The Baker's Secret(55)

“Creation happened a long time ago,” Emma said.

“Please,” he said, raising an open hand. “It is difficult enough to sustain my own faith in such cruel times. And your deeds reveal faith more strongly than your denials refute it. I did not seek you for another argument. I came to bring you news.”

Emma folded her arms on her chest. “I’m listening.”

“Your friend Odette has been arrested—”

“What? When? How do you know this?”

“—accused of eavesdropping on the officers in her café, for the Resistance. DuFour caught her, and apparently he has proof.”

Emma stumbled backward, the wagon following her steps, so that she had to pull to recover her balance. Glancing back, she saw Mémé listening to everything with wide eyes.

“What will they do to her?”

“What they do to everyone.” The priest tapped his cane on the ground. “Why do you think I own a wheelbarrow?”

Emma considered the trinkets in her wagon, the bird, everything suddenly trivial. She had delivered the lobster to Odette not two hours earlier. “Is there anything we can do?”

“Pray.”

“I mean anything real,” she snapped. “Where are they keeping her?”

The priest sighed. His head seemed too large for how thin his neck had become. “The town-hall cells. They would have shot her already, if not for the bombing of the train station. It has given the Kommandant, for now, more pressing concerns.”

As if to confirm that observation, another wave of bombers swept in from the north, at the far edge of sight but approaching at high speeds. The sound of their engines grew as another wave followed close behind, then a third and fourth. The gathering dusk made them barely visible, but the sound gave a sense of their place in the sky.

The priest, Emma, and Mémé stood watching for a full minute, Apollo dipping his head into the wagon to satisfy his curiosity about the bird cage. They could not tell where the bombs fell, but they heard the explosions, as well as the subsequent report of antiaircraft fire. In one or two places they could spot a flash of light from the blasting guns.

“I suppose, Emmanuelle,” the Monsignor continued at last. “I suppose I am here to warn you. If they have arrested Odette, they will come for you, too. It is a matter of time. You should flee.”

“But I have told you. I am not a member of the Resistance.”

“Do you honestly believe that it will matter?”

“I cannot abandon the people. It’s not only Mémé. They all depend on me now.”

“I suspect that will not make a difference either.” He gazed at the ground, nodding to himself. “Our uninvited guests may be God’s children, but they do not seem to place much value on the needs of people here. On the lives of people here.”

How defeated the Monsignor was, Emma thought. She liked him better when he was full of vinegar and damnation. “Why are you suddenly so concerned with my well-being?”

“One hundred and two,” Mémé called from the wagon.

“That’s right,” the priest said, lifting his face again. He pointed a shaking finger. “That’s it exactly.”

Emma turned to her grandmother. “What are you talking about?”

“That is how many people I have baptized since the bishop assigned me to this parish,” the priest explained. “One adult, one hundred and one babies. It is a bond the likes of which you will never understand. But for a man whose vows forbid him from knowing fatherhood, it is the sacrament that brings me nearest. Many have moved away, because of the war. Thirty-one were conscripted. Twenty-six have been killed, and to my unending heartbreak, I personally witnessed one of those deaths.”

“Thirty-four,” Mémé said, licking her thumb and making the sign of the cross on the brow of an invisible child. “Thirty-five.”

The Monsignor’s face wrinkled and Emma thought he was about to cry, but then he smiled. “Your grandmother never misses a baptism.”

“What?” Emma asked. “How is that possible?”

“Marguerite brings her, I assume while you are busy with your affairs.”

Emma faced Mémé with hands on her hips. “Is this true?”

By way of reply, the old woman cradled an imaginary baby and whispered to it, “Thirty-six.”

“You are among my one hundred and two.” The priest switched the cane to his left hand, raised his right arm, and although it shook with palsy, he made a sign of the cross. “God bless you, Emmanuelle. May He grant you the wisdom, in your final hour, to seek His grace and beg His protection.”

On hearing that word, Emma remembered that she was wearing a knife, snug against her leg, inches from her fingers. She hooked a thumb under the wagon harness. “Sorry to give you the bad news, but my final hour is a long way off.”

The Monsignor made no reply, only lowered his arm and returned the cane to that side. Then he shuffled past, heading for the crossroads and the lane back to his rectory, across the road from St. Agnes by the Sea.

Emma watched the old priest go, and saw Apollo make the choice to amble after him. They made a picturesque pair, she thought. Those once powerful, marching into the twilight.

Oh, but wait: the Monsignor had not mentioned the bread she left on the altar. Perhaps he had not been to his church all afternoon. In that case, a surprise was awaiting him at seven thirty Mass the next day. Let him repent of his judgments then.