The Book of Lost Names(49)

Her mother snorted. “That priest has you brainwashed, then, just the way you are brainwashing those young children you claim to be helping.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You give them Christian names, don’t you, and send them on to Christian households, where they’ll be told to forget who they are? And then you fall to your knees in front of a cross each Sunday and pray. I don’t even know who you’re becoming, Eva. Certainly you’re not who I raised you to be.”

Eva opened and closed her mouth. “Mamusia, it isn’t like that.”

“Isn’t it? You don’t even join me in saying the Shema anymore.”

“I—I don’t often make it home in time.” The truth was, when Eva was young, her parents had taught her that saying the prayer before she went to sleep would protect her from the demons that came in the dark. But her father had murmured it each night of his life, and on a still July night, the demons had come anyhow.

“You’re making excuses, Eva. You’re a Jew, just like I am. Just like your father is. And by tossing that aside, by going to church, you show me clearly that you are forgetting who you are.”

Tears prickled Eva’s eyes, and she didn’t answer right away. She wanted to protest, but what if her mother was right? She had never been observant like her parents were, but still, was she erasing herself the way she was erasing the children’s names she sometimes cried over before Rémy arrived each morning? “I will never forget, Mamusia,” she whispered.

But what if she already had?



* * *



By December, Aurignon was under a blanket of snow, food was scarce, and Mamusia had withdrawn even more into herself. Hanukkah had begun on the third of December, but Mamusia had refused Madame Barbier’s generous offer of precious candles, saying stiffly that she would not celebrate this year without her husband. “It is a holiday of praise and thanksgiving,” she said on the first night, as she and Eva lay in the darkness, beneath a mound of blankets to ward off the frigid chill. “And what do we have to be thankful for? Besides, the menorah is meant to be placed in the window to show the world that we’re not ashamed. And yet here we are, hiding from all that makes us who we are. No, Eva, we will not light candles here in the dark to celebrate a miracle, not this year.”

The growing bitterness in her mother frightened Eva, for it felt like the woman she had once known was disappearing. While Eva blossomed, Mamusia seemed to be hardening into stone. “Well, I for one am thankful that you and I are alive and healthy,” Eva said. “I’m thankful we have each other.”

“But I don’t have you, do I?” Mamusia said after a long silence. “All your thoughts are with that Catholic boy lately.”

Eva coughed. “Who?”

“You know exactly who I’m talking about. That Rémy. The one who makes you blush each time you say his name. The one you mention over dinner so frequently that I’m beginning to wonder if he’s the real reason you hole up in that church all day long.”

The words stung, not least of all because Eva had been trying to ignore her feelings. She was embarrassed to realize she had been bringing Rémy up so often. “Mamusia, he’s merely someone I work with.”

“You think I don’t see it, Eva? The way you walk around like you’re in possession of a precious secret? You think I don’t know what a crush looks like? You should be ashamed. Your father is in prison, and you’re acting like a lovesick little girl.”

“Mamusia, there’s nothing between Rémy and me.” But the truth was, the more time they spent together, the more she felt for him. He was good and kind and decent, and he was risking his life every day for people like her. How could that be wrong? She had never been in love before, but she wondered if this is what it felt like at the beginning—a desire to soak up as much of the other person as you could, even if it meant throwing logic to the wind. Perhaps her mother was right, after all. “I—I’m sorry,” she added weakly. “Mamusia?”

There was no reply. Her mother turned her back, rolling away from Eva, who stared at the ceiling, trying not to cry, until exhaustion finally overtook her.

The morning after Hanukkah ended, it was snowing when Eva arrived at the church, ducking inside and crossing herself in the entrance as she always did, just in case anyone was watching. It had become her routine to kneel in one of the pews for a minute or two before proceeding to the library, to ensure that there was no one else around. Sometimes there would be another person there, fingering rosary beads or staring at the cross on bended knee, and Eva would pretend to pray, too, until they were gone. Lately, though, Eva had found it a perfect place to talk silently to God. Was it a betrayal for a Jew to find God in a Catholic church? She wondered if somewhere out there, her father was still speaking to him, too, from behind a barbed wire fence in a desolate land.

Today the church was empty, and as Eva knelt to pray, she found herself thinking of her mother’s words the night before. All your thoughts are with that Catholic boy lately. Was Mamusia right? Had Eva gradually abandoned her mother as the pull of Rémy grew stronger?

“Please, God, help me to do the right thing,” Eva whispered before standing and heading for the library. As she made her way toward the altar, Père Clément emerged and nodded to her, his expression grave. She nodded back, a bad feeling forming in the pit of her stomach as he limped behind her into the small hidden room.