Good luck homing pigeon

Chapter two: 16th July 1942

Despite my sister's poor opinions, I couldn't help but feel...safe where we lived. Silly, considering we were centred in one of the deadliest streets in Paris! But then, that was the point, wasn't it? It became our home, the day we moved in there. The soldiers wouldn't come anywhere near these streets, and the brothels certainly didn't see us as any threat. As long as we were all together, that was what mattered. People would expect me to say that I didn't know how good I had it, until I was taken elsewhere. But they were wrong; I knew exactly how lucky we all were. It was how long  we were there that really stumped me. Not long enough, it seemed much later on.

It was exactly two weeks after my birthday, the day it happened. Briana and I were heading upstairs to get ready for bed when there was a thunderous knocking on our door. So loud, it seemed, that it just might've cracked through the fragile wood of our front door. As mama opened it, it seemed as if our most dreaded nightmares had come true. Nazi's! At our door! What did they want with us? Weren't we 'too filthy and contagious' to be even in the same room as them?!

"Evangeline Khristoff." The tall, stick-like one with the dirty-blond hair and the glasses spoke to mama first. It was a cool, flat voice he had; complete with a dead-panned expression that looked right through us, like glass. "It says here you have daughters. Where are they?"

Briana squeezed my arm as I made a move to go down. When I looked back up at her, I knew she was scared; I was too. But if we didn't obey, mama might've gotten in trouble. So with our hands firmly joint, we crept back downstairs to face the two men. The other, I noticed, was tall like the first, but wider in girth, with a belly they nearly bounced as he walked, and small, beady eyes amongst a pig-like face. Don't be afraid, I willed myself. If I just thought of them as ordinary men, they wouldn't seem to terrifying.

"Briana," the thinner one guessed, shining his torch towards my sister. "And Katherine." He switched the torch towards my face. "You have been summoned for resettlement. All Jews are being relocated."

Oh no they weren't! I knew what 'resettlement' meant. They were going to deport us! All those camps in Germany, Poland and Austria...camps that were meant to kill. We were being thrown out of our own country! And to where? We didn't know, and that was the problem. There were places that were considered 'alright' and places where they didn't build barracks, because the camp held only one intention. Extermination. Sterilization.  Who knew what they were going to do to us!

"I don't want to go!" Briana whimpered, clinging to me tight. "Kate, they'll kill us if we leave!"

"We don't have a choice," I replied calmly, "Come on Briana, don't let them win."

It made me relieved to see how calm mama was in their prescience. If she broke down in front of them, we'd be doomed already.

"How long to we have?" She asked them gently.

"Six O'clock, tomorrow morning." The fat one spoke, in a thick, cigar-ridden accent. "You are permitted to bring one suitcase, food and clothing only! Your valuables will be repossessed into SS archives."

Then without warning, the two men barged past mama, through the foyer, and began to search our house. From the kitchen they took our best silverware and mama's treasured tea-set. From the bedrooms they came down with armfuls of our possessions! Mama's old, silk gowns, all of our jewellery and then, when I thought they couldn't sink any lower, I saw the fat one, with his sweaty fingers wrapped around my  music sheets! Surely, that wasn't profitable at all. A Nazi like him could find solos for 'La Boheme' anywhere he liked. That, I knew, was personal. They could take whatever they liked, so why not my music as well?

Even ransacking our house wasn't enough for them. For once their tank was stuffed with our things, they began to search us too. Oh, how I hated the way they looked at mama as they ran their hands over her! Smoothing, groping, admiring her shape with greedy, filthy eyes. And once they were done, they tore me from Briana's shaking grasp and began to touch us too. Briana had the fat one, who patted down over the sides of her breasts with fat, pudgy hands. I watched in disgust as she whimpered and on an impulse, tried to run from the soldier who held me down.