The World That We Knew(74)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT


THE MAP




LE CHAMBON-SUR-LIGNON, JULY 1944

AT SCHOOL LEA KEPT TO herself. The girls were friendly enough; still she was an outsider, the tall fair-haired girl in the gray dress. When she stood outside her gaze followed the birds swooping through the sky as though she was trying to summon one, but she always walked away disappointed, brooding. The message she was waiting for had yet to come.

By now she was sixteen. She didn’t want to grow any older. The farther she was from the age she had been when she left Berlin, the more she feared she would forget her past. Who had taught her how to read, who had sewn her clothes, who had told her stories about the wolves she sometimes heard up in the craggy mountains. People said none were left, that they had been hunted to extinction, but some had survived, up where the altitude was so great and the air so thin not even the birds could fly. Who would know you when you were the last one left of your kind? If she could no longer remember her mother and grandmother, would she forget that she had once been loved?

But time was moving forward, and everything changed. Even in this tiny, isolated village, people had heard about the attack on German forces in Normandy. News was carried by members of the Resistance, and there was a wild conviction that the war had turned. Anything might be possible now, and it seemed that fate might not be set out before them in a straight, unwavering path, but might instead be a curving line marked by chance and choice, infinite in its possible destinations.

Lea decided she would write a note, to be ready when the heron returned. He was late this year. She imagined Julien waiting to hear from her, one hand thrown up to block the bright light as he scanned the sky, just as she did. One afternoon, as Weitz was out smoking one of his precious cigarettes, which he cut in half, so they would last longer, and Ava was in the yard hanging the laundry, Lea opened the bureau drawer in search of a pad of paper and a pen. She did not expect what she found, and her chest immediately felt hollow. There was a note, folded over itself, tucked away. She steadied herself and took it in her hands. She recognized his handwriting right away.

Come here as soon as you can.

She turned over the paper, her heart pounding.

There was the map. He’d sketched Beehive House, and the winding rutted road, and the pastures filled with flowering genêts. In her hands was the barn and the stone house with its tilted chimney and white shutters, the goat named Bluebell, and the beehives in the field. It had been here in this drawer for months.



Lea waited until after dinner, when Weitz went outside to paint in the yard in the last of the day’s light. Then she put the map on the table.

“When did this arrive?”

Ava glanced at the map. She felt a wave of shame and confusion, emotions she was not supposed to have.

“You decided to hide it from me?” Lea said.

“The heron came back just after winter, but the time wasn’t right.” The lie burned her tongue and she flushed, something she had never done before.

“The heron has been back all this time!” Lea’s mouth tightened. “It’s not winter now, and still you kept a message that was meant for me. You stole it!”

Ava had often regretted asking the heron to carry Lea’s and Julien’s messages. She’d thought there would be no harm in it, but she was wrong. “You may not understand everything I do.”

“I understand perfectly. You want to keep me away from Julien, because I’ll leave with him, and you don’t want me to cross the border.”

“But I do,” Ava insisted. “I promised your mother I would get you to safety.”

“And yet we’re still here.” Lea held Ava in her gaze. “You and I know why. You don’t want to do what you promised my mother because you know what happens once I’m safe.” Every word Lea spoke was brittle, a sharp broken hook. “You’ve known all along. You know what she wants me to do.”

“I want the best for you.” Ava felt something sharp inside of her. By now she knew that people always lost what they loved most.

“I don’t care,” Lea cried. “I’m leaving here. I’m following the map.”

She went to get her suitcase. Let Ava try to stop her. She would scream her head off if need be. She was nearly as tall as Ava and she wasn’t a girl of twelve anymore. She would never be a child again, and she didn’t have to listen to anyone.

Watching her, Ava felt as if she were breaking. It was all true. She might have taken Lea to the border a hundred times, but she had done as she’d pleased; she had her own mind and her own desires. She had wanted to remain in this glorious world, despite how wicked those who inhabited it might be. She had let her desire for life affect her vow.

She had betrayed her maker.

“You can’t go alone,” Ava said now. She reached for the suitcase. “I’ll go with you. Let me pack.”

Lea scowled. “I don’t need you.”

They both took hold of the suitcase, and when they tugged, it flew open. Before their eyes, the lining split in the place where Hanni had sewn a thousand miraculous stitches. Inside the torn lining, hidden there on the day they left Berlin, was a blue dress, perfectly made. Mein Schatz, her mother had written on the note tacked to one sleeve. Für dich.

My darling, for you when you reach safety.