She fought back her tears to look at him with clear eyes. She saw past the yellow in his eyes, the sallow of his cheeks. Without a sound,she began to turn the small dial to adjust the watch’s hour and minute hands to the time of the clock on her mantel.
“Time will stand still until then.” She placed the watch down on the table and, softly, brought his hand to her cheek, before kissing it and closing it shut. How she wished he could keep her kisses contained in the well of his clenched hand.
11.
Solange
September 1939
The three of us continued to meet around the dining room table every night: my father, myself, and our radio.
The radio held a position of honor between us. After I had dished out the evening meal and poured a little wine in our glasses, we’d listen to the broadcast to learn what either Germany or the Soviet Union would do next. Two weeks after France and Great Britain declared war on Germany, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. The country had now been attacked from both sides.
“Do you think that France will be invaded?” I asked my father.
“I pray that won’t happen, Solange.” He looked older, more tired in the past few weeks. “But, it’s not impossible.”
I poured more wine into his glass.
“What I believe is that the Germans will not stop with Eastern Europe. Hitler will want all of it.”
I felt a shiver run up my spine.
“I’m afraid.” I uttered the words so quietly it almost sounded like a whisper. “He’s blaming almost all of Germany’s problems on the Jews.” I did not mention to him about my afternoon spent at the Armels’ bookshop, the stories I had learned about my maternal grandfather, or the worry I had seen on Alex’s and Monsieur Armel’s faces when Hitler’s name was mentioned. But I needed to know what my father would reveal when I mentioned my concern for the anti-Semitism that Hitler was inciting across Europe.
I watched as my father lifted the wine to his lips. His spectacled gaze was now straight upon me. There was a sudden lapse into silence. From the way I returned his gaze, he seemed to understand without me uttering another word that I had come to learn I was part Jewish.
“Mamanshowed me some of her books written in Hebrew, before she died.” I took a deep breath and continued to look at him. “I know I’m half Jewish.”
I heard a deep breath escape from him. He placed his empty wineglass back on the table.
“I must tell you...” He pushed himself into the back of his chair. “It’s a relief to me that you finally know the truth...”
“But why did you both keep it from me for so long?”
My father looked down at his half-eaten plate. One of his fingers traced the rim of his glass, as if he was considering the right words for his reply. I could see how it pained him not to have had more time to formulate his answer to me, having always had such a deep need to be precise.
“Of course, you realize that the Jews have not always been treated kindly by the French people, Solange. Consider what happened to Captain Dreyfus, for example. We are still very much a country that considers itself French, very much Catholic, and quite suspicious of anyone else...” His eyes drifted upward. “And as much as we claim to be a tolerant nation, that’s not always the case...”
“So you both made this decision to protect me?” It was hard to mask my disappointment that they had kept the information from me for so long. “Even if you chose to raise me as a Catholic, I still don’t understand whyMamanfelt she had to keep the truth from me. She hardly seemed like someone who would be ashamed of her past.”
He shook his head. “No, she wasn’t ashamed of her roots, Solange. She was hurt by them.”
I raised an eyebrow, questioning.
“Your mother’s story was a complicated one...” His voice trailed off. I watched as he took another sip of wine before placing his glass on the table.
“She grew up with more privileges than a typical girl in her community. It was just she and her father for so many years...”
I nodded, knowing that my maternal grandmother had died when my mother was barely three years old.
“And those books”—he lifted a finger and pointed in the direction of her bookshelves—“were such a comfort to her. For most of her life, anyway.”
The tenor of my father’s voice shifted. His tone always had a trace of hardness to it, perhaps out of an innate need to always be clinical in how he revealed information. But now it had softened, as though just the thought of recalling my mother had the capacity to somehow soothe him.
“Your grandfather had a rare book and manuscript shop on the Rue des Rosiers. I believe he thought your mother would one day assist him there... or perhaps more realistically, that she’d marry someone Jewish to whom he could bequeath the store.”
He lowered his eyes.
