As we reached the Gare d’Austerlitz, the first drops of rain fell from the orange sky. The station’s entrance gate was locked, and refugees were camped on the pavement. Taking a train ticket out of her purse, Madeleine spoke to a guard, who opened the gate for us. Inside, there were few people and even fewer signs of the tumult that, until yesterday, had reigned for weeks here. The only clue to that time of panic was the litter strewn across the lobby: a stray sock, a teaspoon, cigarette butts, a sheet of yellowing newsprint flapping in the breeze. It would be swept up before the end of the day and every trace of the great exodus would soon be erased. We walked past shuttered ticket counters onto a concourse strewn with more such detritus. Under the roof above, several canaries and parakeets were flying to and fro, enjoying the freedom granted by their departing owners. And on the furthest platform a locomotive to which several carriages were attached was hissing. I lunged forward, one hand carrying my suitcase, the other hand holding Madeleine’s, but then I felt her slip away. I turned to her. She was wearing the same dress she’d worn when we first met—the black one with the prints of red hibiscus.

“What’s the matter?”

“You have to go without me,” she said. “I can’t leave Paris.”

“But I can’t leave without you.”

“For you to remain would be suicide. But I must stay.”

I remembered the singer’s words at the nightclub. “Does this have something to do with…?” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“With Chanel? Of course. I must stay close to her. I am responsible for her, in a way. I have to follow her, watch her. I have to make sure she doesn’t do any more harm.”

“You’ve done everything you can.”

“And it hasn’t been enough. I have to finish what I started. It’s my duty. To make up for breaking the Law. She’s … my twin, my destiny.”

“I can’t leave you behind.”

“You must. You must get away. You must write down everything you know about crossing—everything I’ve told you, everything you’ve lived through yourself, and the manuscript too, you must include that. Make a book, a book about the crossing, a book that will remind you of who you are when you have forgotten. Once you’ve done that, you must make a crossing yourself. Then, when the war is over, when Paris is free once more, come find me. I’ll be waiting.”

She who had been so close to me only moments ago was now unreachably far away. Perhaps sensing my despair, Madeleine closed her eyes, threw her arms around my neck, and kissed me repeatedly on my lips, my cheeks, my neck. “Promise me you’ll write it all down. Promise me you won’t forget.”