All the Devils Are Here(3)

“They were saved, Armand,” said Stephen quickly, dropping to his knees and holding on to the sobbing boy. “They weren’t executed. The King spared their lives.”

It took Armand a few moments to absorb that. Finally pulling away, he dragged his sleeve across his face and looked at Stephen.

“Really?”

“Oui.”

“Really truly?” Armand gulped, his breath coming in fits as it caught in his throat.

“Really truly, gar?on. They all lived.”

The little boy thought, looking down at his sneakers, then up into Stephen’s clear blue eyes. “Would you?”

Stephen, who knew what he was asking, almost said, Yes, of course. But stopped himself. This boy deserved the truth.

“Give up my life? For people I love, yes.” He squeezed the thin shoulders and smiled.

“For strangers?”

Stephen, just getting to know his godson, was realizing that he would not be satisfied with the easy answer. There was something quietly relentless about this child.

“I hope so, but honestly? I don’t know.”

Armand nodded, then turning to the statue, he squared his shoulders. “It was cruel.” He spoke to the burghers. “What the King did. Letting them think they’d die.”

His godfather nodded. “But it was compassionate to spare them. Life can be cruel, as you know. But it can also be kind. Filled with wonders. You need to remember that. You have your own choice to make, Armand. What’re you going to focus on? What’s unfair, or all the wonderful things that happen? Both are true, both are real. Both need to be accepted. But which carries more weight with you?” Stephen tapped the boy’s chest. “The terrible or the wonderful? The goodness or the cruelty? Your life will be decided by that choice.”

“And patience?” asked Armand, and Stephen caught something he hadn’t noticed before. A hint of the mischievous.

The boy listened after all. Took everything in. And Stephen Horowitz realized he’d have to be careful.

There was no bench in front of the burghers, so Stephen had taken Armand over to his own favorite work by Rodin.

They opened the brown paper bag and ate their tartelettes au citron in front of The Gates of Hell. Stephen talked about the remarkable work while brushing powdery icing sugar off Armand’s sweater.

“I still can’t believe,” Stephen said fifty years later as they sat in front of the same statue, and ate their tartelettes au citron, “that you decided to propose to Reine-Marie in front of The Gates of Hell. But then the idea did spring from the same mind that thought it was a good idea to take her mother a toilet plunger as a hostess gift the first time you were introduced.”

“You remember that.”

But of course he did. Stephen Horowitz forgot nothing.

“Thank God you came to me for advice before proposing, gar?on.”

Armand smiled. He hadn’t actually gone up to Stephen’s office, high above Montréal, that spring day thirty-five years ago, for advice. He went there to simply tell his godfather that he’d decided to ask his girlfriend of two years to marry him.

On hearing the news, Stephen had come around his desk and pulled the young man to him, holding him tight. Then Stephen gave a brusque nod and turned away. Bringing out a handkerchief, he glanced, for just a moment, out the window. Over Mount Royal, which dominated the city. And into the cloudless sky.

Then he turned back and considered the man he’d known since birth.

Taller than him now. Sturdy. Clean-shaven, with wavy dark hair, and deep brown eyes, both solemn and kind. With, yes, still that hint of the mischievous.

Armand had been to Cambridge to learn English, but instead of taking law, or business, as his godfather had advised, young Armand had, upon his return to Québec, entered the S?reté academy.

He’d made his choice.

And he’d found wonderment. It came in the form of a junior librarian at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales in Montréal named Reine-Marie Cloutier.

Stephen had taken his godson out for lunch at the nearby Ritz, to celebrate.

“Where will you propose?” Stephen had asked.

“Can you guess?”

“Paris.”

“Oui. She’s never been.”

Armand and his godfather had returned to Paris every year. Exploring the city, discovering new haunts. Then ending the day eating ice cream at the H?tel Lutetia, which was just across the street from Stephen’s apartment. The waiters always made a fuss of the boy, even when he grew into a man.

Armand’s adopted grandmother, Zora, who raised him, didn’t approve of his going to the hotel, though it would be years before Armand understood why.

“It’ll be our little secret,” Stephen had said.

Zora also did not approve of Stephen. Though, again, it would be many years before Armand learned the reason. And learned that crème glacée at the Lutetia was the least of his godfather’s secrets.

Over a glass of champagne in the Ritz in Montréal, Armand had told Stephen his plans for the proposal.

When he’d finished, his godfather stared at him.

“Jesus, gar?on,” Stephen had said. “The Gates of Hell? Dear God, and they gave you a gun?”

Stephen had been in his late fifties by then and at the height of his powers. The business magnate intimidated all around him. Armand suspected even the furniture cowered when Stephen Horowitz entered a room.