for hours. Moses had to go to the bathroom badly, and Joseph was ravenous.
“Go back there to pee. It’s cleaner than going in those rancid bathrooms upstairs,” his older brother told him.
Moses moved to where the light turned into the darkness and sighed with relief as his bladder emptied.
The three boys crept back upstairs to the stadium and were surprised to find that the crowd from the day before had grown. The velodrome was a beehive being shaken by the beekeeper. The stands crawled with people, and the echo of voices was a resounding buzz.
A young man in a white uniform approached the boys and stuck out his arm to stop them. “Where are you going? Are you alone?”
The three boys looked up. A young, dark-skinned man with shiny, gelled hair and a carefully trimmed mustache frowned down at them. “Yes, sir,” they answered.
“Call me Dr. Michelle. Aren’t your parents with you?” he asked again.
“No, Dr. Michelle.”
“Unbelievable. These people are animals. What a disgrace. Where have human rights, basic human decency gone? That senile, fanatical marshal is the worst thing that could have happened to France.”
The boys were dumbfounded. No one talked like that about Marshal Pétain, the country’s savior and chief of state in unoccupied France.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine,” Joseph said, drawing away from the man.
“There’s a section for lost children. I’ll take you there.” The doctor took Moses’s hand.
“It’s okay. We can find it on our own,” Jacob answered, his mind calculating how to escape as soon as they were out of the man’s sight. No one had documented their arrival yet, and they might still have a chance of slipping away unnoticed.
Just then, the French police officer who had taken them to the government official’s table the day before passed by.
“Gendarme,” called Dr. Michelle, “take these boys to the section for lost children.”
The officer recognized the boys, and Jacob saw the fury in his eyes. The man smiled, his enormous double chin stretching up to reveal the golden buttons of his combat jacket underneath. “Of course, Doctor. I’ll leave them in good hands.”
The gendarme grabbed the two older boys by the collars of their shirts, and Moses followed, terrified.
“There’s no call to escort them like that. They aren’t criminals,” the doctor said, frowning again.
“Well, we don’t want them getting lost in the crowd now, do we?” the gendarme retorted.
Jacob thought about calling out to the doctor but feared it would be even worse if the man knew the boys had not even been registered.
The officer dragged them up the main stairway to the first level of stands but, before heading for the section for lost children, shoved them into the locker rooms where only police were allowed. “Now you can all pay me back at the same time,” he snarled.
The boys were petrified. Jacob knew they had to do something to get away from the man. No one would care what happened to three abandoned children. The people in the stadium were concerned with their own problems already.
“We’re really sorry for what happened yesterday. We were really scared. Really, we’re sorry,” Moses stammered.
The gendarme locked the door and loosened his grip on the boys, who fled to the opposite corner of the room. They instinctively bunched up together through some distant hope of safety in numbers. The officer drew out his nightstick and a switchblade. “We happen to have an overabundance of Jewish refuse at the moment. No one will notice if a couple brats go missing.” He smiled as he spoke.
“Sir, do whatever you want to me, but the others are innocent,” Jacob pleaded, taking a step forward.
“You think I’m in the mood to bargain? When you three leave here it’ll be for the hospital or for the cemetery for Jewish pigs.”
Jacob remembered his own knife and checked his pants pocket. He took it out and waved it at the policeman, who guffawed. “What do you think you’re going to do with that little toothpick? You don’t think I’ve taken down tougher guys than you?”
“Yeah, you’re real brave, attacking a few helpless children,” Jacob said. On the ground he spotted a police jacket, which he snatched up and wrapped around his left hand for protection.
“Pests must be eliminated,” the gendarme replied, taking a step forward.
The nightstick came down hard but only brushed Jacob’s hand. Then the boy managed to wedge his knife into the policeman’s sleeve. The gendarme roared and lunged, but Jacob ducked and scampered to the door. He tried to force it open,