by Sarah Jio
He pokes around in the pantry first. “I take it you don’t do much cooking.”
I shake my head. “I guess not.”
He grins. “Well, then, stick with me, kid.” He checks some of the upper cabinets next, then crouches to open a drawer beneath the island, pulling out a cylindrical glass vase of sorts with a narrow opening. “Voilà!”
“So I don’t have a proper set of water glasses, but I have a wine decanter,” I say, shaking my head.
“A woman with her priorities right,” Victor teases.
Back in the living room, he pours the wine into the decanter. A half hour later, we decide we can’t wait any longer, and he reaches for the glasses, which I’ve set out earlier, pouring us each some to try.
“It’s…marvelous,” he says after taking a first sip.
“Yes,” I agree, having another.
“Wine tastes better in France,” he says.
“Oh, does it?” I ask playfully.
“I know you probably think I’m being a snob, but trust me. I’ve worked all over the United States, a little in Canada, too, when I was getting my training, and there’s no way around it. Wine just tastes better in France.”
I give him a cheeky smile. “So you’re telling me this same bottle, opened in, say, Los Angeles, wouldn’t taste the same?”
“Yep,” he says, swirling the wine in his glass.
We laugh about this, and many other things, and by the time the bottle is empty, I’m feeling lighter and less inhibited.
Victor sets his glass down on the coffee table. The city lights sparkle outside the windows. “I imagine it must be pretty crazy to be locked out of your memories.”
“It is.”
“What’s the weirdest thing you’ve learned about yourself since the hospital?”
“The weirdest thing?” I stop to think. “Oh, I don’t know. You mean, aside from the fact that I apparently was practically a recluse?”
He laughs.
“Well, I have this birthmark,” I say, pointing to my lower back, “that looks sort of like a heart.”
“You’re saying you have a heart on your ass.”
I laugh harder. “No. Well, yes, I guess I do.” I shake my head. “All these strange discoveries. At least I’m not a hoarder!”
He laughs. “There must be something else.”
“Well, I already told you about that man’s shirt in my bedroom drawer,” I say. “Want to see it?”
He nods, and I lead him to my bedroom and open the top drawer, reaching all the way to the back. “Here it is in all its glory.” I pull it out and hand it to him. “What’s your take?”
He grins. “Two thoughts. You once had a man in your life with very bad taste. And I think you might still care for him.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I’m not so sure about that.”
Victor takes the shirt in his hands and thoughtfully inspects the buttons, the pocket. “I bet you loved him,” he finally says. “And that you miss him, whoever he is.”
Then who is he? Where is he? I pause for a moment to consider that I might have been married, or might still be.
He cracks a smile. “But aren’t you relieved that your true love has such an impeccable sense of fashion?”
I laugh.
“I mean, I’m thinking to myself, How can I convince Caroline to cut her losses and give this fine specimen of clothing to me?”
“All right Giorgio Armani,” I say, grinning as I snatch the shirt from him, folding it quickly, then tucking it back in the drawer.
“Look at the view from your bedroom,” he says, marveling at the way the moon shines down on the rooftops all around.
“It’s pretty great, isn’t it?” I climb onto the bed and set my head on the pillow. “If you lie right here, you can see the moon.”
He nestles in beside me. “Wow, look at that.” We hardly know each other, of course, but being in his presence feels natural somehow, easy. He may only be a sketch for now—in black and white, and only foreground, no background—but somehow I can already envision the painting to come, and I rather like it.
“That garden in Montmartre,” I say suddenly. “Did you take her there, the girlfriend you spoke of?”
He’s quiet for a long moment. “Yes,” he finally says.
“You loved her very much.”
“Yes.”
“Do you still?”
“Now, now,” he says, turning over on his side and propping himself up on an elbow. “Where is this all coming from?” He grins. “Am I not allowed to have had any semblance of a life before you?”
Before me…I like that he considers me a landmark in his life.
I smile. “Sorry,” I say. “I’m just…trying to know you better, I guess.”
“It was a very long time ago,” he says.
“Was she anything like me?”
He swallows hard. “Yes in some ways, no in others.” I feel his hand searching for mine, and when our fingers meet, a rush of energy courses through my body. “All you need to know is that nothing makes me happier than being here with you now.” When our eyes meet, he leans over and moves closer to me, kissing me softly. It feels so natural, so good. I breathe in the scent of his skin as his lips move down my neck. I don’t want him to stop, but something inside me says we should, even if I can’t quite put my finger on why.
“I’m sorry,” I say, pulling back. “I don’t know if I’m quite…ready.”
His eyes are tender. “Don’t be sorry. Please.” He kisses my forehead and leans back against the pillow beside me. “This,” he says, reaching for my hand, “is enough.”
I smile.
“Here, come closer. Let me hold you.”
I lay my head on his chest, listening to the sound of his heart beating.
“A friend of mine has a home in the south,” he says. “He’s never there. I was thinking, well, maybe we could…spend a weekend there sometime.”
“Really?”
“His family owns the place. It’s a gorgeous old stone house that’s been completely redone. Big airy spaces. Lavender and rosemary growing like weeds. A pool. They hardly ever use it. We could go next weekend, even, if…you’re up for it.”
“That sounds amazing,” I say. “And I’d love to.”
I close my eyes as he pulls me closer to him. For a moment, everything feels all right. Better than all right.
CHAPTER 14
CÉLINE
The next morning, I set the table for breakfast. Coffee for Papa and me, milk for Cosi. Pastries for us all. The sun glistens on the fresh snow outside. Cosi is eager to bundle up, put on her mittens, and make snow angels with her friends. I haven’t yet told her that I’ve decided to forbid her from leaving. I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but I fear that even school is too dangerous now. She’ll stomp her feet and cry. She’ll hate me for the morning, or maybe even the whole day, and I’ll hate myself for it. But I can never let her leave the apartment. Not now. Not anymore. I swallow hard, thinking of Élian again. I decide not to mention it to Papa. No point in him worrying about something he can’t do anything about.
I gulp down my first cup of coffee and pour a second. I didn’t sleep at all last night. And how could I? The conversation I’d overheard at Bistro Jeanty had pulled the rug out from under me and changed everything, squelched what little hope I’d clung to. There isn’t much time left; two days at most. We need to leave, all of us, before it’s too late.
I decide to wait until after breakfast to discuss this with Papa. Surely when he hears what I have to tell him he’ll realize that staying in Paris is not only foolish but possibly a death warrant. He’ll listen then.
Yes, today will be about mobilizing, forming a plan. Tomorrow we will leave.
I clear the breakfast dishes, and Cosi tells me she is going
out to play in the snow before school. I tell her no, and that she must also stay home from school, and as if on cue she stomps her feet, runs to her room, and weeps.
“I hate you!” she screams.
I hate the world we live in, and how it’s affecting my sweet child.
“I feel awful for her,” I say to Papa as she slams the bedroom door. “I wish there were another way.”
He nods.
“Listen to me, please,” I say, reaching for his hand and beckoning him to look in my eyes. “We have to get out of here. It’s not safe for us, and you know it, Papa. There’s an afternoon train that departs for the south. With any luck, we can be having dinner tomorrow night at a little café far from here, under the protection of our new names. We’ll stay away until the war ends, or cross the border into Switzerland.”
Papa just stares ahead.
“Please,” I cry, wiping a tear from my cheek.
“You go, dear,” he finally says, patting my hand the way he might have done when I was Cosi’s age and had just recited some silly idea about wanting to move to the moon and set up a candy shop. “Dear child, this is my home. I will not leave.”
My heart feels as if it is being pulled in two directions and might sever. How can I choose between Papa and Cosi? Could I even make such an impossible decision?
Before we can continue our conversation, Cosi runs into the room and leaps into my lap. “I’m sorry that I said I hate you, Mama,” she says, nestling her head into the crook of my neck. “I really don’t hate you. I’m just…sad.”
“You are forgiven,” I say, “my naughty little birdie.”
“You’re only trying to make sure I’m safe,” she continues. “I know that. It’s just that”—she turns to look at me, her big green eyes sparkling—“I love snow so much!”
I smile, her enthusiasm as contagious as influenza. “I do too, love.”
She bounces her bear on her lap playfully, then freezes in a moment of terror. “Mama! Mama!” she cries.
“What is it, honey?”
“Oh no, oh no, oh no!”
“What in the world is going on? Tell me.”
She leaps to her feet. “It’s a terrible thing, just terrible.” She points to Monsieur Dubois. “His necklace. It’s gone!”
I’m immediately relieved. In my mind, Cosi’s burst of anxiety could have been much more serious: a child of German sympathizers who had threatened her at school, a rock thrown at our window, or something much more concerning.
But I know how special the bear’s necklace is to her. A locket, engraved with the letter “C,” which matches the one she’s worn around her neck every day for the last three years. Papa gave her the set for her fifth birthday. A necklace for her, and one for Monsieur Dubois. I don’t think I’d ever seen her so happy.
“We’ll find it,” I say. “It’s sure to be hiding somewhere.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head gravely. “I know where I left it.”
“Where?”
“The flower shop,” she says. “I took it off when you and Papa were talking. I was going to put a sunflower seed in it. Monsieur Dubois loves sunflower seeds. But then you said we had to go.” Her eyes are frantic. “I set it on the counter when I leaned down to tie my shoe, and, oh, Mama, I left it there!” She wipes a tear from her eye. “Do you think…someone might have stolen it?”
“Certainly not, love,” I say. “The shop is all locked up.”
“But what if someone breaks a window?”
I don’t tell her that the last thing someone would want to steal would be a little girl’s necklace for her bear, nor do I tell her that this is the last thing I can deal with in this moment when there are a million other much more important things to attend to in the name of our safety. And yet here is my little girl, who only has one worry in the world. And it’s a worry I can alleviate.
“All right,” I say after a long pause. “I’ll go get it for you.”
Her face beams with gratitude as she throws her arms around my neck. “You’re the best mama in the entire world!”
Papa flashes me a look of concern, which I dismiss. I can read his mind, of course: he doesn’t want me to leave. I wouldn’t want him to, either, but I can be there and back in under fifteen minutes with Cosi’s precious bear’s necklace, and it will make her heart happy. I reach for my coat.
* * *
—
THE SUN IS warm, and it’s beginning to melt the remnants of yesterday’s snow, but many icy patches remain, and I’m careful not to slip on the cobblestone streets as I make my way to the shop.
I see it just ahead. The little green sign sways in the morning breeze, and I feel a pang in my heart. Our shop has been more than just a business; it has also been a family member of sorts. I’ve found beauty and comfort within its walls, and purpose. So has Papa. I study the crude yellow star on the window, painted with hatred, and I shudder at the sight. Since we left, someone has thrown a rock at the right front window, leaving a dozen cracks in the glass that look like a jagged spiderweb.
I push the old brass key into the lock and step inside, breathing in the familiar scent of flowers, sprigs of baby’s breath, brown paper and twine, and Papa’s aftershave. I hope I’ll never forget what this smells like. Home.
Papa would be horrified to know that the white roses have turned brown, and the stock has all but dried up from lack of water. Instinctively, I walk to the sink, ready to jump into action and breathe life into our little storefront, but I stop myself. There isn’t time for anything more than what I came for: Cosi’s necklace, which I’m relieved to find on the counter, just as she described. I tuck it into the pocket of my coat, which is when I notice…someone standing in the doorway.
It’s him. Reinhardt. I could never forget his name, or his face. “Well, hello again,” he says.
My heart beats wildly in my chest as he walks toward me.
“Céline, isn’t it?”
I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
“Yes that’s right, Céline.” He smiles. “You know, I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind since we met.” As he paces closer to me, I inch away, until my back hits the counter.
He looks at his watch. “Closed for business, I see?” He gives me a reprieve from his gaze and walks to a vase of carnations, stopping to hold the flowers to his nose, before setting it down again. “Fortunately for you,” he continues, turning back to me again, “I am a generous man, and I’ve come to help you.” He walks closer. “You see, I need a new housemaid, someone to tidy my apartment, keep things looking smart. It’s been hard to find the right…woman.” He is so close to me now I can smell his rancid breath. “I live at eighteen rue Cler. You’ll start tomorrow at eight A.M. sharp.” He begins walking to the door, then turns around a final time. “And Céline,” he says, studying my face. I clutch Cosi’s necklace tightly. “It would be such a shame, particularly for your father, if you disappointed me.” He tips his hat to me. “Good day.”
* * *
—
WHEN I REACH our apartment building, I am out of breath. I slipped on the ice, and now my knee throbs under my dress. I didn’t stop to see how bad it was but feel blood trickling down my leg to my ankle.
I startle when I feel a hand touch my shoulder from behind.
“I’m sorry,” Esther says, her face tinged with concern. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“Sorry,” I say, exhaling deeply when I see her face.
“Everything all right?”
I could tell her about my encounter just now, or what I’ve overheard at Bistro Jeanty, or my fears for Cosi and Papa. I could tell her of the hundreds of worries that plague me. But why? She has her own. Everyone does. I won’t burden her with mine.
“As well as can be,” I say, forcing the corners of my mouth to
turn upward.
“And your father? I trust his wound is healing nicely?”
I nod. “Yes, thank you again.”
“Good,” she says. “Send him to me in about ten days and I’ll take out the stitches.”
“I will,” I say, waving goodbye as I climb the stairs to the third floor, my knee aching with each step.
* * *
—
THAT NIGHT, AFTER Cosi is asleep, Papa and I sit up by the fire. I tell him about what happened in the shop, and he buries his head in his hands.
“I won’t let you go to him,” he says.
“And the alternative?” I say. “I don’t want to begin to imagine what might happen if I don’t.” I take a deep breath. “Listen, it might not be as bad as we think. If he’s happy with my work, it will buy us more time.”
“No, Céline,” Papa says. “I will not send you to a monster.” He nods. “We’ll leave at dawn, catch the early train to the south. We’ll be gone before he even knows it.”
I blink back tears. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, my precious daughter.”
“I know you don’t want to leave home,” I say.
“No,” he corrects me. “I’ve been conflicted about that for some time, and then I realized. A home is a refuge from the world, a place of safety. We don’t have that anymore here.” He clasps his hands together. “So, we’ll find a new one.”
“Yes,” I say, my voice cracking. “Yes we will.”
* * *
—
I WAKE COSI at half past five. She yawns and rolls over. “Honey,” I whisper, “I need you to get up.”
“Why, Mama?” she asks. “It’s still dark out.”
“We’re going on an adventure, love,” I say. “On a train.”
Her eyes shoot open. “Really?”
“Yes,” I say, helping her out of her nightgown and into the dress and cardigan sweater I’d laid out for her the night before.
“Are we going to California?”
