At first, Ahna was glowing at the thought of having a new grandchild. But later that evening, she seemed nervous, perhaps even a little anxious. Maybe she was feeling dizzy again? Noora tried to convince Ahna to see a doctor, but Ahna insisted that when it was her time to go, she would die at home, in her own bed.
What if Ahna did die in bed? I don’t think I could handle that. She could not imagine staying in the apartment without Ahna. But where would she go? You’re being selfish, Noora chided herself, tears welling in her eyes. Automatically, she reached for her neck to touch Um Faheema’s blue bead. At times, she forgot she didn’t have the necklace—it had become so much a part of her. Ian had probably tossed it in the trash—unless Cessilia kept it for her. For her return to Ian’s world? Not a chance. Noora had thought of calling his house, but what if Ian picked up the phone?
She heard Ahna coughing in her bedroom. Her dry cough didn’t seem to get any better. Perhaps Docteur Alain could convince her to get a chest X-ray or see a specialist. Ahna must live to see her great-grandchild, and hopefully see Annette’s baby take his or her first step. A baby girl? Noora wondered, closing her eyes. “Michel,” she whispered as tears filled her eyes. She turned her mind back to Annette. Think of Annette and her baby. I have a family … people who care, who love me. I am going to be a godmother.
*
The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed eleven times. Silently, Ahna Morgenbesser checked to make sure Noora was asleep, and tiptoed her way to the corridor, opened the front door, and locked it behind her. Downstairs, she tapped on the concierge’s glass door and waited until a shadow appeared, heading her way. “Bonjour Madame,” said the concierge, standing stiffly at her door. She wore a housedress and rollers in her hair.
“Bonsoir, Madame Bucheron,” Ahna said; after many years in Paris, Ahna could not get used to saying “good day” when it was night. “I would like to speak to your husband. He is not back yet?” she said, noticing that his bicycle was not parked inside the street door.
“He may have been detained. Is something wrong?” Madame Bucheron asked. “Wait!” she interrupted. “I have something in the oven.” She never invited Ahna inside her apartment, and neither did the concierge’s mother, who had occupied the same position in the same apartment since 1958, when Ahna first moved in. Ahna heard footsteps and the street door close. Jacques, Mme. Bucheron’s husband, appeared, bringing his bicycle with him.
“Bonjour, Madame Ahna,” he said removing his black gendarme cape and shaking away raindrops. “I didn’t expect to see you at this hour.”
“Yes, I know, but …”
“Expect a heavy rainfall tonight,” the policeman remarked. “But they said it will clear by tomorrow.” He removed his hat and hung it on the coat rack in the foyer of his apartment. He turned to Ahna. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes. I would like to ask a favor of you.”
Sitting in the kitchen, the gendarme and his wife were having their late-night supper.
“What did the Jewish woman want?” Madame Bucheron asked.
“Madame Morgenbesser prefers we call her Ahna.”
“Is that what she wanted?”
“She thinks there’s a stalker.”
“A stalker?”
“Yes. She said a man may be following her.”
“Elle est folle.”
“I don’t think she’s crazy”
“Who would care to follow her?!”
“She just asked me to keep an eye out. And since it is my job …”
“Maybe they’re after that girl.”
“What girl?”
“In all these months, you haven’t noticed the girl?” the concierge said, removing a pot roast from the oven.
“I work two shifts, in case you forgot,” he said, pouring himself red wine in a tall water glass.
“She has a helper; apparently sent by her granddaughter. Now that she married a rich man, I guess she can afford it,” she said, her words laced with jealousy and contempt.
“You mean her granddaughter, Annette?”
“Yes, Annette, who was a hotel maid in the South.”
“She married that Italian? I thought he was a loser and a drunk.”
“No, apparently she married some kind of a doctor.”
“Annette married a docteur?” he asked, surprised.
“That’s what the Jewish one, bragged about when she went away for a few days. But you know how she tells stories, that one. It appears that the girl who is staying upstairs is her caregiver. She shops for her, brings her groceries. And they go out every afternoon now. La Juive never did that before. The girl holds her by the arm so she doesn’t fall. Probably cheaper than a nursing home. But if you ask me …”
“I’m glad she has someone to help her. An old woman all by herself.”
“No one is following them, and I would prefer you would stay out of her affairs.”
“As a proud employee of the Gendarmerie, it is my job and my duty…”
“Oh, j’ten prie! Please! You don’t have to recite to me. She has outlived us all, including my own mother, who was ten years younger! The concierge said. “You remember the stories she used to tell us about the Nazis and concentration camps? She was making it all up, of course. She should’ve been locked up long ago.”
“It was Giselle who told you about her mother’s experiences, not Madame Ahna.”
“Poor Giselle thought if she made the girls think her mother was a war heroine, they would forgive her for being a Jew,” she replied.
“I thought you two were friends.”
“Not when I was old enough to realize what type of people they were, and after she started telling me those ridiculous stories.”
“Well, now let’s not speak ill of the dead.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Yours. Always on your side, ma chérie,” the policeman smiled, holding up his plate.
*
When Noora saw people standing in line at the Customs counter at the Nice airport, she remembered the terror she felt when she presented Annette’s passport. Her life in Los Angeles with Ian Cohen seemed like a distant dream. She felt a little pang in her heart. She realized she had been comfortable, and even happy, as happy as one could be under the circumstances of her ordeals. Was it possible she was missing Ian Cohen? It was true he had a miserable temper and was capable of being cruel with words. But he had a good heart and would not hurt anyone physically. Never. She remembered how ill and vulnerable he had been in the Honolulu hospital.
“Noora?”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Noora realized she had been absent-minded. “I’ll get the luggage.”
“Where are you, ma jolie?” Ahna asked.
“I’m here, Ahna,” she said, pulling the luggage from the conveyor belt.
“Your mind left me awhile ago.”
“I can’t hide much from you,” Noora said. “I was thinking about Ian Cohen.”
“Yes. I am sure he thinks of you too.”
“Oh, but not in a good way. I’m sure he would like to forget all about me,” Noora said, rolling out their luggage toward the exit sign.
“I would not doubt he is missing you,” Ahna said, walking with a cane and following Noora.
“Missing me?” Noora stopped and turned to Ahna. “I would doubt it very much after all …”
“Yoo hoo!” someone called from the crowd.
“There she is, ma petite Annette,” she said, waving at her granddaughter, who was standing by the partition outside of baggage claim, with a round stomach and holding two huge bouquets of roses.
Annette and Alain lived in a renovated little villa in Saint Tropez.
“We have a room for the baby, but I am not going to furnish it, because I’m superstitious.”
“Nothing will go wrong, darling; you are in good hands,” Alain said, standing over the stove. He was preparing garlic shrimp for his wife and their guests.
“Alain is a very good cook.
He makes bouillabaisse too. Even better than me!” Annette said as she and Noora set the table. “Would you believe we like the same porcelaine dishes? Same design. Alain bought a complete set before he met me. And I was buying one piece at a time of the same exact pattern!” she exclaimed happily. “Before we even knew each other. Was that destiny or what?!”
“Indeed, it is because you are a clairvoyante,” Noora winked.
Annette laughed with pleasure.
Later, as they stood in the unfurnished nursery, Annette said, “Look what you have done for me, for my grand-mère. You came into my life and brought light when I thought I was in a dark tunnel with no hope. Without you, I would still be cleaning hotel rooms and angry at Bruno. I forgive him and I even bless him. I wish him well because I have a good life of my own, all thanks to you.”
“Annette … listen … there is something about me that you don’t know…”
“I know,” Annette said.
“You … know?
“Grand-mère told me.”
“What did she say?”
“She told me a little bit and said you can tell me the rest, in due time. I knew you would tell me when you are ready,” Annette said. “I always felt you did not look like a ‘Kelley,’” she said with a chuckle.
CHAPTER 57
IAN COHEN’S DISCOVERY
On a cold and damp Seattle night, Ian Cohen walked out of the theater, stunned. He watched the evening sky, lightly tinted in royal blue, a reflection of the million lights from tall office buildings in the distance, and silently, he thanked the heavens.
He did not expect such an enthusiastic audience response to the test run of his movie. He had had serious doubts about Lord of Doom. It did not have enough violent scenes for a much-publicized action-adventure film.
The young spectators, mostly between the ages of fourteen and twenty-four, had laughed at the right places and even cheered.
After the end credits rolled, Ian stood listening to spectators giving statements to reporters who thrust microphones at them as soon as they made their way out of the theater doors.
“I liked especially when Gianni at the end looked straight at Mick-the-Murderer and said, ‘Don’t tempt me, Kimosabe.’”
“That was great,” another young spectator said.
“I really liked that movie,” a father said. “Clever dialogue. We’re gonna see it again. I think even my wife will too!”
“I’m going back to see it with my friends!” a teenage boy shouted on his way out.
“I loved it when he said at the end ‘Don’t tempt me, Kimosabe.’ I didn’t expect that …” someone said.
Neither did I, Ian Cohen thought, standing away from the crowd.
Bob Mercer, also known as “Bubba,” the script doctor Ian had hired before his secret heart surgery, walked up to Ian. “Gotta tell you, I wasn’t sure about the dialogue changes you sent us. I’m glad now. The audience loved it.”
“Great response, huh?” Jake Goldenbaum, the head of business affairs at Ian’s studio, slapped Ian on the back. He extended his hand to the screenwriter. “Hey, Bubba, great job. That last line … pretty much made the picture!”
“Well, I’d like to take all the credit,” Bubba said, “but Ian’s the one who made the changes.”
“Not me,” Ian said and pointed to the screenwriter. “It was the script doctor over here …”
“Hey, Ian, when did you suddenly get so humble?” Jake Goldenbaum said, laughing.
“Really … well, actually …” he said, the wheels of his mind starting to churn. Did I really write that dialogue in the third act? He thought it was Bubba who made the changes. Ian would certainly have remembered if he had written those lines. It was around the time they had cracked his chest open, and he was in even worse shape after the surgery. No one but Bubba could have made the changes—not Gianni the brainless lead star, even though he did a good job delivering the line after fifteen takes. And it could not have been the director, because Ian himself had to first approve the shooting script.
Numbly, Ian thanked people who walked up to him and shook his hand to congratulate him. He edged away back to the lobby and to the men’s room.
Standing at the sink, he splashed cold water on his face and stared at the mirror.
Impossible. Who else? He remembered the homeless man … at the Honolulu zoo. The bum who kept repeating, “Don’t tempt me.” Kelley had said it was a monkey pod, and Ian had teased her: “Where are the monkeys?” And when the hobo said Kimosabe, Kelley had asked, “Wasabi?” He had made fun of her. He remembered how she looked at him, embarrassed at his teasing while he was being a jerk. In truth, he was feeling sorry for himself, moping and whining, being a major pain in the ass and a coward about having heart surgery. And all she was trying to do, the poor kid, was help him … She had even made him laugh that day. She had done more than that. She had saved his neck. She had fixed … yes, fixed what his own writers couldn’t! She put herself on the line. All this, for him.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he whispered to himself. He burst out of the men’s room.
CHAPTER 58
AHNA’S LAST REQUEST
Two weeks after they returned to Paris, Ahna’s nagging cough had not improved. She had refused to seek the pulmonary expert Docteur Alain had recommended. Ahna was stubborn. “This too shall pass,” she insisted. She had too much to do, filling out many baking orders.
Monsieur Daniel Dufour and a young associate came to pick up the three schwarzwalder kirsch tortes, Ahna’s specialty that no one could duplicate and the large chocolate cake with crème chantilly and cherries.
Noora hoped Ahna was finished with big orders for a while. She had made cream puffs for two hotel weddings, and countless apple kuchens, marzipan figurines, small castles, and flowers. She took special pride in her marzipan creations. “It’s a dying art,” she had explained. “That’s why I’m still in demand.”
Ahna seemed pleased with the check Monsieur Dufour handed her, and walked them to the door.
Noora knew that Ahna was well paid for her efforts, but was it really worth sacrificing her health?
Ahna seemed especially tired. The cough syrup and the mentholated ointment Noora rubbed on Ahna’s chest night and morning helped her a little, but not enough.
“Now that all the baking orders are done, you have time to see a doctor,” Noora said.
“C’est d’accord. I will see the doctor Alain recommended. I probably need antibiotics. You are such a treasure,” Ahna said, shuffling wearily to her bedroom. “I could never have finished this job without your help, my angel.”
Noora cleaned the kitchen, washed baking pans and dishes while listening for Ahna’s cough from the bedroom. It was obvious she wasn’t going to get any rest. Noora hung up a dishtowel and went to Ahna’s room.
“Please let me take you to the emergency.”
“Tomorrow morning we’ll go to the clinic,” Ahna said. “But it will probably take a week or two before I can see the specialist.”
“You need medical assistance now,” Noora urged.
“Let’s leave the emergency doctors for more important cases.”
“They won’t refuse you, Ahna. At your age—and I don’t mean that disrespectfully—you need to be careful with your health. Most of all, you need some relief from this stubborn cough,” she said firmly, folding back the cover and helping her out of bed.
Ahna didn’t resist. Indeed, it was clear she was feeling very ill.
Noora waited with Ahna behind one of the partitions of the emergency room. After a chest X-ray, the doctor returned to inform Ahna that they found fluid in her lungs. As a precautionary measure, she needed to stay overnight for observation.
“But surely I don’t have to stay in the hospital.”
“Ahna, you have a fever. I will stay with you. If you like, we can play cards, watch television. You didn’t finish telling me your story.”
“Oh, it is a long, sad one … But you know, ma
petite chérie, it has a happy ending … At least when I was reunited …” she said with a sigh.
Noora knew Ahna would be too tired to talk. What she needed now was to stop coughing and get some sleep.
While they wheeled Ahna to her hospital room, Noora phoned Annette from the nurses’ station. “They expect to release her in the morning,” Noora said, wanting to give Annette the good news first. “Just to be on the safe side, the doctor ordered Ahna to have intravenous antibiotics. The ‘high-octane’ type, he said. She should be able to fight this and get back on her feet in no time.”
Annette wanted to fly to Paris, but Noora reassured her it was only a matter of time. “Annette, please don’t worry. Your husband spoke to the pulmonary expert. Ahna will be fine. I’ll be here with her.”
“God bless you, Noora dear,” Annette said. “You are an angel.”
“Take care of yourself and your baby. Now, promise me,” Noora said.
“Yes, I already have a doctor at home to nag me, thank you!” Annette laughed.
Noora was concerned about Annette. Her gynecologist recommended that she stay in bed and avoid lifting anything, or she might still suffer a miscarriage.
That night, as Noora watched Ahna in her hospital bed, something did not feel right. Ahna seemed exhausted. The coughing must have worn her out.
Ahna touched her chest. “It hurts,” she said in French, then mumbled something in German that Noora didn’t understand.
“Your chest still hurts?” Noora asked. Ahna’s eyes were closed and her head was turned away from Noora. Besides the antibiotics, the nurses had given her something to suppress the cough, as well as a light dose of morphine to kill the pain.
Shouldn’t she feel better by now?
Noora rushed out into the corridor, to the nurses’ station. She had gone through the same thing with Ian Cohen, but his case was a lot tougher, a great deal more challenging, she reminded herself.
A nurse returned with Noora to check on Ahna, who was asleep.
“She’s fine,” the nurse said after listening to Ahna’s chest.
“But it sounds like she is having some difficulty breathing.”
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