Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay

trailing after her like bedraggled sparrows.
    She would tell them the stories she used to tell her brother, before his bedtime. At night, lying on the lice-infested straw, where rats made rustling noises, she would whisper the stories, making them even longer than they usually were. The older children gathered around, too. Some of them pretended not to listen, but she knew they did.
    There was an eleven-year-old girl, a tall black-haired creature called Rachel, who often looked at her with a touch of contempt. But night after night, she listened to the stories, creeping closer to the girl, so that she wouldn’t miss one word. And once, when most of the little children were at last asleep, she spoke to the girl.
    She said in a deep, hoarse voice, “We should leave. We should escape.”
    The girl shook her head.
    “There is no way out. The police have guns. We can’t escape.”
    Rachel shrugged her bony shoulders.
    “I am going to escape.”
    “What about your mother? She will be waiting for you in the other camp, like mine.”
    Rachel smiled.
    “You believed all that? You believed what they said?”
    The girl hated Rachel’s knowing smile.
    “No,” she said firmly. “I didn’t believe them. I don’t believe anything anymore.”
    “Neither do I,” said Rachel. “I saw what they did. They didn’t even write down the little children’s names properly. They tied on those small tags that got mixed up when most of the children took them off again. They don’t care. They lied to all of us. To us and to our mothers.”
    And to the girl’s surprise, Rachel reached out and took her hand. She held it tight, the way Armelle used to. Then she got to her feet and disappeared.
    The next morning, they were woken very early. The policemen came into the barracks, pushing at them with their truncheons. The smaller children, hardly awake, started to scream. The girl tried to calm the ones nearest to her, but they were terrified. They were led into a shed. The girl held two toddlers by the hand. She saw a policeman holding an instrument in his hand. It had a strange shape. She didn’t know what it was. The toddlers gasped with fear, backed away. They were slapped and kicked by the policemen, then dragged toward the man with the instrument. The girl watched, horrified. Then she understood. Their hair was being shaved off. All the children were to be shaved.
    She looked on as Rachel’s thick black hair fell to the floor. Her naked skull was white and pointed, like an egg. Rachel gazed at the men with hatred and contempt. She spat on their shoes. One of the gendarmes knocked her aside brutally.
    The little ones were frantic. They had to be held down by two or three men. When it was her turn, the girl did not struggle. She bent her head. She felt the cold pressure of the machine and closed her eyes, unable to bear the sight of the long, golden strands falling to her feet. Her hair. Her beautiful hair that everyone admired. She felt sobs welling up in her throat but she forced herself not to cry. Never cry in front of these men. Never cry. Ever. It’s only hair. Hair will grow back.
    It was nearly over. She opened her eyes again. The policeman holding her had fat pink hands. She looked up at him while the other man shaved off the last locks.
    It was the red-haired, friendly policeman from her neighborhood. The one her mother used to chat with. The one who always had a wink for her on her way to school. The one she had waved to the day of the roundup, the one who had looked away. He was too close now to look away.
    She held his gaze, not glancing down once. His eyes were a strange, yellowish color, like gold. His face was red with embarrassment, and she thought she felt him tremble. She said nothing, staring at him with all the contempt she could muster.
    He could only look back at her, motionless. The girl smiled, a bitter smile for a child of ten, and brushed off his heavy hands.

 
     
    I
    LEFT THE NURSING HOME in a sort of