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I ask.
    â€œHow long will it take to get there?”
    The lady glances around her.
    Is anyone listening?
    â€œNo more questions,” she whispers.
    â€œIf the conductor comes, pretend you are asleep.”
    I close my eyes.
    The train rumbles along through endless suburbs.
    We are leaving all we know behind.
    How long will this go on?
    Everything has changed since the war came.
    A voice in my head repeats words I have heard,
    â€œOne thousand years of the Third Reich.”
    Hitler and his mean soldiers are the Third Reich.
    But what does “one thousand years” mean?
    Someone once tried to explain it to me like this:
    Imagine a person lives the longest possible life, a hundred years.
    At the end of that time he has a grandchild,
    and that grandchild lives a hundred years.
    If that happens ten times over,
    a thousand years will have gone by.
    I’ll never see the end of the Third Reich.
    My parents, Madame Marie and Monsieur Henri,
    and my cousins won’t, either.
    My friends and I will just ride and ride into a gray, dark tunnel.
    We’ll never escape, not ever.

Soup, a Swing, and Another Secret
    Our stomachs growl, louder and louder.
    We’ve been on the train for hours,
    with only a little bread and cheese to share.
    But at last my friends and I arrive in Chavagnes-en-Paillers,
    our new village in the Vendée.
    Small houses encircle the church like a fallen halo.
    The lady who came with us on the train
    tells us we’re going to live in one of these houses,
    with a blacksmith’s family.
    We knock on a door.
    A small woman lets us in.
    She looks young, like a mother.
    But she carries a cane like a grandmother.
    Tap! Tap! Tap!
    She takes us into her kitchen.
    A pot of soup steams on the black iron stove.
    I glance at it hopefully, but the woman says nothing.
    A real grandmother knits nearby.
    Tap! Tap! Tap!
    The younger woman takes us into the garden,
    to see pigeons in a dovecote.
    A swing dangles beside it.
    But then we march back across the kitchen,
    past the steaming soup,
    and up the stairs to a small bedroom.
    The woman ushers us all inside and closes the door.
    Even though it’s summer, I feel cold.
    Is it because I’m so hungry?
    I sit on my fingers to keep them warm.
    At last the woman speaks.
    â€œListen carefully, children,” she says.
    â€œI’m Madame Raffin.
    I’m going to take care of you.
    If you do everything I tell you to do,
    you can eat the soup and play with the pigeons.
    First of all, never, ever say that you are Jewish,
no matter what
!
    I’m going to teach you to make the sign of the cross.
    When you can do that and say two longer prayers by heart,
    I will open the door.”
    The sign of the cross?
    What’s that?
    Madame Raffin touches her forehead, her heart,
    and each shoulder,
    â€œIn the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,”
    she says.
    We copy her.
    Is this praying?
    I’ve never prayed before.
    Madame shows us how to kneel and put our hands together
    with our fingers pointing up.
    â€œOur Father, who art in heaven,” we say after her,
    the whole prayer, over and over.
    Then, “Hail Mary, full of grace,” again and again.
    I’m not sure what these words mean.
    Madame Raffin says that’s not important, not right now.
    We just need to remember these words.
    That way people will think we’re Christians.
    At last Madame Raffin is satisfied
    that we know the prayers by heart,
    that we won’t make a mistake.
    She takes our hands and squeezes them for courage.
    â€œNever forget that you are Christians,” she says.
    â€œYour fathers are French soldiers taken prisoner.
    Your mothers have jobs in Paris.
    They sent you to live in my house
    so that you’ll be well fed and safe.”
    We promise.
    I know it will be easy for me.
    I am used to keeping secrets.
    Madame Raffin opens the door.
    Mmm … soup.

    Odette and her foster family in Chavagnes-en-Paillers. Clockwise,