“Miss Jarmond? This is Véronique, at the nursing home. I’m afraid I don’t have good news. Madame Tézac is not well, she has had a stroke.”
I sat up straight, shock reeling through me.
“A stroke?”
“She is a bit better, with Docteur Roche now, but you must come. We have reached your father-in-law. But we cannot get hold of your husband.”
I hung up feeling flustered, panicky. Outside, I heard rain pattering against the windowpanes. Where was Bertrand? I dialed his number and got his voice mail. At his office near the Madeleine, nobody seemed to know where he was, not even Antoine. I told Antoine I was at the rue de Saintonge, and could he have Bertrand call me ASAP. I said it was very urgent.
“Mon dieu, the baby?” he stammered.
“No, Antoine, not the bébé, the grand-mère,” I replied and hung up.
I glanced outside. The rain was falling thickly now, a gray, glistening curtain. I’d get wet. Too bad, I thought. Who cared. Mamé. Wonderful, darling Mamé. My Mamé. No, Mamé could not possibly go now, I needed her. This was too soon, I was unprepared. But how could I ever be prepared for her death, I thought. I looked around me, at the living room, remembering that this had been the very place where I had met her for the first time. And once again I felt overwhelmed by the weight of all the events that had taken place here, and that seemed to be coming back to haunt me.
I decided to call Cécile and Laure to make sure they knew and were on their way. Laure sounded businesslike and curt, she was already in her car. She’d see me there, she said. Cécile appeared more emotional, fragile, a hint of tears in her voice.
“Oh, Julia, I can’t bear the idea of Mamé… You know… It’s too awful…”
I told her I couldn’t get hold of Bertrand. She sounded surprised.
“But I just spoke to him,” she said.
“Did you reach him on his cell phone?”
“No,” she replied, her voice hesitant.
“At the office, then?”
“He’s coming to pick me up any minute. He’s taking me to the nursing home.”
“I wasn’t able to contact him.”
“Oh?” she said carefully. “I see.”
Then I got it. I felt anger surge through me.
“He was at Amélie’s, right?”
“Amélie’s?” she repeated blandly.
I stamped impatiently.
“Oh, come on, Cécile. You know exactly who I’m talking about.”
“The buzzer’s going, that’s Bertrand,” she breathed, rushed.
And she hung up. I stood in the middle of the empty room, cell phone clenched in my hand like a weapon. I pressed my forehead against the coolness of the windowpane. I wanted to hit Bertrand. It was no longer his never-ending affair with Amélie that got to me. It was the fact his sisters had that woman’s number and knew where to reach him in case of an emergency like this one. And I did not. It was the fact that even if our marriage was dying, he still did not have the courage to tell me he was still seeing this woman. As usual, I was the last to know. The eternal, vaudevillesque wronged spouse.
I stood there for a long time, motionless, feeling the baby kick within me. I did not know whether to laugh or to cry.
Did I still care for Bertrand, was this why it still hurt? Or was it just a question of wounded pride? Amélie and her Parisian glamour and perfection, her daringly modern apartment overlooking the Trocadéro, her well-mannered children-“Bonjour, Madame”-and her powerful perfume that lingered in Bertrand’s hair and his clothes. If he loved her, and no longer me, why was he afraid of telling me? Was he afraid of hurting me? Hurting Zoë? What made him so frightened? When would he realize that it wasn’t his infidelity I couldn’t bear, but his cowardice?
I went to the kitchen. My mouth felt parched. I turned on the tap and drank directly from the faucet, my cumbersome belly brushing against the sink. I peered out again. The rain seemed to have abated. I slipped my raincoat on, grabbed my purse, and headed to the door.
Somebody knocked, three short blows.
Bertrand, I thought, grimly. Antoine or Cécile had probably told him to call or come.
I imagined Cécile waiting in the car below. Her embarrassment. The nervous, tight silence that would ensue as soon as I would get into the Audi.
Well, I’d show them. I’d tell them. I wasn’t going to play timid, nice French wife. I was going to ask Bertrand to tell me the truth from now on.
I flung the door open.
But the man waiting for me on the threshold was not Bertrand.
I recognized the height, the broad shoulders immediately. Ash blond hair darkened by the rain plastered back over his skull.
William Rainsferd.
I stepped back, startled.
“Is this a bad moment?” he said.
“No,” I managed.
What on earth was he doing here? What did he want?
We stared at each other. Something in his face had changed since the last time I’d seen him. He seemed gaunt, haunted. No longer the easygoing gourmet with a tan.
“I need to talk to you,” he said. “It’s urgent. I’m sorry, I couldn’t find your number. So I came here. You weren’t in last night, so I thought I’d come back this morning.”
“How did you get this address?” I asked, confused. “It’s not listed yet, we haven’t moved in yet.”
He took an envelope out of the pocket of his jacket.
“The address was in here. The same street you mentioned in Lucca. Rue de Saintonge.”
I shook my head.
“I don’t get it.”
He handed the envelope to me. It was old, torn at the corners. There was nothing written on it.
“Open it,” he said.
I pulled out a slim, tattered notebook, a faded drawing and a long, brass key that fell to the floor with a clank. He bent to pick it up, nestling it in the palm of his hand for me to see.
“What is all this?” I asked warily.
“When you left Lucca, I was in a state of shock. I could not get that photograph out of my mind. I could not stop thinking about it.”
“Yes,” I said, my heart beating fast.
“I flew to Roxbury, to see my dad. He’s very ill, as I think you know. Dying of cancer. He can’t speak anymore. I looked around, I found this envelope in his desk. He had kept it, after all these years. He had never shown it to me.”
“Why are you here?” I whispered.
There was pain in his eyes, pain and fear.
“Because I need you to tell me what happened. What happened to my mother as a child. I need to know everything. You’re the only person who can help me.”
I looked down at the key in his hand. Then I glanced at the drawing. An awkward sketch of a little boy with fair, curly hair. He seemed to be sitting in a small cupboard, with a book on his knee and a toy bear next to him. On the back, a faded scrawl, “Michel, 26, rue de Saintonge.” I leafed through the notebook. No dates. Short sentences scribbled like a poem, in French, difficult to make out. A few words jumped out at me: “le camp,” “la clef,” “ne jamais oublier,” “mourir.”
“Did you read this?” I asked.
“I tried. My French is bad. I can only understand parts of it.”
The phone in my pocket rang, startling us. I fumbled for it. It was Edouard.
“Where are you, Julia?” he asked, gently. “She’s not well. She wants you.”
“I’m coming,” I replied.
William Rainsferd looked down at me.
“You have to go?”
“Yes. A family emergency. My husband’s grandmother. She’s had a stroke.”
“I’m sorry.”
He hesitated, then put a hand on my shoulder.
“When can I see you? Talk to you?”