The Postmistress of Paris(72)

He ran the solarized self-portrait through the stop bath and fixer, then submerged it in the pan of water to rinse. He removed the negative from the enlarger then, and inserted another, the real ghost of his own past that had lurked in the enlarger carrier all the time he was in Camp des Milles, that had been there still when Nanée brought it to him. Salvation.





Thursday, November 28, 1940

CHTEAU DE CHENONCEAU

Luki, still in the car trunk with Tante Nanée, kissed Pemmy’s forehead and set her hand on her pouch, where Joey now snuggled safely with the photograph of Papa and Mutti and her and the dreaming log letter from Papa that meant he wasn’t an angel. She didn’t understand. She was supposed to pretend she was a cooker for the castle while Pemmy waited in the car with Joey for her princess entrance, but someone closed her back in before she could get out. Now they weren’t even at the castle, they were back in the garage. The old man with the bulgy eyes was lifting her from the trunk.

“A German patrol came up in the moat just as the car crossed to the door, but they did manage to get your fancy little case into the big house,” he said as he took them into some plain rooms like the nuns lived in.

“You strike me as a good bluffer,” he said to Tante Nanée. “Once the storm’s past, we might slip you through the Orangerie on foot and let you cross through the gardens as if you’re bringing flowers for the house.”

“You have flowers this time of year?” Tante Nanée asked.

“The cottage in the center there, that’s where we grow ’em. Year-round, so’s the chateau is always welcoming. You’ll need nerves for this, though, as you might be questioned by a patrol. Not a lot of folks can stand up to German questioning.”

“I can stand up,” Tante Nanée assured him.

“And the girl?”

Tante Nanée said, “If we go for a walk, Luki, can you promise not to say a word to anyone, not even to me, until we get to the chateau? We might meet some men who aren’t nice, and you will just have to pretend you don’t talk. Can you do that?”

She nodded.

“Not a word?”

She shook her head.

The foreman squatted to her level. “What’s your kangaroo’s name, honey?”

She pulled Pemmy closer and didn’t say a word.

“Would you like a candy?” the man asked.

She just kept looking at him.

“All right then,” he said to Tante Nanée. “Soon as the rain stops. You pretend the girl is your daughter. A girl that age could be helping her maman. We do here. You’ll not know our ways, so you’ll be telling them you’re new, if there is any telling to be done.”

THE MUD FELT heavy on her shoes as they walked a path through trees; they were going to a castle, not through the front door like a princess but she wasn’t a princess anyway. Tante Nanée couldn’t hold her hand because she was carrying the pretty flowers the man brought, but Luki held Pemmy tightly, with Joey tucked down in her pouch so he wouldn’t be scared. Pemmy could come with them, but she couldn’t talk. No matter what, only Tante Nanée could talk.

No matter what, Tante Nanée would take her to Papa; she wouldn’t take her to the angels or make her disappear. Reverend Mother said so, and Reverend Mother didn’t lie because a lie was a sin and if you sinned you didn’t get to go to heaven to be with Mutti and God.

The man with the funny eyes walked with them to a magical glass house all full of trees. It smelled like the oranges Luki used to get at special times. She had forgotten about oranges, but now she remembered. Mutti loved oranges.

The man reached up to one of the trees and twisted off an orange. He didn’t say anything. Even Tante Nanée and the man were quiet in here, just like if they were hiding. But he smiled, which made his eyes nice even though they were bulgy. He held the orange out to her, and she took it. He pulled another one down and tucked it in her coat pocket. He didn’t say anything, but he touched Pemmy gently. He meant for Pemmy to have that orange because kangaroos love oranges.

Luki made Joey peek out from Pemmy’s pouch. The man laughed without making a sound, just with his funny eyes, and he pulled down a third orange and tucked it in her other pocket, then touched Joey the way he had touched Pemmy. Joey got his own orange too!

The man pulled a scissory thing from his pocket and cut a single branch with pretty red berries. It had prickles, but he put it in Pemmy’s hands and wrapped them around the branch, then wrapped Luki’s hand that held Pemmy over it, so the prickles wouldn’t bite into Luki’s fingers. Pemmy didn’t have any fingers, so the branch wouldn’t hurt her. He touched one of the berries, then touched his lips and shook his head. She shouldn’t eat them.

They left the magical glass house through a different door, with the branches and the oranges and the flowers and with Pemmy and Joey, but without the man with the funny eyes. Tante Nanée couldn’t take Pemmy’s hand, but they were in such a beautiful garden now—with fences and paths and a fountain that looked like they belonged in a storybook—that even Pemmy wasn’t scared.

And there were two castles! One was a baby castle, just a circle with a round-y pointy roof and windows only at the top, but the other one was huge and magical, with circle parts like the baby castle at every corner and big blue roofs and chimneys and windows and more windows and more. It sat right in a river, with water all around it. A long skinny part that was almost all windows stretched the whole way across to the other shore. That was where they were going—to that big castle! There was a scary monster spitting water from the bridge, but Luki walked right beside Tante Nanée toward the castle doors they weren’t supposed to go through because they weren’t princesses.