All the Light We Cannot See

by Anthony Doerr

Her father radiates a thousand colors, opal, strawberry red, deep russet, wild green; a smell like oil and metal, the feel of a lock tumbler sliding home, the sound of his key rings chiming as he walks. He is an olive green when he talks to a department head, an escalating series of oranges when he speaks to Mademoiselle Fleury from the greenhouses, a bright red when he tries to cook. He glows sapphire when he sits over his workbench in the evenings, humming almost inaudibly as he works, the tip of his cigarette gleaming a prismatic blue.

The brain is locked in total darkness, of course, children, says the voice. It floats in a clear liquid inside the skull, never in the light. And yet the world it constructs in the mind is full of light. It brims with color and movement. So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?

Open your eyes, concludes the man, and see what you can with them before they close forever, and then a piano comes on, playing a lonely song that sounds to Werner like a golden boat traveling a dark river, a progression of harmonies that transfigures Zollverein: the houses turned to mist, the mines filled in, the smokestacks fallen, an ancient sea spilling through the streets, and the air streaming with possibility.

Walk the paths of logic. Every outcome has its cause, and every predicament has its solution. Every lock its key.

Once, when she was eight or nine, her father took her to the Panthéon in Paris to describe Foucault’s pendulum. Its bob, he said, was a golden sphere shaped like a child’s top. It swung from a wire that was sixty-seven meters long; because its trajectory changed over time, he explained, it proved beyond all doubt that the earth rotated. But what Marie-Laure remembered, standing at the rail as it whistled past, was her father saying that Foucault’s pendulum would never stop. It would keep swinging, she understood, after she and her father left the Panthéon, after she had fallen asleep that night. After she had forgotten about it, and lived her entire life, and died. Now it is as if she can hear the pendulum in the air in front of her: that huge golden bob, as wide across as a barrel, swinging on and on, never stopping. Grooving and regrooving its inhuman truth into the floor.

“Do you ever wish,” whispers Werner, “that you didn’t have to go back?” “Father needs me to be at Schulpforta. Mother too. It doesn’t matter what I want.” “Of course it matters. I want to be an engineer. And you want to study birds. Be like that American painter in the swamps. Why else do any of this if not to become who we want to be?” A stillness in the room. Out there in the trees beyond Frederick’s window hangs an alien light. “Your problem, Werner,” says Frederick, “is that you still believe you own your life.”

But Madame Manec does not laugh the way Marie-Laure expects her to. She doesn’t say anything at all. Her breath clatters in and out. “Did I offend you, Madame?” “No, child.” “Are we in danger?” “No more than any other day.” The grasses toss and shimmy. The horses nicker. Madame Manec says, almost whispering, “Now that I think about it, child, I expect heaven is a lot like this.”

“I’m leaving Schulpforta, Frederick. They’re changing my age and sending me to the front.” Frederick lifts the pencil, studying, then reapplies it. “Less than a week.” Frederick works his mouth as if to chew air. “You look pretty,” he says. He does not look directly at Werner, and his words are close to moans. “You look pretty, very pretty, Mama.” “I’m not your mama,” hisses Werner.

he didn’t deserve what he got and even when he’s basically completely out of it, Werner still looks to him for comfort, because Frederick had the strength and courage to face reality that he never did, and it’s borderline romantic in the most heartbreaking way

And Madame Manec: Don’t you want to be alive before you die? “Yes.”

He will be saved.

For Von Rumpel, salvation is in gemstones, materialism; for Werner, it is in math, academia, logic; for Marie, it is in love, family, emotions, humanity.

What was the prayer? The one Madame Manec muttered to herself when she grew particularly frustrated with Etienne?

For Marie, divinity is in humanity, human connection, relationships

Right three degrees, repeat range. Calm, weary voices directing fire. The same sort of voice God uses, perhaps, when He calls souls to Him. This way, please. Only numbers. Pure math. You have to accustom yourself to thinking that way.

For Werner, divinity is in logic, emotionless truths

Frederick said we don’t have choices, don’t own our lives, but in the end it was Werner who pretended there were no choices, Werner who watched Frederick dump the pail of water at his feet—I will not—Werner who stood by as the consequences came raining down. Werner who watched Volkheimer wade into house after house, the same ravening nightmare recurring over and over and over.

MADAME MANEC SAID DOING NOTHING IS A CHOICE WERNER IS MAKING HIS CHOICE MY BABY BOY SHDJHWJWJWUSUAHAHHA

He turns. “Nichts,” he says. Nothing.

CR. Y I N G

And now the tolling of two tiny bells? This is how death comes? The candle rolls gently. Toward the window. Toward the curtains. Downstairs the door of the house creaks open. Someone steps inside.

WERNER 💕💕💕💕💕💕✨

He says, “Es-tu là?”

“You are very brave.” She lowers the bucket. “What is your name?” He tells her. She says, “When I lost my sight, Werner, people said I was brave. When my father left, people said I was brave. But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don’t you do the same?” He says, “Not in years. But today. Today maybe I did.”

Jutta, he thinks, I finally listened.

“It’s all right,” he told her. “Things hardly ever work on the first try. We’ll make another, a better one.” Did they? He hopes they did. He seems to remember a little boat—a more seaworthy one—gliding down a river. It sailed around a bend and left them behind. Didn’t it?