‘Because I’ll let the children go.’
I touch Marie’s hands, feel her fingers anxiously grasp those of my left hand, and know if I yank, she’ll come towards me, and I can fire at him without hitting her.
‘You’re never going to go anywhere,’ says Tommy from behind us. He’ll have that Schmeisser I left.
Schiller fires two shots towards that far doorway, me I just give him all I have and grab my daughter.
There’s snow on the ground, and from the window of the kitchen in my father’s house, I can see Tommy and the children going for a walk with our dog.
That time of the hunting ground has passed, and I’m now much better. Really I am. Me, I’m happy to say Dr. Laurier took my advice and stayed out of sight until it was all over. I call her less and less now, and she keeps saying there’s no need unless I feel I must.
It’s only once in a while that I wake up in the night, crying out in terror. Tommy’s there, and if not him, then the children. It’ll take time-years, I suppose. Perhaps never. But me, I’m okay. Kneading bread dough and making such lovely sculptures, catching up on life and doing so many things. Come spring, I’ll be back in my garden.
Apart from some damage, we found the paintings and other things generally in excellent shape. Most were returned to their rightful owners or placed in trust for their descendants if found alive. Those pieces that were Nicki’s went to his remaining children, since both he and Katyana didn’t survive.
My sister died with them, as well as Clateau and the others. Besides Matthieu Fayelle, only Marcel survived-he hadn’t been with us, hadn’t been involved in that last effort at the house. He remains the Marcel I once knew, painting in poverty, cadging money whenever he can, and talking big as always. Me, I’ve sent him a little money. Not too much, you understand, but enough.
And Tommy? you ask. Tommy was taken during the attempt on Göring’s life, but managed to escape in Paris and to remain free in spite of that accent of his. When he could, he came back to the house on his own and took the children with him to Spain and looked after them as if they were his own. For him, the last days of the war were spent in Britain working for the S.O.E., the Special Operations Executive, who refused, for his sake, to let him return to France until after the Liberation.
He searched for me. Of course, he did. That’s partly why he left the artwork in that cave, although there were also questions of ownership that the firm had first wanted to settle.
And why didn’t he point the finger at Dupuis, the Vuittons, Jules, André de Verville, and Schiller? Why, when he knew so much? Me, I think he was waiting until I came home.
*** Improved time-pencil fuses came later: one-half, two, five-and-a-half, twelve, and twenty-four hours in colour codes of red, white, green, yellow, and blue, respectively.