His hands were sweating. Once before there had been weevils in the wheat and it had nearly ruined him. “The wheat is not what you expected?”

“No, no, it’s fine,” the mother superior said. She was still thinking of frogs. She thought she had spied one in the garden and the memory now brought a smile to her face.

The baker had heard that Sister Marie came from a noble family north of Paris. Perhaps they were Jews, one never knew. He had been told that the Jews controlled the banks and the newspapers, and for all he knew they had bought this position for Sister Marie. There was gossip about her in the village, for the students she took in were often dark with foreign accents. Now she looked worried, and she leaned forward as if to confide in her wheat supplier. He sat back in his chair, suspicious. He had never trusted nuns; the way they all lived together with no men around, how they seemed to put themselves above all others, taking such pride in their education and dedication to God. Who were they to claim that the heart of Jesus belonged to them? Now that German troops had come to Vichy, such people would pay for their vanity.

“I was wondering if we could pay you half this month and the second half next month,” the sister said.

Monsieur Favre stared at her, openmouthed. Now she was crying poor.

“It’s just the current situation,” she explained. “The finances.”

He noted that her office was very well appointed. There was a hand-knotted rug on the floor, dyed with vegetable dyes in the old-fashioned manner. There were several paintings of the saints on the wall. On her desk was a crystal vase filled with cut roses that were a strange pale metallic color, among the last of the season, although they often bloomed until the first snowfall. There was a silver pen and pencil set on her desk. A lone bee hit against the window glass, trying to get in, for the weather was changing. Favre felt something changing between them as well. Her eyes were lowered. His were not.

“If we could have a little more time,” she asked him.

“No,” he said. He gazed at the rug and the marquetry floor. She was probably used to getting everything she wanted and took all of these luxuries for granted. He wondered if her family was even French. “That will not be possible.”

“I see,” the sister said. She went to her desk and drew out her checkbook.