Tell No One Who You Are by Walter Buchignani Page B

dirty? Were Jews dirty?
    She was scratching her head more and more. Even when she didn’t, she wanted to. She still couldn’t comb out the tangled mess, and scratching was like combing.
    Monsieur and Madame Carpentier also made their suspicions known, although they did so in a more subtle way.
    “Our daughter Marie talks too much,” Madame Carpentier told Régine. “You don’t talk enough. Why is that?”
    Régine did not dare talk. It was safer to say nothing. She had no idea what these people would do if they could prove she was Jewish. They might go to the Germans. So she simply ignored their comments and continued to play stupid. When confronted with questions, she stared at the floor and tried not to scratch her head.
    Who would have known it could be so exhausting playing dumb?
    One day, the postman brought a parcel addressed toAugusta Dubois. It was wrapped in plain-brown paper and bore no return address. When Madame Carpentier gave her the parcel, Régine could feel from its edges that it was a book. She was so excited that she opened it right there at the front door.
    The entire family looked on as she pulled the wrapping off the book. With enormous pleasure, she read the title to herself:
La case de l’Oncle Tom
. It was the French translation of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
. Just then a piece of paper fell from between the pages. Régine bent quickly to pick it up. She slipped the paper back into the book without even looking at it, and hoped that the others would think nothing of it.
    “What was that?” asked Jean. Ever since that first day, he watched every move she made.
    “Nothing,” Régine said.
    “It looked like a piece of paper.”
    “It’s just a bookmark,” she said.
    She ran up the stairs to her room. She shut the door behind her and jumped on her bed. She opened the book to the page that held the piece of paper. It was a note containing only a few words.
“Je ne t’oublie pas”
— I have not forgotten you.
    It was signed “Nicole.”
    Régine reached under the bed and grabbed her duffel bag. She slipped the note into the envelope, and put the envelope inside the book. She then put the book in the bag and pushed it under the bed for safekeeping.
    “You’re lucky,” Marie said that night in the darkness of the room.
    “Lucky? Why?”
    “Because you got a present. Who sent it to you?” she asked. “Your parents?”
    “No,” Régine said.
    “Who then?”
    “A friend.”
    “How come your parents don’t send you presents?”
    “I’ll get a present when my father gets back. He’s a prisoner of war,” Régine said.
    Régine wondered whether she should speak to Marie about her family. It would be easy to tell her the truth in the dark, she thought. Marie was nice, not like her brother. She never made comments about “big crooked fingers” and “dirty Jews” like he often did. Unlike her parents, she never even hinted at such things. Marie was the only person in the family that Régine liked. But could she trust her?
    Régine was glad she was able to start school the week after her arrival. She left the house early with Marie and walked along the dirt road that led past neighboring farms and into the village where the school was located.
    The school was nothing like the big, stone building where she had gone to school in Brussels. It had only one classroom, filled with girls and boys of different ages. Régine was two years older than Marie but she still sat in the same classroom. She did not mind.
    After class, Régine liked to do homework with Marie. Jean did not bother her then. She especially enjoyed French composition and grammar, always her best subjects. Here, too, the teacher seemed pleased with her work — just like Mademoiselle Descotte in Brussels. She wished her former teacher could see her now, tutoring Marie.
    “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” Marie asked one night, when the light was off and both of them were in bed.
    Régine thought about Léon and the men