Free Black Radishes by Susan Lynn Meyer Page B

happening?”
    “It is a national disgrace!” Papa stormed. “This Maréchal Pétain has surrendered to the Germans, and he’s just sitting back and taking orders from them!”
    “It means that France has stopped fighting the war,” Maman explained. “So the Germans won’t be shooting at French people from airplanes anymore or dropping bombs.”
    “Sure!” Papa snorted. “But Pétain is going to let the Nazis occupy a large part of France. And who knows what they’ll do. Especially to the Jews.”
    “But what part is going to be occupied?” cried Gustave.
    “Let’s go,” said Maman. She and Papa were already at the front door. “We’re going to get a newspaper and find out.”
    The papers were all sold out in Saint-Georges, so they hurried the few kilometers to the nearby village of Francueil. Papa bought a newspaper and an ice-cold lemonade, and the three of them sat at a rickety black metal table in the tiny café to share the lemonade and study the map in the paper. At one of the other two tables, an elderly couple pored over another paper, ignoring their breakfast. A pigeon waddled close to their table, pecked up a large crumb, then fluttered away.
    “Look,” Papa said after hastily examining the blurry map in the paper and tracing a line with his finger. “Saint-Georges is just south of the demarcation line between the occupied zone and the unoccupied zone. Ah!” he breathed, slapping both hands on the table and looking at Maman. “What incredible luck! We’re in the unoccupied zone!”
    Maman pulled the map toward her. “Incredible!” she murmured. “What if the house we had rented had been just on the other side of the river?”
    “So there won’t be any Germans here?” Gustave leaned over Maman’s shoulder.
    “No. It says that they have all withdrawn to the northern part of the country,” Papa answered. “The new French Vichy government, headed by Maréchal Pétain, is in charge here, in the unoccupied zone.”
    “Oh!” Maman pushed the paper away and put her head down in her hands. “But Paris will be occupied.”
    “Of course they want Paris,” Papa exploded, looking at her incredulously. “What did you think?”
    “I thought they might just want to take back Alsace and Lorraine,” said Maman, gesturing toward the regions of France closest to Germany, her voice tremulous. “The Boches always thought Alsace and Lorraine should belong to them.”
    “Well, they did decide to take back Alsace and Lorraine,” Papa said, looking at the map. “But the paper says they aren’t just going to occupy them; they are declaring them part of Germany. It will be terrible for the Jews there.” He sighed and was silent for a while, studying the paper again.
    Tears welled up in Maman’s eyes. “Will people be able to get out of the occupied zone? Do you suppose there is any chance I could reach Geraldine again by telephone?”
    Papa shook his head. “I’m sure that the Germans have cut off the phone connections between the two zones, as well as the mail and the telegraph service. There’s no way to communicate.” He looked at Gustave. “Why don’t you go and play and meet us back at the house later,” he said. “Maman and I need to talk.”
    “Be careful, Gustave,” Maman added.
    Gustave nodded and ran away from the tiny café. Did they really think that he still didn’t understand? Paris was a dangerous place to be now if you were Jewish. So was the whole occupied zone. The Nazis would rule that part of the country, would do whatever they wanted, to innocent people. But he wondered what the demarcation line between the two zones of France looked like. How could the Nazis make a line across a whole country? Would they paint a black line on the ground? Then why couldn’t Jean-Paul’s family or Marcel’s or anyone who was trying to get out just run over the line when no one was looking?
    Francueil was a quiet, empty-seeming little village, a lot like Saint-Georges. Gustave