Sarah's Key (34 page)

But as I wandered through the freshly painted, empty rooms, the new kitchen, my private office, I asked myself if I could bear living here. Living where Sarah’s little brother had died. The secret cupboard did not exist anymore, it had been destroyed when two rooms had been made into one, but somehow that changed nothing for me.

This is where it had happened. And I could not erase that from my mind. I had not told my daughter about the tragedy that had taken place here. But she sensed it, in her particular, emotional way.

On a damp November morning, I went to the apartment to start working on curtains, wallpaper, carpeting. Isabelle had been particularly helpful and had escorted me around shops and department stores. To Zoë’s delight, I had decided to ignore the quiet, placid tones I had resorted to in the past, and make a wild go at new, bold colors. Bertrand had waved a careless hand: “You and Zoë make the decisions, it’s your home, after all.” Zoë had decided on lime green and pale purple for her bedroom. It was so reminiscent of Charla’s taste that I had to smile.

A cluster of catalogues awaited me on the bare, polished floorboards. I was leafing through them studiously when my cell phone rang. I recognized the number: Mamé’s nursing home. Mamé had been tired lately, irritable, sometimes unbearable. It was difficult to make her smile, even Zoë had a hard time doing so. She was impatient with everybody. Going to see her recently had almost become a chore.

“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?”

I opened the front door, turned back to him, looked down at his hand on my shoulder. It was strange, moving, to see him on the threshold of that apartment, the very place that had caused his mother so much pain, so much sorrow, and to think he did not yet know, he did not yet know what had happened here, to his family, his grandparents, his uncle.

“You’re coming with me,” I said. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

MAMÉ’S TIRED, WITHERED FACE. She seemed asleep. I spoke to her, but I wasn’t sure she heard me. Then I felt her fingers encircle my wrist. She held on tight. She knew I was there.

Behind me, the Tézac family stood around the bed. Bertrand. His mother, Colette. Edouard. Laure and Cécile. And behind them, hesitating in the hall, stood William Rainsferd. Bertrand had glanced at him once or twice, puzzled. He probably thought he was my new boyfriend. At any other time than this, I would have laughed. Edouard had looked at him several times, curious, eyes screwed up, then back at me with insistence.

It was later, when we were filing out of the nursing home, that I took my father-in-law’s arm. We had just been told by Docteur Roche that Mamé’s condition had stabilized. But she was weak. There was no telling what would happen next. We had to prepare ourselves, he had said. We had to convince each other this was probably the end.

“I’m so sad and sorry, Edouard,” I murmured.

He stroked my cheek.

“My mother loves you, Julia. She loves you dearly.”

Bertrand appeared, his face glum. I glanced at him, briefly thinking of Amélie, toying with the idea of saying something that would hurt, that would sting, and finally letting go. After all, there would be time ahead to discuss it. It did not matter right now. Only Mamé mattered now, and the tall silhouette waiting for me in the hall.

“Julia,” said Edouard, looking back over his shoulder, “who is that man?”

“Sarah’s son.”

Awed, Edouard gazed at the tall figure for a couple of minutes.

“Did you phone him?”

“No. He recently discovered some papers that his father had hidden all this time. Something Sarah wrote. He’s here because he wants to know the whole story. He came today.”

“I would like to speak to him,” said Edouard.

I went to fetch William, I told him my father-in-law wanted to meet him. He followed me, dwarfing Bertrand and Edouard, Colette, her daughters.

Edouard Tézac looked up at him. His face was calm, composed, but there was a wetness in his eyes.

He held out his hand. William took it. It was a powerful, silent moment. No one spoke.

“Sarah Starzynski’s son,” murmured Edouard.

I shot a glance at Colette, Cécile, and Laure looking on in polite, curious incomprehension. They could not understand what was going on. Only Bertrand understood, only he knew the whole story, although he had never discussed it with me since the evening he had discovered the red “Sarah” file. He had not even brought it up after having met the Dufaures in our apartment, a couple of months before.

Edouard cleared his throat. Their hands were still clasped. He spoke in English. Decent English, with a strong French accent.

“I am Edouard Tézac. This is a difficult time to meet you. My mother is dying.”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” said William.

“Julia will tell you the whole story. But your mother, Sarah—”

Edouard paused. His voice broke. His wife and daughters glanced at him, surprised.

“What is all this about?” murmured Colette, concerned. “Who is Sarah?”

“This is about something that happened sixty years ago,” said Edouard, fighting to control his voice.

I fought an urge to reach out and slip an arm around his shoulder. Edouard took a deep breath and some color came back into his face. He smiled up at William, a small, timid smile I had not seen him use before.

“I will never forget your mother. Never.”

His face twitched, the smile vanished, and I saw the pain, the sadness make him breathe once again with difficulty, like he had on the day he’d told me.

The silence grew heavy, unbearable, the women looked on, puzzled.