The Book of Lost Names

by Kristin Harmel

  She thought of her mother. “I’m not sure how much longer I can stay.”

  “Remember that God’s plan for you might be different than the plan you have for yourself.”

  Eva nodded. She wanted to believe that there was something in store for her, a greater design for her life, but how could any of this be God’s plan? Then again, hadn’t God’s hand been present in steering Eva here, to Aurignon, to a church where she’d somehow found a home and a way to be useful? She wanted to ask Père Clément if he feared, as she did, that God had turned his back on them, but she wasn’t sure she could bear the answer. “How did you become involved in helping people like me?” she asked instead.

  He smiled. “I come from Paris, as you do. I’d been here for five years already when the war began, and I heard right away from my contacts in the occupied zone how terrible things were becoming. There’s no strategic significance to Aurignon—we’re in the hills, on the way to nowhere—and so I suggested to some old friends that they might hide out here.”

  “Hide out?”

  He shrugged and gave her a small smile. “One of them had made the faux pas of striking a Nazi soldier in the Métro, and the Germans were hunting him. He was to be executed, along with his brother, who had been there at the time and did nothing to help.”

  “Your friend hit a Nazi? Is he a priest, too?”

  Père Clément laughed. “No. An old schoolmate. Not a bad fellow, but when he and his brother got here, I reminded him that perhaps the best way to take on the enemy is not literally to his face, but beneath his nose.

  “In any case, he needed to get out of France before the Germans caught up with him,” the priest continued as Eva smiled. “He came with his own false papers, so all I had to do was to connect him and his brother with a passeur to get them across the border to Switzerland, an easy enough task. But the night before he and his brother departed, we stayed up late with a bottle of wine, and before he went to bed, he asked if I would be interested in helping more of his friends. He said that he had already vouched for me, and that if I was willing, a network he knew of might like to begin sending people south to Aurignon when the need arose. I imagined I might encounter one or two résistants a month, and so I agreed, grateful to be able to help the cause in some way.

  “But when he got word back to Paris that I was open to helping, it was as if the floodgates had been opened. A man with a British accent came the following week and asked me many questions, and then the refugees began arriving. Résistants at first, and then Jews. Even a few pilots who had been shot down over northern France and were trying to get back home. There were others sent to develop a network here, to assess who could be trusted and who should be involved. And when the volume of people began to increase, they sent me Rémy.”

  “Rémy?”

  Père Clément nodded. “He was part of a group in Paris, and he’d begun to make a name for himself as a forger, but there were others there who were faster and better, and well, as you know, Rémy has a bit of an issue with his pride. I think perhaps he shot off his mouth one too many times to the wrong people. But the network couldn’t lose such a skilled forger, and so they reassigned him to Aurignon.”

  “As a punishment, you mean?” Eva asked.

  “I prefer to think of it as an opportunity,” Père Clément said with a smile. “As does Rémy, I hope. Whatever happened, their loss is our gain. As much as I sometimes enjoy suggesting otherwise, he’s talented and dedicated. And though a whole network has developed here, Rémy remains the one person I truly trust with my life.”

  Eva opened her mouth to ask why, but she realized that she knew the answer to her own question. She’d only known Rémy for a short time, and already he had come to her rescue and proven himself an ally. He was brash, but she also sensed that once he had decided you were on his side, he would be fiercely loyal.

  “As you said, Rémy is one of the good ones,” Père Clément said. “And I think, Eva, that you are one of the good ones, too. There’s danger in being principled in the midst of a war, but I believe that it’s more dangerous not to be.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He seemed to be searching for the words. “I mean that I would rather die knowing I tried to do the right thing than live knowing I had turned my back. Do you understand?”

  A shiver ran through Eva. Though he hadn’t explicitly said it, she had the feeling he was asking whether she felt the same. But did she? Was this a cause worth laying her life down for? And even if it was, would she regret her choices if she found herself on the wrong end of a Nazi rifle one day? Was it a mistake to ally herself with this near-stranger, or was it where her life had always been leading? After all, what were the odds that she had landed right in the path of an escape network that needed a skilled forger?

  And so she took a deep breath and glanced at the faded leather-bound book that lay before them, the one that would hold secrets and perhaps one day restore lives. “I do,” she said at last. “I do, and I think that perhaps I am exactly where I am meant to be.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  May 2005

  Iam exactly where I am meant to be. I had spoken those words to Père Clément more than six decades ago, and they haunt me still, drifting back in my native tongue whenever I believe, even for a moment, that I can lay the past to rest.

  Sixty-three years ago, in the midst of a war, I made a choice to stay in Aurignon, a choice that would forever change my life. And now, here I am again, sitting at a gate in the Orlando International Airport, waiting for my world to alter irrevocably once more. Life turns on the decisions we make, the single moments that transform everything.

  It’s not too late for me to change my mind this time. I could turn around, go home. I could let the past go, let the ghosts sleep, call Ben, tell him I won’t be going to Berlin. That would be the simple thing to do, and goodness knows, I’ve picked the easy way out more often than not in the years since I left France.

  When I chose a future with Louis, boarding a boat to America, working hard to lose my French accent, trying my best to assimilate, I thought it would be relatively simple to leave the past behind. After all, hadn’t I become a master of changing identities by then? Furthermore, Aurignon was an ocean away, and I could count the time since Rémy had died first in months, then in years, then in decades. It was all supposed to get easier, to eventually disappear behind me.

  But it didn’t. It never has. And now the time has come to reclaim at least some of what I lost.

  As I wipe sudden tears away, my eyes alight on a little boy, perhaps three or four years old, who is lying on the floor, scribbling in a coloring book at the feet of a woman three seats away from me. His hair is curly and chestnut brown, just like Ben’s was when he was a little boy, and when he glances up at me and smiles, my heart skips, because for a second, the years are erased, and I see my son just as he looked all those years ago. I must stare for too long, though, for the little boy’s eyes widen in confusion, then in quick succession, he frowns and bursts into tears.

  His mother looks up from her magazine. “Jay, sweetie, what is it?”

  “That lady.” He points at me. “She was looking at me funny.”

  I look at the mother in horror. “I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “No, no, he’s just upset because I wouldn’t buy him candy for the flight,” the mother says quickly. “Jay, honey, be polite.” She smiles an apology, and I can see that she’s exhausted. I remember feeling like that with Ben in his first few years, too, wondering whether I’d ever feel like myself again. But here we are, decades later, and I still have no idea what that’s supposed to feel like. Who am I, anyhow? The student? The forger? The dutiful wife with no past? The tired old librarian who should see the writing on the wall and retire? Maybe I’m none of those people, or perhaps I’m all of them.

  I shake off the unanswerable questions and force a smile. “He reminds me of my son.” When the woman’s forehead creases, I clarify,
“Well, my Ben is fifty-two now, but a long time ago, he looked very much like your little boy.”

  “Ah.” The woman nods and ruffles her son’s hair. He has already returned his attention to his coloring, trading a red crayon for a turquoise one to color a cow that reminds me of one of the characters in Click, Clack, Moo, a picture book I’ve been recommending to library patrons for the past five years. There’s something almost miraculous about seeing a child’s eyes light up when you hand him a book that intrigues him. I’ve always thought that it’s those children—the ones who realize that books are magic—who will have the brightest lives.

  “Does he like books?” I ask abruptly. “Your son?” I find myself hoping fervently that he does.

  The woman looks at me again, but her expression is more guarded now. “I read to him most nights,” she says slowly. She adds, “He’s too young to read himself,” as if I might not realize that a preschooler likely isn’t yet flying solo through chapter books.

  “Of course. I’m a librarian, you see,” I tell her, and her face softens a bit. “I just meant, well, it’s always nice when children love books. Books change the world, I think.”

  The woman nods and returns to her magazine, effectively ending our conversation. I look at my watch—five minutes until we’re due to board—and then out the window, where our fat-bellied jet shimmers on the tarmac in the afternoon sun. I tap my feet, jiggle my shoulders, try to shake off the nerves. I feel like a fish out of water, a fish who has no idea how to swim to the place she needs to go.

  My eyes settle on little Jay again. I made so many mistakes with Ben when he was small, mistakes that can’t be undone, because they formed the very core of who he is. I wish a better future for Jay, but the thing is, parents make all sorts of errors, because our ability to raise our children is always colored by the lives we’ve lived before they came along.

  I feel a surge of guilt. I can’t leave without telling my son, even if he has never really seen me for who I am. That’s my fault, not his. I dig my cell phone out of my purse and dial his number. I take a deep breath, waiting as his phone rings twice and then clicks over to a recording of his voice. I frown. He has sent me to voice mail.

  I waver before hanging up. It’s for the best. What if he talked me out of this? What if he insisted I come home? Would I have done it? Would I have traded my past away once again, ignoring the siren song of Aurignon? I might have, and I would have regretted it forever.

  A tinny voice comes over the loudspeaker. “Now boarding, Delta Flight 2634 to New York JFK from gate 76.” My heart thuds as I stand. The passengers around me begin to move toward the queue, jostling to get the best position in line, but I hesitate. This is it. If I board this flight, there will be no going back. My connection time in New York is short, and I’ll be too busy rushing to my Berlin gate to reconsider.

  “Ma’am, do you need extra assistance with boarding?” A solicitous Delta employee appears at my shoulder, peering at me with the wide eyes of a twentysomething. “Perhaps a wheelchair to help you down the jetway?”

  “No, thank you, I can take care of myself, dear,” I say with artificial saccharine, though I know my annoyance is with Ben and young people everywhere, not just her. “I don’t have a foot in the grave just yet.”

  My phone begins to vibrate just as she shrugs and walks away. I dig it out of my purse and see Ben’s name illuminated on the caller ID. I hesitate, my thumb hovering over the screen. Then, before I can stop myself, I reject the call and turn the phone off.

  I can’t turn my back on the past any longer. And so I put one foot in front of the other and join the queue snaking toward the plane. It’s time.

  Chapter Sixteen

  November 1942

  By the time the leaves finished falling that November, the Germans and Italians had invaded the free zone, and all of France was under Axis control. Now refugees could find no more safety in the south than they had in Paris, which meant that those arriving in Aurignon had even less time to waste; they needed to get quickly across the Swiss border. And there were more of them than ever trying to make the journey, which was an increasing problem.

  In August, the Swiss had closed their borders and then opened them again before finally slamming them shut—officially, anyhow—on the twenty-sixth of September. Now Switzerland would only accept elderly, pregnant, or sick refugees, as well as unaccompanied children and families with children younger than sixteen. Border controls had tightened, and to make it to Switzerland, those trying to flee had to travel through an increasingly dangerous chunk of France.

  Despite the fact that Mamusia had begged her to reconsider, Eva had decided to stay in Aurignon for at least a few months to help Père Clément, and Mamusia had grudgingly stayed with her—a decision that had inadvertently become more permanent with the closing of the Swiss border. Now, even with spotless false documents, a woman in her twenties and a woman in her forties would be hard-pressed to enter Switzerland, which meant that Eva and Mamusia were effectively trapped.

  “How will we get your father out now?” Mamusia moaned sometimes at night after murmuring her nightly prayers, as they lay beside each other in the small boardinghouse bed. “What have you done, Eva?” It was enough to keep Eva endlessly treading the deep, dark waters of guilt. Still, she couldn’t turn her back on the work, which became more vital by the day.

  Eva and Rémy spent nearly every day together, working as fast as they could, but they couldn’t keep up with the increasing demand. It wasn’t just Jews who needed papers anymore, either. At least once a month, their network received a wounded pilot, usually from Britain, sometimes from Canada or the United States, who could barely speak French, and increasingly, the young people working for the Resistance found themselves in desperate need of cover identities and false papers to avoid the service du travail obligatoire, the STO, which required men between eighteen and fifty and unmarried women under thirty-five to be available for forced labor in Germany. For a man under twenty-five, it was relatively easy to buy a year or two by fabricating papers that listed him as under eighteen, but for the men who looked older than teenagers, it was more difficult; they had to establish a trail of papers identifying them as farmers, students, or even doctors, which exempted them from being shipped east. Women were easier; they weren’t usually called up, but in case they were, they simply required invented husbands whose paperwork trails would hold up to scrutiny.

  But the false papers that meant the most were the ones they crafted meticulously for the children. Their book of names was growing by the day.

  “Thank you,” Eva said to Rémy one day as they worked side by side on a new batch of orphans who had arrived that week in Aurignon from Paris, where fifteen hundred Jews had just been arrested. Eva was in the middle of making a birth certificate for a three-year-old girl who had been born just after Germany invaded Poland; she had never known a world without war.

  He was sitting close enough to her that their elbows touched, though there was plenty of room at the table. She had found herself lately fighting the urge to move closer to him, and it seemed as if he was doing the same. They had become virtually inseparable. He was her first thought in the morning, and the last person she thought of at night as she fell asleep. Mamusia had warned her about him—You shouldn’t be spending so much time alone with a young man, and one who’s not Jewish at that!—but Eva had come to trust him more than she had trusted anyone in her life.

  “Thank you for what?” Rémy asked, looking up from a batch of ration cards he was systematically erasing with lactic acid. The room was swimming in the acrid odor, but Eva hardly noticed anymore.

  “For believing in me.” She felt foolish the moment the words were out of her mouth.

  He turned to her, so close that she could see the flecks of green in the irises of his hazel eyes. “Of course I believe in you.” He looked puzzled.

  “I mean about the Book of Lost Names. About why we need to record who the children are before we cha
nge their identities.”

  He frowned and looked at the birth certificate she was holding. It was only then that she noticed she was trembling. “The Book of Lost Names?” Rémy placed his hands gently over hers and held on until the paper stopped shaking. “Eva, the fact that it’s so important to you…” He trailed off as he looked into her eyes. “It says so much about who you are. And I’m glad to be your partner in all this.”

  He took his hands away, and she exhaled, but her heart was still racing. It felt as if all the oxygen had disappeared from the room. She took a deep breath, but she sucked in a mouthful of chemicals along with the air, and it made her cough so hard that she doubled over. Rémy patted her back, and when she finally stopped and straightened up, he kept his hand there, his thumb moving in small, gentle circles along her backbone. Goose bumps prickled her skin as their eyes met again.

  “Eva—” he began, his voice low and husky.

  Suddenly the room felt too small, too warm, and she pulled back. She couldn’t seem to look away, though, and he continued to hold her gaze. “Wh-what is it?” she stammered, her heart thudding.

  He continued looking into her eyes in a way that made her feel as if he could see straight into her soul. “It’s important you understand that we are not taking away the children’s identities. The Nazis are doing that. We are giving them a chance to live. Never forget that.”

  She blinked at him. “But in changing who they are—”

  “We don’t change who they are.” He touched her hand again, and when he let her go, she had to stop herself from reaching for him immediately. “You and I have changed our names, too, but it doesn’t change who we are in here.” He touched her gently, just beneath her collarbone and above her heart, and her pulse raced. “It doesn’t change how we feel.”

  “I’m not the same person I used to be, though,” Eva said. “I’ve only been gone from Paris for four months, and I wonder sometimes if I would even recognize the old me.” She hesitated and added, “If my father comes back, will he think I’ve changed too much?”