“I can’t believe it,” said Madeleine, but when I asked her what she couldn’t believe, she didn’t reply. Instead, she fell into a silence that continued until we reached the cemetery.

The previous afternoon, as the air raid sirens wailed, I had flung the derringer over the cemetery wall into the back section of the cemetery, which, like the older Israelite section on the other side, is reserved for Jews. Here, the family crypts are covered in stones and engraved with names like Cahn and Meyerbeer. This was where we now headed, scouring the weeds between the plots until I found the gun lying atop a grave. I opened the bullet chamber. It was empty. I was standing there, gun in hand, when Madeleine suddenly approached, wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me languidly on the mouth. “Drop the gun into my pocket,” she whispered into my ear. I folded my arms around her waist and, kissing her, did as she asked. At that moment, an old groundskeeper holding a rake and a shovel sauntered by, whistling tunelessly. When he saw us, he changed direction and wandered off. Madeleine pulled her head back and looked at me as if trying to memorize my face. Her dark eyes were so near mine I could see my reflection.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, pulling away and blushing. “I forgot myself.” My heart beating wildly, I pulled her back and kissed her again.

We set off, hand in hand, toward the exit we’d passed through the previous evening, which already seemed a distant age. On Rue Froidevaux, Madeleine stopped before a Morris column to read a government ordinance:

EXPATRIATE GERMANS LIVING IN FRANCE

You must report immediately to the nearest police station. Bring no more than one bag containing your daily essentials. Disobedience of this order will incur the maximum penalty.

By order of the Ministry of the Interior, 18 May 1940.

“You must leave,” she said. “You can’t turn yourself in.”

“I know, but where would I go? My papers aren’t in order. I can’t leave France. I don’t have an exit visa. I don’t have money.”

“How does one get an exit visa?”

“You apply at the Ministry of the Interior. But my application would be denied. I don’t have a release certificate from the internment camp. They let us go without them so that we wouldn’t be granted exit visas. That way we can’t leave.” I gave Madeleine a fatalistic smile. “I’m like you. I have nowhere to go.”