By Parisian standards it’s a very large apartment. But it has just started to feel very small.
Margaret squints at me, as if trying to remember who I am, and then rushes to Sophie’s side, her smile radiating like a Phoenix noonday sun. “But soon we’ll have everything sorted! Soon. For now, ma fille, I reckon you are greatly in need of a lie-down. We’ll leave the bath for later. Come now.”
I feel a twinge of unjustifiable envy. Lately Margaret has taken to referring to me as ma fille. My child. I have to confess to loving it. But Sophie is a real fille, and Margaret doesn’t so much as glance in my direction as she loops her arm around Sophie’s waist and starts to usher her toward her, Margaret’s, room.
“Mais non! I will take my own bed!”
Sophie jerks free of Margaret. Her motions are violent, and I worry Margaret will be thrown off balance. But she grabs her mother’s elbow, as if to steady her, and glares at me as if daring me to intercede. I continue to sit there wordlessly, because really I am just stunned, as well as tired and hungry and filled with sudden foreboding. Then Sophie whirls away from her mother, stomps into the second bedroom (mere seconds ago my room), and slams the door shut behind her.
For a minute we both stare in silence at the defiantly closed door. But when Margaret turns to me, the radiant smile has reappeared.
“Ah, Amy dear, I do apologize.” She is whispering, as if Sophie could possibly have already fallen sleep. “You understand. She is spent. And the dear girl always becomes a bit huffy when she’s tired. Rest, that’s what she needs. And a bath.” She laughs, retrieves the box of chocolates from the mantelpiece, pops one into her mouth, and sinks into the chair Sophie just vacated.
My tea has cooled, but I gulp it down anyway. I am much in need of tea.
“I still can’t fathom it,” Margaret murmurs. She presses her hands to her cheeks, which have gone bright pink again. Her lips are quivering. Her eyes are glittering. Despite the fact that she continues to smile, I have the strong sense she is millimeters away from bursting into tears.
Margaret often reminisces about the daughter who disappeared, going on about “my daughter this” and “my daughter that.” But at the same time, she’s never provided details about exactly what happened. I’ve refrained from broaching the subject or even asking the daughter’s name, because I don’t want to pry. And I understand the pain. I know too well how, each time you think of the loved one you lost, you lose that person all over again. It never seems to hurt any less. Every time is like the first time.
As Margaret sucks on a chocolate I wrestle with the idea that the person in the next room—my room—is the missing daughter. The lost and now found, feared dead yet now somehow miraculously brought back to life, precious, perfect child. It’s the sole rational explanation. If I weren’t so brain-dead, I would have figured it out immediately.
“Margaret, you’ve never really told me about Sophie.” I pronounce the name as gently as I can.
Margaret inserts another chocolate into her mouth. “I fancied Manu filled you in on all that.”
“All he said was—”
“Manu!” Margaret leaps to her feet. “I’ve not told him the grand news! I must phone him.” She takes a shaky step in the direction of her office, where the apartment’s telephone resides, and sinks back down in her chair again.
“Goodness. I fear the events of the morning have rendered me a bit wobbly. Lend me your mobile, will you, Amy?”
I pull my phone out of my pocket, find Manu’s number, and hand it over.
She holds the phone a few inches from her ear, as if it’s a ferret that might bite. I notice she isn’t wearing earrings. Margaret always wears earrings. It’s another oddness, in this day of oddnesses.
After a pause in which it becomes apparent Manu is not picking up, she leaves a voicemail, in that stiff way many older people have. I listen as hard as I can, but though my French has improved greatly over the past months, the only words I’m able to understand are “Sophie,” “une surprise,” and at the very end, “Rappelle-moi aussitôt que possible.” Call me as soon as possible.
Manu tends to procrastinate when it comes to voicemail or email. He usually responds only to texts. But I’m positive he’ll return Margaret’s call as soon as he gets the message. No one could fail to register the note of near-hysteria in her voice.
“Margaret,” I say to her as she passes the phone back to me, “will you please explain a little more about what’s going on?”
But instead of answering she again manages to rise to her feet. “I must check the contents of my larder. Would you like to accompany me to the supermarché, Amy?” She heads toward the kitchen, steadying herself along the way by grabbing onto tables and chair backs. “Let’s see. Sophie always takes hot chocolate in the mornings. And she is partial to Marmite on her baguette. That’s the English half of her!” She turns and winks. “Will you help me make a list? And come along to tow the caddy for me?”
What I would really like to do is eat and have another cup of tea, but I don’t even reach for a chocolate before following Margaret into the kitchen and retrieving the two-wheeled shopping caddy from where it hangs on a hook behind the door. The caddy is used only for major expeditions, when we need to stock up on heavy items like laundry detergent or olive oil. Normally we food shop every day, buying just what we need for our next couple of meals.
Margaret is on her knees on the red tile floor, rummaging through the tiny refrigerator, peeking into plastic containers. “What shall we have for dinner? We’ve loads of leftovers from last night. But should I make something special? Will you help? She is so tired. Did you see how tired she looked? I wager she won’t want to eat much. And I for one don’t think I could manage a bite. Aha! We do have some!” She sits back on her heels and smiles up at me, waving a small brown jar of Marmite in the air.
“Margaret.” I rescue the Marmite just as it is slipping from her grasp. “Margaret, please, listen. Why don’t you come sit down? You’re shaking. Look.”
She holds out her hands and stares at them as if they belong to someone else.
I close the refrigerator door, help her to her feet, and lead her back to her chair in the sitting room. “Would you like fresh tea? Or maybe a small glass of sherry?” Sometimes Margaret has a little sherry to, as she says, settle her nerves. Even in the middle of the day, like now. If I weren’t pregnant, I’d have a shot myself. My nerves are jangling like live wires.
She shakes her head and again pulls the Godiva box onto her lap. I assume she’ll finally offer me one, but instead she lobs a candy into her own mouth, then another, and then another. It’s not the way Margaret consumes anything, much less chocolate. Margaret always eats mindfully and never too much at one time. She likes to tell me that once you pass sixty you need only half the food you needed before. Maybe that’s why she still has a pretty trim figure for someone her age.
“Hey, save some for the rest of us.”
I am teasing her, hoping to make her smile, but Margaret continues to eat, munching and swallowing joylessly, like a child who’s been ordered to finish her Brussels sprouts or else. Only when the box is empty does she let it slide to the floor. Her eyes are dull. Her jaw is slack.
“Margaret, tell me what’s going on with you,” I again implore, though by this time I’m rapidly coming to my own conclusions. “Talk to me. Please.”
seven
Margaret doesn’t talk to me. She claps her hands over her cheeks and starts to sob, rocking back and forth in her chair. Before I know it, tears are running down my face too. Crying is contagious.
I’m trying to convince her she needs to lie down when Manu arrives. Thank God.
After I relate to him all I know he kneels in front of her chair. He is pale and serious. “Please, madame. You should take a rest, juste pour un petit moment.” Just for a little while.
But Margaret, who is normally delighted to see Manu, barely seems to register his presence. She continues to weep, hi
ccupping and holding a crumpled tissue to her reddened nose. It’s unsettling to see an older adult sob openly, like a child. My mother never cried, at least as far as I knew. Dad did once, toward the end, but it was only because he didn’t want to die and leave me all alone in the world. William has never shed a tear in my presence. Not when I lost that first baby, mere weeks after our hastily planned wedding. Not even at Kat’s funeral. He did hold my hand, however, and I remember hoping he felt a little of what I felt, or at least sympathized.
Manu grasps Margaret by the shoulders and shakes her a little. “Chère madame. Soon Sophie will awaken. Do you not want to be rested and ready to greet her?”
At the sound of the word “Sophie,” Margaret drops her tissue and cocks her head like a spaniel. Manu seizes his opening.
“Viens.” He gets to his feet. “Come.”
Each of us taking an arm, we guide her between us to her room, where she willingly enough lies down on the bed. I cover her with a cashmere throw, and she closes her eyes. Five minutes later she’s snoring.
“Eh bien,” Manu says when we return to the sitting room. He takes the spot where Margaret usually sits, and I settle into the chair opposite—“my” chair—which now smells a little funky from Sophie’s dirty feet and clothes. Or maybe that’s just my imagination.
“Aimée. Ça va?”
“Ça va.”
I smile a tiny bit, because I like how “ça va” can be both a question (“how’s it going?”) and an answer (“everything is fine”). It’s the world’s most versatile phrase. You can go a long way in French on the strength of “ça va” alone.
Manu picks up the golden Godiva box, glances inside, replaces the lid, and returns it to its spot underneath the hammered copper side table. Even though the box is empty, the entire room is redolent with the aroma of chocolate. I can practically taste it.
“C’est incroyable,” he says.
Ha. “Incredible” doesn’t begin to cover the events of the past twenty-four hours. William has come to Paris. Sophie has returned to Paris. Margaret, though physically in the next room, is emotionally and mentally far away. How I yearn to wind back the clock to when our biggest problem was deciding what kind of cake to have for my birthday.
“Yeah,” I mutter, as I pluck a sugar cube out of the Spode sugar bowl and pop it into my mouth. At this point, any calorie source sounds good to me.
“The police.” Manu pauses, his normally deep blue eyes faded to an almost gray. “The police told us, told me—” He rubs his face, and I feel a fresh stab of remorse for forgetting about the lunchtime deliveries. He’s exhausted. Maybe even more than I am, if that’s possible.
But before I can launch into further apologies, he continues. “We believed that she was gone for always.”
I nod. Sophie is indeed the missing-presumed-dead daughter. I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out right away. Worse, I’m still confused. “Manu. I’m wondering. How could she have been gone all this time without ever getting in touch?”
What I don’t ask is: How could a person be so horribly cruel? To anyone? After all, it’s one thing to lose people you love because they die. It’s quite another to be robbed of a cherished someone because he, or she, just can’t be bothered to keep you in the loop. Even a person as self-absorbed as Sophie appears to be must realize how much Margaret adores her. Yet apparently, she was capable of just taking off without saying a word.
I leap from the chair and pace around the room. To be honest, I did more or less the same thing to William. While he was away on business I implemented what Kat and I called “The Plan” and took off for Paris without saying a word. Surely knowing I wouldn’t want to execute The Plan without her, Kat left me both explicit instructions (“Go. To. Paris.”) and an airline gift certificate. At first, I resisted, hesitated, but when William started demanding that I just “get over it” (meaning Kat’s death) I booked a flight for the very next day. It was easy. Easier than maybe it should have been. Even if for only a “break.”
“C’est incroyable,” Manu says again.
“Yes. Yes, it absolutely is.”
I want to elaborate, to tell him how rude Sophie was, then decide not to. I need to be careful about what I say and how I say it, because Manu and Sophie used to be a couple. Maybe he even loves her still. Maybe beneath that grave but calm exterior he’s overjoyed, overwhelmed. I return to my chair and curl up as much as the presence of Catherine will allow. “Tell me again what happened. When was the last time you saw Sophie?”
“It was two and a half years ago. Indeed, I saw her the night before she disappeared.” He reaches for Margaret’s abandoned cup of tea, now surely stone cold, and drinks it down in one go. Wow. Manu is not a tea person, especially tea with milk in it. Normally I’d comment, make a joke, but I don’t think Manu is in the mood to be teased right now.
“Did she seem weird?” I say instead.
“Pardon?”
“Nervous? Like maybe she was planning to run off?”
“No. I do not think so. Elle paraissait contente.”
I try to imagine Sophie “seeming content.”
“And—afterwards—was anything missing?” I ask. “Like, did she take clothes? Or—”
Here again I stop myself. The police would have already asked all these same questions. It is no doubt unhelpful, and possibly painful, to be asked them again.
Besides, I’ve spotted another item that doesn’t normally belong in Margaret’s sitting room—a backpack. Or, rather, daypack, propped in a corner behind a potted philodendron. When new, it must have been a light khaki. Now it’s dark with dirt and can only be the property of Sophie.
“Quoi?” What? Manu turns to look. When he spots the daypack, he shoots up from his chair, strides to the corner, grabs the pack, and tips out its contents. I cringe because whatever is inside is likely to be as filthy as the outside, and I just cleaned this whole room yesterday. But when he kneels down on the carpet, I go to kneel beside him. His cologne is woodsy, like a crisp fall day.
“Is this everything she brings?” he asks when the only objects to fall from the pack are a voluminous black robe and an embroidered black leather wallet. Nothing else. No bras, no underwear, no toiletries, no shoes.
Speaking of shoes. “Well, those must be hers.” I nod toward the blood-red leather slippers still forming a T in the center of the room.
Manu stretches out his arm to grab one. “Tell me,” he says, turning it round and round in his hands. “How does she look?”
“Sophie? OK, I guess. She seemed stressed. And dirty.”
I don’t tell him how dirty. Nor do I elaborate on how jumpy she acted. Because who knows? Maybe she’s always jumpy. Anyway, there’s no way I can describe Sophie’s appearance or behavior without sounding as if I hated her on first sight. And I don’t hate her. I hardly know her. If she’s Margaret’s daughter, she must have some redeeming qualities.
Manu holds up the slipper. “I ask this to you because—these babouches? They are not her style.”
“These what? ‘Bah-boosh’?”
“It is the name of this shoe. Babouches. They are typique of Le Maroc.”
I reach for the other slipper and run my thumb over the intricate embroidery. Le Maroc. A lot of life in France is influenced by relatively nearby Morocco. Food especially. You can find a couscous restaurant on practically every corner. Once Margaret took me to a cozy Moroccan-style salon de thé not far from here, where they served the most comforting mint tea I’ve ever tasted. She was also the one who told me that the little mini-markets you see all over Paris are traditionally owned and operated by Moroccans. Many tourists don’t realize that France has long been home to many people of Arab descent, and that this number increases every year, a fact snobby Hervé never ceases to deplore.
I put down the slipper and pick up the hem of the long black robe. “This is probably from Morocco, too, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It is called a djellaba.”
I star
t to ask him to spell the word for me—it sounds like “jell-ah-bah”—but he’s searching through the leather wallet and frowning. I shift closer to him to get a better look at the sheaf of violet, burgundy, and chartreuse bills he has pulled out of the wallet. “What now? Is that Moroccan currency?” I ask, though it has to be. Given the babouches and djellaba.
Manu doesn’t reply. Perhaps he’s not familiar with the English word “currency.” I lean my shoulder against his for a moment, just for the feel of his warmth, his solidity, and then get to my feet. Manu’s mind and probably heart are a million miles away. Besides, Catherine doesn’t like me to sit in one position for too long, much less on my heels on the floor.
I circle the room a couple of times to uncramp my legs. The Godiva chocolate aroma has begun to fade, succumbing to the stronger perfume of the half-eaten leek quiche still standing out on the dining table, and on my next pass, I break off a piece of the buttery crust and pop it into my mouth. Scrumptious. “Well, I guess it’s safe to conclude that Sophie has recently been in Morocco. How much money is there?”
“Beaucoup.” He rifles through the wallet a second time.
I help myself to another shard of quiche crust and try to picture Sophie sticking up a remote Moroccan bank, or swindling a wealthy Moroccan businessman, and then fleeing to Paris to hole up in her mother’s apartment until the excitement dies down. But no. I don’t think so. For Sophie, this seems way too purposeful and energetic.
“Aimée.” Manu has spread the money across his knee and turned the wallet inside out. “Look. She does not carry papers.”
“Papers?” I cross the room to stand over him. It’s wrong to go through someone else’s stuff. It’s also wrong to be enjoying it as much as I am.
But playing detective with Manu is so much fun. Since William arrived in Paris the question of what will happen next in my life—what should happen next—has been hanging over my head like a sharpened sword. But right now, in this moment, Manu and I are on the same side, working together. It’s a lovely, comfortable feeling that I would like to have last as long as possible.
Paris Ever After Page 7
