The Most precious of Cargoes by Jean-Claude Grumberg

The Most Precious of Cargoes by Jean-Claude Grumberg

French fiction

Original title – La Plus Précieuse des marchandises

Translator – Frank Wynne

Source – Library book

I headed to the library the other day to try and pick up some novellas I could read, as I just fancied a few short books to read. I think they are great when the days get warmer and lighter nights. I usually finish them in a day. This was the case with this the French writer and Playwright Jean-Claude Grumberg. He has been haunted since childhood by his father’s death in the Holocaust. This has been a theme in many of his works, as in this book.

Outside, the train had been slowed by drifts of snow. It suddenly stopped for a moment, then once more juddered into life, as though it, too, were suddenly asthmatic. It was then that it dawned on him.

Elbowing his way back through the crowd, he made his way to the woollen Pyrenean shawl. The important thing was not to choose, the important thing was not to think, but to scoop one of them up, without choosing between boy and girl. He took the child nearest to him. From his pocket, he had already taken his prayer shawl. The child was dozing.Dinah looked at him for a moment then she, too, closed her eyes and hugged the other twin to her.

The momnet he chose which twn to throw through the window

The book has a fable-like feel as it is a simple story of a woman living in the forest. She is the wife of the woodcutter that has always wanted children. But thinks that time has gone. So when she goes out foraging every day, the train line goes through the forest. But now the trains she sees daily taking people to their death. Then one morning, she happens as a father and husband in his jacket pockets on one of the trains in the convey of trains, this is 49 his beloved newborn twins. He sees a chance to let one of them go to freedom, so he makes it to the small window on the train and throws his daughter, wrapped in his prayer shawl, into the forest. This is rural Poland as they head to one of those death camps. He is lucky that he throws it near the woodcutter’s wife, who takes in the child and hides her and raises her. Meanwhile, will the rest of the family leave the camp will they see each other again?

The poor woodcutter’s wife feeds it a little of the cooking water, then once again holds out her finger and the child sucks again. Little by little, as the cooking water quenches its thirst and the kasha staves off its hunger, the child in the arms of the new mother grows calm and the poor woodcutter’s wife whispers a song in its ear, a lullaby that resurfaces from the shadowy past, surprising even her.

‘Sleep, sleep my little cargo, sleep, sleep my own little bundle, sleep, sleep my own little child, sleep.’ Then she delicately sets her precious treasure in the hollow of the bed. Her eyes alight on the unfurled shawl, which she hangs on the end of the bed to dry. It is a magnificent shawl woven from slender chreads, twined and knotted, fringed at both ends and embroidered with gold and silver threads.

She helps takes her in and looks after her most precious cargoe

This short book I read in a couple of hours; shows that goodness and hope can live through the darkest moments, and hope can live through horrors. It is partly based on his father as the train is the same one his father went to his death on. He was a small child at the same time as this happened. The book tackles the darkest moments of one man’s life that become a moment of light for a lonely wife. Grumberg has stripped the story and made it into a fable, and it becomes more powerful for the horror of the events in the camp. But the world of the simple Woodcutter and his wife in the forest world try to raise and hide this child in the Hope of it making it through the war. The man faced the choice of his twins to save from the window. The woodcutter’s wife feels blessed but also becomes the child’s protector. It is a powerful little book that will be remembered for a long time after I have finished it, and wonderfully translated by Frank. He seems to capture the spirit of books like this so well in Engish. Have you a favourite novella about the Holocaust? Also, I loved this cover not sure what it has to do with the book other than being trees, but very eye-catching.

WInstns score – A powerful new spin on the Holocaust novella that works as it has power and seems like a fairytale at the same time, a fine line to work.