The Book of Lost Names

As the war continues and Germany suffers numerous losses, the Nazis begin taking their aggressions out on the French citizens. Food and fuel are in short supply, and the members of the resistance give up what little food they have to the Jewish children awaiting their trip across the border. Joseph has been arrested for selling false ration cards, for which he received a far lesser punishment than if they knew his real reason for carrying them. He and Geneviève have only grown closer, and this makes Eva continually think of Rémy and if he will ever return to her.

While working together in the library one day, Geneviève shares with Eva that her entire family has died due to the war: her brother from the front lines, her mother from a broken heart, and her father from a stroke. She uses this loss as a way to give her work here meaning, and Eva understands that Geneviève, like Eva, is trying to justify a life that went in the wrong direction. The next night, Père Clément pulls Eva into a meeting with Erich, who reveals to them that the Germans are “close to infiltrating [their] network” and “the children are in danger” (282). Their network has fallen: Nazis have located every single home housing the Jewish children and will begin raiding those homes the next morning. Père Clément asks her to begin forging documents for the children immediately, followed by documents for herself and Mamusia, who will finally “get her wish to head for Switzerland” (284).

The next day, Eva is concerned that no one has heard from Geneviève or Joseph, but she hopes that their absence means they are together and safe. When she delivers the documents to Père Clément, he tells her that the “network needs another person to escort children to the border” (285) and her name has been mentioned. Initially, she fears for Mamusia’s safety, but Père Clément has spoken with Joseph, who promised to deliver Mamusia to Switzerland. Père Clément will not leave the church and go into hiding, and Eva knows this may be their final goodbye. She goes to tell Mamusia goodbye before her mission, and Mamusia accuses Eva of shaming her family and abandoning everyone who once mattered to her. Although Mamusia ultimately wishes her well, Eva leaves in tears.

Eva creates the documents she will need for her new false identity. While they dry, she prays for her friends, for her family, and for God to give her the “strength and courage to lead the children” (290) to safety. She stops to say goodbye to Père Clément and return the key to the library, but he asks her to keep it as a reminder that she is always welcome in Aurignon. He gives her directions on where to meet her “husband” and “children'' for the trip to Switzerland and says goodbye.

She takes the train to Lyon and waits, filled with dread, for the man and children to arrive. While waiting, she repeats their false names over and over in her head to memorize them—and also their true names, so she will not forget those either. After a long wait, the children appear, the last one holding the hand of a man whose appearance freezes Eva in place. It is Rémy, and suddenly the children disappear from her focus. They share a passionate kiss until the youngest child Jacqueline interrupts them. As they wait for the train, Rémy reveals that it was his idea for Eva to help move the children because it would deliver her safely into Switzerland, where he expects her to stay. When she tries to argue with him, he alerts her that the days of forging documents are over—the resistance is moving into all-out violence against the Germans once the children are safe. The plan is to attack the Nazis and weaken them before the Allied armies make their approach. She begs him to stay in Switzerland, but he refuses to leave his country, even though he knows it may cost him Eva.

A French policeman questions their papers and motive for traveling on the train, but Rémy and the children provide a very convincing cover story. When the train to Annecy finally arrives and they board, Rémy and Eva take turns sleeping and watching the other sleep. A few hours later, they arrive in Annecy, and Rémy immediately moves into action to determine the next stage of their plan. He returns quickly and tells them “there’s no time to lose” (303) as the bus is leaving immediately for Switzerland.

The bus takes Eva, Rémy, and the children to Collonges-sous-Saléve, a small town on the border of France and Switzerland. There, Rémy hurriedly moves Eva and the children to a small stone college owned by Père Bouyssonie, a priest friend of Rémy’s. As Père Bouyssonie moves them into the hidden attic, he points out to Eva the beautiful countryside of Switzerland only a short distance away. After a small dinner, Eva falls asleep with the children and wakes to find Rémy watching her “with tears in his eyes” (307). The time has come to move, and Rémy goes over with her and the children the exact plan to sneak beyond the German patrols to the Swiss side. They move carefully in the darkness until they reach the fence that divides the two countries. The children sneak through the broken fence quickly and move off to find Swiss guards, but Eva cannot bring herself to leave Rémy. Although he desperately wants her to be safe, he agrees to let her stay with him, and they retire to a safe house on the outskirts of town.

They barely make it through the door before Rémy pulls Eva close to him, an embrace only broken by the freezing conditions. After building a fire, they make love, break to eat the small, meager dinner left by Père Bouyssonie, and then make love again. Afterward, Rémy tells Eva she must return to Switzerland, and she agrees as long as he promises to find her after the war. Although Rémy hints at a proposal, he and Eva both know that Mamusia would never approve, and he refuses to “cost [her] the last of her family” (318). They agree to meet on the steps of the Mazarine, a library in Paris that both of them visited as children, to be together once the war has ended.

Eva wakes to find Rémy gone, a letter left for her as the only reminder he was ever there at all. The letter directs her to cross into Switzerland as soon as night falls again and is signed with love, but Eva cannot forgive herself for letting him leave without promising herself to him forever. She runs to Père Bouyssonie’s cottage to see if Rémy is still there, but he is not. Instead, Père Bouyssonie directs her upstairs to a new visitor: Madame Trintignant, the baker from Aurignon, in a state of disarray and panic. The resistance cell in Aurignon has fallen. Germans arrested everyone involved in the smuggling operation except for Père Clément. In their search for Eva, the Germans found Mamusia and arrested her, knowing that she is a Jewish refugee. Père Bouyssonie and Madame Trintignant warn her that her return will mean certain execution, but Eva insists on returning to Aurignon to find Mamusia.

After a cold and sleepless night, Eva arrives in Aurignon to find Père Clément standing in the midst of a broken church. Shocked by the sight of her, Père Clément directs her immediately to the old meeting grounds at the schoolhouse. He later meets her there and divulges that “someone within [their] inner circle betrayed [them]” (327), adding that he believes Mamusia must already be dead. Eva refuses to believe this. Even though Père Clément knows that the Germans are specifically looking for Eva, he helps her devise a plan to free Mamusia from the German prison. Unfortunately, this plan puts him in immense danger, and therefore Eva refuses his help and hugs him goodbye.

Cloaked in a disguise, Eva makes her way to the small prison in Clutier, France, determined to ensure that Mamusia is still alive. To her surprise, a Frenchman is on duty, not a German, and she feels a deep revulsion toward those who betrayed their countrymen in the pursuit of power. She pretends to be an older widow sent from the church at Aurignon to check on certain parishioners, but when she asks about Yelena Moreau, Mamusia’s false name, the officer tells her she is too late—Moreau has been executed already. Eva can barely contain her emotions, but she holds herself together to keep the ruse intact. The officer reveals that Mamusia’s final words were in defense of her daughter. She claimed she was “proud to be the mother of someone so brave” (335), and Eva is unable to keep her tears from falling. She asks about Madame Barbier, only to be told that she has also been executed that morning. She leaves the prison and throws up in the bushes outside.

With “nothing left to lose” (336), Eva heads to the farmhouse to find Joseph to help fight the Germans with direct physical force, instead of through forged documents. She climbs into the barn loft where he stays and initially thinks it is empty until she hears someone whispering. It is Geneviève, bleeding to death from gunshot wounds to her stomach. To Eva’s dismay, she reveals that it was Joseph who shot her. Paid by the Germans to be an informer, he betrayed the entire resistance. Joseph also promised them Eva. Geneviève tells her to run, but Eva refuses to leave her to die alone and sings her French lullabies until she passes.

Eva returns to Père Clément’s church and takes down the Book of Lost Names. Turning to Rémy’s page, she writes, in code, “Épouse-moi. Je t’aime” (343)—“Marry me, I love you”—in the hopes that he will one day find it. Joseph then arrives, gun in hand, and she barely recognizes the boy she once knew. He reveals that the Germans offered him a deal: He would give up the leaders of the forgery operation in exchange for his life and money to escape France after the war. He demands information on all the other forgery operations across France, but Eva refuses. He threatens to shoot her in the leg and torture her until she confesses, but just as he is about to pull the trigger, Erich arrives and kills him. Speechless with gratitude, Eva asks him to run away with her, but Erich too has been betrayed and knows Nazi officers are approaching the library at this moment. He kills himself as a diversion so Eva can escape.