The Book of Lost Names(90)

“Can’t I stay with you?” she asked, sighing as he stroked her hair, his fingers weaving through the tangles they’d made.

“You know you can’t, sweet Eva. But after the war, I’ll come for you.”

“How will you find me?”

He was silent for a long time, but his hands never stopped moving, and that was a comfort. “Name a place that’s special to you.”

She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of him, musk and salt and pine. “There’s a library in Paris called the Mazarine,” she said. “And when I was a little girl, my father used to bring me there once a week. He repaired the typewriters at many of the libraries before he got a job working at the prefecture of police, but the Mazarine was always my favorite. I would sit on the steps waiting for him, my head in the clouds, dreaming of princes and princesses and faraway kingdoms.” She laughed softly. “You know, I used to imagine that I’d get married one day to a prince, right there on the library’s steps.”

“The Mazarine?” Rémy repeated.

“Yes, it’s part of the Palais de l’Institut de France, on the Left Bank.”

Rémy chuckled and kissed the top of her head. “I know. I used to play on the steps there when I was a little boy. My mother and I would walk across the Pont des Arts, and she would leave me outside while she went in to read. ‘Don’t leave the steps, Rémy,’ she would tell me. ‘There are bad people in this world.’ And so I would stay right there, pretending that I was a knight fighting off enemies coming to steal the books.”

Eva sat up and looked at him in disbelief. “Do you think we might have seen each other there?”

“It’s possible. I was there on and off for years, until my mother died the summer I turned twelve. I never went back.”

“And when my father got the job at the prefecture of police, I stopped going, too.” She shook her head and settled back against his chest. Was it possible that the prince she had dreamed of so often as a little girl had been right there all along? The coincidence felt extraordinary—fate rather than chance. She sighed in contentment. “I’m very sorry you lost your mother when you were so young, Rémy. I’ve never heard you speak of her.”

“I used to think that memories were less painful when you held them close. I think perhaps that isn’t true, though. Now I think pain loses its power when we share it.”

Tears in her eyes, Eva nodded. “You can always share with me.”

“I know that now.” Rémy kissed the top of her head again. “One day, when the war is over, shall we go there again? To the Mazarine?”

She smiled into his chest. “Paris will be Paris again, and no one will stare because I’m a Jew. We’ll just be two people meeting on the steps of a library.”

When quiet descended once more, Eva’s eyelids began to grow heavy. She was almost asleep when Rémy broke the silence. “You said you used to dream of getting married there.”

“It sounds silly now, I know.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Rémy waited until Eva looked up at him. “What if we did that?”

“Did what?”

“Got married. On the steps of the Mazarine Library.”

“Rémy, I—” She couldn’t finish her sentence, though. She closed her eyes, her heart breaking. She wanted to marry him, more than she wanted almost anything else in the world. But how could she do that to Mamusia, a woman who had lost everything, a woman who might never forgive what she would see as Eva turning her back on Judaism? She couldn’t say no, though, for how could she let her mother’s judgment eclipse her own? It was a terrible idea to live a life dictated by someone else’s prejudices. There was no right answer.

When she opened her eyes again, she could see Rémy watching her, and she knew from the expression on his face that he had read her mind. “Your mother,” he said softly. “She would never approve.”

“It shouldn’t matter.” Eva wiped away a tear that had slid down her cheek.

“Of course it should,” he said gently. He kissed her forehead. “Family means everything, and right now, your family is broken.”

“She’ll understand one day. She’s just so angry right now, angry and frightened. And she misses my father so much…”

“Who can blame her?” Rémy began to stroke Eva’s hair. “She fears that if you love someone different from you, someone who doesn’t belong to your faith, it means losing you, too.”

“But it doesn’t. She’ll never lose me. I’ll make sure of it. The way you and I found each other, Rémy, this must be God’s plan.”

“Then we must trust in him to bring us together again.” He took a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter how much I love you. I can’t ask you to spend your life with me until your mother understands.”

“But, Rémy…”

“If we’re meant to be together, there will always be time. But I can’t cost you the last of your family. I love you too much to do that.”

“I love you, too.” Eva could feel her tears falling now, soaking Rémy’s chest in the darkness. “I’m so sorry, Rémy. I’m sorry I’m not stronger.”