“Say what I wore.”
“You wore a blue dress with a belt made of little silver bells.”
“And on my head ?”
“A crown made of silver with a ruby rose on each tip.”
“And in my hand?”
“You held a golden scepter.”
“Last time I had a bouquet of flowers.”
“A scepter is very nice. It means you are the ruler, and nobody can do anything you don’t like.”
“I’d like a magic wand better.”
“All right, then you can have a magic wand.”
Before, I used to think Jacqueline was a nuisance when she woke me up, and I used to tell her so, too. But now when I feel her beginning to slip away, I beg her to stay. I promise to tell her lots of stories
—as many as she wants. But she goes, and I am there alone, shivering in the darkness. So I eat my last piece of licorice, and go to sleep.
May 1938
I was eight years old when I came to live with my parents. Jacqueline was four. Before that my parents could not afford to keep us.
Both of them worked. They sold ladies’ sweaters and blouses in the open-air marketplaces of the towns and villages around Aix-les-Bains where they lived. Each day, they went to a different place. On Monday it was Belley, Tuesday Annecy, Wednesday, they remained in Aix-les-Bains, Thursday Rumilly or Bellegarde, Friday Annemasse, and Saturday Chambéry.
Each day they rose at dawn, and carried their heavy stock to the train. Each night they returned, carrying whatever had not been sold. They had a room for themselves in a boardinghouse, and they found a family a few miles outside of Aix-les-Bains who took care of my sister and me, and charged my parents very little.
This was M. and Mme. Durand. They were strict and very religious. We had to say our prayers every night, and go to church with them on Sunday. If we squirmed or wiggled too much, Mme. Durand would pinch our legs. But the food was good, only there was much more of it than we could eat. Mme. Durand had three boys, all rosy-cheeked and chubby. She thought Jacqueline and I were too skinny, and was always trying to fatten us up.
M. Durand sold cheeses, and breakfast, dinner, or supper there was always cheese
—Brie or Tomme de Savoie,
Roblochon, Gruyère, or Camembert. Mme. Durand had cheese in the pantry at all times. The children could have as much as they wanted of that cheese. But downstairs, M. Durand kept the cheeses that he was going to sell, and those cheeses, as all of us knew, were not to be eaten.
One day, Mme. Durand sent me downstairs to bring up some potatoes. It was a very hot day, and the cellar was deliciously cool. It was deliciously fragrant as well. On the large table in the middle of the room lay a gigantic circle of Gruyère cheese. Even in the dim light it glowed like a yellow pearl. Its aroma was beguiling. I knew that there were cheeses upstairs that I could eat, and I knew that the beautiful yellow cheese that lay there on the table was intended for the market the following morning. I also knew that M. Durand took his cheeses very seriously, and that Mme. Durand could slap and shake as well as pinch.
But I could not stop myself. I rushed up to the cheese, took a bite out of one perfect side, and swallowed it all, almost in one gulp. It was delicious, but once it was down, I knew it had all been a big mistake.
The following morning we children were awakened by some loud cursing, and an even louder invitation on the part of M. Durand to accompany him downstairs. The light was now on, and the ravished cheese lay there on the table with one bite clearly torn out of its side. Nobody could mistake it for a hole.
“Who did it?” demanded M. Durand.
Everybody said not me.
“I want to know who did it,” M. Durand thundered
.
“And when I find out, I will break every bone in his body. I will crack open his head. I will beat him within an inch of his life. Now
—who did it?”
Jacqueline and the two youngest boys began to cry.
“Gabriel!” shouted M. Durand to his oldest son, a boy of about my age, “did you do it?”
“No, Papa,” Gabriel said.
“Jean-Pierre,” bellowed M. Durand to his second boy, who was about six, “was it you ?”
“No, Papa,” wept Jean-Pierre.
“Célestin,” shouted M. Durand, “you?”
Little Célestin was younger than Jacqueline. He was about three then, and was crying so hard he couldn’t even answer. All he could do was shake his head
—no.
M. Durand then looked at me. “Nicole, was it you?” he yelled.
“No, Monsieur.”
“Well, then, Jacqueline, did you do it?”
Jacqueline was crying. Tears lay on her long, curling lashes, and her blue eyes were like round marbles. She shook her bright, red curls and sobbed, “No, Monsieur. Maybe it was Hitler.”
Hitler was the name of the dog.
“It was not Hitler,” M. Durand shouted. “He knows better than to take a bit out of my cheeses.” He narrowed his eyes, and put his hands on his hips. “One of you is guilty, I know. Now who was it. I warn you, the longer you keep me waiting, the sorrier you will be.”
Mme. Durand broke in. “Jacques,” she said, “it was neither Jacqueline or Célestin. Jacqueline was in bed all day yesterday with a cold, and Tante Louise took Célestin away with her for the day.”
“Ah!” M. Durand waved away the two youngest, and concentrated on the three eldest. He walked up and down, considering, and then finally he faced us, smiling. But it was not a pleasant smile.
“Stay here I” he ordered.
He approached the plundered cheese, and cut three pieces out of it.
“Here!” he said, returning to us. “I want your opinion of this cheese. You first, Nicole. Take a bite out of this piece
—a big bite—right here.”
I bit without thinking. I nearly choked on it. By this morning I had lost my taste for cheese.
“Gabriel, here!” Gabriel bit.
“Jean-Pierre!” The same.
“Aha I” M. Durand carried the three pieces over to the large cheese, and compared them with the original bite. “Madeleine,” he said, addressing his wife, “come here!” She joined him, and looked. Without a word, they both turned and faced me.
“NICOLE!”
M. Durand did not break every bone in my body, nor did he crack open my head, but my rear end was sore that day, and Mme. Durand pinched my arm several times and said that if I stopped eating like a bird at mealtimes, and took more nourishment, I wouldn’t have to go around committing crimes in between meals.
They were strict but they had taken care of us since we were babies, and treated us like their own children. Which wasn’t good, but at least we never felt we were treated worse than their own children. Actually, M. Durand probably was nicer to me than to any of the others. Sometimes I even sat in his lap after supper, and he patted my shoulder and jiggled me on his knee.
I was used to them, and I was not unhappy. But every Friday night when our parents came to see us, starting from when I was six or seven, I would ask, “Why can’t we live with you ?”
“Because we can’t afford it yet.”
“Why can’t you afford it? Georges Morel at school, lives with his mother. His father is dead and his mother is a laundress. They are very poor, but Georges and his two sisters, Louise and Eugénie, are at home.”
“Soon. We are doing the best we can.”
“But why do we have to wait? I can take care of the house while you and Papa work. I can boil eggs and make coffee.”
“We have no room for you. You know that Papa and I live in that one tiny room in the boardinghouse.”
“Jacqueline and I won’t mind. We can sleep on the floor, and we don’t eat much. Mme. Durand says we eat like birds.”
“Now listen to me, Nicole. As soon as we can, we will. Papa and I are just as anxious as you to be together again.”
“No, you are not. If you were, nothing would stop you. You just don’t care for us.”
“Now, Nicole, I don’t like the way you are talking. Sometimes, I’m afraid you forget yourself.”
Then one night, Maman told us that she had found an apartment, and that the following week would be our last with the Durands. They would come for us the next Friday night and we would go “home.” I thought about “home” all through that week, and imagined how it would look with new and bright furniture and pretty pictures hanging on the walls.
It was disappointing when we walked into the apartment on the Avenue du Petit Port. There were four small rooms, and a tiny, dark kitchen. None of the furniture was new, and there were no pictures hanging on the wall.
Jacqueline didn’t mind. She bounced up and down on the large double bed that she and I would share and which took up most of our room.
“Come here, Nicole,” Maman said. She opened the doors of the living room, and we were outside on a
veranda,
an enclosed sun-porch with windows on all sides that could be raised way up.
“Wait until the morning,” Maman said. “You will be able to see Mont Revard.”
Everything seemed so strange the next day. Papa had already left for work, but Maman was staying home to get everything in order. She sent me down to the
crèmerie
to buy some Brie cheese, and she gave me a milk pail which I was to have filled with milk.
I had never bought anything in a store before. Mme. Durand baked her own bread, and milk was delivered by a local farmer. Maman showed me from the
veranda
how I must walk up to the end of the street, turn the corner, and there in the middle of that street was the
crèmerie.
I held the coins tightly in my hand and walked slowly up the street. This was my street. All the trees and the houses with their red-tiled roofs and the people who lived inside them belonged to me now. I felt happy and important. I had a street, and an apartment, and a mother and father who lived with me. My mother had sent me out with money in my hand to shop for her. It was all so beautiful
—the bright, clear day, the fine street, the feel of the hard coins in my hand. And times like this were now forever.
In the
crèmerie,
two bright-eyed, skinny, little women stood behind the counter. They looked like twins, but they were only sisters. Mlle. Hélène and Mlle. Jeanette Frenay, owners of the store.
“Yes?” demanded Mlle. Hélène
.
“Please, Madame,” I said, “may I have a piece of Brie cheese.”
“What is your name?” asked Mlle. Jeanette.
“Nicole Nieman.”
“Where do you live?” continued Mlle. Hélène
.
“Around the corner—on the Avenue du Petit Port.”
“I have never seen you before,” said Mlle. Hélène
.
“No, Madame, we just moved in yesterday.”
“Ah, and what rental do you pay?” asked Mlle. Jeanette.
“I don’t know, Madame.”
“Well, well
...
and what do you want?”
“A piece of Brie cheese.”
“It’s not very good today,” remarked Mlle. Hélène
.
I glanced at the large, round Brie cheese in one of the cases. It had a triangular piece cut out of it and looked creamy and smooth inside.
“My mother told me to buy a piece of Brie,” I insisted.
Mlle. Jeanette picked up a knife. “The Camembert is delicious today,” she said.
“But Madame, my mother
...
”
She sliced a piece off the Camembert, wrapped it in white paper, and said, “Your mother will appreciate the Camembert. What else do you need?”
I handed her my milk pail, and she filled it with milk.
“My greetings to your mother,” said Mlle. Jeanette, taking my money. “We will look forward to meeting her.”
Maman thought the Camembert was delicious, and said she had heard from the landlady that the two sisters in the
crèmerie
were strange, but that their cheeses were excellent.
Jacqueline and I sat at the table in the kitchen while Maman fixed our
café-au-lait,
and cut us large slices of bread and cheese. She fussed over us, asking us if the coffee was too hot, or if we wanted more cheese, but she didn’t insist that we eat anything. Jacqueline kept kicking her chair but Maman didn’t even notice. She was laughing and talking to us about how much fun it was going to be, and how once we had some money, we would buy new furniture, and maybe even a rug for the living room. Maman’s hair and eyes were very dark, and her face always seemed to be moving.
After breakfast, I helped Maman unpack the dishes and the pots and put them away in the pantry. Maman had part of a set of beautiful china dishes. They were white with a border of tiny, delicate roses around the rim. The cups were very fancy. There were only five of them with gold twisted handles and little gold legs.
“There is a china closet I have my eye on,” Maman said. “If we continue to do as well as we have been doing, perhaps one day I can buy it and display some of our pretty things.” She wiped the cups carefully, and began to put them away.
“Maman, may I hold one too?” I asked.
“Yes, Nicole, but be very careful. They are quite delicate.”
I held the cup in my hands and ran my fingers all along the border of little roses, and underneath I touched the tiny gold feet.
“Oh, Maman, it’s so beautiful!”
“Maman, I want to hold a cup too,” said Jacqueline.
Maman hesitated.
“Don’t let her, Maman,” I said. “She’ll drop it. You can’t trust her.”
“Yes I can. I can.” Jacqueline cried.
“Of course you can,” Maman said. “Come here, near me, and you can hold it over these towels. Be careful now.”
Jacqueline held the cup very carefully over the towels on the table. She was smiling. Then she looked over at me, and made a funny face.
“Maman, Jacqueline made a funny face at me.”
Maman took the cup from Jacqueline. “Who wants to put away the sheets and pillowcases ?” she asked.
“I do.”
“I do.”
It was a happy day—putting everything away, dusting the furniture, cleaning the floors of our apartment. It was a happy day, especially for me. But for Jacqueline, it was not all happy.