She sniffled and nodded. “The guard’s mother’s house was near the camp. I heard the trains and knew—I just knew that my family had been taken away. I felt remorse. I missed them so much and regretted leaving. I wanted to be deported on a train, too, so I could find them in their new camp.” Rivka sobbed. “I was bored without Bettina. There was not even a piece of paper and a pencil to draw.”

“Do you like to draw?”

“I was good at it once.”

Uzi made a mental note to ask Robert Weintraub for a sketch pad and colored pencils.

She went on. “I took care of the guard’s mother for about two years, until she died. I didn’t know then how lucky I was that the old woman had been kind to me, and her son brought us food from the camp’s kitchen.”

She blotted her eyes with Uzi’s handkerchief.

“The guard always warned me not to be seen by the police. He said that they shot Jews. For my protection, after his mother died, he found me a new job with another family.” Rivka’s shoulders shook. “They had five older boys.”

Cold traversed Uzi’s spine. He imagined the vicious Vichy police outside and the beasts of men inside, and this child, then thirteen, repeatedly raped with no relief. He wished he could gather her in his arms. “You’ll love Eretz Israel,” he said, “and you’ll make a new life.” Was healing possible for a girl whose childhood had been eviscerated so cruelly?

Chapter Forty-Three

Sharon

Cherbourg, France

December 1968

The first thirty minutes Sharon spends on calculus with Danny are torture. As much as she tries to concentrate, her mind is on another track. He explains something, but in her head she’s asking him, Do you know that your name used to be Benjamin-Pierre Pelletier? Did your father ever tell you that a man named Florian Robillard relinquished his parental rights to you? Robillard must have been your adoptive father, but Pelletier is not a Jewish name—did your Jewish mother marry a Christian? What Christian would have tattooed you with the Star of David?

“You are not paying attention,” Danny says, his one eyebrow raised in amusement. “I’m talking basic stuff, the level you must have already studied.”

“I scored ninety-five, but it was two and a half years ago.” She presses on her temples, hating the idea that he thinks she’s stupid. For months, she’s been trying to excel in his eyes, feasting on every word of praise, and now she’s blowing it. There is the name of a witness on the letter, Evelyne Therrien. Perhaps she was Uzi’s landlady? He said her name started with a T. “I’m sorry. I’m tired,” Sharon mumbles, annoyed with herself.

Danny’s green eyes examine her from behind his glasses.

She cringes at his kind patience; she wishes that he’d just call it quits. “Thanks for trying so hard. Maybe tomorrow?” she says.

He scratches the back of his head. It was just shaved by one of the recruits, who also reached deep into the chin cleft. “I’m unavailable until next week. Elazar can start a refresher course. Maybe take a look at Pazit’s textbook?”

She fakes enthusiasm. “A great idea.” She will say whatever it takes to end this math-tutoring session. What she was unable to decipher were the two official red stamps that were tilted when they hit the paper and have faded since. One has the figure 46 in its center, which could be the year 1946. Or is it part of a district number? On the second stamp, less than half the postmark circle shows four letters: ndre. It could be the Indre region Rachelle had mentioned or Châtillon-sur-Indre, the village.

Frustrated at herself for wasting Danny’s goodwill and probably losing some of his respect, Sharon rides her bike home, letting the cold sea breeze clear her head. There’s nothing more she can do to learn about what happened all those years ago unless she travels to that village where Arthur Durand once lived.

Back in her apartment, she examines her map of France. She locates Tours. The Loire Valley is far. She would have to take a series of trains, more than a day’s journey, and then spend a few days in the area to investigate. She would start by trying to locate Florian Robillard, presumably Danny’s adoptive father.

Or perhaps not.

In any military scheme, there is an exit strategy or a point at which a decision must be made to abort: a pilot jumps off his burning plane; a captain orders the evacuation of a sinking ship. It’s time to abort her quest. She will reveal her findings to Danny and leave it to him to decide his course of action.

Most likely, he will do nothing. It’s his call.

Chapter Forty-Four

Sharon

Cherbourg, France

December 1968

In two days, the first candle will usher in Hanukkah. The sky darkens by midafternoon, nearing the shortest day of the year. Sharon is about to leave the office for her music rehearsal when a messenger delivers a telegram. “For Mademoiselle Bloomenthal.” He touches his cap and hurries away.

It can’t be about the Dakar. Yaniv would have received a phone call before it was made public. With trembling fingers, Sharon rips open the edge of the bright yellow envelope.

My mother is ill. Come home. Aunt Dvora.

Sharon’s body wakes up to absorb the blow before her brain processes the words. The room spins, and she leans on the desk. She rereads the one line, her lips trembling. Savta. When they spoke on the phone a few days ago, Savta sounded well and in good spirits. Did she have a heart attack? Has she been diagnosed with the unmentionable?

Savta,Savta. Not another loss!

The dispassionate Aunt Dvora wouldn’t have summoned her unless the situation was dire. Couldn’t she have splurged on two more words to spell it out? No tears now, Sharon tells herself. There’s no time. Her mind shifts into high gear, charting her next steps. Leave for Israel, of course. She must book a commercial airline flight; her paid-for charter-company return ticket is valid only with advance notice and when there are enough passengers to fill a plane. Buying a commercial ticket will cost all the thousands of francs she’s saved. She glances at her watch. Forty-five minutes before the bank closes, but her savings booklet is in her apartment. Her passport is locked here in the office, along with Yaniv’s, Kadmon’s, and Danny’s guns, and only they have the key. They’ve been working in the hangar all day. She must call different airline offices in Paris. Now? No. Go home first for the savings booklet, then to the bank. Return here, find Danny and notify him of her resignation, and ask him to open the safe. Then rush back home to pack. She’ll take everything, of course. No soldier leaves stuff behind. By that time, though, the last train out of Cherbourg will have left. She must wait until the morning train, which arrives in Paris in the early afternoon, but she’ll still need over two hours to reach Orly and clear customs. Actually, three hours, since she will have to shop among the airline counters for the next available flight with or without a layover in Athens or Istanbul. She’ll probably be too late to catch any flights that evening and she’ll have to spend the night at the airport, sleeping on a bench to save the hotel cost. That means that she won’t be leaving France for two more days.

What will have happened to Savta by then? Savta, wait for me.

Adrenaline rushes through her. There’s no time to send a telegram to Aunt Dvora that she’s coming. Sharon dons her coat and hops on her bike. There’s no time to notify everybody that she’ll be missing the holiday celebration she’s been so looking forward to.

How mad they’ll be at her, leaving them all in the lurch. Including her musical ensemble. Preoccupied with one loss, she viewed herself as only a visitor here. Yet now, when she can’t say a proper goodbye, she understands how Rachelle, Danny, Rina, Elazar, and Naomi have filled her new world. She belongs with them. She hates to leave the circle of their friendship.

What choice does she have?

Sharon’s skin is cold and sticky under her sweater by the time she returns to the office. It is after five o’clock. Neither Kadmon nor Danny are in, so she rushes to the hangar in search of either one of them. The sentry looks at her curiously; she’s aware of her wild hair, frizzy from the bike ride, and her nose red from the cold. Her satchel is slung across her coat, heavy with all her cash; the French paper currency is twice the size of Israel’s. Not waiting for the second sentry to accompany her, Sharon bursts into the center aisle between the ships. She runs the length of a soccer field, her eyes scanning the working crews.

“Mademoiselle Bloomenthal?” Félix Amiot pulls away from a worktable where he was examining machine parts with men in orange overalls. He wipes his hands on a rag.

She stops. She hates to be rude and brush him off. He must see what the sentry has just seen.

“Anything the matter?” he asks.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. “A crisis at home. I must leave for Israel. Have you seen Kadmon or Danny?”

His hand rises toward the corridor. “How are you getting to Orly?”

She has no time for chitchat. “Sorry, I’m in a rush.” She starts for the opening between two ships.

“Let me fly you there in my plane,” he says.

She swivels on her heel and stares at him.

“This way you can catch an early flight,” he adds.

“I—I—” she stammers. “I can’t impose on you—”

“No imposition. I am heading to Paris for a morning meeting. I can land in Orly instead of the private airport I use. It’s all the same to me.” He looks at his watch. “We can depart anytime this evening.”