Page 14

When Colette came back for the diamond-and-onyx bangle a week after the boy showed her the hiding space, she half expected that it wouldn’t be there anymore.

After all, she didn’t know the boy, and she hadn’t seen him since the day he showed her the loose brick in the wall.

Had it all been a trick? Had he absconded with the piece and sold it himself?

Maybe she’d been too quick to trust a stranger.

The worst part was that it was too risky to check on the bangle right away. What if the German had somehow seen her hide it? She could be walking into a trap.

“What are you doing?” asked her sister, Liliane, on the seventh day she caught Colette staring out the window of the bedroom they shared, her palms pressed to the glass.

They lived on the ground floor, which didn’t afford the best view of the neighborhood, but she could easily see the front door to the building down the street, the one with the boy’s hidden garden.

“Looking for someone.”

“Who?” Liliane was four years old now, and she followed Colette around like a shadow. Most of the time Colette didn’t mind, but today, she didn’t want to explain herself to a child.

“You don’t know him,” Colette answered impatiently.

“I know everybody you know!” Liliane protested.

“You do not.” Finally, Colette turned and bent to her sister. “Liliane, sometimes people have secrets that they don’t tell anyone.”

Liliane’s eyes went wide. “You have a secret from me ?”

“I have lots of secrets from you,” Colette said, but she regretted the words instantly, for Liliane’s big green eyes filled with tears.

“But I don’t keep any secrets from you !” Liliane said indignantly, her lower lip wobbling.

“You’re four. What secrets could you possibly have?”

“I don’t know!” Liliane shot back, crossing her arms and glaring at her sister. “But if I had any, I’d tell you!”

“Fine.” Colette turned back to the window. “I’m looking for a boy, if you must know.”

“Well, what is his name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, why are you looking for him if you don’t know his name?” Liliane pressed.

Colette clenched her hands into fists. “He has something that belongs to me, okay?”

“What does he have?” Liliane persisted.

Finally, Colette spun around and put her hands on her hips. “Liliane, sometimes you have to leave a person to herself!” She didn’t wait for her little sister’s reply before striding out of the room.

“Colette!” Liliane called after her, but Colette had had it. It was time to see if the boy had kept his promise.

Outside her apartment building, she scanned the street, and then, satisfied that no one was watching, she hurried across the way to the big green door. She glanced around once more before pushing it open and slipping inside.

The inner courtyard was deserted, just as it had been when she’d been here with the boy the week before.

Just as he’d done, she looked up at the building to make sure no one was peering down from one of the windows above, and then she moved quickly to the wall.

She reached for the brick, eleven rows up, five across, heart thudding, as she wondered what on earth she’d do if she found the space behind it empty.

She couldn’t even confront the boy, for she had no idea where he lived.

When she slid the brick out and peered into the wall, she thought for a second that the bracelet had indeed disappeared, for all she could see there was a folded piece of paper.

Heart hammering, she reached for it—and realized immediately that it was wrapped around something.

She slid the paper out and glanced nervously around once more.

Then, she unfolded it and breathed a sigh of relief as the bangle slid into her hand.

Not only was it still there, but it appeared that the boy had returned at some point to conceal it even better.

Why would he take another risk to help her?

She was about to shove the paper back into the hole when she realized that there was something written on it. She pocketed the bangle and looked at the note, her eyes widening as she read the four short lines.

Comme un port dans la tempête

Elle est mon refuge dans le conflit.

Elle scintille et brille

Comme tous les diamants de Paris.

She stared, her heart thudding. No one had ever written her a poem before, and she could feel herself blushing at the thought that a boy she barely knew had done so now.

She read it again and again, a slow smile of disbelief creeping over her face.

Like a port in the storm / She is my shelter in the conflict.

/ She sparkles and shines / Like all the diamonds in Paris.

He had signed the note Tristan . His parents must have been quite cultured, to have named him after the heroic main character of the Wagner opera she’d seen a few years earlier—though didn’t they realize he’d died at the end?

Or perhaps they’d named him for the Breton lai “Chevrefoil,” which Colette’s class had studied last year; it was where the tragic tale of Tristan and Isolde had originated, but in “Chevrefoil,” the focus wasn’t on Tristan’s death, but rather on the love he and Isolde shared, described by the poet as “so true, so pure.” Ever since the night she’d gone to the Opéra with Mum, Tristan had been Colette’s favorite literary hero, so it felt a bit like fate that a boy with that name would be writing her poetry now.

Folding the note quickly into her pocket beside the bangle, she slid the brick back into place and hurried away.

For the next two days, she kept watch at the window, waiting for Tristan to return to the courtyard.

As she stared out through the glass, she repeated the poem softly to herself.

“ Comme un port dans la tempête / Elle est mon refuge dans le conflit. / Elle scintille et brille / Comme tous les diamants de Paris. ”

“What’re you doing, Colette?” Liliane interrupted at one point. “Mummy says you’re acting very odd.”

“I’m looking for the boy I told you about.”

“But why? You don’t even know his name.”

“Yes I do. It’s Tristan.”

“That’s a very strange name.”

“It’s just old-fashioned. Literary.” Colette bit her lip. “Anyhow, he wrote something for me, okay?”

Liliane shrugged. “Well, why don’t you write something for him , then, silly?” Then she bounced away, singing to herself, before Colette could reply.

Write him something in return? Of course. She was no poet. But maybe she didn’t need to be. Maybe she just needed to speak from the heart.

She went into her parents’ room and pulled a piece of paper and a pen from Papa’s desk, bringing them back to her room.

Dearest Tristan, Thank you for your beautiful poem , she wrote.

I wish I was a poet, too, because there are things I would like to say to you.

Thank you for keeping my secret safe. She hesitated, then signed it, Isolde.

Was that too much? She considered crossing it out, starting again, but anonymity made her brave.

In “Chevrefoil,” Isolde—sometimes spelled Iseult —was the forbidden lover of Tristan, who left verses written on hazelwood for her, and she hoped that he would understand what she was saying—that he had tugged at her heart in a way no one had before, even if it would be impossible for her to be with him right now.

In the opera, Tristan and Isolde had both consumed a love potion, and as Colette read her Tristan’s poem once more, she felt a bit as if she’d had a sip of one now, too.

Before she could second-guess herself, she tucked the paper into her pocket and hurried out the front door of the apartment. Five minutes later, she had placed her folded note behind the brick.

She gave the bangle to her mother that night, while Mum bathed Liliane.

“Colette, please, you could have been caught!” Mum exclaimed, even as she took the bangle and quickly slipped it into her own pocket.

“But I was not,” Colette pointed out.

Tears glistened in Mum’s eyes. “My darling, I cannot lose you. Please, I beg of you; no more until after the war.”

“You put yourself in danger, too,” Colette replied. “I thought that maybe if I helped…”

Mum folded her hands, wet from Liliane’s bath, around Colette’s. “My sweet Colette, it is my job to take such risks, not yours.”

Colette held her mother’s gaze. “It is my duty as much as it is yours. It is who we both are,” she said. Then, she glanced at Liliane and added, “It is who we all are.”

Liliane smiled up at her from the tub. “ Kyi-kyi-kyi ,” she said softly.

Colette grinned, her heart lifting. Even Liliane understood. They both loved their mother’s bedtime stories of their ancestor and the eagle who flew high above him in the forest, protecting him and urging him on to greater adventure. “ Kyi-kyi-kyi ,” Colette replied.

“ Ko-ko-ko! ” Liliane concluded excitedly, splashing water out of the tub.

Mum made a noise in the back of her throat and looked away, but she said no more. The conversation was done and the bangle was in her possession. Colette knew that it would find its way to the underground and that maybe, maybe, it would enable lives to be spared.

Colette returned to the wall two days later and was surprised to find a new note waiting for her.

Dearest Isolde , Tristan had written. One needn’t be a poet to express one’s heart. I find that saying what you mean is always the best way to proceed. Then, beneath those two lines, he had written another rhyming verse.

Elle brille comme le soleil.

Elle risque beaucoup pour redistribuer les richesses.

C’est une héro?ne quand personne ne la regarde.

Quand je la vois, je go?te sa gentillesse.

She put a fist to her mouth to cover her smile.

She shines like the sun. / She risks much to redistribute riches .

She shook her head in delighted disbelief; he had used her own words about the bangle in his latest poem!

She is a heroine when no one is watching.

/ When I see her, I can feel her kindness.