by Levy, Marc
“This . . . is quite a complicated matter,” he finally said.
“What’s so complicated about it?” asked George-Harrison.
“Strictly speaking, a family tree does not constitute an official document. Yet, this one does attest to your roots. The safety-deposit box in question hasn’t been opened for thirty-six years. In just a few months, it would have been declared abandoned, and its contents seized by the bank. You can imagine my surprise at this visit from someone claiming it.”
“But aren’t you holding proof of my hereditary rights in your hand right now? I’m Sally-Anne Stanfield’s daughter.”
“That much is clear, I grant you that. You do also look a lot like her, I must say.”
“You remember my mother, after all these years?”
“Do you have any idea how many years my wife resented me for not having approved your mother’s loan? Or the countless times she told me I should have stood up to my board of directors, insisting that their fears had been unwarranted? You have no idea how many years your mother cast a cloud—albeit indirectly—over my entire existence. Probably best I don’t give you the actual number.”
“Then you know the truth, you know what happened.”
“I know that she fled the country after her brother’s accident, abandoning her mother to go live abroad. Like anyone who had a relationship with the Stanfields, I was dismayed to learn all this.”
“Did you know Hanna?”
I picked up the slightest twitch in his face at the name.
“She was a lovely woman,” he said. “Never willing to listen to those doctors. Hanna . . . was a saint, as I live and breathe.”
“Listen to them about what?”
“About pulling the plug on her son, about turning off the machines that kept him alive. To ensure that Edward received the best possible care, she sold all her paintings, one by one, with the legendary Stanfield estate following soon thereafter. She lost most of her fortune. She eventually moved into a modest little apartment, all by herself, spending her days watching over her son at the clinic and waiting for a miracle that never came. Technology grew more and more sophisticated, yet nothing could bring Edward back to life. She sacrificed everything for him, and when he finally died, it wasn’t long before poor Hanna followed suit.”
“How long did Edward last?”
“At least ten years. Maybe longer.” Mr. Clark lifted up his glasses, dabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief, and coughed.
“Let’s get back to what you came here for. You are aware this document proves your brother and sister are also Miss Stanfield’s rightful heirs? Or rather—your mother’s, I should say.”
“Indeed, I am.”
“The rental contract expressly stipulates that only she or one of her children be allowed access to the safety-deposit box.”
Mr. Clark took my family tree in his hands, along with the contract itself, and handed both to his secretary. She had been listening the whole time, with the door to her adjoining office cracked open. It was as though Mr. Clark wanted a witness to prove he hadn’t broken any rules, that he had remained a faithful servant of the bank over which he presided. The secretary returned a short while later, nodding to Mr. Clark to let him know everything was in order.
“Well, then. Shall we?” sighed Mr. Clark.
Reaching the safety-deposit box involved an elevator taken straight from an old film noir. As we descended lower and lower at a snail’s pace, I noticed George-Harrison admiring the elevator, studying the ornate wood marquetry, the grate, and the wooden crank, most likely imagining all the steps it would take to create an exact replica.
The safe-deposit vault was vast and impressive. Mr. Clark asked us to kindly wait outside with his secretary. The old woman gave us a warm smile, the first we had seen from her. Mr. Clark returned a short while later carrying an art portfolio with a protective cover. He laid the portfolio down on a table at the center of the space and backed away from it.
“I’ll let you open it. I’m merely the custodian.”
We cautiously approached, as though there were some sort of sacred relic hidden within. In a way, there was.
George-Harrison untied the strings sealing the portfolio, and I lifted the flap to reveal the Girl by the Window in all her timeless beauty. The light streaming onto her face was so realistic, it seemed like daylight itself had been captured upon the canvas.
The sight reminded me of another young woman looking out of a different window as her father smoked cigarettes with a young American liaison officer. All of it came back to me at once, just as though it were part of my own past: the harrowing escape through the mountains, all those who helped them along the way, the warmhearted English art dealer who took a chance on a young protégée. I could see the claustrophobic view out of the window of their tenement on Thirty-Seventh Street dissolving into the stunning view from their apartment window on the Upper East Side. The arrival of my mother, their adopted daughter, and the birth of their son . . . all the many lives whose fates were bound to the Hopper masterpiece, Sam Goldstein’s very favorite work of art.
After a moment, Mr. Clark and the secretary discreetly approached to admire the painting as well. They both seemed equally in awe as they took in the young girl captured on canvas.
“Do you plan to take it today?” whispered Mr. Clark.
“No,” I replied softly. “It’s far safer here.”
“In that case, let’s keep this simple. I’ll transfer the contract to your name and add today’s date; that way you can leave with a copy in hand. If you’d be so kind as to wait in the lobby just a few minutes, my secretary will bring it to you.”
We came back to ground level via the same elevator and said goodbye to Mr. Clark. He climbed back inside the ornate elevator, and this time took it all the way back to the top floor.
After ten minutes or so, the secretary arrived carrying a sealed envelope. As she handed it over, she urged me to never lose the document, explaining that it was the very first time Mr. Clark had taken such extraordinary measures in all his long career, and she doubted he would ever break the rules again. The kind old woman then smiled at us a second time, and took her leave to go back to work.
We chose Sailor’s Hideaway for lunch—not as some intense pilgrimage for our mothers’ sake, but more to revisit the location of our “first date.” During the meal, George-Harrison asked what I planned to do with the painting.
“I plan to give it to you. You’re the rightful owner. You’re the only one with Sam and Hanna Goldstein’s blood running through your veins. My mother was adopted, remember?”
“I almost forgot—but I couldn’t be more thrilled about it!”
“I didn’t realize you were so eager to get your hands on that painting.”
“I’m not. It’s an absolute masterpiece, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t give a damn about all that. As far as I’m concerned, adopted or not, your mother was still their daughter, and she was the rightful heiress.”
“I’m lost. So, why is that such great news?”
“Because it means you and I are not related, in any way. Which is great news for both of us, because there is no way in hell I’m letting you go back to England, unless you want to take me with you.”
I had no plans of leaving him, although I had to admit I would have gone so far as to board the plane just to make him beg me to stay.
“I know,” I replied, a slight tremble in my voice.
“Sure you do. You know everything,” he said, seeing right through me. “Except for one thing, the one mystery we may never crack: Just who is our poison-pen?”
As we climbed into the pickup, I reached into my pocket and drew out the document that Mr. Clark’s secretary had given me. My eyes immediately locked on to my own name, handwritten on the front of the envelope. The handwriting . . . full of rich curves and delicate edges, as though it had been written a century ago. No one wrote like that anymore, yet I was sure I recognized it.
> Just like that, the final pieces fell into place. I began to laugh and cry at the same time. We stopped at a red light, and I handed the envelope to George-Harrison.
“Morrison was wrong! Hanna didn’t commit suicide. Her car, remember? It was her car our mothers sank off the pier, to get rid of the evidence . . .”
“You lost me.”
“The poison-pen was Hanna, and Hanna . . . is Mr. Clark’s secretary!”
40
Mr. Clark’s office, one hour earlier
“Well? Are you satisfied?” Mr. Clark asked as he walked Hanna to the front door of the bank.
“As a matter of fact, I am. My father’s painting will see the light of day once more. I have kept my promise to him, to always keep it in our family and never sell it. And, as an added bonus, I was able to stare into the faces of two of my grandchildren, however briefly. Even you have to admit: it was well worth a couple of trips to the post office, even if one of them was all the way in Canada. You know you will always have my eternal gratitude for all you’ve done.”
“And why not just reveal who you are now, Hanna?”
“After all that they have gone through to discover the truth, if they want to come back and meet me, they know where to find me.”
Hanna said goodbye and made her way toward the bus stop. Mr. Clark watched as she marched away, as dignified and graceful as ever.
EPILOGUE
On January 1, 2017, Ray Donovan started a strict diet with the aim of fitting into his dinner jacket.
On April 2, 2017, Eleanor-Rigby and George-Harrison married in Croydon. It was a beautiful ceremony. Maggie dumped Fred and went back to college, determined this time to become a lawyer, although next year she would shift gears once more to pursue a career as a veterinarian.
The night of the wedding, Vera and Michel announced that they were moving to Brighton together. Michel had read that fresh sea air was far healthier than city air for pregnant women. A logical choice.
Seated in the back row as Eleanor-Rigby and George-Harrison took their vows was Hanna Stanfield—attending incognito, more or less. During her stay in England, she also went to pay her respects at her daughter’s grave. Having now laid eyes on all her living descendants, she left with a smile on her face.
On April 20, 2017, Professor Morrison published a book titled The Last of the Stanfields, which would go on to become a smash hit . . . at least among the handful of his peers who received a copy.
Today, Eleanor-Rigby and George-Harrison live together in Magog. The house that George-Harrison built has been relocated outside the hangar.
As for May, she lived long enough to meet her first grandson. Sam is a remarkable baby boy, not least of all because he may be the only child in history to have a masterpiece by none other than Edward Hopper hanging in his bedroom.
Sometimes, just before falling asleep, he says good night to the young woman looking out the window.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Pauline, Louis, Georges, and Cléa.
Raymond, Danièle, and Lorraine.
Susanna Lea.
Emmanuelle Hardouin.
Cécile Boyer-Runge, Antoine Caro.
Daniel Wasserman.
Caroline Babulle, Élisabeth Villeneuve, Arié Sberro, Sylvie Bardeau, Lydie Leroy, Joël Renaudat, Céline Chiflet, the whole team at Éditions Robert Laffont.
Pauline Normand, Marie-Ève Provost, Jean Bouchard.
Léonard Anthony, Sébastien Canot, Danielle Melconian, Mark Kessler, Xavière Jarty, Julien Saltet de Sablet d’Estières.
Laura Mamelok, Noa Rosen, Devon Halliday, Kerry Glencorse.
Brigitte Forissier, Sarah Altenloh.
Lorenzo.
And special thanks to the Beatles for . . . “Eleanor Rigby.” (© Lennon-McCartney)
www.marclevy.info
www.laffont.fr
www.versilio.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With more than forty million books sold, Marc Levy is the most-read French author alive today. He’s written nineteen novels to date, including P.S. from Paris, All Those Things We Never Said, The Children of Freedom, and Replay.
Originally written for his son, his first novel, If Only It Were True, was later adapted for the big screen as Just Like Heaven, starring Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo. Since then, Levy has not only won the hearts of European readers, he’s won over audiences around the globe. More than one and a half million of his books have been sold in China alone, and his novels have been published in forty-nine languages. He lives in New York City. Readers can learn more about Levy and follow his work at www.marclevy.info.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Daniel Wasserman is an American translator, copywriter, and editor with a passion for the written word—whose projects run the gamut from novels and stage productions to marketing and nonprofit. Wasserman took the leap into translation almost by accident, lured by all the wonderful idiosyncrasies of the French language. Through his Paris-based company, Word Geek, Wasserman has been lucky enough to work with many notable talents, such as bestselling author Marc Levy and star of stage and screen Mathieu Amalric. With a background in screenwriting and film production, Wasserman brings the creative touch of cinema together with a highly adaptable style, crafting dynamic and engaging writing with utmost care.
