All of this time, Paras had been following about two paces behind the boy, and he’d been glancing at her. They’d crossed the Champ de Mars at an angle, taking the same route Frida always did when she headed for the shops. Frida had stopped barking, and was slouching along in the rear. Every so often, she uttered a sad whine, as if she had given up on them and was talking to herself. The boy now paused. Paras stepped up to him, and he offered her another item from the bag, a piece of bread. She could taste oats in it. It was delicious. Raoul landed in front of the boy and lifted and lowered his head. The boy seemed to understand. He opened the bag and held it for Raoul to look into.
“I thought I smelled cacahuètes,” said Raoul.
“What are cacahuètes?” said Paras.
“Your diet is sadly limited,” said Raoul. But he did not explain what cacahuètes were.
They had come to a building, much taller than a stable. A fence covered with impenetrable wintry vines surrounded it. Paras reached out and tasted the dead leaves. Plenty of snow, and the merest hint of a bitter, summer flavor. She spat the fragments out. Frida barked one time, but then sat and stared at them, her ears flat against her head. The boy opened the gate all the way, as wide as it would go. Paras stepped around it, and peered into the yard.
There was not much to see. The snow was not flat—it had mounded against the walls of the building and piled on the windowsills. The sun shone on the snow and the walls and made Paras blink, it was so bright. She snorted and tossed her head. The yard wasn’t as tight as it looked from the outside—spacious enough to walk about in, though not to trot, private in spite of the brilliant sunshine—no branches to scratch her back as she got in and out. Open to clouds and rain and mist and breezes. But right now—not very appealing. Paras made no move through the gate.
Now the boy did something to the black door across from the gate, and then he opened that, too. It was much narrower than the gate, and a horse, or a dog, or a boy, had to climb a step to approach it. He opened it wide. Paras could not see inside—the sunlight on the snow had blinded her a bit—but she could feel warmth billowing out of the doorway like a fragrance, and so, even though Frida barked two sharp barks, and because she was a curious filly, Paras went up the step and through the door (without banging either of her hip bones on the door frame), and Raoul flew in after her. The boy closed the door behind her, and also the gate, and it was a good thing he did, because there was a gendarme on the sidewalk, across the Avenue de la Bourdonnais, who could not believe his eyes. He thought he saw a horse go into a house that he passed every day, a house that he knew was very respectable and had been in the same family for at least a hundred years, but by the time he got there, the gate was closed and locked again. There were no hoofprints visible in the packed snow on the street or the sidewalk, and so he decided that he had, indeed, had too much wine the evening before, on the occasion of his daughter’s engagement party, and that he had better avoid all alcoholic drinks for a few weeks at least. He did see Frida—he stepped toward her in what he considered a friendly manner (she was a beautiful dog; surely, she belonged to someone) and what she considered a threatening manner—he was wearing a uniform, after all. As his hand reached toward her, she backed away (without growling—a good dog never growled at a gendarme), then headed into the Champ de Mars, but away from, not toward, Nancy’s nest and her own den. She made believe she could hear Jacques calling her. The gendarme watched her for a moment, then turned around and went back to his rounds. He proceeded down the Avenue de la Bourdonnais toward the Avenue Rapp, and so he did not see Étienne emerge from the house, lock the gate behind himself, and run as fast as he could, back toward the church.
EIGHT
Every time she went to Mass, Madame de Mornay refused out of hand any sort of automobile ride home. She had her cane, and she had her boy. She allowed the curé to take her elbow and help her down the five stairs out of the church—that was a courteous thing to do, and even when she was a young woman, long long ago, she had allowed her husband to do the same. But then she waved her hand in a gesture meant to indicate that she had no need of him any longer, and she would see him another time, and even though he was worried about the snow (true, the streets were clear by now), he stood silently, with his hands folded, watching her and the boy, who was carrying a small shovel, make their way step by step by step. His predecessor, long retired, had considered her old in his day, and the curé himself was no longer a young man. Every time he saw her, he wondered if there were things he should do to help her and, perhaps, the boy. But he never did anything—he only saw them every so often, and had too much else to think about. He also knew that she would resent whatever he might attempt.
It took Madame and Étienne quite a while to get home, but Madame did not regret the trek. The Mass had been quite refreshing—a lovely performance by the choir (the baritones were especially good this year, their voices rich and expressive—though in fact she could not hear them, and was remembering another choir, from many years ago). She had taken Communion—last in line—and had thought her prayers (in Latin) if she had not said them aloud. She wasn’t quite aware that Étienne had vanished during the service, because he was there with her when the Mass ended and everyone else had left. Perhaps she felt that his hand was cold and his cheek was cold, but that could be an illusion.
They trudged and trudged, and even though Étienne was eager to see what the horse and the raven were doing inside the house, he was, as always, patient with his great-grandmama.
Raoul had not meant to be left inside, with all the windows closed. He perched on each of the windowsills in turn and looked out. When he was finished with the lower story, he flew up the grand staircase and into the rooms that were open (only two of these), and looked through those windows. He pecked at what looked like a grape or two hanging from the ceiling, but the grapes were plaster, and dusty at that. And so, when he saw from the second story that Étienne and the old lady were making their way along the Rue Marinoni, he flew down the stairs, and when the front door opened, he was gone before the old lady had even crossed the threshold.
Paras, too, had made use of one of the windows—she had stretched out in a square of sunshine on a nice thick carpet (though she didn’t really understand what a carpet was), given a groan because she was so enjoying the warmth, and gone fast asleep. Horses don’t sleep very long as a rule, but Paras was tired, and this time she did sleep, giving out quiet little snores that ruffled her nostrils and rose into the silent air of the old house.
ALL OF HER LIFE, Frida had been a dog with a cool head. According to the relatives she could recall from when she was a puppy, a hunting dog had to be—you could not sight a quail or a pheasant, lose your mind, and go running toward them barking. Her relatives, as she remembered anyway, had been proud of their skills. A “good dog” took her time, moved away or moved toward, and only at the right moment did she race at the game, and then always silently, always intently, always moving as little of the surrounding air as possible—those were the rules. With Jacques on the street, she had been cool—standing still, sitting erect, resting herself as poised as a statue so that passersby would pat her head and then, the most important thing, drop coins into the dish. Little dogs might bark, but it was inappropriate for a big dog to respond in kind.