Sarah's Key (2 page)

“Well, he should,” she said.

As we waited for the elevator, my mobile phone chirped out the Darth Vader theme. I peered at the number flashing on my screen. It was Joshua, my boss.

I answered, “Yup?”

Joshua was to the point. As usual.

“Need you back by three. Closing July issues. Over and out.”

“Gee whiz,” I said pertly. I heard a chuckle on the other end of the line before he hung up. Joshua always seemed to like it when I said gee whiz. Maybe it reminded him of his youth. Antoine seemed amused by my old-fashioned Americanisms. I imagined him hoarding them up, then trying them out with his French accent.

The elevator was one of those inimitable Parisian contraptions with a diminutive cabin, hand-maneuvered iron screen, and double wooden doors that inevitably swung in your face. Squashed between Zoë and Antoine—a trifle heavy-handed with his Vétiver scent—I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror as we glided up. I looked as eroded as the groaning lift. What had happened to the fresh-faced belle from Boston, Mass.? The woman who stared back at me was at that dreaded age between forty-five and fifty, that no-man’s land of sag, oncoming wrinkle, and stealthy approach of menopause.

“I hate this elevator, too,” I said grimly.

Zoë grinned and pinched my cheek.

“Mom, even Gwyneth Paltrow would look like hell in that mirror.”

I had to smile. That was such a Zoë-like remark.

THE MOTHER BEGAN TO sob, gently at first, then louder. The girl looked at her, stunned. In all her ten years, she had never seen her mother cry. Appalled, she watched the tears trickle down her mother’s white, crumpled face. She wanted to tell her mother to stop crying, she could not bear the shame of seeing her mother snivel in front of these strange men. But the men paid no attention to the mother’s tears. They told her to hurry up. There was no time to waste.

In the bedroom, the little boy slept on.

“But where are you taking us?” pleaded her mother. “My daughter is French, she was born in Paris, why do you want her too? Where are you taking us?”

The men spoke no more. They loomed over her, menacing, huge. The mother’s eyes were white with fear. She went to her room, sank down on the bed. After a few seconds, she straightened her back and turned to the girl. Her voice was a hiss, her face a tight mask.

“Wake your brother. Get dressed, both of you. Take some clothes, for him and you. Hurry! Hurry, now!”

Her brother went speechless with terror when he peeped through the door and saw the men. He watched his mother, disheveled, sobbing, trying to pack. He mustered all the strength he had in his four-year-old body. He refused to move. The girl cajoled him. He would not listen. He stood, motionless, his little arms folded over his chest.

The girl took off her night dress, grabbed a cotton blouse, a skirt. She slipped her feet into shoes. Her brother watched her. They could hear their mother crying from her room.

“I’m going to our secret place,” he whispered.

“No!” she urged. “You’re coming with us, you must.”

She grabbed him, but he wriggled out of her grasp and slithered into the long, deep cupboard hidden in the surface of the wall of their bedroom. The one they played hide-and-seek in. They hid there all the time, locked themselves in, and it was like their own little house. Maman and Papa knew about it, but they always pretended they didn’t. They’d call out their names. They’d say with loud, bright voices, “But
where
did those children go? How
strange,
they were here a minute ago!” And she and her brother would giggle away with glee.

They had a flashlight in there and some cushions and toys and books, even a flask of water that Maman would fill up every day. Her brother couldn’t read yet, so the girl would read
Un Bon Petit Diable
out loud to him. He loved the tale of the orphan Charles and the terrifying Madame Mac’miche and how Charles got back at her for all her cruelty. She would read it to him over and over again.

The girl could see her brother’s small face peeking out at her from the darkness. He had his favorite teddy bear clutched to him, he was not frightened anymore. Maybe he’d be safe there, after all. He had water and the flashlight. And he could look at the pictures in the Comtesse de Ségur book. His favorite was the one of Charles’s magnificent revenge. Maybe she should leave him there for the moment. The men would never find him. She would come back to get him later in the day when they were allowed to go home again. And Papa, still in the cellar, would know where the boy was hiding, if ever he came up.

“Are you afraid in there?” she said softly, as the men called out for them.

“No,” he said. “I’m not afraid. You lock me in. They won’t get me.”

She closed the door on the little white face, turned the key in the lock. Then she slipped the key into her pocket. The lock was hidden by a pivoting device shaped like a light switch. It was impossible to see the outline of the cupboard in the paneling of the wall. Yes, he’d be safe there. She was sure of it.

The girl murmured his name and laid her palm flat on the wooden panel.

“I’ll come back for you later. I promise.”

WE ENTERED THE APARTMENT, fumbled with light switches. Nothing happened. Antoine opened a couple of shutters. The sun poured in. The rooms were bare, dusty. Without furniture, the living room seemed immense. The golden rays slanted in through the long, grimy windowpanes, dappling the deep brown floorboards.

I looked around at the empty shelves, the darker squares on the walls where the beautiful paintings used to hang, the marble chimney where I remembered so many winter fires burning, and Mamé holding out her delicate, pale hands to the warmth of the flames.

I went to stand by one of the windows and looked down at the quiet, green courtyard. I was glad Mamé left before she ever got to see her empty apartment. It would have upset her. It upset me.

“Still smells of Mamé,” said Zoë. “Shalimar.”

“And of that awful Minette,” I said, turning up my nose. Minette had been Mamé’s last pet. An incontinent Siamese.

Antoine glanced at me, surprised.

“The cat,” I explained. I said it in English this time. Or course I knew that
la chatte
was the feminine for “cat,” but it could also mean “pussy.” The last thing I wanted was having Antoine guffaw at some dubious double entendre.

Antoine appraised the place with a professional eye.

“The electrical system is ancient,” he remarked, pointing at the old-fashioned, white porcelain fuses. “And the heating as well.”

The oversized radiators were black with dirt, as scaly as a reptile.

“Wait till you see the kitchen and the bathrooms,” I said.

“The bathtub has claws,” said Zoë. “I’m going to miss those.”

Antoine examined the walls, knocking on them.

“I suppose you and Bertrand want to redo it completely?” he asked, looking at me.

I shrugged.

“I don’t know what he wants to do exactly. It was his idea, taking on this place. I wasn’t so hot about coming here. I wanted something more … practical. Something new.”

Antoine grinned.

“But it will be brand-new once we finish it.”

“Maybe. But to me, it will always be Mamé’s apartment.”

The apartment still bore Mamé’s imprint, even if she had moved to a nursing home nine months ago. My husband’s grandmother had lived here for years. I remembered our first encounter, sixteen years back. I had been impressed by the old master paintings, the marble fireplace boasting family photos framed in ornate silver, the deceptively simple, elegant furniture, the numerous books lining the library shelves, the grand piano draped with lush red velvet. The sunny living room gave onto a peaceful inner courtyard with a thick thatch of ivy spreading out on the opposite wall. It was right here that I had met her for the first time, that I had held out my hand to her, awkwardly, not yet at ease with what my sister Charla dubbed “that kissy French thing.”

You didn’t shake a Parisian woman’s hand, even if you were meeting her for the first time. You kissed her once on each cheek.

But I hadn’t known that, yet.

THE MAN WITH THE beige raincoat looked at his list again.

“Wait,” he said, “there’s a child missing. A boy.”

He pronounced the boy’s name.

The girl’s heart skipped a beat. The mother glanced toward her daughter. The girl put a swift finger to her lips. A movement the men did not catch.

“Where is the boy?” demanded the man.

The girl stepped forward, wringing her hands.

“My brother is not here, Monsieur,” she said with her perfect French, the French of a native. “He left at the beginning of the month with some friends. To the country.”

The man in the raincoat looked at her thoughtfully. Then he made a quick gesture with his chin to the policeman.

“Search the place. Fast. Maybe the father is hiding, too.”

The policeman lumbered through the rooms, clumsily opening doors, looking under beds, into cupboards.

While he made his noisy way through the apartment, the other man paced the room. When he had his back to them, the girl quickly showed her mother the key. Papa will come up and get him, Papa will come later, she mouthed. Her mother nodded. All right, she seemed to say, I understand where the boy is. But her mother started to frown, to make a key gesture with her hand as if to ask, where will you leave the key for Papa, how will he know where it is? The man turned around swiftly and watched them. The mother froze. The girl trembled with fear.

He stared at them for a while. Then he abruptly closed the window.

“Please,” the mother said, “it’s so hot in here.”

The man smiled. The girl thought she had never seen an uglier smile.

“We keep it closed, Madame,” he said. “Earlier this morning, a lady threw her child out of the window, then jumped. We wouldn’t want that to happen again.”

The mother said nothing, numb with horror. The girl glared at the man, hating him, hating every inch of him. She loathed his florid face, his glistening mouth. The cold, dead look in his eyes. The way he stood there, his legs spread, his felt hat tilted forward, his fat hands locked behind his back.

She hated him with all her might, like she had never hated anyone in her life, more than she hated that awful boy at school, Daniel, who had whispered horrible things to her under his breath, horrible things about her mother’s accent, her father’s accent.

She listened to the policeman continuing his clumsy search. He would not find the boy. The cupboard was too cleverly hidden. The boy would be safe. They would never find him. Never.

The policeman came back. He shrugged, shook his head.

“There is no one here,” he said.

The man in the raincoat pushed the mother toward the door. He asked for the keys to the apartment. She handed them over, silently. They filed down the stairs, their progress slowed by the bags and bundles the mother carried. The girl was thinking fast, how could she get the key to her father? Where could she leave it? With the concierge? Would she be awake at this hour?