“I see.”

“Why don’t you think it over?” He led her toward the door, and as he opened it, leading her back into the church, she felt adrift. For a moment, she could have imagined herself in the stacks of the library in Paris, with no greater worry than completing her English degree, but now the real world was intruding once more. “If you are interested, come to the church tonight after nightfall—but you must come alone. And I swear on my life, Mademoiselle Fontain, you and your mother can trust Madame Barbier.”

“Even though she betrayed us to you?”

Père Clément walked her toward the carved front entrance and reached for the wrought iron handle. “Was it a betrayal, though? Or was she trying to save you both?”

With that question hanging in the air, he pushed the door open. The sunlight poured in, blinding Eva for a moment, and by the time she turned back around to bid the priest farewell, he had disappeared back into the depths of the church, leaving her alone with her racing thoughts.

Chapter Eight

May 2005

Ben shows up at my door thirty-five minutes after I call with the news that I’ll be departing for Berlin in less than nine hours and would appreciate a ride to the airport.

“Mom, are you insane?” he asks without preamble when I open the door to find him standing on my doorstep, sweat beading on his forehead in the Florida heat. “You’re just hopping on a plane to Germany and I’m supposed to act like that’s normal?”

“I don’t care how you act,” I reply with a shrug. “I only care that you drive me to the airport. You’re quite early, though, dear.”

“Mom, you’re being ridiculous.” He steps inside and I shut the door behind him, bracing for an argument. The older he gets—well, the older I get—the more he believes he knows what’s best for me. Our latest battle of wills, which is still ongoing, is the one in which he attempts to convince me to move into an assisted-living facility for my own good. But why should I? I’m in full control of my mental faculties; my vision and hearing are nearly as good as they were half a lifetime ago; I walk to work and am perfectly capable of driving myself to the store and to doctors’ appointments. Sure, I had to give up mowing the lawn three year ago when I suffered an embarrassing episode of heatstroke, but there’s a nice landscape man who takes care of things now and only charges me sixty dollars a month.

“I don’t see what the problem is,” I tell him, turning my back as I head toward my bedroom, where my suitcase lies open on the bed. “I need to pack, dear.”

My room is lined with books, most of them stacked in precarious piles on the bowing bookshelves Louis assembled years ago. They are filled with other people’s stories, and I’ve spent my life disappearing into them. Sometimes, when the nights are dark and silent and I’m alone, I wonder if I would have survived without the escape their pages offered me from reality. Then again, perhaps they just gave me an excuse to duck out of my own life.

“Mom,” Ben says, following me into the bedroom. “Help me to understand what you’re doing. Why Germany? Why now? You’ve never mentioned Germany before!” He sounds frantic, but also annoyed with me, perturbed that I have disrupted his day.

I pull a dove-gray wool cardigan from the bottom drawer of my bureau. Does it get chilly in Berlin this time of year? I fold it carefully and place it in my suitcase. “There are many things I’ve never mentioned about my past, Ben.”

Ben, who’s fifty-two now, was born long after I packed away the remnants of the life I once knew. In the way that children often can’t conceive of their parents as independent beings with dreams and desires of their own, Ben has never really known me. He knew the pieces I chose to give to him, the body that nursed him, the voice that scolded him, the hands that soothed him. But there is so much more to me, pieces that had nothing to do with my role as his mother, pieces I never let him see.

“Fine,” Ben says, raking his hand through his hair, which is still thick and dark, unlike his father’s. Louis was nearly bald by his midforties, though he tried valiantly to cover the majority of his head with a combed swirl from the back. I never had the heart to tell him how silly it looked. “So let’s do this, Mom: Why don’t you just wait a few weeks, and I’ll go with you, all right? I’ll have to move a few things around, and it will be difficult, but if it’s that crucial to you…”

“I believe we’ve already established that you’re very busy and important,” I say mildly. In this, I know I have failed him. I love him more than anyone on earth, but time has shown me that I made a mistake in letting him learn his priorities from his father while I lost myself in books. Where was I when he needed to learn about courage and faith and bravery? He’s a good man—I know he is—but he cares too much about success and too little about the things we can find in our hearts, and that is never who I was.

“Mom, not this again.” His tone is weary. “I know you think that caring about my job is a fault, but I happen to enjoy my work. That’s not a sin.”

I ignore him as I fold a charcoal-gray dress into my suitcase, followed by a lilac one. They’re dresses that I bought years ago because they reminded me of the past, so it seems appropriate to bring them since that’s where I’m headed tonight. “Ben,” I say, “have I ever told you about my mother?”

Now he’s raking both hands through his hair, and I’m reminded of a mad scientist. “What does that have to do with anything?” When I don’t answer, he sighs, dropping his hands in apparent defeat. “No, Mom. Not really. I mean, I know she was French…”

“No, she was Polish. As was my father.”

He looks confused for a second. “Right. Of course. But they moved to France when they were young, right?”

I nod. “Yes, but that’s not what I mean. I’ve never really told you about her, have I? The way she used to dance in our kitchen when she thought no one was watching, the sound of her laugh? I haven’t told you about the color of her eyes—Ben, they were the deepest brown, like dark chocolate—or the way she always smelled like vanilla and roses.” I can feel him staring at me as I pause to draw a breath. “She used to fear being erased, like it was the worst fate in the world. And what have I done by not sharing her with you? I’ve been erasing her all these years, haven’t I? Do you even know her name?”

“Mom.” Ben’s voice is flat. “You’re scaring me. What’s all this talk about your mother?”

“It was Faiga. Her name was Faiga.” He clearly thinks I’m unraveling. I stare at him for a moment, and alongside the compassion and concern in his eyes, I also see distraction. He’s thinking about all the things he has to do, about what every minute here is costing him. And so I realize that the only choice is to be honest with him. Sort of. “Ben, dear, if it will make you feel better, I will change my trip.”

“Yes, Mom, that would be great. We can talk about this tonight, okay? And you can tell me all about why you suddenly need to go to a country you have no connection to.” His patronizing tone is back, which alleviates some of my guilt.

“Whatever you say, dear,” I say. I step closer and pull him in for a tight hug. He erases me, just like I erased my own mother, by giving himself permission to see me as something I’m not. He looks at me and sees someone incapable of taking care of herself. But that’s not who I am. “I love you, Ben,” I add as he heads for the door.

“Love you, too, Mom.” He flashes me a smile. “Don’t do anything crazy while I’m gone, all right?”

“Sure, dear,” I say. As soon as I close the door behind him, I reach for the phone and call the main number for Delta. Ten minutes later, I’m rebooked on the 3:11 flight today, leaving six hours earlier and arriving in Berlin at 10:50 tomorrow morning after a connection in New York. I didn’t exactly lie to Ben, I reassure myself. I am changing my flight, just like I said.

And as I learned long ago, the truth is in the nuances. I call a taxi and throw some toiletries into my bag while I wait for my future to begin.

Chapter Nine

July 1942

“You must do what this priest says,” Mamusia said after Eva had retrieved her from the bookstore and recapped the story of the church meeting in their shared room at the boardinghouse. “It’s for your father.” On the walk home, the midday sun had made the town shimmer, the barrel clay tile roofs glowing in the light like they were on fire.

“This wouldn’t just be about Tatu?, I think. Père Clément will expect something in return.”

“So you will help him forge a few other documents,” Mamusia said after a pause. “How long will that take? A day? Two? After that, we must go. We’ll all leave for Switzerland together.”

Eva nodded, but she wasn’t sure it would be that easy.