The Book of Lost Names

by Kristin Harmel

  “Yes. Though I don’t know if it will work.”

  Rémy muttered something unintelligible.

  Eva gave him a look and then turned back to the priest. “And it’s Eva, Père Clément. Rémy already knows my real name; you might as well, too.”

  He smiled. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Eva.” He turned to Rémy. “Eva is good. Very good. You see it, too, I know you do. Would you have gone running after her to Paris without telling me if you didn’t?”

  Rémy’s eyes flicked to Eva. “Well, I’m better than she is at erasing things,” Rémy finally grumbled. “You can’t argue with that.”

  “So let’s see if Eva is better at creating them, and quickly,” Père Clément said. “We need her.”

  Rémy shot another glance at Eva. “I would be happy to take her on as my assistant.”

  Père Clément’s lips twitched at the corners. “I was rather thinking that you could be hers.”

  Rémy’s nostrils flared, and this time, when he spoke under his breath, the words were clear—and not particularly nice. He turned and strode away, slamming the door to the confessional.

  “Wait, Rémy!” Eva stood and started to go after him.

  “Let him go,” Père Clément said calmly.

  Eva stopped and sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I probably should have—”

  He cut her off. “No apologies. There’s no room for ego in our organization, and Rémy knows that. He’s good at what he does, too, but different people have different strengths, and we’re all stronger when we join. You’ll work together as equals, Eva, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Good. Now, shall we go into the library and get started? There’s not a moment to lose.”

  He exited his side of the confessional, and Eva followed. She expected to find Rémy in the library when they entered a moment later, but he wasn’t there, which made her feel a bit guilty. She watched as Père Clément moved a stack of books, revealing the same hidden cupboard Rémy had accessed a few nights earlier. Withdrawing some papers, he slid the door closed, replaced the books, and turned back to Eva. “Here,” he said.

  She looked at what he had given her. There were a few blank identity cards, four or five dozen blank sheets of the crisp woven paper used for birth certificates, and a handwritten list with names and dates of birth. She quickly scanned it. “But they’re almost all children,” she said, looking up. “Young children.”

  “Yes.” Père Clément was watching her closely.

  “Who are they?”

  “They need to escape as soon as possible. Many are young enough that they won’t need identity cards—just birth and baptismal certificates, ration cards to establish that they are who they’re claiming to be, travel passes, things of that nature.”

  Eva felt breathless. “And their parents?”

  “Already gone. East.”

  East. Their parents had been taken, just like her father, to Auschwitz, or someplace like it. “Where are the children now?” Eva scanned the list again. Most of the kids appeared to be under the age of ten, some of them mere toddlers. They had all lost their parents? It was almost unimaginable. “Who’s looking out for them?”

  Père Clément studied her for a few long seconds. “I can trust you, Eva?”

  “Who would I tell? I’m a Jew in an unfamiliar place, traveling on false papers.” When he merely raised an eyebrow, she cleared her throat and mumbled, “What I mean to say is that of course you can trust me.”

  He nodded. “You see, Eva, as you may have guessed, the church is part of an escape line that helps people reach Switzerland safely. We work closely with resistance groups in the occupied zone, and in the past several months, as arrests have been stepped up, they have been funneling refugees here, and to other towns like ours throughout the free zone.” He took a deep breath. “In Paris last week, as you know, there were raids and arrests. Our networks helped get some children out before they could be taken with their parents, and now many of them are here, hiding in private homes, all without papers, all without their parents.”

  “All Jews,” Eva said softly, her heart aching.

  “All Jews,” Père Clément echoed. “All in danger that grows each day.”

  “How do you get them out?” It would be too conspicuous to take a group this large across the Swiss border.

  “That’s where you come in. The children will be moved into Switzerland, three or four or five at a time, passed off as siblings traveling with a mother or father, but to execute that, we need convincing documents. And we need them quickly.” He hesitated. “You see, there’s been some word that the Germans plan to take over the free zone, too.”

  Eva could feel her eyes widen. “The free zone? But they made a deal with Pétain.”

  “And you think they will keep their word? Their promises mean nothing. And once they make their move, it will be much more difficult to leave France.”

  His eyes bore into hers, and she had the feeling he could read exactly what she was thinking. If the border was about to close more tightly, she needed to get her mother out, too.

  “There’s still time,” he said, answering the question she hadn’t asked. “I must beg you to stay here, Eva. The volume of refugees is only increasing.”

  She swallowed hard. “Very well.”

  “You said you had an idea for how to produce documents more quickly?”

  “Yes, though I’m not sure it will work. It’s an idea I had last night. Are you familiar with the hand-printing presses they use in schools? The ones that make copies of worksheets for students?”

  “I believe I know the ones you mean. There’s a felt roller with a sort of gel around it, yes? And then the teachers can write on the gel? How would this work? The documents need to appear handwritten.”

  “They will be, but the stamps won’t. The stamps are the hardest part to reproduce, and the most time-consuming by far. If I can trace them onto the felt roller, and we can use the correct color ink, we can print fifty at a time. I can work on that while Rémy fills the documents in by hand.”

  Père Clément stared at her. “You think you can trace the seals accurately enough to be convincing?”

  Eva nodded slowly. “I think so. I hope so.”

  “Eva, it’s brilliant. Would you like to accompany me to the store to buy the press?”

  She hesitated. “Won’t we look suspicious?”

  “Not if the shopkeeper is one of us.” His eyes twinkled. “Madame Noirot had quite good things to say about you.”

  “Madame Noirot?”

  “At the bookstore. You didn’t think I approached you without checking around town first, did you?”

  “The woman who gave me the copy of Bel Ami?” Eva was puzzled. “But how could she vouch for me? We only talked for a moment.”

  “Yes, but she saw in you a kindred spirit, and she guessed—accurately—at what you needed those art pens for. When she came to see me, she said that anyone who saw the magic in books had to be good.”

  “So is everyone in this town in on your forgery scheme?”

  He smiled. “No. But we are a town of decent people. There are plenty of us working for the cause, and plenty more who are happy to turn a blind eye. So while you are mostly safe here, Eva, never make the mistake of letting down your guard. Now, shall we go see Madame Noirot?”

  She nodded, but as she followed him out the door, a feeling of unease settled over her.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, after making their way through a twisting series of deserted alleyways flanked with wooden balconies and elaborately swirled corbels, Eva trailed behind Père Clément as they entered the bookstore. The shop was empty but for Madame Noirot, who was neatening a display of notebooks near the front. She looked up and smiled as the door chimed.

  “Ah, Père Clément. I was hoping you would return. And I see you’ve brought a friend.” She smiled at Eva. “Have you had a chance to start Bel Ami ye
t, dear?”

  “I’m afraid not, madame.” It was, Eva realized suddenly, the longest she’d ever gone without reading, a thought that made her terribly sad. It was just another thing the Germans had succeeded in taking from her. “I’ve been… busy.”

  “Ah yes, so I’ve heard.”

  Eva looked at Père Clément, but he seemed to be deliberately ignoring her.

  “So what brings you in today?” Madame Noirot asked. “Another book, perhaps?”

  “No, madame, thank you. We were hoping you might have a hand-printing press. The kind teachers use to duplicate worksheets for their students.”

  Madame Noirot’s brow creased. “You need to make copies of something?”

  “Actually, Eva had a very smart idea.” Père Clément finally pulled his attention from the pens and came to stand beside Eva. “What better way to reproduce official stamps?” he added in a whisper.

  Madame Noirot opened and closed her mouth. “But I thought you had Rémy etching stamps out of rubber.”

  Père Clément nodded. “But you know as well as I do how long that takes—and how many different stamps we have to duplicate. He happened to mention that to Eva on the first night they met, and upon thinking about it, Eva had an idea: to reproduce stamps using a roller like this, someone would need only to trace the real stamps with a sure hand.”

  Madame Noirot nodded slowly. “And to match the proper ink colors.”

  “Which we were hoping you could help with, too,” Père Clément concluded.

  Madame Noirot turned to study Eva for a few seconds, a look of awe on her face. “Why, if I didn’t know better, Eva, I would think God himself had sent you to us.”

  Eva could feel herself blushing as Madame Noirot ducked into the back of the store, saying that she was certain she had a few of the hand-printing presses stored there and could order more of the gels if necessary. “Why did you tell her my real name?” she whispered to Père Clément.

  He looked surprised. “Well, first of all, I only told her your first name, not your surname. And didn’t Rémy tell you? He found you and your mother new identities in the Journal Officiel, and yours allows you to use the name Eva.”

  “But he already gave me a new identity. Marie Charpentier.”

  “That was just temporary. And since you used it at Drancy, and it’s certainly a part of the official record by now, it’s better to discard it. Besides, you need an identity you can use along with your mother, since you live together. Rémy has found the perfect family—a naturalized White Russian by way of Turkey who married a Frenchman and had a daughter named Eva in 1920. The fact that the family is Russian will allow Madame Barbier to easily claim your mother as a cousin, which will explain your presence at her boardinghouse. You’ll be Eva Moreau, and your mother will be Yelena Moreau.”

  Eva stared at him. “Finding such a family must have taken him ages.”

  “I don’t think he slept at all last night. He knew you were upset about your father, and he wanted to help you to feel more comfortable here. He thought it might help if you were able to use your real name.”

  Eva blinked back the tears she could feel in her eyes. She had misjudged him—not that she could be blamed entirely for thinking the worst of a man who was on such chummy terms with the madam of a brothel that catered to Nazis. “He’s a good man, isn’t he?”

  “Indeed he is, Eva. Indeed he is.”

  Madame Noirot returned then, proudly holding up two wrapped hand-printing presses. “I found them. I’ll come by later with some extra gels, but this should get you started. I have some of the special colored ink behind the counter, and I will order more.”

  “Not so much that it might look suspicious, though,” Père Clément warned, taking the presses and ink from her after she’d placed them in a bag. He handed over some francs, which she accepted without looking at them.

  Madame Noirot put her hand over her heart. “Why, Père Clément, you act as if this is my first time doing this sort of work.” She winked at Eva. “Don’t worry. I know quite well how to play the role of the batty old book rat. It’s the best kind of cover.”

  Eva smiled at her, and as she and Père Clément turned to go, Madame Noirot called out once more.

  “Wait. Eva?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you. Thank you for being here. You will save lives.”

  Eva smiled and mumbled a merci in return, but as she left the shop with Père Clément, she couldn’t help feeling like a fraud. After all, she wasn’t some savior for the cause—she would be here only long enough to help Rémy get rid of the backlog. Then she would take her mother to Switzerland to wait for Tatuś.

  “Père Clément?” she began as they walked briskly back toward the church. “May I ask you something?”

  “Of course, Eva,” Père Clément said after pausing in their conversation to nod to the mustached butcher, who was closing his shop, and to wave to the stout florist Eva had exchanged bonjours with on the way to the church for the first time.

  “Where did you get the money to pay for the supplies?”

  He smiled. “We don’t work alone here. In addition to funneling supplies, the underground sometime helps with funds, too. Speaking of which, if you decide to stay with us for a time, there will be some money for you. You’ll be doing a job, and you should be paid.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “It will allow you to pay your rent, buy your food.” He winked at her. “Speaking of which, I’ll get you some blank ration cards for your mother and yourself.”

  She swallowed her guilt. Leaving would be even harder now. “Can I ask you something else? You said the children whose documents I’ll be forging are without their parents.” She took a deep breath. “Who keeps track of their real names?”

  He looked confused. “Their real names?”

  “So that they may be reunited with their parents after the war.”

  “Oh, Eva, you must understand that their parents may not survive the war.”

  “I know.” She shook off thoughts of her own father as her mother’s words replayed in her head. Who will remember us? Who will care? “But there must be a way, Père Clément. What if the youngest ones can’t recall where they come from by the time the war ends?”

  “It’s too dangerous to send them across the border with anything bearing their true identities, Eva.” There was pity in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “Could you—could you find out their names for me anyhow?”

  “What good would it do, Eva?” Père Clément’s tone was gentle.

  “I would know who they are,” she said softly. “Please. It—it’s very important to me that they are not forgotten.”

  He studied her for a moment. “I will see what I can do. And Eva?”

  “Yes, Père Clément?”

  “Thank you. I think perhaps Madame Noirot was right in thinking that God sent you here.”

  * * *

  That evening, as the light faded from the stained glass windows above the shelves of the small library, Eva was just finishing stamping a batch of documents when Rémy reappeared. Her shoulders were stiff from hunching over the desk, and her fingers ached from meticulously tracing stamps, filling in blanks, and signing papers. Her eyes were dry, her throat raw. She hadn’t paused even for a sip of water since she and Père Clément returned to the church that morning.

  It had taken her an hour to study and test out the rudimentary device, which she had never used before, and another to trace the first seal she would need. Once it was embossed in the gel, though, she’d been able to imprint the false stamp on twenty-one blank birth certificates in quick succession. The second stamp had taken less time, and then it had just been a matter of giving the children new names and birth dates, and signing the documents in an illegible scrawl. As she’d worked, her mind had wandered to the fate of the children’s parents—and to her own father. How many of them were already doomed? She’d had to pause a few times to wipe away tears
before they smeared the ink on the new papers.

  “Well?” Rémy asked as he walked into the library, carrying a small bundle that smelled delicious. “I’ve brought you a bit of cheese and a potato. Have you finished some of the documents?” He set down the bundle, and Eva’s stomach rumbled.

  Eva bit back a smile. “Oh, a few.”

  “Out with it, then. How many?”

  Eva held up the stack of documents. “Twenty-one and counting.”

  Rémy stared first at her, then at the papers in her hands. “In a day’s time? But that’s impossible.”

  “See for yourself.” She handed him the stack and dug into the food, moaning as she bit into the potato, still hot from the oven.

  Rémy ignored her as he flipped through the papers, examining the first few in wide-eyed detail and then shuffling hurriedly through the rest.

  “But…” He looked up, his voice trailing off. “They’re perfect. How did you do these so quickly?”

  She was already bundling up the remainder of the cheese and half her potato; she would take them to her mother. “I’m sure I don’t know. I’m just qualified to be your lowly assistant, yes?”

  This time, she couldn’t hide her smile as she stood, gathered her sweater, and headed for the door. She was halfway across the dark church when she heard footsteps behind her. Rémy appeared at her side and put a hand on her arm. “Wait,” he said.

  She turned.

  “I’m—I’m sorry I said that. You’re—you’re clearly quite good at this, especially considering your lack of training.”

  “Well, you went all the way to Paris for me, didn’t you? Perhaps we can call it even.”

  “Will you show me how to do it?” He lowered his voice. “If we can work together…”

  “Of course.” She hesitated. “On one condition.”

  “All right…”

  “I want to keep a list of the children we are falsifying documents for. They belong to someone, all of them.”

  “Surely Père Clément has told you how dangerous it would be to record any of their real names.”