The confidence in Jacob’s words breathed an inner strength into Joseph like he had never felt before.
“Isn’t it strange to you that your aunt hasn’t come looking for you?” he asked.
Jacob shrugged. “Don’t forget, nobody registered us. There’s no record of us being here, and we weren’t on any list.”
“Yeah, but people saw you get on the buses. Someone must have told her what happened,” Joseph insisted.
“They took tons of people and shipped them off to who knows where. I’m not surprised she hasn’t been able to find us. But we’ll find her. She’ll tell us what to do.” Jacob nodded firmly.
Moses, calmer now, piped up. “Aunt Judith is really brave. She’ll take care of us.” He pressed a small hand to his sore body, but at least he could breathe again. As the policeman beat him, his mind had instead focused upon Jacob coming to save him and taking him to their parents.
Jacob went up first. When he reached the round lid, he pushed gently. It was much heavier than he expected, and he would need help to budge it. “Come on up,” he said to Joseph.
The two boys worked together, barely balanced on the metal rungs of the ladder as their only support, and pushed on the lid of the manhole. They managed to pry up one side and slowly budge the lid to the side.
They inched the lid a little farther out of the way, and Jacob stole a glance around. Fortunately, the manhole was located neither in the middle of the street nor in a highly visible area. The velodrome was directly in front of them. He and Joseph slid the lid open enough to allow them room to climb out. Blinded by the light, Moses watched from below, and the fresh air reminded him that a world beyond the tunnels did exist.
“Come up quick,” Jacob called.
After climbing up onto the street, the three boys walked down the sidewalk in front of the building. Gendarmes stood all around, but no one paid them much attention. As soon as they rounded the corner, they broke into a run. They had no idea where they were going, but when they saw the Eiffel Tower ahead, it beckoned like a lighthouse leading them home.
Chapter 6
Paris
July 18, 1942
The city seemed to have transformed during the two days the boys had been sequestered in the velodrome. The degree of indifference among Parisians was even more visible after the raid. The sad fate of misfortune retreated, leaving the rest unscathed and somehow immunized against pain and suffering. The passersby hardly glanced at the three little vagabonds. Since the occupation, unkempt children roaming the streets was not an uncommon sight. Little by little, poverty and hunger had spread throughout both the occupied and free zones of the country, but most French focused upon how things would get better soon. The Great War had been much harder than this, and they had come out stronger.
The boys made their way down the clean and empty streets. They went by foot, not daring to take a train or bus. The police could detain them easily on public transportation, and the boys had no identification with them.
After an exhausting three-hour walk, they finally saw the street where Jacob and Moses had spent the greater part of their existence—their own little world where the frontiers of their imagination had seemed safe and stable. They walked beyond their school building toward the synagogue. The wooden doors—scorched black and still smelling of smoke—were open, showing the disarray within. Jacob thought of Rabbi Ezekiel, the young man with the curly beard and kind face. He knew the rabbi was German like the Steins, and there would be little hope of finding him there. If the man had not been taken, he would be somewhere safer, in hiding.
They walked by the bakery, which was closed, and the butcher’s and several other stores before reaching their apartment building. The large gate leading to the inner courtyard was wide open. They snuck through the narrow pass by the doorwoman’s lookout as quickly as they could. They could not risk her betraying them to the police again.
They crept up the stairs, unsure of which tenants they could trust. All the Jewish residents had fled or been taken. And we surely can’t trust the non-Jews, Jacob thought as he climbed the worn wooden steps. A tempting thought flickered through his brain: What if it had all been a bad dream? Maybe his parents and Aunt Judith