“Can’t we leave it for now?” I said. I wanted to get out. It had been a big mistake to come back. I was thinking that I would call my father and tell him yes, he had to come to France. He had to do what I could not.
“Cherie,” said Laurent. “It is best to get it finished, then you need never step foot here again. Come, let us do it together.” He put his arm around me and showed me three boxes he had chosen to empty.
“How do you know what is valuable and what is not?” I asked.
“My father was a collector. I was brought up around antiques. I think your friend Jacques would approve. You can make a list and show him. If there is anything we have forgotten, he can tell you. I will come back and get it. There will be paintings too we must remove, and some of these books too, but I do not know anything about books. Perhaps your Jacques can recommend someone?”
“If I had known this before, I would have asked you to come with me on the first day.” I stacked the books he gave me on the floor. I felt a little better for doing something.
“Ah well, perhaps you needed to see for yourself.” He handed me a volume of Alexander Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo. As I placed it on the top of the pile, the air grew cloyingly stale and a smell like overripe apples almost knocked me off my feet. A window flew open and a gust of wind filled the curtains, like the sails on a ship. At the same time Laurent became indistinct, as if he was fading out of sight. Berthe staggered into the room holding the edge of her bloodied dress. Racine came from behind me, took Berthe in her arms and led her out. For a moment I was too taken aback to do anything, but I followed after them, determined to find out more. I was afraid, but it did not seem to matter. I heard Laurent very faintly calling my name, but I could not break free from the enchantment. I was in the bedroom. A baby was crying. A baby I could not see. I did not know where it was. It needed help. It needed its mother.
Berthe had collapsed on the bed. It was as I had seen her before. Only this time… this time there was the baby… the unseen baby crying and crying. Racine rushed into the room and turned to me. She did not see me. She did not see anything, but I saw into her soul, into her very spirit. She was calling out to me from beyond.
“Je te garde dans mon âme, comme un trésor.”
“I will keep you in my heart like a treasure,” I whispered.
The air crackled around me with an electric fervour. I wanted to help her, but I did not know how. I reached out, grabbed, thinking I had hold of Racine’s arm, but it was Laurent. His voice came to me from a long way away.
“You need to rest,” he said.
“No,” I yelled at him. “No, she needs help. She needs me. I have to be here. I have to…”
Racine was on her knees at the bed. She held Berthe’s limp hand in her own. My fear had left me. I knelt beside her. I placed my hand on her shoulder and she was real and not a ghost at all. She turned towards me… but it was not me she was looking at. It was a man. For a moment I was confused. Was this Truffaut? I did not think so.
“Help,” Racine said to him.
“She’s dead,” he sneered. “There is no help for her now.”
Who was this man? Who was he? Perhaps I had missed something in the diary.
The air began to vibrate with sound: the baby’s cry, the singing, and Laurent calling my name, calling me back to him.
“Sophie, Sophie. Are you okay?”
Open mouthed I look straight at him and then at the bed and the rest of the room. It was just a room and I was in Laurent’s arms. There was no one else there but us. He brushed my hair from my forehead and kissed it lightly.
“You gave me quite fright.”
I could not say anything. I licked my lips and listened, but the apartment had fallen silent. I blinked hard and sucked in the dead air.
“She did not leave,” I said. “Truffaut was right. She is still here.”
“What are talking about?” said Laurent.
It came to me in an instant.
“They hid her.”
“They? Hid?”
“Racine and… Racine and someone… someone I don’t know who. A man. They hid her. She died in childbirth and they hid her body.”
“Laurent shook his head in disbelief. “But where? And we would smell her.”
“Not after all this time. Perhaps not ever, if they had sealed her up somewhere airtight. In the walls maybe?”
“No… it is not possible.”
I pulled away from him. “You think? I know.” With one sweep I tore the sheets from the bed. A brown stain where Berthe had bled into the mattress remained.
“There,” I said.
I reached under the bed and pulled out the missing dressing table drawer. There was a blanket in the bottom.
“She did not prepare for the birth. She did not buy any baby clothes, nor crib. She used the drawer. That’s why I could not see the baby…” I inclined my head like a crazy woman. “But of course, even if I had seen the drawer, the baby is not dead. My father is not dead.”
“Wait, Sophie. Wait…”
I ran into the drawing room.
“The painting? The painting was always damaged. Berthe did it herself. She hated it. It reminded her of how she had once been, before she had met Truffaut. Before she had fallen pregnant with his child.” I did not know where I was getting any of this. It was as if I was channelling Berthe’s very soul.
“So where? Where would they hide her? In the walls?” Wildly, I banged on the wall with my fist. “Beneath the floorboards?” I stamped on the floor. “No… not there. Not there… I listened. Laurent watched me from the doorway.
“I know,” I said with a shout. I tore into the hall. There was one door we had not been able to open. One door for which there was no key. I pulled knob. I put my shoulder to the wood and hit it hard.
“You have to help me,” I shouted at Laurent.
“This is madness,” he replied, but moved me aside. “Find me something from the kitchen. A knife sharpener. Something like that. It will be long and metal with serrated edges and a handle.”
“I know what a knife sharpener looks like.” I ran into the kitchen, pulled open drawers and searched the pantry.
“There’s nothing.” Beneath the sink I found an old pan with an assortment of cutlery. I rummaged through it. Nothing useful. Nothing that would open a door. A thought came to me. I ran into the drawing room.
The poker.
I grabbed it and ran back to Laurent. He stuck the end into the gap between jamb and door and worked at it until it was as far in as he could get it. Then he used it like a lever and leaned on it until, with a great splintering of wood, the door flew open.
It was walk-in closet, as I had expected. It was no more than six feet deep and the same wide. It had rails around the walls, hung with coats. There was a row of boots and shoes, an assortment of bags and even a walking stick. I pulled the coats aside, not sure what I was going to find.
“There is nothing here,” said Laurent.
“I don’t understand.” I stood in the middle of the closet. Laurent still had the poker in his hand. He used it to nudge the boots.
“It’s just old boots and clothes,” he said. The poker hit metal.
“No,” I said, and I thrust the boots at him, until I reached the back of the closet. “There’s something else. Take the coats. Clear the way.” I flung the coats aside, wildly.
“It’s a trunk,” said Laurent.
It was black and battered, with an old clasp and padlock.
“Stand back,” said Laurent. He wormed the poker under the clasp, bending the metal and putting pressure on it until it gave.
I held my breath. Laurent lifted the lid and dropped the poker.
She was leather brown and curled like a foetus, her knees up around her chest. Her hair was fine, like it had only been brushed yesterday, and pinned back. Her face was turned towards us, her head rested on her crossed arms. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. She wore the dress
I had last seen her in, doubtless bloody, but now sepia stained and creased. There was the faintest of smells, like old gunny sacking.
A tear dropped from my eye onto her cheek. I wiped my face on the arm of my coat and exhaled long and slow.
“You do not need to worry about this,” said Laurent. “Leave it to me. You go back to the hotel and say nothing. I will come later.”
“What are you going to do?”
“If she died of natural causes then all will be well. The maid is dead I assume.”
“Yes. Oh.” Berthe in London was not Berthe at all, but Racine. Berthe had never been to London.
“You said there was a man that helped her?”
“You believe me?”
“It does not matter if I believe you. It was a long time ago.”
I stood up. I could not take my eyes off Berthe’s body and there was something bothering me about the whole affair.
“Why would Racine pretend to be Berthe? What would be the point?”
Laurent sighed. “Perhaps she thought she had to protect Berthe’s reputation. I don’t know. Listen, I will stay here. You go and find a telephone. Call my office. Tell them I need the coroner. Give them the address. Then go to the hotel as I said. Wait for me there.”
I nodded violently. “Okay. If that’s what you want me to do.”
“It is,” said Laurent. He guided me from the closet and closed the splintered door as best he could.
“I wasn’t going mad was I? She wanted me to find her. She was guiding me.”
Laurent smiled and brushed my tears away with the back of his hand. I knew then that he had captured my heart.
*
I ran down the stairs, keen to find a telephone but not wanting to alarm a neighbour. Armand cracked open his door and growled at me.
“Don’t you have any respect for the dead?”
I stopped in my tracks.
“What did you say?”
He came towards me, grunting and groaning.
“He wanted you to have this.” He thrust a key at me. “He said it was important, but at the end, he would not give it to me.”
“At the end?” I asked, confused.
“My father died early this morning. I had to prise it out of his cold stiff fingers.”
Chapter 14 - Present Day
I stare at Eva and wait for the fall out that will surely come with the end of my story, but she doesn’t say anything for long time and I am tempted to think she has fallen asleep.
I reach into my pocket and pull out three keys, laying them on top of the box on the table.
“The British lawyers had it all wrong. My father inherited and not my grandfather. French law is complicated in that regard. Anyway, he did not know what to do with the apartment. He allowed for the sale of the contents, and we had people in to rewire and put in central heating. I never went back there again, but when he passed, he bequeathed everything to me.” I glance at Eva. She is stoney-faced. I go on.
“Your father said I should get rid of it, and I did sell the property in Hampstead – but I was in two minds about Paris, and the longer I left it, the more difficult it became. Soon, I will be gone and, as you are my only child, all I own will belong to you, including Berthe’s apartment. If you wish, you may keep it. There is nothing there to remind you of what happened. It has been empty for many years and the Pascals are long-dead. The big key opens the front door. The smaller one, the apartment itself, and the rusty one… well, it opens nothing now. ”
“Oh Mom, why didn’t you tell me before?” She takes my hands in hers. I struggle with my tears. She must not see how pathetic I have become in telling my story.
“I don’t know exactly,” I say. “It’s just that, sometimes when you experience something awful, something traumatic, it stays with you and over the years it grows into this terrible haunting thing that you can’t let go of no matter what.”
Eva gives me a pained look. “But Dad made it all go away? Just like that? What happened after you’d found her body, and why would Racine pretend to be Berthe? Did no one ever question it? Did no one ever try to look her up? She must have had visitors in London?”
“Oh my child so many questions, and I am tired now. Can we leave it?”
Eva nods. “Of course we can. When you’re ready.”
She takes her cup into the kitchen. Although she has said it is okay, I know my daughter well enough that she will be at me tomorrow morning if I do not answer her now. I follow her in. I may take a mint tea to bed with me.
“Your father made some discrete enquiries. As far as he could find out Racine had been devoted to Berthe. She had no choice.”
“What do you mean?” Eva rinses out her cup and stands it upside down on the drainer.
“Berthe was very professional in her attitude to her work. She was always on time. She rehearsed non-stop. She gave everything of herself to the roles she took on, and she was beautiful; she was a star – a shining star. Racine on the other hand, was an ordinary woman who suddenly found herself caught up in Berthe’s life.”
“But that still doesn’t explain it,” says Eva. “You want mint?” She tests the kettle for enough water and flicks the switch on.
“Yes, thanks,” I say. How to make my modern daughter, who can do everything for herself, understand what it must have been like for women those days?
“Berthe could sing her heart out but she couldn’t look after herself. She couldn’t cook. She couldn’t clean house, or do the laundry. She couldn’t sew or do anything ordinary women did and still do. She looked to Racine to do all that, and Racine did it, willingly.”
The water boils. Eva drops a mint tea bag into a clean cup and pours the water over it for me.
“I think she was star-struck, and when Berthe died, there was the money and threats from old man Pascal.” I close my eyes. I have quite worn myself out.
“But how did Racine think she could get away with pretending to be Berthe?” asks Eva.
“Tomorrow,” I say. “I’m going to bed now.”
Epilogue – Eva’s diary
I have never kept a diary but it seems only right to set down on paper the events that unfold from this point forward. Bear with me. I am not as good as Mom at telling stories. She has been dead these four months gone and life is starting to get back to normal. At first it was hard. The things she had told me played on my mind so that when I stood over her coffin as it was lowered in the soft New England dirt I felt cross with her for leaving it so long; we could have visited France one last time together. Malcolm put his arm around me for the first time in several months and I think he was genuinely upset to see me grieving so. He has a lover. He will leave soon. It is probably for the best. History does so repeat itself.
Tomorrow I set off on my travels. It has been a long while since I went anywhere for anything other than work. If anyone thinks that singing for a living is not work, then they are wrong.
*
I got here at three this afternoon. I was reminded of Mom’s arrival in Paris in the spring of ‘57. I looked for a robin at the airport, but there are no birds anywhere and it is bleaker than ever. I have a room at the Hotel Athénée. I just love the opera-themed interior. If it is possible I will move into the apartment on the Rue Tronson Du Coudray as soon as I can. I will have to buy furniture and all the little things one wants for a new home, but I am excited to be in Paris. I spent the afternoon shopping – a luxury for me because I am always working. This evening I ate at a fabulous restaurant, newly opened by my friend Christian. He has recommended an interior designer.
*
I woke with a headache – it had started to rain - not a good sign for a singer because it affects my sinuses. I attended to my emails. Malcolm cannot manage without me, so it seems. I took a taxi ride to the apartment. Mom had given me a key to the front door so I did not have to wait for a recalcitrant building manager, though now there is none. I wish I could effectively convey my feelings of stepping into a living s
tory. I will do my best.
There is a long staircase up and no elevator. This could be problematic furniture-wise. The stairwell is newly painted. I understand there is a committee comprised of apartment dwellers who maintain the common areas. The doors are heavy, dark-stained and carved. When I unlocked Berthe’s apartment for the first time, I was not sure what to expect, save that it would be empty. It was surprisingly light and airy. The shutters were open. Mom employed agents to care for the place. Some ten years earlier she’d had the kitchen remodelled, though she never took advantage of the new range, work surfaces and cupboards. The windows have all been renovated and the wiring brought up-to-date. The closet has a new door, and bare light bulb.
The drawing room is bright and there is a wonderful marble surround to the fireplace. The view from the windows here to the front is of the street below and the buildings across from us, and to the rear of the backs of other buildings, and of rooftops. The door in the corner of the room leads through into the inner hall, where there are three doors leading off. The first is what I suppose was Berthe’s bedroom. It is a good size, with Juliet balcony to the window and wooden, newly polished floor. The bathroom has been completely remodelled. All signs of ancient plumbing have been banished. The tub is oval and deep, the tiling a golden stone. At the end of the hall is the music room.
The grand piano has been left in situ. Nothing else in the room remains from before. A light dust has settled on the once-polished lid. I tried a couple of keys. It is out of tune, but that can be rectified. I have brought the photo of Berthe and Truffaut with me. It is the one Mom said was found next to the bed. I held it in my lap and listened for the singing.
Acknowledgements
Thanks go to Andy Isham and Becky Elliott for taking time to read and make suggestions. Thanks too go to Maryliese Happel for vocal coaching and knowledge of all things opera. Also to Jacob Elliott for telling it how it is.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Prologue – Present Day
Chapter 1 - Spring 1957
Chapter 2
The Remaining Voice Page 11
