Bondoux Anne-Laure - A Time of Miracles

The Killers Tears
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(for an outstanding childrens book originally published in a foreign language)

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2009 by Bayard ditions Jeunesse
Translation copyright 2010 by Y. Maudet
Map illustration copyright 2010 by Rick Britton

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in paperback in France as Le temps des miracles by Bayard ditions Jeunesse in 2009.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bondoux, Anne-Laure.
Temps des miracles English]
A time of miracles / Anne-Laure Bondoux ; translated from the French by Y. Maudet 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: In the early 1990s, a boy with a mysterious past and the woman who cares for him endure a five-year journey across the war-torn Caucasus and Europe, weathering hardships and welcoming unforgettable encounters with other refugees searching for a better life.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89726-9
[1. RefugeesFiction. 2. WarFiction. 3. SecretsFiction. 4. SurvivalFiction. 5. CaucasusHistory20th centuryFiction. 6. EuropeHistory20th centuryFiction.] I. Maudet, Y. II. Title.
PZ7.B63696Ti 2010

[Fic]dc22

2010008539

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v3.1

For my mother

Koumails Journey

1. The Complex: Learns the different cuts of beef and how to use his fists.

2. Souma-Soula: Tumbles into the lake and falls in love for the first time.

3. Sukhumi: Goes to a hammam, gets his catalog of France, and falls in love for the second time.

4. Odessa: The samovar and radio are stolen.

5. Moldova: Bullied by a farmer.

6. Romania: Meets the Gypsies.

7. Romania: Climbs into the back of a truck at a gas station.

8. German-French border: Apprehended by customs officers.

9. Poitiers: Learns French and meets Prudence.

10. Mont-Saint-Michel: Understands what is most vital to him.

11. Paris: Starts his life as a French citizen.

12. Tbilisi: Learns the pure and simple truth.

MY name is Blaise Fortune and I am a citizen of the French Republic. Its the pure and simple truth.

I was almost twelve years old the day the customs officers found me in the back of the truck. I stank as badly as the garbage shed where Abdelmalik slept, and all I was able to say was Mynameisblaisefortuneandiamacitizenofthefrench-republicitsthepureandsimpletruth.

I had lost nearly all of my precious belongings along the way. Fortunately, I still had my passport; Gloria had made sure to stick it deep in my jacket pocket when we were at the service station. My passport proved that I was born on December 28, 1985, at Mont-Saint-Michel, on the French side of the English Channel, per page 16 of the green atlas. It was written in black and white. The problem was my photo: it had been removed, then glued back, and even though Mr. Ha had faked the official seal with the greatest care, the customs officers didnt believe that I was really a French boy. I wanted to explain my story to them, but I didnt have the vocabulary. So they pulled me out of the truck by the neck of my sweater and took me away.

This is how my childhood ended: brutally, on the side of a highway, when I realized that Gloria had disappeared and that I would have to cope without her in the country known for human rights and for the poetry of Charles Baudelaire.

After that I spent countless days in a triage zone, then in a shelter. France was just a succession of walls, fences, and doors. I slept in dormitories that reminded me of the Matachines attic, except that there was no dormer window to watch the stars through. I was alone in the world. But I couldnt let despair eat away at my soul. More so than ever, I had to go to Mont-Saint-Michel to find my mother! It was easy to explain it all, but I didnt know the language. I couldnt give details about the Terrible Accident or the hazards of life that had brought me here. And when you cant express yourself, its like dying of suffocation.

Things are different today. Many years have gone by, and now I can name everything; I can conjugate verbs, use adjectives and conjunctions. I have a new passport in my pocketall in good order, as required by the laws of the world.

Not long ago I received a letter from the French Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia, saying that they might have tracked down Gloria. Thats why Im sitting at a Charles de Gaulle Airport gate with a suitcase, a heart that beats madly, and the crazy hope that I will see Gloria again. But, before anything else, I must put my thoughts in order.

Let me begin: My name is Blaise Fortune. I am a citizen of the French Republic, even though I spent the first eleven years of my life in the Caucasus, a vast region located between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, per page 78 of the green atlas. At the time I spoke Russian and people called me Koumal. It might seem strange, but its easy to understand. I just have to tell my story. All of it. And in the right order.

MY oldest memories date back to 1992, when Gloria and I lived in the Complex with other refugee families. I dont remember the name of the town. I am nearly seven. It is winter, and we no longer have electricity or heat because of the war.

There is a smell of laundry mingled with that of vinegar.

Women are gathered in the center of the courtyard, around a huge iron vat set above blazing logs. The skin on their bare arms is red up to the elbows. They speak and laugh loudly. As the laundry boils in the scum of our dirt, a cloud of steam rises, leaving a thick condensation on the window-panes of the floors above.