The Night War

The next day, Miri goes to Mass at the local church with the other girls and nuns from the convent. Miri says Yiddish prayers in her head throughout the service.

She is amazed to see Nora with an older couple. She starts to plan her escape from the pew to grab Nora, but Sister Annunciata, noticing Miri seeing Nora, insists that she stays. Nora sees Miri and calls out to her.

Sister Annunciata keeps Miri in place as Nora is carried out of the church by the couple she now lives with. Miri sobs. Jacqueline assumes that Miri is sad about her great-uncle passing.

Later, Miri tells Sister Annunciata that the baby in the church is her sister, but Sister Annunciata insists that she knows the story and that Nora is not her sister. Miri feels frustrated and desperate.

Miri asks Jacqueline to show her on a map where they are compared to Switzerland; she feels determined to find Nora and escape with her. Jacqueline reveals that her own mother is in a sanatorium in Switzerland. Miri explains that she has been separated from her parents because of a “war thing” (96).

At dinner, Sister Annunciata suggests that faithful Jews could also go to heaven; Jacqueline, a devout Catholic, is shocked. Beatrice smiles. Sister Annunciata asks to see Miri privately; there is another person needing to be smuggled. Sister Annunciata feels conflicted about endangering Miri, but Miri insists that she will do it.

The woman in black approaches Miri as she is helping an injured British airman through the dark woods beside the castle. Miri is annoyed when the woman suggests that Miri should tourniquet the man’s leg—an injury on his thigh is bleeding profusely—but that she says she can’t supply material from her own skirt.

The woman checks the location of the guards and comes back to tell Miri that the coast is clear. Miri is ungrateful, feeling that the woman could have helped more. She struggles with the fainting and profusely bleeding soldier.

Miri goes to Bette and asks for a large piece of material. Bette gives her a linen sheet, and she and the passeur, whom Miri locates, drag the airman across the ballroom bridge.

Miri scrubs the blood off the floor after Raven, the passeur, leaves with the airman. The woman in black finds Miri and tells her that she will help her escape safely. She checks that the coast is clear and waves her forward.

Miri returns to the convent and falls asleep. In the morning, the girls around her bed notice that she is covered in blood. Miri pretends that it is menstrual blood. Sister Annunciata comes to help her clean up. They discuss the risky nature of people smuggling; Miri insists that she wants to continue to help.

Miri, the other girls, and the nuns go to the funeral of the gardener. Miri, who barely slept the night before, keeps nodding off; Jacqueline keeps nudging and pinching her awake. Miri notices that neither the woman in black nor Beatrice goes up for communion. She wonders why.

Miri sees the woman whom Nora had been with at the previous Mass (although Nora is not there). Miri asks the woman where her child is, but Miri is interrupted by the priest before the woman can tell her where she and Nora live.

Sister Annunciata gives Miri permission to lie down that afternoon, but Miri sneaks out of the convent and returns to the castle gardens instead. She gardens and chats with the woman in black, who tells Miri that she had 10 children, seven of whom lived. They discuss the recently deceased gardener. Miri admits that she’s scared of ghosts. The woman laughs uproariously, confusing Miri. The woman tells Miri that her uncle was a pope; he was an untrustworthy man, which has left the woman skeptical of the church. A Nazi soldier arrives and compliments Miri on being a hard worker.

Back at the convent, Miri tells Sister Annunciata that Madame Simone’s uncle was a pope (Miri still believes that the woman in black, who is actually Catherine de’ Medici’s ghost, is Madame Simone, a living person). Sister Annunciata dismisses this as ridiculous. Miri asks Beatrice to see a photo of Madame Simone; it looks nothing like the woman she has been working with at the castle.

Miri sneaks a young Jewish woman through the castle to the Vichy side of the river. She then returns to her dormitory in the convent and falls asleep. Beatrice wakes her up; Miri has woken up the other girls by yelling. Elodie says that she was yelling in Yiddish, but Beatrice quickly silences Elodie, saying that, of course, Miri couldn’t have been speaking in Yiddish.

Miri hugs Elodie the next day, wishing that she could speak to her in Yiddish. Sister Dominique returns, and Miri takes her breakfast in bed. Sister Dominique is amazed and worried to learn that Miri has been smuggling people in her absence. Miri learns that Sister Félicité is Sister Dominque’s cousin.

Beatrice tells Miri and Jacqueline about the massacre of the Huguenots conducted by Catherine de’ Medici. Miri points out that it sounds like Hitler with the Jews.

Beatrice follows Miri from breakfast, reflecting to Miri that she doesn’t usually connect history to modern events as Miri did. Beatrice presses Miri for more details on the roundup of Jews in Paris. Beatrice looks upset and worried when Miri tells her that everyone was taken.

Miri goes to the castle garden to find the woman in black, whom she now realizes is the ghost of Catherine de’ Medici. Miri tells Catherine that her flowers will have to wait; the vegetable garden must take precedence in a war. Catherine seems pleased that Miri has worked out who she truly is.