Black Radishes by Susan Lynn Meyer Page B

glad that we have enough eggs for pancakes. I like the cider and hazelnuts and pancakes best, anyway. Oh, and I really love the roasted marrons . I always smell those chestnuts that Monsieur Arnaud sells outside the cemetery when we’re saying the prayers over the graves. Once, my father let me buy some when we came out, but when my aunt comes to visit, she tells my father not to spoil my appetite. As if it would! My aunt is so annoying! When she and my uncle and cousins visit, she always tells my father that I’m a hooligan and that he isn’t raising me properly. She never likes the dresses I wear when we go to decorate my mother’s grave. Anyway, could you buy a pot of chrysanthemums to decorate the graves with? We couldn’t, but I know where some purple aster is growing. I think it’s pretty, and my mother loved wildflowers, but my aunt will never approve. She doesn’t even approve of colored chrysanthemums for my mother’s grave, only white.…” Nicole went on and on, hardly stopping to take a breath.
    Startled, Gustave looked at her. Nicole sure could talk. And she didn’t have a mother? Gustave hadn’t realized that.
    Celeste put her arm around Nicole’s waist. “I’m sorry,” she said when Nicole paused. “For a minute I forgot about your mother. It must be a hard holiday for you.”
    “I miss her when I think about her,” Nicole said, more quietly. “But I was so little, only three, when she died. But my aunt,” she continued, more cheerfully, “you should hear her going on about my hair, and my table manners, and the people Papa associates with, and my bicycle riding, and my bedtime.…”
    Nicole chattered on and on until Claude came to his turnoff. Then Celeste, hiding her face behind a curtain of blond hair, tugged Nicole’s arm insistently, and the two of them ran off, saying that they were going to the boulangerie .
    “Goodbye, Gustave!” Celeste called over her shoulder, giggling.
    Gustave nodded and headed toward his house, wondering what Celeste was giggling about. Nicole seemed a lot more sensible. It must be hard for Nicole, not having a mother. But he was glad that she had talked so much after Celeste had asked about bacon and rillettes . It almost seemed as if Nicole had deliberately chattered so much so that he wouldn’t have to answer.
    But then that must mean that Nicole suspected he wasn’t Catholic, Gustave thought nervously. Why had she noticed when the others hadn’t? Did that mean that she realized he was Jewish? But if she did, why was she helping him hide it?

14

    T he first few days of the La Toussaint school holiday were sunny, but then the weather turned bitterly cold. On Wednesday morning, after Maman left for work, Gustave was huddled on his bed, wearing his warmest sweater with the wool blanket over him, rereading The Three Musketeers for the hundredth time, when Papa came in.
    “I have an adventure for us,” Papa said, smiling.
    Gustave jumped up from the bed. “What are we going to do?”
    “We’re going bartering,” Papa said. “A farmer yesterday told me about another farm where they have ducks and need woolen cloth. It’s about thirty kilometers away, and he offered me a can of gasoline in our exchange yesterday, so this time we can take the truck.”
    Gustave helped Papa heave a heavy roll of woolen cloth into the back of the truck.
    “No one will notice that cloth unless they’re really looking!” Papa exclaimed as he threw a sheet of canvas over it. “Not that the Germans really care what you bring into the occupied zone. But if they see something they want, they’ll find an excuse to confiscate it.”
    “We’re going into the occupied zone?” Gustave shivered and tucked his hands under his armpits to warm them.
    “None of the farms on this side have any meat to spare,” Papa said. “Or much food of any kind, now that it’s winter.” He picked up a heavy box and shoved it into the truck, positioning it in front of the roll of cloth.