In This Hospitable Land Read Online Free PDF Page B

hoping music would soothe him. But there wasn’t any music. Only very bad news.
    His chest seemed to close in on his heart. Alex switched stations seeking confirmation and help in comprehending the extent and depth of the disaster. One after another—in French, Flemish, and English—rapid-fire BBC announcers relayed accounts of German assaults on Belgian military installations. Armories had sustained the worst damage and there had been massive casualties. Obviously the Germans had extremely accurate location information, which could only mean spies—and that the Nazis had deliberately targeted civilians.
    Unsurprised by this brutality, Alex worried about his brother. Suddenly he had the creepy feeling of being watched.
    How long had Geneviève been standing there? How much had she heard?
    Geneviève covered her mouth and raced across to the other villa.

     
    Wiping perspiration from her forehead, Denise decided to devote the remainder of her day to willful blindness. It was important to keep the news from the children.
    Alex said, “I need a breath of air,” turned on his heel, and walked out the back door.
    Denise asked Juli to take the children out to the beach to play. Then she, her sister, and their in-laws sat around the radio fretting. They started and stopped talking about what they must do, knowing nothing could be decided without André and Alex.
    If only André would call!

     
    When Alex got back, the rest of the grown-up Sauverins were finishing a dispirited late lunch.
    “Any word from André?” Alex asked.
    Denise looked down and shook her head.
    Alex went on. “I walked toward Zeebrugge and Knokke-Heist, to those wooded dunes dotted with pine trees—Wenduine I guess. At least five kilometers. Hardly saw a soul or any cars along the road. I suppose everyone’s indoors, glued to their radios.” He paused to see if his family had anything to say. They didn’t, but he still did. “Peering out at the waves, I half expected to see a U-boat’s periscope. Who called this war ‘phony’?” Again there was silence. “The prime minister claims Fort Eben-Emael will protect us. But the prime minister is wrong and we all know it. The Germans are too strong.”
    “The prime minister speaks for the government,” Rose said gently, having long ago learned that her second son was quick to anger and an alarmist.
    “I have never trusted the government,” Alex barked, “and particularly not now!”
    “But it is our government.”
    “Mother!” Alex retorted, not even trying to master his temper. “If you have such faith in the government why did you change your name from Rachel to Rose? Why did father change his from Levie to Louis?”
    Geneviève wept quietly. Rose’s eyes filled with tears she was too disciplined to shed.
    Every Sauverin knew the answer to Alex’s question: in late 1935, after the German promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws on Citizenship and Race, Louis and Rose had tried to obscure their Jewish roots. The gesture had shocked their other relatives…except for Denise and Geneviève’s father, Josiah-Jacob Freedman, who had changed his name to Jack.

     
    Alex turned up the radio. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had announced his resignation and recommended Winston Churchill as his replacement. Denise translated for Louis and Rose, for though Louis spoke French, Flemish, and Dutch and Rose spoke French, German, and Polish, neither spoke English as their sons and daughters-in-law did.
    As he listened, Louis’s pale skin looked sallow and his gnarled hands knotted and unknotted convulsively. “What will we do?” he muttered. “What will we do?”
    “Leave,” Alex replied bluntly. “Isn’t that why we came to Le Coq? To be ready?”
    Denise focused on her role model, Rose—an exceptionally intelligent, knowledgeable, wise woman with an unshakable devotion to her loved ones. Rose’s gentle personality belied the steely determination with which she would support any