The Paris Library(23)

“?a va?”

He didn’t answer; I leaned against the wall, too, and we watched the smoke unfurl and rise.

“After the Revolution, I was forced to say goodbye to my country,” he said. “It was painful to leave, but my brother and I believed that in coming here, we’d be in a better, smarter place. Isn’t France the country of the Enlightenment? In Russia, many people were killed in pogroms. Our neighbor was killed, just for being a Jew. So when I hear talk like that…”

“I’m sorry.”

“I guess hatred is everywhere.” He took a drag on his cigarette; when he blew out the smoke, it seemed like a sigh. “Even in our Library.”



* * *




PAPA HAD BEEN right—working with the public could be demoralizing. On the bus ride home, I plunged into the pages of my faithful friend, 813, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and turned toward the window to capture the faint light. She knew things that nobody had ever told her. For instance, the words of the trees and the wind. She often spoke to falling seeds and said, “Ah hope you fall on soft ground,” because she had heard seeds saying that to each other as they passed. She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether. She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making. The familiar things and people had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. When the bus screeched to a stop at a red light, I fell out of my book.

Where were we? I searched for a familiar landmark and found my father’s commissariat, an immense, brooding building. I was far from home, but maybe I could get a ride with Papa if he was still at work. I scanned the street for his car; instead, I found him, fedora low on his brow, some woman on his arm. Perhaps he was consoling the victim of a crime, a shopkeeper who’d been robbed. I noticed the name of the building behind them, the Normandy Hotel. No, she was a receptionist or a maid. Papa grinned at something she said, and kissed her, not on each cheek, but full on the mouth.

How could he do that to Maman? The harlot wasn’t even pretty with her thinning hair and door-knobby cheeks. Mercifully, the light turned green, and the bus lumbered over the cobbles, taking me away.

Feeling ill, I alighted at the next stop. On the walk home, I tried to make sense of what I’d seen. How long had this been going on? What had Maman done to deserve this? What hadn’t she done? I flipped through the pages of my memory. One evening at dinner, Maman had said that Papa preferred to “dine out.” Was an affair what she meant?

In the foyer, I dropped my book bag and bellowed Rémy’s name. He was reading Of Mice and Men. “Steinbeck can wait,” I said. We went to our secret place, away from our parents, away from the world, under my bed where the light didn’t quite reach. Rémy, then I, scooted along the parquet. It felt good to slip back into childhood, to the last place anyone would search for us.

Having trouble catching my breath, I sputtered, “Papa. With a woman. Not Maman.”

“Why are you surprised?”

His nonchalance hurt as much as seeing Papa with the harlot. “You knew? Why didn’t you say?”

“We don’t have to tell each other everything.”

Since when?

“Important men have mistresses,” he continued. “It’s a status symbol, like a gold watch.”

Did Rémy really believe that? Did Paul? Papa’s affair felt like a betrayal, not just of Maman, but of our family. How could Rémy not see that? I glanced over, but I couldn’t make out his expression. I didn’t know what he was thinking. I didn’t know what to think. My fingers clung to the mattress coils.

“Bitsi said part of growing up is realizing parents have their own lives, their own desires,” he finished.

Bitsi said.

I remembered the other time Rémy and I had not seen eye to eye. The summer we turned nine, because of a lung ailment, he stayed in bed, and Maman coated his gaunt chest with mustard plasters to ease the congestion. I stayed with him—reading aloud or watching him doze—every day except Sunday, when Maman and I went to Mass with Uncle Lionel and Aunt Caro. I liked Uncle Lionel because he always said he wished he had a daughter like me. That made Aunt Caro weepy, and Maman insisted that they’d soon be blessed with a child. But Maman—who said she was always right—would find that this time she was only half-right.

When my uncle stopped attending Mass, Aunt Caro explained it so glibly—he had the flu, or he needed to take clients to Calais—that no one realized anything was wrong. That last time, as we exited the church, Maman even said, “I’m glad it’s just us girls.”

I skipped ahead, dreaming of dessert.

“I’m relieved you feel that way,” Aunt Caro said. “I have some news.”

It was the thorn in her tone that made me stop. I didn’t look back. I didn’t want Maman to accuse me of eavesdropping.

“Lionel has been distant,” Aunt Caro continued.

“Distant?”

“I had a feeling there was someone else. When I asked, he admitted he had a mistress.”

“It’s the way of our world,” Maman said. “I’m surprised he told you the truth.”

She sounded so bitter that I turned around. Neither noticed me.