by Cara Black
“This weekend, Madame. My cousin Sebastian will help me.”
Madame Cachou, a widow, pushed her glasses up on her nose, then folded her arms over her ample chest. In her light blue smock, flesh-toned support stockings, and clogs, she personified the traditional concierge captured by Brassaï in old photographs. She was a rumormonger who delivered the mail twice a day. But Madame Cachou was one of the handful of concierges still working on the island and one of the fewer still who weren’t Portuguese. The new immigrant Portuguese women not only managed multiple buildings, they also juggled cleaning jobs and raised families, but rarely spoke much French.
“Tiens! Today, s’il vous plaît. Tomorrow they’re off and then . . .”Madame Cachou shrugged, as if to ask who knew when they would return. “The plumbers union is strike prone; it could be next month, next year.”
Aimée had to stall the concierge and convince her to watch the baby. “As I said . . .”
Madame Cachou expelled air from her mouth. “Bon. Then you must sign the release to absolve the building of liability. No guarantee of responsiblity, you know, but at least then they’ll move things aside and finish the work. It’s covered in your agreement, Mademoiselle. The leaks affect the water pressure in the whole building. We’ve had complaints.”
Aimée hadn’t been down there in years and had forgotten what her grandfather had stored in his underground compartment. She’d sign. That would give her one less thing to deal with.
She stepped inside the neat and narrow concierge’s loge, one wall lined with calendars stretching back to 1954, the other with romance novels. A large-screen television took up the back wall. Madame Cachou pointed to a release form next to a state-of-the-art laptop.
It occurred to Aimée that Madame Cachou might have seen the baby’s mother.
“Monday night, Madame,” she said. “Were you here around 11:00 P.M.?”
“What’s this question and answer?” Madame Cachou shook her head. “Monday’s my night off. It’s in my contract, eh? I go to my writers’ group.”
Aimée had lived here for years and had no idea.
“I earn a little money, you know,” she confided. “On the side.”
More than a little, Aimée thought.
“I see.” But she didn’t, surprised that a concierge who minded the building and mopped the floors also attended a writers’ group.
Madame Cachou ignored Stella.
“Never interferes with my duties here, if that’s what you’re implying, Mademoiselle. At 8:00 A.M., I’m here on Tuesday morning. Mop the stairs, wax the foyer. Before that, I’m where I want to be on my own time.”
There was a stack of Xeras, a line of “liberated” women’s romance novels, by the side of the laptop. Those novels were really soft porn, Aimée thought.
“Sign, please.”
“Do you study these . . . kinds of books in your writers’ group?” Aimée asked.
Madame Cachou’s chin jutted forward. “I write these books, Mademoiselle.”
Aimée wondered if she was in the wrong line of work. No wonder Madame Cachou could afford the laptop and a high-end télé.
Before she could ask more, a plumber in blue overalls appeared. “If we’re not going to measure for the pipe fittings, I might as well go home.”
“I’m coming.”
Aimée’s idea of begging the concierge to babysit evaporated.
Madame Cachou turned toward Aimée. “You young women have babies and expect the world to take care of them. But it’s your responsibility.”
“Madame Cachou, it’s an imposition, of course, but just for—”
“Et alors, leave my friend Miles Davis,” Madame Cachou interrupted. Her expression softened as she petted him. “We’ll go to the park later.”
Miles Davis wagged his tail and sniffed the treat bag she kept hanging from the door.
Now she’d have to take Stella with her. Put Plan B into action. She’d use her disguise, cover Stella with the blanket. The baby should be safe so long as they remained anonymous. She put on the dark glasses and cap, draped the blanket over Stella, and opened the ivy-covered back door, then wended her way through the dark rear courtyard.
She pushed open a small door cut into a larger wooden portal that filled the archway and stepped over the sill to stand on bright and busy rue Saint Louis en l’Isle. This narrow commercial artery, the principal one on the island, lay full of trucks unloading and of scurrying passersby. It was sheltered from the Seine breeze. She emerged onto the pavement in the midst of several women with strollers blocked by a moving van unloading furniture.
“Bonjour,” a woman greeted her. She bent down, smiling, to look at the baby, then shook her head. “Impossible.”
“What do you mean?” Aimée asked, nonplussed. Was it obvious that Stella wasn’t hers?
“A newborn and you with such a flat stomach. How do you do it? That grapefruit diet?”
Relief flooded her and she nodded. She was eager to get away and question the garage owner, but she couldn’t move quickly. The narrow pavement was blocked, as usual at this time of day. Overhead were wrought-iron balconies accessed via open doors with fluttering curtains behind them. The tall doors open to catch any breeze in the unusual heat, through which the murmur of conversations reached her.
At least, she could blend in. Nothing for it but to smile, join them, and eavesdrop on the discussions around her concerning playgroups, mother and baby yoga, errant nannies who took more than one day off. These were the conversations of women engulfed in a world ruled by little people who couldn’t even talk. And for a moment, with the sun hitting her back with a slow delicious warmth, she wondered what it would be like to have the biggest crisis of the day be deciding which park to go to.
But that was not her life. A body lay in the morgue and the baby breathing warmly against her chest was in danger. She thought back to the marks under Stella’s arm, the mother’s frantic plea—“no flics”—and she knew the mother was depending on her.
Two blocks later, having passed leaning soot-stained buildings with paved courtyards big enough to hold carriages and horses—now relegated to storing green garbage containers and the occasional truck—she entered the dimly lit garage across from Place Bayre.
“Monsieur, Monsieur?” A generator thrummed and she jumped, hearing shots. She ran behind a Renault on a lift and clutched Stella tightly. She felt foolish when she saw that the noise had come from a mechanic in an oil-stained jumpsuit who was shooting lug nuts onto a tire rim with an air-powered wrench.
A man wiping his hands on a rag appeared from behind a small cage in which two yellow parakeets trilled.
“We’re full up,” he said. “No more appointments until Thursday, Madame.”
“It’s Mademoiselle. And I don’t own a car.”
She walked, biked, or Metroed everywhere. She would never understand anyone having a car in Paris. Yet she knew René couldn’t envision life without his customized Citroën.
“A woman made a call from your garage last night. Late, around ten . . .”
He shook his head. “Impossible. We close at 8:00 P.M.”
How could she explain that she’d had the call traced?
The other mechanic handed him a power wrench. “Stas, I forgot to tell you. The baron called. He wanted special treatment. As usual. He’d punctured a tire.”
“Again, eh?” Stas rubbed his cheek, leaving an oil smear. “You keeping other things from me, too, Momo?”
Looked like she’d opened a can of worms.
“You know those aristos.” Momo shrugged. “I tried to say no but—”
The phone rang in the small office and Stas ran to answer it.
“Do you mean you opened the garage last night after hours?” Aimée asked.
Momo rolled his eyes. “Just for him. He knows I live upstairs. Can’t seem to get away from doing him favors.”
More than one baron lived on the island. “The baron lives near here?”
M
omo jerked his oil-encrusted thumbnail toward Hôtel Lambert’s high stone wall. “Rents his wing out most of the time. Stays with the owners in the country.”
Aimée took the photo from her bag, pointed to Orla’s face. “Did you see her last night?”
Momo shook his head. “Why should I have?”
If Orla had sneaked in while he was busy working, she was no further than before. Perplexed, she pulled her cap lower. Unless he was keeping his knowledge close to his chest. She pointed to the pay phone that stood under an oil-stained Michelin map of Burgundy.
“Come on, Momo. I’m sure she called me from here last night.”
Momo looked down, reaching for his tools. If she pushed him a little more she thought he’d admit it.
“We’ll keep it just between you and me,” Aimée said, coaxing him.
He glanced at Stas, who was still speaking on the office phone, then turned toward her.
“He’s a tightwad. He makes the customers use the pay phone. And I’m not supposed to let people in.” Momo lowered his voice. “But”—he pointed to the dark-haired girl seated next to Orla in the group photo—“she said her cell phone battery had run out.”
Surprised, Aimée looked again at the names on the back. Nelie. She guessed Momo liked a pretty face and leaned closer. Birdseed from the parakeets cage crackled under her feet.
“So you let her in. What did she say?”
“She was walking funny. Her face was white as a sheet,” he said. “She seemed nervous. That’s all.”
“Was she by herself?”
“I didn’t see anyone else. I changed the tire and when I looked up, she’d gone,” he said.
Stas had returned. “Hey, Momo . . . you’re on the clock.”
“How old’s your baby?” Momo asked.
Aimée gulped. “Close to two weeks.”
She walked past an air pump, her mind spinning. The dark-haired Nelie, not Orla—who was now lying in the morgue—had called her. She stared at the face in the photo and felt a fleeting sense of familiarity. Had they passed in the street, stood in line at a shop? But if it was Nelie who had called her, why had Stella been wrapped in Orla’s jean jacket?
She turned around. “Momo, have you lost any tire irons, those things you use to change a tire?”
He rubbed his chin. The moons of his fingernails were rimmed with black. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Would you mind checking?”
“The equipment’s kept in back,” he said. “Sorry.”
She pulled out twenty francs, put it in his hand. “Does this make it any easier?”
He nodded. She put her card in his grease-rimed pocket.
“Let me know, Momo.”
PUNGENT AROMAS WAFTED from the white-walled cheese shop on rue Saint Louis en l’Isle. Runny cheeses perched on the marble counter leaked onto their straw beds. The old orange cash register sat by the wall, as always. Bernard, le maître de fromage, was also le maître de gossip. Most people on the island passed through his shop. And if anyone knew anything about them, he did.
“Haven’t see you in a while, Aimée. Try a piece.” Bernard, compact in his white coat and apron, pared the rind off a Reblochon and offered her a taste. “Perfect for after dinner tonight.” His eyes widened when he noticed the baby. “I had no idea . . . you’ve been busy, eh?” He grinned. “Quelle mignonne! I can hear it now—all the old biddies on the island discussing you and your baby. Why, just the other day—”
“I’m babysitting, Bernard.” She slipped some francs over the counter to him along with the photo.
“Do you know her?”
He pulled on his glasses. “Who?”
“Either of these girls. They’re MondeFocus activists.”
Bernard shook his head.
A dead end. If Bernard didn’t recognize her, well . . . Disappointed, she picked up the ripe slice of Reblochon in its white waxed-paper wrapper, slipped it inside the baby bag, and turned to go.
“Attends,” he said, scanning the photo more closely. “She seems familiar.” He pointed to Nelie, sitting next to Orla.
“Did you see her yesterday?”
“Those students sneak cigarettes at the café. Try there.”
AIMÉE NODDED TO the older woman, wearing a green sweater set and wool scarf knotted around her neck despite the heat, behind the zinc counter of her corner café. One of the handful on the island sure to stay open late in winter. A few empty tables and booths stood in the rear room, which normally catered to the lunch crowd. Now only a single couple sat there, deep in conversation over a carafe of wine. The decor, redone in the seventies when smoked-glass dividers were introduced, didn’t hide the Art Nouveau banister of the staircase leading down a flight to the phone and bathrooms.
“Bonjour, Sabine, un café, s’il vous plaît.”
“Right away,” Sabine said, rubbing the milk-steamer wand with a wet dishcloth. She was a typical Auvergnat—brusque, born into the business, accustomed to watching every franc.
“Nico still on vacation?” Aimée asked. Nico, the co-owner, took February off.
Sabine nodded, setting down a demitasse of steaming espresso with a respectable tan foam head and pushing the aluminum ball holding sugar cubes toward her. Stella was asleep, her soft breaths just audible to Aimée.
“Merci,” Aimée said, unwrapping two sugar cubes and letting them plop into her cup. She moved the baby sling to the side, leaning toward her, as if to speak in confidence. As in Bernard’s cheese shop, not much went on in the café without Sabine’s knowledge.
“Not your usual style,” Sabine said, glancing at Stella.
“I’m helping my friend. You know how that goes!”
“Thought so,” Sabine said.
“Et alors, but I’ve got to work, Sabine.”
“Bit off more than you could chew this time?”
Little did she know.
“You could say that, Sabine.” She slid the photo onto the zinc countertop. “I need to find these girls to babysit for me. Bernard said he’s seen them here. You wouldn’t happen to have seen her this morning, would you?”
She pointed to Nelie.
Sabine shook her head. “Not this morning.”
“I hope they’re not out of town.” Aimée paused as if in thought. “What about last night, did you see either one last night?”
“Janou closed up as usual,” Sabine said, rinsing dirty cups in the sink and stacking them in the small dishwasher under the counter.
Janou, her brother, wearing a blue workman’s coat and his habitual frown, wheeled a handcart of stacked Orangina cartons past the staircase leading down to the bathrooms and phone.
“Ça va, Janou,” Aimée called to him. “Remember seeing either of these girls last night?” She held out the photo.
“A lot of students come here.” He straightened up, paused, pulled his chin. “A blonde, a young fille, with a baby thing like yours. Could have been her last night.”
“Was she wearing a jean jacket with blue beads embroidered on the pocket?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t pay much attention. The mecs were watching the motocross rally replays on the télé. You know how loud they get.”
That meant a bunch of beer-swilling motorcycle enthusiasts and a crowded, steamy café if Janou hadn’t noticed much. But she wouldn’t give up. A sharp-eyed Auvergnat, Janou reminded her of a crow, a nice crow with his close-set black eyes, who’d spot the shine of a franc lying in the gutter a street away.
Sabine, now with her glasses on, stared at the photo. “That blonde one. I remember now. She wiped her denim jacket sleeve on the fogged-up window. Her jacket was trimmed with funny blue beads in the pattern of a whale.” Sabine’s finger stabbed Orla’s face in the photo. “That I noticed before I left.”
At last!
“She left streak marks all over.” Sabine pointed to the window. “Like those.” Outside, a group of students stood in line at Bertillon’s to choose from more than forty flavor
s of ice cream, blocking the café door. This was a sore point for Sabine. “Gave me the job of cleaning the whole window this morning, inside and out.”
She’d washed away any fingerprint evidence then.
“Sabine, do you think she was looking for someone?”
Sabine shrugged. “Hard to say. Tell her to leave the window alone next time, eh?”
Aimée stroked the fuzz on Stella’s head.
“Did she meet anyone?”
Janou leaned down and hefted a crate. “I served the mecs, and when I had finished, she’d gone. When I stacked the café chairs outside, she was just leaving the ATM across the way.”
“Alone?”
“Some girls were running. She could have been one.” Janou pointed to the dark-haired girl in the photo, then opened the cabinet door, which concealed a dumbwaiter to the cellar, and slid a carton of Orangina onto it. “But I’m not sure.”
“Running?”
Janou scratched his cheek. “One of them kept looking back over her shoulder.”
“In what way?”
“Like everyone does after they take cash from the machine, alors!”
Or had she been scared and running for her life?
“She limped. Stopped every so often.”
“The blonde?”
“The dark-haired one.”
Nelie.
“Does she live around here?”
“You’re curious this morning.” Janou paused, his head cocked, watching her.
She had to think fast. “Count on me to lose her number and I have a meeting. I wish I hadn’t told my friend I’d watch her baby.”
Janou shook his head. “Try the women’s hostel! You’d think they might order a sandwich to eat, just once, eh, since they make this place their living room.”
“The woman’s hostel on rue Poulletier?”
He nodded.
Aimée knew the place around the corner from her apartment that sheltered students and troubled young women.
Aimée set some francs on the counter. “Merci.”
SHE LEFT THE café and walked down the narrow street thinking. Unease filled her.
