Two Crosses (11 page)

Gabriella sat on her bed, holding a pack of ice on her swollen ankle. Ice on the ankle! How Mme Leclerc had balked at the idea. And where would they get ice in this heat? But she had placed some water in the tiny freezer that hung inside the refrigerator and they had made a pack. Now she stood over Gabriella like a conscientious nursemaid.

“
Ooh là là. Ma pauvre petite fille!
Such a pity, this accident.”

Gabriella tried to sound cheery. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

After several more ooh là làs, the landlady left Gabriella alone with her thoughts. And they were black. It did not happen often, but when the dark mood came, she could not push it away.

She was angry that David had not been more sympathetic. He seemed distant and worried, but not worried for her. She was furious with herself for stumbling down the steps. And she felt uneasy when she thought of the young Frenchman helping her to her feet and whispering that strange comment about Huguenot crosses.

She missed her family. She longed to talk to her mother. The ice pack fell to the floor and slowly melted on the tiles as Gabriella turned over and cried herself to sleep.

9

September had closed its door to let October open its own, and with it the weather in Paris grew cooler. Ophélie stared out the window of M. Gady’s apartment. Fall was in the air, and all the other children raced to school, giggling and chasing one another down the narrow streets. But not Ophélie.

“My dear,” M. Gady had explained several weeks ago, “it isn’t wise right now for you to be at school. Soon things will change. Soon.”

But Ophélie knew that things would not change. Mama had promised the same, and yet their life had always been one of flight and fear. Mama called it adventure and tried to help Ophélie be brave. But Ophélie had known. It was not a child’s adventure now.

It wasn’t fair. She was tired of playing alone. School! First grade! She longed to run to class with the other children, to sit in the old wooden desks and learn to read. She knew she could learn fast, if only someone would help her. She
had
to learn how to read. The blue bag was tucked inside her pillowcase, and the letter in Mama’s handwriting lay there, still a mystery.

Ophélie turned away from the window with its picture of happy schoolchildren.

Mama had not let her go to school when they first arrived in France, and the days had grown long for a six-year-old stuck in a tiny apartment with a mother who coughed all the time and looked at her with weak, tired eyes.

“Things will get better,
ma chérie
,” Mama had promised.

But they were not better. They were much worse. Why didn’t her mother come back? Ophélie hid her face in the pillow to muffle her sobs.

“Ophélie! Ophélie!” M. Gady’s loud voice boomed up the stairwell, startling her. Usually she knew when he was coming. He talked in an animated way to all his clients downstairs in the
épicerie
, and she could hear every word. But today she had been crying and hadn’t heard his footsteps on the stairs.

She wiped her eyes and came to the door. “
Oui
, M. Gady?”

“Ophélie, come down and see, my child. Mme Soliveau has brought us flowers!”

Slowly Ophélie came down the stairs. Her long brown hair was tousled.

“You are still in your nightgown, little one. You do not feel well?”

Ophélie shook her head but did not look at the old shopkeeper.

“It is the school again,
n’est-ce pas
?”

She nodded.

“I know it’s hard for you to stay cooped up with this old man, like a chick with its mother.” He reached out a wrinkled hand and placed it under Ophélie’s chin, gently pulling her face up until their eyes met. “It’s not easy, my child. I am only trying to do what is best.” He looked away, then seemed to remember his reason for calling her. “But look. Today we will plant pansies! Mme Soliveau brought them for us to plant in the window boxes and hang on the balcony. Will you help me?”

Ophélie looked at the delicate, velvety flowers. White and bright-yellow, deep violet and amber, with a dark-purple center in each one. “They are pretty.” Suddenly she had an idea. She looked up at him hopefully. “I’ll help you plant the flowers. But will you help me, M. Gady? Will you help me learn to read?”

M. Gady’s face broke into a relieved smile. “Ah, so this is why you miss school so much? Yes, yes, of course. A little girl must know how to read. Then she can travel many places, even if for now she must stay in an ugly apartment with an old man. Yes, I will teach you to read.” Then his enthusiasm wavered, and he rubbed his forehead with a gnarled hand. “Hmm. Yes, but I’ll have to find the right books. But don’t worry. M. Gady has many friends. I’m sure someone will know just the right books for a little girl like you.” Again he looked worried. “But no one can know that I am teaching you, that you do not attend the
école primaire
. It shall be our secret,
d’accord
?”

Ophélie nodded vigorously. “
Oh, oui, oui, monsieur!
I will not tell anyone. And may we start today? After we plant the pansies?”

After lunch M. Gady was snoring loudly on the couch in his little
salon
. The store would not open for a while, Ophélie knew. He always closed up, like everyone else in France, so that people could go home and eat lunch. Ophélie was not sure how much time she had, but she tiptoed down the steps.

Today she would slip out the door and go to the meat stand where Moustafa worked. Surely he would know about Mama. And she would be back before the old man opened his eyes or stumbled down the stairs to open the doors to the clients who bustled by, jolly and full after their noon meals.

Emile Torrès walked down the three flights of stairs and stepped into the bright October afternoon. He followed the same narrow streets through the Left Bank that he had walked every day for the previous three weeks. He was not in a hurry.

“Find the girl. She cannot be far away.” The instructions from Ali had been simple. So simple to pay the rent on Anne-Marie Duchemin’s vacant apartment, to sleep on her sagging bed, and to walk three times a day down the street, past the
boulangerie
to the
tabac
, where he bought a pack of Gitanes and a copy of
Le Monde
. Simple to turn from rue Jacob onto rue de l’Echaudé in the sixth
arrondissement
of Paris and find the meat stand where Moustafa had worked. Simple to wait at the café-bar across the street and read of the world as he puffed a cigarette.

Today the news on the third page brought a smile to Emile’s young, hardened face. Seven pied-noirs killed in an explosion outside of Monoprix in the French section of Algiers. That was fine news. Emile relaxed in his chair in the smoky café-bar and watched the people hurrying by. Mostly students at this hour, laughing and hurling insults at one another, munching hot crepes bought from the vendor across the street. Not a bad job, to wait and watch.

A small girl came into view as she hurried into the
boucherie
. Her long brown hair looked unkempt, and she wore a plain blue dress that came above her knees. Emile sat up. He reached for an envelope from inside his jacket and pulled out a small photograph. The same. Ophélie Duchemin had walked into the butcher’s store in plain daylight for all the world to see. Emile chuckled as he stood up, folded his newspaper under his arm, and left ten francs on the table beside his empty cup. He put out his cigarette in the ashtray and left the café-bar. So very simple after all.

Ophélie’s face was pained as she talked to the heavyset man behind the counter. “You are sure he is not here? I must find Moustafa!” She blinked back tears.

The stocky butcher paused from slicing
Jambon de Paris
for another customer. “I’m sorry,
Mademoiselle Ophélie
, but I haven’t seen Moustafa for three weeks. He’s taken a long vacation without warning the boss. Not very good etiquette, I would say!”

He chuckled, but Ophélie could see the same worry lines in his face as she had seen in M. Gady’s.

He leaned over the glass that enclosed the raw meats and lowered his voice. “Your mama, is she all right? I have not seen her lately either. You both have been sick maybe?”

Ophélie did not want to talk about Mama. Surely he would know she was lying if she said all was well. But she could not think of anything else to say. Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. “We are fine … only … I wanted to talk to Moustafa. I need to see him. Will you tell him that when he comes back?”

“Of course, little Ophélie. I’ll tell him. Now you take care of yourself and your mama.”

Ophélie left the store before he could question her further. She did not notice the man with the thin mustache who followed her as she ran all the way back to M. Gady’s shop, letting the tears fall as she went. She opened the door to the darkened store and closed it quietly behind her. Standing on the chair she had used earlier, she bolted the lock shut. Then she tiptoed back upstairs and passed M. Gady, who continued to snore peacefully.

Once again she buried her head in the pillow and cried. She touched the blue bag and whispered, “Mama. Moustafa is gone, like you. But M. Gady is going to teach me to read.”

His class was over for the day at St. Joseph. Jean-Louis Vidal packed up his worn-out briefcase and left the parsonage. He looked older than his fifty-five years, and everyone said it was because of the alcohol. His cheeks were a continuous deep cherry red, with little veins spreading across them like tiny roads on a map. The students whispered about his mismatched clothes with their pre–World War II styles, but he didn’t care.

The café-bar at the corner of rue Bastide hadn’t changed much in twenty-three years. Jean-Louis knew all the other men who congregated there in the late afternoons. Often, after a refreshing pastis, the men would head to the nearby sand court for an invigorating game of
pétanque
. The physical exercise involved was minimal, but Jean-Louis enjoyed the company.

“
Bonjour, Henri
,” he greeted the bartender, who nodded without looking up. A few minutes later, Henri placed a tall glass of pastis diluted in water in front of the teacher. Jean-Louis sipped it thoughtfully. The licorice drink was a specialty of this region. And he for one wanted to be sure that the supply-and-demand curve stayed balanced: an occasional nip of wine in the morning, a half liter of the table
rouge
at lunch, and four glasses of pastis in the afternoon, with some good red wine for supper.