16 July (Short Story)

Chapter 01

16 July 1942, Paris:

I awoke in my family's apartment in Montmartre to the alarming clatter of boots and the paradoxically gentle susurration of lowered voices, both emanating from the corridor that encompassed our doorway. The sun had not yet risen, and my wristwatch indicated that it was hardly past five in the morning.

Though I had grown numb to the scraps of metal from British planes that hailed down on Paris at night with growing frequency—we even watched the fireworks gild the sky with peach and amber from our window as a distraction from the perils of our occupation—the sound was enough to elicit a torrent of anxious thoughts from my mind.

Had the Gestapo arrived to wrench us away from our home in the middle of the night? Were the resistance pamphlets someone had left at our doorstep the day before warning of an approaching roundup of Jews correct? Or were we, at last, being liberated by the British?

I leaned on my elbow to glance at my sleeping mother and sister, their serene faces completely oblivious to the fear that clawed at me.

My mother—a naturally stout person—had shed some of her weight in recent months, which was replaced with an unnatural angularity marked by knifelike bones. Her change in appearance had been caused by strict food rations and worsened still by the order that Jews were allowed to shop only in the late afternoon when most foods had already been sold. 

Once, long before the war, my mother had been the most beautiful woman in Paris. At least that is what my father told us. With her blue eyes and slender waist, she was considered a classic beauty.

My father, a mathematics professor at the Sorbonne: the same university I attended, had been dismissed from his post and then deported to Pithiviers the previous year. We had not heard from him in months. Without his income, we inevitably lacked the money required to maintain a decent living.

My sister Adèle was less emaciated than Maman as we reserved the most bread and meat for her. She was not yet twelve years old—six years younger than me, so we worried that a lack of nourishment would prevent her from growing. 

I feared that the Occupation had affected her more than we knew. 

While we were all forced to wear yellow stars that announced our heritage and had been barred from frequenting public places such as swimming pools and museums, Adèle had experienced the most severe loss of childhood joys. The schools had been closed, so many of Adèle's days were spent queuing for food.

Remembering the sound that had roused me from my slumber, I leaned over to shake Adèle and Maman awake. 

Maman sprang up immediately, but Adèle was less inclined to do so—her pale blue eyes fluttering open with excruciating lethargy. 

How I envied those blue eyes. They were the same as Maman's. I had inherited my father's slate-grey eyes and constantly lamented my misfortune. 

"I heard something in the corridor," I said before Maman could ask why I had woken them. "Perhaps the Gestapo is here. They warned us they would come. We should have stayed with Sylvie."

Without speaking, the three of us commenced our well-rehearsed routine: Maman slipped under the bed while Adèle and I folded ourselves behind the doors of the wardrobe, mothballs and itchy wool jackets scratching my face. Our hiding places were not particularly ingenious, but they were all we could muster within the confines of our humble abode.

I peered out at our darkened apartment through a crack in the wardrobe. 

I could only see the long hem of Maman's dress—a bundle of dull grey wool—meandering out from the foot of the old mahogany bed. I prayed they would not notice if they did indeed come for us.