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She leaned to stroke the dog. “Bernard knows the story I will tell you now. At least I think he does.”

Bernard groaned and stretched out on his side.

Annette spread some pâté on tiny pieces of toast and laid them on a plate between them. The table wobbled slightly, and Marshall got up to adjust it with a chunk of wood he had spied in the grass.

“So much happened,” she said, arranging her napkin on her lap. “I can’t repeat it all.”

“Don’t tell me if you don’t want to,” he said.

“But I do.” She absently folded her napkin and set it on the table.

“One day everything changed,” she said. “I haven’t told it often, except to myself, and there inside I’ve told it so often that it has worn grooves in my mind, like the tracks of a tire rolled through wet cement. In the years since my husband’s death, these memories seem to be stirring.”

She clasped her hands together, intertwining the fingers, and laid her head against the tall back of the chair. Gazing skyward, she continued.

“It was April 27, Maman’s birthday, only a week or two after you left us. We had two more Americans with us, one from New Jersey and one from Michigan. We had completed the work on their papers, and Robert arrived at our apartment just after I returned home from school. He spent some time explaining to these two Americans all their instructions. There was much to remember—the little pine grove at the Jardin des Plantes, the tickets, the walk to the Gare d’Austerlitz, where Robert would meet them. I told you about the pine grove recently.”

“Yes, I went there this week. It was just as you said.”

“My mother was making sandwiches for the boys. Robert had brought some good ham, and she had a small Camembert. She had two small apples. Papa was at work. Then the priest arrived. I do not know if I told you about the abbé, Father Jean. He was our liaison to the Bourgogne. He helped young people like Robert to avoid the forced-labor exile to Germany.

“ ‘I came to warn you,’ Father Jean said. ‘There has been a betrayal. I don’t have time to explain, but you must leave. Allez, allez! I have warned Monsieur Vallon.’

“Immediately, Maman ran to the balcony, where she set a plant in a certain position to warn Papa if he came home. Father Jean put his hand on Robert’s shoulder. Robert was his protégé, the young man he had hoped would enter the priesthood. The priest departed, but he was still in the corridor leading to the downstairs door when the milice arrived, followed very soon by Papa, who saw the flowerpot and should have stayed away! But he had to know what the danger was—and he stepped into its midst, the maelstrom. The milice—the worst of the French police, as bad as the Gestapo—were there, in those dreadful dark navy berets.”

Annette spoke rapidly, as if scuttling the hard memories down a dark street.

“The intrusion was brutal. They threw Papa against the wall. I could see that worse than the physical pain was the assault on his pride. The milice, so puffed up with power, arrested us—Robert, the two Americans, Papa, Maman, the priest, and myself. Monique, as she knew to do, was hiding in the cupboard near the door. One of the officers pulled that cupboard open and saw her huddling there with her poupée, her dear worn ragged doll, terror on her face, and he kicked the door shut again. They left her behind and drove the rest of us to the police station. We were questioned, but we refused to answer. They had searched the apartment and found the incriminating equipment before we had a chance to dispose of it out the back window. After fifteen minutes or so of confusion at the station, the police separated the men from Maman and me. They led us down a corridor and locked us into a cold cell. Maman held her arms around me to make me warm and to comfort me. What was burning into my mind was the sight of Monique, grasping her poupée in the same way Maman was holding me, Monique with her face in terror. I had only a glimpse before the policeman slammed the door shut and we were gone.

“ ‘Will the little door open from the inside?’ I asked Maman. ‘Can