Part Zero

The room feels flimsy, tenuous. Giant fingertips seem about to punch through its walls. ‘Papa?’ she whispers. (Marie-Laure) Part 0, Number 4 rue Vauborel

Only through the hottest fires can purification be achieved. Part 0, Cellar

Her Majesty, the Austrians call their cannon, and for the past week these men have tended to it the way worker bees might tend to a queen. They’ve fed her oils, repainted her barrel, lubricated her wheels; they’ve arranged sandbags at her feet like offerings. Part 0, The Boy

Part One

He says he will never leave her, not in a million years. (Daniel to Marie-Laure) Part 1, Key Pound

Police are called: big handsome-sounding policemen with splendid voices. They break down the doors. They drag the invaders away. A patriotic march plays. Everyone is happy again. (From the play) Part 1, Something Rising

‘Open your eyes, concludes the man, and see what you can with them before they close forever.’ (The professor) Part 1, The Professor

‘So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?’ (The Professor) Part 1, The Professor

‘They’ll probably take the blind girls before they take the gimps.’ The first boy moans grotesquely. Marie-Laure raises her book as if to shield herself. Part 1, Mark of the Beast

That something so small could be so beautiful. Worth so much. Only the strongest people can turn away from feelings like that. Part 1, Sea of Flames

The keeper of the stone would live forever, but … misfortunes would fall on all those he loved. Part 1, The Warder

‘They’ll say … that you’re from nowhere, that you shouldn’t dream big. But I believe in you.’ (Frau Elena to Werner) Part 1, Zollverein

The despair doesn’t last. Marie-Laure is too young and her father is too patient. There are, he assures her, no such things as curses. There is luck, maybe, bad or good. A slight inclination of each day toward success or failure. But no curses. Part 1, Key Pound

Part Two

Marie-Laure curls into a ball beneath her bed with the stone in her left fist and the little house in her right. Part 2, Number 4 rue Vauborel

Papa Papa Papa Papa, Marie-Laure is saying, but her body seems to have detached itself from her voice, and her words make a faraway, desolate cadence. Part 2, Number 4 rue Vauborel

A light emerges, a light not kindled, Werner prays, by his own imagination: an amber beam wandering the dust. Part 2, Trapped

Part Three

‘Is it right,’ Jutta says, ‘to do something only because everyone else is doing it?’ Doubts: slipping in like eels. Werner shoves them back. Part 3, Don’t Tell Lies

Jutta opens her eyes but doesn’t look at him. ‘Don’t tell lies. Lie to yourself, Werner, but don’t lie to me.’ (Jutta) Part 3, Don’t Tell Lies

‘I thought that if I made the broadcast powerful enough, my brother would hear me. That I could bring him some peace, protect him as he had always protected me.’ (Etienne) Part 3, The Professor

‘It’s only numbers, cadet, Hauptmann says, a favourite maxim. ‘Pure math. You have to accustom yourself to thinking that way.’ (Dr Hauptmann) Part 3, Blackbirds

‘A scientist’s work … is determined by two things. His interests and the interests of his time.’ (Dr Hauptmann) Part 3, The Sum of Angles

Every outcome has its cause, and every predicament has its solution. Every lock its key. Part 3, Château

Never has he felt such a hunger to belong. (Werner at Schulpforta) Part 3, Jungmänner

Part Four

Atelier de réparation, thinks Werner, a chamber in which to make reparations. As appropriate a place as any. Certainly there would be people in the world who believe these three have reparations to make. Part 4, Atelier de reparation

Only a matter of time until the black vine chokes off his heart. Part 4, The Fort of La Cité

When is it day and when night? Time seems better measured by flashes: Volkheimer’s field light flicks off, flicks on. Part 4, What They Have

‘Your sister,’ says Volkheimer. ‘Think of your sister.’ (to Werner) Part 4, What They Have

Part Five

‘Your problem, Werner,’ says Frederick, ‘is that you still believe you own your life.’ Part 5, January Recess

The boys watch, the commandant tilts his head. Frederick pours the water onto the ground. ‘I will not.’ (Frederick) Part 5, Prisoner

Mostly he misses Jutta: her loyalty, her obstinacy, the way she always seems to recognize what is right. Part 5, Intoxicated

Madame Manec says, ‘Don’t you want to be alive before you die?’ (to Etienne) Part 5, Alive Before You Die

A real diamond is never perfect. Part 5, Lapidary

‘You must never stop believing. That’s the most important thing.’ (Madame Manec to Marie-Laure) Part 5, Heaven

They just say words, and what are words but sounds these men shape out of breath, weightless vapours they send into the air of the kitchen to dissipate and die. Part 5, Visitor

When Werner overhears Frederick’s mother say to a woman, ‘Oh, the Schwartzenberger crone will be gone by year’s end, then we’ll have the top floor, du wirst schon sehen’. Part 5, January Recess

Part Six

In her head, her father reasons: Marie-Laure. Part 6, Someone in the House He thinks of His Own

Daughters, how much they would love to see a city on a table. His youngest would want him to kneel beside her. (von Rumpel) Part 6, Sixth-floor Bedroom

A sentence Etienne once read aloud returns: Even the heart, which in higher animals, when agitated, pulsates with increased energy, in the snail under similar excitement, throbs with a slower motion. Part 6, In the attic

Part Seven

‘These numbers, they’re more than numbers. Do you understand?’
‘But we are the good guys. Aren’t we, Uncle?’
‘I hope so. I hope we are.’ (Marie-Laure and Etienne) Part 7, The Bridge

Volkheimer who always makes sure there is food for Werner. Who brings him eggs, who shares his broth, whose fondness for Werner remains, it seems, unshakable… Part 7, White City

That is how things are with Neumann Two, with everybody in this unit, in this army, in this world, they do as they’re told, they get scared, they move about with only themselves in mind. Name me someone who does not. Part 7, White City

How do you ever know for certain that you are doing the right thing? Part 7, Bath

A line comes back to Marie-Laure from Jules Verne: Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth. Part 7, One Ordinary Loaf

Part Eight

To shut your eyes is to guess nothing of blindness. Part 8, The Transmitter

It’s a rock, Papa. A pebble. There is only luck, bad or good. Chance and physics. Remember? You are alive. I am only alive because I have not yet died. Part 8, In the Attic

Or one more day of light. But they will not need light to use the rifle. Part 8, The Heads

Only numbers. Pure math. You have to accustom yourself to thinking that way. It’s the same on their side too. Part 8, The Beams

He is here. He is right below me. Do something. Save her. But God is only a white cold eye, a quarter-moon poised above the smoke, blinking, blinking, as the city is gradually pounded to dust. Part 8, Voice

Part Nine

I have been feeling very clearheaded lately and what I want to write about today is the sea. It contains so many colours. …. It is my favourite thing, I think, that I have ever seen. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it and forget my duties. (Werner’s letter to Jutta) Part 9, Hunting (again)

‘In the end,’ murmurs Volkheimer as the truck heaves away, ‘none of us will avoid it.’ Part 9, The Girl

‘Marie-Laure,’ he says without hesitation. He squeezes her hand with both of his. ‘You are the best thing that has ever come into my life.’ (Etienne) Part 9, Sea of Flames

Frederick said we don’t have choices … but in the end it was Werner who pretended there were no choices. Part 9, Clair de Lune

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. Part 9, Clair de Lune

She crouches over her knees. She is the Whelk. Armored. Impervious. (Marie-Laure) Part 9, Grotto

So, asked the children, how do you know it’s really there? You have to believe the story. Part 9, Little House

Part Ten

She says, ‘When I lost my sight, Werner, people said I was brave. When my father left, people said I was brave. But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don’t you do the same?’
He says, ‘Not in years. But today. Today maybe I did.’ (Marie-Laure and Werner) Part 10, Second Can

He does not look away until she is through the intersection, down the next block, and out of sight (Werner and Marie-Laure) Part 10, Cease-fire

The window glows. The slow sandy light of dawn permeates the room. Everything transient and aching; everything tentative. To be here, in this room, high in this house, out of the cellar, with her: it is like medicine. (Werner and Marie-Laure) Part 10, Second Can

Part Eleven

In the fall, at Zollverein, she received two letters announcing his death. Each mentioned a different place of burial. Part 11, Berlin

Jutta allows herself to believe that they won’t come up the staircase. For several minutes they don’t. Until they do, and their boots thump all the way up. Part 11, Berlin

‘And close your eyes,’ says Frau Elena. Hannah sobs.
Jutta says, ‘I want to see them.’ Part 11, Berlin

‘There is a chance,’ Etienne says, ‘that we will never find out what happened. We have to be prepared for that.’ Marie-Laure hears Madame Manec: You must never stop believing. Part 11, Paris

Somewhere, someone is figuring out how to push back the hood of grief, but Marie-Laure cannot. Not yet. The truth is that she is a disabled girl with no home and no parents. Part 11, Paris

Part Twelve

The universe is full of fuel. Part 12, Fort National

Other times the eyes of men who are about to die haunt him, and he kills them all over again. Dead man in Lodz. Dead man in Lublin. Dead man in Radom. Dead man in Cracow. (Volkheimer) Part 12, Volkheimer

A part of Jutta does not want to take the letter. Does not want to hear what this huge man has travelled a long way to say. Weeks go by when Jutta does not allow herself to think of the war, of Frau Elena, of the awful last months in Berlin. Now she can buy pork seven days a week. Part 12, Jutta

It is cut, polished; for a breath, it passes between the hands of men. Another hour, another day, another year. Lump of carbon no larger than a chestnut. Mantled with algae, bedecked with barnacles. Crawled over by snails. It stirs among the pebbles. Part 12, Sea of Flames

What the war did to dreamers. Part 12, Duffel

Before dark, a well-dressed man with a prosthetic leg boards the train. ….. that the man can already tell. Maybe she smells German. He’ll say, You did this to me. Part 12, Saint-Malo

… she waded onto reefs in a sun hat with a collecting bucket and harvested snails on three continents. (Marie-Laure) Part 12, Laboratory

Over time, thinks Marie-Laure, events that seem jumbled either become more confusing or gradually settle into place. The boy saved her life three times over. Once by not exposing Etienne when he should have. Twice by taking that sergeant major out of the way. Three times by helping her out of the city. Part 12, Visitor

She sees him solve the puzzle of the little house. Maybe he drops the diamond into the pool among the thousands of snails. Then he closes the puzzle box and locks the gate and trots away. (Marie-laure thinking about Werner) Part 13, The Key

It is cut, polished; for a breath, it passes between the hands of men. Another hour, another day, another year. Lump of carbon no larger than a chestnut. Mantled with algae, bedecked with barnacles. Crawled over by snails. It stirs among the pebbles. Part 12, Sea of flames

She … switches on every lamp and overhead fixture as she always does, not to see, but because she is alone, because the apartments on either side are vacant, and because the lights make her feel as if she is expecting someone. (Frederick’s mother) Part 13, Frederick

Part Thirteen

Every hour, she thinks, someone for whom the war was memory falls out of the world. We rise again in the grass. In the flowers. In songs. (Marie-Laure) Part 13

That her father and Etienne and Madame Manec and the German boy named Werner Pfennig might harry the sky in flocks, like egrets, like terns, like starlings? That great shuttles of souls might fly about, faded but audible if you listen closely enough? (Marie-Laure) Part 13