The Ariana Trilogy

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  “Don’t you think that every day is a little too often for counseling?”

  My father’s eyebrows rose. “But they need me. They’ll fail if I don’t keep on them. And I’m good at it, too. I’m so grateful to be a part of the true Church! I feel alive each day, knowing I can actually do the members some good.”

  “By making them behave?” It sounded a little too pat to me.

  His lips pursed in obvious annoyance. “They come to me, Ariana. They want help.”

  “What about Mother?”

  “What about her?”

  “How does she feel about this?”

  He stared at me blankly. “She’s happy I can help so many people.”

  “She wishes you were around more.”

  “But we have eternity to be together. I’m fighting to help others have that same blessing.”

  “At her expense?”

  His head shook back and forth vigorously. “I love your mother. She is the most important thing in the world to me.”

  “Then maybe you ought to worry about her testimony.”

  My father glanced at his watch and stood, pulling his black coat around him. “I have to be going. We’ll talk about this later.”

  “When, in another month?” I muttered.

  “What?”

  I sighed. “Nothing.”

  He bent down and kissed me on both cheeks. “Your mother’s all right. She just needs something to do.”

  That was the first thing he had said that made sense. Maybe I could help my mother by asking her to fill in at the café occasionally. She had never worked outside the home before, but she was an excellent cook. She made a special cake with egg yolk frosting that had always been a family favorite. Adding it to the menu could only make business better. We would call it “The Josephine.”

  “Ariana!” I looked up to see Lu-Lu coming toward me. Her face was flushed, and a nervous energy radiated from her.

  “What’s wrong?” I started to rise, but Lu-Lu launched herself into a chair and flopped her head and arms onto the table, nearly upsetting it.

  “I can’t believe it. Him after all these years!” Her voice was a mixture of pain and disbelief.

  I smoothed her short locks. “Who? Tell me!” If Jacques had been bothering my sister-in-law, so help me I wouldn’t be responsible for what I would do. “Did Jacques—”

  She lifted her head from her arms. “Jacques? What does he have to do with this? No, I mean Philippe!” Now her stress made more sense. It wasn’t every day a woman came face to face with a man she had almost married. In my own situation with Jacques, I could appreciate her reaction. Lu-Lu had once loved Philippe enough to defy her family’s wishes, despite the fact that he was arrogant, controlling, and completely against the Church. He had dumped her during the crisis of Paulette’s death and then came crawling back, but she had recognized the greater importance of gospel truths. Still, even after serving a mission, she had never found anyone to replace him.

  “How did it happen?”

  She sniffed. “I’m being considered for a promotion at work, and I’m waiting to be interviewed by this bigwig from the main branch. When he comes in, I’m staring at some papers I’ve brought to show him, and, lo and behold, I look up and there he is staring at me, just staring. He was as surprised as I was.” She moaned and buried her face once more in her arms. “Eleven years,” she muttered. “Eleven years! And I felt like it was just yesterday. I almost threw myself into his arms!”

  “Then what?”

  “Nothing,” she wailed. “He kept staring, and I felt my face go red. Then he coughed a couple of times, like he was trying to clear his throat, and he walked out and left me there. I was so mortified that I left my papers on the desk and fled. Oh! How will I ever dare to show my face there again?”

  “You’d better do it quickly if you want to keep your job.”

  “Who cares about the job?” she retorted. “I can’t work with Philippe as my boss!”

  “Maybe you won’t have to work directly with him,” I pointed out.

  “He’s been married,” she said as if I hadn’t spoken. “Twice, I think. He has two children by the second wife, a girl and a boy.” Her breath came rapidly, and I worried she might hyperventilate. I stroked her head again, wishing I could soothe her pain. Her head lifted again, and her striking eyes met mine. “They could have been my children, Ariana. All these years, I’ve known I chose the right thing, but seeing him . . . I . . .” Tears coursed down her red cheeks. “I think I still love him!”

  It wasn’t exactly what I had expected, but I should have known. Lu-Lu had grown into a beautiful, poised woman of thirty-three; it wasn’t easy to reduce her to a sniveling idiot. “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  Her shoulders slumped. “There’s nothing I can do.”

  “He obviously feels something for you, too—if his reaction is any indication.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Her words were desolate. “I’m not going after what isn’t mine. I won’t come between a husband and wife. No matter how I feel.”

  I was happy to hear it. Philippe had been a cruel, selfish man, and unless he’d changed a great deal, Lu-Lu would only end up hurt again.

  Jean-Marc came out of the kitchen whistling. He held a wrench in his hand, and his smile told me the sink was fixed. I shook my head when he started toward us, and he nodded. I felt a rush of love for him flow through me. We knew each other so well that communication didn’t always have to be verbal.

  “I think I’ll walk to the subway station and meet the children,” he called. I waved and blew him a kiss, but Lu-Lu kept her tear-streaked face averted from her brother.

  She wiped her face with her hands and smiled weakly. “I guess I’d better get back to the bank. Thanks for helping me out.”

  I hadn’t done anything except listen. If only my parents’ problem could be solved so easily. “Any time, Lu-Lu.”

  As she was leaving, Ken and Kathy came into the café with their eight children, and Lu-Lu paused to talk with them. Their oldest son looked eagerly around for Josette and Marie-Thérèse, and the others pushed two tables together so the whole family could fit. Their presence filled the café. One of the customers, an older man, was finishing up his meal and made no secret about counting their cherubic faces in unconcealed amazement. The two-year-old smiled at him and crawled under his table near the door. Kathy dived after her.

  “She threw the ladder to the bunk beds out the window in the back,” Kathy said in English, pulling the kicking little girl into her arms. Ken had gotten into the habit of translating for her when she wanted to explain something more detailed. “The older children were throwing a ball up through the window and back down again. They wouldn’t let her do it, so she decided to get into the act herself. She threw the first thing she could find that wasn’t too heavy. Then she cried because when she tried to throw it toward the window, it hit her in the head!”

  I laughed and Ken shook his head. “Children never cease to amaze me,” he said.

  “I guess I should be grateful it wasn’t my new clock,” Kathy continued. Again Ken translated. “It’s a beautiful piece I found at a flea market last week. I had stored it in their room on the dresser near the window. It’s pretty heavy, and I didn’t think they could hurt it. But when I went into her room, she was on a chair trying to push it out the window. I just saved it from smashing into a million pieces.”

  “Or smashing any heads,” Ken added.

  To my surprise, I found I envied them. Yes, having small children was a constant challenge, but the life and new perceptions each one brought into the family made it worth every tear shed. Most women my age were thankful their childbearing years were behind them, but I didn’t feel that way. My babies had been born so close together that many days I had been under too much stress to enjoy them. Now I looked forward to having grandbabies to love.

  Next, things happened so quickly that I couldn’t remember afterward in what order they
came. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a group of young teenagers from our ward open the door to the café. Then the earth rocked and a series of loud booming noises filled the air. Someone bumped into me, and I lost my balance. I felt Lu-Lu catching me as an abrupt sucking sound came, like a swift intake of air, and then utter silence.

  Ken helped Kathy to her feet. The toddler in her arms broke the silence with loud screams, and everyone else stared at each other with horrified expressions.

  Before the shock had diminished, a man burst through the door to the café. “There’s been a bomb let off in the subway station down the street!” he shouted. “There’s got to be a hundred people trapped in there! Call the police! The ambulance! Hurry!”

  His urgency spurred Annette to action, but I felt my life draining as if from an open wound. My children were due on the train. Jean-Marc had gone to meet them.

  Lu-Lu’s face held the same terror as mine. “Oh, dear Lord,” she prayed. “Please, not the children!”

  Ken understood our fear. Having lived in the apartment building for five weeks, he knew our family’s schedule. “Go,” he said. “We’ll help out here if they need us.” Already the café was filling with people talking excitedly about the explosion.

  I ran quickly over the cobblestone sidewalk, pushing past the crowds of people that had appeared to sate their curiosity. Muffled curses and exclamations followed in my wake, but I didn’t stop. “My children,” I said once when a wiry man in a police uniform blocked my path. His stern face softened, and he let me by. Lu-Lu followed me closely.

  All around me was confusion and noise. Cries, shouts, and wailing echoed through the streets. My heart pounded as if it would break through the fragile confines of my chest.

  I was near the opening now, but only rubble marked where stairs had once led down into the underground station. A good portion of the street had erupted into a gaping cavity. People leaned curiously around the edges of the hole, and even as I watched, the ground under a man’s feet crumbled. He fell, vanishing from my sight.

  “Get away! Get away!” cried a group of men in uniform who emerged from one of the first emergency vehicles to arrive on the scene. They quickly strung a bright yellow ribbon around the area and began herding people away. I ducked under the ribbon and pushed forward through the crowd, my eyes scanning the people moving slowly away from the explosion site, some holding broken arms, others with faces and bodies covered with soot and bloody scrapes. Bedlam reigned, and the terror in my heart reached a feverish peak. My lips moved in silent, desperate prayer.

  Then Jean-Marc lurched into view, with an arm around Pauline. André and Marie-Thérèse flanked him. Josette’s head bobbed behind them, and I saw that Jean-Marc had hold of her arm and was pulling her along. All seemed healthy and whole. Relief flooded me—until I realized that Marc was missing.

  Chapter Ten

  Iran to Jean-Marc and the children. Pauline launched herself into my arms. She was dressed warmly, as usual, but even through the thick layers I could feel her thin body shaking. Her eyes were wide and fearful, more so than I had seen them during any of her illnesses.

  André was silent and brooding, and Marie-Thérèse’s face tragic, but it was Josette who captured my attention. Muddy tears streaked her cheeks as she pulled violently on her father’s hand. “Marc,” she moaned helplessly, “I have to get Marc! Oh, please let me go. It’s all my fault! I told him not to go.”

  I gave Jean-Marc a questioning look. He shook his head. “I can’t find him.” His voice broke on the last word, and tears flooded his eyes.

  “What happened? Where is he?”

  “André and Pauline went ahead when they saw Dad,” Josette said through her tears. “But Marc had his roller blades and wanted to put them on to see if he could jump the gate. I went a little ways, and that was when the explosions came. I fell down, but I was okay. Marc was coming toward me and we started to leave, but then we heard a woman crying. She was somewhere down under all that dirt. Marc stopped and went back.” Josette hiccupped loudly. “He climbed up on top of the train. I told him not to go, but he just laughed and skated over to the edge. The next thing I know, the whole train shifts and he disappears! I tried to find him, but a man grabbed me and brought me up to the top. We need to find him! I can’t bear for him to be dead! I can’t live without him!” Her eyes begged me to make everything all right, and with my whole heart I wanted to. Little Marc, so much like my brother, Antoine—fearless, brave, and more than a little foolish. I had always hoped Josette would be able to keep Marc out of serious peril, as I hadn’t my own twin brother.

  Josette sobbed uncontrollably, and there were tears on my other children’s faces—all except André, whose emotion manifested itself only in his tightly clenched jaw.

  “Take them,” Jean-Marc said, thrusting Josette’s hand into mine. “I have to find him.” His voice grated, and I recognized his terror, for it was my own. I nodded and held tightly to Josette, who tried to pull away and follow her father. Pauline wept against my side, arms clinging to my waist, while Marie-Thérèse gently stroked her hair. Lu-Lu reached out to comfort André, but he dodged her hand and plunged into the crowd after Jean-Marc.

  Instinctively I followed, drawing my daughters along. Josette, understanding where we were going, weaved through the thinning crowd. I could see Jean-Marc ahead, with André close behind, but an official stepped in front of them.

  “You have to leave the area,” he said.

  Jean-Marc shook his head. “My son’s in there. I have to find him!”

  The policeman frowned, pity showing clearly on his face. “Just stay here. We’ll have trained men here in a few minutes to rescue the survivors.”

  Jean-Marc grabbed the taller man by the shoulders. “It’s my son!” he repeated. “And I will look for him!” He pushed the man backward and ran to the edge of the hole, dropping out of sight. André ducked under the policeman’s arm and also disappeared.

  Josette tried to follow, but I pulled her back. “No!” I screamed in her face. “It’s too dangerous!”

  Some of the policemen emerged from the hole carrying injured and sobbing survivors. A flurry of ambulances arrived, but there weren’t enough trained personnel to help the wounded. “Run back to the café and bring supplies,” I yelled to Lu-Lu. She nodded and motioned for Marie-Thérèse to help.

  Josette pulled on me, trying to break my hold. I drew her close. “You stay near me,” I said firmly. “If you don’t, I’ll take you back to the café. There are a lot of people who need help, and we are the only ones here to do it. Now, leave Marc to your father, and show me that you are grown up by taking care of Pauline.”

  “Okay, Mom,” she said, subdued.

  Assured that she wouldn’t run for the subway, I pushed Pauline toward her and ran to help several victims whom the rescue workers had found in the rubble. A man bled profusely from an arm, and a woman suffered from a head wound. It took me three tries to tear a strip of cloth from my apron—the one Jean-Marc had given me for Christmas—and my hands shook as I tied the knot.

  “Let me help.” Josette was standing over me. With a deft twist, she tore a piece of cloth from the bottom of her skirt and wrapped it around the woman’s head. I smiled grimly and moved to the next victim, glancing often toward the ugly hole that had swallowed my husband and son.

  Finally, I saw Jean-Marc and André emerging, carrying in their arms a limp figure with long blonde hair. They carried her to us and then disappeared once more. Tears slid down my cheeks as I turned to help the woman.

  Lu-Lu and Marie-Thérèse returned shortly after the camera crews and more ambulance workers arrived. Police pushed the crowd back further, but working among the victims, we were left alone. One woman I saw was completely burned. A man in his mid-twenties sobbed heartbrokenly at her side. I didn’t know how he could even recognize the body.

  “They’re newlyweds from Tours,” I heard a very young nurse say of the unfortunate couple. “They came to spend thei
r honeymoon in Paris.” She hiccupped loudly, her voice bordering on hysteria. “He identified her solely by her new wedding ring. I’ve never seen anything so horrible! There’s nothing I can do for her. Or for him.”

  I wanted to spare my little Pauline the ghastly horror, but in her young life she had already seen much. Many of her friends at the clinic had died of AIDS—long, painful deaths caused by cancer, pneumonia, and even parasites with unpronounceable names. After ambulance workers had covered the woman’s body, Pauline left my side. Without saying a word, she flung her arms around the weeping bridegroom and cried with him. He held onto her like a drowning man, his face contorting with anguish, but less than before, now that it was shared.

  My husband came up from the cavity, covered with sweat-streaked dust, and again deposited someone who was not Marc. Lu-Lu rushed to help the man, but I saw by her face that it was too late. The ambulances filled up, but more arrived to cart away both the dead and the living. The panic of the moment subsided, but still there was no Marc.

  Jean-Marc carried out another woman, barely conscious and bleeding profusely from multiple wounds on her extremities and her left side. Again Lu-Lu raced to the victim. I tore another strip off my apron, as I had no more bandages, and went to help Lu-Lu. The shapely woman appeared to be in her late twenties. She had auburn hair, high cheekbones, and perfectly groomed eyebrows—a beauty by any standard.

  “Oh, dear Father,” prayed Lu-Lu, parting the woman’s hair to uncover a large, bloody lump on the left side of her head. Slippery red fluid mixed with the long auburn strands. Her lids fluttered open, revealing a striking gray on the right side. The left eye was completely dilated. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I thought it might be due to the shock of her head wound. “Thank the Lord for that young man,” she mumbled. “If it wasn’t for him, I would have died!”