Through the tall French windows of the kitchen, I could see the children outside and I wondered, as I have so often of late, whether I ought to take them to England. The Nazis were threatening war. First it was the Saarland, then Austria, then Czechoslovakia, and now Poland. Hitler wouldn’t stop. France and Britain would have to go to Poland’s aid, but if they did, and I took the children to England, Jules and I would part company—he’d never let me have the children, not if he could stop it. And anyway, who was to say France wouldn’t keep the Germans out, but if she weakened and couldn’t, what then? The faded orange-red brick of the courtyard always trapped the sun, and I remember those bricks as if it were yesterday and I were still there: the warmth that emanated from them, the smell, the roughness. Jean-Guy was only seven when it all started, and I remember a day in late August 1939, remember the sight of him playing in the sandbox. He had mountains and valleys, roads and tunnels—bridges, railways, houses, farms, so many things, and I could understand, of course, why he had wanted it all to himself.
