Where Memories Lie

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And then the passion of my life, that is, the City of London—to see London all blasted, that too raked my heart.

—Virginia Woolf, from a letter to Ethel Smyth,

September 1940

October 1945

Erika Rosenthal woke, her body jerking to the whump of the bomb, the flash of light from the incendiary flickering against her closed eyelids. She threw back the scratchy wool blanket and had half reached for David to shake him awake when she realized the night was silent. No sirens, no rumble and thump of guns. Rubbing at her sleep-fogged eyes, she saw that light from the streetlamp was shining through the gap in the bedroom curtains, etching a pattern lucid as moonlight across the counterpane. It must have been that gleam that had insinuated itself into her subconscious—or perhaps a reflection from the moving lights of a passing car. She had yet to become accustomed to the unshuttered headlamps. Even in her waking hours, the brightness caused her to flinch.

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