The Room on Rue Amélie(37)
It took her an hour to reach the front counter. “I’m looking for Aubert Moreau,” she said to the middle-aged woman with the beak nose who was standing there handing out loaves of bread.
“Never heard of him,” the woman snapped. “Ration card, please.”
“No, I know he’s here,” Ruby protested. “Or at least he was.”
“There is no one by that name here.”
“Please,” Ruby said, softening her tone as the woman looked past her, already focusing on the next customer. “I’m Marcel Benoit’s wife.”
The woman’s eyes snapped back to Ruby. “I have no idea who that is. But I suppose that if someone named Moreau dropped by, I could give him a message for you.”
Ruby regarded her warily. “There’s no message. Please just tell him I hoped to see him.”
“Yes, of course. Now, would you like some bread?”
Ruby realized she’d forgotten her ration card, but the woman pressed a loaf into her hand anyhow, holding her gaze for a beat too long. Either Ruby had just left word for Aubert that she needed help, or she had alerted the authorities to the fact that they should check out her apartment once again.
Thomas was awake and out of bed when she returned. She was surprised to find him standing in the living room, looking at some of her framed photographs. “I was starting to worry about you,” he said, smiling at her.
She took in the sight of him before responding. He was dressed in a pair of Marcel’s pants—far too tight and short on him—and one of Marcel’s old shirts, which looked like it was about to burst at the seams. He had washed his hair and he’d shaved, which made him look somehow more vulnerable too. He touched his cheeks self-consciously as she continued to stare. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I found a razor in the bathroom. I hope you don’t mind that I used it. I’m not accustomed to having a beard.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Ruby said, tearing her eyes away.
“Is everything all right? You were gone for a while.”
Ruby nodded. “I was just trying to reach a man my husband worked with on the escape line. But I couldn’t find him.”
“I don’t mean to be a burden, miss.”
“First of all, you’re not a burden.” Ruby realized as she said the words just how true they were. “And second, you must stop calling me miss. How about just calling me Ruby?”
He laughed. “I’m sorry. Ruby it is.” He turned and gestured to one of the photos he’d been looking at when she came in. It was a snapshot of her when she was around fifteen, standing amid the poppies that bloomed each spring near her parents’ house in California. “This is you as a girl.” It was a statement, not a question. “You were happy.”
She looked up in surprise. Visitors to the apartment were often drawn to the picture, but they always commented on the vast field of flowers. Never on her. “Yes, I was.”
“Do you mind me asking why you haven’t gone back to the States?”
Ruby gestured to the couch, and they both sat down. “I suppose because I chose to make my world here. At first it was because I’d made a promise to my husband, but then I fell in love with Paris. And you can’t just love something when it’s easy, can you? That’s not real love.”
“Indeed.” Thomas was staring at her in a way that made her feel both unsettled and understood.
She drew a deep breath and went on. “I’m glad I stayed. Maybe that sounds crazy, but in America, there would be nothing I could do to help. Here, at least I can do something.”
“But it’s risky. Especially doing what you’re doing, Ruby. Hiding people like me.”
She gave him a small smile. “You’re the first, actually. Since my husband died.”
He stood up abruptly. “Why didn’t you tell me? I just thought this was something you were already involved in. I should go; I can’t put you in this sort of danger.”
She reached instinctively for his hand to pull him back down beside her. She realized only after his fingers closed around hers that it had been too forward of her, but suddenly, she didn’t want to let go—especially when it became clear that he had no intention of releasing her either. His hand was large, callused, and warm. “Please, Thomas, sit down.”
He did, looking uncertain. His fingers were still laced with hers, and he was sitting closer than he had been before, their knees touching now. “Ruby, it’s not that I don’t believe in you. In fact, you seem like a real ace at saving people. It’s just that I would never want to be the one putting you in harm’s way.”
“Thomas, this is the first time in years I’ve felt like myself.” The way he was looking at her made her think he understood. “Before I married my husband, I was a university student in New York. I was self-sufficient, and I believed in myself.”
Thomas nodded and squeezed her hand gently, encouraging her to go on.
“But somehow that changed. I thought when I came here that my independence would grow. I was going on a great adventure to Paris, after all.” She smiled at her own na?veté. “But somehow along the way, I went from being a brave adventurer to simply being a wife, nothing more. It would be easy to blame it on Marcel, but it was just as much my fault. I let him talk over my opinions. I let him make all the decisions. I let him push me to the side, until I wasn’t myself in our marriage anymore. Maybe I never had been to start with. But regardless, I lost the person I’d been, the person I wanted to be, and I don’t think I grasped it until it was too late.” She felt suddenly ridiculous. “I’m very sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.”