Page 58 of The World That We Knew

“I know you’ve seen the man in the black coat. I have as well, outside of sickrooms, in hospitals, in my own home. There aren’t many of us who have encountered him and are still here to talk about it, you know. You sent him away.”

“But how do I defeat him so that he won’t return?” She wished to be ready should he come again.

“There’s only one way. You have to trick him. And you must be willing to change places with the person he’s come for.”

“You’ve done so?”

“I tried. And failed. The other person has to agree to let you take her place.” He leaned forward, the memory burning hot inside of him. “My wife would not agree.”

He was fairly certain Ettie would not have agreed either. This is what happened with stubborn, principled people and so it was impossible to claim death’s attention. “To do so you have to accept a sacrifice.”

Ava understood completely. To make such a trade you had to be willing to forsake your life.

It was dusk when they left and the air was eggshell thin. The world was so green it swallowed every shadow. Before long a cold moon would rise into the sky. Julien walked ahead of them, his eyes on the compass the doctor had given him. There was enough starlight pricking through the sky so they would be able to see. Ava and Lea had Julien lead the way, even though Ava saw the world as a map. It was the last time she and Lea would be together and so they walked side by side, as they always had, their strides evenly matched.

Julien turned and waved at Lea, a grin on his face. Lea waved back. Inside of him was the boy she had known, but she was the only one who could see him.

“What will happen to him?” she asked Ava. She had worried about him for so long it was difficult to stop. No person should know what fortune would bring, but the nuns at the convent had gossiped, insisting that Ava could read the future, and all Lea wanted to know was whether Julien would continue to keep his promise to her.

Lea and Ava both gazed at the young man ahead of them, the one who had given them plums on their first day in Paris, who had listened outside Lea’s door when she wept for her mother and grandmother, who had lost every member of his family.

“He’ll be the man you trust.”

That was all Ava would say, no matter how Lea begged for more, but in the end, it was enough.

They planned to cross near midnight, when it was most difficult to see shapes moving through the woods, when invisibility was a virtue and a gift. Once they went across they would be arrested, then officially questioned by the Swiss guards before being turned over to the Red Cross. There was only one answer to any of the guards’ questions: I fled because I feared for my life.

Lea wore the blue dress her mother had sewn. She felt naked without the locket she had lost before she reached the doctor’s house. She had nothing to take across with her except for Ahron Weitz’s painting of the sky. She had shown it to Julien. By then, he had realized he would not be a painter; he was a mathematician and had always been so. At night, when he regarded the stars, he often felt his father beside him. He viewed the world in shapes, for indeed, the universe was made up of pieces of a puzzle. He remembered his lessons in the library. His father had said there was a logic to the natural world and to life itself, it was simply that the plan hadn’t yet been understood.

He and Lea had decided they would go to New York, where anything was possible. They wanted a new world, one where the future could be made by anyone who wished to do so, a country made by immigrants.

“What if they separate us?” Lea asked.

“That won’t happen. We go together.”

They would cross the border at the Wolf’s Plain. They knew who they had been, but not who they would become. They would find that out as they lived the rest of their lives. The sky was black, but Lea could see what was inside of it now, and she wished she could tell Ahron Weitz that she finally understood how much more complicated things were than she’d ever imagined. Julien pointed out the constellations his father had named when they stood in their garden, and Lea leaned back to see the thousands of stars in the sky. When they crossed over they would carry everyone they had ever known or loved with them. They would close their eyes and still see it all.

I remember when my mother would do anything for me, when we discovered we were not hunters, but wolves, when the world was taken away from us, when we hid in an attic, when the roses bloomed with silver petals, when a bird danced like a man, when I saw Paris for the first time, when I saw your face in the hallway as you turned to me, when they believed we were worth nothing, when we were sent away on trains, when my father bought my freedom, when the souls of our brothers and sisters rose into the trees, when we ran through the woods, when I loved you above all others and you loved me in return.

“What of Ava?” Julien whispered. Ava had made a campfire. She’d brought along a cast-iron pan and was frying mushrooms she’d plucked in the woods so they would have a proper meal before crossing over. Her black hair shone in the firelight. “What happens to her?”

“She’ll do as she pleases for once.”

“Without you? All she knows is how to watch over you.”

Lea stared at the golem. “She’ll learn. She’ll live her own life.”

“She seems different than she was in Paris,” Julien noted.

“Does she?”

“Well, for one thing she doesn’t hate me.”

They laughed, remembering her initial reaction to him.

“She didn’t trust me for a minute.”

“Well, neither did I. At first.”