Lucie stared boldly at the camera, her hair smooth and parted down the middle, braided into a single plait. Vera still remembered the struggle to brush out her hair that morning before school, with Lucie screaming and pulling away, and Max, as always, trying to cajole her into submission.
Vera’s hand shook when she wrote under the photograph: Lucie Volosenkova, age 9, last seen in Oradour-sur-Glane, September 1942. Please kindly contact Katja Donnadieu, 18 Rue Saint-Benoit, Paris, 6th arrondissement with any information.
* * *
• • •
After this, Vera went to Katja’s apartment. The place was a salve with its scent of cigarette smoke and lemon verbena, the dented-in pillows, the comfortable disorder of books and coffee cups and filled-up ashtrays stashed in unlikely alcoves. When Katja opened the door, exclaiming that she had worried Vera wasn’t going to come, in that scolding sisterly way of hers, Vera fell into her arms, explaining everything that she had seen over the past days, the words tumbling out faster than her thoughts.
Katja led her into the living room and sat her down on the couch, bringing her a cool glass of water. She sat next to her, chin in her palm, listening to Vera describe Oradour-sur-Glane, with its the bullet-ridden altar, and the ghostly refugees at the Lutetia, and that wall of photographs. The afternoon deepened, the light falling onto the carpet in fluctuating prismatic shadows.
Outside, the wind sifted through the trees.
“Vera,” Katja finally said after a long pause, “what are you going to do now?” She snapped off a purple grape from its stem.
Vera leaned back into the couch. “Perhaps I should return to Oradour, to see if I can find out anything more about Lucie. Ask around in the neighboring villages.” She paused. “Sasha also put me in touch with someone who might help. His name is Gussie. He fought in the Resistance; they met during the war. I’m seeing him soon.”
Katja nodded. “And also, go back to the Lutetia. Go there every day. You never know, you might speak to someone more helpful, someone who knows more information.” Katja gestured for Vera to eat, but her stomach clenched, thinking of that “wall of absents,” as they had called it.
Katja cocked her head, listening for her husband, who lay in the next room, wrapped in a heavy blanket on the divan, cushioned on all sides. “He can’t bear the weight of his own body. When the sun shines, I can see through his hands.”
Vera leaned forward and touched Katja’s arm. “What was it like here, during the war? How did you manage?”
Katja ran her fingers through her short dark hair. “It was so quiet. And dark. Most of our friends, you know, were gone, the cafés stood empty, and an odd hush fell over the streets. We were all afraid to look at one another, as if a glance held too long would reveal the shame we felt, living under the Germans. The street minstrels and the flower sellers had vanished, and the little markets all shut, because of the rations. We rarely went out. But we tried to carry on with our lives. And then, after Robert was captured in the beginning of February, I was a wreck. I couldn’t eat or sleep. They put him in Fresnes, a prison outside of Paris. The war seemed nearly over, and yet they had caught him. I was sure they would kill him because it was near the end and that’s what they do.”
Katja leapt up and pressed her ear against the door of the study, where Robert rested. “His voice is so faint, sometimes I can’t hear him,” she said, opening it a crack. Pausing, she peered into the dim room.
Then her gaze settled back on Vera. “No one eats in this house. Please, have some.”
Vera took a piece of bread, holding it in her hand, while Katja described that when Robert returned, the concierge had made him a clafoutis, with fresh cherries, but he couldn’t eat it. The weight of the food would have torn through his stomach.
Katja seemed calmer as she began to prepare Robert’s broth. The business of placing the pot on the stove and measuring out exact amounts of water and bone marrow, lighting the flame and watching it take, and then monitoring the dance of the flickering heat consumed her. She hummed as she worked, a nursery rhyme.
Vera watched Katja thinly slice radishes and leeks, considering the essential difference between them. Katja had nearly lost her husband, but he returned in the final moment. They could have a life together again, despite his intermittent fevers and enlarged heart and skin that turned translucent in the sun. As she prepared the broth and cut the vegetables and poured wine for herself and Vera, a silvery blue calm settled over the apartment, the same calm Vera used to feel when Lucie fell asleep against her chest, their breath merged into one breath, their hearts synchronized in a slow steady beating. As on those long, wordless afternoons, when their shared silence carried its own internal music, she now felt no need to fill the space with artificial questions or commentary, but drew pleasure from watching Katja complete these simple tasks, almost as if Vera herself now prepared dinner for Lucie, careful to manage the flame, the amount of salt, willing each bite to taste delicate and supple.
Chapter 43
LUCIE
Early July 1945, St. Denis Convent, Southwestern France
Summer was soft, redolent with fig and sap, gardenia and rosemary, trees heavy with foliage, the grass so green it hurt to look at it for too long. Lucie sensed movement—laughter, games, chasing—occurring outside the window, which was half covered by a muslin curtain that occasionally lifted with the breeze, bringing the sounds closer and then farther away.
After the trip to Paris, she spent most of the day on her cot in the dormitory watching the progression of shadows shift and flicker across the whitewashed wall, sometimes seeing that wall of photographs transposed onto it: the baby mouthing a silver rattle, the handsome couple posing in a garden, a girl who looked just like her sitting on a chair holding a book.
She shuddered, often thinking about all those emaciated men milling around the hotel, in those terrible striped pajamas, and the hard expression on the woman’s face when she spoke to Sister Helene, and then the deep dread that spread through her when she realized that her parents weren’t coming for her . . . Maybe they had forgotten her, or something worse had happened, despite Sister Helene’s encouraging words that perhaps they were still trying to make their way back to Paris, from wherever they had gone. A wave of nausea rose up from the pit of her stomach, a blotchy darkness swam before her eyes, and then she reached out for Sister Helene.
She had come to on a chaise longue, a Red Cross nurse pressing a cool compress to her forehead and explaining in lowered tones to Sister Helene that she needed rest, and this was no place for children. Lucie felt calmer, looking into the nurse’s deep-set oval eyes the color of turquoise. She wanted to keep staring into the beautiful color, as if looking into an ocean.
On the train ride back, Lucie asked if her parents would ever come for her, unable to ask the real question that ran beneath it: Were they dead?
Sister Helene bit her lip and recited a verse from Second Peter, about the Lord not being slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness, and that He is always patient, and He does not want anyone to perish.
* * *
• • •
Despite Camille’s efforts to draw her out, Lucie insisted on remaining in the dormitory room, on her cot near the window. Camille brought her fuzzy peaches, dumping them onto the bed, and once Camille cupped her palms, filled with crushed rosemary, over Lucie’s nose, making Lucie smell what was left of summer. She also reported any gossip, meager as it was, hoping to interest Lucie in school again. The teachers no longer called on Lucie because she barely spoke anymore, slumping sullenly at her desk. She only spoke to Camille, and even that was an effort.
Today, Camille burst into the dormitory. Along the wall, the shadows elongated, signaling the waning afternoon, and Lucie looked forward to the night, when sleep would take her.
Camille’s eyes brightened when she sat down on the edge of the cot, clutching a bunch
of wildflowers. She smelled of grass and sunlight, a missive of scents from the outside world.
“I have to tell you something.” She glanced around, as if other pupils were crowding the room, but of course it was empty, as it always was at this hour.
Lucie raised her eyebrows.
“I overheard Sister Ismerie talking to Sister Helene about you. She’s worried that you might fall back into the hands of the Jews”—Camille suppressed a giggle—“who are sending orphaned children to Palestine.”
“Palestine,” Lucie repeated. The place sounded biblical, dipped in gold.
Camille squeezed her hand. Hard. “My parents are coming to get me at the end of July. I just received a letter from them. You should come with us.”
“To live?”
“We have to stick together. Otherwise, Sister Ismerie will keep you here. And after all,” Camille continued, mimicking Sister Ismerie’s ponderous voice, “Lucie was baptized before coming to this convent, and to protect her soul, she now belongs to the Roman Catholic faith, and it is my responsibility to look after that soul . . . to save it.” Camille burst into laughter, drawing her bruised knees into her chest, her chin resting there. “Wasn’t that good?”
Lucie nodded, still looking down, unsure of what to say. She couldn’t imagine being here without Camille, but she also couldn’t imagine what lay ahead, and if Camille’s parents would like her, if they even wanted her.
Sensing her discomfort, Camille asked if she wanted to play the remembering game, which had continued between them as a kind of ritual.
Lucie shook her head.
“Come on. I’ll go first.”
She didn’t want to play. The images had grown so faint now, she wasn’t even sure those things had ever existed. Perhaps they were just memories of memories that she’d made up.
“What do you remember about the house on the sea?”
Lucie looked out at the trees full of overripe fruit. And then her gaze settled on a lone lemon tree. “I remember a low stone wall. And lemon trees.”
“Oh,” Camille said, clapping her hands together. “That’s new.”
The image had just come to her, oddly accompanied by the sound of a piano playing in the background. She shut her eyes tightly, willing more to emerge. Nothing. She sighed, pressing her palms into her temples. “Your turn. What was it like, before the war?”
Camille flopped onto her back, her tan arms folded over her head. “Oh, I don’t know. School was school. Boring as ever. But I still remember my old desk that had a heart carved into it with the initials A + P. I always wondered who A and P were.”
“Hmmm.” Lucie played with a strand of Camille’s hair, scrutinizing it.
“What do you remember about your mother?”
Lucie twisted the golden strand around her fourth finger. “She had a wedding band that she always wore stacked on top of another band, all diamonds, that glittered in the light. Two rings in one. I always wanted to wear her rings, but she was afraid I would lose them. I think I lost a lot of things when I was little. I think I was forgetful and not very careful.”
“Oh,” Camille said, unsure what to say next. The moment felt precarious.
Lucie studied the worn coverlet, a faded white. “I remember long silk dresses and fur throws. And these kid leather gloves, the color of butter, that she always left on the foyer table when she came home.” She paused. “I can’t remember her face. Or what she smelled like.”
Camille nodded.
Lucie finally looked her in the eye. “Your mother seemed nice when she came here. Is she?”
“Oh, yes,” Camille said. “But she was always too busy for a dog. Or for a little sister. Papa wanted another for a long time. Now it’s too late.” She smiled awkwardly, as if she shouldn’t have said that last part.
* * *
• • •
The late-afternoon light cast a glow over the room, which soon filled with the other girls bustling inside to wash before supper, carrying the heat of the day with them, tossing their sun-drenched blouses into hampers, their chatter as dense as the twittering of birds outside.
Lucie silently watched them teasing one another about some local boys from the village, their movements buoyant, as hair was brushed and ribbons tied and collars straightened. Camille blended into the tumult, suddenly so far away from her, a blur of gold and white.
Chapter 44
VERA
July 1945, Paris, France
A moist warm wind wafted through the trees, and Vera tilted back her head, catching the sun on her face to calm her nerves. She was waiting for Gussie. He had finally been able to meet, but as the minutes ticked by, she started to fear that he had forgotten. She had been back to Hotel Lutetia every day for the last two weeks, but nothing, and she now waited anxiously for Gussie to suggest another path forward.
A man in a rumpled suit strode toward her, much younger than Vera had imagined, with that disheveled hair all the young men preferred these days. A smile spread over his face when he saw Vera. After they shook hands and he kissed her on both cheeks, he remarked that the city must seem quite different to her.
“Yes,” she said, “I feel like a stranger, walking around these streets, with so many gone . . .”
“It’s entirely Americanized,” he remarked before settling down in the chair opposite her. “Well,” he said, “when Sasha first wrote to me about your daughter, the war hadn’t even ended—it was very difficult to communicate about anything, as many of these operations were underground. But now the main objective is to unify families, and repatriate them back to their countries of origin. Over the last few days, I’ve done a bit more digging,” he said, following the flash of the waitress’s thigh as she strode toward them with menus.
Sweat gathered in Vera’s palms, and her heart accelerated, while at the same time, she knew this was only the beginning; she shouldn’t put so much stock into one lead, one contact. The search would be long and arduous, and if she did this every time even a hint of information emerged, it would flatten her.
Gussie crossed one leg over the other, and before he could continue, Vera blurted out, “I know how hopeless it seems.”
He stirred a teaspoon of honey through his espresso and continued to stir for longer than necessary, nodding thoughtfully. “There has to be a survivor who’s willing to talk, who might remember if Lucie was still living in Oradour at the time of the massacre.” Gussie added, “Sasha already put in a cable to our old CO, who’s at Hotel Bedford, to get us a list of those survivors.”
From a distance, Sasha was working quietly on her behalf, and she felt a rush of affection for him, thinking about the way he gestured excitedly when he explained a scene, or how he paced a room when he was nervous, and how, when they sat down for dinner, he looked at her as if she held his heart in her hands.
“The hope being,” Vera continued, touching the familiar ridge of the pearl-studded combs that held her chignon in place, “she might not have been there?”
The waitress appeared, and for an instant, Vera envied her clear, untroubled face. Gussie beamed up at her, ordering a round of aperitifs, his voice warming with charm and performance. He lifted up a knee, and cradled it with intertwined fingers. “Yes, that’s what we want to know. And you should talk to Madeleine Dreyfus, over at the OSE.”
“The OSE?” Vera repeated.
“Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants,” he said, and then rattled off the address.
Vera took a ragged breath, wishing Sasha were next to her so she could hold his hand, feel his warmth. She had shrugged off her cardigan, but now shivered in the cool wind. The sun disappeared behind the stone buildings, the footfall of women’s high heels striking the sidewalk as they rushed home, and for an instant, Vera remembered being one of these women, in another life. She took out her pad of paper and pencil and asked Gussie to repeat the address of the OSE
.
“And you’ve been to the Lutetia?” Gussie asked, gathering up his bag and umbrella.
“Of course,” she replied.
“You posted a photograph with a message about Lucie: her age, where she was last seen, et cetera?”
Vera nodded.
“And nothing?”
“Nothing.”
* * *
• • •
After Gussie left, she walked toward the Seine, the bells of Notre-Dame clanging. The air was soft, carrying the scents of the city: linden trees and petrol, sautéed sorrels and wine. She caught a whiff of roasted pheasant, and her mouth watered even though her stomach tightened with tension—she could barely bring herself to eat anything. She thought of California: the rugged sun-drenched mountains, the pure blue ocean, the simplicity of people’s faces, with their bright, quick intimacy, conversations under which Vera could slide her sadness.
She inhaled the murky gritty scent of the Seine as she crossed Saint-Germain-des-Prés. In the distance, Notre-Dame’s Gothic spires remained untouched, as beautiful to the Germans as she found them now. American jazz streamed out of an open window, the sonorous trumpet enriching the air. She avoided walking in the direction of her old neighborhood, the 7th arrondissement, a short stroll away. But the place had a gravitational pull, promising it would look and feel the same when she knew it didn’t. But Gussie had suggested she return to her old apartment again. He urged her to talk to the concierge, not just to the boy who had helped her last time, to make sure there wasn’t any news of Lucie, but she retorted that no one wanted the Jews back in France. “If we were all to come back, then the French would have to relinquish what they stole from us,” she said sharply, and Gussie glanced away, not wanting to talk about it.
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