Jacob ben Jacob was a small man with thinning hair and pale, kindly blue eyes, and he loved his daughter Naomi with all his heart. But he also thought of his dear wife Sarah. She had gone gray when Naomi was still a little girl, but for all her loyal and silent suffering, the skin on her face was still as smooth and her eyes as bright as they had been twenty years ago. How much more would she suffer, if the business were discovered? Even her little brother would be implicated—at the very least the object of suspicion for years. As for himself—he tried not to think of what the consequences would be. And all this Naomi knew very well. He could not help it therefore if, despite his love, he cursed his daughter now.

The sun was already sinking when he crossed the Seine and made his way northward up the rue Saint-Martin. When he got to his house, he went in quickly. Sarah was standing in the hall.

“Well?” he cried. “Where is she?”

“I do not know, Jacob.” His wife shook her head sadly. Then she handed him a piece of parchment.

“What’s this?”

“A letter. It’s from her.”

Jacob slept badly that night. He rose at dawn and decided to go for a walk. Putting the letter in a pouch on his belt, and wrapping his cloak around him, he stepped out into the street. His house in the rue Saint-Martin was not far from one of the northern gates. From the gate, he took the lane that he and Naomi had taken so many times before that led toward the little orchard he owned on the high ground.

It was Friday, the thirteenth of October. A misty morning. As the lane wound its way to the upper slopes, he was greeted by the sight of the sun rising over the eastern horizon into a blue sky, while below, the great walled city and its suburbs were hidden by the mist, except for the towers of Notre Dame and half a dozen medieval pinnacles, which emerged and seemed to hang, as if by magic, over the silvery carpet. And as Jacob gazed at this lovely sight, he wondered: How could any soul, Jewish or Christian, fail to be uplifted by these exquisite citadels floating in the heavens?

Jacob ben Jacob loved Paris. It was his home, as it had been for his father and grandfather before him. Even as a boy, he’d loved the wide sweep of the Seine, the vineyards on the hills, the aromas in the narrow streets; even the beauties of Notre Dame and the Sainte-Chapelle, although they belonged to a religion not his own. And he still did. He never wanted to leave it. Yet now, the sight of Paris brought him nothing but despair.

He took out Naomi’s letter and read it once more.