The World That We Knew(85)

He kissed her, as if his breath could bring her back. He was not like other people, he was a doctor, and because of this he could see the Angel of Death. He knew him well. Look for the shadow, his father had told him when he was a boy and they visited the homes of the dying. And do what you can to defeat him. When he finished his medical studies his father reminded him to keep watch for the last angel. He’d thought the old man was joking with this Angel of Death nonsense, but his father’s expression was serious. He will surprise you and you’ll think you’re going mad sometimes, seeing all manner of things. But he’ll be there at the moment life ends. He’s always there.

Since that time Girard had spied the angel as he threw open a window and stepped inside a house. He had seen him in the fields, moving through the sunflowers, and in hospital surgery wards. Now he had appeared in their bedroom. Henri was not about to give in to him. He had planned for this moment, and quickly shifted Sarah to his side of the bed, then positioned himself in her place.

“Are you expecting me to take you instead?” the angel asked.

Henri had been awake for three nights in a row and he knew he might be imagining the angel, but he remembered what his father had said. It will be him, there in the room.

Azriel listed the names of everyone who would not be rescued by the doctor if he should die on this night. Since that time, Henri had kept a small leather notebook in which he later wrote down the names, at least the ones he could remember, and every time he met one of the people he crossed their name off the list, even though he had not been the one to decide to save them, so he took no credit. He wanted his wife, and no one else, but it was not his will to decide such things.

He could not claim to know what a soul was, or who possessed it. But he knew that a dove mourned its young, and a dog yearned for its master, and a man who lost his wife never truly recovered, and love that was given was never thrown away. He went to the closet in his bedroom and carefully stored the red shoes. Then he went to the guest bedroom, where he found Ava sitting in the chair. He put a hand on her shoulder, and when she looked up at him there were tears in her eyes.

When the moon was high, Ava went out onto the lawn, where the heron was waiting. She had danced with him a hundred times before, and they danced again on this night. Girard could see them from the window. He’d heard a call that he’d thought was a person wailing, but when he looked outside he saw the bird. He realized how little he knew of this world, but he knew this: If you could love someone, you possessed a soul.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR


WEST OF THE MOON




THE WOLF’S PLAIN, AUGUST 20, 1944

HE STOOD IN THE ORCHARD. She knew him even though everything had changed. He was a young man with long dark hair, handsome, six feet tall, well muscled but too thin, a troubled look on his face. There was a halo of darkness around him that hadn’t been there before, yet when he saw her, his eyes filled with light. She came through the back door without bothering to pull on shoes, in a hurry, her hair much paler than he remembered, ash white, shimmering, but it was her, the reason he’d stayed alive.

“You,” she called out, her hands on her hips. “Julien Lévi from Paris.”

She knew him still, despite everything that had changed. He came to her slowly. He didn’t wish to rush, even though it had been such a long time. He wanted to see her standing there by the door and remember everything about it, the dress she wore, her pale bare feet, the flame of sunlight across her face, a stray curl of her hair that she brushed away.

“What are you waiting for?” she cried.

They weren’t children now, and maybe they hadn’t been then. Nearly four years had passed. She was sixteen, and he would soon be eighteen.

“Are you certain I’m who you think I am?” he said, grinning.

She didn’t bother to answer, or to wait any longer, but instead came to throw her arms around him. He had kept his promise. They broke away from each other and sank to the grass, near enough for their hips and shoulders to touch.

They took in each other’s differences, and liked what they saw. Neither wished to be anywhere other than where they were, in the doctor’s orchard at this exact moment in time. They could have told each other everything, but they wanted to go forward, not backward, and so after years of wanting nothing more than to talk, they sat in silence, their fingers laced.

This is how it ends, Julien thought.

This is how it begins, Lea knew.

Ava watched from the window, then pulled down the shade.

This is how it was always meant to be.



She baked her last loaves of rosemary bread for supper, somber. This was what Hanni had wished for, this was their covenant, this was all the time she was allowed.

The doctor came to stand in the doorway. He had been introduced to the young man who’d come for Lea. He was a well-mannered fellow who shook the doctor’s hand, thanking him for his hospitality. The haunted look in his eyes left only when he gazed at Lea. The doctor recognized him; he resembled his brother, the same handsome dark features, but with more reserve, intelligent, but wary.

“I knew Victor,” Girard said. “I knew him very well.”

“Did you?” There was that haunted look.

“And the girl he worked with. I knew her.” He had gone to the spot of the accident with a handful of white phlox to leave in Ettie’s memory. “They were extremely brave.”