As much as I love reading stories about Javert, I've always found him a very challenging character to actually write. This is my first Javert-centric piece!

Dedicated to Rabbi BB, in thanks for the Selichot study session that inspired it.

For my own reference: 97th fanfiction, 22nd story for Les Miserables.

Yes, I know I'm just an outcast.
I shouldn't speak to you.
Still, I see your face and wonder...
Were you once an outcast, too?

Javert didn't mind when he was assigned to the night patrol. All the other men on the police force hated the exhaustion, the boredom of walking the dark, lonely streets hour after hour, but to Javert, solitude and darkness had always felt like old friends. It was a tiring task, but still, he almost relished the peace and quiet of those hours when his boots on the cobblestones were the only sound, and the starry night sky above his only company. He was assigned night patrol more often than the other men on the force, but he never complained - it wasn't in his nature to complain, and besides, he was the natural choice for the job. The others all had wives and children to spend their evening hours with.

The evening air was cool on his face when he began his patrol tonight, and he knew it would turn chilly in a few hours. The sun had just set, and it was not fully dark yet. He had not walked far before he spotted a young man standing on the sidewalk. He saw him from a block away, for his eyes were as sharp as ever, always scanning the streets for any sign of trouble, but the young man didn't notice Javert, even as he came closer. He was looking intently up at the sky, as if he were waiting for something. Javert often stared up at the stars, but this man couldn't be doing that, for the stars were barely out yet.

"You, there," Javert called as he approached him, and the other man jumped a bit, startled. "What are you doing?"

The young man - now that Javert was closer, he saw that he was even younger than he'd first appeared, still just a boy, really - looked at him with some nervousness, but he answered politely, "Good evening, monsieur inspector. I'm just waiting to see three stars in the sky."

Javert frowned, puzzled. He could appreciate watching the stars, of course, but he'd never heard of anyone waiting to see three of them. "Whatever for?"

"To know when the Sabbath is over."

Javert immediately grew suspicious. What on earth was he talking about? The Sabbath didn't end with three stars in the sky, and besides, today was Saturday. This boy had to be lying, trying to hide whatever he was really doing from Javert. Was he acting as the lookout for some gang?

"The Sabbath is tomorrow," Javert said sharply, to let this boy know that he had caught onto his lie. He watched his face for any sign of fear or panic, but the boy just replied quietly, "But for Jews, the Sabbath is on Saturday, sir."

Only then did Javert realize that they were standing on the sidewalk in front of the synagogue. He often passed by the old building during his patrols, but he'd never paid it much attention, for there was never any sort of trouble there. The Jews who attended it were a quiet people who kept to themselves. Now he turned and looked at it closely for the first time. There were words engraved in the stone above the heavy, ornate front doors. He peered closer, trying to read them... but there weren't in French. The letters weren't even the same. Javert didn't know much about Jews, but he remembered once hearing that they had their own language with its own alphabet. He could appreciate speaking another language, of course - he'd been raised speaking the Gypsy language himself, although he'd given it up years ago - but why would these Jews want to display it publicly? Why would they want to advertise to all of Paris that they were different?

"Well, actually," the boy went on, "the Sabbath is from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. The Talmud teaches that it's over when you can see three stars in the sky. That's why I'm out here, sir. As soon as I see three stars, I'm to go inside and tell the elders it's time to say havdallah."

The night was growing darker and cooler every minute. "Well, you ought to have a lantern with you, as long as you're out here," Javert said reproachfully. "It's safer."

Again, he felt caught off-guard by the boy's calm response. "I know, sir. That is, I had one." He pointed behind him, where Javert saw a burnt-out lantern sitting on the sidewalk at his feet. "But a great gust of wind came up a moment ago - you must've felt it - and blew it right out."

But... the solution seemed obvious. Javert tried not to feel stupid as he asked, "Why don't you just relight it?"

The young man's dark eyes widened slightly, as if Javert had just suggested that he break the law. "Oh no, sir, I couldn't do that," he answered, shaking his head. "I can't light any matches until I've seen three stars in the sky and said the havdallah prayers. Lighting a fire on the Sabbath is against halakhah."

Javert didn't understand every word, but he grasped that the boy couldn't light it himself because of some religious restriction. So he bent down, pulled a spare match from his pocket, lit the lantern, and handed it to the boy.

"Why... thank you, sir," the boy said, almost reverently, as he took the lantern from Javert. In its light, Javert noticed that he had unruly black hair - coarse, ethnic hair, so similar to Javert's own and so different from most French people's. "You've done me a mitzvot."

His gratitude was embarrassing. "Yes, well, try not to let it go out again," Javert answered brusquely. He wasn't used to being thanked for anything.

The Jewish boy went on, "Are you patrolling, sir? I feel safer knowing you're out here. Some people on this street... well, they don't like there being a synagogue in the neighborhood."

Javert tilted his head. He knew that feeling - being unwanted everywhere you went. When he was a boy, he and his mother fell in for a time with a Gypsy caravan. At first, Javert had tried to keep track of how many towns and villages their wagons were chased away from, but he soon lost count. Likely the Jews would be unwelcome no matter where in Paris they built their synagogue. He had heard the most absurd rumors about Jews - that they murdered Christian children and used their blood to make bread. Even in this day and age, some people still actually believed that, but Javert never had. After all, it was almost as foolish as the old rumor that he'd heard whispered behind his back for so many years - that Gypsies kidnapped French children and used them as slaves.

Javert lowered his voice. "Have you... had any problems?"

The boy hesitated, then shook his head. "Nothing beyond rude remarks, so far. We try to be careful, sir. We don't wear yarmulkes on the street or anything like that."

So, the Jews were trying to blend in, too. Javert had been trying to blend in for so long. He'd taken out his earrings, cut off his long hair, and stopped speaking the Gypsy language - but still, it wasn't good enough, for how could he ever hide the dark color of his skin? These Jews probably took care to never speak their own language in public - but that probably wasn't good enough, either. White Christian Frenchmen comprised nearly all of society and held all the power in the land, and they would never see Gypsies or Jews as one of them. Javert and this young man would always be seen as outsiders, to some degree, no matter how hard they tried to fit in. Perhaps they were both fools for hoping that they ever really could.

Javert blew out a breath, frustrated. I understand, he wanted to tell this young man. I'm not Jewish, but I know how it feels, he wanted to say. But he said instead, "Well, if you ever have any trouble, you can come to the police prefecture and report it. You can ask for me, if you like. My name is Inspector Javert."

The boy blinked, taken aback. Javert recognized that look in his eyes, that surprised feeling when someone in authority treated you with respect, instead of suspicion or hostility. He remembered. Then the boy gave him a small smile, and even though Javert hadn't said, I know how it feels out loud, he felt that the boy had heard him, somehow. He felt that they both knew how well they understood each other, how much they had in common. Who would ever thought that of a Jew and a Gypsy?

"Thank you... Inspector Javert," the boy said softly. "I'll remember that. I'll tell my rabbi."

Javert nodded and continued on with his patrol then, while the boy went back to scanning the sky for three stars. Fortunately, this was a quiet night, and Javert had no trouble as the hours passed by, but his encounter with the stargazing Jewish boy had left him feeling strangely shaken. It made him remember a long-ago night from his childhood, a night that he hadn't thought about in years...

His mother had been a Gypsy fortune-teller. She'd made a living, when she could, by telling pale-faced people that for a few coins, she could see their futures in her crystal ball or in the lines on their palms. It was all lies, of course, and Javert had never believed one word of her predictions... except, maybe, for that night when she'd woken up from a deep sleep, screaming in terror. He'd been quite young - they were still living in the prison cell where he'd been born, in fact - but he still remembered it perfectly. His mother claimed to have seen the future in her dream. She had raved on like a mad woman about barbed wire and broken glass, about Gypsies and Jews all over France being rounded up, about huge black ovens where people were burned alive.

Even as a young boy, Javert had tried to tell her that it was nothing, just a bad dream, but seeing her fearful eyes and the cold sweat on her brow, he couldn't dismiss it easily.

Patrolling the dark, chilly streets tonight, he couldn't dismiss the ominous feeling that someday, her prediction would prove true... that someday, Jews and Gypsies alike, an endless number of them, would look up to the heavens for help... but they find nothing but an ash-black sky.

FIN