Sarah’s Key

A girl hears someone knocking loudly at the door. A man says, “Police! Open up! Now!” (1). She recalls conversations her parents had about “camps” and “early morning arrests” (1). Her father sleeps alone downstairs because he says they are looking only for the men.

She goes to her mother’s room and wakes her mother up. Her mother answers the door. The young girl seems relieved to hear perfect French and thinks that means no harm will come to them.

The policeman tells them to pack a bag, that they are coming with him. 

The narrator of the chapter, Julia, waits for Bertrand with Zoë, her daughter. They are to move into a new place with Bertrand near the Seine.

Bertrand, “slim, dark oozing sex appeal,” arrives with Antoine, his business partner (4). Bertrand talks on the phone to another architect. Julia decides to go to Madame Tézac’s apartment in the meantime.

Joshua, her boss, calls and says he needs Julia back by three to close the July issues. She rides up the elevator to the apartment and catches sight of herself: “The woman who stared back at me was at that dreaded age between forty-five and fifty, that no-man’s land of sag” (6).