Section Zero introduces the reader to the two protagonists, Marie-Laure LeBlanc and Werner Pfennig. This section also sets up the historical significance of the novel.
Chapter 1: Leaflets
Chapter 2: Bombers
Chapter 3: The Girl
Chapter 4: The Boy
Chapter 5: Saint-Malo
Chapter 6: Number 4 rue Vauborel
Chapter 7: Cellar
Chapter 8: Bombs Away
- Pamphlets warning the citizens to depart cover the town
- The moon hangs in the sky with a yellow ambiance
- The reader learns of American armies firing ammunition
Chapter 2: Bombers
- Twelve bombers cross the Channel
- They bombers are named after songs (Stardust, Stormy Weather, In The Mood, Pistol-Packin’ Mama)
- The bombers are getting closer and closer to France
- France is described as “an unholy tooth, something black and dangerous” (4).
Chapter 3: The Girl
- On the night of August 7, Marie-Laure sits on the floor of her house next to a model of the French town that she lives in
- Marie-Laure can hear the bombers when they are 3 miles away, but she also hears a leaflet blowing in the wind
Chapter 4: The Boy
- Werner Pfennig, a blonde 18-year-old German boy, is in the Hotel of Bees
- The hotel used to be popular, but now it is an Austrian fortress
- In the hotel, there is a cannon which the soldiers call “Her Majesty”
- Werner hears planes approaching and fires Her Majesty
- He then asks, “ ‘They’re really coming?’ ” (9).
- Nobody responds
Chapter 5: Saint-Malo
- In the town, other people are beginning to try and leave before the bombers come (these are only the leftover people who were too weak to get out faster)
- There is a feeling among the people that the Germans are going to lose the war soon
Chapter 6: Number 4 rue Vauborel
- Marie-Laure is sitting in her bedroom with the leaflet (which she can’t read)
- The city is full of loud noises (sirens and aircraft engines)
- She feels her city model while a dozen bombers fly over the city
- As the bombers come closer, she feels over the houses in the model and takes off a roof of one of the houses
- She pulls out a small stone and says, “Papa?”
Chapter 7: Cellar
- Werner is in the Hotel of Bees
- His staff sergeant, Frank Volkheimer, informs him that the bombing is starting
- An engineer, Bernd, shuts the door to the cellar (the safest part of the hotel)
- Here, they will be safe from the bombs
- Werner closes his eyes and thinks about his childhood
- He imagines his sister, Jutta, running through fields of sunflowers near his house
- He then remembers a voice on the radio saying, “Only through the hottest fires can purification be achieved” (15).
- The sunflowers fie and blackbirds “explode out of a tree” (15).
Chapter 8: Bombs Away
- Marie-Laure’s great uncle, Etienne, is in Fort National which is just outside the city
- The bombs are very close to dropping
- There is a very loud sound that could make people deaf
- Werner and the Austrians fire their guns but do not hit anything
- Marie-Laure is still holding the stone
- Werner is in a cellar and the light goes out