The Paris Key

by Juliet Blackwell

  Adults—the very few to whom Genevieve disclosed any inkling of this sort of thinking—told Genevieve she was wrong, that Angela was dying of a disease, that it was nobody’s fault.

  Genevieve nodded. But she didn’t believe them.

  Genevieve had begged. And then her mother died anyway.

  She had known, deep down, that Angela was unhappy. Sometimes (many times) Angela would get that faraway look in her eyes and stare out the kitchen window at the carrot patch. Or she would focus on Genevieve, her gaze so intent that Genevieve would look up from her puzzle or her book, having felt its weight from across the room. Nothing was as sad as that look on her mother’s face; it was the expression of someone who wouldn’t protest overmuch should some hooded figure with a scythe show up to escort her away from this life.

  “Do you think you can die of being sad?” Genevieve once asked Uncle Dave.

  Her uncle’s hand had stopped toying with the lock in front of him. He set down his pick and turned to Genevieve, crouching before her and speaking in a voice as soft and gentle as a cat’s paw: “You will be happy again one day, ma chérie. You must believe your old uncle Dave. You must not give up, ever—you hear me? You will go on to live your life; you will not die of this sadness.”

  Genevieve had opened her mouth to correct him but then didn’t say anything, awash in embarrassment that she had been thinking not of her own sadness, but of her mother’s.

  The mother who had chosen to abandon her.

  Genevieve took her favorite S pick out of her jeans pocket. She had been carrying it around with her ever since she had become a Paris-trained superhero.

  It took her almost an hour, but she was patient. She did not give up. She defeated the lock.

  Stealthily, she wandered around the Landons’ house, imagining life in their shoes. They had a fully stocked bar and a massive television with about a zillion videos (no surprise there). She flipped through a few pages of Brittney’s diary (boring, mostly about boys and clothes) and then snooped through Mrs. Landon’s powder blue, perfumey bathroom with gold fixtures (his-and-hers master baths) and found a jumbo-sized vial of Valium in the medicine cabinet.

  Genevieve felt awash in a combination of guilt and disappointment. The Landons’ lives were as pretty yet empty as she would have imagined; one of those ornately decorated Easter shells with the egg blown out.

  She left, carefully relocking the door and promising herself she wouldn’t do it again. She lied.

  Chapter Twenty

  Genevieve had made plans to meet Philippe at Le Petit Feu, “a wonderful café where they treat me like the royalty I am,” he said with a laugh over the phone when he called to make arrangements. She had, once again, attempted to decline lunch in favor of getting straight to work on his house, but he insisted.

  So Genevieve packed the dossier and all the old locks that pertained to Philippe D’Artavel’s address into a large canvas bag she found in Dave’s shop.

  She hesitated when deciding what to wear: normally she would dress in jeans and a T-shirt; though locksmithing wasn’t always dirty work, it involved plenty of kneeling. But if she was meeting Philippe for lunch in a restaurant . . . she finally decided on a black pullover, jeans, and boots, covered with her overcoat. And her key necklace, of course.

  At the last moment she borrowed one of Pasquale’s silk scarves—Hermès, in shades of red and gold—that had been draped over a lampshade, and tied it around her neck. It took her three tries to get a knot even approximating something stylish, but the scarf was so pretty she decided it was good enough.

  She picked up her uncle’s bag of picks and sweeps and oil, then took a moment to study the dog-eared map of Paris, figuring out her route to the café. It was a little over a mile away, but the bag wasn’t heavy and the day was sunny.

  The Petit Feu was as adorable as every other brasserie on every other corner of Paris: the name on the big front window was in gold gilt and lettered in the elongated Art Nouveau script; wrought-iron tables topped with fresh flowers spilled out onto the sidewalk; unsmiling apron-clad waiters hustled by with trays or loitered nearby.

  Philippe was seated at a small table outside, hands perched on his cane.

  “Genevieve Martin! C’est la serruriere américaine!” he said as he rose to greet her. They kissed each other on one cheek, then the other. “The American locksmith, thank you for meeting me here.”

  “How could I refuse? A date with a handsome Parisian royal?”

  His laughter was rusty but loud, more a cackle than a chuckle.

  She took a seat and when the waiter appeared, she used some of the restaurant French she had studied last night and asked for the menu, please: “Le menu, s’il vous plaît.”

  “Okay! Good choice!” said Philippe, before carrying on a long and animated discussion with the waiter. Genevieve didn’t even try to understand what they were saying, instead enjoying the sunshine. It was a cool day, but not overcast, and outdoor heaters kept the tables comfortable. Parisians loved outdoor dining so much that only a downpour kept them from enjoying the fresh air.

  It was only after the waiter returned with an appetizer that Genevieve realized she had made a classic American mistake: in France, la carte refers to the list of offerings, while le menu refers to that day’s special two – or three-course meal. By asking for the menu she had already ordered her lunch.

  Good thing she was an omnivore, she thought as a terrine was laid in front of her. Alongside this was a small pitcher of chilled rosé and a wineglass.

  “The wine, it comes with the menu,” said Philippe as he poured wine from his own tiny pitcher into his glass and raised it in a salute: “À la vôtre!”

  Philippe asked her how she was settling in, whether she had enough to eat and had found the best boulangerie. He laughed when she confessed that after her trip to the boulangerie she had chickened out and gone to the Casino. He gave her a few recommendations for butchers and greengrocers, though he suggested she ask her immediate neighbors for their favorites in the neighborhood.

  “Otherwise, you walk too far every day, I think.”

  Genevieve smiled. “I don’t mind. I like to walk. So, tell me, how did you and my uncle Dave know each other? Was it during the war?”

  “No, no. Dave, he comes here after the war is over. But . . . you know, it takes time. Even after Hitler was gone, it takes some time for things to get back to the normal.”

  “The rebuilding effort?”

  He nodded. “Yes, and even to get all the Germans to leave. Back then, communication was difficult; not even everyone knows the war is over at the same time. Écoute, did you know I had been captured, was going to be killed before the soldiers left?” He mimed a rifle, taking aim, squeezing one eye shut, pulling the trigger. “Comment dit-on?”

  “You were going to be shot?”

  “Oui, yes, exactly. Because I work against the soldiers. But when the city is freed, I am released. I am lucky. Others were shot while the soldiers go—they kill many prisoners before they go back to Germany.”

  “That’s terrible to imagine. So you worked against the Germans? In the resistance?”

  He nodded, sipped his wine.

  “I’ve always wondered,” Genevieve continued, “how many people took part in the resistance?”

  “La résistance?” He pronounced it ray-zis-TAHNCE. He shrugged, tilted his head, pushed out his chin. “There were . . . I have heard people say twenty thousand. A lot, but not enough for a country this size, n’est-ce pas? We cannot do much, but we do what we can. We take down the road signs, put the holes in tires, cut the lines for power and communication. We bomb gas depots. Oooh, you must try this pâté.”

  He pushed his plate toward her and she tried a bit: creamy and salty and rich. Then she offered him her plate in return; he slathered a chunk of terrine onto a piece of crusty bread, popped it in his mouth,
gave a thumbs-up sign, and washed it down with rosé.

  “The bells of the churches, it sound like all the churches of Paris—they start to ring on the twenty-fifth August, 1944. That is how we know we are liberated! Because of the bells, you see? I was a prisoner, but I wake to the sound of the church bells. The soldiers hear it, too, and they run away!” He laughed so hard he started to cough, then took another sip of wine. “The Second French Armored Division march down the Champs-Élysées toward the Arc de Triomphe. There has . . . there has never been a more beautiful sight than those French soldiers coming along the Champs-Élysées—other than a beautiful woman, of course.” He ended with a wink and a smile.

  “You were a war hero,” Genevieve said.

  He shook his head, wagged a finger. “No, I was no hero. There were many heroes during the war, but I was not this. I fight for my city, la fraternité. My . . . Comment dit-on? Ma patrie. I did what I have to do; you would do no less if the Nazis march down your street, kill your neighbors, your family. Believe me, I know this.”

  His rheumy eyes were bright, and for a moment Genevieve caught a glimpse of the dashing fellow he must have been. The young man who had defaced road signs and cut power lines, who laughed at his Nazi captors running away on the morning he was set to be put to death. Images from a hundred movies and books flickered through her mind: children hiding in secret rooms, the infiltrators and collaborators and double-crossers, the families being packed into cattle cars and transported to death camps.

  “I would hope I would fight,” Genevieve found herself saying. “I don’t know how brave I am, but I hope I would have fought beside you.”

  “You would have,” he said with a firm nod. “I see courage in you. You should see how you would fight. You Americans, you don’t have people come on your land to take you over. You go other places to fight instead—isn’t that true?” He chuckled. “Believe me, it is easier to fail that way, in some foreign land when you don’t know why you are fighting. It is different to fight for your homeland. Do you know this man, Jean-Paul Sartre?”

  “The philosopher? A little bit . . . I mean, I read a little Sartre in college.”

  “He said the Nazis gave us a gift. And this was it: Their cause was wrong.”

  “Their cause was wrong? That was the gift?”

  “Yes, exactly. All decent people agree on this, that the Nazi cause was wrong. It was, how do you say? Black-and-white. That is not typical; usually there is more than one side to every conflict. War is complicated. Like love.”

  The waiter came and whisked away their appetizer dishes with quiet efficiency, replacing them with the main course, or the plat principal. He uttered a quick, “Bon appétit,” and rushed off without asking if they needed anything else.

  Philippe yanked his head in the direction of their server and smiled. “The waiters here, they are . . . Comment dit-on? Pas gentils?”

  “Rude?”

  “C’est ça! They are rude here, n’est-ce pas? This is what Dave tells me, that in America every waiter is your best friend! He says in America, your waiter tells you his name! Okay!”

  Genevieve smiled and gave a little nod/shrug of acquiescence. She did find Parisian waiters intimidating. “They’re different here—that’s for sure.”

  “We don’t leave him extra money.”

  “Oh, let’s leave him something.” Genevieve had waited tables one long, hot summer while in college. She knew exactly how much tips meant to servers, so even if the service was iffy, she never stiffed them. “He’s doing his job, even if he isn’t friendly.”

  “No, I mean that here in Paris, no one leaves money—except the American tourists, who don’t know the custom! This is why they are not friendly. It is service compris. They are paid by the restaurant already. Sometimes we leave a few coins, but that is all.”

  “Really?” She craned her neck to look at the middle-aged man who had been attending to them. He was leaning against the wall in the back of the restaurant, arms crossed over his chest, chatting with another waiter.

  “Also, they used to be happier when they could smoke. Now there is no smoking inside the restaurant, quel dommage, eh?”

  Genevieve was just as glad she didn’t have to secondhand smoke a pack of cigarettes along with every meal, so she didn’t agree that it was a shame, but she just smiled and nodded as she tasted her duck breast, magret de canard. It was moist and succulent. The rosé was crisp and dry, the perfect temperature. She didn’t usually drink wine during the day, but when in Rome . . .

  “Anyway, Sartre was a great thinker,” continued Philippe. “He was a friend of mine.”

  Her head popped up. “Really? You knew Jean-Paul Sartre?”

  “Maybe I exaggerate . . . We were not the best of friends, but we were copains. Friends. We would get together at the Café des Phares, talk of what was happening. You know, much of his thought, his philosophy, came from the terrible things from the war. It was a hard time.”

  Now that she thought about it, Genevieve realized that of course, Jean-Paul Sartre had been writing in the fifties and sixties. Somehow in her mind she had always grouped him with other philosophers, old dead men all, timeless. It was hard to imagine them as living, breathing humans, hanging out in cafés with rude waiters serving them the menu.

  After the main course came the dessert, a choice of crème brûlée or chocolate mousse. Genevieve was stuffed, but Philippe ordered one of each without asking her. “Or would you prefer cheese?”

  “No, dessert sounds great.”

  “We will share, okay!” he said with a wink. “You want coffee, too, okay? Espresso?”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Angela, 1983

  Angela asks Pasquale and Dave, “What do you know about the Basque region?”

  “Oh, it is beautiful, this area,” says Pasquale. “I like it very much. The people are a little different; they have their own language, their own cuisine.”

  “Would you like to visit?” asks Dave. “It’s a long trip from here, but there’s always the train. . . .”

  “No, I was just wondering. I met someone from there and realized how little I knew about the Basques and their history.”

  “Under Franco, the Spanish Basques were not allowed to speak their language. It was very hard, and not so long ago,” says Dave. “Franco died only a few years ago. Nineteen seventy-five, I think. Things are still working themselves out.”

  “Even after his death, though, there are still many forces at work. It was not only Generalissimo Franco who tried to repress the Basques. Last year there were Spanish death squads sent across the border, into France.”

  “Death squads?” Angela asks.

  Dave gives Pasquale a significant look. “It is a fight happening far from here. Yes, it is a tragedy, but it is not our tragedy.”

  “Until someone brings it home, to Paris,” says Pasquale. “This sort of thing has a way of making itself known.”

  But now Angela is back with the group she likes to call (in her mind) the Revolutionaries, sitting outside Pablo’s café, at tables that spill into the street since there is no traffic at this hour. Thibeaux and Michelle and Cyril and Mario and Pablo. And Xabi, of course. He is sitting across the table from her, smoking, avoiding her eyes. And for some reason—probably because he will not look at her—she wants more than anything else to make him talk, make him engage in conversation with her.

  “Where did you live before you came to Paris?” Angela asks him.

  Thibeaux answers: “Biarritz. We were both there, weren’t we, Xabi?”

  Xabi nods, stubs out his cigarette.

  “You don’t like tourists, but you lived in Biarritz?” Angela asks. “Isn’t that a tourist mecca?”

  “That’s where the jobs were,” Thibeaux says. “That’s one thing you can say for tourists: They bring the money, eh?”

  “But
you’re originally from Spain?”

  Finally, Xabi nods, leans back, meets her eyes. “I have family on both sides of the border. Ours is not France or Spain, but the Basque country, Euskadi. But yes, I was born in Franco’s Spain.”

  “So you speak French as well as Spanish?”

  “I grew up speaking Euskara—what you call the Basque language—as well as French, and castellano.”

  He practically spits out the last word.

  “Castellano? That’s Spanish, right?”

  “You call it Spanish. We call it the language of the government. We Basques don’t consider ourselves Spanish. We never really did, but after Franco things became much worse. He outlawed our language, our culture.”

  “How do you outlaw a culture?”

  Xabi looks at her a long time. His beautiful light blue eyes. “Exactly.”

  The café is virtually empty; no food is being served at this hour. The only other customers are the patrons lingering over their coffees and drinks: two young couples apparently in love, a pair of elderly men debating loudly, a middle-aged couple dining in silence.

  “You must miss the Basque country. You speak of it with such love.”

  A long pause. She notices that Thibeaux casts Xabi a significant glance.

  “It is . . . different there,” Xabi finally responds.

  “Enough of this talk,” Thibeaux says, getting up to pour more wine. “The Basque country is the past. Let us rejoice in the now; isn’t that what you say in California?”

  Angela finally looks away, down the dark street, toward the spires of a church that reminds her of a mini Notre-Dame, visible over the rooftops. To change the subject, she says, “Do you know, I’ve been to Paris twice, and I have never seen the gargoyles atop Notre-Dame?”

  “That is a shame,” says Thibeaux. “Did you know Victor Hugo wrote his books about the gargoyles and the hunchback in part to save the building? He was a genius. He wrote, ‘All the forces in the world are not as powerful as an idea whose time has come.’”