Amandine (35 page)

“M
AY I LOOK INSIDE YOUR VALISE? JUST TO SEE THAT YOU’VE TAKEN
everything.”

Dominique and Amandine are in the salon, the same salon where they sang and danced and ate and slept on the night Solange died. The room they’ve continued to share for the eight nights since. Amandine on the chaise longue, Dominique on the sofa, neither has slept nor, for the first three days, spoken more than half sentences. When Dominique tried to soothe Amandine, encourage her to talk, Amandine would open her eyes, shake her head, sometimes she would smile as though to comfort Dominique. Always, then, Amandine would retreat into her thoughts. And for hours, Dominique would sit beside her, caress her back, her arms. Try to feed her.

It is Amandine’s thoughts of Claude, the little girl, the five-year-old Algerian girl who’d been staying with Madame Aubrac when Amandine and Solange were there, it is her thoughts of Claude about which Amandine first speaks.

“Maybe I should go back to Madame Aubrac. I could help with Claude. Her parents are lost and she was going to live in an orphanage. If I go to help, maybe she won’t have to go to an orphanage.”

“That was a while ago,” Dominique says, “and I would think that Claude has already gone from Madame Aubrac’s. But I think it’s wonderful that you … Will you tell me some of the other things you’re thinking about?”

“I don’t know.”

“No words?”

“No out-loud words.”

“Do you want to tell me some of the words that you say only to yourself?”

“Alone. Scary
. Maman. Solange. Sometimes I say
boche.”

“It’s strange but, these past days, I say the same words to myself. The same ones. I also say Amandine.”

“I guess we’re not so different.”

“Not at all. No matter how different we may
seem
to one another, the truth is that we’re not. None of us are. So different from one another.”

“Not even the
boche?”

Dominique smiles, shakes her head but doesn’t speak.

“I think I’m hungry,” Amandine tells her.

Among Solange’s things, Dominique finds the brown-paper-wrapped parcel tied with white string. Attached to it is a small white card on which is written a single word: “Amandine.” Dominique turns it over in her hands, wonders about it. Finishes the task of looking through Solange’s clothes, folds them neatly, replaces them in the valise. She puts Solange’s identity papers in an envelope, seals it, places it, too, in the valise. She picks up the parcel and carries it downstairs to the salon, where Amandine sits by the fire.

“I found this in the valise. I thought you might like to put it away yourself, so you’ll know where it is.”

She brings the parcel to Amandine, sets it down on the table near the chaise longue.

Amandine picks it up, studies it as though she does not recognize it. Then “I’m not supposed to have this until I’m thirteen. I don’t know what it is, but it’s something that was left for me with Solange.”

“That was left for you? A gift?”

“Like a gift.”

“From whom?”

“A lady with eyes like a deer. That’s what Solange said.”

“Eyes like a deer. Beautiful. And you have no idea what’s in it?”

“No. Do you think it would be okay to open it? I promised, but …”

“I think it would be okay. I think you should open it.”

Amandine looks at the parcel, looks at Dominique, begins to untie the string.

Dominique reaches out to take the parcel. “Here, let me help you.”

“I can do it. I want to do it.”

Amandine slides the string, first off one corner, then another, slips the parcel free. She sits up straighter, unfolds the soft brown paper to reveal a small black velvet envelope with a stiff back, the three corners of it fastened with a velvet button. She loosens the button and, one by one, opens the flaps. Held against the stiff part of the envelope, a pendant is hung. To her it looks like a small bottle made of some purple stone. She notes that the tiny bottle has a stopper made from a lilac-colored pearl. Still hung on the stiff board, she turns the bottle over, holds its weight in the palm of her hand.

“Oh,” she says. She says it again.

“May I see it?”

Not noting Dominique’s request, Amandine continues to turn the tiny bottle over and over, looking at it from every angle.

“It’s attached to a ribbon,” she says, lifting the ribbon from its hooks, difficult to see since it is made of the same black velvet as the envelope.

“Is it a necklace?”

“I think it is.”

Dominique kneels by Amandine’s chair, looks at the piece, which Amandine holds up, letting the pendant swing on its ribbon.

“Yes, a wonderful necklace. Very old, I think. Splendid, actually.
Shall I fasten it for you? You hold up your hair and I’ll tie it in the back.… Go ahead. Wait, let me tie it more tightly so the stone falls right, wait, right there.”

Dominique rises, stands back to better see the effect.

“Amandine, it’s wonderful. Who was the lady who left it for you? The lady with the …”

“Solange said she didn’t know who she was. A lady who came to visit her grandmother one day. She wasn’t my mother. Solange said she wasn’t. She said she was someone who knew my mother. At least that’s what she thought.”

“It’s a magnificent gift.”

“Solange called it a symbol.”

“Of course, a symbol.”

“I don’t understand. But I like it.”

“I think that Solange must have meant it was a symbol of your mother’s affection. Her love.”

“I guess. Claude had
symbols
, too. She had letters and photographs waiting for her at the orphanage. I heard Madame Aubrac telling Solange.”

“Another sort of symbol but—”

“Do you know one of the reasons why I want to go home? I mean to Solange’s home.”

“Tell me.”

“So that I can ask her grandmother about the lady with the eyes like a deer.”

“Yes, well … Do you know what I think?”

“What?”

“That also you have eyes like a deer.”

“Amandine, I’ve been asked, my friends have asked me about your school. About the convent. I told them what I know about it. Of course we don’t know yet even if it would be possible for you to return to live there, that is, we have yet to make contact and so don’t know if the school has remained in operation. But it does seem the best place to begin…”

In the garden, sitting in a metal chair, her cheek laid down on a small cloth-covered stone table on which there is a cup of tea and a plate of bread, Amandine stays quiet.

Dominique tries again. “Madame Aubrac, I mean if the convent school is … Well, we think that surely she, that Madame would …”

Amandine raises her head from the table, looks up at Dominique. “Not the convent. Not Madame Aubrac. I want to go home.”

Dominique walks from where she has been standing in the doorway from the salon to the garden, kneels on the spring-softened ground, on the new-sprouted weeds and grass, tries to take Amandine from the chair into her arms. Amandine resists. Dominique rises, paces near the table.

“You know that you can’t stay here. I can’t stay here. I should have been gone—”

“Can you take me home? Jouffroi is their name. Avise. A farm near Avise. Solange told me that we were close enough to walk.”

“Solange’s papers, I’ve looked at them. I know the family name, where they live, and we have been trying to reach them, to tell them—”

“About Solange?”

“Yes. And about you. But so far, we have not been able to—”

“If you show me the road, I can walk—”

“Foolish girl, do you really think that I would … It’s only that they might have gone away. You know that so many people have left their homes and—”

“Solange said they would never leave.”

“I know that’s what she said, what she believed. But her mother, the family, they may not have had a choice.”

“Please, Dominique, please keep trying. Jouffroi.”

“There is another possibility. There is a person who is connected to us. He lives farther north. Not nearer to Solange’s family than we are here. Northwest. But still north. This man lives in the center of a village. A big house, a garden surrounded by a stone wall. This man, he has land just outside the village. He keeps goats and he makes cheese.”

“Solange’s mother keeps goats and makes cheese.”

“I didn’t know.… This place that I’m talking about, it’s on the river Oise. In the Val-d’Oise. Have you ever heard of it?”

“How close is it to Avise?”

“I don’t know the number of kilometers but, as I said, it’s north of here. Close to Paris. You could stay with this man and he would continue to, he would keep trying to reach them. The family. And then, in time, perhaps he could help you to … He’s my father, Amandine. His name is Catulle.”

“And your mother?”

“My mother died when I was a child. I have two brothers.”

“Two brothers? What are their names?”

“One is Pascal. The other is Gilles, but both are … they were taken by the
boche
at the beginning of the Occupation. They work in Germany now.”

“Are you going home to your father? Could we go together?”

“No. I’m not going home. Not yet. Someday I will, but for now I have—”

“You’re like Lily, aren’t you?”

“Lily?”

“Madame Aubrac’s Lily. She’s a kind of soldier. She carries a pistol. I saw it once.”

“Yes, I suppose I’m a bit like Lily. And that’s why, that’s one of the reasons why I can’t accompany you now, not to the convent or to Madame Aubrac or even to the Val-d’Oise. You must understand that it will not be up to us to decide, not up to you to say where you want to go. Others know more than you and I know, and so it’s they who will say. But no matter where you go, friends will help you.”

“What’s he like? Monsieur Catulle.”

He’s, he’s, I don’t know, he’s a farmer, tall and broad. He speaks softly. I look like him, everyone says that. Our eyes, amber. Sometimes green. He will, he will be pleased, very pleased if you stay with him. I know that. There may be other people staying there. From time to time. He will take good care of you.”

“Is he old? He wouldn’t be going to die while I was there, would he?”

“No, no. And no, he’s not very old. He fought in the Great War.”

“There was a war greater than this one?”

“So they say. He’s past fifty, fifty-three I think. He’s handsome. Madame Isolde, she is our housekeeper but has always been like a mother to me, she is in love with him. And a Polish woman, a widow who is the grande dame of the village, well, she’s rather in love with him as well. Madame de Bazin. Her first name is Kostancja. I love to say her name. When I was a little girl, I would always go to play with the children of her maid. Her maid was Polish, too. You’ll meet Madame Isolde
and
Madame de Bazin. If you go to stay with Catulle.”

“What’s a Polish woman?”

“A woman who was born in Poland. Poland is a country east of here.”

“Why does she live in France?”

“Because a long time ago she married a Frenchman. And she left her home to be with him. It happens all the time.”

“Do you mean that people don’t stay in the same place always?”

“Yes. That’s what I mean.”

“How long will it take to get there?”

“To get where?”

“To Monsieur Catulle.”

“It depends. You see, this next journey of yours, no matter to what destination, will be a little different from the ones that brought you, you and Solange, here to me. Once it’s arranged, once I know more, I’ll explain things to you. As best I can. Won’t you drink your tea now, Amandine?”

Dominique’s first thought after the execution had been to take Amandine and leave the village. She’d thought to leave that same morning. No plan, no destination; her instinct was to disappear with the child. She was good at that. At disappearing. But word had come almost immediately that she and the child should stay put. They should wait. Then, last evening, the directions were communicated. A member of a cell not connected to Dominique’s would be waiting for Amandine at a specified time and place the next day.

Today. This person will take Amandine to Catulle, to Dominique’s father, while Dominique herself will proceed to Paris, to work that has been assigned to her there. No complications are anticipated. They will travel together for the first part of the journey and then separate.

Dominique has instructed Amandine. What to say, what not to say should they be stopped by the
boche
. The single awkward moment of the transfer will be when Dominique must leave Amandine to walk alone over a short expanse of countryside to the place where she will meet her next
convoyeur
.

“But why can’t you walk with me?”

“Because the person who will come to fetch you and who will take you to Catulle, he or she is part of a different operation than mine. Another group. It’s a rule among our groups that we never see one another. For the sake of safety. A protection for all of us, so that should any one of us be questioned about another by the
boche
, we’ll be telling the truth when we say we don’t know them. It’s difficult to understand, I know.… I can hardly … too much for a child of ten …”