Sarah’s Key

Julia is in the nearly-ready apartment, wondering how she can live where Sarah once did. The phone rings. It’s the nursing home. Mamé has had a stroke.

Julia laments Mamé and cannot reach Bertrand. She tries her sisters-in-law. They know that Bertrand was seeing Amélie, his ex. Julia feels frustrated that she didn’t know this was happening.

William knocks on the door. “I need to talk to you,” he says (252). He explains that he flew back to the States to see his dad. His dad had a key from his grandmother in a drawer, along with a drawing of Michel, Sarah’s brother, with some French scribbled.

Julia asks him to come along to Mamé’s, saying, “There’s someone I want you to see” (254). 

In the hospital room, Mamé is recovering, but not expected to live very long. Edouard inquires about William and says that he wants to meet him: “Sarah Starzynski’s son,” he announces to the room (256). The rest of the family, besides Bertrand, doesn’t understand.

Edouard tells William that he will never forget his mother. He tells him that his father did all he could. Then he shrinks away down the hall with his family trailing behind him. 

William invites Julia out to a coffee shop. He asks her to tell him his mother’s story: “I need to hear it. Please, Julia” (258). She relates the whole story to him.

He pushes the journal across to Julia and nods for her to translate it to him. She reads a poem written by Sarah to her brother Michel. “Where are you, my little Michel? My beautiful Michel./Where are you now?/Would you remember me? […]” (259). 

William, speaking about his mom, says, “She killed herself […] there was no accident. She drove that car straight into the tree” (262). Julia feels like reaching out to him. She wants to be with him and has feelings for him.

However, he prefers to do some more investigating alone. Julia knows that he does not want her in his life and that he needs to figure things out for himself. 

Julia arrives home to find the family fighting and bickering about the rightness of what Julia had done: “It appeared they had divided into two groups: Edouard, Zoë, and Cécile, who were on ‘my side,’ approving of what I had done, and Colette and Laure, who disapproved” (265).

They bicker for a while. Zoë, however, speaks up in favor of what her mom did. She tells them that Mamé knew about Sarah all along, and that it was hard for her to bear that secret all alone. This stuns the group. They grow silent.

Later, Julia wonders if she did the right thing. 

Julia describes her life since moving back to New York. She’s had a few boyfriends but has yet to feel the passion she once did. “Sex was something I now did,” she explains, “because I felt I had to. It was mechanical and dull” (270). Julia seems anxious and upset to Charla and her mother. 

Julia sits with Neil, her newest boyfriend, admiring her two girls. Zoë has become a strong teenager, a “powerful combination of Jarmond and Tézac” (271). Her little one, however, needs more attention and care, and arrived prematurely.

Before that, Bertrand finally told Julia about his love for Amélie. They parted ways easily and amicably. Julia did not want to live where Sarah had, however, and joked that maybe New York City was in their future. 

While Bertrand was not initially happy about the prospect of Zoë leaving for the states, he had formed a new life with his girlfriend and agreed to Julia’s move. Charla, Julia’s sister, helps her with the move. Joshua, her ex-boss, helps her find a job with a “hip French Web site” (275). 

Julia muses on the differences between New Yorkers and Parisians. She says, “Like Zoë, I felt I was a Frenchy, too, despite being American” (276). She misses Paris and how she felt there. She is lonely. 

Julia still thinks of Sarah and William Rainsferd. Zoë catches Julia looking him up online, to see where he is. William now lives in New York. Julia still thinks about him all the time.

Zoë encourages her mom to let go of the past: “just get on with your life” (279). 

Julia returns occasionally on trips to Paris to visit friends, or for work. She always returns to the area of Vel’ d’Hiv’. She thinks of William on sleepless nights and “his face when [she] had read Sarah’s letter out loud” (282). 

Julia is reminded again of William because of the sixtieth commemoration of Auschwitz’s liberation. She wonders if William is just as disturbed as she is, and she wonders if he thinks of her. 

William calls Julia. They agree to meet that day for lunch at a café: “My heart was beating so fast I could hardly breathe. I went to wake the baby […] and took off” (285). 

William waits for Julia and the baby. They sit down, and William tells Julia how “everything changed” after she told him the news (287). William went on a journey of discovery, both historically and personally. He needed to better understand who his mother was.

He shares some photos of Sarah with Julia. Julia asks him if he has any “harsh feelings” (289). He says, “No harsh feelings, Julia. I just needed to think” (289). He had been tracking her, too, and found out she lived in New York.

He receives a phone call from his girlfriend, whom he isn’t excited about. They discuss William’s journey to see Julia in the midst of his crisis. When Julia wasn’t in the apartment anymore, he “felt like [she] let [him] down” (291).

They discuss their exes and their kids. He asks the baby’s name. Julia says the baby’s name is Sarah. William weeps. Julia touches his face. They sit “there for a long time, till the crowd around [them] thinned […] till [they] felt their eyes could meet again, without the tears” (293).