A week later, the family had taken over the house, discovered the storage cellar, and were eating Mémère’s preserves. They hadn’t bothered to tell Claudette their names. They didn’t address her. They acted as if she were made of air.

“You are thieves,” Claudette told them, and the man threw more bills at her. She shouted, “I don’t need money—there’s nothing I can buy with it!”

Only the children seemed to notice her yelling. Their mouths gaped in fright. The nanny told them, “Keep away from this witch, or she’ll cast a spell on you, turn you into grasshoppers.”

Their beautiful mother lowered her eyes whenever Claudette passed by. She no longer apologized or asked permission to collect the one egg the last chicken had laid.

The mayor had gone to serve in the war. His wife, the town’s midwife, had turned the town hall into a makeshift clinic with no doctor. “Armistice doesn’t mean the end of war, only more ruthless occupation,” she said to Claudette when she came seeking her advice. Her eyes were hollow from hunger. “I pray for it to end.”

When Claudette went to the tavern to appeal to Monsieur Lefebvre, she found him drunk again. Fleeing soldiers who had dragged themselves into town filled the barroom, their stinking uniforms bloodstained and torn. A patron turned the radio dial as another manipulated the circular wire antenna. Crackling words came through with news: The Nazis no longer bothered taking French soldiers prisoner. They just beat them senseless and took their weapons.

Then a hush fell over the room as de Gaulle, in London, broadcast a call for French resistance: “Be brave. Together we’ll defeat the enemy.”

All Claudette saw was chaos and danger.

*  *  *

The day’s heat was suffused with the dampness of a heavy rain. In her bed, Mémère shivered. Her skin had withered after her plumpness drained from underneath it. From the front room came the sounds of the two children running and squealing. “Who are the people in my house?” Mémère cried. “Are my sons back?”

“Squatters.” Claudette placed at Mémère’s feet a brick she had heated in the oven.

“Go fetch Dorothée Poincaré.”

Rain pummeled the windows. The wind thrashed the trees outside. “Now? Whatever for?” Claudette plumped Mémère’s pillow, which needed no plumping. Solange and her mother were supposed to be back from their week of traveling. The refugees bought woven boxes and suitcases, sturdier than their cardboard valises.

“Don’t tire me with your questions.” Another coughing fit seized Mémère. The phlegm she spat into a saucer was bloody. Her head dropped back on the pillow. “Ask for the priest too.”

Not the priest! Not him—and not yet! A sob broke out of Claudette. The priest never told the children who threw stones at her and Solange that it was wrong. He never spoke of the cruelty of man toward man the way the Jew did, only about man’s sins toward God. Claudette and Solange were invalides, the priest said, because they were being punished for some grave sins. The Jew, who almost never contradicted the priest’s sermons, told Claudette that her and Solange’s disabilities meant that God loved them more, not less.

Claudette crossed the front room, trying not to trip on the interlopers’ mattress and valises. In the vestibule, she picked up her cane, put on her rain cape, and grabbed an umbrella.

Her shoes filled with water as she sloshed in the streams rushing down the cobblestones. She left a message for the priest with his housekeeper, then dragged herself to Solange’s house on the other side of the village. Tilting her umbrella against the rain did little to avoid its assault.

Solange gave her a tight hug in spite of her soggy clothes. Dorothée hitched her horse to the cart, and twenty minutes later they all stood by Mémère’s bed. Her teeth chattering, Claudette took off her wet coat and toweled dry her face and hair.

Mémère was short of breath when she spoke. “You know someone at Château de Valençay, right?” she asked Dorothée.

“The cook’s first assistant, Lisette, is my cousin.”

“Please show her Claudette’s work. Maybe their seamstress can use help?”

Claudette’s jaw dropped. A château? She selected a silk rose nestled between a pair of leaves and offered it to Dorothée. Since May, no girl had ordered alterations of a dress.

“Claudette, give her also my gabardine jacket.” Mémère’s voice was weak. “The repair is so perfect. No one can tell it’s there.”

“But you need it for church!” Claudette protested.

“The only way I’ll get to church again is in a coffin.”

Claudette handed the jacket to Dorothée. A stone crushed her heart.

Before Dorothée left with samples of Claudette’s work, she addressed the man seated in the upholstered chair in the front room, smoking a pipe. His wife was reading a book. The nanny was keeping the children occupied upstairs.

“What if I get you a jerrican of petrol?” Dorothée asked the man.

He looked up, and his eyes narrowed. Blue smoke suspended over his head. “A full can?”

“I’ll sell it to you, but only when you are all packed in your car to leave.”

He glanced at the rain outside.

Dorothée started for the door. “I guess I’ll sell it to someone else.”

“No! Wait!”

Twenty-five minutes later, Claudette closed the door and leaned against it. The empty front room was suddenly quiet. The air smelled of pipe smoke. And now there was also the sour scent of the Angel of Death, waiting for Mémère to take her last breath.

Claudette hugged the dog and cried. If only the Jew would show up and make Mémère better. She wished for his quiet, reassuring presence, but she had no idea where his family lived. She didn’t even know his name.

Chapter Seven

Sharon

Cherbourg, France

September 1968

A full-figured young woman, her hair gathered at her nape, waves to Sharon and the two kibbutzniks at the Cherbourg station. She rocks an infant in her arms and says in Hebrew, “I’m Rina, the Israeli mission’s unofficial welcome committee.” She lets out a small laugh. “And this is Daphna. My husband is at sea today, testing Saar Six.”

The only other passengers disembarking at this last stop are the uniformed men with blue duffel bags. Noticing Sharon’s glance, Rina says, “The naval port is one of the largest in the world. For security reasons, the French give us anchorage facility in their protected harbor. They also host our seamen in their barrack, caserne.” She giggles. “They even supply our guys with heavy winter jackets so they won’t freeze to death in winter.”

Taking Rina’s cue that it’s now safe to speak Hebrew in public, Sharon asks, “Are you saying that the French host the Saars operation?”

A pleasant, toothy smile spreads over Rina’s face. “Embargo or not, they love us here. Come to my Rosh Hashanah dinner Sunday and meet some of the French officers. They adore my matzo ball soup.”

In Rina’s car, Sharon settles in the passenger seat, the baby in her lap. She coos and jiggles her long, beaded necklace for Daphna, then tightens her arms around the fleshy, warm little body.

Rina maneuvers the stick shift. “She’s ten months old. By the end of the year, God willing, she’ll have a brother or a sister.” Her hand flits over her bulging middle. She glances at the rearview mirror. “You guys have kids?”

“Three each,” Gideon responds. “What’s the rush to get us here? They literally pulled me away while I was milking a cow, told me to throw a toothbrush and some underwear into a bag, then drove me to the passport office. I’m not even navy—”

“They picked me up on the way,” Oded says. “And I’m a tank commander. Can’t even swim.”

“Kidnapped and taken to France. How delicious.” Rina chuckles. “Get your kishkes ready for days of sea testing when the weather isn’t good, which is often. But we have fun too. With each launch of a boat, the French throw us a big party. They even grill whole lambs. Then, weeks later, once a boat’s testing is finished and she’s ready to leave for good, we organize a farewell banquet. Lots of champagne flowing.” She glances at Sharon. “I guess you’ll take the party planning off my hands.”

Sharon wonders about the budget for this shipbuilding project. In her military unit, they saved paper clips and reused the disposable coffee filters. Here she learns of French-union salaries, travel budgets, and champagne parties. None of these war toys are free. Heavy taxes are borne by Israelis, even Savta, whose meager income from a rental property is slashed in half by taxes. Whatever money she manages to save is taxed again, taken outright from her bank account.

“I’m confused,” Sharon says. “I was told that the Saars are built in a private shipyard, but you’re talking about the French navy’s patronage.” Where is the utmost secrecy that Danny insisted on?