by Sarah Jio
Somehow summer seems like a distant memory. Papa is right; autumn is coming, whether we like it or not.
CHAPTER 3
CAROLINE
FIVE DAYS LATER
I open my eyes and blink away the most terrible dream. There were sirens and lights. There was blood. A child. I sit up in bed and gasp for air. Everything aches.
Where am I?
The white walls and fluorescent lights are harsh, and I squint to make out my surroundings: industrial tile on the floor, drab, sun-faded curtains shrouding a window looking out to a strange city. I notice a familiar monument out the window. The Arc…de Triomphe? And then it hits me.
Paris. Good Lord, why am I in Paris? But the more pressing question is…Who am…I?
I glance down at my arms, pale, a little freckled, foreign looking. My hands are thin, and my nails are painted pale pink. The polish on the right thumb is chipped. There’s dirt under the nail. I will my right hand to touch my left, like a stranger—the skin feels foreign—then sit up, heart racing. I’m in a hospital bed.
“Hello?” I call out, both to anyone who can hear me and, I suppose, to myself. I am deeply and sorely lost. I am a strange soul trapped in an even stranger body. The only thing I know is that I am alive, and that I am in, well, Paris.
A thin, middle-aged woman dressed in white bursts through the door. “You’re…awake,” she says, dabbing a napkin to her face and swallowing the remnants of something. Apparently I’ve just interrupted her lunch break. I don’t have the discernment to tell if she’s annoyed or not. But, to be frank, I don’t have the discernment to tell if I’m, well, alive or not. I close my eyes tightly, and I am at once in some other place, some other level of consciousness, where trade winds blow through palm trees, making that unmistakable sound that only rustling palm fronds can. Wind blowing through evergreens is an entirely different thing—more of a low howl, a dull but reverent power, pushing through a wooded forest, haunting and enigmatic. But this? This sound is electric. It reverberates in my ears. It is the sound of something on the cusp. It is the sound of my past, and it’s the sound of something about to happen.
Wind chimes clang as a little girl cries. I open my eyes, heart beating fast.
“Madame,” the woman in white says, hovering over me. “Madame, you are awake?”
I blink hard. “What happened?” I mutter. “Why am I here?”
“You were in an accident.” I notice her high cheekbones, overplucked eyebrows, and freckles on the bridge of her nose. She has a thick accent, and I strain to understand each of her words. “It was a bad accident.”
I was in a bad accident?
Another woman enters the room, this one somewhat regal looking with dark hair pulled back, not a strand askew. “Hello,” she says, also in a thick accent, taking a seat in the chair beside my bed. “We’re so happy to see you awake and conscious.”
I reach for her hand, clutching it with a firm grip. “Please, tell me who I am. Tell me what happened to me. How did I get here?”
She nods. “I’m a doctor,” she says. “You are in the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, in Paris. You were in a bike accident; well, you were on a bike when a truck hit you. You endured a serious injury—how serious, we don’t know yet.” She places her hand on my arm and smiles for the first time, and the reflection from the window makes her white teeth glisten. “But it’s a good sign that you are awake. A very good sign.”
“Injury?” I ask, sitting up. I don’t know if it’s winter or summer. Monday or Friday. If I am a good person or a bad one. I know nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The doctor nods. “You have been unconscious for five days.”
I move my arms and legs. “I’m not paralyzed.”
“No,” she says, leaning into me. “But you did have a great deal of swelling on the brain, which appears, from the scans, to be improving. Tell me, what do you remember?”
I take a deep breath, trying to distinguish reality from dream. “I…” I stammer. “I’m not sure.” My head pounds. My mouth is dry.
“It’s okay,” the doctor says. “Memory is a funny thing. It can return in bits and pieces, or in one huge wave, or…” She pauses and looks out the window.
“Or what?”
She swallows hard. “Or never at all.”
“Oh,” I say, eying the thin gold ring on the middle finger of my left hand. Who am I?
“We will help you,” the doctor continues, “to get settled, regain your life.”
My life. What life?
“The paramedics retrieved your purse at the scene of the accident,” she says. “We made some phone calls but haven’t come up with anything concrete other than the fact that you have an apartment on the rue Cler. Once you’re stable, we’ll have a hospital staff member take you there.”
I nod solemnly, blinking back a tear. “Do I have a…family?”
The doctor shakes her head. “Not any relations in Paris who we can find. You appear to live alone.” She stands up. “I know it’s hard,” she adds. “You must be feeling so scared. But you must try to be happy that you survived. So many people don’t. You’ve been given a gift.”
The nurse hands me a glass of water and a pill. I swallow it and then close my eyes as they both leave the room.
I do not feel as if I’ve been given a gift. I feel as if I’ve just stepped into a nightmare.
THREE DAYS LATER
“You’ve been cleared for discharge,” the nurse—Aimée—says. I’ve come to enjoy her company since I’ve awakened from this strange abyss. Each night, I am tormented by nightmares of a bike accident that supposedly wiped the hard drive in my brain. The repetitive dream has me winding down a narrow street, a truck barreling toward me and a mother with her young daughter walking ahead. Dr. Leroy has said each day that she is hopeful my memory will improve, but for now, this is all I recall. And while I can tell you the colors of the rainbow or the days of the week or the sixteenth president of the United States, I can remember nothing of my life.
The mother and her daughter survived, I was so happy to hear. They’d left flowers for me at the hospital while I was sleeping yesterday afternoon. Yellow roses. Claudine and Jeanette are their names. Two-year-old Jeanette drew me a picture, and for reasons I cannot explain, it made me weep, so hard, in fact, that Aimée gave me a Valium.
“You must have been quite a fancy lady,” Aimée says, smiling as she hands me a black leather purse.
“Fancy lady?”
“Yes,” she says, pointing to the emblem on the side of the handbag. My handbag. “Chanel.”
“Oh,” I say, running my hand along the quilted diamond pattern and eying the gold clasp at the center. “So apparently I’m a…snob?”
“No, no,” Aimée says, laughing a little. “Just good taste.”
And a posh address, apparently. My credit card, the hospital staff informed me, was traced to a three-bedroom apartment overlooking the Eiffel Tower on the coveted rue Cler, which, apparently, I have rented for the last three years. Police went to the apartment to notify any potential family members, but found none. Further interviews with neighbors in the building rounded out my résumé: I live alone and rarely go out. In fact, no one seems to know me at all.
“I don’t understand,” I say to Aimée. “I’m an American in Paris. I live in a fancy apartment with a fancy handbag. And I have no family, no friends?”
“I’m sure you have family…somewhere,” she says. “And, well, no friends in the building, anyway. But those buildings are often filled with old people who care for nothing else but their miniature poodles, and their taxidermy.” I imagine mounted antlers as she continues on. “A friend of mine has a grandmother who lives near you. I visited her for lunch last April. She said my hair displeased her.” She pauses to smooth an unruly curl. “Maybe you didn’t want to be friends with those type of people anyway?”
>
“Maybe,” I say. My eyes widen. “Aimée, what if I’m one of those people?”
“No, no,” she says, reassuringly.
“Tell me the truth,” I say, locking my eyes to hers. “Do I seem like the cantankerous type?”
“No,” she insists. “People who are cantankerous don’t ask if they’re cantankerous.”
I force a smile. “I guess you have a point.”
“Here.” She hands me a shopping bag. “Your clothes were ruined in the accident, so I brought these from home. You’re about my size. I thought you could find something that would work.” She smiles. “I mean, they’re nothing fancy, but we couldn’t send you home in a hospital gown.”
“Wow,” I say. “Thank you.”
I select a gray sweater and a pair of black leggings and tan, nondescript cotton panties, then Aimée hands me a white sports bra. “Hope this one fits all right,” she says before turning her back to give me some privacy. “You’ve got a bit, well, more up there than I do.”
I grin, letting my gown fall to the floor, exposing the naked body I’d only seen parts of in the bathroom since I’ve been conscious. Lean, strong legs (Dr. Leroy commented that I must be a runner), a firm belly with a faded scar above my bikini line, full breasts with nipples the size of quarters, and strong, slim arms. This is me.
I run my hand through my medium-length blond hair, then hold on to the side of the bed, threading my legs through the panties, then the leggings. I squeeze into the bra and pull the sweater over my head.
“Thank you,” I say, staring down at my outfit as Aimée turns around. “This was…incredibly kind.”
I open the Chanel bag and sort through its contents. I see a tube of red lipstick, a little cash, a receipt of some sort, a phone number scrawled on the back of a napkin, and a pack of gum.
“Ready?” she says, looking at me while reaching for the door handle.
I shake my head. “Aimée,” I say, “what’s my name?”
She smiles. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask,” she says. “Caroline. Your name is Caroline Williams.”
I swallow hard and follow her out the door and down the hallway, to a life I know nothing of. My heart pounds in my chest.
I am Caroline Williams.
* * *
—
“HERE WE ARE,” Clément, the man from the hospital, says, pointing to a stately building outside the car. “Your home.”
“Really?” I ask in disbelief, touching the window glass, then looking up at the centuries-old gray stone building with elaborate moldings, window dormers, and little balconies trimmed in intricate wrought iron. Quintessential Paris. Could this really be my home?
“Yes, mademoiselle,” he says, stepping out of the car, with a sack in hand, and helping me with my door.
“But it’s so…”
“Chic?” he says with a smile.
I nod.
“Yes, it is. One of Paris’s most admired addresses.”
I shake my head and exhale deeply. “How did I end up here?” I say under my breath.
Clément casts a worried glance my way. “Are you sure you’re ready to”—he pauses to find the English word he’s looking for—“assimilate?” I give him a blank stare as he adjusts the wire-rimmed glasses on his nose. “Dr. Leroy said you—”
“What did she say—” I begin, but stop when I hear my tone: desperate, scared. “I’m sorry.” I take a deep breath. “I’m just so…”
“Lost,” he says, finishing my sentence. “I know. But you’re home now. Let’s get you settled.”
I follow him into a foyer and together we enter a small elevator, which jerks upward after he presses the fourth-floor button.
“Here we are,” he says, proceeding down the hallway. He inserts a key into the lock and nods as it releases. The hinge creaks as the door opens, beckoning me into a home that is foreign to me. My hospital companion flips on a light switch, illuminating our surroundings.
“Wow,” I reply, running my hand along a modern blue velvet sofa—tufted, with brass legs. “It’s…very nice.”
Clément smiles. “I’ll say.”
The apartment is spacious but decorated minimally, which makes it look grander somehow, and also lonely. Three large windows in the living room lead out to a balcony, where I expect to find potted plants and a chair or two, but when I unlock the three separate latches and open the French doors to inspect the space, only a lone pigeon sits on the ledge, startling and flying away as I walk out.
“Funny,” I say. “It’s lovely out here. Why would I have kept it all locked up and sparse, as if I hated the idea of a balcony?”
Clément shrugs. “I don’t know. But my wife would die to have gardening space like this.” He points to the corners of the balcony. “She’d fill every square inch with flowers.”
Why didn’t I?
I walk through the other areas of the apartment, which wraps around the right side of the building’s top floor. There are three bedrooms. Two are empty; the third must be mine. I sit down on the queen-sized bed, blankets pulled tight and tucked so precisely around the edges that I worry about leaving a wrinkle when I stand again, as if the indentation I’ve just made might somehow disturb my former self.
“Looks like there’s a bathroom down the hall, and the kitchen is just beyond,” he says.
I turn back to face him, pulling my attention away from the dresser. Why do I feel anxious about opening the drawers? They’re mine, or so I’m told. And yet, somehow, I don’t feel ready, or right, about digging through the most private contents of my life. What sort of bras do I wear? Do I have a good sense of fashion? Are there letters or a secret photo of an old lover hidden inside a sock?
“I’ll just leave this bag of groceries here,” he says, clearing his throat. “One of the nurses went to the market earlier and picked up a few things for you as you get settled.” I see a baguette poking out of the paper sack he sets down on the wood floor.
“Thank you,” I say, feeling my heart pound inside my chest.
“If you need anything,” he says, turning back once more, “just call the hospital and page Dr. Leroy.”
I nod, swallowing hard.
“You’re going to be just fine,” he says with a smile that does little to reassure me.
* * *
—
A CLOCK TICKS somewhere in the distance. I sit down on the sofa, then stand again, walk around the living room examining a strange and yet eerily familiar painting on the wall, of a scene from a California backyard, perhaps: a pool edged with palm trees and a bowl of lemons on a wooden table. I touch the corner of the frame as if wishing it could speak. Had this painting been special to me?
I sigh. Everything evokes a feeling of déjà vu. The fruit on the counter. The clock ticking on the wall. The smell of the soap in the bathroom. I don’t remember encountering any of it before, and yet I feel that I somehow have.
I scan the apartment once more. Where do I begin? It feels like moving, when the movers deposit the last box and leave you there alone with all your stuff. I am so paralyzed by the monumental task of unpacking my life that I have no idea where to start. The kitchen? The bedroom?
Inside all of the unseen boxes here are memories that need to be unpacked. I have so much to do, but I feel weary. I retreat to the couch, where I rest my head on a pillow. I let my heavy lids close. Tomorrow will be less hazy, I tell myself. I hope.
CHAPTER 4
CÉLINE
SEPTEMBER 8, 1943
I stare at my reflection in the mirror above my dressing table, noticing a few new lines beneath my eyes. No longer fresh-faced and girlish, the way I was when I married Pierre; I’ll be thirty-three before long. I sometimes wonder what he’d think of me now, almost a decade older. So much has changed since his passing, for good and for bad: the birth o
f a daughter he never knew, our city pinned down by the terror of occupation, and my heart’s desire, though it be slow and cautious, to yield to love again.
Luc. I smile to myself. I’ve been harboring feelings for him for some time, feelings I pushed back for one reason or another (timing, Cosi, the war), but now I’m beginning to feel clarity—even more, a sense of urgency to tell him how I feel, before it’s too late. Would he share my feelings or find them foolish?
I reach for a tube of lipstick and carefully apply a coat before giving myself a final look in the mirror, then fluffing the pillows on my bed.
The apartment we share with Papa, the same one I’ve lived in since moving to Paris the year I turned twelve, isn’t anything you might call grand, but it’s larger than most, with two bedrooms and a sunny living room with windows facing out onto the rue Cler. Down the hallway is Papa’s study and bedroom, and the one I share with Cosi, which overlooks the back-alley garden between buildings, where Cosi and I tend a little plot of land. The butter lettuce and carrots fared quite well this year, as did the broccoli (even if Cosi turned up her nose at it). The sweet peas were also so glorious this past spring that Papa even snipped a few for arrangements for extra-special clients. No matter the state of the world, or how dark the shadow that has fallen on our city, I find it curiously comforting to know that if you plant a seed and give it sunlight and water, it will grow.
All these years, the apartment has been our comfort, too. When Papa first laid eyes on it, pleasantly situated on the rue Cler, he knew it would be our home. His checklist was simple: sunny, clean, and with a balcony where he could have his coffee in the morning. We couldn’t smell the sea or hear the seagulls squawking their morning hellos, and it would never be Normandy, but still, our modest perch over Paris was special in its own way.
Back then, the residence hadn’t been a fancy address by any means. But in the almost twenty years we’ve called these walls home, the neighborhood has grown in popularity, which the Germans have quickly taken note of. Since the occupation, in fact, most high-ranking officers choose to live in nearby apartments. While, to date, no law-abiding French property owner has been displaced, many immigrant families have, most notably a few of our nearby Polish and Jewish neighbors.
