The Book of Lost Names(42)

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“Where have you been?” Mamusia was pacing, her face flushed, when Eva let herself into the room. Her overcoat was on, and both suitcases were packed and lined up neatly by the door.

“Mamusia, what is this?” Eva stopped in the doorway and stared.

“I have decided we are going back to Paris,” Mamusia said firmly. “Though now we will have to wait until tomorrow, of course. We’ve already been delayed enough.”

Eva looked from her mother to the bags and back, then she closed the door softly behind her. “Mamusia, we can’t go to Paris.”

“Of course we can!” her mother huffed. “I’ve thought long and hard about it. We need to be there when your father comes back. How else will he find us? If we are in Switzerland, he won’t know. No, Paris is the only way.”

“But, Mamusia,” Eva said gently. “Tatu? is not coming back.”

“How dare you say such a thing?” Mamusia’s voice rose to a shriek. “Of course he is! His deportation was a mistake, and as soon as they realize the error—”

“Mamusia,” Eva repeated, more firmly this time. “It wasn’t an error.”

“Your father will find a way to—”

“No.” Eva cut her off. “He won’t. He is gone.”

“You’re not saying he’s dead?” her mother screeched.

“No,” Eva said quickly, though in the depths of her heart, she knew it might well be true. The thought had been nibbling at the corners of her consciousness all day, a voice whispering in her ear as she diligently wrote names and birth dates that would perhaps save a few lives. “No, I’m not saying that, Mamusia. Just that he’s not coming back right now.”

“You don’t know that! No, Eva, we are going to Paris, and that is final.”

“Mamusia, Paris isn’t the city we left behind. We can’t even return to our own apartment.”

“You’re not making sense. Whyever not? It’s ours!”

Eva took a deep breath. She hadn’t told her about their old neighbors yet; she had hoped to spare her the pain. But it was too late for that now. “Because the Fontains have already moved in.”

Mamusia looked at her blankly. “Eva, you’re speaking nonsense. The Fontains have their own apartment, just down the hall.”

“Ours is bigger, nicer. Madame Fontain has no doubt had her eye on it since the start of the war. And what do you think would happen if we went back and tried to claim it? You don’t think she would call the police right away, have us arrested?”

“She’s living in our apartment?” Something in Mamusia’s face changed. “So we should just let that horrid woman have it? Despite the fact that we worked hard and paid for it honestly for decades? We should just roll over like the dogs she believes we are?”

“I don’t like it any more than you do, but we don’t have a choice.”

Mamusia pressed her lips together, the skin around them going white with anger. “We always have a choice. And it seems to me that you’re choosing to forsake what is ours—and to abandon your father.”

“Mamusia, we aren’t abandoning him. We’re trying to survive. It’s what he would want.”

“How would you know?” Her mother choked out a sob. “We failed him, Eva! Can’t you see that? We let them take him! You let them take him! You knew they were coming and you just stood there and did nothing.”

Eva hung her head, accepting the blame. She should have tried harder to persuade her father to flee. She would never escape the weight of that on her conscience.

“And now what?” her mother demanded. She began pacing again, punctuating her words by jabbing the air. “Now you just want to start our lives over, pretend that Paris isn’t our home? You never even asked me if that’s what I wanted!” Her words dissolved into a sob.

Eva blinked back tears. “Mamusia, our old life is gone.”

Her mother frowned and studied her in silence. “Fine. So we will go to Switzerland, then. That’s what your father told you to do, yes? He will meet us there when he resolves his situation.”

Eva averted her eyes so her mother couldn’t see the pain in them. Did Mamusia really think that Tatu? would somehow negotiate his way out of a German camp and find his way back across the continent? “Yes, we’ll go, Mamusia. But there are some things I need to do here first.”

Her mother stared in disbelief. “Some things? Forgery, you mean, just like the lies that got us out of Paris without your father.”

“Mamusia—”

“Lies, Eva, they’re all lies!” Spittle sprayed Eva. “And you’re telling lies to yourself! How can you be so selfish? Why does it mean more to you to stay here and work with strangers instead of doing what’s right for your own father?”

“Because I can still help them!” Eva shot back. “Because they are not a lost cause!”

She regretted the words the moment they were out of her mouth, but it was already too late. Mamusia’s face was red, her eyes blazing, her lips set in a thin line. She barreled past Eva, knocking her aside on her way to the door.

“Where are you going?” Eva demanded as her mother strode into the hallway. Mamusia didn’t answer; she just stormed away, nearly colliding with Madame Barbier, who had presumably come to see what all the yelling was about.