The Night War

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and religious discrimination.

Lush gardens are established as a motif that denotes comfort and plenty. In particular, Miri is drawn to gardens that yield abundant fresh produce, as she lives in a time of scarcity and privation under wartime rationing. This hasn’t always been the case for Miri. She recalls their comfortable home in Berlin: “We’d have green space and beautiful things” (8). In Paris, she is lucky to find a single tomato to buy, whereas, in Berlin, Miri recalls that her family grew plentiful tomatoes: “I used to pick the tomatoes in our garden hot from the sun and eat them like apples, their juice running down my chin” (5). This image conveys warm, relaxed summers of plentiful food. On the other hand, in their small Paris apartment, the family has a single potted geranium, which they cherish. Their changed circumstances are symbolized in the difference between a plentiful garden bursting with tomatoes and a single pot plant.

Miri is overjoyed to find the convent garden; she notices the reminiscent smell of plants and soil: “A hot, heavy smell rose from them, one I remembered from our garden in Berlin, the pungent smell of soil and tomato plants in sun” (39).