Julien stopped listening. He refused to hear any more. Not how the prisoners were chained two by two, Jews on one side, Resistance members on the other, not how the prison was being emptied, with as many as possible killed so there would be no human evidence when the British and Americans arrived. Julien stood and shook Father Varnier’s hand, then walked out without another word, past the flickering candle he had lit for Monsieur Bisset’s son, past the pew where he had slept when his brother had come to take him to Izieu. He didn’t let himself feel anything until he was on the road. Then he called out to God, his shouts shook the sky and he, himself, was made deaf by his own wailing. He fell to his knees, and tore his clothes in a wild fit of mourning, and he did his best not to curse himself for being the only one in his family who had managed to stay alive.

When Marianne came home she was shocked by the damage from the storm and especially saddened to see the beehives were destroyed and, by now, deserted. She went to search for the key, tucked between two stones behind the wall near the old pump. She kept the house locked now, and only she and Victor knew where the key was hidden. She unhooked the latch and pushed the door open, breathing in the musty, damp scent of the house. She had been away for nearly a week. They were trying to get as many children over the border as possible. The closer they came to the end of the war, the more the Germans wanted to rid the countryside of all Resistance workers and Jews. Everything was moving so fast, spinning closer to the end. At the border there were places where the Italians had left and it was possible to walk right into Switzerland, and other places the Germans shot whoever moved in the dark. Marianne had been very lucky. She’d lost no one. She was quite famous, really; everyone wanted to cross the border with her. Some people called her Saint Marianne, they said she wore armor under her dress, that she could walk through fire, that she was invisible to the Germans.

But these were the imaginings of children who still believed in such things. The children would throw their meager belongings over the fence, then crawl beneath the wire that Marianne often held up so they could fit under. She told them to be brave, because when they crossed over the Swiss Border Guard would place each child under arrest, then give him over to the Corps des gardes-frontière, where a military officer would question the child yet again and draw up the formal arrest. Do not break, she told them. They are only questions. Make your statement when asked. Tell them, I crossed to escape the Germans’ actions toward the Jews. Think forward, not back.