Rachel seemed grateful to be resting her feet and exercising her mouth. She was vigorously rubbing her other foot now.
"Did you and Lili go to school together during the war?"
Something shuttered behind Rachel's eyes and she turned away. Aimee knew that look, a deliberately vacant stare that came into old people's eyes when the war was mentioned. Rachel shrugged and didn't answer.
Aimee sat down on the bed next to her and smiled. "Were you in class together?"
"Lili was younger than me. I didn't have much to do with her."
"Didn't you know her parents?"
"I'm only half Jewish," Rachel said. "Am I supposed to know everybody? A lot of people disappeared."
Why had Rachel become defensive?
A tingle went up her spine, the same tingling she'd felt when she'd made that promise to Hecht. She edged closer to the old woman and lowered her voice confidentially.
"Rachel, she looked up to you, didn't she?"
Rachel looked surprised but not displeased. "I'm not sure. . ."
She kept going. "Have I embarrassed you, Rachel? You know how schoolgirls idolize older girls!"
Rachel shook her head slightly and paused. "I vaguely remember her father. He came back after the war."
Aimee noticed that Rachel's gaze was focused on the window crisscrossed with crime-scene tape. So there was something, Aimee thought, her heart starting to pound.
"Why did Lili board up the window, Rachel?"
A stony look came over Rachel's face. "The winter of 1943 was cold. No one had coal for heat."
"Lili boarded up the window for warmth?" Aimee said. "But she wasn't here during the whole war, was she?"
"Water froze in the pipes," Rachel said woodenly.
Aimee prayed for patience. "Wasn't it hard for Lili here after her parents were taken?"
"We chipped ice off the fountains. Boiled it for cooking and washing," Rachel continued.
"What about Lili?"
"She stayed with the concierge. Downstairs when. . ." Rachel stopped and covered her mouth.
Aimee leaned forward and gripped Rachel's arm.
"Go ahead, Rachel, what were you about to say?"
Aimee was surprised to see fear in Rachel's eyes.
"Why are you afraid?"
Rachel nodded and spoke slowly. "You think I'm just a silly old woman."
"No, Rachel. Not at all." Aimee reached for her hand and held it.
Finally, Rachel spoke. "They found the body."
"A body? Who?" Aimee asked. Startled, she leaned forward. Why hadn't Abraham Stein mentioned this to her?
"Down in the light well." Rachel twisted her neck as far as her bent back would allow.
"Whose body?"
"This window looked right out on it."
"Yes, Rachel, but who was it?"
"Things happened in 1943," she said.
Aimee gritted her teeth and nodded. "I know it must be difficult to talk about the Occupation. Especially to my generation, but I want to understand. Let me try."
Rachel turned to her, her eyes boring into Aimee's. "You'll never understand. You can't."
Aimee put her arm around the thin stooped woman. "Talk to me, Rachel. What did Lili see?"
"We had to survive. We did what we had to do." Rachel's stale breath hit Aimee's face. "She told me once that she saw the murder."
"A murder that happened in the light well?" Aimee said, keeping her excitement in check. "So that's why she boarded up the window?"
Rachel nodded.
Aimee willed her face muscles to be still and kept her arm around Rachel's shoulder.
"That's all she said, wouldn't talk about it after that," Rachel said finally. "There's not many people around who'd remember, there were so many deportations."
"Was it the Nazis?" Aimee said.
"All I know is Lili's concierge was murdered." Rachel shook her head. "It's not something people talk about." Her eyes were far away.
"What do you mean, Rachel?"
"Only Felix Javel, the cobbler, he'd remember the bloody footsteps. . ." She trailed off, lost in thought. "Past is past. I don't want to talk anymore."
Sinta, Abraham's wife, clomped into the room. "Listen, Mademoiselle Detective—" She planted her feet apart as if supporting her wide hips and repinned her thick black hair with tortoiseshell combs. Loud beeping interrupted from the folds of her faded apron. "Alors!" she muttered, pulling a Nintendo Game Boy out of her pocket. She clicked several buttons then slid it back inside her apron.
"Neo-Nazi salopes!" Her voice rang curiously melodic, with a strong Israeli accent. "Day and night, they harass us in the shop," she continued matter-of-factly. "Lili always yelled at them to go away. Told me she wasn't afraid of them, but I guess she should have been."
"A gang? What did they look like?" Aimee asked. The damp cold permeated her wool jacket. Why couldn't they turn the heat on?
"Never paid much attention," Sinta shrugged. "I baked in the back kitchen and she handled the customers."
"Your husband mentioned that she'd been seeing ghosts," Aimee said.
"Yes, old people do that." Sinta rolled her eyes at Rachel, who nodded knowingly.
"I don't speak ill of the dead, she was my mother-in-law. We lived under the same roof for thirteen years," Sinta said. "But she could be difficult. Lately she'd taken to seeing shadows everywhere—in her closet, out the window, on the street. Ghosts."
"Shadows?"
Sinta had turned away, as if dismissing her. Aimee stood up and grasped Sinta's elbow, forcing the woman to turn and face her directly.
"What do you mean by that?" Aimee asked.
Reluctantly, Sinta spoke. "Talking about the past, seeing ghosts around the corner." She shook her head and sighed. "Imagining some collaborator had come back to haunt her." Sinta cocked her head and rested her hands on her hips. "She grew so agitated the other day that I finally said, 'Show me this ghost,' so we walked to rue des Francs Bourgeois and up rue de Sevigne to that park with Roman ruins. We sat there for a long time, quietly. Then she seemed calm and said, 'It comes full circle in the end, always does,' and that was that. No more mention of ghosts."
"Collaborators?" Aimee said, surprised.
Sinta repinned a lock of hair that wouldn't behave. "Yes, all that old talk."
"Why wouldn't you believe her?" Aimee said.
"Up and down rue des Rosiers, Les Blancs Nationaux spray graffiti and smash windows. Seems obvious."
This was the second time she had heard Les Blancs Nationaux mentioned.
Sinta paused and looked around the room. Rachel's eyes had closed, low snores rattling from her open mouth.
"Lately, Lili had become very paranoid." Sinta lowered her voice. "Between you and me, she didn't have many friends. Poor Rachel put up with her, the others wouldn't. Go investigate that trash, that's where you should be looking." Sinta sighed. "I don't have time for the past anymore."
Sinta opened Lili's cracked wooden wardrobe and a strong whiff of cedar came out. Sinta shoved some black skirts together and moved aside a pair of freshly heeled shoes, a repair tag hanging off them. "Too bad. She had just picked these up from the cobbler's." Sinta shook her head. "All this goes to the synagogue sale benefiting Jews in Serbia."
"What's the hurry, Sinta?"
"Time to clean things out," Sinta said with determination. "No more living in the past."
As Sinta reached in the back, Aimee noticed a coat half-covered in yellowed paper with an old cleaning tag labeled MADAME L. STEIN pinned to it. The cut and drape spoke couture, but the combed wool with nubby black tufts resembled a postwar concoction of available materials.
"That's beautiful," she said.
Sinta grabbed it from the wardrobe and threw it in the pile.
Aimee stared into Sinta's eyes as she lifted the coat up. "Maybe you should keep this."