Sarah's Key Read Online Free

walked through the courtyard, holding himself straight.
    When he came up to the men, he told them who he was. His accent was thick, like the woman’s.
    “Take me with my family,” he said.
    The girl slipped her hand through her father’s.
    She was safe, she thought. She was safe, with her mother, with her father. This was not going to last long. This was the French police, not the Germans. No one was going to harm them.
    Soon they’d be back in the apartment, and Maman would make breakfast. And the little boy would come out of the hiding place. And Papa would go to the warehouse down the road where he worked as a foreman and made belts and bags and wallets with all his fellow workers, and everything would be the same. And things would become safe again, soon.
    Outside, it was daylight. The narrow street was empty. The girl looked back at her building, at the silent faces in the windows, at the concierge cuddling little Suzanne.
    The music teacher raised his hand slowly in a gesture of farewell.
    She waved back at him, smiling. Everything was going to be all right. She was coming back, they were all coming back.
    But the man seemed stricken.
    There were tears running down his face, silent tears of helplessness and shame that she could not understand.

 
     
    R
    UDE? YOUR MOTHER ADORES it,” chuckled Bertrand, winking at Antoine. “Don’t you, my love? Don’t you, chérie? ”
    He gyrated through to the living room, clicking his fingers to the West Side Story tune.
    I felt silly, foolish, in front of Antoine. Why did Bertrand take such pleasure in making me out to be the snide, prejudiced American, ever critical of the French? And why did I just stand there and let him get away with it? It had been funny, at one point. In the beginning of our marriage, it had been a classic joke, the kind that made both our American and French friends roar with laughter. In the beginning.
    I smiled, as usual. But my smile seemed a little tight today.
    “Have you been to see Mamé lately?” I asked.
    Bertrand was already busy measuring something.
    “What?”
    “Mamé,” I repeated patiently. “I think she would like to see you. To talk about the apartment.”
    His eyes met mine.
    “Don’t have time, amour . You go?”
    A pleading look.
    “Bertrand, I go every week. You know that.”
    He sighed.
    “She’s your grandmother,” I said.
    “And she loves you, l’Américaine. ” He grinned. “And so do I, bébé .”
    He came over to kiss me softly on the lips.
    The American.
    “So you’re the American,” Mamé had stated all those years ago in this very room, looking me over with brooding, gray irises. L’Américaine . How American that had made me feel, with my layered locks, sneakers, and wholesome smile. And how quintessentially French this seventy-year-old woman was, with her straight back, patrician nose, impeccable coil of hair, and shrewd eyes. And yet, I liked Mamé from the start. Her startling, guttural laugh. Her dry sense of humor.
    Even today, I had to admit I liked her more than Bertrand’s parents, who still made me feel like “the American,” although I had been living in Paris for twenty-five years, been married to their son for fifteen, and produced their first grandchild, Zoë.
    On the way down, confronted once again with the unpleasant reflection in the elevator mirror, it suddenly occurred to me that I had put up with Bertrand’s jabs for too long, and always with a good-natured shrug.
    And today, for some obscure reason, for the first time, I felt I had had enough.

 
     
    T
    HE GIRL KEPT CLOSE to her parents. They walked all the way down her street, the man in the beige raincoat telling them to hurry up. Where were they going? she wondered. Why did they have to rush so? They were told to go into a large garage. She recognized the road, which was not far from where she lived, from where her father worked.
    In the garage, men were bent over engines, wearing blue overalls stained with oil. The men