She extends her hand. “I didn’t want to leave this on your desk.”
He takes it from her, tests the firmness of the envelope’s glued edges, and checks the strength of the red wax seal. Then he says, “I hear that you’re doing an excellent job at everything we throw at you. We’ll need you in the coming months.”
Soon, purchasing, customs, filing, weather reports, and translations will have to run without her. “I’m here only until the Dakar is found.”
Just as she says it, it dawns on her: She should have connected the dots. “Admiral, weren’t you the one in charge of refurbishing it in Southampton?”
“I was.” He holds her gaze. His gruff demeanor melts. “There’s not an hour that I don’t churn in my head what could have gone wrong. One day we’ll have an answer. One day soon, I hope. We can’t risk our other submarines until we know.”
She can find no more words. Churning it all in her head gets her nowhere. “Would you let me know if there’s any news?”
“Through the official channels, of course. Families are notified first.”
She swallows. She hates the reminder that she was only Alon’s fiancée. Seven years together, a planned wedding—and she has no standing.
Walking away, Sharon mulls over the fate of Israel’s two other submarines. If the navy has frozen their use until it figures out what went wrong with the Dakar, the long coast of Israel is not being protected. The two remaining destroyers are aging, and France won’t sell Israel any spare parts. Her enemies know that. They’ll pounce soon.
Back in the office, she once again fingers the envelope on Danny’s desk, tempted to open it and remove the letter, because if Danny finds it, all hell will break loose. She can’t imagine him screaming, but she must expect it. What can she say in her defense? That whether he agrees with her or not, the mystery of his tattoo is her onion? She can’t justify her nosiness by her curiosity about her mother.
Danny is right, of course. What is a little private matter of a tattoo in the face of existential danger?
She sets down the packet, bracing herself for the inevitable confrontation.
Midafternoon, Danny stops by her work area and drops the math book on her desk. “Ready for your lessons?”
She winces and looks down, waiting for him to say more. The book’s corners are frayed, and geometric pen doodles fill all the white spaces on the cover. She flips it open, goes past the title page and table of contents. Unfamiliar letters and complex equations stare at her. Calculations are scribbled in the margins.
“Sorry about the book’s poor condition. I bought it used.”
“It looks very difficult.”
“You’re smart. We’ll take baby steps. How about an hour after work today? Get a grid notebook from supply. I’ll be back at seventeen hundred hours.”
Maybe Uzi couldn’t find the letter, or maybe he included it but made no mention that he was sending it at the request of someone named Sharon. Relieved, she pushes the math book aside and continues filling out multipage customs forms for navigation equipment from Italy.
Before five, with a crisp new grid notebook on her desk, she sharpens a couple of pencils and places a rubber eraser next to them. She fans through the pages of the dreaded textbook, doubting her ability to conquer the equations.
She halts at the sight of a piece of paper tucked inside the back cover. She unfolds it and feels her heart stop. It is a
letter on a lined notebook page, browned in places, and written in French.
Chapter Forty-One
Claudette
Loire Valley, France
Spring 1946
As their last acts, the Nazis had burned villages during their retreat. Ruins were visible everywhere in La Guerche-sur-l’Aubois, where Claudette was back, living with Solange, her two little girls, and Dorothée, her ailing mother. Mémère’s home on the main road was a pile of cinders. Luckily, some houses like Dorothée Poincaré’s on side streets had been spared.
Claudette was a hundred and forty kilometers from Valençay. She’d exhausted the markets in that vicinity, but with Solange, she could explore villages far outside the cheese seller’s territory. She didn’t feel as alone now as she had when living with Madame Couture, both of them immersed in their own grief, their respective sorrows separating them like two islands wedged in a river as life flowed past.
Now that spring was here, Claudette planted a vegetable garden. She had missed the feel of the clumps of earth between her fingers and the sight of the first brazen leaf that poked up its head in search of sun—and she loved gardening with Solange’s adorable little girls, ages four and five, at her side. Their little arms around her neck when they thanked her for the dresses she sewed for their dolls gave her minute reprieves from her anguish. And having their little bodies in her lap while she read them the stories of Babar brought her closer to her little Benjamin. She hoped his adoptive parents were equally loving, bestowing on him the same tenderness and care.
Their home was the refuge of three disabled women. The cooking stove posed dangers to Solange—she might scorch precious food, scald the hands that wove baskets for their livelihood, or set a sleeve on fire. Dorothée suffered dizzy spells that kept her lying on the living-room sofa. She wove small jute baskets with her eyes closed while instructing Claudette how to cook—Claudette, the cripple whom Mémère had kept away from the stove for fear of an accident.
On weekends and some Wednesdays, the little girls were sent into a neighbor’s care while Claudette and Solange traveled to the markets. Claudette was Solange’s eyes on the road, and Solange acted as Claudette’s voice. She didn’t hesitate to ask any passing strangers—not just those who were accompanied by little boys—whether they had heard about a boy with a blue tattoo at the bottom of his foot.
In the evenings, after the girls and Dorothée were in bed, the two of them sat by the fire. While Solange wove rattan, Claudette read aloud from the many new romance books published after the war. The virginal princesses had been replaced with confident, capable heroines with soft hearts for their lovers. Relentless Search, Unforgettable Woman, and A Hero’s Return told sensuous stories of courage and valor. The two of them giggled like the teenagers they once were, the only difference being that now, each had known a great love.
Solange’s husband had developed abdominal pain and died five weeks later. The midwife in the village where he had been serving as a social worker touched his enlarged belly and told Solange that no doctor could save him.
Claudette confessed her love for a Jew. She talked about Raphaël and his father. “I have you and your husband to thank for directing them to Château de Valençay,” Claudette said, then added, “Even if you didn’t like Jews.”
“My husband taught me to be a better person,” Solange replied. “‘God’s Chosen People,’ he said.”
“Yes, Raphaël was an admirable man. So smart too.” Claudette was grateful for the memories of his bright eyes and lean body, of his kisses and caresses.
His boy was somewhere. She had to find him for both their sakes. In her inquiries about a three-and-a-half-year-old boy with a blue tattoo, she never revealed its design, and she asked Father Hugo not to describe it in his probes of his colleagues. Only someone with reliable information would know about the Jewish star.
No one had heard of such a boy.
And then it happened. The day was bright, with the first buds of cherry blossoms. The long morning in the market had been profitable; Solange sold many baskets, and Claudette had been kept busy mending clothes at a side table. It was almost two o’clock when they finished packing up the cart and entered a nearby tavern for a meal.
While waiting for their pea soup to arrive, Solange rose to address the room in a way that Claudette would never have dared. Solange’s past public inquiries had been met with either indifferent glances she had been unable to see or crude jokes to which she responded with her sharp tongue, drawing laughter.
Claudette was jolted to hear a drunken man say, “Tattooed with that star of the Jews?”
“Yes!” Claudette jumped up from her seat. “Where have you seen him?”
