The street door is open for movers.

Curious, I walk in to see what it looks like.

Voila Tarzan, strutting across the courtyard.

He's bigger, fatter, furrier, but I know it's him.

My first thought is to kidnap him and take him home, but if I did I know he'd run away again.

Then I wouldn't even know where he was.

No, I know he's better off here, spoiled by some rich family.

I lean over and rub my fingers through Tarzan's thick fur.

He licks my knuckles.

Does he remember me?

His amber eyes don't say.

One last scratch behind the ears, and I stand and walk out of the courtyard.

I can't stay home after school with a cat anymore.

Esther's waiting for me.

Au Revoir, Madame Marie.

"Did you hear, Odette?

Madame Marie and Monsieur Henri are moving."

I drop my book.

"Moving away?" I ask.

Mama nods and goes on chatting.

Her eyes are on her knitting, so she doesn't see the shock in mine.

How can this be?

So many people in my life have come and gone ...

my father, my aunts and uncles, my cousins.

But Madame Marie has always been there.

I've counted on her, even when I was far away, to take care of me.

How could my godmother leave my mother and me?

I run downstairs to see her.

"Is it true?" I ask.

My godmother beams at me.

Yes, she and Henri have found a larger apartment.

It comes with an easier job too, looking after a small factory.

"We're getting older now, Odette.

It's a good place for Henri and me.

It's not too far away, and you will always be welcome with us."

My godmother is so happy, she makes me want to feel happy too.

But I can't, not quite.

I will miss her so much, even though I know things have changed between us.

"You're such a big girl now," she always says, as if I grew up on purpose during my time away.

We never talk in the same way, either.

She always listens, and I can tell she's impressed when I tell her about all I've learned.

Did she know, I ask her one day, that humans are related to chimpanzees?

But when I try to tell her other things, I'm a little shy.

I don't know what to say, how to begin to tell my godmother about my feelings now.

I'd like her to know that I'm not so sure I like getting bigger, that I don't feel ready for it.

People are always talking about the Resistance.

Many people gave their lives for France during the war.

Some of them were only teenagers, a few years older than I am now.

Would I have the courage to do that when I'm a teenager?

I'd like to ask my godmother, but I can't find the words.

If only she would ask me what the heart is like again, so I can show her I remember.

But she never asks.

I give Madame Marie a hug, to show her I'm happy for her.

I don't trust my voice to tell her how much I'll miss her.

So I simply close the door on her little apartment, the place where I have always been so safe and so happy, the place where she saved my life.

I look back through the sheer-curtained window.

My godmother sews as always, and the clock ticks behind her.

I peer back at her, take in every detail ...

her long gray hair coiled in a bun, the concentration on her face, her careful fingers poised at the machine.

Even though she's going away I'll carry this image of her always.

Lost and Found.

For Jews, all of France has become a gigantic Lost and Found.

They look for their children in orphanages, and convents.

They try to get their jobs, apartments, and businesses back.

Decent people return everything.

The greedy fight over what they want to keep.

Lives come together slowly, like the pieces of a giant puzzle.

Three pieces of that puzzle are Aunt Georgette, Uncle Hirsch, and my cousin Sophie.

When all of them come back- Aunt Georgette and Sophie from their cousin's farm, and Uncle Hirsch from the army- they find their apartment stripped bare.

Still, they say they're happy to be alive.

My uncle sings as he makes suits at his sewing machine, and my aunt sings along with him.

Steam from her ironing or from a stew she's stirring clouds around her.

She listens to the news my uncle brings home ...

a neighbor has found a good job, the butcher shop has fresh meat again, a friend's daughter will marry the local shoemaker.

Wonderful! Aunt Georgette says.

My uncle whistles happily, as if he made these things happen all by himself.

Sophie and I drink tea and nibble on paper-thin matzoh bread.

Matzoh's not allowed in my home.

It's connected somehow to religion ...

I have no idea how.

I envy my cousin.

Whatever she does seems to make her parents happy.

They love to see her in the beautiful dresses they make for her.

She can listen to Edith Piaf on the radio all day long if she wants to.

Not me ... I have to study.

Sophie sleeps in the dining room alone at night too.

I still sleep in the bedroom with my mother.

I think about my other cousins- Sarah, Serge, Charles, Henriette, and Maurice- all the time.

At last I ask Mama what happened to them, and to Aunt Miriam and Uncle Motl.

Mama says she ran to their apartment on Black Thursday, the day that the police came to arrest us.

The door was open.

Mama froze in that spot, unable to move.

On the table, a knife in the bread, halfway through the loaf.

An untouched glass of milk.