City of Darkness and Light (22 page)

I looked at the picture on the front again. An attractive painting in the Impressionist style of a woman drinking tea. That was all. I carried it over to the window and stared at both sides in the light, wondering if there might be some kind of hidden message. But there was none. “To the Lady from New York” … the person who had written this didn’t even know my name. Unless “the Lady from New York” wasn’t intended for me at all, but for either Sid or Gus. Perhaps I was hoping for too much from this postcard, thinking it might be some kind of message for me. Perhaps the simple explanation was that Gus had admired a painting. Someone she had been chatting with had seen a postcard with a rendition of this painting on it and sent it to her as a kindly gesture.

I sighed, put it down on the bed, and went into the kitchen to prepare an evening meal for us. I tried to put it from my mind, but it was the first communication of any sort I had received, even if it made no sense to me. A woman drinking tea from an elegant little cup. Were Sid and Gus in some kind of danger? Did they want me to meet them at a tea salon? Might they have left a message for me there?

I remembered the worrying thought that had occurred to me earlier—that the Cosa Nostra gang in New York had somehow managed to find out I was coming to Paris and had harmed or kidnapped my friends. But then why leave me unharmed, walking around the city for three days? Nothing had made sense since I arrived in Paris. Nobody in the artistic community seemed to have seen Sid and Gus recently. Their cousins were happily going about their business. And yet someone had murdered a fellow artist and I had come to not believe in coincidence. Tomorrow I would make a list of tearooms in Paris and see if that produced any result.

Liam had a bad night. I suspect his stomach could not handle the amount of food that Madeleine had tried to put into him. I took him into bed with me, lying him on my own stomach and feeling the comforting warmth of his body against mine. I longed for Daniel and his arms around me. How soon could I hope for a letter from him, I wondered. I lay there, listening to the noises of the street below—laughter, shouts, singing. It sounded as if the rest of the world was having a good time in Paris. Eventually I drifted off to sleep and dreamed of the woman in the painting. “Really it’s quite obvious, isn’t it?” she said to me and put down her teacup with a bang.

I awoke, realizing that the bang that had woken me had been a shot fired in the street. I laid the sleeping Liam beside me and went over to the window. I opened the shutter but heard nothing more. I remembered all the talk of duels and Picasso saying that he hadn’t shot his pistol for days. This was a violent city. Lots of things could go wrong here. I tried to fall back to sleep, wondering what the woman in my dream had meant when she said it was quite obvious.

The next morning I awoke with a headache that thundery weather and lack of sleep would always bring on in me. Liam seemed quite recovered from his fretful night and was raring to go. I nursed him, fed him farina for his breakfast, and then made myself a boiled egg with yesterday’s stale bread. I wasn’t going down all those stairs just to get a fresh loaf. Then when we were both washed and dressed I took Liam back to the bakery.

“If I am imposing on you too much, please tell me,” I said.

Madeleine looked amused. “Too much? Madame Sullivan, I grew up looking after seven younger brothers and sisters and helping out on the farm. Two small children and one small apartment seems like a holiday for me. Besides, I like to play with your son. My own baby is still too small. All he wants to do is eat and sleep. Your boy makes me laugh.”

So I left him with a clear conscience, knowing that Madame Hetreau would probably be gossiping again with the neighbors about the flighty woman from America who was off gallivanting and leaving her baby to strangers. I had asked the baker whether there might be any tearooms in the neighborhood. He mentioned a couple of cafés that served tea. “But not exactly tea salons, Madame. For those you must go to the better arondissements—the first and the sixth. That is where people do not have to work hard all day and have time to take tea with their friends,” he said.

I thanked him and took the Métro back to the city center. I remembered Ellie mentioning a teahouse on the Rue de Rivoli, so that seemed like a good place to start. I walked the length of the colonnade glancing into all the little shops and cafés until I finally found an attractive establishment called Angelina. It did look very inviting with its display of exquisite pastries and little marble tables. I stood hesitating in the doorway, wondering what to say that would not sound completely mad, when I heard voices echoing from the arched ceiling of the colonnade.

“Really, Mother. You can’t want tea at this hour. I promised Porky that we’d meet him at the Louvre.” And Justin Hartley and his family were coming toward me, only a few steps away. I couldn’t think what to do. If I ran on ahead I would surely be noticed. If I went into the tea shop their mother might well prevail and follow me inside.

“Madame wishes a table?” A chubby little man with an impressive mustache appeared at my shoulder and literally escorted me inside. Out of the corner of my eye I watched Justin and his family go past. So he had gotten his way again. For once I was grateful. I took the chair the patron had pulled up for me and sat. This was clearly going to be an extravagance, especially for one who has no idea how long her money has to last, but I really couldn’t back out without looking an awful fool, and risk another encounter with the Hartleys. I ordered a pot of tea and the smallest pastry I could find. The café owner joked, “Ah, madame wishes to preserve her excellent figure,” and I didn’t contradict him. When he brought the tea I asked, “I understand that two friends of mine, American ladies, like to frequent this tea salon. I had hoped to run into them here. One of them wears her hair cut short like this. Dark hair. Very striking. You’d remember her.”

He frowned. “No, madame. You must have confused us with another establishment. I do not recall these ladies coming in here.”

“Oh, dear. I am sorry. I wonder which other tearoom they might have meant?”

“Perhaps you are thinking of Ladurée on the Rue Royale,” he said. “Or maybe Maison Cador on the other bank of the river in Saint Germain. They are both fine places, in their way.” He shrugged as if it was almost an insult to compare them to this queen of establishments.

I sat, enjoying every sip of the tea. Being raised in Ireland tea was as familiar to me as mother’s milk and I still hadn’t learned to fully appreciate the coffee that Daniel and Sid and Gus preferred. The little pastry melted in my mouth. Quite heavenly, as Ellie had said. But when I received the bill I realized that I must not be trapped into taking tea at the other establishments. I thanked the proprietor and made my way first to Ladurée and then across the Seine to the Left Bank where I found the Maison Cador. Neither of these teahouses remembered seeing Sid and Gus. I stood for a long while outside each of them, looking around for any kind of clue. The trouble was that I didn’t know what I was looking for.

By the end of the day I had covered every notable tea salon in the city and was none the wiser. If Sid and Gus wanted to convey a message to me from a blank postcard and a picture of a woman drinking tea, they had not succeeded. I had to conclude that the postcard was meant for one of them and had no hidden meaning. I retrieved Liam, bought some vegetables and a neck bone to make soup and went back to number 35. I braced myself for Madame Hetreau’s caustic comments as I came into the front hallway and steeled myself to tackle the stairs. I had already gone up the first three or four before a voice behind me called, “Madame. One moment. I believe I have something else that might be for you.” And she held out another postcard.

Twenty-two

I almost slipped in my hurry to come down.

“I found this today,” she said. “It had been put by mistake in the slot of Monsieur DuPont who is away at the moment and I only noticed it when I was dusting. But it seems to be from the same person as your postcard yesterday, no?”

I took it from her. It was another reproduction of a painting—this time it was of a mother and child. The child was about the age of Liam, dark-haired like him, and naked in his mother’s arms. Again it was addressed to
La Dame Américaine qui visite
 … in a hand I didn’t recognize. Again there was no message.

I held it out to Madame Hetreau. “Does this mean anything to you?”

“The child resembles your son a little perhaps.”

He did resemble Liam. So I had to take it that the postcard was meant for me. But apart from that I was completely in the dark.

I felt my feet dragging as we went up the stairs. It had been another day of foot-slogging and frustration. And all I had to encourage me were two postcards. I realized I hadn’t studied the postmarks and how stupid this had been. If they had both been mailed from a community outside Paris then I’d know that my friends were there and trying to contact me. I couldn’t think why they’d need to contact me in this fashion, but it gave me enough hope to take the last two flights of stairs more quickly. Liam was a bit clingy this evening, finally resenting the fact that his mother wasn’t with him enough. He didn’t want to be put down, so I held him on my hip while I put the postcards down side by side on the table.

They were both posted in Paris. I let out a sigh of disappointment. And this latest one had been mailed the day I arrived. So that was one day before the postcard of the tea-drinking woman. Someone was sending me one postcard per day. Surely that was significant? Then I turned them over and examined the paintings. Both in the Impressionist style, most attractive. I wondered for a moment whether they had been painted by Reynold Bryce, since I knew he had specialized in painting children once upon a time. But his angelic child had been more idealized and sentimental than this—a true painting of the Victorian era. This painting of mother and child was real and alive. Were they both by the same person? I studied the signature but it was too small to read.

Tomorrow I would show the postcards to the artists I had met, both at the Nouvelle Athènes and across the Seine in Montparnasse. One of them must surely recognize the painter.
And if they did, then what?
I asked myself. What would that tell me? All I could say was that someone was sending me pretty pictures. They were nothing like Gus’s paintings, so I couldn’t take it as a sign that they were from her. And they were sent from someone who didn’t even know my name.

I played with Liam, trying to be the bright and cheerful mother he deserved, but it was hard when my head was so full of worry. I’d have to go to the police. To Inspector Henri. Then to the hospitals and morgues as planned. And if nothing turned up, I’d have to do the inevitable and write to Daniel asking him to book me a passage home before my money ran out even if that meant putting myself and my child back in danger. We ate, bathed, and fell asleep. I hoped for some kind of instructive dream, but I was so tired that I don’t remember dreaming at all. Next morning I awoke early, fed Liam, dressed, and waited impatiently to resume my quest. It wasn’t that I was looking forward to possible visits to a hospital or a morgue, or to the police, but I wasn’t good at sitting and doing nothing, and there was no point in visiting the cafés too early in the day. Artists did not seem to be early risers. And if I wanted to enlist the help of Miss Stein, then I knew she didn’t receive guests before luncheon.

Liam was in a particularly affectionate mood, wrapping his little arms around my neck when I picked him up and covering my cheek with sticky kisses. So I sat him on my knee and bounced him to his favorite song, “Horsey, horsey don’t you stop. Just let your feet go clippety clop.” Watching him laugh gleefully as he flew up and down made me forget my anxiety for a few moments and did us both good. But then, of course he was not as anxious to be left with Madeleine and I felt guilty when I crept away while he was engaged with his Noah’s ark. It wasn’t right to keep leaving my son like this. But then I reminded myself that rich children were raised entirely by nannies and only saw their mothers on special occasions. I knew he was safe and warm and well-fed and I simply couldn’t carry him around with me all day.

I set off down Rue des Martyrs and made first for the Nouvelle Athènes. I could see the usual group of young men around their table as I walked in. The enticing aroma of coffee enveloped me and I thought how lovely it would be to be free enough to spend every morning sitting with friends, with all the time in the world. Then I reminded myself that as well as having no set schedule and no responsibilities, these young men lived in a tumbledown shack without heat or running water and had to sell a painting in order to eat. Not such an enviable life after all!

Some of them looked up as I came in and I noticed that Maxim Noah was among them today.

“It’s the good lady from America,” he said. “You have had second thoughts? You come to buy a painting today?”

“As if she’d buy one from you when she could have one of mine at a good price,” the young Spaniard Picasso said. “One can see that the lady has good taste.”

I had to smile. “I’m afraid I can’t afford to buy from either of you, even at a good price,” I said. “I came back because I need your help. I am still looking for my missing friends—for your cousin, Maxim. I have heard nothing from them since I arrived here and I am very concerned. But in the past two days I have received two postcards and I wondered what you could tell me about the paintings on them.”

I placed the two postcards in front of them.

“Old style Impressionism of the last century,” one of them muttered. But Picasso said, “Surely, they are Cassatt? I recognize the brushstrokes.”

“Cassatt?” I tried to remember if this was a word I had heard before.

“Mary Cassatt,” Picasso said. “Not a bad painter for an Impressionist.”

“Do you know where I would find her? Does she live in Paris?”

“She used to live just around the corner but I hear she has moved away.”