The World That We Knew(42)

He was there.



In class, they were studying Jeanne d’Arc, and during these lessons Lea often thought of Ava. The Maid of Orléans had been born to fight, chosen by God. Even though she was a woman, she looked upon war as another woman might rejoice on her wedding day. She was made for battle, and was so fierce that when the British captured her they had to burn her three times, for once was not enough. She had only been thirteen when she was visited by the archangel Michael in her father’s garden, and nineteen when she was burned at the stake. The cinders and ashes from her burning were said to have been thrown into the Seine, although a vial was later discovered in a jar in the attic of an apothecary in Paris. They remained illuminated, as if sparked by fire. In class, they spoke her sainted name in low tones, as if her name had a power of its own.

After class, Lea and Renée sat on their beds in the attic and Lea helped her practice her French. “Not everyone can be Jeanne d’Arc. Sometimes you can’t fight,” Renée told Lea. “Sometimes they cut you open and do terrible things to you.” She let Lea hug her even though she never wanted to be touched. “Nur einmal,” she said. Just once.

They both wished their mothers had not been on trains. They wished there were happy endings. This was why Lea kept the note from Julien under her pillow. So she could dream about another world and another life. At school they were called Renée and Lillie, but when they were alone they called each other by their true names, Rachel and Lea, as in the Bible. We’ll escape, they promised each other. We’ll start new lives, they said. But neither one could look at her reflection, for if they did the girls they had once been might stare back at them, and those girls, they both agreed, were gone.



Ava spent late afternoons in the kitchen, before going out to see to the garden. Time was moving faster all the time. It was the season to clip back the roses. They must be carefully tended, for they wilted in hot weather. The plants had black, leathery leaves and dark thorny branches, and were especially difficult to cut back, not that that would be a problem. Ava was always a hard worker; the nuns commented to each other that she was tireless and could complete one task after another.

But on this day her thoughts were elsewhere, beyond the garden. She was experiencing emotions she wasn’t made to have. She worried over Lea in a profound way that caught her by surprise, acting not out of duty but from someplace inside of her. Why this should be, she had no idea. She was so deep in thought she didn’t notice when she caught her finger on a thorn as she cleared away a twisted, black branch. A single bead of blood formed, crimson in the early morning light. She stared at it, confused. Was she meant to have blood rather than water and clay?

Lea had been sprawled out on her bed, studying her lessons, but she had put down her book and she spied Ava from the window. She knew her caretaker was not like other women, but she marveled at how human she could seem, more so all the time. She had noticed Ava crying when the heron left to go fishing in distant lakes, an unwanted ability she had learned without trying. Lea wished Ava could turn herself into a heron, then she could leave and never return. She wished that she was an angel that couldn’t be seen by mortal eyes and could disappear into the clouds. But here she was, at work in the garden. They were bound together. Where you found one, you would find the other. Every day Lea tried not to think about the moment when her locket fell open, when she read the message she wasn’t yet meant to see. But it was too late then and it was too late now. She had read her mother’s instructions. She knew exactly what she must do.

When the war is over, and you are safe, you must kill her.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN


THE GATHERED




PARIS, JULY 1942

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE month, on the sixteenth day of July, when the plane trees were a brilliant green, an ordinary day, the French police came knocking on doors. This past spring, Jews were made to wear yellow stars and were only allowed to ride in the last car of the Métro and were forbidden in restaurants. It was known that at least one synagogue had been converted into a brothel for Nazi soldiers. But now there were mass arrests. There was a sweep of Jews; refugees and French citizens alike were taken to the cycling stadium, Vélodrome d’Hiver, in the 15th arrondissement. The Nazi-planned event had the code name Opération Vent printanier, Operation Spring Breeze, meant to exterminate an entire population. In all, more than thirteen thousand Jews were rounded up over two days, four thousand of them children. Anyone under the age of fifteen would be handed over to the Union Générale des Israélites de France and sent to foundations and children’s homes.

They found the professors and their families on the third floor behind the brick wall, the children in the wardrobe, the wives beneath the beds. All were immediately arrested, but the police considered the real criminals to be the Lévis. What argument could they offer for breaking the law? There was none to be given. Still, when the Lévis were told they must come with the police immediately, Claire was shocked. “We’re French,” she argued. She had known nothing good would come of having foreigners in their house. She’d never wanted them in the first place.

The professor quickly stepped in to calm his wife. Of course they would accompany the police and answer any questions. There was no harm in that. Tempers were high and it was best to do as they were told.