All the Light We Cannot See: a novel

To My Dear Sister Jutta—
Some of the boys whisper that Dr. Hauptmann is connected to very powerful ministers.
He won’t answer XXXXCENSOR MARKS HEREXXXX. But he wants me to assist him all the
time! I go to his workshop in the evenings and he sets me to work on circuits for a radio he
is testing. Trigonometry too. He says to be as creative as I can; he says creativity fuels the
Reich. He has this big upperclassman, they call him the Giant, stand over me with a
stopwatch to test how fast I can calculate. Triangles triangles triangles. I probably do fifty
calculations a night. They don’t tell me why. You would not believe the copper wire here;
they have XXXXCENSOR MARKS HEREXXXX. Everyone gets out of the way when the
Giant comes through.
Dr. Hauptmann says we can do anything, build anything. He says the führer has
collected scientists to help him control the weather. He says the führer will develop a
rocket that can reach Japan. He says the führer will build a city on the moon.
To My Dear Sister Jutta—
Today in field exercises the commandant told us about Reiner Schicker. He was a young
corporal and his captain needed someone to go behind enemy lines to map their defenses.
The captain asked for volunteers and Reiner Schicker was the only one who stood up. But
the next day Reiner Schicker got caught. The very next day! The Poles captured him and
tortured him with electricity. They gave him so much electricity that his brain liquefied,
said the commandant, but before they did, Reiner Schicker said something amazing. He
said, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
Everyone says there is a great test coming. A test harder than all the other tests.
Frederick says that story about Reiner Schicker is XXXXCENSOR MARKS HEREXXXX
XXXXCENSOR MARKS HEREXXXX Just being around the Giant—his name is Frank
Volkheimer—means the other boys treat me with respect. I come up only to his waist
practically. He seems a man, not a boy. He possesses the loyalty of Reiner Schicker. In his
hands and heart and bones. Please tell Frau Elena I am eating lots here but that no one
makes flour cakes like hers or at all really. Tell little Siegfried to look lively. I think of you
every day.
Sieg heil.
To My Dear Sister Jutta—
Yesterday was Sunday and for field exercises we went into the forest. Most hunters are at
the front so the woods are full of marten and deer. The other boys sat in the blinds and
talked about magnificent victories and how soon we will cross the Channel and destroy the
XXXCENSOR MARKS HEREXXXX and Dr. Hauptmann’s dogs came back with three rabbits
one for each but Frederick, he came back with about a thousand berries in his shirt and his
sleeves were ripped from the brambles and his binocular bag was torn open and I said,
You’re going to catch hell and he looked down at his clothes like he’d never seen them
before! Frederick knows all the birds just by hearing them. Above the lake we heard
skylarks and lapwings and plovers and a harrier hen and probably ten others I’ve
forgotten. You would like Frederick I think. He sees what other people don’t. Hope your
cough is better and Frau Elena’s too.
Sieg heil.

---

Perfumer
H
is name is Claude Levitte but everyone calls him Big Claude. For a decade he has run a
parfumerie on the rue Vauborel: a straggling business that prospers only when the cod are being
salted and the stones of the town itself begin to stink.
But new opportunities have arrived, and Big Claude is not one to miss an opportunity. He is
paying farmers near Cancale to butcher lambs and rabbits; Claude buckles the meat into his wife’s
matching vinyl suitcases and carries them himself by train to Paris. It is easy: some weeks he can
make as much as five hundred francs. Supply and demand. There is always paperwork, of course;
some official up the chain catches a whiff and wants a percentage. It takes a mind like Claude’s to
navigate the complexities of the business.
Today he is overheating; sweat trickles down his back and sides. Saint-Malo roasts. October is
here, and bright cold winds ought to pour off the ocean; leaves ought to tumble down the alleys.
But the wind has come and gone. As if deciding it did not like the changes here.
All afternoon Claude hunkers inside his shop above the hundreds of little bottles of florals and
orientals and