* * *
CHRISTMAS VACATION. Homework finished. Tiffany Ivers back East visiting family. Not a cloud in my sky. Mary Louise and I sculpted a snowwoman (with marbles for her eyes, mouth, and earrings) as a surprise for Grandma Pearl. Each time she called Eleanor, she always asked to talk to me, too. And each month since the wedding, she’d sent me something—a funny card, a subscription to Seventeen, mauve moon boots. I wasn’t too sure about Eleanor, but I liked Grandma Pearl.
“What do you think?” I asked Odile, who’d stepped out to get the mail.
“She needs some color.”
Mary Louise untied the fuchsia scarf she’d “borrowed” from her sister and wound it around the snowwoman’s icy neck. Unfortunately, Angel drove by and saw we’d used something of hers. She grabbed a shovel and beat our creation into a heap of dented snowflakes. After she was done, we couldn’t even find the marbles.
When Eleanor’s parents drove up, I hugged Grandma Pearl before she got out of the car. Taking the luggage, Dad and Mr. Carlson evaporated into the living room, while we women got to work on our ginger cookies. At the kitchen counter, Odile hummed “Silent Night” as she flattened the dough with the rolling pin; I sunk the Santa molds into the sticky molasses mass. Grandma Pearl stirred the hot cider. Eleanor bounced around like she had to pee.
“Girl, what is wrong with you?” her mother asked.
“I can’t keep it inside anymore!” Eleanor squealed. “I’m expecting!”
“My baby’s having a baby!” Grandma Pearl said.
Say what?
“When’s the due date?” Grandma Pearl asked.
“April twenty-eighth.”
Did Dad know? Why didn’t he tell me?
“A baby!” Odile clapped her hands together. “How wonderful!”
“Your christening gown is in my hope chest,” Grandma Pearl said. “I’ll send it.”
“I’ve got some yarn that would be perfect for a baby blanket,” Odile added.
We didn’t have an extra bedroom. Where would they put it? Sparrows steal nests from martins, forcing their young ones out. Starlings steal from sparrows. Sneaky, but Mom had said it’s nature’s way.
* * *
OUT WENT THE metal desk and banged-up filing cabinet. Out went bank statements and phone bills. Out went programs from band concerts and photos of birds—any reminders of life with Mom. Maybe to Eleanor they looked like old papers, but to me they were memories. Luckily, I saw them in the trash and hid them in my room.
Dad’s den was now a nursery. Eleanor held up pastel paint swatches that resembled the Easter eggs we’d just colored. In the end, we painted the room a sunny yellow. Mom would have said that the wooden bassinet resembled a nest, but I didn’t tell Eleanor. I no longer mentioned Mom to her because when I did, her nose wrinkled as if my words stank.
* * *
ON MAY DAY, Eleanor—so enormous—saw me off to school, hand twitching above her big belly. That evening, she lay in the hospital bed, looking tired but happy, like she’d run a long race and won. Men offered Dad cigars and slapped him on the back. He grinned like Dopey the dwarf. Mrs. Ivers gave the baby a savings bond. Crotchety Mrs. Murdoch had crocheted booties. The whole town crammed themselves into the sparse visiting hours. When Mary Louise came by, we rolled our eyes and mimicked what we heard.
“A boy! Praise the Lord!”
“The name will be carried on!”
Later, when I held the baby, I thought of my mother, and melancholy washed over me. Then Joe snuggled into the crook of my arm, and I bent down to breathe him in. He smelled like sugar cookies. Maybe things would be okay.
Back home, Eleanor barely slept. If she could have stayed awake all night long to watch over Joe, she would have. Mom had been right. Babies didn’t know how lucky they were—they slept through most of the love. After three months of no rest, Eleanor yawned constantly, no longer a perky parakeet, but a plump pigeon that waddled from the crib to the rocking chair. Her skin became blotchy and her hair clumped together in tufts.
“You’re a mother, but also a woman,” Odile told her. “Take care of yourself. You need rest and exercise.” She and I took turns holding Joe so Eleanor could dance to her Jane Fonda aerobics tape. We peeked into the living room to watch Eleanor in her pink unitard, legs kicking as high as they could. Odile whispered, “Like the cancan in Paris.”
* * *
WHILE ELEANOR AND I waited for Dad to get home from work, she asked, “How much did your mother weigh?”
“I have no idea.”
The following day, she cornered me at the counter. “What kind of diapers did she use? Did she breastfeed?”
Next she’d ask what the milk had tasted like. We didn’t have a scale until Eleanor moved in. She used to weigh herself once a week. Now, puffy and trying to “lose the baby weight,” she stepped on the scale ten times a day.
“Did she breastfeed?” Eleanor asked again. “Did she use cloth diapers?”
“She used silk ones. Yeah, and she breastfed me five times a night. Grandma Jo came, but Mom wouldn’t accept help. Said she didn’t need it.”
I expected that to be the end of it, but Eleanor started in again, “How much did she weigh?”
“Ask Dad.”
“How much?”
Her stupid questions drove me nuts. It took me a while to understand that she was comparing herself to Mom. Well, Eleanor could cook in my mother’s pans, eat off her plates. She could live in her house, she could mother me all she wanted. But Eleanor would never be my mother. I gave an impossible answer: “One hundred pounds.”
“One hundred pounds?” Eleanor’s mouth quivered.
* * *
AFTER SCHOOL, I liked coming home to see Eleanor and Odile having tea at the table, because Eleanor never pestered me when we had company. Today, with Joe slobbering in the bassinet beside them, they talked about faraway things: someday Eleanor would go back to college, someday Odile would visit Lucienne, her war bride friend in Chicago. When Odile held out a plate of grapes, Eleanor patted her stomach and said, “I’m trying to slim down.”
I smirked. Like a grape would make her fat.
“You won’t lose weight for several months,” Odile said.
Eleanor frowned. “Why would you say that?”
“You’re pregnant.”
Another baby? I quit smirking.
“But I just had Joe five months ago,” Eleanor protested.
“I’ve seen enough women to know the symptoms.”
“James told me it would be safe.”
“How old are you, and you believe what a man tells you?”
Eleanor laughed, kind of. A joke? And there was… something in Odile’s voice. Something tart. Something that made me wonder what a man had told her.
* * *
ELEANOR GOT AS big as a château with a belly so huge it made her head seem small. Her maternity clothes fit funny; her bosom and bottom rebelled against the tight cotton. She stopped dyeing her hair, and dark roots took hold. Only trashy women let that happen.
“It wasn’t like this with Joe.” She sounded dazed.
Pasty and swollen, like her whole body was pregnant, not just her stomach, she felt dizzy the second she stood. When she stayed in bed all day like Mom, I remained at Eleanor’s side. I remembered a line from Bridge to Terabithia: “Life was as delicate as a dandelion. One little puff from any direction, and it was blown to bits.” As a kid, I thought only old people died. Now I knew differently. Why hadn’t I been nicer to Eleanor? I felt awful about the sick satisfaction I’d taken in hurting her. She wasn’t so bad. She’d even convinced Dad to give me an allowance, telling him, “A banker’s daughter should learn how to budget.” Please don’t die, I prayed.
Odile came over. I liked that she didn’t knock, she just walked right in, like family.
“You’re as lovely as a Madonna,” she told Eleanor.
“Really?”
Honestly? More like Jabba the Hutt. I knew the truth would
n’t help, so I nodded.
“But let’s call Dr. Stanchfield to be on the safe side,” Odile said.
He took Eleanor’s blood pressure twice and said she had to go in for testing, the same thing he’d said about Mom.
“Is she going to be okay?” I asked.
“Your stepmom has high blood pressure, which isn’t healthy for her or the baby.”
While Joe and Eleanor dozed, Odile tried to take my mind from my worries by teaching me bébé vocabulary—bassinet, couffin; diapers, couches—but with Eleanor stuck in bed, I didn’t give a caca about all that.
“How do you say ‘high blood pressure’?” I asked.
“La tension.”
Tension. That word said it all.
“Shall we go for a stroll?” Odile said.
She was a big believer in fresh air. The cruel north wind whipped around us as we walked down Main Street, past the church, past the pygmy pines, ending up in the graveyard. Like the other ladies, Odile was a cemetery person. Not me. Seeing Brenda Jacobsen, Beloved Wife and Mother etched in granite made me ache. Mom had been gone more than two years. Chrysanthemums lay at the foot of her headstone, like the ones on Odile’s son’s and husband’s graves. I knew I should bow my head and pray, but I peered over at Odile. Her head was bowed, her expression bleak. It dawned on me that she missed her family, Buck and Marc, but also her parents and twin. I longed to know what had happened to them.
CHAPTER 22
Odile
PARIS, AUGUST 1940
PERHAPS I SHOULDN’T have called you home,” Papa said, “but I assumed you’d want to know as soon as possible…”
“Monsieur?” Bitsi prompted.
“Rémy’s alive,” Papa said.
I exhaled sharply.
“Where is he?” Bitsi asked. “Is he on his way home?”
“He’s been taken prisoner,” Papa replied.
“Prisoner?” Bitsi repeated.
“He’s in what they call a Stalag,” Papa said, “a prisoner of war camp.”
Maman wept, and I put my arm around her.
“He’s alive,” I told her.
“We know where he is,” Papa said. “Try to let that be a comfort.”
He was right. Poor Bitsi hadn’t had a letter from her brother in months.
“I wish we had news of Julien,” Papa told her, his voice tender.
She bit her lip, and I could see that she was trying not to burst into tears.
Papa drew a card from his blazer. I pried the paper from his hand and read the faint type, Je suis prisonnier. I’m a prisoner. Below, there were two lines:
I’m in perfect health.
I’m injured.
The second had been circled. Rémy was alone and hurting.
Blanching when she read the card, Bitsi said she should let her mother know. Papa and I saw her to the door. She kissed his cheek, which brought a shadow of a smile to his face.
We returned to Maman. Papa knelt beside her and gently wiped her tears. He and I tucked our arms around her waist and helped her to bed. In their room, Papa paced, and Maman continued to weep.
“Shall I call Dr. Thomas?” I asked.
“All the medicine in the world won’t help,” Papa said. “I’ll stay with her. You should rest.”
For once, I didn’t argue. I felt guilty about leaving Maman in her grief, yet relieved to contend with my own. Stalag. A new word in the vocabulary of loss. Until today, we’d been able to tell ourselves that Rémy was making his way back to us. What would we tell ourselves now?
At my desk, with his fountain pen, I wrote:
Dear Rémy,
We hate that you’re a prisoner, hate that you’re hurt and far from home. We’re so worried.
Pouring out my feelings brought relief, but the letter would offer Rémy no comfort. I opened the pen and let the ink drip over the page. I began again.
Dear Rémy,
Dear Rémy was as far as I got.
In the morning, I dressed and went to my parents’ room. Maman was tucked under the duvet. Eyes closed, she whimpered as if she were unable to wake from a nightmare. In front of the armoire, Papa buttoned his shirt.
“I’ll stay with her,” I said.
“Maman wouldn’t want you to see her like this.” He escorted me to the front door. “I know of someone who can look after her.”
Outside, there were few people on the pavement, and no cars on the cobbles. The Library was strangely calm, too. I missed Margaret. I missed Paul. I even missed the sound of stern Mrs. Turnbull shushing students.
“I heard about Rémy. I’m so sorry.” Professor Cohen proffered a novel by Laura Ingalls Wilder called The Long Winter. “I’ve marked a particularly memorable passage. During a snowstorm, a pioneer family huddles together in their shack, unable to get warm. Pa begins to play the fiddle and tells his three daughters to dance. They giggle and prance, and this keeps them from freezing to death. Later, Pa must tend the livestock, or the animals will die. When he steps outside, he can’t see six centimeters in front of him. He holds on to the clothesline to make it to the barn. Inside, Ma holds her breath, waiting.” When I took the novel, Professor Cohen covered my hands with her own. “We can’t see what’s coming. All we can do is hold the line.”
* * *
BEFORE DINNER, I peeked into my parents’ room, where Maman was sleeping. A nurse was seated near the bed. Thinning brown hair framed a ruddy face. She looked familiar. A subscriber? A volunteer at the hospital?
“I’m Odile.”
“Eugénie,” she said.
“How is she?”
“Your mother hasn’t stirred. I’m afraid she’s in shock.”
Days went by. After work, Bitsi and I tramped around the Tuileries.
“How’s your mother?” I asked.
“She waits at the door like my brother will come home any minute.”
* * *
PARISIANS GOT USED to the Occupiers. Some did business with them, selling film for their cameras or beer to quench their thirst. Others refused to acknowledge them, pretending they weren’t there. Some women accepted compliments and invitations to dinner. Others pursed their lips in distaste. In the metro, I scowled at a skinny German soldier until he lowered his gaze.
* * *
IT WAS REASSURING to know that Eugénie was at home, one eye on Maman, the other on her knitting. Still, I wondered how I knew her. Someone who’d helped with the Soldiers’ Service? The mother of a school friend?
Then one evening, as Papa and I saw her off, he helped her don her jacket and proposed seeing her home, an offer he’d never made to the charwoman. Eugénie gave a rabbity huff and scurried down the stairs. Suddenly I knew—this “nurse” was the harlot with him at the hotel.
“How could you bring her here?” I hissed.
For a second, he appeared taken aback. Then with a calculating glint in his eye, he added up what I might know, subtracted his own guilt, and hypothesized how he could divide the attention between his mistress and my mother. After considering the elements of this chaotic equation, he chose his argument as well as Rémy did at one of his law school debates.
“What choice is there? Ask your aunt Janine to come back from the Free Zone? Bring in some stranger?”
“Maybe we could try to find Aunt Caro. She would want to know. Would want to help.”
“Your mother would have a conniption if we talked to Caroline behind her back.”
“But, Papa—”
“Perhaps you’d like to tend Maman?”
I was afraid of drowning in the bottomless depth of her grief. “Can’t we hire a nurse?”
“The ones who didn’t have the good sense to flee are working ten-hour shifts in hospitals. Eugénie’s doing a fine job.”
I snorted. “I’m sure you’ve enjoyed her bedside manner.”
“Don’t discuss matters you know nothing about! Besides, Eugénie’s practically a nurse.”
“Working in a library doesn’t make me practica
lly a book. Maman needs a real nurse.”
I stomped down to my bedroom. Bringing his mistress into his house. If only Paul were here, he’d talk sense into Papa. I wrapped my arms around my ribs, wishing it were Paul holding me. When my father disappointed me, when I had a trying time with a snippy subscriber, when I missed Rémy so much I ached, Paul was the balm I rubbed into my bruised soul.
At 8:00 p.m., my father knocked on my door. “Dinnertime.”
“I’ve lost my appetite!”
All night, I lay awake and pictured myself cornering the harlot. Face red with shame, she would apologize for daring to breathe the same air as my mother. She would promise to never darken our doorstep again. She would never again speak to Papa.
Before I left for work, I looked in on Maman. Tender as a lover, Eugénie stroked Maman’s hair; tender as a mother, she wiped her nose. I hadn’t once changed Maman’s nightgown, hadn’t emptied the bedpan. This stranger had stepped in and done all that I couldn’t. Slowly my outrage dissipated.
I kissed Maman’s cheek. She didn’t stir.
“No improvement?” Still, I found it hard to meet Eugénie’s gaze.
“Eight handkerchiefs yesterday. Better than the day before, when she used a dozen.”
“Oh, Maman…”
“I know how she feels.”
“Your son, too?”
“In the Great War. He was a toddler when they bombarded our village. I hope your mother never learns how I feel.” Eugénie stroked Maman’s arm. “Hard, so hard this life, Hortense. But your children need you. We could write your son. Your daughter’s here, wouldn’t you like to see her?”
The Paris Library Page 16
