Theory of Remainders (20 page)

Hervé straightened. “No. I saw no need to trouble her with this. Yvonne is upset enough as it is.”

“So you’ve taken it upon yourself to protect her. From me.”

“I wouldn’t have put it that way. But the fact is that someone had to step in.”

“How chivalrous.”

Hervé paused. Then he turned and faced the square, taking another long draw on his cigarette.

The show of composure irked Philip. He disliked Hervé. Or rather, he begrudged him for succeeding where Philip had failed. And yet, he couldn’t fully disagree with this man who had replaced him. He understood the protective impulse Hervé felt for his wife and daughter—for his life—and in his shoes Philip would have done the same thing. At least Hervé was taking action, which was more than Philip had done, back then, when disaster threatened his world. No, he couldn’t fault Hervé. No more than he could yield to him.

“I’ve put a process in motion,” he said. “And I’m going to see it through.”

Hervé nodded, still facing the square.

“I’ll do what I can to keep things under control,” Philip continued. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. But if I can get to the bottom of it all, surely that would be a good thing for everyone.”

“Personally,” Hervé said, “I fail to see what it would achieve.”

Philip’s neck went hot. Was it so very hard to understand?

“Even if you find what you want, Philip, what good will it do? We’re both medical men. You know as well as I that it’s—”

Philip raised his hand to stop him. He knew exactly where Hervé was headed, and he didn’t want to hear it. “I’m also not going to retreat,” he told him. “Not now. Not yet.”

Hervé stared into the darkness. “Very well.” Now he turned to Philip and looked him in the eye. “But I’m not willing to stand idly by. Keep that in mind. If you disrupt our life, Philip, if you endanger the happiness of my wife or daughter, I’ll come at you. With everything I have.” He spoke matter-of-factly. “There’s nothing I won’t do to protect my family.”

“Is that a threat?”

Hervé considered the question. “Yes. I suppose so. I think you should take it that way.”

“I see,” Philip nodded. “At least we understand one another.”

Hervé studied the end of his expiring cigarette and dropped the butt to the ground, grinding at it with his heel before marching off into the dark.

In his room Philip set himself up at the writing desk, wedging an old magazine under the short leg to level it. He was exhausted, overwhelmed with images, words, memories. But he had to set it all aside for his call with Melanie—for another conversation he wasn’t ready to have. He laid out pen and paper. A glass of water was at hand. At ten o’clock sharp he dialed the number and waited for the connection to go through. At first he thought she’d picked up, but then realized it was only the recording. It came almost as a relief.

“This is Melanie,” came the impertinent voice. “I’ve either missed your call or dissed it. If you want, you can leave me a message. But no promises about calling back.”

After the tone sounded he explained that he was sorry he’d interrupted their last call, and he urged her to get in touch with Linda so she could set up another time. Before signing off, he hesitated. “Take care of yourself, Melanie,” he added.

He had a hunch that Melanie had been there, refusing to pick up. Was she trying to punish him? He was wrong to have singled her out from among all his other patients. She was no more at risk than they, and he had nothing special to offer her.

He saw now that his motivations had been far from noble. Melanie and Margaux and Sophie were overlaid in his imagination, blending into a single girl. You didn’t need a degree in psychiatry to figure that out—or to see that it wasn’t healthy, not healthy at all.

Eleven

His plan to return to Boston by the weekend now seemed fanciful. Perhaps it had never been realistic. Perhaps that was how he’d tricked himself into staying.

The events of the previous day were still sharp in his memory. The meeting with Édouard Morin loomed largest, but there were other topics calling for consideration as well: Roger, Margaux, Hervé, Melanie. And Yvonne. The longer he stayed in Yvetot, the more restless she would become, and the greater the danger of a confrontation. Excuses might extend his credit, but what he needed were results. In that case, any argument Yvonne presented would evaporate. She might even feel a touch of gratitude.

The conversation with Morin was the beginning of a foundation, but he would need stones and mortar. The court records would help, along with the old press clippings. And Roger had suggested that he speak with Father Cabot.

As he left the hotel, he let Monsieur Bécot know he’d be staying on, and the old man shook his head, replying in stilted English. “Every day which passes, you ask to spend another night. I thought you did not like Yvetot, Monsieur Adler.”

“It’s growing on me.”

The other man squinted at the expression.

Philip hesitated. “Tell me, Monsieur Bécot, where would I find old newspapers? Does the city save them anywhere? At the library, perhaps?”

“I have the past week or so in my office, if you would like.”

“Older. Years older.”

Bécot’s expression darkened.

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Philip said. “I’m still trying to wake the sleeping cat.”

“Monsieur Adler,” Bécot began, shaking his head over the register. “I wish you the best in many things, but not in this. I’m afraid I cannot help you.”

“Look, Monsieur Bécot. I’m not going to leave until I’ve studied everything. The sooner I get what I need, the sooner Yvetot will be rid of me.”

“Monsieur Adler, I don’t think you understand.” He cast an uneasy glance through the empty lobby. “People in Yvetot are growing impatient.”

“What people?”

Bécot didn’t want to say, claimed he couldn’t be sure about anything in particular.

Philip put it to him point blank. “You, for example, Monsieur Bécot? Are you telling me I should leave?”

No, no, it had nothing to do with him. But people in town, they didn’t want the old stories resuscitated. The situation was—he cast about for the right term—uncomfortable.

“Uncomfortable?” The flimsiness of the word irritated Philip. He leaned over the desk. “Tell me, Monsieur Bécot. You were here during the war. You lost friends and family members. Some of them were never recovered—like the ones you described before, the bodies that come to the surface in farmer’s fields.”

Bécot nodded and swallowed, and Philip continued. “If someone told you now, nearly seventy years later, that it was possible—conceivable—that one of the people you had lost could be found, at least a trace of them, what would you do? What would your answer be? That nothing should be disturbed, because it’s not
comfortable?
”

Bécot blanched. When he finally spoke, his voice cracked. “For newspapers, you could try the library, with Madame Boquet. They don’t open until ten, and I don’t know how far back their copies go. The
Fanal d’Yvetot
is no longer printed, though I believe Monsieur Harancourt still keeps many of the old issues in his home. For most old papers, though, your best option is Monsieur Guérin.”

The name clicked in Philip’s memory. Bécot had mentioned him before. “The fellow at the local archives.”

“That’s right.”

Philip’s voice eased. “Thank you, Monsieur Bécot. You’re a veritable fount of knowledge.”

The old man grimaced. “You . . . you helped me to remember.”

City Hall was an imposing Second Empire structure, the words
Hôtel de Ville
engraved in three-foot-tall letters beneath a plain-faced clock at the top of the façade. On the plaza outside, there towered the bronze sculpture of a soldier, the metal weathered green and black, a monument to the First World War. Inside, the information desk at the entry was unmanned, so Philip wandered down the hallways, following the signs for the
archives cantonales
, trudging down to the cellar and ending up in a broad, windowless chamber filled with well-ordered shelves bearing identical cardboard boxes with handwritten access numbers. He called out twice to no avail and finally passed to the other side of the counter, looking deep into the darkened hallway, at the turn of which light glowed. Following the passage, first right, then left, he entered a second chamber, much less orderly than the first. Here the plywood shelves overflowed with books, sacks, lamps, tarps, clocks, empty picture frames, bundles of letters, and various figurines. Sundry other objects peeked over the lips of old fruit cartons. A deep shelf held fragments of ancient statuary, including one nearly complete sculpture of a winged child, its forefinger lifted to the pert smile on its lips as though it were shushing him.

“Don’t say a word,” a voice breathed from across the jumbled terrain of the room. It was a thin man sitting hunched over a workbench, his hands angled under a magnifying glass clamped to a stand. He maneuvered a pair of needle-nosed pliers over a brass cylinder. After pressing, he gave the tool a twist, and there came the zing of spring steel unspooling and seizing against metal.

“
Voilà!
” he proclaimed as he set down the pliers and examined his handiwork. Only now did he turn his lively eyes to Philip, blinking at him as he lowered his spectacles from his cloud of white hair. A disassembled clockwork lay spread out before him.

“Some of these mainsprings,” the fellow said, “they can be quite dangerous, you know. The larger ones, that is. People have lost digits at it.” He held up his right hand, showing an index finger only half as long as the others. Then the finger slowly grew before Philip’s eyes as he unfolded it from its bent position. The man laughed. “So far, so good.” He hopped off his stool. “Still, I don’t suppose you’ve come down here for a lesson in clock repair, Monsieur. Did you get lost in the corridors?”

“Not at all. I followed the signs. Monsieur Guérin, I presume?” He extended his hand.

“Hah!
Monsieur Guérin, I presume
. Very good. Like Stanley meeting Livingstone in Ujiji. Yes, I suppose it is a bit of jungle down here. You must be Bécot’s American. Monsieur Adler, is it? I’ve heard all about you.”

“I’m not surprised. Evidently all of Yvetot is on the lookout.”

Guérin chuckled. “Yes, I’m afraid the
Yvetotais
can be like that. A bit inquisitive. Never cared for it myself. A bunch of busy-bodies, that’s what they are.”

Philip nodded at the disemboweled clock. “I’m sorry to interrupt your work.”

“Nonsense.” He gestured at the deserted surroundings. “As you can see, the archives are not exactly a hub of activity.” Guérin flashed a smile. “Which leaves me with plenty of time for my hobbies. Of course, Rouen pays for it all, so we don’t really mind. Any time we can spend money from Rouen, people in Yvetot are content.”

“Very practical,” Philip conceded.

“So, you are here for the purpose of research, are you?”

Philip nodded, and Guérin led off toward the main office, leading him back through the wilderness of boxes, clocks, and terra cotta statues.

At the front desk Philip explained what he was after, starting with information about Olivier Morin’s death.

“No problem at all,” Guérin replied. “All the death certificates are here, along with obituaries from the newspaper.”

“There’s more.”

“Let me guess. His son, Édouard? Just so you know, Monsieur Adler, I understand your interest in this case.”

At least Philip wouldn’t need to pretend.

Guérin strode over to one of the shelves and skimmed the labels. “I have a special carton with clippings about crime in Yvetot,” he called out. “However, I’m not sure that everything about the Morin case is included there, for it wasn’t
just
criminal, was it? There were those other issues, the psychiatric ones, which made it hard to know where to classify everything. But I should be able to turn up some items of interest.”