Black Radishes Read Online Free PDF

building, leaving Gustave to say goodbye to his friends.
    The three of them glanced at each other and looked down at the ground. Gustave couldn’t think of anything to say. The quiet stretched out a long time, too long. Suddenly, Gustave remembered the way they used to play Three Musketeers. “All for one!” he cried, holding out his fist.
    Marcel looked up, smiled, and put his hand on top of Gustave’s fist. Jean-Paul clapped his hand on top of Marcel’s. Gustave looked at their three hands there, clasped together. “All for one—one for all!” the three of them chanted at the same time. “Jean-Paul, Marcel, Gustave—together forever!”
    “Jean-Paul!” Aunt Geraldine’s voice sounded faintly from down the street.
    “Bye!” Jean-Paul said quickly, and darted toward home.
    Marcel and Gustave looked at each other for a long moment. “So,” Marcel said, “you’ll come back as soon as we’ve knocked off the Boches?”
    Gustave nodded. “We’ll teach them not to mess with us,” he said. But his throat felt tight. When would that be? When would he see Marcel and Jean-Paul again? Gustave stood and watched as Marcel ran home, across the street and along the sidewalk, through the gathering darkness.

5

    M aman wanted to leave very early so that they could be all unpacked in Saint-Georges by nightfall. It had rained again overnight, and it was the darkest morning Gustave had ever seen. Outside, the city was strangely dim and quiet. As Gustave climbed into the truck, the edge of the sun came up, turning the creamy stones of the buildings a pale pink and glittering on the wet iron railings of the balconies. When Papa started the engine, a flock of pigeons rose up noisily from the apartment building opposite them, black against the pastel colors of the sky.
    Gustave listened to the loud, flapping wings as they drove away in the truck, every moment getting farther away from home. It was so unfair, he thought. Why did he have to go, if Jean-Paul and Marcel were staying behind? The pigeons could fly wherever they wanted to. They didn’t have to worry about war, about Germany, or about guns and bombs. They didn’t have to worry about being Jewish either. He closed his eyes, the flapping wings still sounding in his ears, and fell asleep.
    He woke up when they stopped to eat. As they drove on after lunch, Gustave watched the changing landscape outside the window. Farm fields stretched out on either side of the road. It was warmer than at home in Paris, and spring was further along. Trees were coming into leaf, and a green mist covered the fields. After a while the road began to wind through small villages, clusters of red-roofed houses with here and there a post office or a café. They crossed a bridge over a wide river and wound through more tiny villages. And then Gustave saw a sign: ST-GEORGES-SUR-CHER .
    “Ah, it seems so peaceful here,” Maman breathed. Gustave could hear the relief in her voice. But what was so great about it being peaceful? Compared with Paris, Saint-Georges looked empty and boring. The only person Gustave could see was an old man sweeping the sidewalk in front of a shop.
    Papa turned and drove up a hill, following a narrow, winding road. He stopped at a white stone-and-stucco house. A narrow strip of garden and a low stone wall separated it from the road.
    “Here it is!” Papa called out cheerfully. “The house is divided into two parts. We’ll be renting the left-hand side. Madame Foncine is the landlady, and she lives in the other half. She wrote that the key will be between the roots of the potted tree next to the steps.”
    “What a beautiful house!” Maman said. “It looks as if it’s about a century old.”
    The house had three levels, and one of them was an attic. Gustave had read about attics in books, but, living in a city, he had never been able to go into one. At least exploring the attic would be something interesting to do, he thought, although it would have been a lot