All the Light We Cannot See: a novel

A scientist’s work is determined by two things: his
interests and those of his time.
Everything has led to this: the death of his father; all those restless
hours with Jutta listening to the crystal radio in the attic; Hans and Herribert wearing their red
armbands under their shirts so Frau Elena would not see; four hundred dark, glittering nights at
Schulpforta building transceivers for Dr. Hauptmann. The destruction of Frederick. Everything
leading to this moment as Werner piles the haphazard Cossack equipment into the shell of the truck
and sits with his back against the bench and watches the light from the burning cottage rise above
the field. Bernd climbs in beside him, rifle in his lap, and neither bothers to close the back door
when the Opel roars into gear.

---

Stones
S
ergeant Major von Rumpel is summoned to a warehouse outside Lodz. It is the first time he has
traveled since completing his treatments in Stuttgart, and he feels as though the density of his bones
has decreased. Six guards in steel helmets wait inside razor wire. Much heel-clicking and saluting
ensues. He takes off his coat and steps into a zippered jumpsuit with no pockets. Three dead bolts
give way. Through a door, four enlisted men in identical jumpsuits stand behind tables with
jeweler’s lamps bolted to each. Plywood has been nailed over all the windows.
A dark-haired 
Gefreiter
explains the protocol. A first man will pry the stones out of their
settings. A second will scrub them one by one in a bath of detergent. A third will weigh each,
announce its mass, and pass it to von Rumpel, who will examine the stone through a loupe and call
out the clarity—
Included, Slightly Included, Almost Loupe-Clean
. A fifth man, the 
Gefreiter,
will
record the assessments.
“We’ll work in ten-hour shifts until we’re done.”
Von Rumpel nods. Already his spine feels as if it might splinter. The 
Gefreiter
drags a
padlocked sack from beneath his table, unthreads a chain from its throat, and upends it onto a
velvet-lined tray. Thousands of jewels spill out: emeralds, sapphires, rubies. Citrine. Peridot.
Chrysoberyl. Among them twinkle hundreds upon hundreds of little diamonds, most still in
necklaces, bracelets, cuff links, or earrings.
The first man carries the tray to his station, sets an engagement ring in his vise, and peels back
the prongs with tweezers. Down the line comes the diamond. Von Rumpel counts the other bags
beneath the table: nine. “Where,” he begins to ask, “did they all—”
But he knows where they came from.

---

Grotto
M
onths after the death of Madame Manec, Marie-Laure still waits to hear the old woman come up
the stairs, her labored breathing, her sailor’s drawl. 
Jesus’s mother, child, it’s freezing!
She never
comes.
Shoes at the foot of the bed, beneath the model. Cane in the corner. Down to the first floor,
where her knapsack hangs on its peg. Out. Twenty-two paces down the rue Vauborel. Then right for
sixteen storm drains. Turn left on the rue Robert Surcouf. Nine more drains to the bakery.
One ordinary loaf, please.
And how is your uncle?
My uncle is well, thank you.
Sometimes the loaf has a white scroll inside and sometimes it does not. Sometimes Madame
Ruelle has managed to procure a few groceries for Marie-Laure: cabbage, red peppers, soap.
Back to the intersection with the rue d’Estrées. Instead of turning left onto the rue Vauborel, Marie-
Laure continues straight. Fifty steps to the ramparts, a hundred or so more along the base of the
walls to the mouth of the alley that grows ever narrower.
With her fingers, she finds the lock; from her coat she pulls the iron key Harold Bazin gave her a
year before. The water is icy and shin-deep; her toes go numb in an instant. But the grotto itself
comprises its own slick universe, and inside this universe spin countless galaxies: here, in the
upturned half of a single mussel shell, lives a barnacle and a tiny spindle shell occupied by a still
smaller hermit crab. And on the shell of the crab? A yet smaller barnacle. And on that barnacle?
In the damp box of the old kennel, the sound of the sea washes away all other sounds; she tends
to the snails as though to plants in a garden. Tide to tide, moment to moment: she comes to listen to
the creatures suck and shift and squeak, to think of her father in his cell, of Madame Manec in her
field of Queen Anne’s lace, of her uncle confined for two decades inside his own house.
Then she feels her way back to the gate and locks it behind her.
That winter the electricity is out more than it is on; Etienne links a pair of marine batteries to the
transmitter so that he can broadcast when the power is off. They burn crates and papers and even
antique furniture to keep warm. Marie-Laure drags the heavy rag rug from the floor of Madame
Manec’s apartment all the way to the sixth floor and drapes it over her quilt. Some midnights, her
room grows so cold that she half believes she can hear frost settling onto the floor.
Any footfall in the street could be a policeman. Any rumble of an engine could be a detachment
sent to haul them away.
Upstairs Etienne broadcasts again and she thinks: I should station myself by the front door in
case they come. I could buy him a few minutes. But it is too cold. Far better to stay in bed beneath
the weight of the rug and dream herself back into the museum, trail her fingers along remembered
walls, make her way across the echoing Grand Gallery toward the key pound. All she has to do is
cross the tiled floor and turn left and there Papa will be behind the counter, standing at his key
cutter.
He’ll say,