Sarah’s Key

The narrator of the chapter, Julia, waits for Bertrand with Zoë, her daughter. They are to move into a new place with Bertrand near the Seine.

Bertrand, “slim, dark oozing sex appeal,” arrives with Antoine, his business partner (4). Bertrand talks on the phone to another architect. Julia decides to go to Madame Tézac’s apartment in the meantime.

Joshua, her boss, calls and says he needs Julia back by three to close the July issues. She rides up the elevator to the apartment and catches sight of herself: “The woman who stared back at me was at that dreaded age between forty-five and fifty, that no-man’s land of sag” (6). 

The novel shifts back in time to 1942. The mother pleads with the officers to let the girl go. “My daughter is French,” she says, “she was born in Paris. Why do you want her too?” (7). They don’t listen to her.

The mother tells the girl to grab her brother and pack up. The brother, however, recalls a hiding place behind a cupboard that he and his sister would hide in from time to time. He tells his sister he wants to hide in there until she can come back for him. Maybe their father, who they think is in the basement, will also let him out.

The girl locks the cupboard hiding place with her brother in it, promising to come back for him. 

Forward in time again, Julia entersBertrand’s grandmother’s apartmentwith Zoë and Antoine. It is empty and without furniture. They plan to refinish it.

Julia remembers first meeting his grandmother, who they call Mamé, sixteen years ago.

Back in time, the police officer asks where the brother is. The girl lies and says that he is spending time in the country. They search the housebut find nothing.

They approach the concierge: “The girl notices she ha[s] an odd, gloating expression on her face” (13). The concierge, eager to oblige the officers, offers to let them search the cellars, but there’s not enough time. They give her the keys to the apartment and leave. 

Forward in time, Julia acknowledges how attractive her husband is, as he gets off of the phone. He is also charming, she notes. Bertrand reassures her and Zoë that they will be able to refurbish the apartment in no time.

Julia has to go meet Joshua for work. Her and Bertrand bicker about the French customs in terms of schooling. Bertrand taunts Julia, who is American. He says, “We have heard about it so many times, so many times, have we not? ‘I like to be in America, everything’s clean in America, everybody picks up dogshit in America!” (17). 

Back in time, the girl sees an old neighbor who played violin for them. Her mother screams for her father, who appears in the doorway and surrenders to the officers. The girl looks up at the old man: “There were tears running down his face, silent tears” (19). 

Forward in time, Julia and Bertrand still bicker. He continues to make fun of her being American, though, he reveals that she was his grandma’s favorite. Julia realizes that she cannot take Bertrand’s jobs any longer. She “had had enough” (21). 

Back in time, the girl and her parents are dropped off at a large holding area with other families. Her father asks about her brother, and the girl explains that he is in the cupboard. The father is dismayed.

“We are going back home, aren’t we?” the girl asks (23). Her father tells her no. She promised her brother that she would, however, and is upset. She watches the crowds of families file into the holding tent.

She asks her father if this has to do with the stars they wear on their jackets. He says yes. The girl cannot understand and finds this all unfair.

Joshua, Julia’s boss, is the head of Seine Scenes, a magazine for Americans living in Paris. He asks Julia to do a piece on the “sixtieth commemoration of Vel’ d’Hiv’” (27). She learns that this is short for Vélodrome d’Hiver, an indoor stadium where “thousands of Jewish families [were] locked up for days” (27).

Bamber, the photographer, and Julia decide to return to the site—even though it is destroyed at this point—to see if anyone will talk with them about the events. Joshua tells her that the French are highly sensitive about these events: “Don’t forget, it’s the French police who arrested all those Jewish families. Not the Nazis” (28). 

Back in time, the girl describes the mass of people inside the stadium as “an unimaginable stench” (30). Her mother has grown silent.

A boy says that he plans to get out of there and has taken off his star. He asks the girl to come with him, to escape. She has a hard time deciding what to do; “she could go with this fast, clever boy,” but, in the end, she is too scared (31). The boy does escape.

She sees a mother throw herself and her child from the balcony to the floor below. 

Forward in time, Julia remembers her childhood in Massachusetts as a perfectly comfortable one. She describes her fascination with Paris and the French language as being more than just a tourist’s fancy.

When she first moved to Paris, she had roommates, Hervé and Christophe, a gay couple who are now her friends. She goes to their apartment for dinner, and they seem concerned that she looks sad. 

Back in time, the girl tries to shut out the hell around her. She recalls a watch her father made her from leather. She recalls her friend, Armelle, and how brave she always seemed to be. The girl wishes her friend were with her.

Her mother speaks to a Polish woman and her child: “How was it they looked so much older overnight, she wondered” (40). She wonders if her parents have been honest with her about all of the disappearances. She wishes they had, so it might be easier to understand now. 

Julia lies and says that she is “just tired” (41). They’ve invited a friend over, Guillaume, to have dinner. Julia wonders why she can’t be honest with Hervé about the problems between her and Bertrand.

Over dinner, they discuss the events at Vel’ d’Hiv’. Guillaume seems to know a lot about this, while Christophe and Hervé believe that the Nazis were responsible. “It was the French Police,” Guillaume reminds them (43).

They grow quiet. Guillaume says that his grandmother’s family was taken by the police back then, along with many of the people she knew.