The Book of Lost Names

As Eva and her mother hurry to the train station, Mamusia seems both surprised and angry at their departure, unwilling to leave her husband behind indefinitely. While Eva knows their only chance for survival is escaping the city, Mamusia considers their flight akin to cowardice. She finds numerous faults in Eva’s planned reasoning behind their trip to Aurignon but ultimately remains silent instead of risking suspicion. She cries the entire trip to the countryside while Eva wonders if she has made the right decision.

At a train stop in Moulins, German officers check their papers, and Eva is relieved to see that her forgeries pass muster. As they continue across Free France, the area of France not occupied by the Germans, both Eva and Mamusia are surprised to see that this part of the country looks far different from the harsh and dark confines of Paris, with “window boxes overflow[ing] with blossoms, and palatial nineteenth-century buildings reach[ing] for the sky” (47). When they arrive at Aurignon the next day, these same images of life meet them as they disembark the train, and Eva doesn’t quite know what to make of a “town whose heart ha[s]n’t yet been trampled” (49).