Soon enough, the fire licks the top of the stove. Impatiently, I wait for the flames to go down again, my heart pounding relentlessly. When at last they do, I crawl forward and peer through the grate.
Mathilde’s letter is nothing but ash.
Chapter 5
Alice
It’s full steam ahead on Operation Learn about Gram’s Secret Childhood, and I need to find a place where I can hunker down with my laptop and get through more of Adalyn’s diary. Maybe I’ll check out the Latin Quarter, on the opposite side of the river. Camila and her family stayed there over spring break, and I remember her saying it was full of cute cafés. She also said it was full of cute boys, at which point her boyfriend, Peter, squirted his water bottle over her head.
It’s a gloomy, overcast afternoon, but I’m not focused on the bad weather. I was up until two in the morning toiling over another chunk of the diary, and now my great-aunt’s perfect cursive sentences swirl around my head as I traipse across a very gray Seine. It’s amazing to read all these stories about Gram that I never could have imagined. Like the one where she and Adalyn performed songs for their parents in the drawing room—I didn’t even know Gram could sing! I know it sounds weird, but it almost makes me feel like a part of Gram is still alive, waiting to be discovered. Like Gram isn’t gone all the way.
Zoom! A guy on a Vespa nearly runs me over as I set foot on the Left Bank. I should probably pay more attention to my surroundings, because the streets over here are jammed with people. I pick my way around clumps of tourists, wondering why Camila sent me here. All I see are souvenir shops and restaurants promising “authentic French cuisine” in big, bright letters. The waiters try to lure me in, yelling, “Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle!” as I walk by.
Dodging more traffic on the boulevard Saint-Germain, I contemplate turning back and going to the same café as yesterday, but then the neighborhood changes. The crowds thin out, and there are considerably fewer sightseers with cameras slung around their necks. I’ve found my way to a more intimate section of the Latin Quarter, where the streets feel like a maze you want to get lost in—narrow and twisting and full of surprises, like pint-sized coffee shops with space for just one or two tables out front, where people my age read novels and stir sugar into tiny cups of espresso. Everyone here looks so, well, French. Like they threw on the first thing they pulled out of their closet, and yet somehow, they’re better dressed than anyone I’ve ever seen at my school.
Okay, Camila. You were onto something. This area is really cool.
Also, sorry, Peter, but Camila was definitely right about the cute boys—they’re everywhere. There’s one cutting into a croque monsieur at an outdoor table, another walking his bike over the bumpy cobblestone. The guys at school are always doing the dumbest things to get girls to pay attention to them, like throwing erasers at their heads or jabbing them with the ends of their rulers, but these Parisian boys are so effortlessly cool. They would know not to try and swallow a girl’s face during a slow dance to Adele. That being said, they would probably never be interested in me, Alice Prewitt, when they could date another cool, attractive French person instead.
It starts to drizzle, and I know I should probably pick out a place to sit down, but there are just too many enticing cafés to choose from. I wander the streets some more, hoping the perfect place will present itself to me. But now the rain is getting heavier, so I pull out my phone to google a good place with free Wi-Fi.
There’s a sudden crack of lightning and the rain starts to fall in thick drops, ten times harder than it was before. I should get inside soon, otherwise my clothes will be soaked for the rest of the day. Wait, forget the clothes. I just remembered I’m carrying a very expensive laptop in a very non-waterproof backpack right now. I dart through the door of the closest shop on my right.
A bell tinkles merrily over my head. The warm, sweet smell of freshly baked bread washes over me like a wave. I seem to have stumbled upon the most beautiful little bakery—and just in time, because right as the door swings shut, a raging thunderstorm starts to pelt the front window hard enough that I can hear the glass rattling in its frame.
“Bienvenue!”
A singsong voice greets me from somewhere up ahead. I can’t find its source until a petite, fairy-like girl pops up from behind the counter like a jack-in-the-box. There’s white flour smudged across her apron and her cheek.
“Bonjour—avez-vous le Wi-Fi?”
“Oui!” She points to a piece of paper taped to the wall. It has the network name and password written out.
“Merci beaucoup,” I say with a smile. I got lucky. This place is perfect.
I go to put my things down. The bakery only has room for a single communal table, and currently, there’s only one person sitting there. It’s a young guy with a mop of reddish-brown hair, and he’s bent over a sketchbook with a ballpoint pen in hand. He briefly looks up when I unzip my bag, just long enough for me to catch a glimpse of olive-green eyes behind round tortoiseshell glasses like mine. He’s very handsome. In fact, he’s probably the best-looking guy I’ve seen all day, which is saying something.
I go back to the counter with the intention of explaining once and for all that I want a regular-sized cup of black coffee, but when I get there, I pause. If Sketchbook Guy happens to be looking at me right now, do I really want to come off as the loud tourist who doesn’t know what she’s doing? No. I want to be the sophisticated lady who orders her coffee in a microscopic cup like everyone else in Paris.
Not that I think Sketchbook Guy is interested in me in any way. But strangely, when I return to the table armed with my caffeinated slap in the face and a croissant, Sketchbook Guy looks up again. This time I notice his lips, specifically how the upper one dips down in the middle as though somebody pressed a thumb there.
He smiles.
I sip my coffee and try not to wince.
He goes back to drawing, and I open my computer, where last night’s translations are still pulled up on the screen. I left off in the fall of 1940, when Gram and her family were still settling into their strange new existence under Nazi Occupation.
The city is claustrophobic. As Chloe and I walked to the butcher’s on Saturday morning with our ration coupons, we remarked for the hundredth time on how foreign our familiar streets felt. The German soldiers reading German signposts, the random checkpoints and road closures, the boarded-up windows of apartments whose owners have fled. . . . It makes you feel as though you’re trapped in a nightmare.
In any case, there isn’t nearly as much to do these days in the way of entertainment. Charlotte remains in South America, Simone in Marseilles. And the Germans have closed the Grand Rex cinema to Parisians! Needless to say, I cannot imagine what I would do without Chloe. In this upside-down world, we anchor each other to the ground. Last night, after I had already gone to bed, she crept into my room and climbed under the covers with me. She said she couldn’t sleep.
I asked why not.
Chloe said a classmate had told her the Germans could be in France longer than any of us will be alive, and she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I pulled her in close and assured her it wasn’t true, and that Charles de Gaulle was taking care of it. To help get her mind off the frightening thought—and my mind off it, too!—we played our usual game. We went back and forth until Chloe’s voice trailed off, and I hoped she was dreaming of a decadent slice of chocolate cake.
And here’s another one:
Today Maman and I passed Madame Blanchard in the lobby of our building, looking despondent and awfully pale. She’d become a ghost since we’d last seen her. We asked if anything was the matter, and she said her son had been killed. Shot by the Germans for some kind of infraction. I didn’t know him, but I am just so devastated for his family. The man had a wife and children. It isn’t fair. I hate, hate, HATE the Germans.
Maman said I couldn’t bring up Madame Blanchard’s son in front of Papa. It was too upsetting. My uncle Mathi
eu was shot and killed, too. I love my parents so very much, and I understand why we must be strong for Papa, but I will say it here, in private, that it is getting harder and harder to hold my tongue around them—to hear Maman go on about Pétain and nod my head as though I agree with her. I don’t care what the Old Marshal did in the Great War. . . . In THIS war, he forced France to give up without a fight! I hate him, too. However, not as much as I hate the Germans.
At dinner we made polite conversation about how lucky it was to find butter at the market today. We also saw a mother begging for medicine for her sick baby, but we didn’t bring that up. All through the meal, I felt as though I might explode from sadness.
Chloe must have sensed it. Afterward, she led me to her bedroom, and as soon as we were alone, I broke down and cried. For poor Madame Blanchard and the desperate mother at the market. I couldn’t get their faces out of my head.
Chloe held me for I don’t know how long—a long time. We said how grateful we were to feel the same way about the state of things. I don’t know what I’d do without her.
The part at the end warms my heart, even though it’s sad. It makes me proud to be Chloe’s granddaughter, and also makes me want to have a sister, in a way. I love how much they loved each other.
As I brave another sip of coffee, the thought gnaws at me again, like it did last night.
The thought that I should try to track down Adalyn.
I set the cup down and swirl the brown sludge in a circle. On the one hand, I have a very good reason not to: the photo. It must be the reason Gram never talked about her.
On the other hand, Gram and Adalyn used to be so, so close. And Gram wouldn’t have left me the apartment if she didn’t want me to know about Adalyn . . . right? I mean, maybe she actually wanted me to find her.
I almost wish I’d never opened that stupid drawer, because if I hadn’t found the photo—if I only knew Adalyn as the person who wrote this diary—this wouldn’t even be a decision. I’d be in full great-aunt-stalking mode.
But that’s a pointless hypothetical, because I did open the drawer.
But—but!—according to the diary, Adalyn didn’t always support the Nazis. And she could talk to me about Gram. She could help me make sense of everything.
It can’t hurt to just poke around, can it?
I start with the obvious. I google “Adalyn Bonhomme.” The results are a Pinterest board for a baby’s birthday party and a list of Twitter accounts that definitely aren’t right. I try “Adalyn Bonhomme France” and “Adalyn Bonhomme Paris” to narrow the scope, but the results are similarly unhelpful. I try “Adalyn Bonhomme Nazis” just to see what happens, but all I get is an essay on Nazi zombie movies by a film professor with the last name Bonhomme.
Wow, there’s a weirdly high number of Nazi zombie movies out there.
Next, I pull up Facebook. My heart leaps when I search her name and get one result, but it sinks again when I realize this particular Adalyn Bonhomme is a thirteen-year-old girl in Cardiff, Wales. I try Instagram, too, but it’s no use. How many ninety-three-year-olds are actively using social media, anyway? Gram’s crowning technological achievement was learning to put spaces between the words in her text messages.
I try the white pages. I search obituaries. I do everything I can think of, to no avail. Older people just don’t have the same digital footprints we do. My friends and I can spot a random person in the background of an Instagram photo and figure out their name, age, school, and whether or not they’re dating anybody in a matter of minutes.
There’s no chance I’m going to find Adalyn on the internet. If I wanted to find her, I would need some kind of lead, but where would I even begin? I wish I knew more about the time period. That way, I could put myself in Adalyn’s shoes and figure out where she might have ended up by the end of the war. I google “Paris during World War II” and find a Wikipedia page that’s ten thousand words long. It isn’t much of a plan, but on the bright side, it’ll help me understand more of the references Adalyn makes in her diary. I need a crash course in Nazi-occupied France, anyway. I start by reading about Germany’s invasion of France in the spring of 1940—the same time that Adalyn started writing.
An hour into my research, my attention starts to waver. I realize I’ve read the same sentence about the French government retreating to the spa town of Vichy three times in a row. I need a distraction, so I peek over at Sketchbook Guy, who’s been drawing this whole time. I don’t know if it’s because he saw me look over, but for the first time since I got here, he sets down his pen and sits back in his chair to admire his work.
Wow.
It’s the most captivating drawing I’ve ever seen. I don’t know where to look first—a million tiny abstract shapes fit together in intricate patterns, like the world’s most complicated puzzle. And he did it all with a single ballpoint pen, even the shading. I can’t stop staring at it, and sure enough, he catches me in the act. He smiles, and I smile back. Something flutters in my chest. Then he looks down at the table, redness creeping up over the collar of his white T-shirt.
And then I can’t believe what happens next. The fairy-like girl flits over from the counter and deposits a coffee in front of him—not a tiny cup of sludge, but a regular mug of coffee with steam rising off the top.
I have to ask him. I hope he doesn’t think I’m weird.
“Excusez-moi—parlez-vous anglais?”
“I do, yes,” Sketchbook Guy replies in a French accent.
“What’s the name for that kind of coffee?”
“Un café américain.”
American coffee. Great. Now I definitely look like a stupid tourist, but at least he finally solved the mystery for me.
“Thank you very much,” I say to him. “I’ve been trying to order that all week, but I keep getting it wrong.”
“You are very welcome,” he says with a laugh. Then he points to the tiny coffee cup next to my computer. “You did not seem to be enjoying this café noir. Do not worry—it is too strong for me, too, and I am French.”
We smile at each other and go back to our work. Eventually the rain dies down, and he packs up his things to leave. He gives me a small wave before he gets up from the table.
It isn’t until I’m walking home for dinner, my brain drowning in details about the armistice signed between France and Germany, that I stop and think about my conversation with Sketchbook Guy. His accent really was incredible. Camila is going to freak out when I tell her. And there’s a moment I keep coming back to at the end—the part when I thanked him, and then he said . . . what was it, exactly?
That I didn’t seem to be enjoying my coffee.
Doesn’t that mean that Sketchbook Guy was looking at me, too? The more times I replay it, the more I get the fluttering feeling inside my chest.
The next day brings beautiful blue skies, and even though I know I’m being ridiculous, I’m a little disappointed. I wanted to go back to the bakery in the hope of running into Sketchbook Guy again, but now I assume there’s zero chance I’ll see him there—not when everyone in Paris is outside enjoying the sunshine.
The only reason I ultimately decide to go back is that I heard him address the girl behind the counter by name, and she wasn’t wearing a name tag on her apron. I checked on my way out. If he’s that close with the staff, it means he has to be something of a regular, right?
But when I arrive at the bakery in the early afternoon, he’s not there.
Obviously.
The only people at the big square table are a harried-looking couple with two squirming toddlers, both of whom have chocolate smeared across their cheeks. One of them lets out an ungodly shriek. My stomach sinks. I’m embarrassed for thinking I could find him again so easily. I kind of want to leave, except the woman at the counter has already asked for my order, and I don’t want to offend this already-stressed-out family, so I ask for a café américain and gloomily dump my backpack onto the table.
After half an hour, I’m ready t
o pack it in and find someplace else. I’m trying to focus on the rationing system the Germans forced upon the French people, but I keep getting distracted by the sounds of kids’ toys clattering to the floor. Yes, it’s definitely time to go. I’m finishing the last sips of my delicious American coffee—the only good part of this whole experience—when the bell tinkles over the door.
I almost drop the mug.
It’s Sketchbook Guy.
Right as he enters, Toddler Number One shrieks again. Toddler Number Two bangs her Tupperware container on the table, and Cheerios explode out of it like a geyser. Sketchbook Guy fidgets with the strap of his messenger bag and backs toward the exit.
“Wait!” I cry out. Oh god, that was louder than I meant it to be—and it wasn’t even in French. But I must have gotten his attention, because he stops moving and takes his hand off the door.
“Un moment,” I say, sweeping my bag to the side so fast, it nearly falls onto the floor. I wouldn’t normally make such a public show like this, but I guess I’m just going to go with it. I clear off a section of table that isn’t covered in Cheerios, enough room for him to open his sketchbook and create another one of his dreamlike drawings.
We lock eyes from behind our identical glasses, and a familiar smile appears on his face. Sketchbook Guy remembers me from yesterday. He walks over to my corner of the table—our corner now—and slings his bag over the back of a chair.
“Thank you,” he says.
“De rien,” I reply.
“You found the right coffee this time.”
“All thanks to you.”
He goes to the counter and comes back with a café américain of his own. I pretend to get back down to reading, but instead I peer over the top of my laptop to watch as he opens his pad to a fresh page and uncaps his pen. He picks a spot near the middle and starts drawing small spirals, then a cluster of perfect spheres, then a checkerboard pattern. It’s hypnotizing. Sometimes his hand pauses for a moment, and I can’t be sure, but I think he’s stealing glances at the notes I’d been taking by hand as I read.
The Paper Girl of Paris Page 7
