trust.
Margot dropped into her chair. She was worn out. The circles around her eyes were darker than before the police officers’ visit, and her wavy gray hair was tousled. She had run her hands through it a number of times in an effort to calm down.
“She came back around noon. Apparently the family she worked for had been taken away. Since she herself wasn’t registered on any list, she had managed to escape, but . . .”
“Please, just tell us what happened,” Moses pleaded, his voice tremulous.
“Good old Judith, such a generous soul. This is destroying the best of us,” Margot said, her head bowed.
“What happened?” Jacob demanded.
Margot looked up with her bright eyes. She took a deep breath and sipped her cold tea. “She came back at noon. She looked for you all over the house, called for you, wept out loud. I went up to see her, but she wouldn’t let me in. I begged her to calm down, told her things would work out, that they weren’t going to hurt innocent children. She told me I had no idea what the Nazis were capable of. I reminded her we are in France, the gendarmes would take care of them . . . but she was desperate and was shouting . . .”
Moses started to cry. Jacob thought his brother should not hear any more. This terrible war would destroy all the good that was left in the world.
“That witch of a doorwoman called the gendarmes. Half a dozen of them came barreling up the stairs. I hid because I was a coward . . .” Margot trailed off into tears.
“There was nothing you could’ve done,” Jacob said, soothingly.
“She started screaming from the other side of the door, and I just hid down here in my apartment. I heard them banging at the door, heard Judith’s steps, heard the gendarmes ordering her to open up. Finally the gendarmes broke her door open, and I heard Judith running fast. More steps, and then in the courtyard . . .” Margot could barely continue. “There was a loud noise, like a sack of flour had dropped from the ceiling. I looked out the window, the same window I was just looking out. Your aunt was there, facedown, her foot still twitching when I saw her. The gendarmes ran down and called for a doctor, but she was already dead. The next day, the doorwoman cleaned up the blood, but you can still see the stain . . . as if some part of her isn’t ready to leave this place.”
Tears streamed down Moses’s face. He did not really understand what death was, but he knew it meant a separation that lasted forever. Judith had been a second mother to them. She may not have been overly tender or affectionate, but she looked after them, stayed up all night with them when they were sick, and gave them everything she had.
Jacob swiped at the tears that dripped down his nose. This loss made him more determined than ever to set off in search of their parents. Joseph stayed silent, wondering how his family was, hoping they were alive and well.
“Do you understand?” Margot asked. “A woman like her, dead, murdered by this despicable Vichy regime, murdered by all those who have surrendered their souls and looked the other way. The worst friend of the truth is silence. The worst lie in the world is that ordinary people are powerless against tyranny.”
Jacob stood and looked out the window. From that height, the dark stain could still be seen, proof of the power a person’s actions have over life. The stain was all they had left of their aunt.
“We’re heading south. There’s a city we’ve got to get to. I don’t want to tell you where, but it’s south of Lyon,” Jacob said calmly.
“But Lyon is so far. You’ll never make it. The Nazis are controlling all movement . . . the train stations, the roads, everything. And there’s a border between occupied and unoccupied France.”
“It doesn’t matter. We have to find our parents.”
The old woman was quiet, thoughtful. Then she reached out for Jacob and said, “In Versailles, I have an old friend who restores art. He has a safe-conduct permit that lets him travel around France freely. I’ll ask him to at least get you out of Paris. He might be able to get you as far as the border with unoccupied France, near Bourges. There’s a famous cathedral there, the