The Book of Lost Names

by Kristin Harmel

  She closed her eyes, whispered a thank-you to Monsieur Goujon, who had come through in at least a small way for her, and spread all the materials on the table in front of her alongside the real identity cards belonging to her and her mother. She took a deep breath. She could hear her father’s voice in her head. One day, you will appreciate God’s gifts.

  She began with her mother’s identity card. First, Eva had to convincingly forge the handwriting of a busy but efficient clerk at the prefecture. She carefully examined her mother’s real card, reminded herself that her own flowing, meticulous script had no place here, and dove in. With the black pen Monsieur Goujon had given her, she filled in the blanks in short, neat block letters. Nom: Fontain née Petrov. Prénoms: Sabine Irina. Née le: 7 août 1894. à: Moscou.

  She continued, filling in her mother’s real hair color, eye color, height, and more. She gritted her teeth at the blank for Nez, nose, which was included to help authorities pick out Jews. She wrote moyen, medium, and moved on, penning a false address and a false registration number and finishing with the grand and sweeping signature of someone who spent the day putting his name to other people’s lives.

  She sat back for a second and studied her work. The handwriting looked very much like the one on her mother’s original documents, certainly official enough to convince a stranger. Eva pulled the photograph she’d cut earlier from her parents’ anniversary frame and placed it in its spot on the card. Carefully, using the stapler Monsieur Goujon had added to the typewriter case, she attached the picture and sat back to make sure the document looked authentic.

  It wasn’t perfect, but it would do. She affixed her own photo to a second identity card, added the adhesive stamps to both cards, and quickly filled in the blanks for the false Colette Fontain, born 1920 in Paris, with brown hair, brown eyes, and of course a medium nose. By the time she was done forging the signature of an imaginary clerk, the ink was dry enough to begin forging the documents’ official stamps, the part of the process Eva was most worried about, for it required a sure but light hand and left no room for error. The marks couldn’t look hand drawn, and they had to exactly match the mass-produced ones the French police and German soldiers would have seen thousands of times.

  She began with her own identity card, figuring that if she made a mistake, she might be less suspicious than her foreign-born mother. The stamp on her real document was patchy and uneven, evidence that the ink pad had been running dry. There was no way to fake that kind of fading, Eva thought, but if she could mimic the exact lines of the stamp, it should appear real, if slightly too bright.

  She started with carefully drawing perfect blue circles on both the top and bottom of her card, making sure that the higher one slightly overlapped her photo, and then she carefully filled in the logo of the Police Nationale. The hardest part of the stamp was the lettering, but Eva steadied herself and carefully wrote out the characters, allowing herself a few seconds to admire her handiwork when she finished. She duplicated the stamps on her mother’s card, and then used the darker blue pen to forge a date stamp. On both identity cards, she blotted the ink with one of Madame Fontain’s hand towels, sighing in relief as the sharp lines softened and smudged just a bit, as if they’d been placed there with real rubber stamps.

  By the time she sat back to gaze at the cards, she was breathing hard, but the terror that had been a weight in her chest since she’d watched her father being hauled away had been squeezed aside by something buoyant, something that felt like a tiny bubble of hope. She had done it. The job wasn’t perfect, but the cards might just pass muster if they weren’t examined too closely.

  The travel documents were easier; all Eva had to do was fill in the blanks—name, date and place of birth, profession, address, nationality, etc.—using the typewriter, so she quickly set that up and went to work. The only piece of art necessary on the documents was a forgery of the black stamp of the Reichsadler, the heraldic Nazi eagle. Eva carefully copied the spread-winged bird sitting atop a swastika, as well as the German lettering that arced across the top of the round image. Over the eagle’s body, she carefully handwrote the words Dientstempel: Cachet in what she hoped looked like stamped letters. For Lieu de Destination—place of destination—she hesitated and then wrote down the name of the town Monsieur Goujon had mentioned: Aurignon. My God, she wouldn’t be able to find it on a map if asked; she knew nothing about the place. But she silenced her doubts and reminded herself that Monsieur Goujon wouldn’t have risked helping her with the cards only to steer her wrong at the end.

  The naturalization and birth certificates were the easiest of all; she simply had to vary her handwriting, making her script tall and narrow, and fill in the blanks with false details. The required stamps, one in blue and one in black, felt like child’s play after the more complicated ones she’d drawn on the other documents. She was done in no time.

  She was just about to start on her father’s false documents—which she had saved for last in case she ran out of time—when she heard a key scratching in the front door’s lock. She leapt up, stuffing all the supplies and false cards down her shirt and staining herself with blue ink in the process.

  “Girls?” Madame Fontain’s voice piped in from the entryway as the door closed.

  “Maman!” Colette and Simone raced down the hall and threw themselves into their mother’s open arms just as Eva entered the parlor.

  Madame Fontain squinted at Eva and didn’t take her eyes off her as she knelt and hugged the girls.

  “You’re still here, Mademoiselle Traube?” she asked when she finally straightened, emptying the girls from her spacious lap.

  “Yes, of course,” Eva replied.

  But instead of thanking her, Madame Fontain frowned. “And your mother?”

  “I’m here, too.” Mamusia emerged from down the hall, her eyes still glassy and dazed. Two strips of her hair hung in flat plaits, where the girls had apparently been braiding it. “Is your mother all right, Madame Fontain?”

  Madame Fontain sniffed. “My mother is none of your concern. And I’ll thank you to leave my apartment immediately.”

  Mamusia blinked a few times. “I was simply being kind.”

  “I don’t need the kindness of a Jew.”

  Simone was dancing around in a circle, babbling to herself, but Colette watched wide-eyed, following the exchange like she was watching a match at the Stade Roland Garros.

  “You didn’t have any qualms about asking for our kindness last night,” Mamusia said, her voice sharp. The blank stare was gone from her eyes, replaced with pure ice.

  “Yes, well, now you’ve put me in the position of harboring fugitives.” Madame Fontain sniffed.

  Mamusia opened her mouth to reply, but Eva swiftly crossed to her side and put a firm hand on her arm. “We were just going, weren’t we, Mamusia?”

  “How could she act as if we’re unwelcome here after we’ve done her a kindness?” Mamusia cried. “After we watched the police haul your father away?”

  “Well, they got one of you, at least.” Madame Fontain waved dismissively.

  “How dare you—” Mamusia began, but Eva was already dragging her toward the door.

  “Madame Traube? Mademoiselle Traube?” Colette asked, her voice tiny. “You’re leaving?”

  “I’m afraid we must, dear.” Eva glared at Madame Fontain. “It seems we have overstayed our welcome.”

  “Won’t you come back and play another time?” asked the girl as Eva moved past her, still pulling her mother. She grabbed the suitcase, leaving the typewriter behind. It was too unwieldy to bring along, and too conspicuous.

  “Oh, I think not,” Madame Fontain answered, giving Eva a smug smile. “In fact, it looks as if the Traubes are leaving forever.”

  And then the door closed behind them, leaving Eva, her mother, and all their worldly possessions alone in the cold, dark hallway.

  “What do we do now?” Mamusia asked.

  “We go to the train station.”
r />   “But—”

  “Our documents aren’t perfect, but they should at least get us out of Paris, God willing.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “We have to believe,” Eva said, starting toward the stairs. For all she knew, Madame Fontain was already calling the police, reporting two Jews who had slipped through the sieve. “Right now, hope is all we have.”

  Chapter Five

  “Where are we going?” her mother asked in a small voice ten minutes later as they hurried along, heads down, Eva clutching the suitcase in one hand, Mamusia’s trembling arm in the other. The day was hot, oppressive, and Eva could feel herself sweating.

  “To the Gare de Lyon,” Eva said as they passed the Place de Vosges, where Tatuś had once taught her to ride a bike, where he had picked her up countless times after she’d skinned her knees. Her heart ached and she pushed thoughts of him away.

  “The Gare de Lyon?” her mother repeated, breathing hard as she struggled to keep up. She had unbraided the lopsided plaits the girls had given her, and now her hair hung in waves that clung to her neck.

  Ordinarily, Eva would have slowed down, been more sympathetic to the fact that her mother didn’t do well in heat and humidity. But the longer they were out on the streets, the more exposed they were. Paris was deserted today, and that would only make Eva and her mother more conspicuous. “We’re going south.”

  “South?” Mamusia panted.

  Eva nodded as they made a sharp turn onto the tree-lined Boulevard Beaumarchais, a street she usually found beautiful. Today, though, the soaring buildings on either side made her think of walls holding them in, funneling them toward an uncertain fate. “To a town called Aurignon.”

  “What on earth are you talking about? Your father is here, Eva. How can you be suggesting that we travel to a place I’ve never heard of?”

  “Because he’s trapped right now, Mamusia!” Eva said, frustration quickening her pace. “And the only chance we have of saving him is to save ourselves first.”

  “By running?” Mamusia yanked her arm from Eva’s grip and spun to face her. “Like cowards?”

  Eva’s eyes darted around quickly. She could see a man watching them from a shop window across the way. “Mamusia, don’t do this here. You’re making us look suspicious.”

  “No, Eva, you are making us look suspicious!” Mamusia grabbed Eva’s wrist, her nails digging in. “You with your fancy plans of fleeing, like we are spies from one of your books. You can’t be suggesting that we simply abandon your father.”

  “Mamusia, he’s gone.”

  “No, he’s—”

  “He’s gone!” A sob rose in Eva’s throat, and she choked it back as she pulled away from her mother and began walking again. After a few seconds, her mother followed. “I promise I will come back for him. But we have to go now.”

  “Eva—”

  “Trust me, Mamusia. Please.”

  Her mother went silent then, but she kept pace, and that was all Eva could ask.

  Fifteen minutes later, the station was in view. “Just act as natural as possible,” Eva whispered to her mother. “We are middle-class French citizens who don’t care one way or the other about what happened here last night.”

  “How convenient to so easily turn your back on your own people,” her mother muttered.

  Eva tried to ignore the words, but they pierced her heart as she went on. “We are secretaries, both of us. You are a Russian émigrée, and I am your daughter. My proud French father—your husband—has not returned from the front. We fear him dead.”

  “Yes, Eva, let’s pretend your father has been killed.” Mamusia sounded furious.

  “Just listen to me, Mamusia! Our lives could depend upon it. We will buy train tickets to Clermont-Ferrand, via Vichy.”

  “Vichy?”

  “I looked. It’s the fastest way to Aurignon.”

  “What is this place?”

  “Your sister, Olga, lives there,” Eva said firmly. “She is ill and has begged for our help with her three children.”

  Mamusia simply rolled her eyes at this.

  “Mamusia, this is serious. You need to remember everything I’m saying.”

  “But why this Aurignon? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “There are people there helping Jews escape to Switzerland.”

  “Switzerland? That’s ridiculous. If it’s near Vichy, it has to be three hundred kilometers from the Swiss border.”

  The thought had been bothering Eva, too, but she pushed it away. Perhaps that was what made it the perfect place to hide. “It’s our only chance of escaping, Mamusia.”

  “So now you want us to leave France without your father?” Mamusia’s tone was aggrieved, her voice rising an octave.

  “No,” Eva said. “I want us to find people there who will help us get him out.”

  * * *

  By the time the 2:05 train pulled out of Gare de Lyon, chugging southeast and crossing the Marne just as it split from the Seine, Eva was breathing a bit more easily. Buying the tickets had been simpler than she’d expected; the agent had barely looked at her documents, yawning as he returned them. Eva supposed that it wasn’t his responsibility to catch those who were fleeing. But the young German soldier who had come by just after Eva and her mother had boarded had glanced at their papers with disinterest, too, and handed them back without a word. Eva allowed herself to feel a bit of hope—and the teensiest bit of pride in her handiwork—as the train picked up speed, sailing into the countryside beyond the suburbs.

  Then she noticed her mother crying beside her, shoulders shaking with silent sobs as she pressed her forehead to the window, and she tensed again. “Mamusia,” she murmured, keeping her voice low. The train car was only half full, and most of the other passengers were absorbed in reading books or newspapers, but it was only a matter of time until someone noticed them. “Please, you must stop. You’ll draw attention to us.”

  “What does it matter?” Mamusia hissed, whirling on Eva, her eyes flashing. “We are fooling ourselves, Eva. We won’t get away.”

  “We have, Mamusia. Look. We’re already out of Paris.”

  “They’ll find us wherever we are. We cannot simply disappear. How will we eat? Where will we live? How will we get ration cards? This is madness. We should have stayed. At least in Paris, we know people.”

  “But people there know us, too,” Eva reminded her. “And it’s impossible to predict who to trust.”

  Mamusia shook her head. “This is a mistake. You took advantage of my grief to persuade me.”

  “Mamusia, I didn’t mean…” Eva trailed off, guilt sweeping over her. She’d been in such a hurry to escape, to find a way out, that it hadn’t even occurred to her that staying might be safer. Was her mother right?

  As the train continued south, crossing trestle bridges over rushing rivers and speeding past deserted farmland, Mamusia finally fell asleep beside her, snoring lightly, but Eva was too stirred up to relax. She had made this decision for both of them, and it would be her fault if it resulted in their capture. Should they have stayed in a place where friends could have helped them? But who would have risked such a thing? They were fugitives now, whether they liked it or not. Even Monsieur Goujon, who had always seemed to be a decent man, had been in a hurry to send them away.

  * * *

  The train stopped in Moulins for a half hour, during which two dozen German policemen boarded to inspect papers, but they all looked dull and weary. A young, dark-haired German with ruddy cheeks examined Eva’s and her mother’s travel permits only momentarily, his eyes already on the row behind them. Eva released the breath she hadn’t known she was holding, but she didn’t truly relax until the Germans had disembarked and the train was moving again.

  “So this is Free France,” Mamusia murmured as the train slowed an hour later to crawl into Vichy, which, even in the late evening light, looked beautiful. Window boxes overflowed with blossoms, and palatial nineteenth-century buildings reac
hed for the sky. They stopped in the middle of a rail yard, and Eva kept watch for Germans, but outside the window, only French officers patrolled. Then again, it was the French police who had come for Tatuś the night before; they could trust no one.

  When the train began to move again, Eva gazed out the window, wondering if she could catch a glimpse of the palace that Pétain and his ministers had decamped to when they abandoned Paris, but all she could see were parks, apartments, and cafés. Night was falling by the time the train crossed the Allier River into vineyard-dotted farmland, and it was fully dark by the time they made a quick stop in Riom and began moving south again. It was just before nine o’clock when the train finally shuddered to a halt within the boxy Gare de Clermont-Ferrand.

  “Now what?” Mamusia asked as they disembarked with two dozen other passengers. “Surely there won’t be buses departing this late to anywhere.”

  Eva took a deep breath. Even after crossing into unoccupied France with false documents, this felt like the riskiest part of the journey. “Now we wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “For morning to come.” The station was quiet, but Eva and her mother weren’t the only ones who would need to spend the night on its hard wooden benches. More than half of the other passengers who had arrived on the train were also carving out corners of the platform, laying their heads on valises and using coats as makeshift blankets, though the air was warm. “Try to sleep, Mamusia. I’ll keep an eye out for trouble.”

  * * *

  It was late afternoon the next day by the time Eva and her mother finally boarded a bus to Aurignon. The journey took an hour and a half through streets lined with old stone houses that gave way to verdant forests and farmland.

  Aurignon sat surrounded by dense pines at the top of a hill, and as the bus rumbled into the town, the engine straining with the climb, Eva could just make out the shadows of a stout mountain range to the west. She pressed her forehead to the glass and stared at the fog-cloaked slopes until the bus turned a corner and came to a slow, squealing stop in a small square surrounded by short, boxy stone buildings.