I have received some requests lately through IG (@whoispasalt) on whether I can post a recap on Elle, and who she is. So here we go!
We first meet Elle in The Storm Sister (book 2), in Leipzig, Germany around the beginning of WW2. She is Karine Roseblum’s best friend, Ally’s great grandmother.
Karine and Elle got to know each other in Leipzig, since they were thrown together in the first term and got a room allocated together. They were both French from birth. She had brought Bo with her one night, and Pip only knew he was a second year music student. I believe Bo is Pa Salt.
Elle was blonde, blue eyed and pretty. Pip compared her to a rose against Karine’s dark gypsy look. She was jewish, just like Karine, but she did not look it.
Her parents were killed in the Great War (or WW1), meaning she was born somewhere before 1919 when it ended. We do not know her exact birth date or year.
When her parents died, she was put in an orphanage with her brother. He was adopted as a baby, and she never saw him again. We do not know if her brother was older, younger or her twin. But it is possible she had a twin, as this is a recurring pattern in the books.
Elle studied music in Leipzig with Bo, Karine and Pip. Karine tells Pip that the only reason she has a future was because her music teacher spotted her talent on the flute and viola and put her forward for a scholarship in Leipzig that she had a future.
Was this whilst studying in Paris? Where she met Bo/Pa Salt? We know from the cover of Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt, that the boy we believe is Pa Salt falls in love in Paris and that he is taking classes at the prestigious Conservatoire de Paris. I am sure this includes Elle.
Elle, Bo, Pip and Karine eft Leipzig for Norway after Bo’s lodging was set on fire. There were jews living these. We are not sure whether Bo/ Pa Salt was also a Jew, or if he just feared for the love of his life as she was.
Whilst in Norway, both Elle and Karine could not study or practice music. Bo had a fractured elbow, so neither could he.
As a result, Bo and Elle took other work in Norway. Bo/ Pa Salt found work at a chart maker in the harbor in Bergen and threw himself into learning about navigation as he could not play the cello.
Together, they found a small apartment above the chart maker where Bo had found work. Bo and Elle had already pretended they were married, and she would clean for the chat maker’s wife.
Is this proof that Bo and Elle were Mr and Mrs Tanit, and that they were actually not married? They had both learned Norwegian. The chart maker was German (which they also could speak).
Elle and Bo made Pip a carved wooden piano stool and Elle sewed the seating pad.
In Norway, she saw the Seven Sister waterfall with Bo, Karine and Pip. Pip also told them about the phenomenon of aurora borealis.
They wanted to marry, but first had to save money.
I believe they never got the chance to marry before he lost track of her in 1949, as Marina confirmed he was never married but that his hart always belonged to someone else.
Left Norway in 1940 – by boat to Scotland. Bo had a fisherman friend who worked out of the harbor. He had agreed to take anyone who wanted it across to Scotland.
Mr and Mrs Tanit were working for Flora (The Shadow Sister, book 3) at High Weald in 1943. Mrs Tanit spoke with an accent.
Had a day off to celebrate Christmas with Mr Tanit, which we believe is Pa Salt. He worked in the garden and built a rose arbour just like the one Pa Salt has in his secret garden at Atlantis.
Mr and Mrs Tanit / Elle and Pa Salt, left suddenly in 1944 as she no longer felt comfortable there. Louise thought it was due to Teddy making a move on her in the past months.
This was right before the German bombs fell that killed Archie nearby.
In book 6, The Sun Sister, I believe Elle is Mrs Tanit, hence the woman with the French accent that picks up the phone when Cecily calls the number on the card that the man (Pa Salt) had given her after he had saved her at the protest in Harlem, is Elle.
Mrs and Mr Tanit had lunch with Cecily at Waldorf Astoria as a thank you after the protest.
- They were well travelled
- Lived in Europe throughout the war – in England
- Returned from the US to England in the spring of 1947
We know Merry is Pa Salt’s biological daughter.
If Elle is the love of Pa Salt life, and the woman in the drawing that hung in Pa Salt’s bedroom + the one Georg shows Merry which looks exactly like her, then Elle is Merry’s biological mother.
In Merry’s letter, Pa Salt say he cannot tell her the lengths he took to find her and her mother. But that both of them were lost to him before Merry’s birth.
If Pa Salt is the man we meet in CeCe and Kitty’s story in Tilbury port in January 1949, then something happened to Elle around this time.
The gaunt grey-haired man, panic clear on his face as he watched the gangplank rise. “where is she? She was meant to meet me here on the ship”. He asked Kitty if she had seen a blonde woman enter the ship just now.; Saying “oh god, where are you”. Staggered away. Looked like an army boy. Premature grey hair and haunted eyes.
We also know that Merry was born in Argideen House, in Ireland, in November of that same year.
So, then Elle must have been in Ireland around that time in 1949.
After this we do not know what happened, except that Pa Salt explains that he has been trying to figure out where Elle and Merry went after the birth. He believes Elle has passed, but he is not sure.
What do you think happened?
My initial theory was that Pa Salt was Elle’s long lost brother who was adopted out at birth and he was always trying to find his sister but I soon changed that when I realised Bo was more likely to be Pa Salt and Elle the love of his life. I do believe it was him on the boat with the haunted eyes and the premature greying hair and I first voiced that theory in a reddit group chat. Angelina, the psychic, had a similar description of him in Tiggy’s story I think. I wonder if Kreeg and Atlas are brothers and Kreeg somehow stole Elle away from Bo/Mr Tanit/Pa Salt? Or was Kreeg Elle’s long lost brother and disapproved of Elle having a relationship with a non Jew if Pa Salt was not Jewish? Who knows?! Looking forward to learning all the answers this year!!
I am wondering if Elle will be found.Were they looking for her and is that why Georg was missing at such a vital time in book 7.Was she imprisoned and was the cellar made to hide her in if they found her.Did Pa die? To help find Elle.I think the Ezus have her somewhere for a reason and will Zed let her go.
yes, i also believe in this theory.. I think that Elle is the main reason behind why he adopted all the sisters. Maybe he was told by Angelina that if he could find Merry, his daughter, then he could also find Elle? Georg knew that Merry was born in Argideen house, so I am assuming this is the last known location of Elle – her mother. Maybe they spent the last year, from Pa Salt’s “death” until the cruise in 2008 to look for, or find out what happened to her?
The Eszu’s must be involved as well. Based on what we can read until know, the Eszu family bought, or at least used, the house after Lady Fitzgerald sold it after WW2.
Is it possible that Pa Salt and Elle worked there after leaving America? Or maybe Kreeg is Elle’s lost adopted brother?
I agree with Jenny’s theory that maybe Kreeg is Elle’s long lost brother. Definitely something significant about the statement she was separated from her brother when young, particularly in this series. Do we know anything about Kreeg’s complexion?
no we do not, but we know that his son zed is shorter than average, has deep set eyes, dark blonde hair and speaks with a German accent.
In the storm sister. Karin’s father was a French sculptor of some renown.
Doesn’t that tie directly to Maia?
I believe her father was Felix Roseblum, so I do not see how? But he might have known Laurent Brouilly through the art?