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looking at Joshua. “OK, what then?”
    He shrugged.
    “Well, you could start with finding Vel’ d’Hiv’ survivors or witnesses. Then check up on the exact commemoration, who’s organizing it, where, when. Finally, facts. What happened, exactly. It’ll be delicate work, you know. The French aren’t fond of talking about Vichy, Pétain, all that. Not something they’re overly proud of.”
    “There’s a man who could help you,” said Alessandra, slightly less patronizingly. “Franck Lévy. He created one of the biggest associations to help Jewish people find their families after the Holocaust.”
    “I’ve heard of him,” I said, jotting his name down. I had. Franck Lévy was a public figure. He gave conferences and wrote articles about stolen Jewish goods and the horrors of deportation.
    Joshua gulped another coffee down.
    “Nothing wishy-washy,” he said. “No sentimentalism. Facts. Testimonies. And”—glancing at Bamber—“good, strong photos. Look up old material as well. There isn’t much available, as you will discover, but maybe this Lévy guy could help you.”
    “I’ll start by going to the Vel’ d’Hiv’,” said Bamber. “Check it out.”
    Joshua smiled wryly.
    “The Vel’ d’Hiv’ doesn’t exist anymore. Torn down in ’59.”
    “Where was it?” I asked, glad that I wasn’t the only ignoramus.
    Alessandra answered once again.
    “Rue Nélaton. In the fifteenth arrondissement.”
    “We could still go there,” I said, looking at Bamber. “Maybe there are people living on the street who remember what happened.”
    Joshua raised his shoulders.
    “You could give it a try,” he said. “But I don’t think you’ll find many people willing to talk to you. As I told you, the French are touchy. This is highly sensitive subject matter. Don’t forget, it’s the French police who arrested all those Jewish families. Not the Nazis.”
    Listening to Joshua, I realized how little I knew about what happened in Paris in July 1942. I hadn’t learned about it in class back in Boston. And since I had come to Paris twenty-five years ago, I had not read much about it. It was like a secret. Something buried in the past. Something no one mentioned. I was itching to get in front of the computer and start searching the Internet.
    As soon as the meeting was over, I went to my little cubbyhole of an office, overlooking the noisy rue Marbeuf. We had cramped working space. But I was used to it. It didn’t bother me. I had no place to write at home. Bertrand had promised I’d have a large room to myself in the new apartment. My own private office. At last. It seemed too good to be true. The kind of luxury that would take some getting used to.
    I turned on the computer, logged on to the Internet, then on to Google. I typed,
“vélodrome d’hiver vel’ d’hiv’.”
The listings were numerous. Most of them were in French. A lot of them were very detailed.
    I read for the entire afternoon. I did nothing but read and store information and search for books about the Occupation and roundups. Many of the books, I noticed, were out of print. I wondered why. Because nobody wanted to read about the Vel’ d’Hiv’? Because no one cared anymore? I called a couple of bookstores. I was told it was going to be tough getting hold of the books. Please try, I said.
    When I turned the computer off, I felt overwhelmingly tired. My eyes ached. My head and heart were heavy with everything I’d learned.
    There had been over four thousand Jewish children penned in the Vel’ d’Hiv’, aged between two and twelve. Most of the children were French, born in France.
    None of them came back from Auschwitz.
     
     

     
     
    THE DAY DRAGGED ON, endless, unbearable. Huddled against her mother, the girl watched the families around her slowly losing their sanity. There was nothing to drink, nothing to eat. The heat was stifling. The air was full of a dry, feathery dust that stung her eyes and her throat.
    The great doors