leave Moses alone. He peered through a hole in the tent’s fabric and watched policemen running toward the scene. To his horror, the gendarme they had encountered was dragging his brother away. He crouched behind the boxes of food a few moments before slipping out of the tent. Everything was still, no gendarmes in sight. Jacob’s chest closed in on him. He recalled his promise to his parents to never leave Moses and to keep him safe. Jacob crumpled to the floor and started to weep.
Footsteps approached, and a figure knelt beside him, waiting for Jacob to lift his head. “What’s going on?”
It was the voice of the doctor from earlier in the day. His brow was furrowed, and his glasses seemed attached to his long, curved nose.
Jacob spluttered between sobs. “They . . . took . . . him . . .”
“Who?”
“My brother.” He buried his head again.
“The policemen gather up all the abandoned children. We can’t have you wandering around out of control. This is a dangerous place.” Michelle’s tone was so calming that Jacob’s breathing began to normalize.
“That man, the gendarme, he brought us to the velodrome. We escaped, and he’s been looking for us. This morning he tried to kill us, but we managed to get away. Now I don’t know what he’ll do to my brother.”
“The gendarmes are just pawns. The government sent them to do the dirty work, but a lot of them detest what they’ve been forced to do.” The doctor touched the boy’s chin to raise it.
“You’re only saying that because you’re not a Jew. They hate us. The French hate us.”
The doctor pulled back the flap of his white jacket and revealed a yellow Star of David. The child dissolved into tears again and threw himself onto the man. Michelle fought off the knot in his own throat. He was a French Jew but had volunteered his services in the velodrome to aid the unfortunate prisoners.
“My family has been in this country since the sixteenth century,” he explained, supporting Jacob in his arms. “I’m more French than most of the people who spit at me as I walk down the street. They kicked us out of Spain centuries ago, as though we were the plague, but France welcomed us. It wasn’t easy at first, but my family settled in Paris and ran drugstores and pharmacies, up until my grandfather, who became a doctor. We’ve fought and died for the Republic. We believe in her eternal values, and we know this dark hour will pass. Hard times show what people are really made of. This trial won’t destroy us. It’ll make us a better, stronger country. I may never get to see it, nor any of these people”—he gestured to the stands—“but France will shake off this barbaric, evil yoke and begin again.”
Tears streamed down the doctor’s face, deepening his thin wrinkles and making him look older in Jacob’s eyes. Two strangers had achieved a rare moment of connection, and it demanded silence.
Michelle took a deep breath and made to stand, recovering the energy that drove him to serve in that wasteland. “I’ll help you find your brother,” he said.
Joseph appeared beside them all of a sudden, a worried, hesitant look on his face. At first he thought the doctor had captured Jacob and was preparing to hand him over to the police, but the tears on the man’s face gave him the confidence to approach.
The doctor continued, “I know a gendarme sergeant who can give us a hand. Follow me, but stay a bit behind.”
They headed for the stairs and slowly walked up to the second tier, then to one of the rooms at the back of the velodrome.
“Wait here,” the doctor said, sticking his hands in his pockets and walking off.
“Can we trust him?” Joseph asked as soon as Michelle was out of sight.
Jacob shrugged. “We’ve got no choice. We’re not supposed to trust strangers, but there’s nobody here in this huge stadium but strangers.”
The two boys stood facing the dark hallway with their ears attuned for any sound of approach. They grew impatient the longer the doctor delayed. Joseph drummed his fingers on the wall, and Jacob fiddled with his knife. Finally, they heard voices, then steps, and saw two figures emerging from the darkness.
Jacob and Joseph straightened up. One of the men was a gendarme. “I knew we shouldn’t have trusted him,” Joseph hissed.
Michelle raised his hands to calm them. The braids on the officer’s jacket shimmered, and