The Book of Lost Names(48)

But the false papers that meant the most were the ones they crafted meticulously for the children. Their book of names was growing by the day.

“Thank you,” Eva said to Rémy one day as they worked side by side on a new batch of orphans who had arrived that week in Aurignon from Paris, where fifteen hundred Jews had just been arrested. Eva was in the middle of making a birth certificate for a three-year-old girl who had been born just after Germany invaded Poland; she had never known a world without war.

He was sitting close enough to her that their elbows touched, though there was plenty of room at the table. She had found herself lately fighting the urge to move closer to him, and it seemed as if he was doing the same. They had become virtually inseparable. He was her first thought in the morning, and the last person she thought of at night as she fell asleep. Mamusia had warned her about him—You shouldn’t be spending so much time alone with a young man, and one who’s not Jewish at that!—but Eva had come to trust him more than she had trusted anyone in her life.

“Thank you for what?” Rémy asked, looking up from a batch of ration cards he was systematically erasing with lactic acid. The room was swimming in the acrid odor, but Eva hardly noticed anymore.

“For believing in me.” She felt foolish the moment the words were out of her mouth.

He turned to her, so close that she could see the flecks of green in the irises of his hazel eyes. “Of course I believe in you.” He looked puzzled.

“I mean about the Book of Lost Names. About why we need to record who the children are before we change their identities.”

He frowned and looked at the birth certificate she was holding. It was only then that she noticed she was trembling. “The Book of Lost Names?” Rémy placed his hands gently over hers and held on until the paper stopped shaking. “Eva, the fact that it’s so important to you…” He trailed off as he looked into her eyes. “It says so much about who you are. And I’m glad to be your partner in all this.”

He took his hands away, and she exhaled, but her heart was still racing. It felt as if all the oxygen had disappeared from the room. She took a deep breath, but she sucked in a mouthful of chemicals along with the air, and it made her cough so hard that she doubled over. Rémy patted her back, and when she finally stopped and straightened up, he kept his hand there, his thumb moving in small, gentle circles along her backbone. Goose bumps prickled her skin as their eyes met again.

“Eva—” he began, his voice low and husky.

Suddenly the room felt too small, too warm, and she pulled back. She couldn’t seem to look away, though, and he continued to hold her gaze. “Wh-what is it?” she stammered, her heart thudding.

He continued looking into her eyes in a way that made her feel as if he could see straight into her soul. “It’s important you understand that we are not taking away the children’s identities. The Nazis are doing that. We are giving them a chance to live. Never forget that.”

She blinked at him. “But in changing who they are—”

“We don’t change who they are.” He touched her hand again, and when he let her go, she had to stop herself from reaching for him immediately. “You and I have changed our names, too, but it doesn’t change who we are in here.” He touched her gently, just beneath her collarbone and above her heart, and her pulse raced. “It doesn’t change how we feel.”

“I’m not the same person I used to be, though,” Eva said. “I’ve only been gone from Paris for four months, and I wonder sometimes if I would even recognize the old me.” She hesitated and added, “If my father comes back, will he think I’ve changed too much?”

“Eva,” Rémy said, holding her gaze. “You’re still you. You’ve just found the strength inside yourself that was there from the start.” He hesitated and then moved closer, so near that she could feel the heat of him. “I think you’re extraordinary.” He leaned in, and for a second, all she could think about was the kiss they’d shared on the train and how perfect it had felt, though it had only been for show. Then, abruptly, he pulled back and coughed. “I, um, need to get some air.”

He was out the door before she could still her racing heart, and when he returned a half hour later, they worked in silence at opposite ends of the table.

That night, her mother stared at her while they ate beef offal stew with potatoes at the boardinghouse table. Madame Barbier had gone out, leaving them alone for the first time in weeks.

“I understand that you’ve been going to services at the church,” Mamusia said, finally breaking the silence between them. “The Catholic church.”

Eva looked up, guilt flooding through her. “Well, yes. It was Père Clément’s idea.” She’d been attending mass each Sunday for the past two months, to help her to blend in. Madame Barbier had proclaimed to anyone who would listen that her Russian cousin was here to grieve a lost husband, and that the cousin’s daughter had taken a job cleaning the church each day for a pittance. People would begin to wonder if they didn’t see her worshipping.

“He’s trying to convert you, Eva, and you’re blindly following along.”

Eva shook her head. “Mamusia, that isn’t what’s happening. It’s merely part of my cover. If the townspeople have any reason to think I’m Jewish, it could bring trouble to both of us.”