The Book of Lost Names

by Kristin Harmel

Zentral- und Landesbibliothek

Oh word

The woman there had been kind, and Eva refused to believe that a person who had made a life from books could have evil in her heart.

Sometimes, when the nights are dark and silent and I’m alone, I wonder if I would have survived without the escape their pages offered me from reality. Then again, perhaps they just gave me an excuse to duck out of my own life.

“Shut her up, would you?” Brun asked. “No,” Rémy said, pulling her against him, offering his shoulder as comfort. “No, I won’t.”

Love him

Rémy’s lips brushed her forehead. “I’m afraid it’s impossible.” Eva closed her eyes. “So now what?” “Now,” Rémy murmured, “we pray.”

Damn

Finally, she slept, dreaming of her father on a train headed east to an unknowable fate.

This made me feel sick.

“What happens when they come for us, too? When they take us east? Who will remember us? Who will care? Thanks to you, not even our names will remain.”

I hate this bitch

“I mean that I would rather die knowing I tried to do the right thing than live knowing I had turned my back.

Her mother snorted. “That priest has you brainwashed, then, just the way you are brainwashing those young children you claim to be helping.”

I haaaaateeeee her omfg

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned since the start of the war, it’s that as long as we believe, we take our faith with us, whatever we do, wherever we go, if our motives are pure.”

“I know it’s sometimes hard to believe the best. Isn’t it better than believing the worst, though?”

Je reviendrai à toi. I will return to you.

Omg

Evil doesn’t live here anymore; this is just a place, and the people around me are just people. And isn’t that the moral of the story anyhow? You can’t judge a person by their language or their place of origin—though it seems that each new generation insists upon learning that lesson for itself.

WOW.

“I used to think that memories were less painful when you held them close. I think perhaps that isn’t true, though. Now I think pain loses its power when we share it.”

“Of course I will. I’ll meet you on the steps of the Mazarine, and then the rest of our lives can begin.”

Losing him is going to kill me

“Ani l’dodi v’Dodi li,” she whispered. “What does that mean?” “It’s Hebrew for ‘I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.’ It’s from Shir Hashirim, the Song of Songs. It’s—it’s something people say when they marry, to promise each other forever.”

Eva could do that for her, at least. “I won’t leave you, my friend. I’m here.” Geneviève was too weak to argue. So while she fell in and out of consciousness, Eva held her hand and softly crooned “Au Clair de la Lune,” the lullaby Geneviève’s mother had comforted Geneviève with when she was just a little girl. “Ma chandelle est morte,” Eva sang, “Je n’ai plus de feu. Ouvre-moi ta porte pour l’amour de Dieu.” My candle is dead. I have no light left. Open your door for me, for the love of God.

In the spring, tattered and emaciated Jews who had spent the war in the concentration camps to the east had begun to return. Those who had lost family members peered into the faces of these walking skeletons, struggling to find the people they were so sure they’d never see again. Sometimes, there were joyous reunions. Mostly, though, the survivors returned to find that everyone they loved had perished and that their reward for enduring hell was a renewed sense of loss and despair.

oh my god

Eva had posted a precious photograph of her father, and each day, she turned up holding a sign with his name on it, hoping that someone would be able to give her an answer about his fate.

Im sick

Hope was a dangerous thief, stealing her todays for a tomorrow that would never come.

And then, on the fourth of June, she finally got one. She was wearily searching the eyes of the incoming refugees when someone said her name in a voice she recognized, but only barely. Her heart skipped, and when she turned, she was staring into the face of a man who couldn’t have weighed more than fifty kilos. His cheeks looked sunken and carved out of bone; his hair had gone gray, and his beard was patchy. But she recognized him instantly. “Tatuś?” she whispered, too afraid to touch him for fear that he was an illusion, that he would dissipate before her eyes. “Is it really you, słoneczko?” he asked, his voice a raspy echo of what it had once been.

THANK YOU GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Eva?” The voice came from behind her and she whirled around, relief washing over her. It was Père Clément, and he was staring at her as if he was dreaming. “Is it really you?” he asked.

THANK YOU GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And isn’t that the story of my life when it comes to the people I love?

“That was our night security guard, Mila. She says that there’s a man outside the library saying the book is his,

PLEASE GOD!!!!!!!!!

“You got the library wrong, Eva,” the man says in French, his voice cracking with emotion.

THANK YOU GOD!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!