A Coming Evil Read online

  A Coming Evil

  Vivian Vande Velde

  * * *

  Houghton Mifflin Company

  * * *

  All rights reserved.

  For information about permission to reproduce selections

  from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,

  215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York, 10003.

  The text of this book is set in 12-point Caslon 540.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Vande Velde, Vivian.

  A coming evil / Vivian Vande Velde.

  p. cm.

  Summary: During the German occupation of France in 1940,

  thirteen-year-old Lisette meets a ghost while living with her aunt who

  harbors Jewish and Gypsy children in the French countryside.

  HC ISBN-13: 978-0-395-90012-3

  PA ISBN-13: 978-0-618-74781-8

  [1. France—History—German occupation, 1940 – 1945

  —Juvenile fiction. 2. World War, 1939 – 1945—France

  —Juvenile fiction. 3. Jews—France—Juvenile fiction.

  —4. Ghosts—Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PZ7.V2773Cm 1998

  [Fic]—dc21 97-32196 CIP AC

  Printed in the United States of America

  QUM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  * * *

  To Bud and Elsie,

  who always asked wonderful questions,

  and to my mother, without whose help

  I couldn't have written this.

  * * *

  PROLOGUE

  Lisette Beaucaire was looking forward to turning thirteen. She was sure it would be the best year ever. Her mother's baby was due in March, and old Madame Champaux, who lived downstairs and knew all about such things, had declared definitely and repeatedly that it would be a girl. Lisette had wanted a baby sister for as long as she could remember. She even had a name picked out, Yvonne Hélène, though her parents had refused to commit themselves regarding this. Whatever the name, by January, Lisette was going through the chests where her mother had packed away all the lovely pink and lace dresses her aunts had made for her when she had been little. All on her own she cleaned and disinfected the baby buggy that had somehow survived cousin Cecile. Lisette enjoyed picturing herself and Yvonne heading to market or to church; the sophisticated and not easily impressed citizens of Paris would stare at them and ask each other, 'Who is that lovely thirteen-year-old young lady with the well-dressed baby?'

  The best part about turning thirteen, however, would come in September, when Lisette would enter eighth grade, with all the privileges and advantages that entailed. Eighth-grade girls at l'Ecole Louis Pasteur still had to wear their uniforms, of course, but at last the plaid hair bow could be thrown away. Not having to wear hair bows went a long way toward making someone look grown up. According to Brigitte's older sister—Brigitte was Lisette's absolutely best friend—the classes were more interesting, too. That was because this was the next-to-last year of compulsory education and the teachers were trying hard to convince everyone to continue their schooling at one of the lycées. Whether or not this was true, Lisette was looking forward to being in the group that contained the oldest, wisest, most sophisticated students, and to having the younger children look up to her.

  But the year Lisette turned thirteen was 1940.

  1940 was the year that changed everything for everybody in France, and nothing was ever the same again.

  It was also the year that Lisette met a ghost.

  1.

  Sunday, September 1, 1940

  When Lisette woke up on the morning of her birthday, she had the feeling that it was later than it should be. Not that the room was too bright—ever since war had been declared with Germany, everybody had to have blackout curtains so that lights would not reveal the cities at night. But Mimi, who was the world's laziest cat, was up already, washing herself on the blanket folded at the bottom of Lisette's bed. Lisette wiped the sleep from her eyes and squinted at the nightstand. The clock there said 8:05.

  Oh, no, she thought, scrambling to sit up, not again. Her parents might have overslept. They would be late for church again, just as during the week Papa was generally late for work every third or fourth day. It was becoming a habit these last several weeks, her parents sleeping through the ringing of the alarm clock because the baby had kept them up half the night.

  Lisette got down on hands and knees to look for her slippers. Mimi decided this was too much excitement and promptly curled up for a nap. One slipper was under the bed, too far away to reach without a long stick. Lisette gave up since she didn't have one handy, and since there was no sign of the second slipper anyway.

  She put on socks because the hallway floor was cold throughout the year. At least, she thought, this time the baby hadn't cried loud enough to keep her up.

  But then she realized that she could hear talking from the kitchen. So they weren't asleep after all. She supposed it was too much to expect that her parents had decided they could stay home from Mass in honor of her birthday.

  Lisette peeked into the baby's room. Asleep, of course. Yvonne Hélène Beaucaire was like a vampire: she slept during the day, only to terrorize normal folk once the sun set.

  Except that she was a he.

  And his name was François Mathieu.

  Lisette thought François was a terrible name for a baby, though Maman pointed out that he wouldn't be a baby forever. Lisette also thought that François was a terrible baby, but she knew better than to say that. He didn't look like the pink, round, contentedly cooing babies in magazines. He was red and wrinkled and he cried nearly all the time. And when he wasn't crying, he was sleeping, and that meant Maman was constantly telling Lisette to speak, play, and move more quietly.

  All in all, François was a bitter disappointment, and Lisette always thought of him simply as "the baby."

  But if the baby wasn't the cause for her parents' not getting her up in time, what was going on?

  In the kitchen, Maman and Papa were still in their robes. Maman had been warming milk on the stove—Lisette could smell that she'd scalded it—but now the gas was turned off, the pot apparently forgotten, the bread on the cutting board unsliced. As soon as Lisette entered the room, Maman and Papa stopped talking, so abruptly that she knew they'd been talking about her.

  "What's happened?" Lisette asked as she walked around the table to sit next to Papa.

  Papa motioned for her to share his chair, and he put his arms around her. Perhaps he thought she was cold in her nightgown. But she noticed with surprise that he was the one shivering. "We have decided," he said into her hair, "your mother and I, that it would be best for you to spend some time with your Aunt Josephine in Sibourne."

  Lisette winced. "With Cecile?" she asked. Just as she always thought of her new brother as "the baby," she always thought of Cecile as "wretched cousin Cecile."

  "Of course with Cecile," Maman answered.

  "But this is the last full week before school." Lisette saw the look her parents exchanged and interrupted herself with an awful thought. "How much time will I be spending in Sibourne?" she asked, worry giving her voice an abrupt edge that she had not intended.

  Neither of her parents said anything about little girls with bad manners, which was an ominous sign, and neither would look directly at her. "We're not sure," Papa said. "Just until things settle down in Paris."

  "But what about school?" Lisette protested.

  "There's a school in Sibourne," Maman told her.

  "But I won't know anybody there and—"

  "Lisette," Maman said firmly, then, taking away Lisette's last frantic hope—that for some unknown reason Aunt Josephine might say no—Maman
added, "It's all been decided. You have just enough time to pack."

  "Papa—" Lisette started, for her father would sometimes give in when her mother would not.

  "Lisette," her mother repeated, even more firmly.

  "Why?" Lisette demanded anyway. "Why do I have to go?"

  Papa hugged her. "It will be safer away from Paris. With all the Germans here—"

  She squirmed out of his arms. "You said it'd be safe in Paris," she reminded her parents. "You said their tanks were made of plywood and the Allies would stop them long before they got here." That was in May, when the Germans had first marched into France. By the end of June, there were German tanks in Paris, and they were not made of plywood. The French government had fled south, leaving the Germans in charge of the north, with Paris as their headquarters.

  "Lisette, don't talk back," Maman snapped.

  The Germans weren't that bad, Lisette thought. Brigitte had claimed that they would prohibit the speaking of French, and that anyone who didn't understand German wouldn't be allowed to say anything but would have to communicate by grunts and gestures. That hadn't happened. Lisette's history professor had predicted that the Germans would loot the cathedrals and museums, and that hadn't happened either. Or at least it hadn't happened yet.

  But there were Germans everywhere, with their crisp uniforms and their stern faces and their demands for identity papers and curfews, and there were terrible food shortages. Even in summer, which had always been a time of wonderful fresh fruits and vegetables, there wasn't enough. And this was what her mother used against her now. "There will be more food there, since they live in the country," she told Lisette, "and it will be safer."

  In the other room, the baby began to whimper. Lisette looked directly at Maman. "Then will you be sending him also?"

  Papa answered. "François needs Maman's milk, of course."

  "Well, then,"—Lisette turned to face him—"why can't we all go?"

  Maman answered, as though it were a game for the one not asked to answer. "Because Papa is a pharmacist and so the Germans won't let him leave."

  "Well, then," Lisette demanded, close to angry tears, "why did you wait until the last minute to tell me, so that I don't even have time to say good-bye to Brigitte?"

  "So that we wouldn't have to listen to endless arguments," Maman said, and with that she turned her back on Lisette to go fetch the baby.

  She's angry with me, Lisette thought as she packed, noticing how her mother's lips were drawn thin and the way she wouldn't look directly at her. She's angry at me because of how I came home from Brigitte's house so late last Saturday, and now she's sending me away.

  I should have been suspicious, she chided herself, the way they kept talking this past week about fresh country air and sunshine.

  She watched as Papa bounced the baby up and down to keep it from crying. They both liked the baby better than they liked her. "Little children, little problems," she had heard Madame Champaux tell her mother Saturday night; "big children, big problems." And Maman had agreed.

  They packed all her clothes: everything, even her winter coat and rain boots, proof—if she needed it—that they were in no hurry to get her back.

  Lisette was determined not to ask. But as the taxi that was to take her and Papa to the train station stood outside, beeping its horn, Maman gave her a hug. "I love you," she said. "We'll send for you as soon as it's safer."

  For a moment Lisette thought that Maman might be about to cry, that she might in fact have been sorry to see her go. But then the baby started to fuss and Maman hurriedly turned away.

  Gasoline was so precious that the only cars permitted were German military vehicles, so the taxi was a taxi-bicycle, the back half of a taxi attached to a bicycle. Lisette felt sorry for the poor man pedaling, but she felt sorrier for herself. She and Papa rode silently down empty streets, past buildings draped with swastika banners. The last Lisette saw of her own house was her cat, Mimi, lying on the windowsill.

  2.

  Sunday, September 1, 1940

  On the train Lisette and Papa shared a coach with another family: a mother—a beautiful dark-haired woman in an elegant dress; a father, who nodded politely to Papa and to her, then unfolded a newspaper and never looked up again; two little girls, both younger than Lisette; and a grandfather, who fell asleep before the train pulled out of the station and who snored continually.

  Obviously, Lisette thought to herself, obviously no one from this family is being sent off alone.

  It was going to be a long, long ride to Sibourne.

  ***

  During the stop at Tours, not quite halfway to Sibourne, German soldiers got on the train.

  Lisette could see them on the platform, going into the various cars. She expected the train would start up again immediately as it had at all the other stations, but they continued just to sit there. Some of the soldiers had remained on the platform, positioned—Lisette suddenly realized—to watch the doors of all the cars, to make sure nobody tried to leave.

  The other family's mother had been reading a book to her daughters, but she'd been reading it loud enough for Lisette to hear—intentionally so, Lisette could tell by the way she'd look up and smile while turning a page. The story was too young for Lisette, but she appreciated the diversion anyway. Now the woman closed the book and leaned over to shake the grandfather awake.

  Three Germans came into their coach.

  "Papers," one demanded, speaking French after all.

  One of the others started looking through their luggage. The third man said and did nothing. Apparently his job was simply to stand there and look menacing.

  "What are all these books?" the second soldier asked.

  "School books," Papa explained. "My daughter is going to be spending some months at my sister's farm, outside of Sibourne"—he winced as the man held up Lisette's mathematics book by the covers and shook it with the pages hanging down—"That's arithmetic, history there on the floor, grammar still in the bag."

  The soldier gave him an ill-tempered look, as though suspecting he was somehow being made fun of. He poked at Lisette's clothing, including her spare brassiere, which was lying on top of her panties. She felt her cheeks go red.

  "Sibourne is on the border of the unoccupied zone," said the one who was holding their identification papers and travel permits. He sounded convinced that they were going to try something illegal. "What's this sister's name?" he asked. "You!"

  Lisette jumped, realizing he was addressing her.

  "You answer."

  "Josephine LePage," Lisette said.

  "And how old are you?"

  "Thirteen."

  "Birthday?"

  Lisette squirmed. "Today. September first."

  He was checking to make sure her answers matched those on her papers. Then he smiled, which did nothing to make him look friendlier. "Happy birthday," he told her.

  She didn't have any answer for that.

  He handed the papers back to her father and turned to the other family.

  The other father handed over their papers.

  The soldier didn't ask them any questions. " Juden," he said to his compatriots. Then, to the family, "You will come with us."

  "We have done nothing," the grandfather said. It was the first time Lisette heard him say anything. The voice was low and firm and had a slight accent.

  The soldier folded the family's identification papers away into his own pocket. "It will be easiest for everyone if you come along quietly," he said. He took the arm of the younger of the two girls and pulled her up.

  The girl looked from the soldier to her mother as though trying to decide whether to be frightened. The mother swept to her feet, bringing the older girl with her. More slowly, the father and the grandfather stood. Two of the German soldiers marched them out. The last, the one who had looked through their suitcases, stayed only long enough to open the window and toss the family's luggage out onto the platform.

  Now that Lisette looked,
she could see other piles of suitcases under other windows. There was a whole group of people, maybe two dozen, standing in a huddle surrounded by German soldiers. The family from their coach was brought there, too, then a single young man from another car. Jews, she realized. Juden meant Jews. Everybody knew the Germans didn't like Jews.

  One of the soldiers must have given a signal, for the train blew its whistle and a few seconds later jerked into motion.

  Papa leaned over her to pull the window shut. By the time he sat back down, the train had moved beyond the station, leaving the platform behind. He put his arm around her, and it was only from his holding her that she realized she was shaking.

  "What are they going to do to them?" she asked.

  "Put them into work camps," Papa said. "They'll be all right."

  "They weren't doing anything wrong. They weren't hurting anyone."

  "I know," he said. And again he assured her, "They'll be all right."

  But it took a long time for her shaking to stop.

  3.

  Sunday, September 1, 1940

  Uncle Raymond was with the Free French Army somewhere in England or the unoccupied south—at least that's what everyone hoped, for he had not been heard from since May—so Aunt Josephine had arranged for Lisette and her father to be picked up at the train station in Bordeaux by a neighbor. The man introduced himself as Maurice—Lisette wasn't sure if it was his first name or his last—and he was driving a horse-drawn cart. Maurice looked to be at least a hundred years old, but his horse looked even older. This turned out to be a lucky thing, for the cart seat was wooden and unpadded and if they'd been going any faster, the ride would have felt even more like a spanking.

  They drove past miles of fields, though most of the fruits and vegetables were being sent to Germany. The countryside was very hilly, and by the time they pulled up the long driveway, full of weeds and holes, Lisette had decided that it was riding in the cart that had made Maurice look so old.

  Maurice had a bicycle horn mounted on the seat next to him and he started honking at the foot of the driveway and kept it up until they reached the top, up behind the house.