The Book of Lost Names

Rémy takes Eva to a brothel, and it is clear that he is well acquainted with the owner, Madame Gremillon, an older woman who is very supportive of the resistance against the Germans. Eva wakes the next morning in a room covered in negligées and feminine undergarments which compounds her distaste for the entire situation. Laughing at her judgmental views, Rémy reveals that the Madame is a “modern-day Robin Hood” who charges German officers twice the nightly rate and “gives the difference to the cause” (112). Eva is ready to find her father and begins to organize the forged documents. Once again, Rémy soberingly reminds her that things might not end up as she expects: Her father may have already been deported or worse, but Eva refuses to believe him.

As they approach Drancy, the suburb in North Paris where the Jewish prisoners are kept, Eva is repulsed by the smell of human waste and decay. Rémy must remind her not to physically react, as her distaste might give away their cover. However, the view of the internment camp stops Eva in her tracks. The “enormous courtyard [...] teeming with thousands of people, crammed in like cattle on a train” (116) profoundly affects her, and she refuses to believe that these circumstances can even be real. Using the forged documents, they make it through the front gate, ignoring the pleas of help from Jewish prisoners. A French officer meets with them, and Eva is surprised that Rémy is able to remain so cool and confident under such immense pressure. He hands the officer the forged letter from the Argentine consul demanding the release of Leo Traube. The officer informs them that Leo Traube was deported two days prior on a convoy to Auschwitz, an extermination camp. Eva is no stranger to this name, and Rémy is able to escort her from the officer’s presence before she breaks down. In the car on the way back to Aurignon, he whispers to her that it will be impossible to free her father from Auschwitz. Eva becomes determined to help thousands of other Jews from meeting the same fate.

A grief-stricken Eva seeks answers from Rémy on the way back to Aurignon, and he tries to placate her with the possibility that her father may have been put on work detail at Auschwitz instead of the grimmer alternative. When they reach the city, he reminds her that there is still much she can do to save others like her father before he drops her off at Madame Barbier’s boardinghouse.

Mamusia is waiting expectantly to see her husband, and at first she does not understand Eva’s claim that he has been taken. When she does, she sinks to the floor with the cry of “a desperate, wounded animal” (127) and blames Eva for not getting to Tatuś in time. Although this accusation cuts Eva to the core, she knows there is nothing she can do to console Mamusia in her moment of grief, and thankfully, Madame Barbier comes in to give Mamusia a sleeping pill. The next morning, Eva awakens to the treasured smell of coffee brewing and finds Madame Barbier in the kitchen. Eva brings her mother a cup, and both women apologize: Eva for not getting to Tatuś in time, and Mamusia for treating her so horribly the evening before. When Eva tells Mamusia that she is going to the church to help others like Tatus, Mamusia insists they will not be staying in Aurignon much longer.

Eva enters the church library and is immediately struck by a “milky, salty, sharp odor” (131). Rémy, surrounded by blank papers, tells her it is lactic acid, an old dairy farmer trick for erasing methylene blue, the compound found in Waterman’s blue ink—the same ink that German officers use to stamp formal documents. Eva realizes that he is using lactic acid to “cleanse” the documents back into blank format so that he can continue forging papers for Jewish people. Eva agrees to help him speed up the process.

Père Clément calls Eva and Rémy into the confessional booth to speak with them privately. Eva reveals to him her real name as Père Clément reveals the reasoning behind the meeting: He wants Eva to be in charge of the document forging, with Rémy as her assistant. Rémy storms out of the booth in anger at this role reversal, but Père Clément tells Eva not to follow him. Instead, he pulls numerous blank documents out of the church’s hiding spot and hands them to Eva along with a list of names and birthdates. Eva is surprised to see that they are almost all children, and Père Clément verifies that they are the children of parents who have already been sent to concentration camps. The plan is to move them in small groups with fake “parents” to Switzerland, which makes her documents all the more essential. Eva shares her plan for doing this more efficiently: making a modified printing press to reproduce the official stamps more quickly, 50 at a time. Père Clément agrees to buy her the needed supplies at the bookstore, where Madame Noirot—the caring store owner who sold Eva the art pens—waits to help further the cause.

Madame Noirot is receptive to this new plan, and when she moves to the back to get the needed supplies, Eva questions why Père Clément has told Madame Eva’s real name. Père Clément says that Rémy has secured new identities for Eva and Mamusia which will provide a far more believable cover story than before, as Eva and Yelena Moreau, a naturalized Russian and her French daughter. On the way back to the church, Eva questions how they will keep track of the children’s real names so they can recover their identities after the war. When he tells her it is far too dangerous to maintain lists of that nature, she begs to have their names so they will never be forgotten.

That evening, Rémy returns with dinner for them both, only to find that Eva’s plan has worked spectacularly. She has already produced 21 papers, a feat that Rémy cannot believe to be true. After he apologizes for his earlier behavior, Eva forces him to promise her that he will help her keep the lists of the children’s true names safe, and although he expresses the same concern as Père Clément, he tells her he will consider it. Eva returns to the boardinghouse to find Mamusia completely packed with the intent on returning to Paris to wait for Tatuś to return. Eva realizes that Mamusia is living in denial and cannot face the reality that he will probably never come home. When she reveals that the Fontains are living in their family apartment, Mamusia comes undone and once again blames Eva for the way things have turned out. Mamusia storms out in anger, and when Eva attempts to follow, Madame Barbier blocks her path.

Mamusia returns in the early morning hours, allowing the worried Eva to finally get some rest. After daylight, she leaves the sleeping Mamusia to return to the church library, where she finds Père Clément gushing about the perfection of her documents. He gives Eva her own personal key to the library, and she enters it to find Rémy already at work.

However, he is not working on forgeries. Instead, he has taken the book she first pulled off the shelf at the library—Epitres et Evangiles—and created a hidden code on the pages that will allow Eva to keep track of the Jewish children’s true identities without endangering their new lives. Using the Fibonacci sequence along with small dots and stars, each child’s real name can be spelled out on a numerical series of pages, with their new names created in reverse from back-to-front in the same manner. He has used her real name, Eva Traube, as an example on the first series of pages, and Eva is speechless at the thought. She crafts the sequence for his name as well, so neither one of them can be forgotten.

Père Clément is not as easily convinced that this is a sound idea, and it takes Eva threatening to leave for him to begrudgingly agree to the system. Rémy departs, leaving Eva alone with the priest, who shares with her the origins of his involvement in the cause: He once helped a friend escape from the clutches of German officers, and the friend then asked Père Clément to help others like him. What seemed like an innocent agreement morphed into a massive undertaking, as Jewish people and members of the resistance poured into Aurignon “as if the floodgates had been opened” (160). While he grants that his mission is a dangerous one, Père Clément has chosen his side in this moral battle: He would prefer death over failing those who need him. Although Eva privately questions whether she is willing to risk the same, she knows she is where she is supposed to be.