The Last Time I Saw Paris (42 page)

“Claire?”

Laurent strode toward her, a white band on his arm and a pistol holstered on his hip. He enveloped her in a hug that made her gasp.

He released her, a smile radiating from his stubbled face. “I heard this morning about a wounded fighter and American woman who escaped rue de Saussaies. I had to know if it was you.”

She slid her hands into his. “It’s so good to see you. Your apartment—I didn’t know what had happened to you.”

“I am like a fox,
ma chérie
. They could not catch me.” His smile faded as he turned to face Jacques. “How is he?”

“He was shot, the wound is infected. The doctors don’t know if—”

“They don’t know him,” Laurent said. “He is too stubborn to die. Not now.”

Her gaze on Laurent’s holstered pistol, Claire spoke. “What is happening out there?”

“War,” he said simply. “War has finally come to Paris. And we fight.”

“Tell me, Laurent. Please.”

“Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur.”
He pointed to his white armband with FFI and the blue cross of Lorraine. “The Allies are battling their way toward us. We fight the Nazis and Milice however we can. We are outgunned, but we continue to capture weapons and trucks, and are building barricades across the city. My unit controls the Sorbonne. We will hold out.”

Jacques called out feverishly, then his voice trailed away.

Laurent kneeled, resting a hand above the bandages that swathed Jacques’ side. “I can’t get word to Odette. She and Gerard are hidden in the countryside.”

“Odette is alive?”

He nodded. “The morning Jacques and his group were to attack Grey’s transport, my apartment was raided. I escaped through the window, down a drainpipe. I found Odette and warned her we had been betrayed. She took Gerard and fled. It was too late to contact Jacques. We couldn’t get to you, to warn you.”

“You knew I was not a traitor?” Relief flooded Claire.

His mouth tightened. “Sylvie called me just a few minutes before the raid. My dear wife worked to keep me on the phone as they came inside the building.”

Claire reached for Laurent’s hand. “She’s dead. I shot her.”

His mouth twisted like he wanted to spit. “I would have killed her myself if I got there first. She deserved much worse than a bullet.” A deep breath and his voice softened. “And Grey?”

“They said he was killed with Kinsel.”

His eyes crimped shut. A long moment and he sighed. “I’d heard about Kinsel. But Thomas.
Merde.
I am sorry. I had hoped for better news.”

Gunfire rumbled in the distance.

Laurent embraced her gently. “I’m sorry I asked you to come to Paris.”

She smiled, though the effort made her eyes tear. “I regret many things. But not coming here. Never that.”

He nodded, his eyes on hers. “If we survive this, my offer still remains,
ma chérie
.”

A soft kiss on his sculpted face. She shook her head.

Laurent kissed her unbandaged cheek then released her. He lit the stub of a Gauloises. A shrug and he moved toward the door.

“
Au revoir
, Laurent. Be safe,” Claire said.

“D’accord.”
A lopsided smile as he took a drag on his cigarette. “If you change your mind,
ma chérie
, you have my address. After, of course, we clear out the scum.” He stepped out the door.

Claire watched through the window until Laurent disappeared at the corner. Jacques moaned behind her. She wrung out a wet towel and pressed it against his burning forehead. “Odette and Gerard need you, Jacques. Fight.”

 

 

T
hree nights later, a sliver of a moon hung in the sky over Notre Dame Cathedral. From her seat on the window ledge, Claire could see the outline of the northern tower and a few of the grand dame’s buttresses. The Seine was a shining black ribbon, churning alone in its banks, beyond the deserted cathedral’s square. The flicker of burning cigarettes and the flash of the moonlight on metal on the street corner were the only hints of the armed men guarding the barricade below.

Jacques fought for his life, cursing and muttering at her side. On the street below, Paris did the same. Claire watched men in Resistance armbands walk openly with captured Nazi guns in their hands. They tore up the street below, building a barricade with bricks, felled trees, twisted metal and stone.

She hadn’t seen skirmishes, yet, but she’d heard them. Resistance fighters defended barricades across the city; battled with German tanks and heavy arms burrowed in strongholds. A dangerous time for the soldiers without uniform, as they had become known. She’d seen them carried in, patched up when possible and laid out on cots down the line.

Jacques stirred and sighed. It was only in the last few hours he slept, though every once in a while he thrashed and moaned. The room beyond him was filled with wounded. In the dim light, men huddled together, their heads close over Resistance papers, published openly now, or around a crackling radio reporting the BBC.

Outside, Paris was quiet, as if the city itself held its breath. Beyond distant gunfire, the only sound was the faint splash of the Seine testing its banks, a muffled cough from the fighters below. It was just before midnight and balmy. Claire welcomed the faint breeze that cooled her aching cheek.

The radio crackled.
Allied troops moving into Paris. Heavy fighting in the region around Rambouillent and d’Arpajon. General von Choltitz threatens to attack the public buildings with heavy arms. It was reported Hitler ordered the maximum destruction of Paris.
That was no surprise. She’d seen the smoke rise from Grand Palais as it burned yesterday.

Claire watched the moon trail across the sky, rubbed her burning eyes. She was ungodly tired but couldn’t sleep. No one in Paris would sleep that night. Everyone knew Allied soldiers were in the outskirts of Paris. And that Choltitz might destroy the city before they arrived. Claire shut her eyes and breathed deep.

Across the square, the bells of nearby Notre Dame began to ring. Another church took up the refrain and then another. A cascade of sound washed over her. Her body vibrated to the chimes. She gripped the ledge to keep from floating away.

“Claire?” Jacques spoke.

Claire turned to him. His eyes were shining in the dimness.

“Yes, Jacques?”

“What is it? What has happened?” His first coherent words in days.

The bells of the churches could mean only one thing.

“The Allies are here,
mon ami
. Paris is free.”

The faintest smile touched his face then he let out a long breath, closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Tears flowed down her cheeks as Claire gazed back out at that radiant moon, her arms pressed tight about her. As she watched, darkness faded and the first rays of sun lit the stones of Notre Dame. The church doors were flung open as a crowd filled the courtyard. A liberated Paris came to give thanks.

The Seine flowed on.

L
a Vie en Fleurs was as alive as the Parisian streets that bustled outside. Plaster walls pockmarked from the spray of bullets were adorned once again with lines of blossoms. Claire, in a simple grey skirt and white shirt, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, stared up at two framed photos on the scarred wall next to the counter. The images were small, intimate, in plain silver frames. As she studied the photos, she unconsciously slid her fingers over the thin white scar lining one cheekbone. She frowned as she caught the gesture, and dropped her hand to her side.

Madam Palain smiled from the left frame. She was seated, her hands in a rare restful place on her lap.

“
Bonjour
, Madame,” Claire said, under her breath.

On the right, the photo of a simple garden; the jagged rip visible from the Nazi raid that killed Madame. She reached up her hand and stroked the edge of the frame.

The newly replaced door squeaked open behind her. Claire turned to see Jacques and Gerard enter. Jacques nodded hello, still holding his side a bit gingerly. Dusky hair curling about his ears, Gerard beamed at Claire with his mother’s laughing eyes as he wrestled with a bundle that threatened to overcome him.

Claire hid a smile. She had met him eight months ago, the day of the liberation, when he and Odette had found Jacques in the hospital. Since then, Gerard had sprouted.

“Good day, Miss Badeau,” he said, in English, carefully enunciating the words she knew he had practiced with his father all the way down the block.

“Good day, Gerard.”

Gerard plopped his package down on the counter; a large blue cloth rolled tightly and secured with twine. Proudly, with great show, he unrolled the fabric across the entire counter. In fine script, it read
La Vie en Fleurs
. Below was an exquisitely painted pale pink rose, so real it seemed to have its own fragrance.

Claire shut her eyes, her head bowed. The shop was hers. The full weight of the gift that was this simple shop made her heart stir in her chest. Now Jacques, who had become so dear to her, had scrounged a bolt of heavy canvas and created a new sign with the men and ink at his liberated presses.

Gerard watched her, concern written in the wrinkles on his forehead. This was not the reaction he was looking for. “Is something not correct?”

“I love it, Gerard.” She swallowed the emotion and regained the poise Madame Palain would have expected. She smiled at him fully. “It is beautiful.
Magnifique.
” She looked up to Jacques, tears sparkling in the corners of her eyes.

He nodded, hands in pockets. He indicated the bare framework outside the door with the tilt of his head. “I will come back with helpers tomorrow. Odette too. We will hang it, if you approve.”

“I approve. I wholeheartedly approve.
Merci
, Jacques.” She kissed Gerard then Jacques on both cheeks. “You are good men.”

Gerard beamed.

Jacques shrugged. “Good.” He reached for Gerard’s shoulder. Side by side, father and son stepped from the shop and disappeared down the street.

Claire turned back toward the sign. She ran her fingers over the fabric, memorizing the feel of the rough texture of these threads, burning the image in her mind. Proof that Madame’s elegance and beauty lived. And someday, somehow, Marta and Anna would be welcomed back to Claire’s arms by this symbol.

The door creaked again behind her. A husky male voice said, “Have you any lilies today, Madame?”

Claire froze, breath stranded in her chest. Strength left her; she clenched the countertop. Her elbow glanced off a pail of flowers that clattered to the floor. She held perfectly still, afraid any movement would break the spell and end this dream she’d woken from so often.

“Claire, look at me.”

Reaching for a rose, she cupped the blossom under her nose. She spoke toward the photo in front of her. “There was a marble statue of a woman in that garden. The roses there smelled of honeyed tea and sunshine. And their color was—”

“Like the pearl of a shell,” he said.

The air was freed from her chest and she breathed deeply.

“Did they please you?” he said.

Claire snapped the cane from the rose and tucked it behind an ear. A smile played at her lips. “The garden pleased me very much.” She turned.

Thomas Grey sagged against the doorway. His heavy beard covered a face made sharp by hunger. His clothes hung in tatters; a dirty bandage covered a knee.

Claire held the smile on her face. She moved to the door and faced him. “You’re late,” she said.

“The road was long.” His slate eyes penetrated her soul. He pulled her against him. “But I’m here now.”

She exhaled his name as she softened into the warmth of his embrace. This dream was real. Her damn Englishman must have walked all the way from a liberated German prison. She gazed into his face, ran her fingers over his cheek. “The first thing you’re going to do, Grey, is shave that beard.”

He smiled. “No. That is the second thing.” With two fingers, he tilted her chin up.

With both hands, she grabbed the man she loved and pressed her lips against his.

1. Claire’s most prized possession when she left Manhattan was her Cartier jewelry. How did the importance of this jewelry change for Claire throughout the book? Do you have a piece of jewelry that holds meaning for you? Is its worth measured in monetary or sentimental value? Have you inherited an antique or valued treasure from a loved one that carries important memories for you?

2. The book described the elaborate floral displays that Claire and Madame Palain created for the Nazi-occupied hotels, as well as flowers tumbling down a garden wall and a bucketful of simple stems that Claire loved. What did these different flowers represent in the book? What did they mean personally to Claire? Do certain flowers hold meaning for you?

3. Did you find elegance in Claire’s expensive Manhattan brownstone, or in the simple wine and bread dinners Madame Palain served, or both? Give other examples of elegance from the book. How do these different examples each represent elegance? In today’s society, do you believe people define elegance based on material things, or is it an attitude and an approach to life?

4. Madame Palain told Claire that “elegance is in the details” the first night they met. How did Madame demonstrate this belief in her daily life and in the way she ran La Vie en Fleurs? Did Claire embrace this way of living? How did it shape her actions and beliefs? Have you had a similar mentor in your life?

5. Claire went to Paris to change her life. She did, but was it in the way she’d expected? Where in the story did you see a dramatic shift in Claire? How many people were touched by Claire’s character growth? Have you had an experience that transformed your life in unexpected ways?