All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr Page 0,127

like a six-car train out of the darkness, the quality of the transmission and the tenor of the voice matching in every respect the broadcasts of the Frenchman he used to hear, and then a piano plays three single notes, followed by a pair, the chords rising peacefully, each a candle leading deeper into a forest . . . The recognition is immediate. It is as if he has been drowning for as long as he can remember and somebody has fetched him up for air.

Just behind Werner, Volkheimer’s eyelids remain closed. Through the separator between the shell and cab, he can see the motionless shoulders of the Neumanns. Werner covers the meter with his hand. The song unspools, grows louder, and he waits for Bernd to key his microphone, to say he has heard.

But nothing comes. Everyone is asleep. And yet hasn’t the little shell in which he and Volkheimer sit gone electric?

Now the piano makes a long, familiar run, the pianist playing different scales with each hand—what sounds like three hands, four—the harmonies like steadily thickening pearls on a strand, and Werner sees six-year-old Jutta lean toward him, Frau Elena kneading bread in the background, a crystal radio in his lap, the cords of his soul not yet severed.

The piano rills through its finishing measures, and then the static wallops back.

Did they hear? Can they hear his heart hammering right now against his ribs? There’s the rain, falling lightly past the high houses. There’s Volkheimer, his chin resting on the acreage of his chest. Frederick said we don’t have choices, don’t own our lives, but in the end it was Werner who pretended there were no choices, Werner who watched Frederick dump the pail of water at his feet—I will not— Werner who stood by as the consequences came raining down. Werner who watched Volkheimer wade into house after house, the same ravening nightmare recurring over and over and over.

He removes the headset and eases past Volkheimer to open the back door. Volkheimer opens one eye, huge, golden, lionlike. He says, “Nichts? ”

Werner looks up at the stone houses arrayed wall to wall, tall and aloof, their faces damp, their windows dark. No lamplight anywhere. No antennas. The rain falls so softly, almost soundlessly, but to Werner it roars.

He turns. “Nichts,” he says. Nothing.

Antenna

An Austrian antiair lieutenant installs a detachment of eight at the Hotel of Bees. Their cook heats oatmeal and bacon in the hotel kitchen while the other seven take apart walls on the fourth floor with sledgehammers. Volkheimer chews slowly, glancing up every now and then to study Werner.

Next broadcast Thursday 2300.

Werner heard the voice everyone was listening for, and what did he do? Lied. Committed treason. How many men might be in danger because of this? And yet when Werner remembers hearing that voice, when he remembers that song flooding his head, he trembles with joy.

Half of northern France is in flames. The beaches are devouring men—Americans, Canadians, Brits, Germans, Russians—and all through Normandy, heavy bombers pulverize country towns. But out here in Saint-Malo, the dune grass grows long and blue; German sailors still run drills in the harbor; gunners still stockpile ammunition in the tunnels beneath the fort at La Cité.

The Austrians at the Hotel of Bees use a crane to lower an 88-millimeter cannon onto a bastion in the ramparts. They bolt the gun to a cruciform mount and cover it with camouflage tarps. Volkheimer’s crew works two nights in a row, and Werner’s memory plays tricks on him.

Madame Labas sends word that her daughter is pregnant.

So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?

If the Frenchman employs the same transmitter that used to reach all the way to Zollverein, the antenna will be big. Or else there will be hundreds of yards of wire. Either way: something high, something sure to be visible.

On the third night after hearing the broadcast—Thursday—Werner stands in the hexagonal bathtub beneath the queen bee. With the shutters pushed open, he can look to his left over a jumble of slate rooftops. Shearwaters skim the ramparts; sleeves of vapor enshroud the steeple.

Whenever Werner contemplates the old city, it is the chimneys that strike him. They are huge, stacked in rows of twenty and thirty along each block. Not even Berlin had chimneys like that.

Of course. The Frenchman must be using a chimney.

He hurries down through the lobby and paces the rue des Forgeurs, then the rue