The Sweetness of Forgetting (62)

“I am not brave; I am frightened,” she replied. She did not want anyone to think she was brave. To think that it was brave to leave her family behind was absurd. She felt, in that moment, like the worst human being on the earth.

“May we have a moment alone?” Jacob asked Jean Michel.

Jean Michel nodded. “But quickly, please. There isn’t much time.” He slipped through the doorway, leaving Rose and Jacob alone in the darkness.

“You are doing the right thing,” Jacob whispered.

“It does not feel that way anymore,” Rose said. She took a deep breath. “You are completely sure? About this roundup?”

Jacob nodded. “I’m certain. It’s beginning in a few hours, Rose.”

She shook her head. “What has happened to us?” she asked. “To this country?”

“The world has gone mad,” Jacob murmured.

She took a deep breath. “You will come back for me?”

“I will come back for you,” Jacob said immediately. “You are my life, Rose. You and our baby. You know that.”

“I know,” she whispered.

“I will find you, Rose,” Jacob said. “When all of the horrors are over, and you are safe, I will come for you. I give you my word. I will not rest until I am beside you again.”

“Nor will I,” Rose murmured.

He pulled her to him, and she breathed in the scent of him, memorized the feel of his arms around her, pressed her head against his chest, and wished she never had to let go. But then Jean Michel was back, and he was gently pulling her away from Jacob, softly telling her that they had to go now, before it was too late. She knew only that Jean Michel, a Catholic, was taking her to another man who was part of a resistance, a man named Ali, who was a Muslim. It was the sort of thing that would have made her smile—Catholics, Jews, and Muslims working together as one—had the world not been falling down around them.

Jacob pulled her to him once more, for one more long kiss good-bye. As Jean Michel led her away, she pulled away from him. “Jacob?” she called softly into the darkness.

“I’m here,” he said. He reappeared from the shadows.

She took a deep breath. “Go back for them. Please. My family. I can’t lose them. I can’t live with myself if they perish because I did not try hard enough.”

Jacob stared into her eyes, and for a moment, Rose wanted to take the words back, because she knew what she was asking. But there wasn’t time. He nodded and said simply, “I will go back. I promise. I love you.”

And then he was gone into the inky darkness. Rose stood paralyzed, rooted to the spot, for what felt like an eternity but was only a few seconds. “No,” she murmured to herself. “What have I done?” She took a step after Jacob, meaning to stop him, meaning to warn him. But Jean Michel wrapped his arms around her and held tight.

“No,” he said. “No. It is in God’s hands now. You must come with me.”

“But . . .” she protested, trying to pull away.

“It is in God’s hands,” Jean Michel repeated as sobs began to rack Rose’s body. He held her more tightly and whispered into the darkness, “For now, all we can do is pray and hope that God can hear us.”



It was torture, after that, to live in Paris in secret, knowing that within a mile or two, her family or Jacob might also be in hiding. Knowing that she could not reach out to find them, that her one responsibility now was protecting the child within her, made her weep with helplessness every night.

The people who took her in, the Haddams, were kind, although she knew the mother and the father did not want her there. She was, after all, a liability; she knew her very presence put them in danger. If not for the baby she had vowed to protect, she would have left long ago, out of politeness. Still, they were hospitable, and over time, they seemed to accept her. Their boy, Nabi, reminded Rose of Alain, and this was what kept her sane most days; she could talk to him the way she had once talked to her little brother, and in that way, this new home felt a little more like the one she’d left behind.

She and Madame Haddam spent many hours in the kitchen, and after a while, Rose had the courage to offer Madame Haddam some of the recipes from her own family’s ashkénaze bakery. Madame Haddam, in turn, taught Rose to make many delicious pastries that she’d never heard of before.

“You should know how to cook with rosewater,” Madame Haddam had told her one day. “It is only fitting for a girl named Rose.”

And so Rose fell in love with the almond crescents and the orange blossom baklava and the rosewater cookies that crumbled in her mouth like magic, and these were the foods that nourished the baby within her. Her father had often said negative things about the Muslims, but Rose knew now that he’d been just as wrong about religion as he had been about the intentions of the Nazis. The Haddams had put their own lives at risk to save hers. They were some of the best people she had ever known.

Furthermore, Rose knew that in order to make pastries like the ones the Haddams made, one had to be good and kind. One’s heart always came out in the baking, and if there was darkness in your soul, there would be darkness in your pastries too. In the Haddams’ pastries, though, there was light and goodness. Rose could taste it, and she hoped the baby growing inside her could too.

Sometimes, Madame Haddam would let Rose accompany her to the market, as long as Rose vowed not to speak and veiled herself with a scarf. She liked the anonymity it gave her, and at the market, even though the Haddams shopped in a Muslim neighborhood, Rose would scan the crowd desperately, hoping for a glimpse of someone from her old life. One day on the street, she saw Jean Michel, but she couldn’t yell for him because of the sudden lump in her throat. By the time she could make a sound again, he was long gone.