“Yes.”
“He told me that at the dreaming log.”
Nanée smiled sadly, imagining Edouard on that log overlooking the sea at the cottage at Sanary-sur-Mer, trying to help his young daughter understand what Nanée, at thirty-one, still could not: how she was to spend the rest of her life never able to speak with the parent who’d had a rocking horse made for her just because she wanted it.
“Your papa is a very good person,” Nanée said.
Luki burrowed into Nanée and closed her eyes, her warmth spreading through Nanée, who used to snuggle against her father this way by the bonfire at Marigold Lodge—the Michigan house that belonged to her now but would always belong to the rest of her family too. Her mother and her brothers would be there now, the day after Thanksgiving, playing bridge or charades or backgammon and getting on each other’s nerves. They’d be overfull of leftovers, turkey and mashed potatoes with gravy, pecan pie or pumpkin or some of each, in a world where you could still eat more than you needed and sleep without fear, a world in which one day was lived much like the days before and after, where it still mattered what you wore and who you socialized with, whether they were “our class.” Where a girl was to wear white and become a happy wife to a man who spent his spare time at his club, a mother to children who would bicker and disappoint. Was that why she came to France? Why she stayed, even though there was never enough food and no one, really, was safe?
She watched out the window, stroking Luki’s hair and willing the train to leave. She ought to keep the girl awake to have dinner. They’d barely eaten all day, and there would be plenty here in first class. When they got to Villa Air-Bel, it would be back to rationing.
“I love Papa,” Luki said.
Yes, Nanée thought. I do too.
She might have been thinking of her own father, or Edouard, or both men.
She began quietly singing words she’d all but forgotten, that her father used to sing:
Angels watching ever round thee
All through the night.
They will of all fears disarm thee,
No forebodings should alarm thee,
They will let no peril harm thee
All through the night.
The train whistle sounded, and the train began slowly, slowly, slowly to move, its gentle sway rocking them as, outside the window, the station gave way to poles and swooping wires, to an empty, moonlit road and empty, moonlit fields, and in the distance, a dark shadow of woods.
Friday, November 29, 1940
LYON
Luki was with Mutti. She wished Papa would come, but Mutti said they must leave Papa to make his photographs. A man came, but he wasn’t Papa. He wasn’t an angel and he wasn’t God, and he wasn’t God’s son, the bleeding Jesus who wore the crown of thorns that Luki wanted him to take off so his head wouldn’t be so scary, and he didn’t speak the bad-men words, but he held a whip and he held Pemmy by the neck!
She startled awake. In a bed. She wasn’t with the nuns. Where was she? Where was Pemmy?
A bit of light came through the window, and the door was ajar, with the Mutti Angel who wasn’t Mutti and wasn’t an angel standing in silhouette.
Why was the bad man here? That was who was speaking, the bad man who captured Pemmy. She couldn’t see him, but it was his voice.
She was too afraid to move. She pretended to sleep. If she was sleeping, it might not be real, or maybe the bad man wouldn’t see her.
The bad man said, “But you must have a French transit visa for the child also. We are under the strictest protocol for all trains bound for Marseille.” He was using the regular words. He wasn’t a German man.
Luki peeked just a little. She was on the beautiful princess train, on her way to Papa. Tante Nanée wouldn’t make her disappear, because Reverend Mother had said so, and to lie is a sin.
She peeked a little more. They were at a train station. It was nighttime. Outside the window, people stood in pools of electric light. Tante Nanée was saying something, but her voice was too quiet to hear the words.
The bad man said, “No one without every document in order may be allowed to continue on. Not even a child.”
Tante Nanée stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her. Luki stared at the door, her eyes wide open now. She wanted to call out to Tante Nanée please not to leave her. She didn’t want to be alone in the dark, without even Tante Berthe’s voice outside the hiding trunk. Papa wasn’t here. Mutti was with the angels. Even Pemmy was gone. Pemmy was a princess, and Joey was a prince. No one would hurt them because they were with the queen in the castle. But without Tante Nanée, Luki didn’t know how to get to Papa. Papa wasn’t at the dreaming log. Luki didn’t know where Papa was.