Pro­logue, Helaine

Paris, 1943 

Dark­ness. 

Helaine stum­bled for­ward, unable to see through the black void that sur­round­ed her. She could feel the shoul­ders of the oth­ers jostling on either side. The smell of unwashed bod­ies rose, min­gling with Helaine’s own. Her hand brushed against a rough wall, scrap­ing her knuck­les. Some­one ahead tripped and yelped. 

Hours ear­li­er, when Helaine had been brought from her under­ground cell at the police sta­tion into the adja­cent hold­ing area, she was sur­prised to see oth­er women wait­ing. She had not encoun­tered any­one since her arrest. She had stud­ied the women, who looked to be from all walks of life, try­ing to dis­cern some com­mon­al­i­ty among their var­ied ages and class­es that had caused them to be here. There was only one: they were Jews. The yel­low star they wore, whether soiled and crude­ly sewn onto a worn, sec­ond­hand dress or pressed crisply against the lat­est Parisian fin­ery, was iden­ti­cal — and it made them all the same. 

They had stood in the bare hold­ing area, not dar­ing to speak. Helaine was cer­tain that her arrest had been some sort of mis­take. She had done noth­ing wrong. They had to free her. But even as she thought this, she knew that the old world of being a French cit­i­zen with rights was long gone. 

An hour passed, then two. There was nowhere to sit, and a few peo­ple dropped to the floor. An elder­ly woman dozed against the wall, mouth agape. But for the slight rise and fall of her chest, she might have been dead. Hunger gnawed at Helaine and she wished that she still had the baked goods she pur­chased at the mar­ket just before she was tak­en. The mea­ger breads, which had seemed so pathet­ic days ear­li­er, now would have been a feast. But her belong­ings had been con­fis­cat­ed at arrest. 

Helaine looked upward through the thin slit of win­dow near the ceil­ing. They were still in Paris. The sour smell from the city street and the sounds of cars and foot­steps despite the cur­few were famil­iar, if not com­fort­ing. How long they would stay here, she did not know. Helaine was torn. She did not want to remain in this emp­ty room for­ev­er. Yet she also dread­ed leav­ing, for wher­ev­er they were going would sure­ly be worse. 

Final­ly, the door had opened. ​“Sor­tir!” a voice ordered them out in native French, remind­ing Helaine that the police­men, who had brought them here and who were keep­ing them cap­tive, were not Ger­mans, but their own people. 

Helaine had filed into the dim­ly lit cor­ri­dor with the oth­ers. They exit­ed the police sta­tion and stepped out­side onto the pave­ment. At the sight of the famil­iar build­ings and the street lead­ing away from the sta­tion, Helaine momen­tar­i­ly con­sid­ered flee­ing. She had no idea, though, where she would go. She imag­ined run­ning to her child­hood home, debat­ed whether her estranged moth­er would take her in or turn her away. But the women were heav­i­ly guard­ed and there was no real pos­si­bil­i­ty of escape. Instead, Helaine breathed the fresh air in great gulps, sens­ing that she might not be in the open again for quite some time. 

The women were herd­ed up a ramp toward an await­ing truck. Helaine recoiled. They were being placed in the back part of the vehi­cle where goods should have been car­ried, not peo­ple. Helaine want­ed to protest but did not dare. Smells of stale grain and rot­ting meat, the truck’s pre­vi­ous car­go, assault­ed her nose, mix­ing with her own stench in the warm air. It had been three days since she had bathed or changed and her dress was wrin­kled and filthy, her once-lumi­nous black curls dull and mat­ted against her head. 

When the women were all inside the truck, the back hatch shut with an omi­nous click. ​“Where are they tak­ing us?” some­one whis­pered. Silence. No one knew and they were all too afraid to ven­ture a guess. They had heard the sto­ries of the trains head­ed east to awful places from which no one ever returned. Helaine won­dered how long the jour­ney would be. 

As they bumped along the Paris streets, Helaine’s bones, already sore from sleep­ing on the hard prison cell floor, cried out in pain. Her mouth was dry and her stom­ach emp­ty. She want­ed water and a meal, a hot bath. She want­ed home. 

If home was a place that even exist­ed any­more. Helaine’s hus­band, Gabriel, was miss­ing in Ger­many, his fate unknown. She had scarce­ly spo­ken with her par­ents since before the war. And Helaine her­self had been tak­en with­out notice. Nobody knew that she had been arrest­ed or had any idea where she had gone. It was as if she sim­ply no longer existed. 

To dis­tract her­self, Helaine tried to pic­ture the route they were tak­ing out­side the win­dow­less truck, down the boule­vards she had just days ear­li­er walked freely, past the cafés and shops. The famil­iar loca­tions should have been some small com­fort. But this might well be the last time she ever came this way, Helaine real­ized, and the thought only wors­ened her despair. 

Sev­er­al min­utes lat­er, the truck stopped with a screech. They were at a train sta­tion, Helaine guessed. The back hatch to the truck opened and the women peered out into pitch black­ness. ​“Raus!” a voice com­mand­ed. That they were under the watch of Ger­mans now seemed to con­firm Helaine’s worst fears about where they were head­ed. ​“Schnell!” Some­one let out a cry, a mix of the anguish and uncer­tain­ty they all felt. 

The women clam­bered from the truck and Helaine stum­bled, bang­ing her knee and yelp­ing. ​“Qui­et,” a woman’s voice beside her cau­tioned fear­ful­ly. A hand reached out and helped her down the ramp with an unex­pect­ed­ly gen­tle touch. 

Out­side the truck it was the tini­est bit lighter, and Helaine was just able to make out some sort of load­ing dock. The group moved for­ward into a large building. 

Now Helaine found her­self in com­plete dark­ness once more. This was how she had come to be in an unfa­mil­iar build­ing, shuf­fling for­ward blind­ly with a group of women she did not know, uncer­tain of where they were going or the fate that might befall them. She could see noth­ing, only feel the fear and con­fu­sion in the air around her. They seemed to be in some sort of cor­ri­dor, pressed even more close­ly togeth­er than they had been. Helaine put her hand on the shoul­der of the woman in front of her, try­ing hard not to fall again. 

They were herd­ed rough­ly through a door­way, into a room that was also unlit. No one moved or spoke. Helaine had heard rumors of mass exe­cu­tions, groups of peo­ple gassed or sim­ply shot. The Ger­mans might do that to them now. Her skin prick­led. She thought of those she loved most, Gabriel and, despite every­thing that had hap­pened, her par­ents. Helaine want­ed their faces, not fear, to be her final thought. 

Bright lights turned on sud­den­ly, illu­mi­nat­ing the space around them. ​“Mon Dieu!” some­one behind her exclaimed soft­ly. Helaine blinked her eyes, scarce­ly dar­ing to believe what she saw. They were not in a camp or a prison at all. Instead, they were stand­ing in the main show­room of what had once been one of the grand­est depart­ment stores in Paris.

Excerpt­ed from Last Twi­light in Paris by Pam Jenoff. Copy­right © 2025 by Pam Jenoff. Pub­lished by Park Row Books, an imprint of HTP/​HarperCollins.