The Paris Library(87)

“I don’t mind—I’m glad to help readers. Of course, our habitués didn’t let the annual closure stop them from coming in every day! Now, promise you won’t overdo.”

“Overdue?” he quipped.

Too emotional to speak, Bitsi kissed his cheek, then moved to the corner of the room.

“Boris, one has to admire your timing,” Margaret said, “getting shot and recuperating during the annual closure.”

“It wasn’t the first time I’ve been shot,” he said drowsily, “but I hope it’s the last.”

“What?” she cried.

His eyelids fluttered shut.

“He tires easily,” Anna said as she accompanied us to the entrance, “but he insists he’ll be back to work in no time.”

“I believe him,” Bitsi said. “When can we visit again? Do you need us to watch Hélène?”

As the two of them spoke, Margaret pulled me aside. “I can’t introduce Felix to my daughter, she’s too little to keep a secret. But I need one person to know him, to see how kind he is. I’d like you to meet him.”

Did she truly expect me to take tea with her lover? “You shouldn’t be seeing him,” I snapped.

“He saved my life. He’s saving Rémy’s life.”

She was right. But she was wrong.

“I’m asking for an hour of your time,” she said.

Margaret often spoke without thinking, but to ask something so vile, she was not merely thoughtless, she was out of her mind.

“Even five minutes would be too much!”

“When you needed something of me, I didn’t say no!” She huffed off.

“Are you two fighting?” Bitsi asked.

“It’s nothing,” I said. “You know how prickly I can be sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?” She raised her brow.


KRIEGSGEFANGENENPOST


3 September 1943

Dearest Odile,

This may well be my last letter to you. I’ve been ill, and the fellows tell me I’ve been delirious. My wound never healed, and without medicine, the infection keeps getting worse.

Don’t let this war, or anything, separate you and Paul. Marry him, sleep in his arms every night. There’s no reason both of us should be miserable. If I were there, I’d be with Bitsi. I’d spend every minute with her.

Whatever happens, please don’t grieve. I believe in God. Try to have faith.

Love,

Your Rémy



I pictured him lying on cold wooden planks, far from anyone he’d ever loved. Oh, Rémy. Please come home. Please come home. My belly lurched, and I ran to the water closet, where I crouched as my stomach heaved. Please don’t die. Please don’t die. When there was nothing left inside me, I moved to the corridor and leaned against the wall. My whole body hurt, my belly my head my heart. I ran my hands over my face, through my hair, down my neck, trying to ease the ache. There had to be something we could do. I tore open the medicine cabinet and grabbed ointments, mustard plasters, a bottle of aspirin (there were three pills left), anything that might help. Arms full, I went to find a box in the kitchen.

“What’s all this?” Maman eyed the jumble on the table. “What happened to your hair? You look like a madwoman!”

I read her the letter.

“Oh, dearest…” She helped prepare the package, though we both knew we’d already exceeded the amount of what we were able to send that month. “The authorities may not accept it,” she said, “but we will try.”

How astonishing that she was the calm one. Until this letter, I’d been convinced that Rémy would come home. Maybe Maman, who’d been through the Great War, knew better, and that’s why she’d taken the news of his imprisonment so hard.



* * *




A WEEK LATER, upon returning home from work, I was surprised to find the apartment unlit, as if no one was there. I turned on the entryway light and peeked into the sitting room. Alone, Maman sat dressed in black. “Word came,” she said. Her cheeks and even her lips were a ghostly white. The emotion had drained from her face like blood.

A paper lay at her feet, and I knew that Rémy was dead.

Once, when he and I were ten, we tussled and I fell hard, so hard it knocked the breath out of me. On my back, unable to move, I couldn’t raise my head, couldn’t say, “It wasn’t your fault.” I’d thought I was paralyzed, that something was severed. I felt like that now, unable to take off my jacket, to blink, to go to Maman. I stood there, so much frozen inside me.

“For so long, I hoped he’d be released,” she said, “that he’d make his way back to us.”

“Me too, Maman.” My voice caught. “Me too.”

It had hurt to hope, but now I knew it was more painful to give up hope. I sank beside her. She gripped my hand. Her rosary beads dug into my palm.

“But then, even before his last letter,” she said, “I knew. Somehow, I knew.”

“Were you on your own when word came?” I asked.

“Eugénie was here, thank goodness.”

I turned on the lamp. “Where is she?”

“She wanted to put on mourning.”