The World That We Knew

Struggling to accept the brutal death of her father at the hands of the Nazis, Marianne continues to shepherd Jewish refugee children to safety in Switzerland. She grows increasingly in love with Victor. Despite their five-year age difference, he makes her feel special, beautiful, extraordinary. He is “brash and fearless and unpredictable,” and he makes Marianne feel like “the most beautiful woman in the world” (299). Before he leaves for a mission, they make love: “He took her in his arms and loved her fiercely. He was so young, and he wanted her so” (301). He then promises Marianne that after the war they will live together on her family’s farm. After they make love, however, a bee from the farm’s hives flies into Victor’s mouth. A single sting inside a person’s throat “could kill him in an instant” (301). Fortunately, the bee flies out, and Victor lets out a “joyful shout” (301). For Marianne, the moment is a sobering reminder that people “were so breakable and so easy to lose, especially now” (301).

Meanwhile, Julien’s long silence devastates Lea, now 16. When she’s rummaging through Ava’s dresser drawers looking for writing supplies, Lea discovers the note and map Ava hid from her. In a heated and emotional confrontation, Lea tells the golem, “I don’t need you” (301). These cruel words cut Ava deeply. She is ashamed even as she questions how she, a golem, is capable of such complex feelings. Ava and Lea leave the next morning for Marianne’s farm. They arrive and find the farm deserted. Lea tells Ava that they’ll wait. Ava understands that her usefulness will be over when Lea and Julien are safely together. She struggles with the implications of her fast-approaching destruction: “She had become attached to this world, to fields and trees, to the heron and the sky, to feeling her heart beat, for she had one, she was sure of it now” (311). When she and Lea stroll about the farm, Ava sees Azriel in the trees even as a swarm of bees descends on Lea. Ava tells the Angel of Death he cannot have Lea. Ava takes Lea’s stung body back to the farm. She knows bee stings respond to mud and lovingly sacrifices chunks of her own body to treat the massive bee stings and thus save Lea’s life. She rushes Lea to Dr. Girard, who treats the stings with a homeopathic mixture of honey and alcohol. By morning, Lea recovers, although her hair is a stark and shocking white.

In July, as Ettie and Victor prepare to kill the Gestapo captain, Ava and Lea arrive in Ardeche. The reunion is at once heartfelt and awkward. Ava’s first reaction is to kneel before her maker. She cannot express how grateful she is to Ettie for bringing her life. Ava tries to explain that she’s no longer simply Lea’s protector, that surely she was created to do more: “Ava knew she was born to walk through the reeds and dance with the heron, she was made to watch Lea sleep safe through the night, and to feel the sun on her skin and to stand content beneath a bower of green leaves” (323). Ettie begins to see that Ava is more than a golem, that she is a “woman made by women, brought to life by their blood and needs and desires” (324).

Two days later, Ettie and Victor drive to the road where Ettie will act as decoy to lure the Gestapo captain. She wears a red dress with red shoes (from the closet of Dr. Girard’s wife) and a striking pop of red lipstick. She stands by the roadside. Almost on cue, the captain’s car pulls up, and he beckons Ettie to join him. She does, and even as he begins to caress her, Victor crawls up to the car and inserts the bomb in the tailpipe. Ettie excuses herself to go to the bathroom in the nearby woods. She joins Victor in their getaway car, and Victor trips the explosion. Before they can clear the sight, Victor sees police cars. A chase ensues. A tire blows, and Victor crashes the car into a tree. Ettie gets out to run. Police swarm in. They handcuff Victor. A fleeing Ettie glimpses the Angel of Death, “more brilliant than any of his luminous brothers” (330), and knows what that means. She’s shot dead while trying to cross an open field.

Back in Vienne, Julien receives word of his brother’s arrest and deportation to Auschwitz. He tells Marianne, who, although grief-stricken, feels Victor’s baby growing in her womb. The heron arrives, bringing Julien word from Ava, which stuns him, with a map to find Lea and the message to come now.

Waiting for Julien’s arrival and what she knows will be her last days, Ava questions Dr. Girard about life and about how the soul works. Dr. Girard admits that he’s had little time for the soul and no longer believes in God after the death of his wife. Ava is frustrated. She heads out and, as the doctor watches, dances with the heron, the bird in tears. This impresses the doctor: “If you could love someone, you possessed a soul” (348).

Julien and Lea are at last reunited. Ava promises to lead them to freedom in Switzerland, and from there they can leave for New York, to freedom. Ava understands that her mission is over. Seeing Azriel in the trees, Ava’s confused: The Angel of Death would not collect a golem. Lea must be the endangered one. Ava returns to the farmhouse and convinces Lea to change clothes with her before they leave. Along the way, the angel still following Ava, a Nazi soldier ambushes her. He waves his rifle and tells her that he’s going with her to Switzerland. Ava goes with him back to his tiny camp for his gear, only to see, to her horror, that her heron is dying, hanging from a stick, bleeding profusely from a deep gunshot wound. “Not even worth eating,” the Nazi says dismissively. Lea cannot hold her outrage and her anger. But when she moves to attack the Nazi, Ava’s caught in one of his traps: She’s suspended high above the ground, helpless, as a golem’s power is useless once she leaves the earth. Lea sneaks up behind the unsuspecting Nazi and drives a knife into his back, killing him instantly. She frees Ava. Before she and Ava leave, however, Ava carefully buries the heron. She cannot stop her tears even as she marks “the heron’s grave with seven black stones” (362).

It’s time for Lea and Julien to depart for the Wolf’s Plain pass into Switzerland. “You are commanded to put an end to me” (363), Ava tells the distressed Lea. Lea is conflicted. “Her mother had never told her that not only would Ava love her but that she would love Ava in return” (363). Lea whispers to Ava to close her eyes, and Ava expects Lea to remove the tattoo letters, the mystical words that had called her to life, from her arm and thus end her life. Time passes. Ava opens her eyes. Lea and Julien are gone, safely heading to the border. Ava feels her pulse beating wildly, thickly. Her breathing comes hot and fast. Being human has come to her unbidden but welcome. She feels blood running in her veins: “It was a miracle and a sacrifice” (365). She’d been “made flesh” (364) because of Lea’s love for her (364). She arises “from the grass in the first light of the new day, alive” (365).