The World That We Knew(33)

But Lea knew that Ava was right. Hers was a wish that could never be granted. It was too late, it was over; there was no home to go back to. When you have lost your mother you have lost the world. You can sit in the garden and see nothing at all, not the woman on the garden bench watching over you, not the boy who refuses to leave you, even when you tell him to go.

Your grief won’t go away; it’s not a door you can close, or a book you can put back on the shelf, or a kiss you can give back once it is given. This is the way the world is now. Keep the worst things to yourself, like a bone in your throat.

He will do the same, he will blurt out everything, but not the fact that his father cries in his study because he knows that the only numbers that matter now are the numbers of the dead. This is how it begins and how it ends, this is your weakness and your strength, when you are alone, you are not alone, when you have lost the world, you have found each other. After a while it doesn’t matter if the garden is ruined and the trees are all cut down. It doesn’t matter if there is ice over your heart. He knows who you are.



In the midst of dinner there was knocking at the door. The professors from Germany and their wives and children had been served bowls of Hardship Soup, but they now ran upstairs and hid in the cabinets, holding knives in their hands. When André Lévi went to open the door, it was only their neighbor, Monsieur Oches, who’d come to call. But he was frantic as he reported that people were fleeing, not just the foreign born, but their own neighbors, French citizens, even those who had fought in the previous war and were decorated veterans. People were leaving for Lyon or Toulouse, where life was somewhat better for them, or to the border of Italy or Switzerland. Anyone with a relative in America or England had already left. There was talk of a roundup to come when no one would be saved, not women, not children, not the sick, not the elderly.

“It won’t happen at dinner,” the professor said. “Go home and be with your family.”

“Don’t think I’m exaggerating!” Monsieur Oches said. “We’ll all be murdered before long!”

Professor Lévi thanked his neighbor and led him to the door so the family could finish their dinner. Claire Lévi had worried that these cousins of her husband would call trouble to them, and now they had an attic full of unwanted guests. When she and her husband were at last alone at the table, she told him their guests must leave. “We can’t have refugees here.”

“Not tonight.” There was strange resolve in the professor’s voice. He had realized his wife did not yet understand what was happening. They were all the same now, whether they were refugees or French born. This was not their city anymore.

After dinner the professor took a box of their most valued possessions out to the yard and had Julien dig a hole underneath the oak tree. Julien’s shirt was soon soiled, as if he was a gravedigger, but he kept going until his father told him to stop. Into this trench went what was left of the silverware that had belonged to Julien’s great-grandmother, along with the professor’s studies packed into a leather case and a box of family photographs. If they were forced to leave, they could later return for these things.

Lea stopped at the doorway when she saw the Lévi family gathered in the garden. During the time she’d been their houseguest, the professor and his wife had mostly ignored her, but now Professor Lévi gestured to her.

“Join us. Perhaps you have a treasure to bury?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Claire said. “What on earth would this girl have?”

Lea touched the charm around her neck. Her only treasure, and she yearned to be rid of it. Julien was watching her with his fierce dark eyes that were flecked with gold. His white shirt was streaked with dirt, and he couldn’t seem to look away from her. Lea met his glance and hesitated, until Madame Lévi urged him to hurry, and then it was too late for Lea to be rid of the locket. Not that it mattered. She had memorized her mother’s instructions. She knew what she must do, whether or not she had the charm.

Shovels of dirt were tossed over the trench, and a frozen rosebush was planted above the buried treasure. The one thing of value the professor kept was his watch. It had belonged to his father, and, though he had paid no attention to time in the past, he thought he must now do so. He asked his son to bring out a bottle of cognac, the last they had. The German professors and their wives came to join them. Julien returned with the bottle and a tray of small glasses. The glasses were green and fragile and would all be broken before long. It was the first time Lea had tasted alcohol and she felt grown up and reckless. Ava came to look for her and immediately noticed that she was standing too close to Julien. She gave him a look, but it was too late. He was sick of being told what to do. They might be considered children, but it was possible they would not be alive long enough to become adults.

Out of sight, Julien took Lea’s hand.

Out of sight, she let him.

“Now they’ll know where our valuables are,” the professor’s wife whispered once their belongings were in the ground. She threw a look over her shoulder. There was Ava, glaring back with cold gray eyes. “Who’s to say that woman’s not a thief??”

“She’s not, but even if she was, it wouldn’t matter,” her husband responded. “We no longer have anything to steal.”



Ava heard the call outside the window at an hour when no birds sang. It was the call of a messenger to warn of a battle to come. The gray heron was in the garden. He looked at the world as a map, in shades of blue and green, but now the colors were murky and there were black clouds everywhere, so that it was nearly impossible to see. Already, huge flocks of birds had taken to the sky, fleeing the city as if escaping from a fire. The darkness was caused by the descent of the angels. There were angels of confusion and of destruction and fear, and accusing angels who did their work in the darkness, so men and women never knew when they’d been marked. This world was shattering. Ava could see where it was breaking, a fine white line that revealed what had already passed and what was to come. She shook Lea awake.