Free Two Testaments by Elizabeth Musser

not.
    But man was made to choose. It was the constant breath of life, the daily struggle: always a choice, even in not choosing. This pitiful lost flock of humanity drifting on the sea was being flung out like the stars to fill another spot of earth. But no one was guiding, no one pointed the way. Their destiny was as random as the galaxies.
    When light finally did paint the skies with streaks of orange and yellow, Anne-Marie opened her eyes, squinting to enjoy the changing picture before her. Somewhere in the night she must have fallen asleep.
    “You aren’t too cold?” It was Eliane whispering beside her. “Look at you, Anne-Marie! You’re icy to touch! Take back your coat. Samuel will be fine.”
    Obediently Anne-Marie lifted the light wool coat from the boy’s shoulders and wrapped it around herself. She rested her arms on the boy’s back, hoping he would not awaken.
    Rachel slept still, but baby José stared wide-eyed at Anne-Marie, a smile forming on his lips. Then he screwed up his face, and his skin wrinkled like that of an old man. She could see the wail of hunger coming, but before he uttered a sound, Eliane put him to her breast.
    “It won’t do to have you wake the whole ship, wee one. Mais non! We need all the friends we can get right now.” She flashed a smile at Anne-Marie. “Do you know where you’ll be going then, once we land?”
    “I have a number to call when we get to Marseille. Ophélie is staying at an orphanage near Montpellier. I’ll just go there, I suppose. And you?”
    “I haven’t the slightest idea! Well, hardly. Rémi said I should stay in a hotel in Marseille until I can get a place of our own.”
    “And when will Rémi come?” Anne-Marie asked cautiously. She was not used to exchanging information so freely.
    Eliane’s face clouded. “I don’t know. He wants to try and save the farm from the looters. To see what the situation is like after independence on July 2.”
    “You hope to return then, to Algeria?” Anne-Marie wondered if her voice betrayed her surprise.
    “Hope, yes, but of course no one knows.” Eliane cleared her throat. “May I ask you a question, Anne-Marie?”
    “Yes, I suppose,” she answered softly. There was something in the cheerful, kind voice of Eliane that pleased Anne-Marie.
    “I couldn’t help but overhear the conversation with the young boy and what he said about you providing a safe place in France. And the slip of paper with the cross. That was the Huguenot cross, n’est-ce pas ?”
    “Yes, but it has no spiritual significance. It was only … only a sign for us, you see. A way to communicate.”
    “And the tall young man. He’s quite handsome. I’ve seen him before, haven’t I? Years ago at your father’s house. He was a good friend to you then?”
    Anne-Marie felt the color rise in her cheeks. “Yes, a friend …”
    “I’m prying. It’s a bad habit. Forgive me.”
    “No, no. It isn’t that.” Anne-Marie looked into the soft, round face of Eliane, and suddenly she wanted so badly to tell this kind young woman what life had been like for her these past years. “If I tell you my story, will you keep it for yourself?” she whispered.
    Eliane smiled and patted her arm lightly, as if Anne-Marie were another of her children. “I won’t breathe a word, Anne-Marie.” Her eyes filled with compassion. “Whom should I tell anyway? I know no one in France. Your secrets are safe with me.”
    For hours the two women talked. They spoke of the past, of the farms that had been in their families for years. Of the wealthy landowner who rented them the land. Of their Arab friends. Anne-Marie felt suddenly free as she explained to Eliane what she had never been able to explain before, not even to Moustafa or David. The baby, the pain, the impossibility of telling David.
    She spoke of Ali’s brutality and how she had become his pawn, collecting valuable information for him. She let each detail tumble forth, afraid that if she stopped