Stephanie, crying, heard Andrew crying. Then she saw the flashlight’s thin beam move to the other grave, and heard Robert say a brief prayer for the soul of the murderer. “Now,” Robert said, and with Stephanie again holding the flashlight the men shoveled earth into the graves, tamped it down, then dragged branches and fallen leaves over them.
Stephanie knelt where Max was buried and pressed her palm to the earth. My husband, she thought. Somehow it never seemed right to me that we were married, just as it doesn’t seem right, even now, that Sabrina is my name, but he cared for me as a husband would, and that was what mattered.
“My dear.” Robert’s hand was on her shoulder, and she rose and went with him to her car, and he drove it while Andrew followed in the van, all of them locked in their thoughts as they drove through a sleeping Bédoin, past the darkened villages and farmhouses that dotted the rolling plain, and so back to Cavaillon. “And you will stay with me tonight,” Robert said to Stephanie. “I don’t want you to be alone in your house.”
She looked at him through drooping eyes. “You think there are others, and when they don’t hear from that man they’ll come looking for me.”
“We don’t know that.”
“But you think it. That’s why you want me to stay with you.”
“It’s possible. I don’t want to take the chance.”
She was too tired to argue. “But I want to talk to Andrew first.”
Robert left them alone in his small living room, and she asked Andrew about what Max did in Marseilles, and he told her. “There’s a huge market all over the world for counterfeit money, hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Max was providing a service, and I was honored to be part of it. He was a hell of a guy to work for, Sabrina, and a hell of a good friend. I mean, he cared about people and he loved being alive and making things happen. I thought he was like a puppet master, you know, sort of keeping the rest of us dancing.”
“Yes,” Stephanie murmured. “What was the good deed he did?”
“Good deed? No idea.”
“He said the reason they found him was some kind of coincidence. He was doing a favor for a friend and it backfired.”
Andrew shrugged. “Got me. He didn’t talk to me about his private life.”
“Does Robert know?”
“About the good deed?”
“About any of it. The counterfeiting, the smuggling . . .”
“Christ, no. Max told me never to tell him. He really cared about Robert, you know; he wouldn’t have laid that on him. Anyway, he didn’t really trust anybody, even the people he cared about. Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s all right. I know he was like that.”
“Look, Sabrina, if you need help, if you need anything . . . I’ll get you out of here, I’ll take care of you; I mean, if you’d let me—”
“Thank you, Andrew, but I’m fine. I have Robert and . . . I have friends.”
Robert. Friends. She thought about them all night, sleeping fitfully on the small couch, waking with a start, thinking she heard Max’s voice, or Léon’s or Jacqueline’s, or Madame Besset beating egg whites for a soufflé, or the bell at Jacqueline en Provence announcing a customer. Sometimes she was sure she heard the dull thud of soil being flung into graves. At dawn she stayed awake, and that was how Robert found her, curled up, one hand under her cheek, her eyes wide and thoughtful.
“What is it you look at so intently?” he asked.
“I’m trying to see the future.” She wore a pair of Robert’s pajamas that were only slightly too big, and as she sat up, her hair tousled, her cheek red with the imprint of her fingers, Robert thought she looked like an innocent child.
“Part of your future is secure,” he said, and told her about Max’s money. “You’re a wealthy woman, Sabrina; you’ll need someone to help you handle your money and Max’s investments. I know two people, one in Marseilles, one in Paris. Let me give you their names.”
Stephanie took the cards he held out. A wealthy woman. But all I want is what I have: a home, a job, friends . . . and Léon. “Robert, I have a friend. Someone very important to me. I’d like you to meet him.”
He gazed at her without expression. “Did Max know?”
“I never found a way to tell him. I wanted to, but . . . You see, he was leaving Cavaillon. And I was staying.”
“He told me you were leaving together. But not for a while.”
“He left last night. I wouldn’t go with him.”
“Because of your friend?”
“Partly. But mostly because this is my home and I didn’t want to start all over again somewhere else.”
“Max was your husband.”
“I couldn’t go with him, Robert. He told me things about his life, things I couldn’t be part of . . .” A shiver went through her. “I can’t believe we’re talking about him like this; I keep thinking he’ll walk in the door and be angry because we’re talking about him. He didn’t like people to talk about him, or to know anything about him.”
“But I knew him, at least I knew some sides of him, and I don’t believe he would have left you behind.”
“He didn’t want to. He tried to persuade me to go. But he knew I didn’t love him—I think you knew it, too, Robert—and when I refused, he had to leave. He knew they’d found him, whoever they were, and he didn’t have much time. But then he came back. He said I was in danger, too.”
“And so you must leave after all. As soon as possible.”
“Where will I go? Robert, I have nowhere to go; I don’t know anyone anywhere but here.”
“I have friends; I can send you to them. Or is the real reason that your friend does not want to leave?”
“I haven’t asked him. I love him, Robert, and I want to marry him, but I have to know what kind of life I can lead before I ask him to be with me.”
“But you must leave. How can you hesitate, after yesterday? If you want your friend with you, you must ask him to leave Cavaillon, but in any event, Sabrina, you cannot stay here.”
“Yes, I know, I know, I just can’t decide right now . . . Robert, right now I just want you to meet him and get to know him.”
“To give you my blessing.”
“Yes.”
“And to marry you?”
“When we’re ready . . . if you would . . . there’s no one else I want.”
“But then what is it you want now?”
“I want you to tell me you’re happy for me. I want you to be glad that I’ve found someone to love.” Tears came to her eyes. “I want you to be my family.”
Robert kissed her forehead. “This afternoon, then. Can you reach him that quickly? We’ll have lunch at Café Hélène. A family lunch.”
Café Hélène was a converted house, white stucco, square and solid on its street corner, its tables shielded from the traffic by a high stucco wall. Stephanie and Robert were led through a narrow arch to a tiny walled courtyard fragrant with roses, with a single table set for three. When Léon arrived, he took Stephanie’s hands and kissed them. “I was worried. I called all day yesterday. I even called Jacqueline, who said she does not keep track of you on Sundays.”
“So much has happened . . . I have so much to tell you. Léon, this is Father Robert Chalon.”
They shook hands, taking stock of each other, liking each other. “I’ve seen your work,” Robert said. “You have a great talent.”
“But what has happened?” Léon took Stephanie’s hand again, and sat beside her while Robert told him what had happened on Mont Ventoux. As he talked, Léon moved his chair closer to Stephanie’s, his grip tightening on her hand. “Terrible, terrible. How terrifying to be there . . . alone. With the winds and the dead. Dead,” he repeated, his voice barely a murmur. “Dead. So suddenly, so crazily. We never thought . . .” He put his arm around Stephanie and turned her face to his. “All I want is to be with you always, to help you when you need it, to shield you from danger so that never again could you be alone on a mountaint
op in such terror . . . my God, I would do anything to keep you from that.”
“I thought of you,” Stephanie said. “I talked to you. I said I couldn’t die because we had barely begun.”
He laughed quietly. “We’ll take care of each other from now on. And Father Chalon will watch over us both.”
“Wherever you are,” Robert said, and then they talked about all that had happened and all that might happen. They sat at the small round table for the whole afternoon, remembering Max, learning about Robert’s work and how Max had helped it, trying to imagine the danger facing Stephanie.
“We’ll leave,” Léon said at last. “Why would we stay where there is any danger at all? Nothing keeps us here; we’ll choose a town where we can begin everything new, where we can be as private as we wish. Oh. I know the place. I have friends in Vézelay; I use their guest house and studio whenever I visit Burgundy. We’ll go there. No one looks for anyone in Vézelay; there are too many tourists. Everyone becomes anonymous.”
“A beautiful town,” said Robert. “But close to Paris. Less than two hundred kilometers, I believe.”
“Far enough,” Léon said. “We can slip in and out for theater and music and galleries, and live as we wish in Vézelay. Sabrina, does that sound good to you?”
“Yes,” she said. And she did not say that there might be people in Vézelay who knew her, or in Paris, or anywhere else they might go. Until she remembered who she was, there was nowhere she could be sure she would be anonymous. But why talk about that now? She was with Léon. The terror of yesterday and the black sorrow of the burial in the forest were behind her. She remembered her piercing happiness on the summit of Mont Ventoux just before the murderer arrived. Everything is waiting for me . . . a new life, a whole life, with Léon. Because I will remember, and then I’ll be the person I was and the person I am now. And I’ll have everything I could ever want.
It would never seem that simple again, she thought. She knew now how the calm of a sunlit day could be shattered and happiness swept away. She knew there would be other shadows in the years to come, new discoveries, sudden meetings that she could not even imagine. But if they held on to each other, to what they would build together, nothing would be as terrible as that lonely moment on the summit of Mont Ventoux. Because we’ll be together. And we won’t let anything tear us apart.
“Well, then, Vézelay,” Léon said. “A very special place. A good place for us. How soon can you be ready?”
“The house . . .” Stephanie said. “Madame Besset. I can’t just walk out.”
“Madame Besset and I will pack up everything in the house and send it to you when you’re ready,” Robert said. “You should leave very soon. You should not go back to that house at all.”
“No, you’ll stay with me,” Léon said. They talked about storing the antiques and the art from the house, and paying Madame Besset and moving Léon’s furnishings and his studio. “Formidable but not impossible,” Léon said to Stephanie with a smile. “And we start with a visit to Avignon. I have some supplies to pick up; can you come with me? We can make lists of everything we need to do.”
Stephanie shook her head. “I can’t just walk out of Jacqueline’s shop. I’ll ask her how long she needs me.”
“It is more important that you leave,” Robert said. “I could tell her for you.”
“No. Thank you, Robert, but Jacqueline is my friend. I’ll tell her I’m leaving in . . . one week.”
Léon met Robert’s eyes. “Less,” he said. “We’ll go the day after tomorrow. What we cannot pack, Father Chalon and Madame Besset will finish for us. But first Avignon, yes? Will you come with me tomorrow afternoon after you finish in the shop?”
“Yes,” Stephanie said. She was remembering a shop Max had shown her, filled with antique maps. She would buy one for Léon. She had not yet given him a gift and suddenly, urgently, she wanted to.
“I’ll pick you up at one,” Léon said, but when he arrived at the shop the next afternoon Stephanie was still inside, helping a customer. He watched through the window as she appeared and disappeared, moving from the front of the shop to the back. Seen through the glass and the cluttered window display, she seemed dreamlike, a beautiful woman wearing a white summer dress, drifting among fragile antiques. Nothing lasts, Léon thought. He gripped the steering wheel. The hell it doesn’t. This will last. What we create will last.
Stephanie opened the car door and leaned across to kiss him. “I’m sorry; we were so busy. Jacqueline was wonderful. I hope we can ask her to visit us in Vézelay. Do you think she’ll come?”
“Someday. I went to your house today. Madame Besset and I packed your clothes and I paid her for September. I told her you’d left town.”
“What did she say?”
“That she’d always thought you and monsieur had many secrets and she would not be surprised at anything you did. She hopes you remember her fondly.”
“She knows I will. She taught me to drive.”
“And Robert taught you to cook.”
“And you taught me to love. How long will we be in Avignon?”
“Not long. And tomorrow we go home to Vézelay.”
Stephanie sighed. “Once I thought I should live alone for a while before coming to you. I thought I needed to learn how to do that.”
“And now?”
“I want to be with you. I like to hear you say home. And I don’t know what all the tomorrows will be like.”
“Whatever they’re like, we’ll face them together.” They drove in the hazy heat through villages with a row of shops, a church, and a square where men in black played boules, rolling the silver balls across the smoothly swept dirt while families watched and applauded, and then they were driving through one of the gates in the old stone wall that encircled Avignon. In the distance they saw the great towers and domes of the Palace of the Popes. Léon found a parking place near the river and got out, stretching his legs. Stephanie reached into the back seat and put on a wide-brimmed straw hat with a long red and orange scarf tied around the crown. Léon drew in his breath. “So lovely . . . I’ll paint you like that, in Vézelay, beside a wall of bougainvillaea. Is the hat new?”
“I just bought it; I loved the colors. Where are we going?”
“To Monet Fournitures Artistiques. This way.” They walked to the Place de l’Horloge, and stopped for a moment beside the carousel of brightly painted horses and elephants and great thronelike seats, turning to the accompaniment of hurdy-gurdy music. Stephanie gazed at it, unable to tear herself away. “Isn’t it wonderful? Such a happy place for children.”
Léon took her arm and they moved on. The heat built up in the square; people took off their jackets and draped them over their arms. Stephanie took off her hat, combed her hair with her fingers, and put it on again. They left the square and came to a cobbled street along the Sorgue River, the air cooler here, mossy waterwheels turning lazily at the river’s edge and, on the other side of the Rue des Teinturiers, a row of antique shops.
Stephanie recognized one of them. “Léon, we have to go in here. I want to buy you something.”
Inside, she moved around a large table, lifting heavy folios, each one holding a map encased in protective sheets of plastic. “Oh, this one. Do you like it?”
Léon’s eyebrows rose. “It’s quite wonderful. Very rare. A Tavernier. But do you have any idea what it costs?”
“It doesn’t matter. I want to buy you a present. I want to buy you this.”
A small man, stooped over a cane, came through the doorway. His white hair was in disarray; his white beard was trimmed to a neat point. “Yes, madame?” He quoted a price.
“Fine,” Stephanie said.
Léon was poring over the map. “Superb. I’ve always looked for one.” He and the shop owner compared the map to others; Léon said that he was a painter and looked at ancient maps as works of art. They talked for a long time, answering Stephanie’s questions, enjoying each other. Then Léon said to Stephanie,
“I’d like to wait. Do you mind very much if we don’t buy it today? I’d like to be sure where we’ll be living before I start dragging it around. It could be sent to us later.”
“Oh. If that’s the reason . . . yes, of course. But I do want to buy it for you. And I won’t forget. We’ll wait,” Stephanie said to the owner of the shop.
“I can hold it for you. If you have a card, monsieur . . . ?”
“No, plenty of canvases, but no cards.”
“We’ll call you,” Stephanie said, and as they left, Léon took a final glance at the map, lovingly put back in its case by the little man with white hair.
“You’re wonderful,” he said as they walked to Monet Fournitures Artistiques, the art supply shop. “I’ve wanted one of those all my life.” Inside, Léon greeted a tall woman with broad shoulders, round cheeks and oversize glasses that made her look like an amiable owl. They talked about oils and watercolors while Stephanie wandered around the shop, enjoying the riot of colors, the display of brushes lined up by size like a military formation, stacks of canvases in graduated sizes, and palettes hanging from long rods. When the woman went in back to find some gesso, Léon put his arm around Stephanie. “My darling Sabrina, you are very patient.”
“I’m having a good time. Max never liked to browse in shops. He just looked in windows.”
“Husbands aren’t supposed to love shopping.”
“Some husbands might.”
A Tangled Web Page 43
