***
By now we were all sick of being in the car together. The evening before, Rachel had scrubbed Eva with a bar of laundry soap and towels soaked in boiling hot water in hope of preventing the spreadof Leo’s germs. I could smell the fresh scent on the girl’s skin. I tried to channel my grandmother and still make myself look presentable. I had not bathed since we left Paris, but I took out a little vial of rose oil and pressed it behind my ears and at my pulse points. My hair, which was now limp and without curl, I pinned back in an artful chignon.
We were like bedouins at this point, with all our worldly possessions packed into the car, traveling on roads that brimmed with other people like us, all trying to get as far away from the capital to places where they thought they’d be safer. I thought of the Haggadah safely wrapped in brown paper and crated in the trunk, and the story of the Israelites’ exodus now resonated deeply within me. I felt a connection to my mother, with her family, as I grasped Alex’s fingers through my hand.
***
Leo was now wrapped in a blanket. He complained the light hurt his eyes, and Rachel tried to create a cocoon for him where his face was pressed against her breast.
It was still nearly one hundred kilometers until Marseille, and Monsieur Armel was determined to get there before sundown. My Haggadah was safely in the back, and I closed my eyes imagining the rabbi and his wife who had initially created the beautiful book all those years ago. Soon it would be passed into new hands, with a new life ahead of it.
For the next several hours, we rode in the crowded car. We spoke little, hoping to let Leo sleep as much as possible. Outside we passed stretches of farmland. Small villages made of fieldstone, and a single church steeple that pierced the sky. Occasionally, Monsieur Armel would be forced to stop for petrol, and all of us, except for Rachel and Leo, would pile out of the car and stretch our legs and breathe in the fresh air.
The bread and cheese we had packed at the beginning of our journey had been finished, and our stomachs rumbled with hunger. At the petrol station, Monsieur Armel bought us sandwiches and we sat outside with our faces tilted toward the sun.
“We probably have four more hours or so until we reach the city,” he told Alex and me.
Alex nodded, chewing on the last bites of his sandwich, and I sighed. The constant traveling had depleted me. I was exhausted. Leaning against his shoulder, I looked at the packed car, which seemed to sag from the journey. The black doors were covered in dust; the wheels were caked in mud. All I hoped was that we would get to Marseille safely.
***
I fell asleep for the rest of the journey, only to be awakened by the noise of a bustling port city as we entered Marseille. Our journey suddenly felt terribly real, far more so than even when we had first loaded our suitcases or closed down the apartments. In contrast to the countryside of the past few days, I now saw the familiar terrain of an urban setting. Though there was something far more exotic to Marseille. Unlike Paris, with its elegant stone buildings and imperial grandeur, here the city had a uniquely Mediterranean feeling. Many of the buildings were as white as the seagulls that circled overhead. As we drove closer to the port, I could hardly believe my eyes. The water was the most extraordinary color I had ever seen. Blue and veined like marble. Boats in the harbor sounded their horns, dockmen hollered, and seagulls sqauwked. Outside a tobacco shop, at least ten men in military uniforms stood smoking cigarettes, their eyes tracing the girls who floated by, their cotton skirts lifting like sails.
It took us at least another hour of driving through the city to find a vacancy in one of the hotels that could accommodate all of us.
Finally, Monsieur Armel found three vacant rooms, not far from the port in a hotel that looked like it was something out of one of my mother’s old novels. The building, once majestic, was now in disrepair. The facade was crumbling, the stucco was cracked, and behind the wrought-iron balconies, the hotel’s tall windows were kept open, their dingy curtains fluttering like old dresses in the sea air.
As we began untying the cord that secured our suitcases to the roof, Monsieur Armel took charge.
“Solomon, get Leo inside and we’ll tell the concierge to call him a doctor. There’s a pharmacy down the block.” He reached into his pocket to offer some money for Alex. “Why don’t you try to get some fever powder for him to make him more comfortable?”
I remembered my father mixing those sachets of powder in a glass of water when I had a temperature. I felt a longing for his calm and his wisdom now. I knew he would have been able to speak with the pharmacist about what would make Leo feel better. I loathed the war, the vacuum that had swallowed up the normal channels of communication. My mind began to rush as I wondered how he’d be able to locate me once we left France. I imagined him returning to our apartment to find my note, and knew that it was essential that I write him again before we left Marseille, just in case there was the slightest chance he had returned safely.
Alex stood watch over the car as we brought our valises into the hotel. Just before Monsieur Armel returned to park the car, the trunk was opened to remove the box with the books.
“Oh my God!” Alex’s voice scorched through the air. I turned and peered into the trunk. Unbeknownst to us, the well-intentioned farmer had placed a bottle of wine in the trunk as a parting gift to us. The bottle had broken and flooded the bottom of the car. The crate that contained the Haggadah was partially stained the most terrifying color of Bordeaux.
I grew pale and my stomach felt as though it had just been slicedthrough by a sharp blade. I reached to touch the box, and the corner was soaked through in red wine. “It can’t be!” I cried out. It seemed like we were both having the same nightmare.
In perfect synchronicity, Alex and I stretched our hands to pull the box closer to us.
I had no idea if the wine had soaked through the crate, but it was clear the wooden box was affected by the spill. As I touched the saturated corner, I felt as though we were touching a painful wound.
“Don’t panic,” Alex said in a vain attempt to appear that he had the situation under control. But I could hear the fear in his voice; the terror was palpable. The Haggadah was our ticket out of France, and if it was destroyed, we were going nowhere.
“We need to unwrap them now,” he said. He lifted the books from the crate. The box and the bottom layer of packing material were clearly affected by the wine, but the brown wrapping paper seemed pristine. Still, we needed to check.
Quickly I began to pull the paper off of the Haggadah, while Alex removed it from his father’s books.
As I lifted the Haggadah out of its layers of protective paper, I was relieved to discover that it had not been affected by the wine spill. But the book had not come through our journey unscathed.
“Look,” I said, showing him one of the red-and-blue-colored decorative birds. The rich blue color was flaking and cracking. It looked as though some of the pigment was lifting off from the page.
Alex turned white. “The wine spill must have caused a change in moisture.” He took the book from me and began to inspect the other leaves.
“Luckily, it only seems to be on that page.”
“But how will we be able to repair it?” I was so upset, I could hardly breathe.
