Noah's Child by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt

time I headed back in that polite silence, I wanted to mutilate myself.
    â€˜Oh Father, it’s my fault my parents haven’t come back: I didn’t think about them during the war.’
    â€˜Don’t talk nonsense, Joseph. If your parents don’t come back, then it’s Hitler’s and the Nazis’ fault. But not yours or theirs.’
    â€˜Don’t you want to put me up for adoption?’
    â€˜It’s too soon, Joseph. Without papers certifying that your parents are dead, I wouldn’t be allowed to.’
    â€˜No one would want me, anyway!’
    â€˜Come on, you must keep on hoping.’
    â€˜I hate hoping. I feel useless and pathetic when I hope.’
    â€˜Be more humble and hope just a little bit.’
    That Sunday, after the ritual orphan fair, unrewarded and humiliated yet again, I decided to go along with Rudy to see his mother for tea in the village.
    We were walking down the path when I saw twofigures in the distance climbing the hill.
    Without making the decision, I started running. My feet weren’t touching the ground. I could have been flying. I was going so quickly I was afraid my legs might come away at the hip.
    I hadn’t recognized the man or the woman: I had recognized my mother’s coat. A green and pink tartan coat with a hood. Maman! My maman! I’d never seen anyone else wear that green and pink tartan coat with a hood.
    â€˜Joseph!’
    I threw myself at my parents. Breathless, unable to utter a single word, I touched them and felt them and hugged them to me, I checked them, I held on to them and stopped them leaving. I kept on and on making the same uncoordinated gestures. Yes, I could feel them and touch them, yes, they really were alive.
    I was so happy it hurt.
    â€˜Joseph, my Joseph! Mischke, look how handsome he is!’
    â€˜You’ve grown, my son.’
    They said silly, meaningless things that made me cry. And I couldn’t say a thing. Three years’ worth of pain − that was how long we had been apart − had come piling on to my shoulders and floored me. Withmy mouth open forming a long silent cry, all I could manage was sobbing.
    When they realized I wasn’t answering any of their questions, my mother turned to Rudy.
    â€˜My Josephshi is just overcome, isn’t he?’
    Rudy nodded. Having my mother understand me, read me like that, brought on another wave of tears.
    It was more than an hour before I recovered the power of speech. For that whole hour I wouldn’t let them go, one hand clutching my father’s arm, the other buried in my mother’s palm. During that hour I learned, from what they told Father Pons, how they had survived, not far from there, hidden on a huge farm where they worked as farm labourers. They took so long to find me because, once back in Brussels, they discovered that the Comte and Comtesse de Sully had disappeared, and the Resistance sent them on a false trail for me that took them all the way to Holland.
    As they told the story of their eventful travels, my mother kept looking round at me, stroking my face and whispering, ‘My little Josephshi . . .’
    I was so overcome hearing Yiddish again, a language so gentle you can’t even call a child by his name without adding a caress, a diminutive, a syllablethat lilts in your ear, like a sweet wrapped up in the middle of the word . . . On a diet like that, I started feeling better and all I could think of was showing them round my world, the Villa Jaune and its grounds, where I had spent such happy years.
    When they had finished their story, they turned to me.
    â€˜We’re going back to Brussels. Can you get your things?’
    And that was when I regained the power of speech.
    â€˜What? Can’t I stay here?’
    My question was greeted with silent consternation. My mother blinked, not sure she had heard properly, my father stared at the ceiling, clenching his jaw, and Father Pons stretched his