out the knife he used for whittling and making figurines. He opened a can of green beans, and they ate with their fingers. The momentary fun kept them giggling.
They slept after their makeshift supper, but Jacob woke after a few hours and decided to explore the basement tunnels. The dim lighting spooked him, but he needed to know if the bowels of the velodrome held a way out. The light bulbs reached only so far down the long hallways of various pipes and tubing. Eventually the darkness made further exploration impossible. He retraced his steps back to the entryway and carefully opened a door that led to a small room. He turned on the light. Hanging on the wall and inside a carpenter’s desk he found several tools and an oil lamp. He searched the little drawers of the desk until they revealed a half-full box of matches. Nervously, he struck the match and watched the flame slowly rise from the center of the lamp. The intensity of light from the short wick surprised him. It reminded him of hope: almost insignificant, but enough to guide a person’s way.
Jacob left the closet silently, but before he reached the tunnels, he heard his brother’s voice. “Where are you going?” Moses asked, starting to panic. Separation from the one person he had left was the worst fate the boy could imagine.
Jacob motioned for Moses to join him. He could still remember when Moses was born, all pink skin and chubby cheeks. But he had cried all the time. When he learned to walk, Moses followed Jacob everywhere and copied his every move. There in the basement, Moses was Jacob’s shadow.
Jacob found it difficult and even awkward to be “an example,” as his mother had always called him, but he also felt proud. He knew he was no one worth imitating or admiring, but for Moses he was a veritable hero.
The two brothers walked timidly down the gallery. Any little noise startled them. Two or three times they surprised rats that dashed off or cockroaches that fled down the pipes. Typically, the boys were not afraid of such creatures. In their aunt’s apartment building, they had made a game of stomping on bugs in dark corners of the courtyard at night and hunting rats with their slingshot. But being surrounded by them in the dark was another matter altogether.
Minutes later, Moses jerked with a panicked question. “Do you know how to get back? We’ve taken so many turns I don’t know where we are.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve been keeping track of the turns. We’re closer than you think,” Jacob reassured him, though he had his own doubts.
They kept walking, not knowing exactly what they were looking for. Half an hour later, they were back at the entrance to the basement. Joseph was sitting up, hands covering his sobbing face.
“What’s wrong, Joseph?” Jacob asked.
The boy lifted his head just above his hands. The redness of his eyes and the expression of utter sadness threatened to swallow them all in grief. “I thought you’d left me. I was afraid . . . alone again.”
Jacob knelt down and reached for Joseph. Through the hug, he could feel his friend’s body, both cold and sweaty, and hear the sobs right next to his ear. Something like tenderness flooded him. He had always received care from others. His parents were supposed to take care of him, encourage him, embrace him; but now he was starting to see what it meant to care for others, to be the one who offered comfort.
In the months since their parents had left, Jacob had taken care of his brother but had not known how to express what he felt. Perhaps he was too busy trying to hide his feelings, not wanting to break down in front of Moses. He had to be the strong one. He had presumed his brother needed security more than affection.
“We’re never going to leave you. I promise. We’re alone too. But now we have each other. Nothing’s going to stop us. I’m not afraid of those Boche or of the gendarmes. We’ll see our families again. I swear we will.”
Moses joined the hug and the boys fell asleep again, dreaming of their previous life, the days of drifting off curled up next to their parents as life passed by in its merry little stream.
Chapter 4
Paris
July 17, 1942
The sound of footfalls overhead woke them. Jacob’s neck was stiff with the strain of having been sleeping at an odd angle